Jul 8

 It has been a while. Quiet. Everything has seemingly shut off. The few thoughts I have flitter quickly away. There are no more corners to explore, no more boundaries. I have the conclusions. I know where each piece of the puzzle fits. And it is grim. And there is no more to it than that.

In the space of this last month I have made my therapist cry. Out of empathy. Or sympathy. Or something. It was not my intention. And when the therapist cracked I immediately softened right the way down and shifted to soothing them. Apologising. For sharing sufficient pain for them to be that sad. I warned them. A year ago. People are always confident right until the moment *after* they've just stepped off the cliff. So it goes. Human nature.

Therapy has been quiet overall. I have little to say. The therapist pokes around the edges. My assessment of some time ago to stop therapy, would in the end seem to have been the right call. Not because I am "fixed". But just because there is nothing else to say.

We have a fundamental disagreement. Classical lines. The therapist is convinced that everything can change. That a positive outcome it always possible. They. Kind of have to live in that space. Kind of. I am more realistic. Not everything is possible to change. Not all outcomes are good. Not all things are fixable. Just math alone, ignore everything else. The therapists stance is... unlikely... to say the least. And mine is... almost unassailable. But the therapist holds the line. I have noted that they are the clergy of change. Their core belief, which, in their case, they almost have to believe in. Is that change is always possible, and hope is always relevant. I have flatly told them this is not true. But I understand it is their core. Pulling that rug from under their feet would be... cataclysmic. We have agreed to disagree. I am not interested in destroying their curated belief system. People do and believe as people do.

The heat has been knocking me flat. Worst year so far in the UK. The heat inexorably rises every year. And we still have the greedy, the powerful, the vested interests refusing to acknowledge it, and blocking any fix to it. It will be the epitaph of the human species memorial. Here died humanity for the sake of an imaginary profit margin. 

I get through each day, pains, wobbles, all the usual nonsense. And sleep. A lot.

I have faded out of most contact. Often times because I am just not there. I am gone. Asleep. Oblivion. Or in the twilight lands inbetween. I am finding my interest or need to do such things has disappeared. Reversed. I don't want people to talk to me. Perhaps a switch has finally flicked over into hermit mode proper.

I spoke to my old school friend quite some time ago. I apologised for not checking up on him in the aftermath of his father dying. I had checked on him over the following week. And meant to keep in touch. But my health. And exhaustion. Washed it away. The days blur. And sometimes I am only awake at the hours of the morning when everyone else is asleep.

Nevertheless. I managed a quick check on him. He was ok. Of course. But. He wasn't talking to anyone. Had stopped talking. This. Did not surprise me. His dad was his anchor in his world that he shared everything with. Writing down things to show his dad. Magazines. Articles. Things to talk about every week or so. And he has withdrawn. And he said something. That he was "bored" of talking to people. No one had anything interesting to say. No one had an opinion of their own.

I checked if he was still getting out.

He was. Not gone full hermit yet he noted.

I understood.

Funny his words.

I too have withdrawn from people. Not because of boredom. Or interest. Or. Maybe it is. Maybe I have seen it all. "All". Too exhausted. Too worn out. No energy left to give.

We talked a little about this in therapy this week.

I know what you are going to say, how you are going to behave before you do it I said. I didn't mean the therapist singularly. I meant. Everyone. Nothing. Was a surprise. Everything. Was like a stochastic piece of clockwork. Predictable. No answers. The same problems. I queried that surely the therapist too could see something of what I was talking at. Surely you must sit there sometimes and think, oh, here is a defence, here is a projection, here is a fear, a trauma. The engine behind the face value. The therapist agreed. Once you started to understand the mechanics behind it.

We meandered around on the topic. No joy. No surprise. No awe. Grey mush.

There is also the ancient wisdom there. Herodotus. Greek chap. 450BC or thereabouts. "the worst pain a man can suffer is to have insight into much and power over nothing" .

There are variations of this. About accumulating knowledge without the capability to affect change is the road to hell.

Uh huh. Or the modern humorous subversion I like, "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. those who remember history are doomed to watch everyone else repeat it".

I am stable. Just about. Physically touch and go some days. Some days are better. Some days are worse. Mentally. Grey mush. Every day. I think it should be the end. Just waiting. I imagine what the world will be like after I am gone. I map out the consequences. I will not account to much. A passing sadness at most. And then. Like everything else. The world turns. It can be no other way.

The reason I write this journal today.

I had a dream.

A dream where my dogs were close but unseen. I could feel them. Ares jumped on my bed and slept though I couldn't see him. Peace. And I walked through a green forest full of sunlight and light rain. The air was clean and crisp and fresh and the trees were beautiful. And I was free. For the first time ever. I was free. Floating in the light. And I cried my eyes out. Happy tears. Free. Finally. Home.

My version of heaven perhaps. Just the random firing of a lump of salty bacon. Pasting things I like. For once.

It would have been wonderful to have gone out there. On that high. Blink. Gone.

But here I still am.

I awoke in a weird state. Unable to feel the temperature although it was hot. Unable to feel my legs properly. Or anything properly. Weird. I knew I had to move. Not right.

But anyway.

I had another dream before that one.

Of screaming at people. Family. Everyone. To stop it. Stop invalidating me. Stop giving me things to do. Stop expectations. Judgements. Leave me alone.

Bit of a sub conscious scream. Not entirely relating to actuality. Twisted. As dreams are wont to do.

Somewhere out there. In the infinite fields of imagination. My mutts are romping around a beautiful green forest. And I am floating behind them. Mesmerised by the sunlight through trees. And there is nothing else in the world but that.