As promised - The Great Sacking Blogpost

I've been in completely the wrong mindset to be writing anything since this saga began 2 weeks ago in its most urgent stage - the gradual build up began much earlier. But this morning, after many close calls and false starts, I have been granted a temporary stay of execution, and it is time to reflect and to decide on what comes next.

For those who have somehow missed one or two of these blogs over the past 3 or so years that I've been churning them out, each entry more repetitive and less than the last, here is the basic outline:

Around covid time, I took a plunge from a precarious place and cascaded to an even lower depth. At the time the decision felt necessary and righteous, and, even now, the thought induces a little half-forgotten part of me to jump to attention like a little red army soldier to defend it with an obstinacy only the deepest regret can create. I won't do my past self the disservice of pretending there was no merit to the decision, but i certainly played that bad hand particularly abysmally.

So overnight I discarded my old life and began again from scratch. By the time I had settled into a semi stable state of being I had squandered every £ to my name, acquired a sizeable debt, and severed my relationship with nearly every person I knew. Months of isolation, poverty and misery ensued, the ups and downs of which felt so very feal and meaningful at the time but now fade together like a barely remembered dream. I remember making a vow to myself in a dark hotel room that when everything was back in order I would be a new man, unrecognisable from what had come before. And I break that vow anew every day.

Somehow there was more than a full year between that moment and the bingo era - God knows where that time went. There was a failed romance with a spanish girl that earned a pathetic blogpost I don't think even the most diehard loremasters can remember. And I remember the loneliness. But apart from hardly any memories remain. A black box.

Then one september day, my mind still clouded by thoughts of dear Rosaline, I walked into a new minimum wage job and laid eyes on a face that immediately wiped the slate clean. Black hair with red highlights, a little nose piercing, that classic alt style. Big blue eyes, a cute smile. And life had colour again.

Within a week or so we were dating, and within a month we were looking for places to move in together. Partly because it would have broken my heart not to save her from her dreadful family situation, but also no doubt a symptom of the impulsive idiocy which guides all of my decisions to this very day. Realistically I probably needed her more than she needed me.

We found a cheap place and moved in on new year's eve, putting together the bed while fireworks were going off outside. There were some good periods to that year and a bit we spent there together, but certainly the low points weigh heavier in my memory. I won't delve into the details, but I'm sure there are people here who remember the tone of the blogposts. As it happens, neither sympathy nor desperation make great foundations for a lasting relationship.