The Year So Far – and The Story of The Boy

Well, I promised a piece when I got to the 200,000 mark, and I’ve been thinking about it since. There’s so much that has changed, that has clicked together in the last six months – it’s not just in the timescale since the 100,000 mark, although in some ways that adds a neat delineator to it all too. This post has the potential to be very deep and personal – something I try to avoid to a degree with d4d™, but what the hell, this seems as good a time as any. I may move it later, both to the Thoughts section, and also so it stays at the top of the page come Wednesday night when I’m travelling for a while. Anyway, if you don’t want to read that kind of thing, there’s plenty of silliness and bumnuggets elsewhere.

Back in January, when we welcomed in 2004, things were really quite different. Regular readers will know I was deep in the throes of depression, both seasonal and related to other sources. In many ways I really didn’t see a way out of where I was at the time, and it’s only time that’s got me through that. The kindness of the regulars here helped too, in ways too diverse to mention now – but the thanks and debts are still there for that. I was pretty much resigned to being single throughout the year, that it would pretty much mimic 2003 on that score – and even 2002. As it turned out, I couldn’t have been more wrong, but at the time, well, the light wasn’t even shining in the tunnel.

Since then, so much has changed – not all of it made public on here, but at the same time a lot of it has been implied. New avenues have opened, the potential for whole new vistas. And of course as soon as I’d come to terms with being single, with dedicating this year (and probably next) to sorting out the other things, the creative side that needs its venting points, and working towards those goals, well, everything changed. No, that’s not true – not everything has altered, but the landscape is earth-shatteringly different around those foundations.

I’ve still got a long way to go – self-doubt plagues me, and lack of confidence. Am I doing the right thing? Will it work? No-one knows, and I can’t answer yet. All I can do is work towards these goals, and do my utmost to make things work.

One person has changed whole vistas already, simply by being there. Options that weren’t even considered in January are now possible, feasible, perhaps even probable. Time will tell, but already the plans are grossly deviated from where they were – and I can’t see it as anything but good. Do we run the potential for heart-destroying hurt? Yeah, without a doubt. Is there also the potential for everything to be life-changingly good? Yeah, without a doubt.

However, doubts are something I still have. I’ve known this person for half my life, and always thought that she was beyond me – reasons I won’t go into for now, but yeah, definitely far out of my league. I still find myself thinking “Wow” on occasion. And no, not just on that kind of occasion, but on others too.

Obviously we both carry damage from previous history – and in some cases there’s a lot of it. So much to deal with – and in optimistic times I do feel we’ll get through all of it, overcome the pain, and be able to work well together.

But at other times, well, the boy whose soul and body got rented out reasserts itself, the core that still loathes itself and the things its done in the past. Self-destruction is in abeyance for now, but self-disgust still has its time. The doubts, wondering what she sees in me; the cynicism, that anyone who comes this close really has the keys to the castle, the potential to destroy the remnants inside the walls.

And yet there’s a frozen core still too – a place that hasn’t been visited, hasn’t been thawed in the best part of twenty years. That frozen core has kept me alive, given me the ability to simply cut off any further pain, add it to the icebox, and keep it there. When I’ve split up with people, the pain’s not felt, it’s just cut off, sliced away, and I carry on. I used to think it was hate and revenge – kept ice-cold so it didn’t explode. Now, well, I don’t know what it is. But I know it should be covered in biohazard signs for all to see.

That core scares me – I’ve always had the will, the desire, the need to keep it cold and inaccessible. It’s been a survival kit, the ultimate defence mechanism, enabling me to walk away, to deal with whatever comes next. And now, it’s melting – and the boy at the heart of it is wondering what will happen when the light and heat hits him. He might thaw out too, and perhaps find that the world’s not as bad as he thinks. But he might simply shatter, break into irrecoverable pieces. No-one knows, least of all that boy.

Is all this worth the potential results? Yes, I think so. But the doubts are there – when that core fails, when it’s finally thawed out, what will she think of the person there? The one who carries a shield all the time, who hasn’t let anyone in in a lifetime. The one who knows all the things that have happened, whose pain has possibly never healed?

And that’s it at the end of the day – because I don’t know that that boy is worth it, I don’t see the value that he has in so many other peoples eyes. That boy has seen all the pain and betrayal it’s possible to take and still keep on breathing, that boy has experienced it all. And he’s shit scared of seeing it again.