COLUMNS

Chris - Thursday 31st January 2002 - 12:25am

I am not a nice person. Oh, I consider myself to be a good person fundamentally� just not a nice person to be with in day to day life. Maybe in small doses� I am kind often and consider myself to be very generous. I no longer worry about money now that I have it. (Whoever said money can�t buy you happiness.. well, they�re both right and wrong. It can�t buy you true happiness but it can take your worries away) I have hobbies.. I have my music and travelling and my interests in things such as baseball and literature and my life is full. My every waking hour is filled up with something and I am no longer bored�

Or so it seems.

I would die without routine. Every facet of my life is controlled by routine. I set the alarm for 6:20am so I can hit the snooze button twice and still get up in time to get the 7:30 train. I stand in the same place on the platform every day. I go out the same exit at Victoria. I get on the same tube carriage. I go the same damn route into work, say a solitary hello to the security guard who knows my name but I don�t know his and go up to the office, sit down and don�t move for about another four hours. Every day is like the last� completely made out of routine. I need that routine to feel safe.. to feel in control of my life. Stability is the name of the game.

The routine doesn�t work though because I discard them minutes after I�ve thought them up. This week I�ve started using the Weightwatchers points system to try and lose some weight because, to be honest, I�m pretty fat now. Takeaways and beer do not equal the healthy option. And this has started quite well�I will maybe have some soup for lunch and then a salad or a lower fat ready meal for dinner at home. Then I will wait two hours and perhaps browse the internet, or read a book, or write something, and then I get on the exercise bike and do 2 miles, do another half an hours reading, then 2 more miles� and so on and so on until I�ve done 10 miles. Then I will shower and go to bed. That was the idea but already the routine is shot, I find myself snacking on crackerbread regularly (at least it�s not chocolate) and, because there aren�t enough hours in the day to do my pointless reading etc I end up trying to do 10 miles of cycling all in one go. I actually stayed at home today and worked from here because I didn�t shower last night and convinced myself that I would drag myself out of bed earlier in the morning to do it. Needless to say, I didn�t and eventually emerged at 9am. What a fuck-up I can be (and a strange one at that). My main achievement today was doing the washing up. Trust me, that�s an achievement for me.

I hide behind a fa�ade. I appear in control most of the time to other people. My temper has subsided over the years. I no longer show my anger as much about some things to the outside world. Instead it just seethes up inside until I need to hurt myself. I don�t cut myself like an old friend of mine used to do. I hit myself instead, slap myself round the face. Or I will punch a wall as hard as I can.. not pulling back in the slightest. Just so I can get a reaction of pain. The anger dissipated I will curl up in a ball on the floor and cry. Self-pity comes too easy.

I hide behind a fa�ade. I write friendly e-mails to people about how my day is going, what I�m going to do that night, perhaps something about work, what is happening the rest of the week. All of it true. But there�s the things I don�t mention, about the emptiness that is eating me up, about how all I need is to feel that someone cares about me. And sometimes wanting to tell certain people how much I think of them but being scared to. And ohhhhh, I know that people do care about me.. deep down. But when I�m out there at a gig, or in the pub, talking, laughing, drinking� it�s friendly enough but I get the feeling people around me would rather I not be there. When my e-mails aren�t answered or my calls aren�t returned I get the same paranoid feeling. That people are just being nice for the sake of it and hiding behind the same fa�ade that I feel I�m being eaten up by. Does everyone�s life have a secret closet full of unrevealed feelings?

I hide behind my front door. I didn�t step outside today. It didn�t feel safe to. I almost cheered when I found that tin of chilli in the cupboard because it meant I didn�t have to go to the store for food and I didn�t have to even get dressed. I could just sit here in my Homer Simpson shorts and my Husker Du t-shirt and go on the internet, listen to music and watch CNN. So much for making the most of every day.

I hide behind my front door. My neighbours might be nice people but I don�t like to see them. When I�m leaving in the morning I open the door to the hall and if I hear someone coming down the stairs I will go back inside and wait until they are gone. I�ve met my upstairs neighbour once and she was nice. We shook hands and made polite chit-chat of the �pleased to meet you� variety. She invited me up for a drink anytime I felt like it but I�ve never been. Because like I said before, I�m paranoid enough to feel that she�s just being nice for the sake of it. That my neighbour hates me already even though she�s only met me for 20 seconds.. a fleeting few words in a hallway. It is no surprise to me that although I see people almost every day, I feel insanely lonely.

I have not had a drop of alcohol since last Saturday night and for that I am proud of myself.. I am clinging to that at the moment and it�s the reason I think I�m being so fucking honest for a change�. How I can let some of this stuff out and to hell with what people think. It�s certainly not whining because I�m not feeling self-pity right now. I�m telling the 100% truth for a change. Because I NEED to pull myself out of this dull mess that I�ve implanted myself in. Four goddamn days without a drink� that�s the longest it�s been in a long long time. And I have my routine set in place already� modified from before of course� I won�t drink at home any more. Only at gigs� and not so fast as is my habit�. And maybe a diet coke between drinks.. blah blah blah whatever. But there are three Murphys sitting in the fridge and a quarter full bottle of Jack Daniels in the cupboard. When I was sitting in the bath earlier they were calling to me and I thought �oh, I can just have one while I�m writing this. It won�t hurt.� And thankfully, I didn�t have it. Yet I haven�t managed to throw the bottle away.

I hope I can get out of bed tomorrow. This morning I said to myself I would be in bed by 11pm. It�s now after midnight. I�m not surprised.

--- Chris