mostly david ephgrave

I'm currently struggling to deal with my feelings about the direction my life is going; partly to do with the coronavirus situation and partly not. The future's always been a difficult concept for me to consider, or believe in. It doesn't help that my circumstances when I was a child hardwired a sense of not being worthy of happiness or good enough. While I've spent years working on being kinder to myself and now understand that the idea that I don't deserve to be happy is irrational, I'm still very hard on myself. I put myself down quickly, and worry that I don't work hard enough or serve a purpose, or provide sufficiently for my family. As a teenager, I couldn't look ahead. I put a time-limit on my life, and while I was very ambitious, I told myself I wouldn't make it past nineteen. It felt like my parents' problems were my fault and mine to fix, and mine were unimportant. At best, I was a creative person - what with my band and my int...

I exclaim the word ‘life’ to myself with alarming regularity. I did it twice today, on the ten-minute walk from my flat to my office: once, when the neighbour who always blanks me lived up to my expectations despite me saying hello, then again, when I wound up doing an impromptu disco dance trying to pass someone on the street, then apologized - though it wasn’t my fault - to no response. “Life”. I sometimes feel like I’m in the midst of a battle: Me v The World. I then realise I’m being a melodramatic, self-obsessed megalomaniac. I’ll then get distracted by thinking about megalodons, then award myself with a biscuit for my knowledge of extinct sea creatures and my top-class diagnosis. Today is an exception. It’s Christmas Eve. Most people are too preoccupied with what they haven’t done or bought yet to look where they’re going or say hello. With that in mind, I’ll let everyone off. If it carries on into the New Year, I won’t be responsible for my actions. Perhaps I s...