Machines

So it’s been a weird few months, and I think it’s taking its toll.

I supposed the bulk of my current mindset comes from late June/early July. My parents were on holiday in America and the world cup was on. Sadly, I hadn’t the time to enjoy the freedom and football much, as my shifts in work were fairly anti-social. I made the most of it though, had friends round one weekend, everything ticking along as usual. The weekend before my parents were due to return we got the news that my granda Sutherland was dying, and probably wouldn’t last the weekend. This in itself was of course a sad event, and family deaths and funerals always take their tool. Ultimately, it wasn’t something I could break my heart over. He was 89 and had been around since I was born. Tons of people don’t get any grandparents, I always had four and this one lived to a good old age. Of course I’m sad he’s gone, but at least he went naturally, not tragically.

My parents got home and the funeral took place. My brothers and I helped take the casket into the church, and then to the graveyard. Then I…went to T in the Park. It was something I’d had on the books for a while, but happened to fall on the day of the funeral. I felt bad for doing it, like I was just running off, but it was one of the first things my dad said to me when he got home. “When is your festival? That’s all I was thinking about, I didn’t want you to miss it.” He’s always been a dad who was the opposite of his own. His dad was gone, he was stepping up his efforts for his own children, as usual.

T in the Park was fun. Tiring as hell, but fun. Truth be told, I could have done with it being longer. And more shower-full. But mostly longer. I don’t know that I’ll forget seeing some of those bands with my friends. Good times, good people.

Home from T in the Park, and on to my least favourite run of shifts in work, the early starts. I’m not sure I had entirely recovered from that past two weeks until the end of the weekend. Sleep was needed, but probably not had in the levels required. The next few weeks went as most weeks do, work and the occasional piece of socialising (which, sadly, involved seeing the overhyped pseudo intellectual exercise in pointless storytelling and population bamboozlement that was Inception).

More recently, I had some good news regarding my jobs security that prompted me to seriously look at buying my own house. I mean, why not? I have money saved, my job and half my social life is in Glasgow anyway, it makes sense. Certainly more sense than renting. A meeting with a financial advisor, however, has me staying put and saving more money for the next several months before attempting a purchase. Don’t worry, a point is coming.

The point is, I’m bored and frustrated and tired. I’m tired of my commute and not having time to do things that involve staying up past 12. As great as my parents are, I’m tired of living at home. I want to move out but I want to do it sensibly. At the same time, I want to vanish. Go somewhere in the world for years and not have things like shift patterns and mortgages on my mind. I think deep down, more than anything, what I really want is change.  Any plan I’ve had recently hasn’t come to much, either through impossibility, impracticality or my own sickening lack of resolve.

Interesting, as I come to the end of this increasingly whiny-ass post, I realise that I’ve enjoyed writing this more than most things I’ve done recently, and that for all my talk of wanting to move or travel or build a castle on the moon or whatever idea I come up with next, the only thing that stays constant is my desire to write for a living one day. Maybe I should focus on that.