And then I am okay again. I remember that rain has its uses. A worse place is a place without it. I think about green shoots and all that other nourished, cliche, crap that relies on steady rainfall. And then…

And then I look about and notice that this cafe is full of people. All pressed in here, filling tables and even the avenues between them, all escaping together into a communion of coffee and cake. I always love the hum of a full house. The commotion all around me fills my humanity to the brim. All of us collected, intimate and close and warm together.

So outside it is raining and inside the force of life is flooding the ventricles. The awning is a techno synth remix of lakes in Scotland, rockpools in Cornwall, even of puddles in Abergaveny.

They say the heart has its own memory. I say that feelings are the sheet music of the soul. The walls of our hearts scrawled with it; and wrapping it up like a butchers cut in wax paper. Maybe the mind recalls, but the heart has a playback function.

Last night’s was about my life in Bath. It started off so well. It was a bright sunny day, I’d seen lots of people and then I was in the park having a picnic with the ex. I turned to her and said. “You know, I love you as a friend – I’m really sorry but I can’t love you like you need.” Then the whole atmosphere changes. The sky blackened. Friends start to go for me, attacking me in the streets. Old places I used to drink in shut their shutters to stop me from coming in. Even the statues there became hostile.

Long story short, I have the whole nightmare of moving home again. Of various heart-rending periods in my recent history.

It was such an awful dream. It makes me so sick of being myself. Anyway, for some reason I make my way back to Bath and, not as a word-for-word recounting, just a translation of my speech; this is what I said to my ex.

(Picture this in the Abby courtyard with a strong wind blowing and storm clouds above.)

“You know in the distant past, back before we got together, you told me of your history. Told me that you’d been with Brad and not felt as much for him as he did for you. You said it was like being ‘friends who had lots of sex’. Well now I’m looking back and I think that is what we were. I never loved you as much as you loved me. To me you were a friend, because for some reason I can’t manage to feel a damned thing I ought to. Confronted with love, I retreat. You must understand, with your own sadness, what it is like to have to hide your true feelings. How much you hurt to stay normal and how that bubble has to burst some time.”

“Now you’re with someone else and that’s fine. I was really only upset about it before, because it meant that there was no returning to the safety of us. Now I just want to be friends. To know you forgive me, because I am sorry. I can’t repair history, but I need you to at least recognise we were good for a time and that I can’t survive your apathy.”

How melodramatic is that. I woke up desperate to write her an email. Then I remembered that she hates me.

I think it is really fucking egotistical to dream that she loved me. I think it is more likely that my subconscious is playing tricks on me. Even if she did love me at one point, that was over long before we split up. I think she really did treat me like a friend, in the end. The problem was that I was hostile to any form of change.

I feel the same now, with life in general. Any alteration in the normal running and I get very angry. Not in the wild and dangerous sense. More just that I seethe inside and my blood boils off. I get headaches and need to be out in a large open space.

Anyway….

I think mostly all this comes from cleaning my room. Whenever I do it I find odd little things. There are always souvenirs. Even of the worst places we travel to.

I feel a lot more confident in my ability to feel nowadays. I think that’s why I’m having so many troubles now. My past is coming to me in my dreams to have feelings stapled to its chest.

My break-ups, the affairs, the fights and the good times. All of them coming up, one-by-one, to get their share of what I should have felt at the time.

I’m certainly not ready for a relationship (even after so many years!). I do think I’m a better friend than I have been in the past. A better person, dare I say.

Anyway, today I’m up for a protest in Liverpool about cuts to disability. So I should have been getting ready with the hour it has taken me to write this.

I was in the pub when my father rang me.

“How much do you drink a week?”

“I have no idea.” I replied. “I know it is a lot though.”

And it is. I mean, I only went out for a quick drink tonight and I’ve drunk 10.5 units. Not to mention yesterday’s 6.

However, I start from today and carry it over for a week.

Lets see how much I drink. Maybe I’ll shock myself.

On a separate note. I don’t feel like myself. I feel like someone else. I feel really ‘other’, but don’t tell anyone. They’ll put me in a crazy padded room.
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The cells are connected to one another in a network of such staggering complexity that it bankrupts human language and necessitates new kinds of mathematics. A typical neuron makes about 10,000 connections to neighboring neurons, which means that there are more connections in a few cubic centimeters of brain tissue than there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

The three pound organ in your skull—with its pink consistency of jello—is an alien kind of computational material. It is composed of miniaturized, self-configuring parts, and it vastly outstrips anything we’ve dreamt of building. So if you ever feel lazy or dull, take heart: you’re the busiest, brightest thing on the planet.

Tonight I left LEAF feeling pretty happy. I’d listened to some talented people sing and made a new friend. I’d invited the girl I used to fancy yesterday. When she got there she made it pretty clear she didn’t want to hang around with me. I was relieved really, it would have meant I’d have had to use energy making pleasantries with her, which I wasn’t really in the mood for.

Anyway, upon leaving I pulled C close to me and gave her a hug. I was just being friendly [I was, and still am, very drunk], but outside C asked me a question “Did you just use me to make [name omitted] jealous?”

Now where has my brain gone, I didn’t even consider doing that. Of course now it seems obvious. I could have done that really well. But the unmentioned girl means nothing to me, so the whole charade would have proven pointless.

I’m still rather annoyed that I didn’t think to do it, but at least I can recall this for next time.

Actually, fuck it. I’ll come clean. I’d never do it. It just isn’t my style.

Not to even mention that my self-esteem is at such a low right now that I’d doubt that the unmentioned girl even cared one way or the other.

Today was a bust. I wrote a poem, got it edited by a great friend and then spent the evening watching performers.

I really need a purpose, otherwise days like this will just bleed into an unfulfilled lifestyle.

— Haruki Murakami (South Of The Border, West Of The Sun)”

So when I recently developed a crush, totally by accident. I set about a series of actions to limit, prohibit and destroy said attachment to unsaid person. This proved, for the most part, ineffective.

There is no need to put together a dissertation on why I feel it is not right to continue with such feelings. The fact is that they progress to my experiencing vulnerability and that isn’t a good state for me to be in, it leads to the unsettling feelings of low self-worth and sadness so deep you could wash a god’s feet. Any stirring of the heart means that I have one, without one I can quite happily slave away without using too much emotional energy.

Anyway, this crush has been going on a few weeks. I’ve not made any attempt to be around this person unnecessarily. I’ve not flirted [which is quite unlike me]. I’ve just treated them like a mate and left it at that.

Tonight though, something happened that is worth documenting. [As hard as it is to believe, I really do write this for myself.]

I was chatting to unsaid person on facebook and it became clear that they were upset. Then they clammed up. Then belittled my genuine concern for them.

Now this is just how it came across to me. Even if I am wide of the mark and it wasn’t like this at all, that isn’t the point. See, the point is that it sparked a reaction in me that lessened my desire for them.

I’m not sure yet whether they are a little too like me. i.e. they are prone to sadness and so am I, so I don’t want to go there again after a lot of relationships with the same format.
Or if they are not enough like me. i.e. they didn’t admit that they do, in fact, suffer with depression and played it down. Which means to me, that they might not sympathise.

Anyway. [And I have warned you, I think far too much.] It has reduced my concern for them. I no longer actually care about making them happy. So it is back to business as normal. Trying to get through the day.

I’m still feeling like there is no point. I’m calling this period my logical existentialism acceptance phase. LEAP; I just cannot think of a single reason to go on breathing. Life is so unrewarding. So much pain in my heart, daily.

I know, again, that people reading this will feel like I’m being melodramatic, but I actually feel like a passive observer in my own dull life. It just doesn’t make sense to keep going.

“But Jensen, you are so blessed compared to others.” I’ve gone to sleep night after night wishing to swap with one of them, but I can’t.

So, if anything good [other than some understanding] came out of the crush, it did give me a little jolt of life and made me feel a little happy too.

Work is going well, just a bit stressful today; on account of a very complex return. However I did write two poems. So that is a result.

Day off tomorrow, so I am planning on taking the laptop with me to Liverpool and getting some writing done.

I’ve decided what I’m doing for my week off [which starts on the 10th ]. I am going to lock myself into my room and write and write and write, until I lose my mind. Then I’m going to write some more. I should have a massive, bloody chunk finished of my novel by doing this. Perhaps every my short story collection finished and a nice set of poems too. I can have one day off during this period, but only if I use it to read though things, edit and read fiction during the day.

Well, night all.