Get busy living...

...or get busy dying. So said the character Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption and as Ellis 'Red' Redding said, that's goddamn right. I watched it on Monday night for the umpteenth time and the line really struck a chord. You can't change what's gone before but you can do something about the future and if you don't live the future then you're already dead. So I decided to stop moping. Sure, I'm still sad, of course I am, but you can't live your life in self-pity and regret. You have to get over it and move on and do whatever it takes to be happy again. So that's what I'm doing, and right now I'm busy doing a masup/remix for my new DJ set which will see me once again featuring as this month's guest DJ on Bear Golightly's Alchemy Sessions on DI.fm on the 28th of September. Don't forget to tune in!!

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And so it ends

It would seem that from the language involved there is absolutely no hope of getting back together. The first time I say "I love you" to a girl and it is wasted and I end up spending all my energy in despair and a black, black depression. It all seems so pointless now. I feel as though I will never meet anyone else like this again. Life just looks like a dull procession of routine and drudgery marked only by the growing nights and smudged by the grey, wet days. If this is love, why do we strive for it so hard? It seems, from this viewpoint, a cruel and mocking emotion that builds you up just for the pleasure of pushing you back down like a playground bully. Nothing seems good and pleasurable any more.

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Notes of the afflicted

It's funny. I never knew it was possible to feel at once so utterly and excruciatingly frightened and sad yet be so filled with a love that brings warmth to the coldest of places. Right now I'm sitting on a busy inter-city train under harsh, unforgiving strip lights making my way home and therefore by extension closer to the reason for that love. And I both dread and long for the experience. This very train, were I to stay on it, would take me to the place where the girl I am so hopelessly and totally in love with lives. A part of me says "Stay on. Go and see her. Make everything OK" but the rational part of me knows that turning up on her doorstep at 11 pm on a Sunday night would not be a good move, and would leave me stranded a long way from home and very much not in favour. There are other reasons too, whic I won't go into partly because they are private but mostly because thinking about them makes me unhappy beyond belief.

I went away this weekend because I knew I needed some time away. I went to Oxford to see my sister and her family, including my newest nephew for the first time (and what a diamond he is - I don't normally get mushy about babies but this kid just completely captivated me).
Problem was, everything I saw and did, I thought "Oh Em would love this - I must bring her here" and then I'd remember and I'd be back at square one. I even bought a couple of books on popular philosophy hoping to take my mind off things but they just make me question my
previous foolish actions all the more. Can't win.

So what am I to do, stuck on this train and in this melancholy? I don't know, is the short answer. If I were a character in a book or a film, I'm sure there would be some amazing speech i could make to her or I'd appear at her door, sweep her off her feet and we'd live happily ever after. But this is real life, not a trashy airport novel or a big budget Hollywood rom com. Real life doesn't, and never has,
worked like that. I am not used to my future happiness and emotions being in the hands of another and maybe that's the problem. I am, I freely admit, quite emotionally naive. But then this is exactly what the girl I love was talking about. She said that to open oneself up to another, to love them and place your feelings and emotions in their hold is the ultimate expression of love and now I understand exactly what she meant. I just hope it's not too late and that she can still find it in her heart to allow herself love as I mow know she surely does.

Listening to: So Tonight That I Might See - Mazzy Star

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How to be a tool in one easy step

Gentlemen, take note. No matter how much you think you're a decent,
modern man in tune with his feelings and able to share, I guarantee
you there will come a time in life when you conform to every
stereotype of the reticent male there has ever been. I thought I was
modern and able to share and talk about feelings but at the crunch
moment I discovered that in fact I was the complete antithesis of
everything I had always believed myself to be in that regard. It
rather astonished me, but worse than that it may have caused
irreperable damage to a relationship that I value more than any other
I've ever had. And this is the root of what is eating at me. Even
writing this is making my stomach tie itself in knots as it means I am
thinking about that person and the possibility that I will lose them
for good. Trust me, it feels a bit like the arse is falling out of my
eod and I'm going with it.

Love. It's a small word but possibly it has more ramifications than
any other in the English language. It's bandied about a bit too freely
sometimes, but user beware: It is a very powerful word and once spoken
cannot be taken back. If you mean it then say it and be proud. If you
don't then shut your pie hole because saying it without meaning it can
cause enormous pain. But then even if you mean it, sometimes saying it
is the problem.

And here's where this week ties in. I didn't say it as early as i
could, but I should have because it's not something you should hold
back on. Previously I spoke about not knowing what love really was and
my subsequent realisation. Now I'm going to expand on that somewhat.
Love doesn't just 'happen' in my view. It grows from little things and
gets bigger and bigger until it is a thing in it's own right. Once you
realise it's there, it grows quicker. And as is well documented, it is
the most bitter-sweet of emotions.

For me, now, what began as a dawning on me that someone in particular
made me want to be protective and sharing and all the rest of it, has
developed to the point where thinking about her causes my heart to
skip a beat and my stomach to fill with butterflies. I can't bear the
thought of losing her and knowing that if I do then it's my own fault
isn't helping. I want to be with this person all the time and the idea
of being together for a long time doesn't scare me, it excites me. I'm
not saying she's 'the one' or that we'd marry tomorrow, but i am
saying I reckon we've a good shot at it. And to lose that would be
practically a crime and it would destroy me for the forseeable future.

So, gentlemen, I urge you: Learn from my mistakes, don't be an arse
and above all, talk. Talk about your feelings to the special person in
your life. It doesn't make you a gaylord or weak. In fact quite the
opposite. Don't waste a second on stupid and pointless mithering, get
on and do it or I guarantee you'll be sorry.

Listening to: The Somerset Experiments 004 - Steve Pettifer

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