I look at my blog site stats. A bunch of fluctuating numbers posted throughout the day behind the scenes of this blog. I used to be mesmerised by these stats. Especially when thousands of people read the blog every day. Now, those numbers have dwindled.
I could do more to boost my numbers but choose not to.
Each morning I get up and write everything that is on my mind. It isn’t particularly interesting to most people what happens to a man living on both coasts of the USA. Living on a small stipend delivered monthly from various investments made many years ago. Living with a small dog and a pair of beautiful twins. Living with bi-polarity. Living in his dreams.
Yet, every morning I feel compelled to write my life for you to read. I try not to boast, I try not to be too self piteous. I try to tell it as it is. Sometimes I am just talking to myself, sometimes I am talking to my Mother. Mostly I am just talking. Last year I seemed to be engaged in a one way conversation with him.
As the days pass between who I was and who I am, the years pass between what I thought I wanted and what I actually achieved, the decades between an impetuous youth and a contemplative old age. I become less frightened, more at peace.
I know that my writing about him has chased many of my regular readers away. I worked out that terrible obsession here on this blog. Do I regret writing it? What sort of diary would this be if I hadn’t written it? What sort of man would I have been if I sat here suffering and just candy coated what was the most bitter of all pills?
Of course I am capable of telling you lies but for the most part I get up and tell you whatever truth is presently haunting me. I have not written things and regretted it. When I was with him I often excluded him from the narrative and as a consequence the most beautiful moments we shared have been lost. Making love in the wood. I didn’t write about that when it happened and now it is as if it never happened. Writing retrospectively about those moments somehow devalues them.
I know that you hate me writing about him but he has been on my mind. When I stop feeling angry, foolish, sad…I still find myself wanting the best for him. Wishing him well. Hoping that he resolved his stuff with her. Praying that he now has the gay life he wanted so badly.
After all is said and done…I loved him. For good or for bad.
I wish that I did not now have to see him in September.
At this moment I have climbed fully out of the straight jacket I designed for myself. Life has become simple and manageable once again. My head no longer in two time zones. No more longing, fantasy, false hope.
I listened to the singer Adele talking about how her first album was crafted after a nasty break up. How she punched her ex bf in the face then wrote her album. This is what artists do. Copper’s Bottom, the play I showed at Sadler’s Wells in my mid twenties was all about a love affair I had with a policeman. The deep scars it left in me. This is what artists do. We craft something from our own experiences, we do not disguise our vulnerabilities, our history. I cannot deliberately disfigure the past.
When I was nominated for the BAFTA I finally had proof of sorts that being true to oneself and the stories we tell can reach much further than those of us who hide away. I have hidden away for most of this year. Licking my wounds behind my site stats, my failed love affair.
If I am to remain credible I must do what I do best: create. Wasting the rest of my life hankering after what could have been is just plain stupid. Whilst many of the folk I grew up with are considering retirement I must do what thousands of artists before me have done and just get on with it. Do the work.
Regardless of how many people are watching.
This morning I have watered the garden. Listened to the birds. Made strong coffee.
Miles is vomiting in the bathroom. He drank too much last night at the Whale Wars premiere. He is missing his girlfriend who has moved to the mid-west. Watching him struggle somehow helps me. I have no idea why.
“I’ve never been this hung over.” He moans.
I don’t have ANY sympathy for people who drink too much.
Now, what next? Apparently the niche publisher is not so niche and the nice woman there has already read my book and wants to talk further. I wonder what that means?
I put my film on ice but am ready to warm it up. I am meeting producers this Sunday. Whilst I was in New York I met another producer.
I seem to be getting back into that grove.
PS I got a 4k reduction on my property tax..which is now only 13k a year. Hurrah!