Some days the thread is thinner.
There’s not the elasticity or durability and it’s worn and used.
Not a great metaphor for how I’m doing, but I don’t really want to snap or break.
Not feeling it, not really enjoying the days, not seeing an answer.
If I knew answer, I’d fix it. Heal myself.
Frustrated about circumstances, lack of a break and having things thrust on me.
Not much other than keeping going I guess but it has a price.
Above is the confirmation from match dotcom that the profile and account are deleted.
I gave it a month.
Had one chat, that didn’t really lead anywhere but a decent amount of ‘views or looks’
My conclusion is that the people I was interested in probably already had chats with other men.
I had looked at ages 39-58 and set searches 10, 20 and 30 miles from me.
Had nothing specified on height/weight and my only real insistence was for non-smokers.
I didn’t feel there was much for me in the 100 cards offered by Match.
I looked at ‘online recently’ and ‘their requirements meet yours’ too.
I think being widowed I’m looking at people older than me and instinctively thinking no.
I’m somewhat unsure where that came from but definitely means I need to scale back upper limit if I look again.
That’s not to say that they weren’t attractive or interesting. My foible.
At lower end, I initially looked at 39-45 year olds and then stopped, my feeling was no, that’s wrong for me and my feeling that they wouldn’t be interested.
Realistically that left 45 to 55 year olds and certainly twenty to thirty suitable profiles that I could have contacted.
I didn’t.
My confidence wasn’t there.
First, I think I’d drag someone down, I look and think, they seem okay and I’d be a lead weight.
Second, I’m looking and thinking she’s a 6,7,8,9 and I’m a 3 maybe 4 at best. That may or may not be true, but my feeling is that I wouldn’t be likely to get a chat never mind anything further.
Third, my circumstances. I could have a great chat with someone and then be stumped when it came to arranging a meet at a coffee house type place. That’s how poor my free time is.
Fourth, I’m conscious of how I look and that I’m balding and grey and I probably look older than my age.
Halfway? Midway?
Partways Through.
I’ve looked older than I am for a long time. Balding, Grey Hair.
Maybe I’ve looked at it too far ahead, but I have in my head what to do.
Senior.
Older/Elder/Mature – whatever.
More labels
Autistic/Disabled/Widower/Sole Parent.
I already have enough.
Alone.
I guess, I had an idea in my head that if it didn’t work out by this date that I’d quit.
Zen Monk.
Zen – chilled acceptance, at ease with my situation and there for the kids.
Monk – alone, no partner, with no one, chill and thoughtful, celibate.
A concept that I’d just find a way to accept and do that as I’d hit a point where I’d look stupid continuing to look/ continuing to think there was a person to save me.
Having a bit of fucking dignity.
Keeping my head up.
Philosophy, Psychology and it also means a little less of all this and a little more about writing on other things.
My journey in widowerhood. My struggles with mental health and autism. My feelings, emotions and issues. The loneliness. Emptiness, Loss, Damage.
I have to now go with my plan, less descriptions, more living, less being and more being aware. Less hurt, less crying, less heartache, finding my place, finding a way.
I’ve wished everyday it was me and not her. I’ve had so much to learn and so much to try and so much to do.
Yet I haven’t the time when I have time. After 3 years, she’d have moved on. She’d have started again, she’d have taken it on. She would be 42. Plenty to live for. Plenty.
For me, it’s different. I have to give myself to the kids and particularly my boys. I have to prepare them for adulthood with what they have.
I maybe don’t need a distraction. I have enough to do with the kids and I have company with the dog.
Maybe I need another dog.
If you’ve read and followed my posts thank you. But I think it’s time that I self described and took my journey privately.
There will still be things to write about, but now is the time to do that and make the milestone work for me and not to be a millstone.
Peace and Love to you.
Again apologies to Selfcare with wall.
Can’t argue with that. We don’t get what we give. But even the successful marriages can be lopsided.
That’s a harder one. Generalises that everyone acts same way. But right to say to be aware of other people.
True, we are all too amazing, but we can’t always find that someone and we settle in the hope of things getting better.
Someday. I don’t know, it presupposes that there’s a right one out there or another similar soul. It’s much more random than that, but asking if someone likes you is very difficult.
Which past? 1990 me? 2000? Me 2006 me? 2019 me? – I’d prefer to be not as life experienced as them.
Hmm, am I? as I’ve stopped looking for my own sanity and I’m still trying to figure out things. I’d be a liar to say I’ve chosen celibacy. Maybe it isn’t enough and maybe I do need challenged on that.
Yes, yes it is, but time is different for all of us. I can be three years after my wife’s death, that doesn’t mean I’m anywhere near where I’d like to be. Rationally I know that she’s dead. Emotionally, not so easy to say that I’m anywhere good.
‘The greatest love of all, is inside of me….’ – but, self love seems a bit weird. The concept is okay, love thyself and all, but knowing yourself is acknowledging your faults and weaknesses, past mistakes and errors in judgement. Sometimes, it’s hard to see what to love about yourself.
‘My life’ – ownership. ‘It’s a privilege for them’ – I don’t know. I’m not sure many would say it’s their privilege to have me in their lives. Sure, I may have been the person that helped or didn’t judge or who actually got it, but that doesn’t make me essential.
Feelings are difficult. Self-respect is tricky as you need to know that you have some moral code, some ethos and that you always conduct yourself by it. I guess the thing is that we can deceive ourselves. ‘I was too busy then’, ‘they deserved what they got’.
Been my respite weekend (or weekend off) and it’s just me and dog.
Slept through all day Saturday after waking at 7am. Didn’t wake again until 5pm.
Had a more active day with a big dog walk early and another this afternoon before light faded.
I can feel or think whatever and it doesn’t really matter.
I can cry/mope/wish, but it doesn’t matter.
I tried.
I failed.
Nothing is going to come out of the blue, I have to slowly get myself amongst people again, have actual friends and then maybe/perhaps.
I have a weekend once a month, apart from lunch on Friday, I’ve not really been anywhere or around people.
I removed a burden, an expectation, a hope.
Yep no-one to be with or around is tough. I’ve said it all before so no point repeating the beats from previous posts.
I just have to keep coping and keep working on my health and mental health.
It is how it is.
A night last week where I slept really badly and it left me time for thinking.
Maybe not the right time or circumstances to think, but I had some things in mind, for now and after holiday with the kids.
Realised that being myself (widower/carer/autistic) makes the whole dating thing difficult and that past attempts in October and February really weren’t enjoyable. I had thought, oh, I could try in August, but, I’m thinking I leave it maybe longer.
It’s not to say I don’t need company or intimacy but maybe recognising that I’m not in the right place and that a new relationship wouldn’t be a fix-all.
I tend to add up period separated and period since Lyndie died and it’s probably closer to eight years maybe and perhaps, I could frame that differently or whatever but, it’s a long time since a day to day regular relationship.
I questioned if it’s celibacy, involuntary celibacy, but whether it’s definable, I don’t know. I’m certainly not a woman hating incel or someone just seeking sex, so the definitions and descriptors are a bit of a challenge.
I had to think whether there’s anything else and look at things like Aromantic and things like that. I don’t think I am uninterested or fit the definitions. Certainly an interesting read.
I had sort of thought that my next birthday, 50, was the point to sort of chuck it, accept that it’s probably just me and try and hold onto a bit of dignity.
I don’t know. There’s certainly people single and dating using the ‘seniors’ apps and sites and I don’t really know much about that. Maybe keeping an open mind is better than just dismissing it.
I think, the point that I’m trying to get to here, is that I know a relationship might help, might be a welcome distraction, but that I could risk completely leaning on that person and that’s unfair on them.
I need to pick up other threads in terms of my life, in order to balance it all out. If there’s anything to do after the holidays it’s maybe looking at gym/fitness/swimming for my own general health and my dodgy knee in particular.
I haven’t got anywhere in terms of meet up groups or activities or daytime sort of things to do that I could squeeze into a term-time day and I haven’t really been able up use respite time to go out etc.
So, I’ve a lot to think about that I wanted to do after I was less shocked and less griefy but, maybe two years behind on due to the pandemic.
Maybe the answer is to think some more, find things that’ll give me contact with people again and try to rebuild some confidence first, before taking a giant leap at disappointment with the dating apps.
It’s not a easy sell balding/grey, nearly 50, autistic widower with childcare responsibilities for disabled kids and restricted time off weekends/evenings.
So, it’s maybe better looking at fitness, looking at social things that might allow me to build on myself.
All in all, I don’t know. I’ll figure it out a bit more as I go.
I’m a fan of the Glasgow band Gun. They’re celebrating the 25th Anniversary of their first album ‘taking on the world’ this year with some special concerts in November playing each of their first three albums night after night.
I’ve owned ‘Taking on the World’ on cassette, CD and as a digital download.
Ten Tracks, forty odd minutes stayed with me from 1989 as a seventeen year old to now.
Can’t Get Any Lower has meaningful lyrics for me.
Life I dont see the meaning now
Love I’ve lost all the feeling for
Time won’t wait to work out why
I’m losing this fight in a private warEmpty life is a warning sign
Locked away where the sun don’t shineCan’t get any lower
Cos I’ve been down before
And this time no one told me
I can’t get any lower
This connects with me as I’ve been as low as I could twice in my life with mental health conditions.
In 2002, I was in a strange place, I had moved away from my home town for work.
I was struggling after a string of flawed and failed relationships, I had also previously taken a revolving credit type bank account (a combined current account/loan/debt arrangement) and was deeply in debt.
My work was pressured, it was as high as I really got in my career. A lot of good enjoyable work, travelling across the UK and dealing with different contractors as well as negotiating things myself.
Things took their toll, I slid, I got down, I struggled. I had been coping badly with heavy weekend drinking as my main crutch.
But my work suffered and at the start of 2002, I did something wrong, my boss picked up on it and made my life living hell afterwards.
It was something important it was a mistake I just shouldn’t have made.
I then struggled with anxiety driving to work, I couldn’t sleep I struggled on day after day. The demands got worse and worse, sparing the details, I stopped wanting to live.
It was one night about 12 years ago.
I needed Medication, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and Counselling. I was fortunate I had someone in my life at that point who caught me.
My life stopped. I slept, I ate little, I did little.
I couldn’t comprehend being clinically depressed. I wasn’t that person, I didn’t know or understand what I had did to myself and exactly how I had been reduced to that.
I slowly got better but was also hounded into calling my boss every Sunday on my work mobile. He didn’t accept that I was ill.
I went back to work. I’d lost a bit of weight in the period I was off and I shambled a bit as I was very nervous about returning and very scared of being sacked.
People were concerned for me and I got a nice reaction to coming back from my workmates, but not my bosses.
I wasn’t harshly treated day to day, but wasn’t exactly favoured either as I got better and more able to cope again. I left on decent terms but at my leaving interview that boss regarded it as some kind of contest or battle of wills between us. (For me it never was, I just wanted him to understand me)
Effectively, I was never given a pay rise at any annual pay review as my work wasn’t good enough for him, even after I returned to work.
He had read up on eye contact and believed my lack of eye contact with him at all those confrontative meetings meant I was a liar.
I’ve learned in the last few years that I avoid eye contact as I’m a good bit further along the autistic spectrum than most other people, I’ve never been any good at it. I can have conversations easily without looking directly at people. I frustrate those that care about me.
I’m due a medical appointment for to be assessed for adult autism in the coming weeks. Many of my issues and problems come from how I communicate with others and how intake things in and express them outwards too
National Autism Society is it autism?
The last verse of the song is more hopeful.
Get ready
Get ready
Can’t take any more
Get ready, get ready (get ready for the heartbreak)
Get ready, get ready (gonna pick my pride up off the floor)
Get ready, get ready (there’s only one way to go)
Get ready, get ready (can’t get any lower, can’t get any lower)
I’ve been that low. I’ve self managed a condition most of my life, I’m not always able to manage correctly socially or otherwise.
I’m conditioned enough to get myself through the day and mostly be ok, I can’t always get it right with people, so I give up or don’t try.
I can write and express myself online in a way I can’t through speaking.
I’m not obviously disabled, I look a grumpy big guy.
I keep going I don’t want to let anyone down. I fight on, it’s a fight against myself.
But I don’t let myself get low, I’ve been as low as it gets and I fight on, I have to and I will.
If you suffer from depression get help. There is a way back up, it may not be easy, but you can do it.
If you know someone that is, or seems depressed, talk with them. A kind word or two minutes of your time can help a great deal.
Mental Health is serious and important and deserves proper funding.
Autism is important and needs understanding and funding.
Chic Gibson - A blog of sorts 