'til the break of dawn

A few years ago, a friend put me onto a Thought of the Day email subscription, from a wonderful place in Convent Garden. I always think of childhood, Enid Blyton and ballet when I hear of Convent Garden. I know nothing of the place today or in reality. I find these daily emails simply lovely. Sometimes redundant, but more frequently calming and warm and fuzzy. Even if the day's particular thought isn't of pertinent meaning or significance to me, I still find that it provides a moment of pleasant respite or distraction.

You are reading the first post of uncharacteristically ok phase 2. So fitting that I should start this after one of my thrice-annual scoobs. There is a new subheading. I thought of re-subheading it as Beyond The Boy Genius or Everything But Boy Genius. But Post-Depression seems more apt. I having been listening to The Rolling Stones and Neil Young alot. I'm at my best driving along in the summer weather singing Old Man at the top of my lungs. But this embarrassing image is purely to illustrate that I have broken a new dawn in happiness.

In a modern world of online persona construction, I am even going to take the liberty of deleting some past posts. It's an interesting exercise.

So from here on, I hope I will gently steer this blog in a more interesting, 'healthy' and useful direction. Today I sailed through some open water swimmers in the No Boating Zone, so that's a start.

If I think about why I am happy now it isn't immediately clear. What I have done and how I have changed in the past 2.5 years has happened so incrementally that I feel it might be noteworthy* to try and harness some of these reasons to be cheerful*....

I live on my own. I am interested in and open to living with other people again, but very happy on my own. Even the fact that I've virtually hamstrung myself financially by doing this isn't a downer, instead I feel grateful, almost blessed, that I manage to scrape together the rent each month. But because of sailing membership fees, friendly debt payments and general spendings, this month's rent will be a major struggle (or at the least the week after). So I need to sort myself out and get better at counting and saving my beans. Even this dismal situation is looked upon with faith and commitment to sort it out, rather than from a depressive perspective. My G.P. said my anti-depressant is 40% placebo but gently smiled as she endorsed my glacial severance from this medication. I'll take the 40% and the advice that new man friends need to get sexual checks. Bit of a cold spoon! I retorted.

I'm listening to The Rolling Stones. Music can aid moods (in either direction!). I have been listening to alot of music lately.

I have been exercising, but not in a revolutionary way. Swimming is an amazing activity for me. Sometimes I think I might indeed be 0.3% mermaid. Each time I see the Special Man Friend (formerly BG), I do expend a decent amount of life-force energy wanting to devour him but am relieved when I end up in bed alone. Another day passed with my body NOT ON DISPLAY. I personally think it will be interesting to observe if and how my bodily image will change in a potential new relationship. My body image is okay, just okay.

Lets bring the brain back to domesticity. A harmonious and relatively clean abode does wonders to my state of mind. In fact, so much so that in this moment of weighing up value in and enjoyment of blog writing, versus 8 hours sleep and fending off domestic disgrace, I choose the latter. Continuously challenging myself to use my computer less.


*two of my Dad's favourite things: Ian Dury's "Reasons to Be Cheerful, Part III" and the oft-used word noteworthy.