A Long Time Between Drinks

It’s so nice to see you again, my Rampant Teenage Angst. I remember when you started writing these blogs, at a suspiciously narrow juncture between your mother sending you a Dr Seuss book in the mail; and oh the places you have been! I guess it’s nice…no, comforting, to see you again in the mirror after all this time. What has it been: 8 years?

I imagine you’re probably wondering why I’m addressing you in the second person, since I am you and you are me (and we’re a dysfunctional internal systems family). Well, I’ve had quite a substantial amount of therapy and have learnt, mostly through mindfulness (specifically in DBT), that we are not our thoughts, and we are not our feelings. Though I do sound unsettlingly like a manic-depressive Tyler Durden reading through old magazines. I am Toby’s wasted life.

I can guess your next question: why am I even writing this at all? Well, to update you on what’s been happening in the world, I was working as a professional musician (your dream angst killer) and then all of a sudden the world is ending and the work has dried up. There was a time – specifically when you were writing all those entries that I recently deleted (very appropriate that I had to literally trash that trash) that you aspired to be a writer. You had some moderate control over the English language, though it was mostly confined to using adjectives and adverbs with lots of letters in it. I guess that’s what happens when the only media you consume comes from Aaron Sorkin and Aldous Huxley.

Well, now there is some modicum of chance of realising that dream in these trying times.

I’m writing here to hopefully prove to any prospective employers that my grasp of the English language has not diminished, and that I have an even better grasp of using the spell-checking tool on my computer (a skill that you may have seen neglected in some of your older posts).

Hopefully the entries that will follow this will be less along the lines of Oscar Wilde’s woes and deprecatory whittlings.

I actually am glad to see you again, however bittersweet it is, my Unresolved Angst. I’m glad you’ve made it this far.

TF

A Diary Entry-Lauterbrunne, Switzerland.

So it’s been a fairly long time since I’ve actually sat down and written anything on here, cause for quite a substantial period of time I simply haven’t had access to a computer where I could sit down and write stuff about stuff. I wholly intend upon finishing off all my, ‘What I learnt in…’ blogs, as I’ve been keeping a fairly detailed journal but for now it’s been a bit too hectic for such a thing.

Instead, I’m going to share one of my diary entries that I made whilst sitting on a rock over a freshwater river, in a tiny town in the Swiss Alps called Lauterbrunnen-I liked this entry and I felt that it was worth sharing this, or just that I wanted to share it (even if it wasn’t worth sharing. Unedited except for grammatical errors.

Like I said, this was initially written only for me to read. So it’s not clean and classy or whatever. But maybe you’ll enjoy a little bit of insight into my mindset 🙂

Aight: Go!

 

05/09/2012 – Lauterbrunnen

It’s so strange to be sitting somewhere, looking at something that you’ve only ever seen photographs of. It’s even stranger to try and appreciate the fact that most of thse pictures aren’t just pictures, they’re real things. Does that make sense? In my head it does…

I’m looking at these awesome, snow-capped mountains with their peaks pushing through the bottoms of the clouds with ease and trying to process that they are actually real. This is reality, not a photograph.

Toorrow, for the first time in my life, I will touch snow.

Tomorrow, for the first time in my life, I may just get to touch a cloud.
That’s like touching the sky man…or as close as I may ever come.

One can find it terribly difficult not to be wholly overcome by the sheer beauty of it all.  So why need one even bother trying?

The concept of, “I can’t do this, it’s too hard/too big of a job/too unknown,” seems to become far beyond untrue underneath the grandess of these mountains.
For some reason, I seem to have lost what little poetic touch that I have…Oh well. Man, I’m sitting on a rock, which for all intents and purposes, seems to be simply hovering over a roaring, fresh, springwater river (straight from the peak of the mountains! Should I…Should I drink it?).
In this instance, I feel like eloquence in a journal matters sweet, sweet fuck all.

I think I’m starting to get better now. Not in a just, “I’m not sad all the time anymore,” sort of way, but actually better. Better than I was before the sadness even started.

I’m still terribly confused and befuddled by so, so many things…but I feel okay.
Okay is good…right? Yeah.

It’s been, in truth, a really, really, really fucking long time since I thought so many things were possible for me.
A stable career.
A healthy lifestyle.
Best friends who you genuinely mean “BFFL!” with.
And last, but not least, a lover.

Everything most people could associate with a ‘normal’ life.
And though this mightn’t seem a big deal to most people I know, ever since I was fourteen years old, the concept of having anything that even mildly resembled a normal life seemed alien to me.

I was just too…different, I suppose.
Too everything that isn’t ‘normal.’

Sitting here, what I’ve just realized is that I’m far more different than I ever actually thought I was before.
But that’s cool, baby. I can dig it, y’know?

Cause there’s a lot to dig about being different. Why do you think the word is used to strongly around jazz and more forward-pushing styles of hip-hop and the like?

You dig it because it’s ‘fresh,’ it’s ‘cool.’ But these qualities are only ‘dug’ cause the things that make it fresh and cool reside in difference of it all. Difference is groovy, man.

I spend too much time focused on limitations and what things aren’t. Of course, an apple can’t be an orange and you’re only going to be disappointed if you expect it to be.
Do not, do not, DO NOT even get me started on the staring contests I’ve had with a block of tofu, just begging it to somehow become a sirloin…
…Where’s Dobby when you need him?

A limitation isn’t a bad thing, you know?
Especially the ones that don’t exist. Those are just perfect for what I’m talking about here.

I can only run this fast.
              Right now.
I can only write this well.
              Right now.
I can only love this much.
              Right now.

So much time…so much stuff to do.

But don’t ever forget Toby, my dear sweet boy, that scheduling a little bit of nothing can be a terribly good thing. It’s an important thing to do!

Toby Fredkin

Jewelry

I remember that you

as a child –

still fresh-faced and unburdened by your world

had a special little jewelry box

filled only with your most special things-

things only for you.

And as you grew older,

barely still a child

but still enamoured with the world

held onto this special little jewelry box

filled only with your most special things-

things only for you.

I remember when the yellow-hearted thieves

saw you no longer a child

start to float away from the world,

grasping for your special little jewelry box

laden only with your most special things-

things only for you.

And as you drifted ever upwards

bearing no more semblance to this child,

no longer a part of their yellow world

try to damage that special little jewelry box

packed only with your most special things-

things only for you.

And as you now stand before me,

a child in knight’s armour

again enamoured with your world,

I think that it’s time to open your special little jewelry box,

still full of your most special things-

things only for you.