TK's Blog

I've said it before- some days have a theme song. In winter especially. Mostly it's Christmas carols, folk tunes, country music even.

Today's tune was hard to pin down. Waking up, it was a Florence & the Machine day, bordering, dare I say it, on vintage Mika, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was. There was this song, hovering just beyond recognition, sometimes jaunty, sometimes mournful. Something which perfectly summed up my life since the beginning of autumn.

It only hit me a few minutes ago. In it's own way it's a classic: Regina Spektor's 'Eet'.

When someone dies, there's this period... back in Victorian times it's when you didn't enter Society. We don't have that anymore.

Today we live, we keep going. I'm not saying it's indecent. But maybe it's cowardly. There are the accepted things to do, to say. Somehow I've gotten good at it. Just the right injection of moroseness, the caveats, the qualifiers- "it was time."

I wonder... why do we say that. Maybe we're after some sort of guarantee, some sort of assurance that death won't come for us until we're ready.

There are all these conventions. You mourn, no longer than the accepted period, and then you put in your headphones, and try not to think about it. People help, of course they do. Keep you distracted, keep you laughing, drinking, living.

So why do I feel like I'm a step behind. It's like I stopped to... deal, and suddenly the beat skipped ahead, and I'm struggling to catch up.

I did all the predictable things. Yes I cried. I said it out loud to make myself accept it. And when it wasn't okay to be sad anymore, I projected it on to other things.

There are a lot of changes at the moment, a lot of moving forwards and staying organised and doing the right things. And I think I'm doing okay. But at the same time, I'm not ready.

And I don't care if I'm being whiny. I don't care if you try to put this in your little category of "mourning person". It isn't okay that he's not here anymore. It isn't okay that life is trying to go forwards. And to be honest, it isn't okay for me to be pretending to be happy. Not yet. Not never, just not yet.

Fuck life. Life should stop. Life should put it's fucking pause button on, because it isn't fair, or right, or easy. I will never hear his voice again. I will never touch is arm again. I will never play chess, or scrabble with him again, or buy him another birthday present, or hear him sing happy birthday to me over the phone. The enormity of that... and you want me to be at the top of my game?

I don't even give a crap, because if you've read this far down, you probably care enough to know, and it's so late at night, and so late in the day that I'm just going to shoot for it.

Someone I love died.
Someone I love moved away.
The person who knows me best went and fucked it up by trying it on, pretty much because I'm convenient (ie not particularly attractive, but not a bastard like all the other guys she knows).

I can recite this list, and more besides and laugh, or smile. But it's... well... hard. Not the hardest thing in history, or even the hardest thing I've ever faced. Still... it's like if I could just have some time, if I could just catch my breathe.

It's like treading water. I just need a rest.


Things'll slow down maybe in July. If I'm lucky. Making it that far is going to entail a lot of caffeine.

Thanks for reading.

TK.