Letter number 29: Distraction pieces

Dear Alexandra,

I’ve had a really nice day today, after struggling yesterday somewhat. I got up early and went for a longish walk — just shy of 7 miles, I felt great, I walked at a decent pace but rested en route. One long reading break, and a couple of short pit stop sit-downs, so whilst my activity app will say I did it at a good pace, there were some breaks in there. I felt fine though!

There was a chance to spend a little time at home with Sonic before heading out to meet D., A., A and D at the pop-up restaurant Annie set up in Nottingham. I was there a little early (practically late by my standards!) but still first there by a long time! It was great to see everyone — none of them are aware of details, they didn’t really ask — it was great just to talk about normal stuff, to be honest.

We had lovely burgers, I stuck to soft drinks — we lingered after enjoying the sunshine and more drinks and chat. D. shared a sneak peak of the video we recorded for the band a couple of weeks back — it looks great, I get a really good face shot in there too. It’s a bit sad that I was looking for it, but there you go, a little bit of posterity in the history of the band for me! I’m chuffed about it! Obviously I was fully bearded then, so I look a bit different now! But still.

I headed to see J. and T. on the way home — they invited me over for a barbecue but I pre-warned them I wouldn’t be needing feeding, and I was right — but it was great to spend time with them too. We talked a little about the health scare — they told me off for not ringing them since they’re so close by, I must admit the thought hadn’t occurred at the time — I rang 111 obviously then defaulted to reaching out to my Mum. It’s a useful reminder though.

Whilst J. is aware of what happened I’m not sure if T. is, we didn’t really talk about you although you came up in conversation a few times, more in passing or reminiscing about particular events rather than what has happened more recently between us. It’s been great to spend a few hours amongst people not thinking about stuff, which I’ve been struggling with the last few days since being off work. Sherlock Bert has remained relatively active in occasionally monitoring your social media.

He’s not had a lot to report, in truth. Hopefully he tires of it and relents. He did find a TikTok video you posted (I’ve had words with him about this, one of the first things I did when we split up was to delete that bloody facile app). In it you described yourself as Bisexual, which is interesting. We’ve talked about that before, as couples do — you never identified as that before, you found some women attractive but on an aesthetic rather than sexual level.

Maybe you didn’t feel comfortable admitting that to me, which is understandable (I’ve been there before in a past relationship though, and it wasn’t a problem) — maybe Sherlock Bert is reading too much into it. TikTok is an extension of your fake identity after all, like Twitter, Twitch etc. Logical Bert figured that it really doesn’t matter whether it’s accurate or otherwise — and he’s right. It’s not really any of my business. Sherlock Bert should probably wind his neck in.

So anyway, for the most part today has been lovely. Great company, mostly completely distracted and reminded of life outside of the pointless rehashing of worrying in my head. Then I leave J. and T.’s, start the car and Daft Punks’ ‘Get Lucky’ is on the radio — I hate how my car defaults to the radio when it starts rather than whatever music/Podcast I had on my phone, but it takes a little time for the Bluetooth to connect I guess.

The song was at the bit where it sounds like it’s saying ‘Mexican Monkey’ — an observation you made to me with great delight a couple of years ago, I’m now unable to hear anything else and of course it brought you immediately to mind, along with that general underlying dread I sometimes feel after being out and amongst people when I have to go home to an empty house (no offence, Sonic!). It brought that contrast of company-and-good times into loneliness-and-isolation into stark relief.

I did a reasonable job of pushing the thought aside before it fomented too much, but it was still there. It’s frustrating. It’s weak. I quickly put on some Alice Cooper to replace it — music I love that predates us, that you never really engaged with much. It helps. Music is a great healer — for the most part I’ve not tried to filter out songs or artists we both liked with a good degree of success, but I guess that specific nugget of song and the reminder probably meant that was a bad idea in this instance.

Upon getting home I was able to have a little chat and cuddle with Sonic before putting him to bed, and now I’m typing this, whilst watching ‘Line of Duty’ on iPlayer, which I’m pretty confident I’ll lose track of very quickly. I enjoyed the first season though, I’m already not 100% sure of what’s going on in the first episode of the second series which is playing now. But well, it’s something to fill the void of noise other than me tip tapping on the keyboard I guess!

Fortunately tomorrow I also have plans — a return to football in the morning, which is always universally a 100% distraction for an hour and obviously time with people. Most of them I don’t know very well at all, but they’re good blokes, although my bro will be there — we’re on the same team again so I’m looking forward to that to see if we can resume our excellent defensive partnership of last week. No goalkeepers this week though, so that will upset the stability of the sides as we each have to take a turn in goal!

I’ll have some time at home to make sure Sonic gets a fairer crack of the whip of having some out-of-cage time during the day. He’s been a bit short-changed today, bless him. I’ve bought some almond milk to make some porridge with that’s a bit nicer than just with water but that he can still share, lactose is bad for birdies (it’s not great for humans either in truth). So that will probably a post-football snack before I’m heading out again to meet P., M. and J. for some food at the pub near Bradgate Park, where we used to love to go for walks. We said it looked like Jurassic Park.

So more distractions for tomorrow. It’s important. Another distraction would be work — but I don’t feel ready to go back yet, I’m going to try to get some time with my GP on Monday to both chase up the follow-up referral from A&E I should be hearing about, and also ask him (or her) to sign me off work for another week whilst I sort myself out. Whilst I’ve been mostly physically okay since the episode I feel exhausted at times, frequently need to take a nap during the day, and have struggled to focus on thinking about things. Quite important for my job.

I feel guilty about what feels like skiving to me, but I know it isn’t — I know I need to be taking better care of myself, and that doesn’t just mean eating healthily, hydrating, exercising — it means listening to the cues my body is giving me, whilst mentally I’m finding distractions and sociable time helpful, it is also craving restfulness, no stress. Work isn’t that stressful but there is pressure, and right now I don’t feel equipped to deal with it. I also know that if one of my team came to me and described the symptoms I had I’d be telling them to take time away from working to recover.

My boss has made it very clear that I’m to put my needs and health first, and whilst I’ve railed against it to a degree — craving both the human contact work gives the opportunity of, but also the distraction of using my brain for something other than brooding or worrying about you, I think I’ve tried to do that too much which is possibly why I had a physiological reaction to force me to chill the fuck out a bit. So I’m listening. It took a while.

So yeah, if I can find people to spend time with then I can go hours without the negative thoughts pervading. Who knew? Haha. But obviously with a parrot that needs attention, with a home with only me in it I know I need to get better at finding coping mechanisms to deal with the time when I can’t be around people. At least I’ve moved on from feeling like a burden to people — I’m not just going and moping at them, which it felt like before. Even when I have people have been wonderfully understanding and kind.

That’s what you need to be doing. Go and see Eleanor and N., not to tell them what happened, just to do normal things, play some games, have fun. Spend time with your Mum, step-dad and sister doing the same. Not getting drawn back into a purely virtual life. There’s that broken record again, I bore myself with it and I know it would infuriate you if I actually sent you these letters — but it’s true. You know it is. That’s why you get ultra-defensive about it.

But if that’s the road you choose then that’s your decision. As a friend I’ve tried to at least offer that perspective, it’s not my business now and I know that. Hopefully I can get a bit of a tighter rein on Sherlock Bert and return to the position I was in where I wasn’t actually aware of whatever extent that world is pulling you back in. That’s absolutely not because I don’t care, but it’s because I can’t realistically influence that, nor should I be trying to, really — either from your or my point of view.

Whatever reservations I have about things, you’re an adult and your choices are your own. If they’re bad, and they might not be, that’s not my problem (or business) any more. I’ve done what I can to understand and offer my viewpoint, there’s no point for either of us in going down that road again. Just as I’m finding it hard to drop Sherlock Bert from my narrative, I can’t really be too critical if you are struggling to drop Virtual Alexandra from yours.

With that in mind, I think it’s bed time for me — a good night’s sleep then straight into distractionsville with football should see me in a much better frame of mind tomorrow. Assuming of course I don’t have some kind of funny turn and collapse on the pitch, haha! At least it’s close to the big hospital in Nottingham. I’m joking, I wouldn’t play if I thought I was at any risk of doing myself a mischief.

I hope you’re doing okay, Bert