As the New Year approaches I once again find myself back at square one.
I am beginning to wonder if there actually is” a square two for me! And if there are more squares, when you get to 27, isn’t that just another “square”? (Work it out!)
It has been just over a year since I came here. The job that prompted it a memory that seems a long way back now. The old artist is still alive and probably still being terrorised by his hideous wife. I still kick myself for not being able to cope with the woman! The job was perfect for me; 1000 Euros a month, all living costs met but even I draw the line at being treated like a servant. I mean, 7 days a week! The job was supposed to be 5 days a week and was supposedly to be more a caretaker come handyman, I ended up not only doing that but also cook, cancer care nurse, including injections, eye wound dressing and care, and as that was spread over the entire day, there was little time left for anything else. The parting words of the old Artist still give me a smile though, “but dammit, you are a gentleman”! He was NOT happy the old dragon had fired me but she has some power over him so fate sealed.
I consider myself a fortunate person despite some “difficulties”. I was introduced to Steve who offered me the Casita in return for one day a week of my time working on the finca. Ahh the Casita, just about the perfect situation for me. I shall be very sad to leave but it was never a permanent option. It does make me think though that had I knuckled down and stuck at something after leaving school, I could have had something like this years ago. But I didn’t and I haven’t and I don’t dwell on “might have been's”!
This time last year I was back in the UK, spending Christmas with my Mum in Suffolk. I knew it was going to be the last time I could go to a place one could call “Home” Dad had died one day before my birthday the year before and despite the both of us not being “Christmassy” people, I still enjoyed the family feeling.
I won’t deny “life on my tod” scares the crap out of me, I have always been totally useless at dovetailing into the system, I have bloody tried loads of times but it just ain’t happening. The little solenoid that clicks in at a certain point in one’s life is patently missing in my brain. Sometimes I am glad and other times I just wish I had been lobotomised in youth. Having said that, I still feel like a child about to have a new experience a nice one like a ride at a fairground or a nasty one like walking up to the gates of a detention centre! Either way, you get that oft quoted “butterfly” feeling in your stomach. I cope well with it when it has a reasonably expected outcome, like when Barbara and I sailed Misty Dream away from Palma Mallorca on our first ever out of sight of land passage. I knew Ibiza was only a day’s sail away so the excitement of “leaving” was soon taken over by the excitement of “arriving”. It is the now almost constant apprehension of not knowing what’s next that I am growing weary of.
Someone asked me last week what I would really like to do, and before I could answer she said “Actor”, she was spot on as it happens but as I explained, it is a little tricky when one is petrified of being looked at! Then I gave it more thought (big mistake!) and I realised there actually wasn’t anything in particular that I could say “that is what I want to be/do” This isn’t the first time I have been asked and probably not the last. Helen said to me this evening, “ just do something” I tried to explain (or give an excuse as she said J ) that it had to be something I really enjoyed, that the money was not the issue but it HAD to be something that made me happy. And then I got to thinking “have I ever been Happy”? And that got me thinking I should have been lobotomised years ago and then the “thinking” could stop and that made me think “if I don’t stop thinking and bloody do something, I think I will go bonkers, or possibly more bonkers. Anyway…………………………………………….
So, the New Year will be another move, I feel sure of it (well at least Feeling” is a step up from thinking!) I have been toying with the idea of doing something ludicrous like climbing Kilimanjaro but even that seems well, just doesn’t seem exciting enough or “odd” enough. And being an Aquarian I would want it to be different, say, drop me off on the top by helicopter and climb “down” everything else in my life seems to be backwards, so that would just be in keeping really.
I remember my Father saying “Just get a bloody job” so I did, (many times) and they didn’t last because they were not fulfilling. I am selfish, I need what I do to be satisfying to “Me” I am sure this will ring true for many people and I know some of them think “why should it be any different for me”? I consider that a stupid question so I won’t bother answering it.
I am arrogant and pompous and rude, actually, I am not, I was told a couple of years ago by a doctor he thought I had Aspergers, he was supposed to be assessing my damaged right hand so it might have been fair for me to say he had “a fuckin problem concentrating”! but I didn’t, I added it to being mono-renal and Bi-Polar, intelligent with a large dose of stupid, lackadaisical, cavalier, lazy, mercurial, popular in a kind of “but don’t invite him to dinner parties” way, INFP, a bit brusque, interesting and a host of other things I have been variously described as and I thought, “Hey, what we got here is one O they Humans”! Why is it necessary to label me? Do people think I don’t know? That’s the real problem here, I DO know, I just don’t know how to resolve it without the aforementioned lobotomy.
So again, the New Year will arrive and I will be hoping providence takes kindly to my situation and shines a light on the way forward. I shall of course take part in the decision making process based on whatever mental capacity I am at that time experiencing. I am lucky enough to be able to envisage quite a few scenario, for example: shuffling back to the UK getting a bedsit and stacking shelves at a supermarket or storing everything and hitching a lift on a west-bound yacht. There is absolutely no point trying to get back into the “system” as it has made it quite clear it has nowhere for me. “You should see my CV”!! Fuck me, even “I” wouldn’t take me on. Bloody daft really because handled right, I am bleedin ace! And at least I admit I need handling.
One thing this “Year in Andalence” has taught me is that I must steer well clear of the ladies. They seem to fall in love with “the potential” and then when they decide I am not delivering this “potential” it all goes awry. So, New Year, no ladies. I shall make it a new year’s resolution so I won’t feel guilty about breaking it J
Another thing this year has brought to my attention like a rabbit in the headlights is that I can’t get away with this life much longer. And unless I deal with the above pretty damn sharply, I am indeed going to be the man hovering around the dumpster sooner than I had expected.
