wildseven

Alright for the past while i've sort of been running on empty when it comes to the blog department. Most of the past few blogs have been either extreme ups or extreme downs, but i think i'm sorta understanding what's been happening to me lately. Although, i tend to be pretty bad at explaining stuff

First things first, this is a serious blog. I've put a few minor, actually terrible, joking moments in it but this is a big one. If personal stuff isn't your thing, or if you think i'm being an attention-seeking asshole by writing it, skip it, if you want, by all means. Needs to be said though, so i'm not gonna hold back this time. Better put on a pot of coffee, this is my longest one yet. And i think it's the longest by a good bit!

I think i may have reached an equilibrium point. In my life. Since i first started on SG, and actually for months before that, i've been questioning and second-guessing every single thing i've ever done. And what the whole point of it all is. I've come to the conclusion that sometime over the past three years, final school year and first two of college, something happened that completely derailed my brain, again. Something just clicked, and i lost the run of it all. And it's not the first time it's happened either.

It's happened before but it took a long time for me to realise what it was. The backdrop is a dark one too. The three big friends i had from primary school all went their separate ways, with me staying where i was. All three of them moved on. Made new cool friends, or moved down to the country. So i had to start again. In a new school, with noone i knew. And around this time i had to deal with the sudden onset of disability. Pretty much kicked my confidence in the nuts, to put it bluntly and i had to go from there to a new school. This is before the big stuff mind you . So here i was, a fresh start, in a new school. Time to make new friends, new enemies, and hopefully opt out of the shit that i hadn't avoided when i was younger. I was almost 12 when i started in the new school. But it was started on uneven ground. Half in, half out. And that's when the real stuff began...

This all started basically when i was 13, when it became necessary to undergo a lengthy, very invasive operation

Didn't go entirely as planned, mostly well and after about a year I was getting out of the huge recovery that had followed it. So i went back to school and started to remake the friends i'd made before i had to leave. It was all starting to settle down again, until, when i was a bit older, just past 15, i had to go through a second operation, only a small routine operation, but unfortunately it didn't go as planned either. In fact it couldn't have gone any worse. Not really getting down to the nitty-gritty, but it suffices to say: there was a mess up with the anaesthesia

And the subsequent few years have completely dissolved from my memory.

The few months afterward, and year or so of recovery on top of that, were hellish and i think i've forgotten them for a reason (no, not God , the brain blocks out painful memories to preserve peoples' sanity.) Because both happened in rapid succession and the latter was a huge trauma the whole chunk of memory associated with both has tumbled into the oblivion. Not collapse of Roland's Tower oblivion, i think i might still be able to revisit it some day, but for the minute it's pretty much totalled, like blackness. (insert second superfluous Dark Tower reference). And i'm probably not going to like it when, and if i do remember.

I only have varied fragments from back then, of what was happening. Something about a school play, a french exchange and horrible stuff about someone called Rebecca... not a whole lot else. I remember playing the Dreamcast my sister's boyfriend brought over for a while. Final Fantasy 10. Grunge music. The start of my metal phase. The Gamecube my sister's boyfriend brought over, actually the start of my Resident Evil kick. GTA Vice City, that's actually where a lot of the music i listen to came from. Running into old friends, who didn't want anything to do with me. Vicious migraines, once or twice a week. And this is all i've got from three whole years! And those three years, for most people, are very important. That's where most people have common knowledge about how they learned to interact with the opposite sex. I haven't a clue...

Sometime over that period i lost the ability to interact with people, something i'm only starting to get back now, in the vacuum of destroyed memory. Something about that period completely demolished my confidence, self-esteem, sometimes i think; sanity, and i still have the odd memory every now and then. They might be memories of dreams , i'm not sure! But something about it just keeps coming back. Puddles of sweat in the middle of the night, that type of thing. Dark, dark stuff. And i think it's now starting to fade. Or i'm getting over it, i suppose, is a better way to put it. Something about SG has started me back on the track i want to be on. So basically i had a two or three year period which i can't remember a whole lot of anything from. Had to start from scratch. But now i think i have as firm a grip as i've ever had on what i want, what direction i want my life to go in. I still don't know if this is the real deal or just a passing idea of what i want out of the short hand i've been dealt.


The best way i can visualise it is that, from about the time i was 13, the time i changed from the terrible school i was in, and began my awkward, to say the least, teenage years, the gears in my brain came apart a sufficient amount so that the teeth in them didn't line up. And i started to spiral into depression. The gears in my brain just didn't align anymore and i was slowly unravelling. I didn't realise it at the time though. I'm only after thinking of it now. That this is what actually happened to me. Up until now i hadn't been able to visualize what i thought the problem was. I've always had trouble making friends, and i think this might be a part of the reason why. Just when the depression became bad, and i started to almost grasp what was happening i was thrown into a heap of shit that made me just lose the slight grip i had on it. Totally lost it for 4 years. I suppose you could say i forgot! I actually forgot all the stuff i had learned during the huge depression! (i could make a joke about The Great Depression during the 1930s, but i think that would be in poor taste )

It was only after i got past the hump, that i'd been stuck on for so long, that it all started to happen again. The same type of depression started up again. Except this time it was all new to me. I had a vague recollection of being sad when i was younger, but i had completely forgotten all the shit i'd gone through. And i just started again. It's taken longer, this time, to progress through the same shit, but i've gotten further than i ever have and i think the gears are starting to grip each other again. For the past few months i've been having a personal crisis. One day i woke up and thought: where the fuck is my life going?. And after that i completely lost direction.

Every single thing i liked just seemed stupid, and it hit me: I haven't got a fucking clue what i'm doing!. What in the hell was i studying Physics for! I'm not going to use it. Why the hell had i not got any friends! My whole life i've chosen to do hard stuff, challenge myself. But i don't want to anymore. I want to find something easy. An easy job, something that won't take up all my time, effort, enthusiasm, energy. Like college does. An easy job, so i can finally focus on forming relationships with people. Since the age of 16 i've been pouring my whole life into schoolwork. My friends all fucked off, while i reread notes, and to be honest i don't blame them. I missed out on all the important stuff back then (ALL of the important stuff ), because i thought earning a physics degree would make me happy. What good is a piece of paper if you don't have anyone to share it with.

I had a small glimpse of this insight a few weeks ago when i resolved to travel to America. It's dipped and wained since then, but it's also become more distilled. The enthusiastic leap back then was spontaneous, unorganised, unadulterated excitement. But now i'm seeing that side of it, whilst keeping a reasonable, realistic outlook on it. I suppose it's more restrained, pragmatic excitement, if i had to think of a way to explain it to anyone. I think the first step is to let my family know about the new, important aspect of my life: SG. My family is reknowned for it's stiff upper lip when it comes to sexuality, but i say fuck it. If they ask i'm going to tell them. They can judge me as a perv if they want, couldn't care less. The fact that i have so much in common with people here, the fact that i've made such great friends, the fact that it's the only place i've ever found acceptance HAS TO MEAN SOMETHING!!

Balls to them if they can't deal with it. As for the rest of the extended family... well... let's just say i won't be getting Christmas greetings of them . Their problem. Not mine. I get that now. If anyone tries to tell me anything about sins or forgiveness or burning in damnation for all eternity i'll tell them to take a hike, and shove it up their ass. (now you know why i'm in the Atheist SG group ) i'm not trying to rub it in anyone's face i'm just saying that if i'm asked, this time they'll get a heap of what i actually think. Instead of trying to fit around anyone else's comfort zone, like i've always done. I didn't normally hold onto my opinions in a die hard fashion. I changed to suit people, so i could fit in with them easier. I know now that that's the exact wrong way to do things. If someone disagrees with me, they're going to hear my side. The truth about everything, as i see it anyway. SG has done something to bolster my ability to defend my own opinions! Don't know how or why. Now you see why this place means such a big deal to me. You would not believe how different my life has become. In a good way i mean. It has caused a few painful months, of drawing up all this stuff and trying to sort through it again, but, as i said, i think it's starting to settle down.

The most difficult thing i've tried to deal with is how to combine sexuality with friendship. Normally people work this stuff out in their teens, but i haven't had this chance. I think i can liken it to trying to learn a second language. There's a theory that when you're an infant, there is a window of opportunity in which a child can learn grammar and syntax. Regardless of what language it is, a child's brain is like a sponge. Absorbs every bit of grammar and syntax it hears. And the closer they are to that window of opportunity the easier it is for them to learn new languages.

I think the language i'm referring to is the language of sex. How to properly establish social and sexual relationships, and where they join each other, meet and overlap. Anyone who has talked to me about sex or friendship knows that i haven't the slightest clue what's happening, with regards to interacting in both spheres at the same time. I never know when or how to make appropriate, inappropriate jokes. I haven't a clue where the lines that you're not meant cross are. How do you go from friendship to courtship? How do you meet the girl of your dreams without knowing these things? If so, have i already met her without realising it?

I've finally realised that i don't give a shit about achievement, if i have noone to share it with. So from here on it's going to be the main fulcrum i want my life to act around (excuse the really nerdy physics metaphor). In other words the search is on! Lock up your daughter, lock up your wife. Lock up your back door and run for your life I think this is the closest i can come to approximating the stuff my brain seems to be churning up.

This is just me. Everyone has different things they like, and different things they want to do. I thought i was interested in one thing, but various things, facts, have led me to change my mind. My opinion regarding what i'm doing in life. And i don't mean a tiny, little detour off the main road. I mean an entirely different route altogether. Imagine on a map. Your expected road in life takes you along Route 66. Chicago to L.A. It's a direct route for some people. Other people go a little off course, not where they expected to end up. Maybe Florida, maybe Seattle. Hell maybe even Newfoundland. What i'm talking about is going along Route 66, getting to Albuquerque then spontaneously turning onto the Australian Highway 1, halfway between Perth and Adelaide! (by the way i totally had to use Google Earth for THAT analogy )

For those who haven't noticed, i very rarely combine these two areas. I'm sort of good at being the crass, inappropriate guy. And i'm sort of good at being the lean-on-my-shoulder friend type. But try and put them anywhere near each other is like... shit i don't know how to explain without either a physics or Star Trek reference. Oh well. I'm going for physics then. It's like trying to bridge microscopic and macroscopic. At some point between the quantum level and the everyday level, both sides join at a common boundary. But where is that boudary? The way my physics teacher said it was: It's possible to diffract an electron, but obviously not possible to diffract a dog, so where does this boundary lie? When, and where, do the two different sides meet?

And this is the crux of the matter. What i'm trying to find out for myself. In my opinion, anyway, the fundamental discovery that everyone has to make, in order to find someone to spend their life with, regardless of how long it might be. I really hope this is the answer to what i've been thinking about. I'm positive it is, but brains are fickle that way. What i'm resolute about today, might be a passing thought tomorrow. But this has been sticking with me a lot lately, so i'm almost sure it's the right course of action. As sure as i can be anyway. I'm not going to call it a momentous revelation, i don't want to get too enthusiastic about it too quickly.