Rob in response to a recent Daily Promt, wrote a piece entitled ‘Surfer Rob’s addiction to the analog blog‘.

It got me thinking, and as I later said to him in my second comment (because his blog ate my first one), I have little scraps of paper everywhere with bits of my life on them, books of poetry, most of which makes me cringe when I read it now and many many half started and then discarded diaries.

Before The Indecisive Eejit was born my best attempt at a blog had been one called ‘The Trouble With Me’. I started it just over 10 years ago when I was going through a difficult time.  It was an outlet, and very few people knew of it’s existence. At the time it helped, but as life changed and I got better I stopped updating it and eventually made the decision to close it altogether.

12th November 2002

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As of right now things are not going to bad, I have just passed through a little phase in my life that I shall for ever after call my “episode”…….what that basically means is I lost myself for a few weeks…..I was smart enough to be able to realize though that something was not right and marched myself off to the doctor. My doctor is fantastic she has a very calming manner and just listens and regardless of her diagnosis at the end I left feeling better because I had shared some of my problems.

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Basically I am fighting fit….but a little down in the dumps…..ok perhaps an easier way to describe it is mildly depressed…..my doctor applauds me because I am aware of what is happening and trying to rectify it….however should I not be able to pull myself out of the pit I am currently in……well then I have been advised to think about going on happy pills……or as I would rather not refer to them, anti depressants! Well I have to say it is amazing the difference being told you have to go on anti depressants makes, I got up at 6.30 am the next morning and scaled Ben Nevis with a smile on my face from bottom to top! NOT!!!!! Slight exaggeration on my part there but I did take my mates dog for a walk and grabbed some valuable me time and you know what it worked…I did feel better.

I never thought to keep a back up. All my poems were in books, or on scraps of paper. It was just the diary entries that were lost, or so I thought. Unbeknown to me Lee had kept copies on his computer as I had been using his hosting space and he was my chief web guru. A few years back he sent them all to me. I was delighted.

I went looking for them again the other night and located them on an old external drive which I had used to back up my previous PC.

It’s weird looking back 10 years and trying to remember why you wrote all the things you did. With my poetry I can still remember the reason behind every one, but with the writing it is not so easy. The saddest thing of all is reading the entries and realising very little has changed. It seemed that even then I suffered from anxiety, my worrying was a problem and I’ve been battling little bouts of depression ever since.

16th November 2002

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I went and sat beside the sea today, it’s something I haven’t done, or maybe felt the need to do in a long time. I needed to try and clear my head of all the clutter that was inside it. I love the sea…especially in Winter, there is something calming about standing at the waters edge! You can scream as loud as you want but no one can hear you against the roar of the waves as they crash against the rocks. I must have looked a lonely figure standing there…..and that’s how I felt today, like I wanted to cut myself off from the rest of the world.

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Sometimes I feel like I am 2 people, there is the Me I show to others…..the one who smiles and laughs and is game for anything. The one who is generally on an even keel but can sometimes be a right grumpy cow. Then there is the Me that only I know…..the quiet me, who thinks and worries about everything…analyzes everything and is totally paranoid. That’s the me who writes the poems and keeps the diaries….perhaps I feel a need to remind myself how I can be…and on really bad days remind myself how not to be.

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Sometimes I wish I could get the two me’s together and sit them down with a nice cup of coffee, I would quiz them both on what they feel the trouble with me is….and ask them can they offer any solutions.

Given that I am now moving swiftly into middle age, pretty disgracefully it has to be said, it is unlikely that I will change now. I’ve been me for a long time. There are still be bits I don’t understand, and the chances are never will.

Would I change anything? Of course I would, because hindsight is a wonderful thing, but for the most part my friendships and relationships would remain the same. I’ve already established I can’t change me, so my thinking would have been the same, meaning that in all probability so would the outcome of each of them. One change I would make in this regard though, would be to not offer my heart so easily to be broken. I’m not sure it can be mended now, and besides if I can’t love myself, how will I ever allow anyone else to.

My Heart as an Apple

I have a heart,
it’s an open book,
show me affection,
I’ll give you a look.

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Speak to me kindly,
treat me with care,
show me devotion,
and my heart I will share.

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I was just like an apple,
with a shiny new skin,
you loved the feel of me,
but ignored the within.

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Now I am wilting,
cause you want me no more,
the skin is still perfect,
but you devastated the core.