I took a risk today. Probably continues to signify my mood a little.
I stayed in bed till 11am today asleep, then almost an hour lounging about. Got up and had a bath. Then lounged some more on the bed followed by a sleep on the sofa until 4pm. That was my risk. Sums up the way I feel.
We're got two friends coming over tonight. They are good fun on most occasions although I manage one of them at work and she causes me to continue to have the divide between work and home up when we meet. This will be the highlight of my day. My other half has spent the whole of this weekend up stairs decorating our smallest room. This room, albeit quite tired in the decoration department, is supposedly the room I'm able to keep all my musical equipment. (For those of you who don't know, once upon a time I used to be a professional musician and have a BMus Honours degree in Music from at UK University).
These days, I mainly play only for my own benefit although I remain in a very successful soul band who play every weekend (apart from this) throughout the summer). The whole weekend therefore, all my instruments have been unplayable as they're shacked up in the other room next door unplugged and unable to be reached.
So, I've been bored. Shitless. Something that comes in waves to me at times like this and brings me so far down I almost hit the deck. No conversation about the world at large, no questioning the greater good in life, no pondering a rich and varied future, no creativity or inspiration. Just me, sat on the sofa, killing time before going back to work - wondering how my life can be so dull, especially when I've taken so much responsibility for trying to enrich it in the last two years through learning, talking and trying to overcome many issues I've had that have potentially held me back.
Why aren't I standing shoulder to shoulder, painting the room? Cos quite frankly I'd rather tear my own eyes out than paint a room from one colour to the next for the sake of it. Precisely I guess what I'm doing.
2 years ago almost to the week, I publically questioned whether I wanted to remain in the current life I've been living with the person I've been with for 9 years, married for 5 of them. It sent the shit flying to the fan. I took the opportunity to believe that it was my fault that I felt the way I did and embarked on two long years of therapy, counselling and couples counselling. I remember that the straw that broke the camels back was sitting in exactly this position having spent a bank holiday weekend 'tiling the bathroom' for 'fun'. After a few hours of initial fun, I realised I could tile and that the other 2500 tiles were not going to be pleasant to place on the wall. It got me thinking that this wasn't the way I wanted to spend my life, my free time caring more about what colour the walls were than what I was going to do with said rooms once they were complete. In the end, the proposition seemed always the same. .... 'then we can invite so and so over for dinner'. Great. Just like the last time and the time before that. It seems our life together consists of feeding ourselves and other people and slightly bettering the environment in order to do exactly the same thing again apart from in slightly nicer surroundings.
I was 11.5 stone when I met my current partner. I'm now 16 stone if not more. I don't need to eat any more dinners. I don't need to sit inside my house for the sake of sitting inside my house. I need the only relationship I am allowed to have in life to inspire me and the person I'm with to leave the house and traverse the world, gorging our minds on the rich experiences of art, culture, philosophy, music, nature and politics not sit in a detached house in cosy Surrey, worrying whether the walls are blue or beige. If I genuinely felt that once the house had been sorted, tidied and coloured that we'd embark on a psychological mele of attuned sexual and philosophical discovery together - the place would be as immaculate as Dr Gillian McKeith's lower intestines. Sadly, here I am, another bank holiday passed, fatter than when I started having added nothing to the world outside my four walls.
In my work life I'm a Director of Marketing & Communications running a team of 55 people on a £4m budget. In my home life I'm a retired old man, with no capacity to seemingly provide enough money, surroundings, incentive for my other half to join me in a quest for the unknown.
I'm tired of the Great Indoors. 19 year olds across the world are travelling as we speak to New Zealand, Australia, America to experience the world and become rich and vibrant people. I chose someone who most enjoys the art of home making. Cooking, putting things in their right place, entertaining guests.
What I would give for one heart felt moment where we both stood back together and said 'you know what, none of this matters - people might judge us on whether the bathroom is green or beige, black or blue - but by the time we die, we actually want people to judge us by the contribution we made with what God / or whatever / has given us in our minds to create new things, change lives, do things differently'.
Lets swap the fuss about the colour of our own back garden and start marvelling at the colour of everything else. You never know, we might fall in love with each other again on the journey....
Maybe its just me. I don't know.
