My Summary of 2011 and what 2012 may be.

A new year is almost upon me.  A year is almost over.

With the New Year I am faced with the conundrum of my life. 

I need to make a decision whether I should be investing my money in my hobby when there are so few with whom I can share it with.  Indeed there are a lot of people at the club I frequent whom I know and do so dearly hope are my friends.  Yet my, perhaps clumsy, attempts to encourage contact outside the club have amounted to little.

So I surround myself with my hobby.  I go through the process of believing that I have lots of people to engage me with my hobby, but the sad evidence of truth is that there are few.  Few if any phone me and have chats with me on any regular basis.  I have very few visitors that aren’t related to some form of transaction.  I have little but the constant pain I live with and the loneliness that comes from being a recluse. 

2011 has not been a good year for me.  My pain has increased exponentially along with my feeling of isolation.  So my days are filled with nothing to do but suffer in silence and solitude.  I normally paint to take my mind of things but for this whole year I have not even been able to find any joy in this activity.  I let a number of people down by my malaise, yet in the end I have no control over this darkness.  I apologise to those who were affected.

So you may ask what my days consist of.  My day starts with me waking to the depressing awareness that I’m still alive. I scoff five different forms of prescribed drugs and then hope for the best.  I then spend a day brooding with pain and suffering.  Yet for all that I suffer I still place the needs of my wife and children ahead of any thought of care for myself.  I am husband, father, decision maker, problem solver, peace-maker, magician, priest and bard.  Somehow I manage to get through the day until the evening when I take another batch of drugs that allow me to sleep.  This routine is unending.  With little contact outside of my immediate family you can only wonder why I’m not any more unbalanced than I already am. 

So I come back to why bother?  Why should I bother spending money on things that are ultimately only going to sit on a shelf and stare back at me with accusatory eyes?  What is the point of feeling smug and conceited with what I have accumulated?  So I sit here at this crossroad wondering where my life is going to take me in 2012.  Do I continue my sad existence, or do I decide that I’ve had enough.

I guess 2012 may be about me.  Maybe that’s the decision I have settled upon as part of the process of writing this piece.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to do this as it is not in my nature to be self-serving.  I will however be trying to enjoy life, I’m not sure how that will happen – but I will give it a go.

As I wrap up my waffling for another year I think that I need to make a few comments for 2011.  I need to thank Rebecca Weir for her generous kindness to me this year.  It made all the difference to me and I appreciate everything she has done.  I’d also like to thank Luke of Phoenix Forge and all of those anonymous people (although I can probably guess a fair number of you) who contributed to my birthday present in July.  I was gobsmacked and humbled that people thought I was worth something. Thank you.