Days 62 & 63

I promised myself I wouldn't do this - but the combination of things that have happened over the end of this week and the start of the weekend means I'm going to do a single blog to cover two days. So please forgive me.

I also promised myself that I would keep this blog positive and upbeat. Not necessarily that I would not talk about negative or difficult things, but that I'd try to put a positive spin on those things.

Fuck that.

I'm sorry, but today's blog is a full on rant, a top of the range "woe is me" shit storm that is sometimes necessary. A cry of anguish and primal rage directed simply at the world in general and no-one in particular. I just need to empty my brain of all these thoughts before they can even begin to fester and consume me. Everyone needs to do it. 

I thought about doing it privately, in fact I wrote this blog fully three hours before I ended up posting it. But in the end I wanted to get this out there. I wanted to not just write this stuff down but to let it live for all eternity - at least until someone shuts the internet down.

It is raw, it is anguished, it is from the heart and it is laid bare for all to see. But I hope it is understood for what it is meant to be.

This is not a cry for help. The help I need has already been provided by me simply writing this. And I don't consider myself in anyway a martyr or someone worthy of more pity or love than anyone else. In the grand scheme of things I know I am lucky. However I also feel like everyone has the right every now and then to wallow a bit in self pity and indulge in screaming the house down about the injustice of it all. 

I have worked so hard since I came back over here to look to the future, to find the good in the situation I am in and to not show resentment for the things I've lost. But that doesn't mean they don't hurt every single day. That doesn't mean I don't resent hugely that the life I had in front of me - the one I planned for with my entire heart and soul - was ripped away unceremoniously. 

I do want to make it clear that I harbour no ill will towards Natalie at all. I know the  soul-searching she went through and the bravery it took to make what she eventually decided was the right decision. We've moved on as friends and parents and I hope and think that we are in a place now where we can both be positive influences on Katie's (and to some extent each other's) lives.

However I also want to make it clear that I resent the unfairness of it all. I hate that all this planning, all the time and effort (and no shortage of money) has come to nothing. I hate that at the end of this journey, including the hardships and difficult times we went through together, I don't have the future we mapped out to show for it. I hate that I was so helpless, so impotent, so weak. I hate that when I did fight it was too late, and when I should have fought I couldn't. 

It might be selfish but it hurts on almost every level not to be the one who gets to reap the rewards that the struggle sowed. Where is the justice? Where is the acknowledgement from fate that one good turn deserves another? Why does it seem like every time I tried to do the right thing and be a nice guy, my fate was to not be what was wanted or needed?

It is soul destroying to continually have to pick myself back up from these situations and continue on as normal - whilst all the time my insides and mind are howling in pain and torment. Everyday there is a moment (some fleeting, some more persistent) where I just wish this was all a bad dream. It lingers, under the surface, but I work so so hard every day to hold it there; and only let it bubble up when I know I can control it, tame it and return it to the depths. This blog is one of those.

My personal situation wasn't the trigger today though. The trigger was two-fold, both intrinsically linked to the ongoing Coronavirus - and I'll admit both pale into insignificance when considered against the unending pain that others are going through. But it is my pain, and just because it isn't as bad as other pain doesn't mean it isn't real to me. 

My dad has been looking forward to visiting for months. He's literally been counting down the days. And instead he had to go home a week early because of the virus. The trip we've been talking about since he got back from his last one consisted of a fun weekend in New Orleans followed by 3-4 days of watching the world fall to pieces and a scrambled trip back to Houston today to get him home to relative safety (and peace-of-mind) before he was trapped here. 

Fuck off world. How dare you! My dad has overcome things I can barely begin to imagine over the last few years and you do this to him? At this time of year? What possible karmic justification exists for this kind of treatment, this blatant slap in the face - frustratingly from a foe with no face. 

I know there is no actual reason for this, there is no cosmic force at play here. This is just bad luck, bad timing. He will come back in October and have an amazing trip, no harm done. But right now, today, it is hard to describe just how big this ball of rage is. He doesn't deserve this.

And the final piece in the "fuck-you-world puzzle" arrived as I was waiting for him to check in at the airport. The border will be shut from the UK to the US. Katie won't be able to come in a few weeks. 

This may seem like nothing to some of you. 

But it has been nine weeks since I heard her laugh in real life, since I watched her roll here eyes at a dad joke without a screen in between us. Nine weeks since we watched a movie with her head in my lap. It is the longest I've been away since I met her. And the prospect of it only being three more weeks till she was here was driving me onward, fuelling my positivity and keeping me focused on my targets.

Now it is June before I see her again. Twelve weeks will become six months. I'll have missed a whole half of a year. Having missed three months of last year too. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Part of the deal I made with the universe was, "OK, so I've lost Natalie - but as long as I can keep Katie then I can make this US adventure work". 

We are nine weeks in and the world has reneged on its promises. My sister will understand this particularly poignantly as she made a similar deal about my mum and her cancer and that too was gone back on. 

I understand fully that this isn't how the world works. There is no "them" to bargain with, no deals to be struck. The world turns as it turns and our existence is not shaped by our words, but our actions. I have no right to be angry, I can be upset - yes - but angry? At whom? No-one has done anything. No-one has gone back on anything. Maybe I should be angry at myself. Maybe I should be asking why I put myself in this position. The only reason I am away from Katie for this long is because I chose to be. Shouldn't my anger be directed internally? And so it is. I begin to question everything. All my decisions. All my thoughts. All my actions. Was I selfish for coming away? What right do I have to complain about an extra few weeks when some people will lose loved ones forever? Am I really innocent in this, or have I made my own demons?

It is a dangerous spiral, a black hole from which there can be little hope of escape without light to guide you back. 

Reading the above, I hope you are worried. I hope you see things that make you sit up and take notice. But I also hope you noticed the bit I mentioned about this not being a cry for help. Writing the above has been painful, raw and ugly. But it has also been cathartic. It has been a source of great pain, but also the release of a safety valve we all need to lift every now and then.

Because despite all of this, I do have my lights to guide me back. My family. My friends. And in the centre of it all, my beacon. Katie. 

I spoke to her before to tell her the bad news that she couldn't come just yet. I didn't realise at the time but she broke down and cried on her mum afterwards. She didn't say anything to me. She was trying to protect me. An 11 year old child once again protecting the adults because we need protecting from ourselves. It was so humbling, and mortifying to realise my selfishness and cowardice. 

But it also filled me with strength, with positivity and with love. All the above is just noise. It can feel like important noise - and if you don't make it regularly then it can become dangerous noise. But it is just noise. It doesn't matter, provided you don't let it. Provided you can find your beacon, your centre, your focus. 

Learn to accept the bad (it doesn't always have to be with good grace) but make it's impact on you fleeting. Make sure when you deal with it, you deal with it properly and quickly. Don't linger, don't dwell and don't withhold. Communication and honesty are the keys to this. Say what needs to be said, scream at the injustice of it all, rage against the insanity of life. 

But learn to forgive the world, because at the end of the day the world is simply there, moulded and shaped by our actions, our words and our thoughts. Forgive yourself, learn to control your demons, let them out when it is safe to do so, and return them when you are done. 

Then focus on what matters. Find and cherish the good in the world. Embrace and love that which brings you joy and happiness. 

Thank you for your time, your love and your understanding.

Till tomorrow, Tom