I traveled with many quiet people as it was very early. The journey was not very long and went quick. I arrived and was early for an event I was to attend.
I was tired from rising early but the excitement was getting to me. I had enough time to clean myself up in the flat rented by the studio I work for. I just need to check the map and plan my route to get to a close tube station.
My excitement quickly fell away from me as I realised the time that had passed from when I worked on this project. I didn't recognise hardly anyone. I saw the face of the director and the producer but I was too scared to make eye contact so I sat outside alone and smoked. I wanted to leave but thought it would stand out as further more awkward. I kept looking around as if I might catch someone's eye who might indulge me with even the slightest conversation.
I left immediately after the film finished and didn't look back as I didn't want to force any politeness with the unlikely chance anyone might ask my opinion.
I text my friends, I did not get much response. My friend had called to say she was leaving my house where she had been living for the past six weeks just before the screening so I thought to leave some space. It seemed everyone else I know was out living their lives and did not need me for anything.
I tried to hide my loneliness with *** and considered that would do me fine. After I finished half the bottle I had to stop reading and put on some music.
Luckily when you drink alone there is little reference to the shame. I don't remember too much other than some time around ten stumbling out drunk, I thought I would possibly go for a pint in a local off the strand. I walked passed convincing myself that my idea was ill planned and I assume I pasted out soon after.
I do remember hanging out the window smoking and watching the people walk past. I imagined conversations with strangers where I could boast of my exceptional life going to movie screenings sitting in a London apartment attempting to write a script. The reality is I am struggling with my own ability to practice what I desire. I can write ramblings in this stream of consciousness rant style but lack the discipline I imagine real writers have. I hate myself sometimes and that comes out in my work. I feel frustrated when I don't achieve much in my manic states.
I thought I would have such a better experience the following day at another screening in Soho. I knew the crew a lot better at this event and didn't feel as lost to begin with. I spoke to my friends who had ignored me the night before. They apologised for not getting in touch and I passed it off as fine explaining I had just read my book.
They looked tired and explained they had been partying all night and introducing me to a friend they had brought.
My friend gave me a big hug and I felt warm.
I was satisfied that I had tried to socialise with these former colleagues. I tried to sneak away before the screening but my boss caught me and I was forced to accept his offer of an open train ticket back north so I could stay for the screening.
After I had a drink with the Stephen accountant who never fails to engage in conversation with me. I felt largely fake as I made conversation with only a few people.
I saw a girl who I thought I fancied durning the shoot. I didn't even make eye contact, not because my social awkwardness was heightened by her but because I just generally felt awkward. I just wanted to escape. I spoke to Tamsin a girl who had worked on the last week of the shoot. I enjoyed that conversation. It was the most I had spoken to someone in a while but I just wanted to leave. I lied and said my train was soon which it was relatively but not the time I had said.
I haven't spoken to anyone since the screening other than a drunk on the train with a sword but that was just to reassure him my name was not Bob.
I sit quietly in a well lit room. I realise my teeth are clenched and I relax my mouth. My breathing is easy now but I feel the strain in my body. I imagine that this mild anxiety is the feeling on time passing through my body. As if my nerve endings are somehow sensitive to this passage. I am not weak but my mind is capable of deflating my limbs. I don't desire much or at least try to argue that into a belief. I feel pensive as I try and calculate all I have taken in from the day and how it relates to my past and can serve my future. I am bound to the flux of my world. I am alone. I lay with my dog and hear its breaths and feel it's warmth agains me. I love animals in a way. They offer a kind of peace in ambivalence. I can not understand it's thoughts anymore than I can read people's minds but I feel assured in its loyalty as it lays beside me. I know it is contingent on the service I offer it. I venture out with it into the world. A world it will not be alone in as I am there looking over him. I want to share my mind though with people who might appreciate it. Though I desire security and stability and joy and pain. The last desire is confusing as I don't so much invite it to me. Though I wish to accept I will face pain and to be ready for that too. I know my pursuits will not inevitably lead me to joy so I must understand pain as well. I will not find anything from the comfort of my pillow other than the rest needed to try more. My thoughts escape me as I try not think of past loves, though I remember them with a sense of vivid delight. I don't feel like that person. I don't know if it is because I want to distance myself from a former part of me to ascend beyond my former failings of at least my critical view of such things. Or if I really am different, my cells have changed, many seasons have past, many days which I can hardly recall are gone. Who was I and who I am now is not important though. I am insignificant in the grand scheme of things. This is my humility. I am these moments I have and take forward with me beyond this sentence. I am my better reasoning and my worse. If you have great peace I will show doubt, but only because I am insecure in my belief that I am good. Life's matter so why don't I find my own life significant. I know this life is significant to me but don't hold any belief that mine is to anyone else just as to anyone else being significant in mine. I don't like to lie so I will be honest, as much as I want to believe this, I do not. Though my life is insignificant in the global sense, in my world I must believe that some significance is true for those I am close with. My family and friends, though my family is many and my friends are few. I think less than my mother and a few others would notice me in any meaningful way. I don't think I am depressed, just sad at the potential I have not fulfilled, yet. Where am I going with this? Is this helping or true. Am I just trying to sound clever or is this my belief. How should I consider myself? I do believe people are not important in the greater sense. Though I am absolutely sure that our life's are significant to us and those around us. We have a huge part to play in the word we live in. We might not be special in a global or historic sense but definitely in a present sense. You are special, believe that as it is important to do so.
2017
