When it Rains

We didn't have much of a summer here in London, England. I think there were about 8 hot and sunny days in all, over the last 5 months. All my well organised, boy toy BBQ implements only saw the light of day 3 times and as September rolled into my life there was a false hope of a day where the heat was scorching and I managed to enjoy drinking a rare Italian beer on the outdoor riverside terrace of the Royal Festival Hall in South Bank. The next day it started raining heavily and hasn't really stopped since.

Elmore Leonard says one should never start a book with the weather, but as I hear the raindrops splutter form my blocked up guttering and stare at the dank, grey moody clouds I can't help but be affected by the dreary weather.

It's not that I am feeling low. Far from it. I have little reason to be grey inside, my ongoing inner turmoil and psychological rebirth aside. I am focussing on my career change from disaffected finance analyst to enthusiastic trainee web designer/ developer. I am passing the test on my Dreamweaver web design course without issue. I am all warm and snug inside my cosy suburban weather shack. No, it's something else i feel inside. Not low, but eerily middle of the road. Lacking in vital, youthful energy. There is no spring in my step. There is only a mushy autumn trudge. It is hindering my progress on the course and my enjoyment of this rare time in my life when I have the chance to focus on growing myself and overcoming my inner psychological issues and getting into a career that will actually fulfil me. Yet when it is so grey and drizzly outside I feel as if everything I do has lost a bit of it's charm. Sweet things taste a little less sweet. I am enjoying everything a little bit less.

I feel I need a big dose of Second Life back in my life. I have seen very little of my Real Life friends and barley anything of my second life friends for ages. I do feel disconnected form all of the little communities I am a part of. Many of those communities and people, in real life at least, I don't really like, and have never felt connected to. I just ended up in them due to circumstances out of my control. I used to follow what my parents and society told me to do, and end up living lives that other people thought best for me, even though inside I felt a fraud. I would wake up every day wondering who I should  be today. How should I act. Obviously not my true self as that person was an immature, naive fool. I developed layers of sophisticated façades to cover my inherent low self esteem and ended up assuming I really was as confident and happy as i acted. I wasn't, and when it all blew up in my face I found myself having to star again. In many ways trying to find my true self, and my true identity, who I  really am and where  I fit in the big scheme of things is what most people do as teenagers. I'm 32 years old and should be well beyond that now. Continual growth is all well and good but starting over, as if from scratch (although I'm not really starting just form scratch, though it feels that way much of the time) is even harder at 32 than 13.

One way I have tried to start again is by re-connecting with the world outside me. Sure I connect with it on the intellectual and information level by reading articles on the net and watching TV but that's not real connection. I need to re-connect with people, both real and virtual, friends old and new, yet fear holds me back. Fear of being thought of as a fool, fear of embarrassing myself, fear of rejection or offending people. I need to overcome my fears and go out into the world in a more pro-active manner. Trouble is it keeps raining and I don;t like getting wet, physically or metaphorically.

Maybe my journey back into society will begin in the virtual realm, where I can build up my confidence, and then return to the outside world, rain or no rain.