Why now? Why choose tonight to write my first post in a long time?
Well, honestly? I'm feeling a little hollow for the first time in a long time.
Let me put this into context for you:
I used to make a regular pilgrimage to a little market town called Tring. Not the first place you'd think of going for a holiday but to me it's a place that means everything. I had traveled down from the highlands of Scotland and was visiting my friends, many of whom I had known since I started school, at a pub not a stones throw from my first house.
While drinking a few pints, jovial conversation soon turned deep, and I found myself opening up to my friends about my depression. Prior to that evening I used to use an almost automated response to the question "How is Scotland?". The default would normally be a couple of words to satisfy peoples curiosity, without giving any details into my day to day experience.
As beautiful as the highlands of Scotland are, I was struggling with the grind of daily life and had found myself stuck in a rut that had seen me lonely, bored and suicidal. I don't often tell people about the dark thoughts of controlling the time and cause of my own demise but with one to many drinks in the system the words seemed to flow. Having discussed this with my friends one of them suggested that I moved back down to England.
Sound's easy doesn't it?!? There I was, skint because I spent money on crap to try and cheer myself up, no driving license and in a job that could see me made redundant at any moment, and all I had to do was move out. I took a couple of months to get my head around the idea, developing a mental exit strategy. First thing I needed to do, was pass my driving test.
Having tried the weekly driving lesson routine in the past and failing, I opted for the intensive approach. To get ready for a weeks course I purchased a car with the little money I had and inflicted my driving on my father's daily commute to build confidence. It was working, as well as passing my theory test, I began to fall in love with the thought of driving again and once I had saved up just enough money to afford the course and test booked with haste. Due to where I lived the driving course had a waiting list of just over two months so by the time I got round to sitting the test 6 months had passed since the conversation had taken place in the pub.
In those two months leading up to the test I utilised any free time at home, and at work, hunting job vacancy sites searching for something, anything, that I could live off when I flew the nest. My driving test went off without too much of a hitch, I smashed it, and despite not getting along with my examiner he passed me with very few errors.
From that moment things seemed to click into place. With driving now on my CV I got a couple of phone-calls from recruitment agencies for engineering type work and lined up a couple of job interviews within a week of passing my test.
This meant that I, a noob of a driver, could throw myself into the deep end with a 12 hour motorway drive to partake in an interview for a job needless to say I got and have been working there now for the last 3 months.
If you're still reading I fully commend you, but here comes the main reason for my post today.
As I have mentioned earlier in this blog, I suffer with depression. It's something that I have sort of got under control and since moving into a flat with my friend in Buckinghamshire I weened myself of my anti-depressants.
Honestly I'm not sure it's the wisest of my decisions this year, but partially due to my change in circumstance and partially due to an increase of people who can give me advise and talk me through situations being just a drive away it's what I chose to do.
One thing you forget when you've been on medication for a long duration (18 months in my case) is how things were when you were off them. Now that the first couple of months have passed and the novelty of having me back in the area has worn off, my once hectic social routine has now dissipated and has left me with time to think and reflect upon things, but it's also given me time to plan and time to do new things.
The new thing I refer to in this instance is to get into the dating scene. Now as I was painfully reminded when I went out on the date on Sunday, it has been 7 years since my last relationship, and that was one of those school romances that didn't have much by way of emotion attached. It was fun and innocent and I guess left me feeling somewhat naive about the real world.
I asked the most attractive person at work out, on nothing more than a fools hope...
...and unbelievably she said yes. To me? She actually said yes to me!!!!
I was shocked, proud, borderline cocky. I could take on anything.
I asked her out for a coffee, classic I know, and on Sunday just past we met up and had the date. The coffee grew legs, and became a fully fledged meal and we spent a couple of hours having polite conversation finding out a lot about each other and generally having a nice time together. As things came to a natural conclusion she inquired what I was up to for the rest of the day and on discovering we were both free we proceeded to go to the cinema and watch a film together.
What I had in my mind at the start of the day as a quick coffee had turned into 6 hours of spending company in the presence of a truly wonderful person. We both had a good day together, but alas it was not enough.
She isn't looking for a boyfriend at this time and without going into things, I understand entirely. Which is why I'm feeling a little empty right now. Despite getting along, despite really liking each other, I find myself in the hands of circumstance once more.
It has lead to a couple of days of reflection about how far I've come in the past 12 months, but in doing so it has opened my eyes to how near my little black dog of depression is. It's not something I'm going to be able to shake off totally with or without medication it's something I'm going to live with for a while. But I need to embrace it.
If I don't embrace it, I fear I may become afraid, not of dying, but of living. Let's face it being afraid to live isn't much of a life at all getting anxious every time someone asks you to dinner, or to a football match.
I'm sorry to have taken up your time and I know reading through this, it is poorly written, but my thoughts are not too straight right now and I guess that is reflected in the above.
Many thanks x
