The Dagless File

[Dagless]

So here we are, 22 months. After so long of feeling so much it's difficult to now how to feel today but how should you feel?

 

A lot has happened to me this past month alone, emotionally anyway. Feelings of deeply caring about people are no longer met with pain and confusion as they have done in the past. My heart is learning the difference between caring and loving and falling in love. When the heart is in shattered pieces it is difficult to tell between them. They all hurt the same. Slowly it is learning its way and slowly I am feeling okay again.

[Dagless]

After 22 months of not seeing someone you begin to forget things. You forget how things felt. But with all the things that are lost as time drifts on the feeling as if I am missing something has stayed with me. That something has felt like a memory you can't quite bring forward in to your head. It's there but you don't quite know what it is.

 

Looking at something beautiful I wanted to share it only to remember that I am alone and in that flicker of a moment I can see it, what it is I am missing so much. It's that higher level of understanding that only comes with love. When you want to show them everything that is inside of your head and you want to feel everything that is inside of theirs. It’s that deep level of sharing your mind with someone.

 

That is what I miss.......

[Dagless]

She is without doubt the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I could just stare at her face all day and let my eyes drink in her loveliness. Just having her smile my way makes me feel 10 feet tall, oh what a fool I am......as beautiful as she is I know that she isn't my type but how I wish she was........how I wish she was.......

[Dagless]

"Absolute Beginners" by The Jam

 

In echoed steps I walked accross an empty dream

I looked accross this world, there was no one to be seen

This empty feeling turned and quietly walked away

I saw no warmth in life - no love was in my eyes

I stared a century thinking this will never change

As I hesitated, time rushed onwards without me

Too scared to break the spell too small to take a fall

But the Absolute luck is - love is in our hearts!

 

I lost some hours thinking of it

I need the strength to go and get what I want

I lost a lifetime thinking of it

an' lost an era daydreaming like I do

 

I stared a century thinking this will never change

As I hesitated, time rushed onwards without me

Too scared to break the spell too small to take a fall

But the Absolute luck is - love is in our hearts!

 

In echoed steps you walk accross an empty dream

But look around this world, there's millions to be seen

Come see the tyrants panic see their crumbling empires fall

Then tell 'em we don't fight for fools -

'cos love is in our hearts!

 

I lost some hours thinking of it

I need the strength to go and get what I want

I lost a lifetime thinking of it

an' lost an era daydreaming like I do

 

You can lose some hours thinking of it

You need the strength to go and get what you want

You can lose a lifetime thinking of it

And lose an era daydreaming like I do

 

This song is a reminder to me that we all feel lonely at times and it's easy to feel alone in your loneliness but love is something that comes from inside of you. It also reminds me not to be afraid to get what I want because before you know it times has just gone. It's no good just thinking and day dreaming about things, you need the strength to go and get them.

[Dagless]

I learned today that it is better to know more than to assume alot with very little. Even with a little bit more info it still looks like I was right with my first gut instinct. I can't help but feel sad about that.....had I have seen her today would I have thought differently......why does a part of me wish I was wrong?

[Dagless]

I feel fragile, I feel shakey and uncertain. I don't know what's started this but there are times I feel extremely angry and i feel like screaming. Work has become a frustration. My job has slightly changed and it makes me feel trapped. Right now I'm sitting her just wanting to be held by my Lisa and she is nowhere to be found. If you knew what I've been doing for the last hour......to write it down here would make me sound crazy but I'm not I'm just.......searching for something that isn't there.

[Dagless]

They say behind every dream is an illusion. We can want something that doesn't even exist, we want the ideal, the thing that we believe it to be. Sometimes you have to ask yourself what it is you want: The reality or the illusion. You have to shatter the illusion and see what is really in front of you and only then will you know if you really want it or not.

 

I know the reality but my heart wants to believe the illusion.........

[Dagless]

During a particular gruelling job at work a co worker of mine propped up a display stand of Scarlett Johansson to keep me going. I have to admit that as I get older or should that be as she gets older I can see her appeal. Her picture gave me something soft to look at during a particularly hard day, just a little bit of escapism I guess but I that gets me thinking about Rachel again. Strange how a girl I’ve hardly ever spoken to can have so much of an affect on me. She makes me feel something I’m not entirely comfortable with, mainly because I can’t put my finger on it. She is a very pretty young woman who I hardly even know and is not my type but still I am strangely drawn to her.

Really is she any different to a picture of a pretty actress on a poster? A welcome distraction in a lonely environment.

[Dagless]

I found myself lying awake last night with the memory of Lisa's death, at least the events that lead to her death. That Sunday afternoon when everything changed and would never be the same. A memory that would once play over and over in my head and I had no choice but to let my mind show me what it needed to show me, to make me feel what had to be felt.

 

I must have seen those images a thousand times but last night as I played it through once more it felt like old ground. Like a box filled with a thousand things that you had taken out one one by one and examined each and every one until you knew every curve, every surface, every crack and crevice.......there was nothing new to see. That memory holds no more secrets.

[Dagless]

The mind is so complex. So many layers of defence mechanisms, fears and desires. You can lie to yourself and think it's the truth but feeling can not be denied. Do feeling lie or do they just cut through all that crap your mind tells you?

 

All I know is that I have tried to tell myself the way it is and I believed that truth but when she smiles at me I melt inside.

 

I have no idea where to go from here.......

[Dagless]

"I don't dwell on things I'm missing, I'm just pleased with the things I've found."

 

After twenty three months of riding emotional storms of ups and downs that never seem to end, I am here.

I have begun to open my heart to feeling and....possibilities for the future. Although at times it has been confusing I am slowly beginning to understand the language it speaks. As far as that goes I still have a long way to go but the first steps have been taken. The next step can not be rushed however.

 

And so I am at this point. A point where I can start again, a new beginning, a brand new start. With the loss of a good friend here I feel my time here has come to an end too, at least for now. There is no need for me to stand still any longer. It's time to take my life in a new direction.

[Dagless]

It's funny how things can creep up on you. I've spent so much time not being okay that I had almost forgotten how it feels to be okay. I can't remember when it started but I've slowly begun to realise......I'm fine.

 

I guess it's like I've always said, you never know where you are until you know where you have come from, and when I look back I know I'm not in that place anymore.

 

I think there comes a time when you stop trying to fix the past and you move on from it.

[Dagless]

Recently I've found myself becoming increasing angry, mainly with my job. The anger is born out of frustration I think more than anything. Frustration because I know that this job is going nowhere and, in all honesty, it's not where I want to be. This job was once a safety haven for me, something I could do that didn't take much thought as I recovered from the devastation I suffered over two years ago. So the frustration comes from me knowing that it is time to move on and leave my old life behind but with that comes a feeling I will be leaving Lisa behind with it but I know that that is not true. You carry with you what is important and you leave behind what is not. When I do leave this job it will be the end of a chapter and the start of a new one and I am ready for that.

[Dagless]

I've been thinking about how it feels to be okay, having gone through grief and all that emotion rampage, and I see how much of a gradual process it really is. Only now after all these months (and when you add those months together they are now years. Lisa's been gone longer now than we had a relationship for but when I think that it doesn't really compute with me. In my mind the time we spent together really can not be measured. It's like it's always there, in the past, in my mind, in my memories. We are always there.) I can really look at myself, my life and start to want something else, something more.

 

There has always been something in the way all my life and it's stopped me from doing the things I want to do and be with the people I want to be with. It's stopped me making friends......I have no friends, no social life to speak of.

What on earth stops me from letting people in, what is it that makes me think that someone must be crazy for wanting to spend time with me or reject someone the moment they show any interest in me. I always seem to run for cover.

 

If grief has taught me anything it is how to feel and that it is okay to feel.

It is okay to want and it is okay to be wanted, that is the lesson I am learning now. I think this is me starting over again.

[Dagless]

Love aways knows how to hurt you. A reminder of loss love feels like a lightness in the stomach which turns in to a numbness in the arms as if some unseen force or shadow has loomed it's way on to your shoulders.

 

But what hurts is not the fact that you were once loved or that you once loved but the fact that you still do. And it is the reminder of that which hurts.

[Dagless]

I was out walking yesterday with my mp3 player on when two guys on bikes came past on my left hand side. Well I say came past, they hit my peripheral vision first and so thinking they wanted to pass I moved over to one side but when they didn't it was obvious they wanted to get my attention, maybe for directions of something or maybe to give me some verbal abuse but with their cycle helmets worn with shirt and tie combo they just didn't look the type.

 

Only one of them did any talking and from his accent I could tell he wasn't a local lad. It was a curious accent like American via Easten Europe maybe. Anyway it turned out they were Mormons giving out copies of their book and a bit of a chat about God.

 

He was a very polite young man so I just listened to what he had to say but what could I say to him? I wonder what he would have thought if I had told him what I believe in, my individual thoughts on life, death and what it's all about. Before he and his friend went on there way he asked me if I had any questions for God. This question took me by surprise a little bit* (It reminds me of a bit from Red Dwarf when they told the talking toaster that he could ask any question and he would have it answered and he asked "Given that God is infinite, and that the universe is also infinite... would you like a toasted teacake?") but I said "No" and off they went on their bikes.

 

It all made me start to wonder about my own beliefs and whether I should post them here fully or not and I think I probably will as I see them more as a philosophy more than anything else.

 

* I don't believe in God so asking questions may be difficult......

[Dagless]

I've been thinking of posting something here for a while, times rolls by so fast you forget how long it's been. I'm still single, I'm still at my old job, I'm still trying to figure out who I am and it's still tough from time to time. I've been pushing myself to go out more with friends from work, it's good to be around good people. I now eat my meals in the staff canteen (something I have never done in the five years I have been there) I almost feel as if I am slowly waking up from a period of hibernation, like I'm ready to be part of society again, I need to I think. It's bad to spend to much time in your own head.

It's surprised some people I think but I needed to break the routine I found myself in, a routine I had created originally to survive but it had become a bit of a bubble for me. It was safe and familiar but it had begun to suffocate me a little.

 

I'm trying to work on myself a little bit, change the way I see myself and the way I go about things. I guess now I'm approaching thirty I'm looking back at my life and where I am at the moment and I don't feel I have got the best out of myself. I want to find my Way in life and have the confidence to go after the things I want. It's not something that can happen quickly but I am working on it.

[Dagless]

I'm not a big reader of books. I thinks it's something to do with how my brain is wired because I've never sat down and read a book all the way through. I just never feel the need to finish it.

I met a young woman at work who I found out had a lot in common with me, she went to the same university as me and is very creative, but as we talked I realised how well read she was. I, on the other hand, love to watch films and television but no-one ever says they are well 'watched' do they.

When I was a kid I remember having a small fear of books but that may have been down to a Teacher I had who would smack children if they got words wrong as we read to her. There we would be waiting in the queue, clutching a book, watching someone trying to read through tears knowing that we were next. I memorized several pages of a Dinosaur book, which I would read week after week in order to avoid a beating.

 

Anyway, in my pursuit of finding my Way I have been reading Hagakure: The Book Of The Samurai, which is an amazing book. It is full of little quotes of wisdom, which I have been trying to use in my everyday life.

 

"When meeting calamities or difficult situations, it is not enough to simply say that one is not at all flustered. When meeting difficult situations, one should dash forward bravely and with joy. It is the crossing of a single barrier and is like the saying, "The more the water, the higher the boat."."

 

I have used that saying a lot over the passing weeks "The more the water, the higher the boat". It reminds me to rise above things, to ride things out and to keep on to of things, no matter how difficult things may seem.

[Dagless]

Can we ever really trust our feelings? How can we be really sure that we are feeling something real or that you are only feeling what we think we should be feeling?

I met a nice girl, she has a boyfriend of course but they all seem to, she seems lost and a little sad. I've found myself thinking about her a lot and I look forward to talking to her but I have so much to say that when we do get to talk it feels as if we never seem to scratch the surface on all the things we want to say. Or at least what I want to say.

 

I can't explain what my feelings are exactly but they confuse me. Why do I feel a fool for feeling them?

[Dagless]

Lisa gave me a DVD of the film 'Killing Zoe' for Christmas and to this day I have no idea why. I remember opening it and I couldn't hide my confusion at why she thought it would be a good gift for me. She thought that I didn't like it but to be honest I was puzzled more than anything. I never got round to watching that film, it was put in my 'memory' box along with all the other gifts I had give or Lisa had given me.

 

A couple of weeks ago I decided I was going to watch it. So I went up the loft to go through the box to get it and inside was a few CD's and DVD's of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and I thought what a shame it was that they were hidden away and no one was listening to them. Lisa loved those albums and they deserved to be listened to by some instead of gathering dust in the dark. So I gave them away. A friend at work said that she liked the Chili Peppers so I just gave them to her. I just figured....why not.

[Dagless]

There seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment of friends asking me what my type is or what is it I'm looking for in a woman. Maybe they think I've been single for too long and it's about time I got out there and met someone but it's not what I really want, at least not right now.

 

The trouble with being in a relationship and then suddenly not being in a relationship is that you crave all things that go along with a relationship. Stuff like feelings of closeness, thinking about someone other that yourself and going out and doing things with someone. So when all that is replaced with feelings of loneliness, only having to thinking about yourself and going out and doing things alone, it can drive you crazy.

Most people can't stand this stage and end up rushing into a relationship with whatever schmuck comes along just to get away from it. I know someone who has done this back to back and what they think is a bad run of relationships is actually just a series of rebound relationships that were doomed from the start. Being single is not a crime, there is nothing wrong with not being in a relationship and more importantly there is nothing wrong with YOU if you are not in a relationship.

 

I always think it's best not to go looking for it because you can end up wanting it too much and nothing scares people away faster than the stench of desperation. You have to learn to be okay by yourself and I am, right now, okay by myself. I'm no longer going to worry about being with someone until someone comes along I want to be with and she will not be a "type" or tick all the boxes in some imaginary list I have made up in my head. She will be real, she will be who she is and I will love her for it.

[Dagless]

I had a dream a few nights ago that woke me up with a jolt, like you see in movies but you don't think happens in real life. I can't fully remember what the dream was about but I know that I had a feeling that someone was in the room with me and this feeling was so real, so terrifing that my mind felt it necessary as to wake me up to confront the danger. There was, of course no one in my room, I was alone.

 

I had something equally strange happen to me a week ago. A young woman who I am friendly with at work suddenly and without warning de-friended me from Facebook. I have always been as friendly as I can be to this person and I talk to her when I can but I have to admit that the conversations weren't always free flowing. I always got the impression that she was wearing a mask, that the person she really was was never the one she showed me........or maybe it is just me that does that. It always made me a little uncomfortable not knowing who she really was....may be she felt the same....or maybe it was for some other reason. Maybe she just didn't like me. I don't know.

 

Similarly unusual, a few weeks before that a young woman who normally never says more than two words to me, stopped me and spoke to me for what must have be a solid 10 minutes. She is a budding (wannabe) artist like me and we talked about working methods and inspirations etc. It took me by surprise a little bit as normally she is so quiet. She hasn't spoken to me since......strange.

 

People are weird. I don't think I'll ever fully understand them.

[Dagless]

I had a horrible realization today that I have the tendency to fancy women who are unobtainable. Women who are married or in relationships. Or women who find me about as attractive as a giant slug or women who I know aren't my type but because I barely know them I pretend that they are. There is one young woman in particular who fits most of the above (relationship, barely know her, not my type, Giant Slug) who I was, for a time, crazy about. Today I tried to talk to her and she completely ignored me. Now she may not have heard me or maybe she was preoccupied but I could help but ask myself why am I attracted to someone who wouldn't even give me the time of day?

 

And the answer is this: It's because she ignores me, it's because I know she's not attracted to me and it's because I know deep down she isn't my type and all that means distance between us and Distance = Safety.

 

Have I became such an emotional cripple that I would rather long for something I know I will never have, a fantasy, than something real?

 

Oh boy, looks like I need to stop dreaming, have the courage to get out of the emotional wheelchair and take a walk in the real world.

[Dagless]

If you become anxious on how things will end then you will fear to begin them and you will have nothing. Make a start with lines, marks and impressions and have faith in your own skills and abilities to correct your mistakes along the way. It is better to start from nothing than to build on top of an outline. For if the outline is flawed then, no matter how good your technique, the end product will be flawed. Go with your instincts, trust them, don't be afraid to whiteout and start again if that what it takes for it to feel right. Don't worry if what you are left with when you are done is not perfect or not what you expected. The prize is always in the doing, the building of experience, confidence and the sharpening of skills. So the next time you begin again, even if you are faced with a blank canvas, you will not be starting from nothing.

[Dagless]

I am awful at handling rejection. This has been shown so evidently during the "de-friending" episode of a few weeks ago. I know that it doesn't matter but I couldn't help but obsess about it a little but the truth is I pushed her away. I pushed her away because I didn't like her all that much, so should I be mad or upset that she was smart enough to figure that out? No of course not but I was. And why? Because I care way too much about what other people think of me. I care so much that I have no real belief in myself. This has to change.

 

You can't please all the people all of the time. It's as simple as that. You can try and bend over backwards for people but they won't respect you for it. They'll just see you as someone who is too easily swayed or manipulated. Everyone has to have their own beliefs, their own sense of what is right and wrong and you have to stand up for them, speak up and voice your opinions. There is nothing wrong with speaking your mind. Self-belief is more important that popularity. Some people will always hate you for their own reasons and often those reasons will be more of a reflection of themselves than you.