This piece is being written in semi-parallel with one in the insomnia section, about the way insomnia affects my health, both mental and physical. I wanted to write everything in one piece but it just wouldn't hang together, so it's ended up being two pieces written in parallel. Kind of weird, but it seems to be the only way to get it all out and on "paper" is to write in tandem.

  Since the start of this year I've been getting hit hard by insomnia again - harder than usual. It's left me with a whole bunch of thoughts, some of which haven't been all that much fun, but I'm getting through them, and I suppose that in the end that's what matters.

  The part that's been exceptionally brutal, the part that's possibly hurt the most, is going through it all, and knowing that getting through it has been the same way it always has - on my own. And sometimes that status is just something I get tired of having. Feeling down and coming back to a darkened house is a demoralising experience at the best of times, let alone when insomnia is kicking in hard and leaving nasty thoughts in place.

  In fact, it's times like this that are the only times I really notice about being single, and sometimes miss having the company that relationships bring. Luckily these thoughts/feelings don't come across very often, but when they do, they're vicious buggers.

  However, they're not enough to make me want to be in a permanent relationship. I've been on my own for the last year, and in general it's been a pretty good year. It's allowed me to straighten out a lot of things in my own mind, and also to bring back facets of my personality that had gone AWOL over the last two or three years. It's been a process of rebuilding, more than anything else - the previous years had done plenty of work of their own in knocking down stuff, so now it's more about coming back, building things stronger and with more stability than they had before.

  Part of the entire thing with 2002 was that it opened my eyes to things I don't like, but had kind of allowed to happen. Up until 2001 or so, I'd always been a pessimist, expecting the worst, not relying on the people around me, and really just working on being as self-dependent as possible. Over the years, plenty of people had told me "that's not the way to do things, you've got to put some trust in others, and open up more", so I decided to give it a try. With hindsight, that phrase "give it a try" pretty much sums up 2002 in a lot of ways, and the results have been both good and bad - some of them are still being evaluated.

  During the year I tried relying on people, and believing they'd do what they said they would. On each and every occasion, it fell through, and left me more despondent about the entire project. By the end of the year, it's left me with only the conviction that I was right to have the attitude I had, and it's time to resurrect it.

  Being constantly lied to isn't good for the attitude. It makes it very clear where you stand in people's estimations, and tends to make me feel pissed off, knowing that I've been there for people when they've needed it, and the favour isn't returned. Right through til the end of it, 2002 held so many promises that would remain unfulfilled, I can't deny that it's actually increased my cynicism, and made me less willing than ever to trust other people, or rely on them when the situation really requires it. So it's back to self-reliance, a return to the only way I know of being certain something will be done. And no, that's not something that makes me happy - I'd hoped that (for once) I'd be proved wrong, that the people around me who I thought were worthwhile actually felt the same in return, and that self-reliance wasn't the way forward. Instead, I was proved right, and I really didn't want to be.

  So where do I go from now? I'm tired of coming back to solitude, on occasion that's causing me more damage than anything else. I'm tired of being promised things that will never happen - and that I've even been told in one circumstance were not being fulfilled "to teach me a lesson" : the only lesson it's taught me is that some people are liars first and foremost. At the end of the day I'm tired of an awful lot of things, and I suspect at the moment that 2003 is going to be more about finding new ways, new things, and rebuilding from the wreckage of the last few years.

  Actually, I think that once this entire process is over, I'll come out of it as a better person - although not necessarily the person people want me to be. It's not going back to a personal Ground Zero - that happened at the start of 2002, and now I've got the framework, it's just the stuff around it that needs building again.

  As for the company, the empty house, I honestly can't see that space being filled by a person any more. Sometime this year I shall probably end up becoming a dog owner again, and that will suffice for me. As always, I've no idea what the future will hold, but it's going to be an interesting process finding out. However, I very much doubt that any part of it will involve trusting people or relying on them all that much at the moment.I'm not a strong enough person to keep on trusting or opening up to people who don't really care all that much - sometimes it feels like trust is something of which I have a finite supply, and right now it's pretty much drained out.

   Maybe in the future things like trust will come back to me, but I'm not going to hold my breath.