The Dagless File

I expect this to be some what disjointed. Sometimes I have some thoughts and realisations and don't really know where to post them or if anyone would be interested in reading them. I've never been the type to keep a diary or anything like that so I guess this it: Random Thoughts On Life, Love The Universe and Everything.......

If it wasn’t for love, wanting it, needing it, praying for it, being hurt by it, being rejected by it, losing it then this site would not exist and neither would we. So much as been written about love by a lot of people who are a lot wiser and a heck of a lot more experienced than I but I can only tell you what I believe and what I have experienced from love.

I believe that love is the only emotion that reaches through your conscious, your subconscious, right down to your very soul. I believe that there is a point when love stops being an emotion altogether and become a state of being. That’s why love can hurts so much sometimes because it’s not something you can just switch on/off.

I believe that love is the very thing that bonds us all together. The stronger the love, the stronger the bond. Unbreakable, even in death love lives on.

“Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.”

~ Bruce Lee

I was going to write some stuff about life on other plants, aliens and all that but, I don't know, just feel like crap today. Feeling lonely like there is no one out there who feels the way I do. It's just been so long since I've been on my own I guess I forgot how lonely it was.

I forgot how special she was, how special what we had was. I miss her so much, it seems so long ago.

Ok so after feelin really quite bad lost night and this morning I came on here and had a look round. There are people out there who are really stuck in situations that really don't have any easy way out. It made me look at what I have got, what it is I'm afraid of.

I've found myself at the beginning of a brand new start, not a place I wanted to find myself but her we are. And it is scary when everything you wanted has been taken away. I'm afraid of being alone, I don't mind saying that. But I don't want to use that as an excuse to throw myself in to a relationship I don't really want just for the sake of it.

I guess I've found myself trying to force it a little bit and then feeling sorry for myself when it doesn't work out. I really don't need to force anything, just be myself and then when I find someone they will love me for who I am.

I read something today where someone used the wording "paying a high price" for the lesson they had learnt about love and life. Although I can see why they see it that way and I totally respect that, life is how you see it.

Price makes me think of a transaction, a choice. Sometimes things happen in life and you have no choice, they just happen. Without reason or warning and they change your life forever, change who you are forever.

Sometimes things happen and there is no such thing as a full recovery from it. You can never go back to who you were before because you will always have that scar in side of you but like the football star who suffered that injury, if you want to play again then you have to learn to play in a different way. You may never have that fearless speed you had when you were younger but you will have strength.

You shouldn't be ashamed of your scares. You should kiss them and say that's where I was hurt and where I healed. You may not of seen me fall from pain but on the path of my life there is a groove where I lay and I filled it with a river of tears.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that prices come from choices, lessons come from mistakes but from suffering comes wisdom.

"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

~ Aeschylus*

*As used by Robert F. Kennedy in a speech on the death of Martin Luther King

So may things I want to touch on, I don't really know where to start.

Haven't been feeling that great this week, a bit low, had a few tears and that's why I haven't posted here for a while.

I bought a Feeder album and thought I'd check out some of there other stuff I haden't heard. Now for those who don't know about Feeder, they are a band that were around in the mid 90's but really made it big in about 2002 with the song "Buck Rodgers". It was around this time that there drummer died and it really affected ther music. They realised the album "Comfort In Sound" in which they obviously sing about how they were feeling. Anyway I started listening to some tracks from the album they did after that call "Pushing The Senses" and listening to the first track "Feeling A Moment" it had me in tears. It was spot on how I was feeling, a little too spot on.

It's not change I fear. I fear that I haven't changed at all.

Ok, so I posted something on here and I deleted it. Mainly because I think maybe it was something that had to be said and then never read again and that is that. Sometimes questions need to be asked even if you know the answer, sometimes asking the question is more important than the answer you get. Anyway I'm rambling.

I think that I am at a point now where I am ready to move on, move forward again. I thought I was ready about a month back, there was a woman I liked at work and got talking to her and what did I spy on her figure but a wedding ring. So I took that as a sign, you know what I mean.

There has been some tears since then and some feeling of guilt too. I felt very selfish at thinking thoughts of moving on, which is something I didn't think I would feel but I did.

Right now though I am feeling good.

I've been thinking a lot about grief and what I have personally been through these past 6 months and how, for me, it really has been a series of realizations. Some very painful and others that have just opened my eyes to the way life is I guess. I could reel them off but I see little point in doing that. Today I had another one and it’s funny because they always come when you aren’t expecting them to.

I was thinking about how some of my girlfriends (or should I be saying late girlfriend or something else? It doesn't feel right saying that but I have to say that I have had to come to terms with the thought that I am single again. A thought that didn't come easily, it made me feel very selfish to be thinking in that way) friends were doing, how they were coping and I realized I hadn't seen or spoken to any of them since the funeral.

And then it hit me, since her death it's been as if a whole part of my life has just been broken off and floated away. As if a juggernaut has just smashed in to me and big chunks have just gone flying off and I have just had to chuggle along in a shell of a car which is my life.

I'm not complaining I've just been sleep walking through these past few months which I think has help me get though this but I think now I realize that I can't keep living this empty shell of a life anymore. I need something more, I need to start doing something.

Realizations can be painful and deeply saddening but it really is the first step to acceptance and healing.

To move on isn't to forget but to accept that life is for living and that we have no choice but to choose life in honour of those we have to leave behind. Life will take things away from you but it isn't about what you lose but what it CAN'T take away from you.

*Originally posted as a thread in the Grief and Bereavement section 30/06/08

Ok this is my list of good qualities which I have been ORDERED to do by a friend (I know you know who you are!) so no thinking I've gone all big headed and like to blow my own trumpet because this is so not me. No doubt this will be shown in the shortness of the list:

1. The ability to make people laugh - this is a bit of a mystery to me as I usually just say things and people seem to think they are funny
   
2. I can bend my thumb in a way which makes it look like it is broken - this is not my party trick however!
   
3. My party trick - I have freaky stretchy skin and can stretch my face so it looks like I'm wearing a mask! I don't really know if this is a good thing but I can't see how it can be a bad one!
   
4. I'm Batman
   
5. I can balance 10 beer mats on one elbow then quickly move my elbow and catch them,
   
6. Are you still reading this? Oh boy I'll have to come up with a seventh!
   
7. er...I don't have a hairy back, that has to be good right?
   

So there we have it, I'm quitting while I'm ahead.

I guess at the time I just wanted it to be over and done with but the truth is it was all wrong and I knew it.

There should have been more said but I felt that I was in the presents of traitors and deceivers and it was no place to lay you to rest.

More words are to be said and I will not leave them unspoken.

In the past I have thought of grief as a house that you go in to with rooms filled with emotions. You go through the rooms until you come out the other side. Back in to the real world again.

I no longer think of it like that mainly due to the reason that the world you enter is not the same one you are forced to leave. Grief is more of an ejustment to the way we see reality. The whole process of grief is a battle between not wanting to leave the old reality and stepping in to a new one.

I have read something saying that grief is a battle against change. I agree with this but the pain comes with the change within. The world just carries on but how we see it changes.

I now live is a new reality, a reality without Lisa. It is painful to realize it but I stepped through that door six months ago* and now a new door is open. Whether I am ready to step through it is up to me.

I lot of what I do and how I approach things I have to do by instinct, I have to do with what feels right. Sometimes I worry that feelings of moving on are wrong, like I'm moving too fast but compared to what?

And that is the trouble, there is no guide book for this sort of thing you have to make your own up bit by bit. Of course it helps to talk about these things and have someone say that you are doing fine. It's just good to know that you haven't gone insane.

Of course the lack of any guide lines doesn't mean that I'm giving this serious thought just because of "why the hell not". I continue to be patient with myself (although that is becoming hard these days) as I always think to how I felt two months ago and how different I feel now. Just imagine how I'll feel in another two months.

I have talked about moving on and the possibility of dating again for a while now and I guess I was opening myself up for the possibility of it happening in the future. Where I stand on this now is this: I am not actively looking for someone but I am open to the suggestion of it if I should meet someone special.

It's not something I worry about. I'm the kind of guy who is good with people, I'm good at making people laugh, I'm friendly likable guy I guess but there aren't many people I click with, there aren't many people I feel totally relaxed with. And this is people in general by the way.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not just looking for anyone, she's going to have to be one special lady and I'm not thinking as myself as single. I am just going solo.

Solo but not lonely.

Paul Weller ~ Above the Clouds

Autumn blew its leaves at me,

Threatening winter as I walked.

Summer always goes so quick, barely stopping like my thoughts.

Which dip and spin and change so fast

I have to wonder will I last.

Through the windows of the train

I caught reflections of a paper cup

Hanging small in a pale blue sky

Never knowing which ways up.

Above the clouds whats to be found?

I have to wonder will I be around.

As my anger shouts at my own self doubt,

So a madness creeps into my dreams

When you're scared of living but afraid to die

I get scared of giving and I must find the faith to beat it

I must be me thats rushing by,

Time just lingers on the wind.

Bristlin through my open fears,

I wonder what its going to bring.

Above the clouds, whats to be found,

I have to wonder will I be around.

Run and hide, run and hide

I catch the sail at evenings tide.

I supose that it is true in life as well as grief that there comes a time where you have to let go of the things you have to leave behind and you have to accept the things that you can't. Some feelings will always remain but they are part of me now, part of who I am. I greet them with open arms.

Trying to fight the things within that you can't change is only trying to fight who you are. You don't fix anything like that, you only tear it apart.

Ok, this is something that is really starting to get on my nerves. Every Monday without fail, a curtain member of staff asks me if I have done anything exciting over the weekend. The answer is always no and you can see that they obviously think that I should be out hitting on sexy young things or something just because I am now technically single.

I honestly don't know what they expect of me. Even if I was ready to do that sort of thing I have and never will be the type of guy that does that. I am not John Travolta, there is no Saturday Night Fever!

The next time someone asks me if I did anything over the weekend I'm going to tell them that I spent my nights dressed all in black fighting crime but only when I was contacted via a light that is shone in the night sky maybe then they might get the point.

It's funny how fear and desire seem to go hand in hand. The fear of one thing can fuel the desire for something else. But often if you fear failure then you are destine to fail. Just like when Derren Brown tells the tight rope walker not to fall all he can thing about is falling and then suddenly when he gets up there he falls.

I am trying not to let my fears rule my desires. There is only what I want and what I am prepared to do to get them. Everyone has their limits but it's in trying that we find out those limits.

"Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past, you must fight just to keep them alive"

"Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight"

Ok, so on Friday I had my "performance review" at work. We talked about one or two things but of course we got round to what had happened at the beginning of the year. Talking about it is a lot harder that thinking about it or writing about it and I didn't really think that it will be but it was. I wouldn't go as far as to say I was holding the tears back but I was getting that think at the back of your throat that makes your voice go all wobbly.

I scored pretty high in my review. It makes me wonder if they could see how absolutely devastated I was in those first few months I went back. They were some pretty dark times with some pretty dark thoughts I can tell you.

In the past I've talked about that one thing, the one thing that would cut me up and open a lot of old wounds if I did it. In a moment of fear I almost did it some weeks back but I realized how foolish it would have been and I stopped myself.

Yesterday I was talking to someone at work about weight and I started talking about how I lost a stone (14 pounds) in two weeks with what happened after Xmas and he didn't have any idea what I was talking about so I had to tell him. I was actually completely comfortable talking about it but it probably was made earlier because he was completely comfortable listening to it. You'll be surprised how many people seem to squirm when you try and talk about it.

I feel like I have turned a corner.

Yesterday I did the one thing. The album I bough Lisa for Christmas, the album she played constantly for five days, the album I listened to constantly after her death as a way of keeping her with me and the album I had not listened to is six months. I put it on.

It was strange, I didn't turn in to the emotional mess I thought I would. Instead I sat quietly and just listened to it, it felt like an echo from a past life. It doesn't feel like months, it feels like years ago.

There was a time I only dealt in days, tomorrow didn't matter and yesterday was just another day behind me. I think back to how I felt at four months and thinking that I was ok but looking back I know that compared to how I feel now I was far from ok. Now I deal in months, there is only one way to see where you are and that is to look back at where you were.

Am I ok now, is this me healed? I'll tell you in a month.

I've decided to completely write off the year, I keep thinking about stuff and all I come up with is questions so I'm not going to take my life in any kind of direction until it has been a year.

I've been finding it hard to focus on things again lately and my job is corroding my soul but I guess it always feels like this around this time of the month. Everything just feels so grey and dull, it makes it difficult to get up in the morning. Everyone just seems to walk round like zombies, no-one seems to laugh anymore. What happened to that world I knew? This world just leaves me feeling lost.

Today have been 8 months. I felt I had to post something but to be honest I don't really know what to say. I am slowly seeing the future again. No one ever tells you at what point you stop grieving for someone, I know you never stop missing them but then again I wouldn't have it any other way.

You can not measure life in years. To do so is like trying to judge the view by the distance you have travelled. Some of the most beautiful things have been seen while standing still.

Between everything we know and everything we don't, lies belief and between certainty and belief lies faith. No one can tell you what to believe in, all you can do is search inside yourself and ask the questions for which there are no true answers and find something to believe in.*

Truth is where you see it, one persons philosophy is someone else's ramblings of a madman. It all depends on what you believe.

Am I rambling like a madman? Well I'll let you be the judge of that.

*Originally posted on another thread

I've spent so many nights looking up at the stars and I try to imagine all the ones I can't see. They shine on, so far away just little speck of light. You think that they are going to shine forever but sometimes you may see one of those little stars just fade away, just for that moment and its gone forever. It maybe just a moment to you, you mignt not even notice but somewhere a world has ended.