Cool, cool cool cool.

Up the creek.

I don't remember getting on this boat. I don't remember why or when or how it happened, but I have been on here for a while. Bailing water out of the bottom and trying to plug up the holes. It is hard watching others sink, it takes people so long to realise you can’t plug the holes with stuff. It doesn't work like that. These holes aren't really in the boat. They are in us. We are bleeding lead and poison into our boats and it is dragging us down. So you bail as fast as you can and you get it all out and the boat starts to rise, and that's when you notice one of the holes is gone, and you smile and another has vanished. That's it. Positives plug the holes, so now you don't have to bail; now you can spend a night out, go, party, enjoy your life and when you get back everything will be fine. It’s not; it never seems to be on this boat blog of mine. You have left it to long and now you are scrambling to get the water out, and that's when the voice kicks in. You are going to drown Lee. No. You are going to drown and no one will fucking care. No. Give up, you are going to anyway. And the holes are back, so positives plug the holes up and negatives bore them back in? Correct. So what is the bailing? Bailing is keeping yourself level enough to exist while the water floods in and you can’t create the positives. So.. we basically just keep doing this until we are alright? Yep. That's kinda shit Lee. Oh I know, I've been doing this for a while now and it doesn't ever really get awesome, well I have to get back to bailing now otherwise, well you know, death and all that. WAIT! Wait, why don't you just pull up onto the shore?? Tried that, this happens to be the river of my life, sounds cheesy right? But it’s there. So you pull up onto the bank for a while, but sooner or later you have to get back in the boat and when you do you realise you haven't really gotten anywhere. So why not just pull up on the bank and spend that week repairing all the holes? Tried that as well, but there are things you need to do that. Like mallets? And timber? And various hole plugging things? No. Like therapists, and shrinks, and happy pills and time off work, and money for trips to Fiji. But why not still do all of that? Because when it’s all done there is still the chance that the holes can come back, the boat is never permanent. It always changes. So what do you do? Spend your whole life paddling down the river? That's the plan, one of three things will happen. Option 1. You give in, let yourself sink and sit on the bottom for a few peaceful moments before your brain runs out of oxygen filled red blood cells and you die. Option 2. You paddle far enough down the river to find a place you can settle for; you slide up onto the back, get comfortable in the mud and accept your life for what it is right then and there. Or my current goal. Option 3. You get good, you learn the lesson that there will always, always be holes in the boats and you manage your brain enough to fight them with the positive hole pluggers, and if all else fails you get to be the best damn bailer you can be. You keep that up for as long as you can until you get where you really want to be going. Some rivers are long, some are short, some go on for infinity and some grow as you do. They can take you anywhere as long as you are willing to paddle that way and they always end in something good. There are waterfalls and rapids, rainbows and kickass colourful fish. There are scary things and awesome things and everything in between. But in the end, there is only one real way to go and no one else can paddle for you. So come on buddy, get back in the boat. Stick your positives in the hole and follow me into infinity.

I found myself that day.

 

You bring yourself back in like you were never gone. No dust, no marks, no mould, no problems. Just a few rooms all for you and your madness, your brilliance and all of the little that go along with you. Art supplies and a room full of clothes with your tattered and muddy ones in the corner. What a woman. Knee deep in it everyday and beautiful every night. Anybody would think I was in love right? Ha, they do. They already do and they don't even know the story, or the smile, or the fireplace and the magic. And then we talk on the phone and I want to punch your face in. "And that's why you love me" she says.

I found myself that day, there was no other way. I spent some time away, I'll never be the same.

 

Created by Courtney Chapman

 

 I let my walls down to damn fast, I let the wrong right people in. People that get it but cant be there, reliability has to be a quality of the people you let into the house in your head. You have to be able to trust them to be there when all hell breaks lose and you go back to being the madman on the run. I've mentioned it before I think, this big house in my head. It came about sometime after I read The Redemption of Althalus by David Eddings, which is brilliant if you are interested in any sort of fantasy. It was a metaphor for my mind that I grew really attached too. An infinite house, with paint peeling and locked doors, open ones and rooms for guests. A sprawling mansion with wings I didn't even know existed until I come upon feelings that I have never felt before. There are permanent rooms in there, places for me and for other people I know will never go. There are rooms for music and insanity, there is desk and a pencil for writing and even places I try not to go anymore. but back to my point. I let people in too much, I'm trying to correct that, put the breaks on my emotional connections because that's what they are, you can call them friends all you like but you pour your heart out to someone enough and shit starts heading into that weird grey zone. Even if it doesn't for them it still puts you in an odd position. So I hope I don't come across as a cold fish. I'm just trying to protect the people I care about and myself from the inevitable insanity that stems from being attached to the impossible.

A relationship gone past has been tumbling through my house lately, slamming doors shut and blowing others open, letting memories out I really don't want floating around. They are armed missiles set to destroy my mood and my day. Considering times gone past and rumours blowing up chunks of happiness. I don't often talk about what I did because it has become so twisted in my head that I don't really know what happened. Do I have an explanation for it? Or am I just trying to justify my actions for decisions of a past that other people have apparently forgotten. Is this all just a case of my loneliness making my pine for a partner? Or is it my brain returning to the pattern of the aftermath where I went psycho again. I don't want to go back to that I have been doing so well keep my anger down to minimal levels, and then you bastards had to go and start laughing and blow it all up again. people are weird.

Not created by Courtney Chapman

The picture. Some of you may freak out at this, and I did think about it for a while before I decided to add it in. I wanted to show you rather then tell you what its like, this circle of thoughts in my head. it like watching your life roll by with bad reception. Greyscale colour and so much snow you cant see a damn thing. You brace yourself for the drop into depression and you want to rip your hair out and scream but you just have to keep going. You have to tell yourself this is only for the moment, that things will get better no matter how often these moments come you will beat them. There are days when I give up and want to die. there are days when all I feel like doing in going back to the metal and the lighter just to feel something different, to let my brain process those sweet, sweet endorphins that come after the pain. But you cant. You have to handle it like an adult, you have to push through everything and just keep fucking going. The static is the worst though, you roll up your sleeves and prepare yourself to do something positive, to change your life and be better but your mind throws decides something else entirely. Suddenly there are these road blocks and stop signs and excuses not to go, the snow gets turned up to eleven and now not only are you suddenly waist deep in reasons to stop yourself, you also cant see why you wanted to do it in the first place. Build a snow plow out of good memories and upgrade your headspace to digital reception.

 

I have this amazing friend, a real ticks all the boxes and twelve out of ten sort who carries around a lot of emotional baggage from her past and all of the things that have happened to her along the way here, and it got me thinking. Emotional baggage, we all drag it around for no real reason until we finally build up the strength to let it go. Past relationships, denials, rejections, bad days and horrible memories all zipped up and ready to go in handy wheel along packages. What for? To tire us out? or slow us down? Why do we keep these things with us for so long? Because when you really think about it when has anyone ever described anything akin to positive emotional baggage? It doesn't exist! it isn't a thing, its simply not there, its not hidden in your toilet bag or packed into your just under the limit carry on. It is inside us. It sounds cheesy when I write it out, but all the positive stuff, the good things we keep to keep us strong and shuffling along this road of ours all comes from inside. It isn't something we carry, or pull along or push in trollies, we keep it in our heads and hearts for easy access when things really go south on us. Maybe that's the key to being happy, keep the pockets of positivity inside bigger then the emotional baggage you are carrying on the outside.

Sometimes I write because I feel like I might say something brilliant other times it is because I need to get things out of my head. Today it is the latter. It may not have been written well but it has been written and at the moment that is all that really matters to me. I'll be back again when things get real or better.