Sven's life in Oz

Last week I announced on Twitter that I neither relished nor resented Valentine’s Day this year. I have been working so hard and avoiding the shops lately, so it has rather flown under my radar, but as the big day approaches it is slowly seeping in through the virtual windows of my life: updates are appearing on Facebook, tips on buying flowers are dropping into my email more regularly, and the Valentine hashtags are becoming a permanent feature of my TweetDeck. The day itself, thanks to the wonders of time differences and universal connectivity, will last about 36 hours on Twitter as the sun rises on 14 February around the world, long after it began to shine on Australian lovers.

This will be my first Valentine’s Day as a single man in over a decade. I keep my old Valentine cards – not as an ego trip, but to remind me when I’m down that people have cared. It’s good to remind yourself that your are lovable, especially when you don’t feel it. And if this post sounds melancholy, it really isn’t: I’m actually quite chipper. Things are going well – work is good, I’m making new friends all the time and laughing more and more each day. I’ve been on a second date with the blind date – Dr Lego, as he has become known – and the latest one (last night) was great. So why am I sitting in bed, typing paragraph after paragraph about a date on the calendar I really care nothing about?

I was pottering about, doing things that needed doing, when I caught myself wondering if Dr Lego would call. Of course I knew he wouldn’t, but sometimes these thoughts just pop into your head. It’s frustrating and distracting and after a while it can drive you crazy, but underneath all the “will he, won’t he?” and the “I’m not thinking about it”, there’s a tiny light of excitement, a little glee in your heart that says “this is what it is like to be alive”.

Now, I’m not mad enough to think that two dates is any kind of basis for a relationship – he might turn out to be an axe murderer or seal clubber or a mime artist – but the beginning, the trepidation, the exicitement and the unknown are all the things that Valentine’s Day celebrates. Even when I check my postbox on Sunday morning and find it predictably empty, and even if he hasn’t called me back because he’s drowning puppies in a sack under a bridge somewhere, I won’t mind too much. Landing on your ass with egg on your face is the tails side of the coin, and sometimes it comes up heads.

As I eat my french toast alone on Sunday morning, I will remind myself that I can feel the things we all feel, that they are waiting for me when I least expect it, quite suddenly, without warning, and not just on one day but on any day; and they are all just wonderful.

Heart like a swinging brick? Whoever heard such rubbish?

One month on and whenever people ask me about how I am or how we are doing, I have a few stock answers that seem to cover the situation to everyone’s satisfaction. If you get one of these answers when you ask me any of the following, here’s what you can read into it.

Q: How are you getting on living together?
A: Oh, great. We didn’t fall out or anything, we’re just not going out any more.
Means: Fine. It’s like all the best bits of a our relationship with none of the tension. It’s a little weird because some times I find myself wondering why it couldn’t have been more like this when we were together, and reminding myself that we aren’t together for those very reasons. It’s like the anthropic principle of relationships: the answers you seek are the very reasons you can ask the question in the first place. Why do we live in a region of space perfect for life? Because if we didn’t, there wouldn’t be any life. Why do I have an emotional war going on inside me? Because you’re human. Suck it up.

Q: How are you managing? You seem to be holding up well.
A: Yeah, good thanks.
Means: I am in swinging brick mode because daily life does not allow me to fall apart and I do not allow myself to wallow or navel-gaze. To admit that emotionally I am up and down like a bride’s nightie may not seem like a victory to you, but it certainly feels like defeat to me. I am holding up well over all, but I have my low points. I just choose not to show it.

Q: Are you still friends? I’m glad your friendship survived.
A: Me too. He’s still my best friend.
Means: Me too. He’s still my best friend. I really am extremely lucky to have come out of this with a friend like James. Anyone who can refrain from judging you and wish you well, even when you split up with them, is a priceless wonder to be treasured. Hence the uncertainty, second guessing and general confusion. I’m certain that we’ve done the right thing, it’s just hard to see it all the time.

My mother rang late last night to tell me that my grandad had died very suddenly in the night. (The time difference meant that although she was calling in the morning as soon as she could, it was very late here.)  She had the strained calm of a person trying not to fall apart; she was with my nan and the rest of the family were on their way.  I have no doubt she broke down the minute they arrived.  On this side of the world, I had to break the news to my sister who could tell something was up the minute she saw me on the phone.  I cut mum off with promises to ring straight back as Kara was  waiting for news that couldn’t be mouthed in a telephonic aside.

What do you say to someone at a time like this?  I was in shock – that lip-numbing experience where all you can think about is how cold you are – and she was almost in tears already.  I wanted to make her sit down and tell her calmly that he had been found in the morning having had a sudden and massive heart attack in the night, that it was quick and he didn’t suffer, but that he had passed away.  At the same time, I wanted to tell her as soon as possible and all the above would take time, she would get more worried, and then the news would be worse.  I also knew that she wouldn’t sit down even if I told her, that she would get angry and demand to be told straight away, and then she would be grieving and angry and that would make it worse, too.  It’s strange how so many thoughts can be in your head all at once and and make sense and a decision made so quickly.  Perhaps I could have handled it better, because I simply couldn’t wait and just blurted out “I’m so sorry.  Grandad’s dead.”  Way to be sensitive, Sven.  Tears, hugs and consolation ensued.

We rang mum back and spoke to Nan.  While I was on the phone I realised that I had never heard her cry before.  In 29 years, I’ve never seen her upset like that – she was always the one with the hugs and the sympathy and the 101 ways to cheer you up.  I never want to hear that again: the sound of a heart breaking.  Kara spoke to them both and while she was on the phone, I cleaned up.  Seriously, I got up and made sure that no one wanted water (more crazy high-speed rationalising: I thought about tea but at 11pm I thought a stimulant was the last thing we all needed) then I killed mosquitos, put cream on bites and wiped kitchen counters.  When the phone calls were finished, more hugs administered and tears shed, I suggested that we should all go to bed.  There was nothing we could do, people had work tomorrow and we could ring in the morning for an update – it would still be the same day in the UK.  All the while I held it together, telling everyone I was fine and staying strong for Kara, and it wasn’t till I had brushed my teeth and was absent-mindedly pouring my mouthwash that I almost started crying.

In bed, James said he would stay awake until I fell asleep, which I told him was sweet but unnecessary.  He was so sorry and I was too, but it’s no one’s fault; it’s just sad.  It will happen to us all one day.  Those words actually came out of my mouth.  James didn’t say anything but there was a moment of quiet amazement at how cold I was.  We often laugh at how my heart was removed and replaced with swinging brick, but I think we both imagined that it was just an affectation, that when something truly awful happened I would crack up and break down.  Well here it is, the truly awful, and I’m as hard as nails and cool as ice.  No close family has died since I can remember – this is the first grandparent to pass away since I was too young to recall – and I thought that being spoiled by longevity and good health meant I wouldn’t know what to do when the inevitable finally happened. I thought I would be an hysterical mess, an inconsolable bundle of grief.  Turns out I was wrong.

I did cry that night, lying in bed when I caught myself with an empty mind.  I don’t know why I was crying – there was no one thought that started it off.  It was actually the lack of thoughts that ended up with me silently shaking the bed till James rolled over and hugged me.  And that’s the way it is: I’m fine and stoic and reasonable while I have things to think about, but when I’m stacking the dishwasher or putting the pots away or hanging out the washing and I forget to concentrate, the tears surprise me and I have to remember that if I start crying, everyone starts crying.  It’s not that I’m dead inside: this is just the way I deal.

I hate to bring you down but this is the only chance I have to get this off my chest: I am officially entering black dog territory.  The cycle goes something like this:

1. wake up bored and depressed
2. tell myself off for being unhappy
3. think about all the reasons I have to be happy
4. divert energy into some task or other to keep myself from wallowing
5. get bored
6. take it out on James when he gets home from work
7. tell myself off for being an awful boyfriend
8. feel worse for that
9. go to bed
10. repeat

I am my own worst enemy when I get in a mood like this.  I’m a ‘glass half full’ kind of a guy and I just frustrate the hell out of myself by forcing myself to be cheerful because I hate wallowing.  I hate it; I can’t abide it in other people and hate it when I do it myself.  Despite my best efforts at cheerfulness, I must finally concede that I am bored, depressed and lonely.

I say I’m lonely, but I’m not alone.  My sister and her fiancé are staying with us until February and I love having them here.  There’s always someone around in the house in the daytime and we’ve barely spent a night at home since we moved in.  There’s no shortage of dinner invites and restaurants to explore.  I’ve got no rationale for being lonely, and no excuse to be bored.  I live in a great city, I’m spending summer in the sunshine with no pressure to get a job until the new year, and I’m talking to universities about starting an MA Creative Writing in 2010.  Everything is going according to plan.  I should be thrilled, cock-a-hoop, delighted.  I should be jumping out of bed and my God, I’ve started down the cycle again.  It’s innate!  I can’t even moan properly when I mean to without going round the loop.  Just writing this blog is classic #4 behaviour.  What is wrong with me?

I’ve been blaming it on not having a job.  I like to be busy, to have goals, to be needed.  I’m sick to death of job-hunting and the constant stream of rejections that drop daily into my inbox.  I’m sick of  job agencies who promise to work day and night for me but can’t even bring themselves to return my calls.  I’m sick of doubting my own abilities when I have more qualifications than I know what to do with.  And I’m sick, sick, sick of working in ‘administration’ because they’re the only jobs that will take me when I know what I want to do but just can’t seem to get a foot in the door.  Is this it for the rest of my life?  Will I be the typical middle-manager when I’m fifty because I didn’t know in my early twenties that I wanted to write?  Because by the time I knew what I wanted to do it was too late to be a penniless bohemian writing by candlelight in a bedsit in Holburn?  Because I had to work to pay the bills and couldn’t afford just to jack it all in and change direction.  This all sounds so reasonable but it’s just an angry rant.  I’m determined to get my MA in 2010.  James is the very model of the supportive boyfriend.  My very first proper magazine article will be published in January.  I am at the foot of the slope and the only way is up and here we go again.  I can’t help myself.

I’d call it homesickness but I’m famed for the swinging brick in my chest and I don’t have time for flimsy emotional fancies like that.  Besides, I don’t want to go home.  I like Sydney, I like Australia and I’m much better off here than I ever was in Britain.  Isn’t a sickness through my longing to return to Bristol a requirement for that kind of diagnosis?  Or is it enough that I am sad because I don’t feel like I’ve got much to look forward to at the moment?  Normally over Christmas I would be at parties, catching up with friends, seeing family.  I would be busy. I would have goals.  I would feel needed.  Sitting here in my sunny Christmas is nice, but it would be better if I could share it with my friends.  It’s not homesickness I’m suffering.  I’m friendsick.  And it sucks.

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PS: Whilst writing, I have been in a #4/#5 mini-cycle, I’ve put the washing on, tidied the flat, emptied the bins and looked for a job.  It might suck, but it is useful.  And I’m at it again…