It’s strange how these things happen. I have been a stranger in the town in which I live, just about hanging onto a peripheral status in terms of social involvement. Reliable (ish) in terms of musical attendance, the odd organised mass social event, but never really fully connected, never part of anything. I visit Berlin, do the same sort of thing, but feel more brought in, more included. If it’s still rather floaty, it feels like that is purely because I am not there so often. Then I come back – and end up, by some oddity, just about getting a little sense of belonging. Or at least the possibility.
I decide to be conventional about my finances and (re)borrow some money – they knock me back and I am then happier being self-financing. I gained strength from realising what I do have, in the darkest depths of considering what I don’t (thanks, in part, to some real kindness). I succumb to cold, hard world syndrome, walk a path that should just reinforce that – and somehow, it goes the road less travelled, not over a cliff, not into a barrier – becomes a stroll in the countryside with friends.
Somehow, out of random chance, of where everyone else is with life, it’s almost, almost getting to feel like I might be part of a wider life. At least a little, at least for a little while. That I can know a bit about people’s lives and they a little of mine, that there’s friendship beyond Utility Friends (where it’s purely that you have a common hobby), but short of Bestest Buddies 4-Eva. LOL.
Out of vulnerability is coming strength. Out of uncertainty, surety.
I am living MY life, no matter what. With compassion and consideration for others, with empathy, sure. But mine. What I want. There’s a core of good, and it may just be part of me. Maybe integrity, real honesty, real truth (in all its scary glory) – all of that is paying off now, big style. Life is not shit. It doesn’t just happen to you. It is what you make it. What you make of all the random things, what skills and knowledge and experience you bring to Plans C, D and W. What creative and joyous solutions you find when it’s improvisation time. If it’s done in full heart, with decent intent, driven by the positive emotions – with care and time and space for others (whilst never forgetting that you yourself are also human and deserving), then, then it has a chance to be a life, not just existence.
A chance at the very least.