Lockdown Ramblings

I recently almost killed the Ginger Quiff website. I had reached a point where it wasn’t giving me any joy, it wasn’t serving the purpose I first started it for. It felt like a chore and I was putting myself under stress and pressure to get some content up. I began to see it as an unimportant “nice to have”. And in many ways, it is. Nothing I write is going to change the world or have a massive effect on anyone’s life. Well, that’s not entirely true, it has made a massive difference to my life since I started writing. In the grand scheme of things though, if no one reads it, it doesn’t really matter, it is the writing of it, the release, the off-loading of thoughts that makes a difference to me.

Unfortunately, along with the thoughts about my blog came the realisation that this was just the tip of the iceberg, the wheels had been coming off the bus for a while. I’d been ignoring the signs or was in denial that anything was wrong, but I realised if I didn’t make some changes, I was going to lose a lot more than just an insignificant dot on the worldwide web.

In a Rut

Nothing I did was giving me any pleasure and I was living in a world of extremes, at times consumed by my own thoughts, sitting stagnating for hours on end stewing in my own juices and achieving nothing. On the opposite end of the scale, there were times I couldn’t relax and felt the overwhelming need to be constantly productive finding loads of unnecessary or insignificant tasks to do to keep me busy.

I was in a rut; all I did was work then move to another room and sit on the sofa in front of the TV (or feverishly run around like a headless chicken). All I really wanted to do was sleep the clock round.  Everything around me held a varying degree of irritation or dread. I must have been a fucking nightmare to live with. Strike that, I know I was a nightmare to live with

I woke up every morning with the same sense of impending doom. But instead of tackling it, I attempted to push it to the back of my mind, largely aiming to ignore it and get on with whatever shite that day had in store.

Bad Habits

I started getting into old bad habits. Writing down seemingly endless lists of things to do, in a vain attempt to try to empty things out of my head Those were quickly replaced by other thoughts, so they got written down too, to the extent that nothing was achievable. Or I made it so. I’d completely forgotten how to live in the moment. I’d forgotten how to be impulsive and not live my life based on a list of tasks or to do lists.

Simple meditations that I had managed to master over the years were now impossible without my mind drifting almost instantly and filling with unhelpful thoughts. Panic set in and the ever-present gnawing nausea re-appeared front and centre.

Luddite

I also realised (again) that technology is not my friend, whether that be the internet, streaming music, the evils of social media, or my falling broadband and useless laptop. The more I use certain aspects of technology the more I hate it. I would get too wound up about everything. Each minute that passed and I watched a blue circle spinning or saw a message saying excel or word is not responding, I would get more and more anxious instead of letting it go, telling myself I was going to fail because of this… I’m nervously laughing inwardly as even as I’m typing this, as part of me is stressing that I should be doing something more productive.

People are my nemesis

And then there are people. In many ways people are my nemesis. Well, not all, people, just most people. I jest. They are, however, probably the one thing in life I am most afraid of. Not afraid of in the truest sense of the word, more that many interactions with other members of the human race fill me with dread. How do I explain this without sounding like a sullen old reclusive killjoy?

Since I’ve been allowed out of isolation having served my 14-day sentence, I’ve still rarely ventured over the threshold other than to do the weekly shop. I prefer to stay in. Part of me started panicking when I heard about the vaccine. There is an end in sight, and I might need to return to normal life.

Solitude

To an extent, this is nothing new. This has been my default setting all my life. I am essentially a solidary individual. But it doesn’t mean I don’t like people. Well, it does mean I don’t like quite a lot of people, but you know what I mean. From a young age, I have preferred my own company to that of a crowd/group. Sitting in my room reading a book was preferable to going out for a game of football (perish the thought). I hated virtually all forms of PE at school, apart from Cross Country, and especially those that involved being part of a team. I would enjoy disappearing off on my own and bird watching or sketching for hours on end. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have no friends; I could probably just have counted my close friends on one hand. Nothing much has changed.

Of course, I enjoyed (and still enjoy) a good night out with friends. But I also ventured out to gigs on my own, and still do. There is still a sense of isolation in a crowd that I enjoy. When I was in my teens/twenties, I despised, nay dreaded, house parties, thankfully I don’t experience them much now, but a big crowd of people, the majority of whom I don’t know, and I’m expected to socialise and mix with? Well, that is my idea of hell. I was always the one in the corner hoping I could blend invisibly into my surroundings, or the one who drank too much to try to boost my self confidence and instead became an emotional melancholic wreck.

Off the hook

In the days before mobiles, go to some lengths to avoid calls, I still hate making and receiving phone calls. If I do need to make a call, I spend too long planning what I need to say and suffering anxiety about the conversation not going the way I expect or had planned. Receiving calls is worse, you are unprepared for it – what if I don’t know what to say? With old style home phones, I would even leave the phone off the hook (no wonder my parents didn’t get the calls they were expecting) until it was a “safe” time to put the receiver back, just to have an excuse to stay in my bedroom on a Saturday night listening to records and re-arranging my vinyl alphabetically or reading a book.

You see I was (am) also shit at saying no, I’d end up agreeing to plans and going out and being miserable all night. Avoiding the situation was much easier. And the thought of going on holiday with a crowd of people and spending a whole week or 10 days in their company would give me the shivers. No escape, no opportunity for solitude. As a result, I’ve never been on a “lads” holiday. I preferred to jump on a train with my bike and head up to the Highlands and spend a week entirely on my own. Bliss.

Own World

Despite my slightly tongue in cheek comment earlier, it’s not that I dislike people. I’m just often happier and more comfortable in my own company. I adore spending quality time with the people I love, going for a lovely meal out with friends, socialising at a gig with pals. But there comes a point where, no matter how much fun I’ve had, how much I’ve enjoyed a night out, I feel overwhelmed by the world around me and I want to withdraw into myself and disappear into my own space and my own little world.

So, you’d think isolation should have been perfect for me, and in a lot of ways it was. When other people were moaning about having to work from home and missing going out and human interaction, I was celebrating the fact that there would be no awkward situations I hadn’t planned for, I felt more in control of circumstances. That feeling lasted for some time. But on reflection, the comfort of that situation is what brought me to that tipping point again. The routine became a rut, and when I was forced to come out of that comfort zone for any reason, my anxiety levels hit me like a shovel to the face.

Full House

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has come to the realisation this year that, due to the situation we have all been in, there is never really an opportunity to truly have time to themselves. And in saying this I totally appreciate there are people who live on their own and who are desperate for any human interaction. The house is full, I love my family, I love spending time with them. Lockdown I believe has made us closer as a family in many ways.

But sometimes I don’t want to talk and the way I deal with that isn’t very family friendly, as I mentioned before, I have been a nightmare to live with recently. I withdraw into myself more, my wife and kids don’t know what version of me they are going to get and end up tiptoeing around me and treating me with kid gloves. That’s no way for them to live either.

Contrary to the feeling of comfort in my own space, not going out hasn’t allowed for my own space and has conspired to exacerbate things. Even gigs gave me time for self-reflection and alone time despite being in a room surrounded by people. Despite what my head has been telling me, I know I need to get back to some sort of normality. I honestly don’t think I’d ever want to go back to exactly the way things were before all of this started, but I admit I need a better balance.

Cathartic

I’m going to be honest and say that I’m writing it because it is cathartic for me. I’m writing it because for many years I used to think I was a weirdo for feeling the way I did. But I’m also writing it because I know there are countless people out there who feel the same, and I know I sometimes find comfort in reading other people’s stories and recognising I’m not alone and maybe if one person reads this and feels any sense of comfort then fair dos.

I’ve decided rather than kill the blog and cut my nose (quiff?) off to spite my face, I need to get back to the reasons I started my blog. I need to get back on an even keel and not remain as the grumpy pernicious cantankerous old luddite hermit I know I’ve become.

One thing that has been welcome constant this year is music. 2020 has been a phenomenal year for new records. The postman probably hates me, but opening a new package with a shiny vinyl or CD is something that has kept me at least a wee bit sane. Long may it continue… I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

Like it or not, I’m back. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.