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.