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Thursday, 28 February 2019

Day 307: February in blogging

Hiya. Home from hotels and tool displays and pots of paint and heavy work boots, and ready to collect up the better stuff from the blog from the past month, before I go and pass out.

It’s been a steady month, writing-wise. I don’t think I’ve written a single piece I’ve loved, but there’s been plenty that was sufficient. 

... There I go with that wild self promotion again. Best make sure I keep that in check.

No, but it really hasn’t been a wonderful month. I’ve not had any serious depressive episodes, but I’ve felt about a foot underground, happiness wise, all month. Just been plodding along, doing my best to get words out, to do everything required of me at work, more recently to be on the road with Steve, and not to collapse or fall inside myself at all. If you’re going through hell, keep going. That’s been my mantra these past weeks.

Also, I turned 34 in February. That hit me pretty hard. I’ve achieved so little. But I’m still here. And I’m not giving up. It’s a long road, through hell, but I’m walking it. Step by step by step.

Here are the highlights of this month’s posts:

Day 283: The strange man - A fairly true little tale about a strange man on a bus. I liked this.

Day 284: Gesticulating - And another few paragraphs about a bus journey. I’m sitting on buses lost in thought a lot of late. The stuff about you in there and me in here is something I wanted to get right, will attempt again at some point. It’s something I think about a lot.

Day 288: Tenacity - About ingraining habits and staying positive. Hey, how I was feeling before writing that is how I am feeling now! Listen to me back then, me now! Me back then had some sensible things to say. Pay attention, me now. And that Rory Gallagher sure knew how to play blues guitar, too.

Day 290: Radicals - Some words about 90s punk rock, the thrill of freedom and grunginess and crunchy power chords and love.

Day 293: Facing your weaknesses - Starts off about picking the guitar up again, turns into thoughts on blogging and pushing yourself and overcoming weaknesses. Got a nice ending, this one.

Day 296: Decay - Nice descriptions of inner city dilapidation and decay, if a touch reliant on the rhythms of alliteration. But it was my birthday and I was tired, and it’s nice to just throw pretty words out, even if they’re a bit clumsy and gauche. That’s the exact sketchbook feel I wanted when starting this blogging challenge.

Day 298: Skin - A post about suffering from acne. I hate writing about this, and thus I must do it. I want to get to the same place with my skin as I am with my mental health - something that used to be hard to write about and now is easy as anything. Don’t look back! Keep going! Courage!

Day 304: Inchoate - I like the paragraphs about the early morning light in here. There have been more posts this month where I’ve written descriptively, perhaps a little floridly, about the external world, and I’ve enjoyed every one. More of this, then!

Wednesday Reviews - I’m going to link all four from this month. I’m enjoying writing these more than anything else at the moment. It’s becoming a wonderful weekly ritual, choosing a worthwhile film carefully, sitting down by myself with the lights low and a cup of Earl Grey steaming, and submerging myself in a world of cinema. And then spending a few hours at my desk, or in a coffee shop, gathering my thoughts, typing them out, communicating them as effectively as I can in the time available. In a period of my life when I’m otherwise struggling to switch off, when there’s much difficulty and anxiety and self-doubt, when I don’t have alcohol or drugs to assuage the psychic pain, it’s been so important to be able to concentrate on this. Distraction, but positive distraction. Losing yourself in something that matters to you. It’s what it’s all about.


OK. Lovely. Read any of that if you want. I don’t know if the links work when you’re looking at this through Facebook’s browser, if not you can open it in Chrome. Phones and apps hate blogs. I might as well be writing these on scraps of paper and slipping them in bottles and dropping them in the ocean. But why not? That sounds like a marvellous thing to do.

Going to bed now.

Hugs x

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