Stream-of-consciousness post
My sweet Abu is coughing tonight, he has an appointment at the vets tomorrow.
But him being poorly, and thinking about dad’s passing last year, I am kicking myself for having given time I could’ve given to Abu, my dad, and my music – instead – to the drummer. I gave the drummer so much time in the second half of 2021, and whilst I didn’t see him as much in 2022, he took up a lot of my thoughts, and therefore time, during that year too.
When I first noticed this guy drumming in public, and was intrigued, and wrote lots of twee love poems on this site for this idea I’d conjured up of what his personality might be like, that was a good time. I had been prolifically making music projects I was proud of at the end of 2020, and start of 2021. I was even making music about this new muse.
The problem was actually hanging out with him.
I am kicking myself.
Why did I hang out with him?
There were so many problems with things he’d say from the start. I think it was just a new experience to feel wanted, and maybe that was what kept me around him, wanting to be wanted.
But he caused me so much upset. And I would give him so much of my time, and food, and gifts, and he would rarely show any appreciation of this, in fact, he’d say I wasn’t a good friend because I wouldn’t let him live with me.
What was wrong with me?
I suppose it felt new, to make a ‘friend’, after so many years of depression, and being withdrawn and alone.
But then, even if it was mostly the second half of 2021 when I spent time with him, he still ended up affecting so much of my 2022. He was in my thoughts a lot, and I remember that as I saw him less and less often, that created these new feelings of loneliness in me that I hadn’t experienced, at least not at that level, prior to knowing the drummer.
I feel so much guilt. At a time when I had been working well on my music, I let him distract me from it all. I think I thought I was letting myself “live” in some way. I wanted to keep feeling wanted, I wanted to impress him, to keep feeling wanted. And he only gave me the smallest, infrequent gestures, to imply he liked me. Most of the time I hung out with him, I was waiting for those brief moments, when I could briefly fool myself into thinking he cared, and let myself feel better for my belief that that was so. In truth, he judged me more than cared. He was always telling me what I “should” do, what I should change about myself. And the guilt-tripping. Why did I hang out with someone who would guilt-trip me for not letting them move in with me? I remember on two occasions I was in tears, for the guilt he made me feel. I had cried in front of him. I don’t recall him ever saying sorry to me for anything, and he rarely said thank you.
I hate myself.
I should have been spending time working on my dad’s documentary. I should’ve been working on my projects.
In 2022, I had made an effort to not see the drummer as much. That got easier when he moved to another part of London. But he was in my thoughts too much. And therefore he still affected me.
At the start of 2021 I had been so excited about what I was doing again with my music making, I had made this teaser trailer about how that would be the year in which I bloom, only for myself not to deliver the projects I was proud of, and instead deliver some sub-standard ones.
Yes, since my dad has passed, I question how he had been as a father. Lately I’ve written posts where I express bitterness towards him for how negligent of my musical gift he was when I was a child. But at the start of 2021 I was on good terms with him, having finished filming his documentary, and I was still set on finishing his documentary. It would’ve been nice to’ve made him happy by finishing it and showing it to him. I hate that I let my dad down.
I am glad I don’t see the drummer anymore. I hope I learn from this mistake I made. That it’s better to be alone than to be giving time to people who don’t care for you. I feel horrible guilt. What was wrong with me?
These days it all seems too little too late.
Maybe, had I not met the drummer, I would’ve become financially independent in 2021, and maybe I would’ve been able to make a lasting difference to the health of my mum and my dad. Instead, I wasted so much time with the drummer.
It was hard to stick to not seeing him, as he would always be in the area.
I’m so glad he’s moved away now.
I hate how the experience with him made me start overthinking what I’ve been missing out in life, with regards to relationships. I was never in a relationship with the drummer, nor did anything with him, and I have never done anything with anyone for that matter. But I suppose feeling wanted, it made me look at couples and feel sad that I hadn’t experienced love. When prior to meeting the drummer, I had always known that my first duty is to my musical gift, and that if love happens, that would be like winning the lottery, so it’s not something to fret about. The drummer messed with that way of thinking for a while, though I am grateful to feel my previous way of thinking has now been restored.
Abu’s cough is really bringing home to me how idiotic I was to give time I could’ve given to my dog to this drummer. Well, most of the time I was with the drummer, Abu was there too, but there were occasions when I would have to leave Abu at home, and I regret having done that now. Why did I lose time with a beautiful soul to be with someone who doesn’t care about me?
So many disasters happened in 2022 that then further set my music making back: Abu’s eye accident, dad passing, Abu’s horrible dental extraction experience, the burst pipes, the hard drives failing, just to mention a few things. So many things. If I had focused on my music in 2021, maybe all those things, or some of them, would not have happened either. Regardless, 2021 had been free of the disasters of 2022, and so I could’ve been using that less disaster-stricken time for music. I feel such guilt.
Whilst one might say: “take a lesson from this”, deep down I feel it’s too late for me to benefit from this lesson, as I worry about the future now not being long enough for me to apply much of anything I’m learning from mistakes these days. When things had started coming together at the beginning of 2021, I knew that I was so lucky that things were coming together then and not later. It felt like that luck had come just in time. Yet I now realise that I destroyed what had been an olive branch from The Universe. I betrayed my loyalty to Music. For nothing. I lost a chance to make my dad feel happy and proud, I could’ve shown him his documentary. The documentary that I now don’t even feel I can bring myself to finish, both because of this new questioning I keep doing these days, regarding how my dad raised me, and because of my knowing that my dad should’ve watched the finished documentary.
In terms of the hard drives, prior to my getting a fever a few weeks ago, I had noticed an unexpected discrepancy in the supposedly restored hard drives, that brought me down, and made me worry that the drives had not been completely restored. During the fever I just felt like giving up on life, as there seemed to be something always going wrong, for so long, that it felt like The Universe did not want me to make progress. I started looking back at the bad luck I’d had and thinking of it all as proof I’d overstayed my welcome on this planet.
Prior to noticing the unexpected discrepancy with the hard drives that had caused me so much concern and upset, my plan had been to go through my multiple drives and manually sync them up, such that they would become identical copies of each other, thereby providing me with backups in case of future failures. Currently, projects are on these drives, but different versions of these projects. Basically, the drives were supposed to be backups of each other but they had never been perfect back ups, as I was imperfect in copying over projects from one drive to the other, so whilst I might back up one project across two drives, I might forget to do so for another project. The task of trying to manually sync all these projects, with their folders and sub folders, was very intimidating to me. I’m sure this is one of the reasons why the syncing still hasn’t happened despite my bringing the drives back from Disk Doctors in I believe it was either late September, or early October, last year. Granted Abu’s aggressive dental extraction, the burst pipes, anxiety over my mum’s health, and losing the bond I’d made with a potential good friend I’d started getting to know towards the end of last year (a lovely girl called Ludmila), didn’t help with the syncing plans either.
However, just the other day, it occurred to me, that so long as I have 2 copies of all the drives I currently have, then in that way, I would have backups. And that when I work on a project, I could then always make sure to sync that particular project to a ‘Master Drive’ at that time. And therefore, I could sync the projects, one at a time, as I work through them. This approach seems less susceptible to problems that might arise due to human error in efforts to manually sync, and also, it would be less time consuming. It would also mean I won’t be fretting about unexpected discrepancies I might find during syncing, until, if and when, they might pose a problem.
So I am going to try this idea.
If I can ensure there are 2 copies of each data set this week, then in theory, I could resume working on a music project towards the end of next week. I really hope this might be possible, as being away from working on my music for so long has I’m sure contributed to feelings of hopelessness that I’ve been experiencing with increasing frequency and intensity in recent weeks.
I am sorry Dad and Abu. I’m sorry Music. I’m even sorry to the community I feel there may have been here, starting to support me, who I used to update more regularly by writing here, who I used to feel a bond with. Granted I was never sure if there was a community, due to my anxiety meaning I don’t look at statistics, but I felt like there was one here, and that feeling helped me so much. I had been starting to feel proud of myself again. I never should’ve given the time I should’ve given to you: Dad, Mum, Abu, Music, and This Website’s Supportive Community, to someone who never truly cared about me (the drummer).
I don’t know if I will be able to pick things up from where I left off, when I was doing better in early 2021. I hope my Abu will be okay. I hope mum will be okay. I hope the supposedly restored hard drives have what I need. I hope there is still time for me to get back to a path of progress. I had worked so hard to get to where I had got to in early 2021, in terms of my depression, and looking back, I think the drummer made me feel so pathetic, that I almost forgot how far I had come with the depression, and what there was left in me to fight for. I don’t know if I can ever bring myself to finish my dad’s documentary, now knowing he wouldn’t see it, and given all the complicated feelings that have arisen in me since his passing, regarding his parenting.
I am sorry Life, I feel I have failed you when you had given me a second chance. I don’t know if I can still make something worthwhile from what is left of my life. I will try.
LYNA GALLIARA 