Wednesday 7 March 2007

The Weekend I Went Home

So the weekend just passed, I went home to see the family and some old friends. I've been ill over the last few days so I haven't written anything. But while I was at home I did keep a small journal, which I have transcribed for this blog:

Friday

I wish I could articulate what family means in a few words. But to be able to do that I need to describe what going home really means.
I'm currently in Bedford as a visitor. But I close my eyes and think of Manchester. I always considered Bedford as home - because home is where you're family is. But it's strange. This feels alien to me. I am sitting, well, lying, in the bed I had, in the room that was to be mine, ten years ago. I was 15/16 years old. The cream walls that were once grey with movie posters, replaced now with a family montage and a photo of Barry scuba diving.

I know I have only lived in Manchester for 4 months now, but my feelings are very similar to this room. Sparse, like something is not quite right. Perhaps the room and I have gone in very different directions. Such has my relationship with this small Market Town.

I am supposed to be going out tomorrow night and I have this horrible feeling that I am going to spend the majority of the night looking over my shoulder. Odd how I can spend the majority of my life in one place to find that I spend the majority of my growing up in another.

The Changes that happen with the people who are from Bedford happen a hell of a lot slower, while there are in Bedford. Though Change is inevitable and it is something you cannot run away from. But the thing is that it is (with me, at least) dependant on my surroundings. "I moved to Bedford to change" is not something I can imagine people saying. But what can I say? With all honesty, coming back here, after all this time is that I know home much I have changed, and it is far more than I ever expected. Kinda like this room.


Saturday

"Him"

Have you ever felt like you wanted to be in love with someone so much you were almost willing to trick yourself into believing you were?

Tonight, I did.

Tonight I foolishly went to see Dave at NYNY. I don't know what I was thinking, Perhaps I wanted to remember what it felt like to see him when we were in a relationship. I wanted that excitement? Maybe?


Sunday

There is something rather shameless about writing on a bus. We're 20 mins late and sitting in the rain in Milton Keynes. Home is just over 3 hours away.
As we pull out I look around at the people around me. Every colour and culture and language can be seen and heard. I can almost hear their thoughts "Don't sit next to me". So for £33, this hot tube of unwanted company begins it's journey.

The weekend was a hit and all the paranoia I had felt about my family and whether I could actually go out in bedford again has been put to rest. I wonder why I went of the rails now. What did it achieve? Nothing, but a sting of expensive hangovers and the worry that things are far worse than they really are.

Everyone has a story. Some people have several stories, I met with my cousin this weekend, He was Anthony Stafford, but with the alternative ending. The ending that people wish will never happen to them.
Loosing his wife, children and eventually his mind he was medicated and vegetated until one night, sleeping is his car he decided to do something about it.

I guess I'm not the only person I know to have slept rough.
I Guess We All Have A Story.

Dreams
I want to mention something about dreams to finish this rather extended blog.
This is what wikipedia says on the subject:
A dream is the experience of envisioned images, sounds, or other sensations during sleep. The events of dreams are often impossible or unlikely to occur in physical reality, and are usually outside the control of the dreamer. The exception is lucid dreaming, in which a dreamer realizes that they are dreaming, and they are sometimes capable of changing the oneiric reality around him or her and controlling various aspects of the dream, in which the suspension of disbelief is often broken.[1] Dreamers may experience strong emotions while dreaming. Frightening or upsetting dreams are referred to as nightmares. The discipline of dream research is oneirology.

Something for me to think about when I go to bed tonight.

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