It’s Father’s Day in Australia, today. I remember that once I saw a bunch of American posts about it and wished dad a happy FD, and he responded and told me that it was the American FD. I still told him I loved him. I always think of that every father’s day – it wasn’t really a big occasion for us, at least him and me. But it was still nice to do that with him. One of the few interactions we had exclusively over text.

My mother died in June. I haven’t really had any steam to write anything about it, at least any sort of thing that I want other people to read. Maybe a bit of poetry here and there. I haven’t written much poetry before now. Maybe it’s just some long-stymied impulse that’s breaking through, maybe it’s just the only form of writing that I have energy for at the moment. I was still having problems with my motivation after dad’s end of life process, which I was a pretty big part of. This has skittled me pretty hard. I have found myself simultaneously wanting to isolate and take time to myself, heal and get the wolves away from the door, and also be with other people – enjoy some sort of connection, talk to people and distract and cry and just enjoy the sense of connection that I’ve been so long without.

I went for a walk this afternoon. It’s something that I often find myself having to work up to, but then when I’m out the door and in the streets, or at least outside with fresh air and sun and space, I can’t believe that I didn’t do it sooner. I think that at my most normal – I think of it as the most connected – I think I’d like to be working outside, in a natural environment. People around but only at a distance, close enough to see but not enough to easily talk to, a feeling of detached companionship with people I don’t know. Sounds lovely to me – notwithstanding the feeling of intimacy that comes with having a partner at home who I can just be with, drop the walls and enjoy. the company of in a deeper way. Wasn’t that how it was meant to be?

On my walk this afternoon, I sat in the sun and a lady and her little dog came into the park. The little dog wanted to play with me and kept bringing me the ball her owner was throwing for her. All the lady did was apologize for the disturbance and tell me that the little dog would adopt anyone who played with her. It was a nice little interaction and I felt better after it, though I also probably found the sun and all the outsidery that I was in healthy, too.

I need to write here more often. I have a burgeoning To Do list, but the problem is that most of it is also stuff that I want to write. I keep getting these great ideas, scribbing them down. I’ve even gotten to the point where I’ve organised them in a vague sort of way, or at least organised the process of idea capture enough to where very little gets through. Maybe the occasional thing that occurs right before I fall asleep, but even then not often. But nothing is elaborated on, nothing is fleshed out properly. I’ve got so many names and ideas and concepts and little paragraphs typed out, and they’ve never gone anywhere. I should get into that sort of thing. I’ve either been too locking in to what my poor brain has perceived as a battle for survival to have any time for the frivolities of writing, or I’ve been trying to rest and recuperate for the next situation that I can see arising in the future. I’ve been in fight or flight for so long that I suspect that’s the principle lens through how I see the world.

Stupid thing is, even this is out of whack. I have never actually been in imminent danger of losing my life, at least for the last ten years or so since I quit drinking. But I’ve also been so fixated on that idea that the stuff that matters to my mental health – actually writing – has fallen by the wayside for most of these finite years I have. I’ve neglected spiritual survival for physical survival, and this shows in the excesses of my body and horrid self perception that I have of my mental health. I need to try and tune these things up. Stop acting like I’m in the line of fire for some imagined threat, but also give my mental space the nourishment and output that it seems to need to grow. Even just typing this has felt good, and it’s not even about anything in specific, really.

Eventually I think I will get back on track, start writing something creatively instead of bemoaning my lack of output. In the meantime, I think I just need a rest. Maybe I need to stay off youtube as well as the bottle.

And eventually, I’ll feel okay to talk about my mother, my father and everything in between. Might be a little while before that happens, though.