This is the BEST blog post ever. Believe me. It’s the best…

It took a significant milestone in my son’s life recently to jolt me back into reflecting on what really matters to me. After all, that’s why I started this blog – to consider those things/ideas/people that energise me and, by doing so, bring some life affirming kindness into my life. But in the weeks prior to that last entry I seemed to have been inhabiting a confounded dream-like state, holding me back from writing. I couldn’t find my mojo; plenty of ideas but no will or energy to see them through. Each time I’d decided to sit down at the keyboard my train of thought dissolved faster than my fingertips could get to touch it. It sometimes felt as if I had suddenly run out of breath and  was forced to stumble outside, gasping, to avoid passing out.

Having experienced this a number of times over a few weeks I conceded I needed to look a little deeper. Ironically I needn’t have bothered with the heavy duty psychological machinery. The answer lay very close to the surface. Donald J. Trump.

As my family might attest, I’m somewhat of a closeted political junkie. Over the past few months I have been quietly, though quite single-mindedly, cultivating an obsession with the man who  would be Caesar. Every article, left and right, every podcast, every commentary. Anything that might help me sketch a more complete picture of a man who, left to mainstream liberal media, is perhaps one degree away from the Antichrist himself. This obsession started innocently enough – an attempt to break out of my own echo chamber. I have now learnt there is a clear price to pay for trying to burst the bubble of my carefully curated, one-dimensional social media feeds: oxygen.

Anyone who has ever experienced a lack of oxygen, or perhaps an acute shortness of breath, knows how this goes. As the realisation that your body lacks oxygen, that it is struggling to even remain conscious, a deep swell of panic begins to take over. Thought and reason disappear and are rightfully replaced by instinct – a primal drive to survive. And lets face  it, there’s nothing like an unrelenting barrage of “alternative facts” to knock the wind out of anyone trying to keep their head above the waterline of truth.

This is what Trump has been doing to me, to many of us, over the past few weeks. His virtual omnipresence has had the insidious vigour of an inert gas expulsing any remaining oxygen out of the many nooks and crannies of my inner life. He leaves room for nothing else. He insists there is no more room.

The autonomic nervous system exists so that we don’t have to worry about the basic things our body needs to simply survive. My body needs to breathe. And if I were to draw an analogy beyond my physical wellbeing I’d say I need to harness a similar system for the survival and protection of my intellectual, emotional and social health. There are things I need to do and people I need to be with, so I can feel centred and balanced in my own life. These are not negotiable. They must continue to be part of my life no matter who or what threatens to interfere, including the clear and present danger of a hostile take-over of my rightful oxygen.

I’m talking to you, Donnie.

And so my challenge is to ‘stay the course’. Not that I’m out there agitating or protesting against this disturbingly surreal pantomime. Such direct action is not the only way to reassert a semblance of sanity back into our cultural discourse. My ‘staying the course’ is about living my life, on my own terms, and resisting the daily sense of outrage, the perpetual rolling of the eyes and the familiar compulsion to stare agog at the unfolding circus masquerading as a new political order.

I want to use my oxygen for more useful things, for kinder things.

18 reasons to be proud

It was a dark and stormy night. No, really, it was.

February 8, 1999. I was driving home sometime close to midnight. I had just experienced the most humbling miracle of my life up to that point, and had spent the day on one of the most unrelenting emotional roller coasters to have ever threatened my psychological wellbeing. But at that moment, in a state of transcendental bliss, driving home through sheets of rain and blinding lightning, none of that mattered. I was now a father.

It was a rocky start to parenthood for my wife and I. Perhaps it’s a little glib to say we just weren’t prepared, but given our son had decided to arrive 9 weeks before his due date, our lack of preparedness was literal.

Fast forward to now.

Today he turns 18, and whenever I think of even the relatively short journey he has travelled, my heart soars and my knees buckle.

There is much to admire about this young man – his integrity, his sense of humour, the manner in which he inspires respect and admiration from his peers (a clear reflection of the love and respect he has for them) and his ability to genuinely connect with people. These are just some of the qualities that make my chest swell with pride.

The prospect of being a witness to the meaningful and fulfilling life of my son is one of the greatest gifts of being able to grow old in his presence. It makes me feel young again.

Happy birthday my son. I’m so proud of you. I love you. Dad. 

I was there all along…

I had some time off work between Christmas and the New Year. As I approached that time I wanted to do something a little different than just hang around the house (well, in addition to hanging around the house). A little project, perhaps…

A potential candidate materialised faster than I’d expected, and very soon I had decided to scan some slides into digital format. These slides were significant for at least a couple of reasons: they represented a visual document of my very first trip to Europe, at the ripe old age of 21. I’d been overseas before. Well, to be more precise, up to that point my overseas travel had been solely an inbound experience through the migration of my family. This, however, was my first outbound adventure, off my own steam and paid with my own hard earned dollars.

The second reason for the significance of these images was that it was the first and only time I have ever shot on slide film. Over the course of a few months I must have shot around 25 rolls of film. I don’t really remember why I decided to shoot on slides. Maybe I was already anticipating an image sharing economy, something that would conveniently feed my narcissism in a larger social context. In times gone by we used to call these occasions ‘slide nights’. Just ask your grandparents.

This little project has been a surprisingly rich experience, and not only for it’s nostalgia value, which it has certainly served up in spades, but for the opportunity it has given me to reconnect with my younger self – when it was all ahead of me, without really having any inkling what I was looking at. In the occasional image where my face pops up, I can see the passion and gusto with which I was determined to paint the blank canvas that was my future. I am mesmerised by dark eyes looking back at me, daring life to send all manner of slings and arrows. Determined to arm against a sea of troubles the young man in those images exuded strength, confidence and self-determination. Such was the happy delusion of my youth.

Of course, I was ill-equipped for life. In fact, I really had no control over its unfolding and so, as time marched on I often managed to skate over life’s surfaces, avoiding the potential potholes through a haphazard cocktail of luck, charm and blissful ignorance. There were street smarts too, but they did not always help me make good choices. In fact, some good choices were made along the way, despite my inadvertent stumblings and tendencies to self-sabotage (hello, my dear wife).

Despite being reminded of the largely clueless wayfaring of my youth, what this reconnection with my younger self has helped to crystallise, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, is how much of who I am today was already there all along.

This young man, full of verve and vigour, is not altogether unfamiliar. Clearly he exhibited

• an impatience with inertia (I sped through so many cities, always moving from one to the next, that I’m sure I caused whiplash in more than one station master);
• an insatiable curiosity to understand ‘otherness’;
• a nascent love of motorbikes (travelling Malta on a scooter, forced to share narrow roads with large unyielding buses, must have triggered something that lay dormant for many years);
• a love of traveling alone;
• an appreciation for art and the image (I couldn’t get enough of art galleries and I see now that I had a reasonable eye for travel photography);
• a fondness for solitude (I do like my own company and this was an opportunity to enjoy and indulge in all of the above);
• a feeling of being part of a larger picture – humanity itself.

And whilst the person I am today was not an inevitability, some of the ingredients were there, I just didn’t recognise them, nor was I yet able to intentionally fashion them into particularly ‘useful’ shapes. But nonetheless I can now map a rough trajectory (rough being the operative word) that provides me with some sense of a narrative, even if it’s uneven, fragmented, incomplete and generally unintelligible to those around me.

That trip shook me loose, laying bare some of the foundational pieces that make up who I am, giving me an opportunity to hold them in my hand and put them to work. Even now I’m still a work in progress, and the workmanship isn’t always of the highest standard, but this is who I am. The irony is that it has taken me 30 years to come full circle and to ‘witness’, from a distance, a moment when things began to take form. It seems that I have been as much an accidental tourist of my own life as I was during some of those times travelling across Europe. But I’ve enjoyed the adventure, and I’d visit again. And, if I’m fortunate enough to live another 30 years, by then I’d like to think my life will have become my most favourite destination.

Can Democracy get it ‘wrong’?

Warning: This post is my own response and reflections on the recent US elections. It is unfinished and unedited. Inevitably, it has opened a portal into my own political rabbit-warren, and it’s dark down there. This is only one track in those many thoughts. Don’t say I haven’t warned you..

The world doesn’t need my thoughts on the outcome of the US elections. In fact, it’s unlikely the world needs my thoughts on much at all. So, this isn’t for the world, whoever ‘they’ might be. It’s for me, and my way of responding to the insane amount of chatter since Tuesday, 8 November hitting every form of media, information, entertainment, cultural and social platform ever invented. So much chatter. So much noise. So much outrage.

I’ve had many a reflection scratching at my brain these last few days, but the one I’ve found most troubling is the one triggered by the multiple expressions of genuine disappointment, anger or incredulity of so many people, mostly strangers in the fields of  journalism or podcast land, but also some of my closest friends and family. Time and again I’ve either heard or read that the Americans got it wrong. At worst, that those who voted in favour of the eventual outcome are nothing short of ignorant, xenophobic, homophobic hicks with no clue as to what’s really good for them. It’s easy to join that circus, with its viral memes wrapped in thinly veiled condescension, and feel totally justified in holding that position. But the real implication of that posture is far more insidious. The most obvious being not just that the Americans are misguided, misinformed and self-destructive, but that democracy itself got it wrong, and this suggestion is both incredibly disingenuous and dangerous. Allow me to play around with some numbers as a way of explaining what I’m processing…

Over 121 million people voted. The loser actually won the popular vote with approximately 47.8% of the vote count. The winner of the presidential race won 47.3% of the popular vote (the remainder went to a couple of independents and minor players). That’s a difference of just over 606,000 people. Without trying to explain the eccentricities of the Electoral College system, lets just say that, between all Americans that voted as an expression of who they wanted as their next President, there was half a percentage point in it.

So when I hear that Americans are gutted, or that the nation is in turmoil, or even in disbelief, all I hear is a clanging dissonance, perhaps a sign of an imploding echo chamber. Surely almost as many people are celebrating (give or take 606,000)? Surely almost as many people are proud of the outcome, and brimming with hope that their civic investment will pay off in the long run. We may roll our eyes and view these people with derision, but why would we do that? Simply because we dislike the outcome?  I’m not downplaying the vitriolic nature of the presidential campaign, nor am I ignoring the less than stellar character traits of either candidate. And whether or not one candidate is more suited to the oval office over the other is, in the end, immaterial. One candidate lost and the other won because that is the inevitable outcome of any democratic process, regardless of my feelings toward the result. If we now question the legitimacy of the result, or rail against an individual’s right to govern legitimately, then we are also questioning the legitimacy of the democratic process, and therefore introducing into the conversation the inevitable inference the entire process was ‘rigged’. Now where have we heard that before?

Even if we believe we hold the moral and ethical high-ground, unless we wholeheartedly lean into the conspiratorial notion of a rigged process, then raging against strangers we have never met, people with families, homes and real aspirations to a better life, who tipped the balance away from what we hoped, is as myopic and oppressive as that which we have claimed to abhor.

Regardless of whether it was a clean or ugly fight, whether the best person got the job or not, or whether we believe someone made a big mistake, the process provides for a ‘fair’ outcome within the long accepted paradigms of modern democracy. We may not like it but the process has spoken. Unless we can come up with something better we need to work out how to engage rather than insult; how to accept, rather than dismiss. It requires we avoid contempt (not just disguise it) for those who hold a position politically different to ourselves.

Maybe what democracy needs is an injection of humanity. Our humanity. No more jeering from the distant margins of political discourse, but the much harder work of looking people in the eyes and knowing their stories. Perhaps through authentic, personal investment in the lives of others, strangers included, genuine change is possible and sustainable. A very different kind of body politic.

I am Older than My Father

My father died 23 days shy of his 51st birthday. Today I am 22 days away from that very milestone.

For some time now, as this day drew nearer, a question has lingered and provoked me: Today above all days – past the point where our days on earth converge – am I the measure of my father?

It’s a question I cannot, in my heart, expect to be able answer with any degree of clarity. Above all, it is an outrageous question. How can I even approach something so emotionally charged, so compressed by the sedimentary pressures of time and the memory of young adulthood, that its mere articulation finds me gasping for breath?

Furthermore the question ignores my father’s absence. It affords him no right of reply, and robs him (actually, it robs me) of any chance he would have otherwise had to offer some context, or perhaps a knowing smile of acknowledgement and affirmation. And yet, despite my many objections and internal quarrels, I cannot evade its cold, insistent glare.

How do you measure, son?

I lower my eyes and gradually my breath escapes me. I wait for the truth to reveal itself, but in the end, I cannot say. I don’t really know.

But this is what I do know or, at least, remember…

It’s a question my father would never have asked me. Why? Because I firmly believe, rightly or wrongly, that no matter how I turned out he would have sincerely affirmed that I had become a ‘better man,’ perhaps even a good man. This is who I remember him to be – a man with no ego and a simple plan. A man always searching for a way to give his children the opportunities he could never have conceived possible.

He was a man of few words. A man who remained a relative mystery throughout my adolescence, not because he was cold and distant, but simply because I never got around to asking him who he was, and how he came to be. I just assumed I’d get to that topic soon enough – when I was ready. After all, he was going to be with me forever.

I can’t remember him telling me he loved me, and yet I have never doubted he did. Not once. Not ever.

He was a man of singular strength and determination. Having arrived in this country with no English, a wife, two young children and $150 in his pocket, he stuck to his vision with relentless single-mindedness.  He began by working in a factory (I don’t even know what he did there), he learnt a new trade, he often worked multiple jobs and also set up his own little sole trader business. All at the service of the very reason he left his homeland. For his family.

He was a man who struggled with what it may have meant to be a father beyond the assumed role of primary breadwinner. But I also have faint recollections of a particular look in his eyes, one that I feel I may have witnessed countless times but never really codified. It was the look of a man who believed there had to be more to fatherhood but couldn’t quite work out what that was. A man who implicitly understood the limitations of his own upbringing when reaching for an emotional connection with his children. Yet he was a man who refused to accept those limitations; someone who insisted on looking for what eluded him.

I’d like to think he was beginning to make sense of it around the time I turned 18. There seemed to be a sense of increased anticipation and even relief he might now be able to share his life with a young man evolving into adulthood; share more deeply of his inner life and maybe even connect at that emotional level neither he nor I had experienced before with each other.

I remember I had decided to not shave for a while and even trimmed my very fine ‘beard’ to give it some definition. I was looking at it somewhat admiringly in the mirror and my dad walked in. Through the reflection in the mirror I saw him pause. A simple smile formed on his lips, and I remember him saying, “Looks good, son.” That’s one of the last things I remember him saying. He would be forever silent less than 24 hours later.

I’m sure he had his dark moments, his own dusty steam trunk of secrets and shame (as many of us do). But like any father wanting to do the best he could, he refused to allow the weight of his own baggage fall on his children. He was strong that way. He was good that way.

Thirty two years and I still miss him. And today I am older than he was when he left us. It’s a strange truth to process.

Do I measure up? Yes, I think I do. But only because he first offered me his shoulders to stand on. I’ve been standing there ever since.

Cracked Windshields

I’ve been talking to a wise man lately, and he has recounted a story of how a cracked windshield, whilst driving along a country road in his early twenties, pretty much changed the course of the rest of his life. Courtesy of an overtaking car, he was forced to pull over and consider his options. Should he continue driving? Should he try and find someone to repair it? He decided on the latter. That decision had repercussions that rippled through his life, perhaps even until the present day. It wasn’t necessarily an informed decision, and it may have been influenced by a number of other unconscious factors – driving fatigue, for example. Nevertheless, once he had made his decision he proceeded with it and didn’t look back.

Of course, had he decided to drive on it would be more than reasonable to suggest a different decision would still have resulted in the same ripple effect through his life – perhaps not the same outcomes, but nevertheless just as impactful. Who’s to know? Speculation of what could have been will inevitably take us into Sliding Doors territory (or even Blind Chance, for the cinephiles amongst us). A potentially entertaining but ultimately fruitless intellectual exercise.

The point here isn’t that these situations exist, nor that it is highly probable our daily lives include a passing parade of cracked windshields. Whether or not we are conscious of these, such inflexion points permeate every breath we take, and they take the form not of the options that are presented to us, but in the manner which we respond to those options. On reflection some may seem trivial and inconsequential, but others produce seismic shifts in how we will live our lives, what we do for work, where we call home, who we love.

This powerful and sovereign truth is only just becoming apparent to me. It feels both overwhelming and thrilling. Overwhelming because it feels like so much work. I would much rather be swept away by circumstance, taking a path of least resistance to whatever destination fate has in store. Every now and again I’ll be sure to enjoy the view as it rolls by.

But the thrill… To truly be in the driver’s seat, with both hands on the wheel, no matter the twists and blind turns ahead of me, that’s something else altogether.

To bring this level of choice into consciousness is an exhausting prospect, I agree. But it’s the difference between enjoying the view and deciding what that view will be, at every turn. How I respond to an unexpected cracked windshield may determine the beauty and richness of that view.

If I might mix my metaphors, it’s not just making lemonade from lemons; this applies to all fruit based beverages! It’s about what we do with whatever ingredients are at our fingertips at any point in time. The life skill here is being able to find some form of nourishment from even the trickiest of ingredients – and the most challenging life events.

What I’m learning? Be deliberate, be intentional, be conscious, be flexible, be attentive, be grateful. Cracked windshields can really be blessings in disguise.

Safe travels.

The Mean Streets of Adolescence

I was a teenager once. True. Ask my mother. And whilst I may often wax nostalgic about my burgeoning independence as I grew into manhood, hanging out with my friends on the not-so-mean suburban streets of my local neighbourhood, I am nevertheless perpetually surprised I ever made it through those years. Not because I was hanging out with the wrong crowd, nor living on the edge of life-threatening criminality, but simply because adolescence is confounding. It is simultaneously a spontaneous, unselfconscious celebration of life and an unending instalment of ‘The Hunger Games’. You might not end up with a treacherous arrow through your chest, but it still feels like you’re fighting for your life at every turn.

It’s clear to me now how selective the nostalgia for my adolescent years has been, and how I have glossed over much of the drama, pain and restlessness of that period. Of course there was joy, happiness and joyful expectation too, but to suggest that was the entirety of my adolescent experience is to ignore the obvious – that iron is forged through fire, and resilience a muscle that requires tearing (and pain) as it becomes stronger.

I listen to my children and, as they share some of their stories, I can feel a portal open up into a world of long-forgotten emotion – feelings that rub against me as new and as raw as the first time I experienced them. This, I am only just realising, embodies both the joy and the pain of parenthood. I hear them, and when they are in pain I feel it too. Sometimes I don’t realise what’s happening, and all of a sudden I am engulfed by an uncharted sea of emotion I no longer recognise, but nonetheless feels altogether familiar. But what really stings is not so much the pain of their own experiences, but the relentless reminder that I cannot take their place on that journey. I can’t take their hurt away. I can’t feel it for them. This is the fire with which they will have to contend. It will burn hot and, more often than not, it will hurt.

As unnerving a realisation as that is, it presents me with a clear challenge. I may not be able to take their place in whatever journey they are travelling, but that doesn’t mean I cannot offer to travel with them. I don’t even have to travel by their side every time. I’m more than happy to walk behind, at a considerable distance, if that helps. However they decide, or not, to accept my offer (an offer with no expiration), I simply want them to know that, as far as is humanly possible, I’ll be there to provide some encouragement and reassurance, perhaps help with some directions along these unfamiliar streets or even hold them in a restful embrace when all they want to do is stop walking for a while.

The path through adolescence can seem interminable, but it’s a road we all walk through. Sometimes the quality of the destination, and the satisfaction of the journey, is very much dependent on who we are able to travel with, by design or by circumstance.

I know my kids will, for the most part, choose their fellow travellers wisely. After all, we are all allowed a few missteps on this personal odyssey of ours. And if I am even a small part of that band of journeymen, I shall be most proud, and most blessed.

Godspeed, my beautiful children.

Mother Courage

Last week my sisters and I farewelled our mum at the airport. Destination, Europe. Her destination, not ours. She is joining a tour of Northern Italy, France and Spain with a couple of friends for three weeks, before peeling off on her own to visit a friend in Madrid, followed by a set of cousins in Valencia and another set in Ibiza. That’s right – Ibiza. My mother is turning 76 in under two months.

It’s not so much the age at which she is embarking on this trip that has triggered this reflection, although in hindsight I can see, through a social life that’s busier than mine has ever been, through countless ocean cruises and shorter overseas trips she has taken over recent years, how all these have been mere precursors to a much more adventurous life ahead of her. In fact, she has already planned, and fully paid for, a trip to Alaska next northern spring. No, it’s not age which has been the defining factor here. It’s courage.

Despite an emotionally complex relationship with my mother (lets face it, whose relationship with their mother isn’t?), what has stood out to me, time and again over the past few years, is the incidental courage that accompanies a life lived intentionally, and often in the face of excruciating choices. When I think of my mother’s life there are two events (though countless more occassions) that define her courageous quality: the sudden death of my father over thirty years ago, and their decision to migrate to Australia twelve years before that. In my mind, both of those two events have provided a much sharper lens through which to view this woman with whom I struggled to relate as I was growing up, and certainly neglected to appreciate for a very long time.

In the early 1970s my parents decided to migrate to a foreign country in search of a better life for themselves but, more importantly, for their kids. Without a word of English, with three or four suitcases, two young children in tow and $150 between them, they landed in Sydney. I can only assume this uprooting would profoundly affect both my parents, who underwent some deep soul searching to determine how best to forge a new life for themselves and their young family. Once arrived my dad quickly found work and my mum’s role revolved around helping us kids navigate and make sense of an alien environment. What I have often overlooked is that my mother would have felt even more lost than us. We soon picked up the language and forged new relationships at school. We grew new roots and promptly set aside the trauma of migration. I can only imagine that she, on the other hand, would have suffered longer, deeply and silently.

Ever since my father’s untimely and unexpected death, when I was 18, and my sisters were 14 and 8 years old, this underlying quality in my mother has crystallised in my consciousness. She would have felt alone, facing what may have seemed a mountain of a mortgage, three children and barely an income. Whilst grief enveloped and perplexed all of us, as we each lost our way, if only for a short but intense time, things could have unfolded quite differently, if not tragically. In the end, and very much in hindsight, her courage sustained us.

I admit this expression of appreciation has been glacial in its development, and there is plenty of regret for me in that. But here I am, grateful for being one of many recipients of a special legacy that has clearly exemplified courage as not simply a posture, but a character trait that, above all else, exists to pave the way for others.

Thank you mum. Love you.

 

Tilting at windmills

“When you get on a horse you don’t just sit there, you ride the horse. I mean, what’s the point of getting back on a horse if you don’t actually go anywhere?”

So goes an increasingly frequent rebuke aimed in my direction by my increasingly wise son. He is referring to a post I published in early August, after over twelve months of not publishing anything. Since then (I think it was the following day) I published one thing – a shaky missive on my decision to disengage from Facebook. It was OK.

More telling was how it felt to write something again. Unfortunately not as cathartic as I was hoping. In finally broaching my own publishing silence, I was clinging to the possibility of a more enlightening experience, something that would help break through my barnacled creativity.

I’ve realised that my son is right. I can’t just sit on the horse, I have to go somewhere. As delusional as his adventure may have seemed, even Don Quixote had the courage to continue riding.

Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them.

Time to battle.

Dear Facebook, it’s not you, it’s me (well, maybe a little you…)

It’s taken me a long time to write this. Mostly because I couldn’t work out what our future might look like. Turns out, at least for the time being, I can’t really see one.

I’ve also been worried about being misunderstood, of the risk that my words would seem disingenuous at best, and condescending at worst. Please don’t take them that way. I don’t mean to offend. This is very much my experience. Regardless, I owe it to myself to shake this monkey off my back and explain why I’ve needed to put some distance between us. So please, don’t turn away just yet.

First, what I’ve liked about our relationship – and there’s plenty to like.

You’ve been quite the catalyst in getting me to reconnect to old friends and family, including those on the other side of the world. In most cases it’s been fantastic to reconnect and reminisce. Couldn’t have done that without you. You’ve also been a constant encouragement with regards to my little pursuits such as this blog. Thank you. On occasion you’ve also been a curious, if not always helpful, source of news, information and trivia. And we’ve shared plenty of jokes. That’s been fun too.

But we plateaued a long time ago. It’s been much of the same, only more of it, much faster, much louder and much more difficult to manage. If I wasn’t careful there’d be days when all I’d be doing was to wait for your responses, your affirmation, your admiration – at the expense of all that was in front of my very nose.

And perhaps this is the real point. You’ve maintained your momentum in this relationship, and over time increased it’s intensity somewhat, even in unannounced, unnoticeable increments. Regardless, I’ve needed more space, and a slower pace. Essentially there’s been a growing chasm between what I need and what you can give me. I don’t blame you, nor do I hold it against you. After all, I believe the terms of our relationship were fairly clear from the outset. But now I need to opt out.

I think I’ll stop here. I did have a few things I originally wanted to point out – well thought out reasons (allow me my delusions) for increasingly feeling like I’m gasping for oxygen whenever we are both in the room. On reflection it might read a little too ‘judgy’. In the end I want this to be peaceful and open ended. Lets just put it down to my developing pathological introversion, and leave it at that.

Having said that, nothing would be more pleasurable than my friends still wanting to connect with me (as I do with them), letting me know how their week has been, or what they’re thinking about, or maybe even arranging a drink or two – but I’d rather they did it directly and not through you. I have lots of work to do on that front, as in some cases I’ve taken for granted my friendships, and assumed the proxy you’ve provided was enough. I’m afraid it wasn’t.

So, for the time being, take care, and “thanks for all the fish.”