the months leading up to this moment were a long bumpy process: I'd started the year on a high, after returning from a pretty awesome trip with to japan. Things were really bright especially knowing I'd be comissioned to work on a large installation job for Ben and Jerry's on my return (which was quite fun).
I'd left japan with a bit of anxiety though, Jac and I had fought on the last night and even though there were lots of good times, I couldn't help but sense a drift and that the trip had just highlighted many complex things that I wanted to bury and just float on. The installation job was really interesting, but all together probably a bit too taxing.
There were many days when I would question everyhting and get very very little done. How many meters of chicken wire does it take to make a 2 meter hollow whale-cow? or how do we make a 12 foot purple caterpillar ? and having made it, should it glow in the dark? How will we suspend the huggy-hands? How do we make giant tears swirl upwards and mutate into globs of orange goo?
While cute, these were questions I had to takle on an hourly basis for 2 months, and I soon found myself locked into an existential calamity. I would stand in ikeas and textile markets holding up sheets of cordouroy asking Stuart if it felt chocolate-ty enough, arguing in the lighting section with Maurice about the density of materials needed to pull the catterpillar's torso off.
Meanwhile, things between myself and Jac seemed to be deteriorating at a rate I couldn't comprehend. I found msyelf at ends with everyone. I couldn't seem to wrap my head around people's happiness, or their lust for life. I couldn't understand why I wasn't more fulfilled. I mean I had a perfectly chirpy existence, get to paint coke bottles into cow-skin colored penguins for a day job, liked my life and was (in hind sight) really really loved by a fantastic girl.
but the fight in Japan was raised more and more and lay between us like the DMZ, and our sparse meetings started turning sour, we agreed to seperate a week before valentines day, and for the first time ever, I started crying after drinks.
The installation was over. and with it, all my distractions.
I fought with Jac more often and decided that it wouldn't be a fantastic idea to end the seperation on valentines day, so we did it the next morning.
Singlehood began at this place called the boomerang bar on a humid Friday afternoon. It lasted about an hour, while I cheerfully ate a steak sandwich and enjoyed a few pints with Stuart, Eric, Daniel, Kelly and Peter. I eased its way into simple conversations, and wandered through my phone calls and SMSes, into 'I'm sorrys', 'oh, oh shit. are you ok?s' and then of course the more cavalier 'but they're so many fish in the seas' and 'welcome back to the clubs' ( I know, I know, its so arcaic but you dont stop hearing it)
By this point, things were getting strange. I felt cut off from anything wholesome. I went back to work at the office, which made me a little happier (just to be surrounded by people and normal predicaments again). The weeks that followed were a very turbulent series of fluctuations between having it together and 'fucking it'. I was able to pull myself together in small bouts, and the work kept me working, I even got some nice briefs.
So I'm staring at myself in the mirror. telling myself to be bold, be charismatic, be caffinated, be inspiring, be arrogant, be anything but who you are right now.
The meeting itself is tight, we manage to get all our ideas though (I think) and I'm still a ghost (I know this because after the meeting, I'm hovering around the exit desperately trying to land a smile on someone but no one sees me.)
I opened up the windows this morning for the first time in a long time.
I hope the sunshine helps.
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