Trying to work it out

Only writing can save me now. Must get out of Yeadon. What am I doing in Yorkshire? When I love Exeter so much? What is the whole “get a job” thing – particularly when I already have a job for Matt?

What is going on with my teeth? Oh, how I wish I’d never gone to the dentist!

Being in Yeadon I can feel the gloom approaching again. The gloom that wasn’t there when I was down in Exeter. Thinking those darker thoughts about life as a whole when it’s just life here.

Again: why must I be in Yorkshire? Or has that time passed? I guess I will only find out when I go to Rothwell and sleep in Carl’s garage: more mad stuff.

Claire? My dad? He’s never going to die, is he?

Why can’t I live in Exeter? I love it there, and I’m healthier when I’m there. Must get out of Yeadon. Why is there even a question?

There isn’t. The question isn’t Yeadon – the answer’s obvious there – the question is Yorkshire.

Rothwell first. A night or two. See Claire. See how it feels, what arises.

I have a football game scheduled in Exeter for Saturday. What a fool! Why do I keep doing that?

Ed’s room? Living rough and free? I’m so tired of all of this…

God, you are such little help to me, really. How do I even know it’s you that’s communicating with me? So many mixed messages. Messages to live humbly and like everyone else. Messages of grandness. The triumph of the individual. The subversion of any kind of effort or standing out or separation from the masses. None of it makes any sense. From who come these dreams? From where my compulsion?

Where is the example of someone living how one should truly live?

Where the person I would look up to, and want to emulate?

Not among my friends – not Matt or Shawn or Shane or anyone.

Not among anyone I know about.

Only Amma – the craziest person I ever met, and the only non-crazy person I know. And how did she get to be how she is? By separating herself. By saying, no, I’m not doing what everyone else is doing. By journeying to the edge of madness and forgoing anything of this ‘normal’ life.

None of this makes any sense. And yet, here I am, hurtling towards old age and death, still none the wiser, with a foot in neither court.

I would marry someone if it were the right thing to do. But who?

Claire with her desire for babies, pointless chatter about trivial things, living on a boat in grim Yorkshire, pubs and beer drinkers and a life I despise?

No, I don’t think so. And yet…I would, if it were the right thing for me.

Sure, I love her, could love her. But not in the way she would want. Women demand. She doesn’t want me, and probably never did, just wants an idea of me, a me she thinks I could be with a bit of moulding.

Women. Amma and Mother Meera never showed any interest in any of that – so why should they tell me to walk down that path?

Because they’re different and know what’s best for me, and did what was best for them?

Prove it. Prove that by me. It’s just too much to take it on faith.

And Mother Meera. Always something there. I should go back and see her. I should take a trip somewhere…

Anyway. Do you hear me God? Are you out there? Are you real?

Sh, little Rory, you’re about to walk down paths you don’t need to, inspired by circumstances you could change in an instant. You don’t feel well in Yeadon; as though you were sitting in a noisy pub, simply remove yourself from it. That’s all.

You’re right.

And Exeter? I wanted to go there – I was all ready for it – but then what of the Leeds train station song and the Elise-related dream? What was that?

Was it that I should have stayed up here for something? For Kelly Burton?

No, not that.

Was it that by delaying my journey to Exeter things would have maybe worked out better with Elise?

Possibly. But that ship has sailed.

Was it that I was supposed to do something with Carl? But what? Can you really seeing me doing that job of his? It sounds so dreadful and vague and…I’m not sure I could do it anyway.

Helping him start a place where people can gamble? That’s hardly ‘right livelihood’, is it?

There’s only one purpose for his job: money.

And what of Mexico then? Is that “the job”? Should I really be making preparations for that? Is that where I was supposed to be a year ago? The end of my road? The place I imagined was promised to me after that whole weird America journey?

Or something a little closer to home? An Exeter PGCE? The whole old thing I wanted to do back in 2002 – except that too has been accomplished.

I don’t know. All I know is: I can go over to Rothwell today. I can check in with Exeter Ed. I can find out what’s going on with Mexico. I can write to someone in Exeter about a PGCE. I can look forward to a couple of weeks work on this thing with Matt. And sort out the weekend’s refereeing. And do a spot of laundry.

A to-do list. There’s not much more I can do than that. Alone in the world and with no help in sight, no one to turn to. No ‘Spiritual Father’ to whom I should confess my sins (what are my sins?) And no one, it seems, who knows the answers to these questions – except, maybe, for my ‘visions and dreams’, which may well be leading me to oblivion anyway.

Hey ho! It all ends in death when all’s said and done, and there’s no getting around that, no matter which road we take.

Weird old thing, this life…