I feel low today. Demotivated. I feel like I need to do something but I can’t conjure up the energy within myself to do it.
I think it’s a little bit of “be careful what you wish for.” Jim had been quiet and the past couple of days I found myself wishing he’d post something. Especially in light of Terry Hall’s passing. Years ago I’d freak out if he went quiet. I’d start to doom think – begin to worry if he was okay and start to be concerned something had happened. Of course it never had. Then I would be scornful of myself for caring so much and give myself a telling off. “Jim’s as fit as a Mallee bull” as the Australian colloquialism goes, “dinna fash” – as the locals say when appearing to fuss or stress over nothing.
Then yesterday he posted with his review of the year/“best of” kinda post. Mr “I don’t look back” seems to have at least reviewed the past 12 months. I do wish he’d stop with this “never look back” business. It gets a bit tiring after a while. It’s always said with this air of superiority that grates on me. Like, he feels “a better person” for this perceived lack of desire for nostalgia tripping. Except he constantly contradicts himself with it and cannae even see it.
Good luck with “never looking back” while writing your memoir, Jim!
Without even thinking, I replied to his post. It’s something that has been such an unconscious response that I did it without any second thought. Until after I had posted it and thought “Oh, you fool! There you go again. Straight in with a response. As if he’s waiting on your response. HE DOESNAE CARE! WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO GET THAT IN YOUR THICK SKULL?!” I guess I could have deleted it. Or just responded on my blog instead but the action was so spontaneous – as it has always been that I just initially didn’t stop to think.
Then I keep going back to the post to see if he has liked or responded to anyone else. Feeling a weird sense of relief that he’s responded to no one at all. I don’t feel alone.
I keep thinking about the person who described Jim as “esoteric.” It’s a good description. I think about it in relation to Jim’s previous post in which he talked about the fans being “our tribe.” But there are those who are within an “inner circle.” They’re the REAL “tribe.”
I loved feeling involved. A part of it. If not right within that inner circle, then at least able to delude myself I might find myself in it one day…or something like that.
It was always just that sense of wanting to matter.
Today is the winter solstice and a lot of people are sharing the SM song Solstice Kiss. My mate, Birdy, sharing a photo of her signed CD – “Solstice Kiss Birdy.” A reminder that I was not “worth it.” That, combined with the weather and the disappointment in myself for STILL desiring that sense of exchange with Jim that long passed – eating me up inside.
These days it feels like I write AT him, not TO him. It has ALWAYS been one-sided. It very rarely was two-sided. I have held on to those little exchanges for so many years. It’s ridiculous. And just when I feel like I am getting stronger and getting over it, a few days like these are enough to bring me down into a spiral.
Wishing for a word from Jim. Terry passing away. Telling myself that Jim will be fine – he’s fit as a fiddle! A word about Terry from him would be nice. I think of “Skin” (Tony Donald) and Alan McNeil and the contemporaries of his that have left us and I get maudlin. That time for us is precious. It’s nearly Christmas.
He posts. Present for a moment, then gone. It’s solstice and there are no kisses. Not even a like…or anything. And I have to try and stop myself from wanting to “talk” to him, because it’s absurd and it doesn’t matter. “It doesn’t matter to you, it matters to me”, to quote Bono’s line from So Cruel. I think it is probably just about my favourite U2 song. Certainly is from my favourite U2 album.
I have a Christmas dinner meet-up tonight. Birdy and I are out with our friend, Michelle, to have tea at a local Vietnamese restaurant. And I am trying to get myself in the mood. I don’t want to be the wet blanket tonight at the tea. I have been looking forward to this meal and the “girl’s night out” for weeks…and now that it’s here? I just want to stay home and curl up in bed.
So…in essence, one must be careful for what one wishes for.
Tomorrow is the last Kerrsday before Christmas and … oh, Lord is there something visually splendid coming to the Priptona Weird blog! Look out for that! Other than that, it’s gonna be a quiet old Christmas and I should probably just bury my head in my uni study because, there ain’t nothing else doing.
I wish I could write something good…
