Changing Speed

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE END OF THE BEGINNING

There are those that believe a soul mate, a true love or whatever such a person is known as, happens only once in a life time. Perhaps such people have never had to consider a new partner or are still to find their first. Perhaps the first true love was not quite as true as once believed.

Every day I receive many e-mails. Much to my inconvenience and almost to my cost it took me longer to realise than it would for any of my children that the vast majority of these messages are what I now know to be termed as spam. At best these messages are the equivalent to receiving junk mail through the letterbox. At worst, they can be more sinister in purpose. In either case, I was nowhere near as popular as I was beginning to believe.

I recently received what I considered to be one such spam message from a site of which I had no recollection of ever visiting. For some reason I chose to open the message and it turned out to be from a lady who lived in the neighbouring county to my own. I replied.

I had not been out on a date for over six months and it had been longer still since I had used the internet to find company. This lady was somehow different from others that I had communicated with over the internet. Her messages were concise. Her voice on the telephone was warm and sincere. She was in no hurry to share photographs. I decided that I wanted to meet her. We agreed to meet.

We have been living together now for some time. We have an ability to understand each other which could never be brought about by the use of words. It is almost on a psychic level. We do talk to each other. We talk a lot. It is a pleasure to talk to her and to listen to her talk to me. There is no competition between us. Neither of us controls the other. We simply complement each others existence. Ours is a relationship benefiting from our experiences.

This lady has more understanding about my ways, my mannerisms than anybody else that I know of. I have no love for gardening. However, I do feel comfortable when the garden is neat and attractive. I can find myself working in the garden for an entire day when I had only intended to give it an hour of my time. Once I start in the garden I want to finish with a visible end result. I possess a strimmer with which I can edge the lawns with both accuracy and speed. However I prefer to get down on my knees and, using sheers, spend several hours doing the same job but to better effect. I cut my lawns every couple of days even though less frequently would be adequate for others. Only a few days ago I was down on my knees edging the lawns. My lady was talking to me at the time. She was not questioning what or why I was doing what I was. Instead, when I turned around to look at her, she too was on her knees and cutting the edges of the lawns with me.

I was using the only pair of sheers. She was using a pair of scissors.

To understand the importance of what she was doing I believe is to be somewhere towards understanding the thoughts of somebody living with depression. She was working with me. I felt no threat that she understood where I was at in my mind. I felt the support of somebody who understood me. She made the caves within my mind begin to evaporate, dismantling some of my castle walls on the way. Yet her understanding was of me, not of depression. It was as if I was coming to the end of a journey being with her, and yet I still could not and cannot give to her my total commitment. Some of the barriers I have erected do not wish to be lowered and, as yet, I do not know how to make them lower. I do not even really know if I want for them to be lowered, either now or in the future.

Being in the depths of depression is being somewhere that for most people is incomprehensible. How does one enable somebody to understand what is perhaps not understandable? For me, to allow somebody to understand where I have been is to allow them inside my vulnerability. For me, to allow somebody inside my castle walls is to lower my guard and open up my insecurities. The castle walls were designed to save me from the pain I had endured in the past. I remain uncertain as to how I might react to such pain in the future. However, I will manage.

With the benefit of hindsight, depression has been good for me. More than good, it has become a part of who I am. I remain grateful for its lessons and can only hope that some of my experiences can short cut the path of pain for anybody interested sufficiently to read my words. I have walked the Yellow Brick Road, every inch of it, and camped overnight in the evil forest. To feel the pain of depression I believe is an essential part to differentiating between the road and the forest. The pain is part of the process. The extent to which the pain is endured is up to the individual and the understanding of supporters. The only thing I know for certain is that I have reached this part of the experience wiser and more rounded than I was before I began the journey.

I wrote a song for my first date following my divorce, that being the psychiatric nurse. As we had split up by the end of our second date, she never got to hear the song. I have to say that most of my other dates did get to hear the song, my ice- breaker. The song was an attempt to tell people where I was at when I began my journey, as well as trying to impress the ladies of course. I would like to share two lines with you: 

I'm scared of being hurt again. Yet I'm so scared of doing nothing at all.

This was my life after divorce. My castle walls were erect and kept all those dates out of my private territory. I had to do something but I could not leave myself vulnerable. There comes a time for all of us to move on with our life. This was, or more accurately perhaps, this is my time.

My son had moved into his first home not more than ten minutes walking distance from me. It was a Friday evening and he was having problems with children around his home. He came to me for help. I put my coat on and walked back to his house with him talking on the way about us going back to performing. It was his wish, not mine. I was in no way looking to perform in public again but I so wanted my son to enjoy some of the experiences I'd had around his age.

We managed to sort things out with the children around his home without too much difficulty and I left him with his fiancé as I started the walk home reminiscing about the times I'd been performing with the group.

Instead of walking directly home I chose for no apparent reason to walk back via the village centre. I was feeling better than I had for a long time and felt easy walking where others were grouped together. I was actually happy in myself. It was about 9.30pm., the busiest time of the week for the village centre.

In the distance I could see four male youths running out of the village store. Whilst they were too far away for me to make out their features, they were close enough for me to see that they were heavily laden with cans and bottles of alcohol, lots of alcohol. It was obvious that these young men had stolen the alcohol. They ran off in the general direction of where I was heading. As I passed the shop I could see that the staff was busy alerting the police. I carried on walking homewards.

Before I knew what was happening I found myself facing some fifteen to twenty young people aged around eighteen, being both males and females, dividing their booty. This was not a place that I could feel at ease. I turned to walk away only to find that I was surrounded. They were not in a rush to let me walk away.

I felt an incredible pain to the back of my head as an unopened bottle was crashed into my skull. Blows were landed on my head and face from all directions. It was all I could do to try and cover my head with my arms as a lay on the ground but my arms afforded me little protection as my head was stamped on, over and over. A foot smashed into the bridge of my nose. The crack resounded around my consciousness as my nose shattered. I felt no more. I heard no more. I became aware of a peace that I had never before experienced. 

I found myself back in the van that the group had used all those years ago, and yet I was alone in the van. The rest of the band was not there. My world was upside down and confused.

 I could feel the warmth of blood dripping onto my face as I hung suspended, with only the seat belt preventing my head from obeying the law of gravity and meeting the roof of the rusting van. The wheels whirred as they spun looking for the road with which they no longer had contact, slower and slower until they whirred no more. The pain of my body began to fade. Darkness surrounded me. I could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing. I was nowhere and nowhere was a good place to be. I had nothing, only memories. Some good, some bad but memories nonetheless. My memories. No one could take them away from me. While I held onto them I was alive. I had too much left undone to let go. I wanted to let go. It would have been easier to let go. I had to hold onto them. To live with them. My memories.