Looking Back to See

I have just spent an hour re-reading older posts here, having now reached the one year anniversary of the reboot which saw everything before getting unceremoniously deleted. It feels a somewhat narcissistic activity to go back and read my own writing, especially since I still think it is some of my best writing. In reexperiencing my writing, however, I find that I can see my mindset more clearly — especially with temporal separation from the emotional state which led to the original authorship.

Going back to my university life without having a degree to do has been a weird experience. My standard process of living from rehearsal to rehearsal, surviving the rest of the time, has become emphasised through my current routine of doing nothing else. In many ways, this is now the gap year I have been in dire need of for a very long time. The lack of feeling like I’m achieving anything on a daily basis, is leading to me feeling like this might be the state of affairs forever. I already worry that I’m not cut out for work, since my recent stamina in work environments has been haphazard at best. I have another interview soon, but for a job which I wouldn’t start for another eleven months. It’s not like I couldn’t survive in the interim, but it’s not what I had envisioned. I can’t be too picky though, I think, so I’ll go into it with an open mind.

I was looking back to see
If she was looking back to see
If I was looking back at her.

‘Looking Back’ by Gary Moore

On top of everything else, I seem to have made a new friend. Two years ago, a vow was made to not form any new friendships as we were getting too old and knew too many people; that vow was broken almost immediately. I made a decision that for this academic year I would actively try to not get to know the new people in my social circles for effectively the same reason, in addition to the fact that I simply don’t trust myself anymore not to make a fool out of myself. I am failing once again on all counts.

On the positive side, I’ve apparently not lost my touch at convincing complete beginners to come to clarinet choir. How pure my motives are in that, even I don’t know. I’ve spent the last two weeks surprising even me about how honest I’ve been, waffling away, and how it has been met with seemingly equal amounts honesty in response. I shouldn’t be surprised when people give me the time of day, but I am.

Regular readers might recognise a similarity here with last year’s emotional turmoil. This similarity worries me too, being incredibly inept at telling the difference between reality and my mental projection onto others. I can’t help but feel it is a lack of self control which brings me to this stage every year, without fail. It is best to try to not be concerned at the end of the day, though also to not rush things. Life, in all its many guises, has a habit of bringing forward things when you stop looking for them.

In other news, I went and met one of very few people I would call a role model on Sunday. Thankfully, he turned out to be lovely and I was glad to have gone, even though queueing for three hours in Waterstones did my mental state no favours. It’s also the first time I’ve ever met a complete stranger who I know far too much about and been able to connect on the level of comparing medication which we’re on to handle the brain issues which plague our existences but achieve things in spite of. He’s just had a book published — you should read it, it’s called “Fuck Yeah, Video Games”. While I was starting to panic in the queue, all I could think is that I couldn’t stand to be the one doing the book tour and meeting all of these people. I get nervous when I think that someone might stumble across this blog by accident. Having it published would be terrifying.

Actually, thinking about the readership of this blog, maybe you shouldn’t read the book, though there are some incredibly funny sections in it which do not require you to have ever played a video game. Maybe just buy a copy. Or you could borrow mine, but I’ll need it back. I read it in an evening, it’s that good.