Finkin'

Times ticks on. Remarkably, about 6 months since I sat down and wrote a proper journal entry – though there have been little bits here and there, and emails in between. I guess I got more into ‘facebook stories’ and memes and pictures. Those say something. Some kind of creative expression.

Even more disturbing, three whole months since I upped sticks from Leeds and quit the biking job – for, here I am, back in Leeds, back to a wee bit of biking, having mostly just bummed around and got sucked into my little world of online distractions. Though that’s not strictly true either: I’ve spent time with Matt and Easterly; landed lucrative and promising work with Matt – work I can do anywhere; visited Perlilly and fulfilled a few things with her; and stayed at Andrea’s and seen ever so clearly how incompatible both she and London are for me.

I’ve completed my refereeing promotion attempt. Now just to wait and hear how they’re not going to promote me and be free from that too.

Hard to believe that’s what played such a role in getting me back here. Silly dreams and ambitions of ‘making it’ as a ref. I’m obviously not that good at it, nor cut out. But at least I’ve found out for sure.

More and more of that mode of life: looking at things and watching them disappear. It feels like something, some sort of progression – shedding attachments, ideas, desires, in a real world way – but is it really? What about that quote from Amma, “searching for God outside ourselves is like trying to catch a fish by emptying the ocean”? That seemed kind of apposite. Is that what I’m doing? Emptying the ocean by investigating and then discarding every little non-God thing I can think of?

Anyway, it’s all by-the-by: decisions are going to have to be made soon. I’m supposed to be moving to Exeter next Wednesday! Yet every time I think about it I feel weary and always say it’s something I’m ‘supposed’ to be doing, not something I want to do, or feel to do. My enthusiasm for it has waned.

Then Carl offers me to live at his place in Rothwell, and maybe work for him too. Well, here I am back in Yorkshire at just the right time for that – but does it mean anything? Does it mean I should do it? I feel so little enthusiasm for that also.

And then there’s Mexico, the possibility of working in a school in Cabo. It may seem in accordance with the whole ‘plan’, for where I was at 9 months ago – picking up, perhaps, the trail that went cold? – but also little enthusiasm for that.

Meanwhile, I still have Colorado so strongly in my brain. Still see it everywhere I look. Talk to Abbie on the phone and feel genuine excitement, a wanting to do it, to break in again, to repeat the whole mad Canada and cross-border thing, much as it was when I talked to Shawn in May 2014, nearly two bloody years ago. My dreams and other people’s dreams. Crazy America! But it’s the only thing that appeals to me.

I don’t know what to do!

I don’t know what to do – but then, what else is new? At least I can say what I’ve done – though it doesn’t add up to much. Mostly what I’m thinking about it is my goddamn teeth, which probably means another trip to London. And being sort of committed to this refereeing up in Yorkshire at the end of the month. And how I wish it would all just stop, that I hadn’t got my teeth done, that I regret thinking myself so clever cashing in on free dentistry ‘while I’m here in England.’

Goddamnit, the body’s falling apart and there’s nothing I can do about it. That sucks.

Nothing much to say, you know. Too many directions and headaches for the future. Nothing to report from my past. People ask if I’m depressed but I don’t even understand the question. And my jaw aches. And the only person I’ve been jealous of in recent months was a woman dying of terminal cancer. She was sad cos she felt there was so much to live for. I couldn’t understand what she was on about. Travel? People? Fun? Felt like I’d done all that and had my fill. Felt like I could’ve happily traded places with her – but would I really? Or am I just being cavalier and flip, having contemplated death so much? Yet it will come to us all – so why not today? Why have to wait?

Being ready to die should give a man the greatest freedom: it means for him the world is done, there’s nothing more to hold him, but since he lives on anyway he may as well do what he wants. Living on, though, doesn’t seem to have that effect on me: I think, well, since I have to be here maybe I should do all the things I don’t want to do that will provide for perhaps a pleasant and stress-free existence, like work and buying a house and, even, ideas for providing for an old age. Isn’t that what it’s all about? My thoughts that I should have a property, so there’s some sort of income, so that I can go off and do whatever I feel? Why not just go off and do whatever you feel in the first place? Have I ever truly wanted for money, for something material?

No. I haven’t. Indeed, I’ve been blessed, with abundance. Even in America, when I perhaps shuddered a little at my financial situation, I was never at less than $300, and stayed in lovely places with good people. It’s just never been a problem for me. And now I’m seriously loaded. And being seriously loaded, as is my wont, I hold on to it tighter, and have an even greater desire to be more loaded still.

Mad, isn’t it?

I’ve got nothing to say, really. Just looking for an answer to all these questions. Should I give up on Exeter or not? Should I offload all my possessions in preparation for being free? Should I make plans for America once again, and perhaps once and for all? Should I leave behind this silly world of houses and too much computer use? And what about my bloody goddamn teeth?

And Rothwell and refereeing and Mexico and all these women who want me to make them pregnant…it is a bit much, isn’t it?

And: you know what? If it wasn’t for the internet I wouldn’t have any of this. I wouldn’t be getting messages from Carl. I wouldn’t have got the email from Veronica when I was in Cabo. And several other things besides. How bloody lame!

In a nutshell: quit the internet. Do what you always said you would and just have a phone number. Let people call you, and you call people, if you really want to get in touch. Make a decision about Exeter, and let Bart know. Go see Carl, if you must, and if there’s a feeling there then maybe follow it, but it doesn’t seem to have much promise, other than being something free and easy and yet another goddamn ‘place to write’ that you won’t write in anyway ‘cos you don’t have a goddamn ending – which, of course, Mexico or Colorado may provide.

Talk to the Mexico woman later (14.30), and feel heavy about that. Maybe call the psychic called Eileen, and hope for answers there. And maybe think more about Greece, a get away, something to do for the next few weeks. I ref on Sunday (the 10th). I need to get my teeth/face fixed. I’m supposed to ref again in Leeds on the 27th/1st. Nothing scheduled after that, ‘cept maybe some work for Matt. Time there in between. Maybe go to the doctor? I dunno. But I guess it’ll all work out.

Oh, if only I wasn’t so bloomin’ lazy! But I am. Oh well.