Survival of the foolish

If there is one lesson I have learnt over the last few, painful and sometimes crazy, months is that failure is relative, and like beauty, it is in the eyes of the beholder. For lack of a better analogy, pardon the bottle of cheap Shiraz, I was birthing myself. Goddammit it took a long time, I think I may still be half way in, but at least I am out and I am alive.

Ultimately survival is the measure of success, I now know I can survive with little. The numbers lullaby every night, adding up and subtracting, did I get the dates right? At least I won’t starve, I have baked beans in the cupboard, and the credit card that I will never pay, I can buy cheap wine.  Duty-free menthols, diet coke, coffees, and earl grey. No wonder I don’t eat.

For once in my life I know I can survive and that has made me want to live. It might be the manic self talking, but a few days ago I was prepared to check out, sell my things on e-bay, pay my debts and disappear. But as it happens and as I continued to write I realised  my love of life had been clouded, taken apart, mechanised. I had done that, I had done it so I could survive.

And so, I come to this place where I have to undo myself, put my failures on display, where my scars are showing, every cut and every bruise; I have been the canvas of so many emotions that if all of them showed at once I would cease to be, I would become pain.

Yet I choose to remain, there is survival in all of this. Another glass and a cigarette, perfect. And I write foolish words that only I can understand. I do wonder still, not of my strength but of my will, can I be this person for much longer?