Begin again

As you may have noticed, this project fell a little bit by the wayside. I continued to make entries in the journal, but I just started to lose time to transfer them to the computer.

My time in London continued and extended. In total I spent two and a half years in London. I got a girlfriend, moved out of hotels and in with Kirsten, got burgled - twice - learnt to dive, visited Egypt, Malta and La Palma, lost some friends, gained some more and generally got on with life.

Then came Christmas 2009.

In the space of two weeks I moved back from London, changed job and split up with girlfriend.

In short, I changed everything. Again.

I also made a simple New Year's Resolution. I would do one thing each day that improved my life somehow. It doesn't matter how big or small the change is. It doesn't even matter what the change is. It just has to improve my life.

It's not going so well. I have a tendency to miss days, or forget, or be too tired, or generally unmotivated. It's also hard to think of something you can do EVERY SINGLE DAY.

But it's working.

In the past five months I have quit smoking, started learning to drive, built a media pc from the ground up (age old dream) and reconnected with a number of friends I don't see nearly enough. I've also started some serious exercise, been sailing, been to an alternative club, picked up a hobby that I gave up over ten years ago and helped a couple of friends build the floor of their house. Life, in a way I can't always define, is better. And I think if I twist so the lights at just the right angle and I squint a little, that I might just be able to see happy from here. Or at least content.

I still don't know who I really am, and I haven't really worked out what I want out of life, and now I've got the time I'd like to return to this project and see if it can still work.

So I'd like to invite you to join me on a little journey I'm making. It's called life. It's pretty cool.

Desperately seeking something

25/10/07
25/10/07 by about five minutes which invariably means I'm drunk. I also have the remains of a beer around here somewhere.

But that's not what I want to write about. What I really want to write about is something I've been putting off for a while - I just finally have to accept is true. I'm an attention seeker.

You've almost certainly noticed. It's not like it's something you can hide. Now I can justify it in many ways. Well, one really, but that's not really good enough. I don't thing I should be an attention seeker. I don't want to be one.

Actually I don't really care. It's just what I do. I spent the night singing karaoke and being filmed whilst doing it. I played to the camera - badly. But I still played to the camera.

A good friend of mine - hey Kelly - once said that you can't get over a bad childhood any more than you can get over a good childhood. I had a good childhood - and it's probably something I should spend a couple of entries on - but it still defines me on too many levels. In some ways I'm not sure if I've grown beyond it.

I'm the youngest of four. I'm much more than that, but ultimately it always comes back to that. I can't help it.

Ask any elder child and they will tell you that they had it harder than their younger siblings, and their right. But the younger siblings also had it hard. It's in a completely different way, but it is still hard.

We never get over our childhood, but this requires too much time and space to fully explore. It's also too late and I'm too drunk. But it's important. So that's what I'll talk about next.

All that's really important now is that I'm an attention seeker, and of the four of us I'm the only one who's single.