More Thoughts for a Friday

It sucks.

Mrs 386 keeps asking why I can't sleep... I can't exactly turn round and say it's withdrawal, not until the time is right to tell her what I'm withdrawing from. Life is complicated, isn't it?

And then along comes Matthew with his diverting questions about beer... well, I suppose I did mention about having to stop my midweek beer drinking.

Maybe I've been going to bed too early; I've been flaked out by about 9pm the last few nights, gone to bed, and been awake again by about 4 in the morning, and completely unable to get back to sleep. Stupid insomnia.

Did I mention how sucky it is?

Oh yes, and beer... makes me tired! If I indulge in a tinny this evening I'm liable to fall asleep before it's empty! In fact, I'm liable to fall asleep at any momeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

A balancing act

Life has returned to normal.

There is now an infant in the equation again.

And while this is good, and I am pleased to have my family around me (most of the time ;) ), it does mean I have to get back into the regular routines of getting the baby to and from nursery, fed and in bed at her usual times, as well as spending a little fun time with her and her mum in the evenings. At the same time, I want to have some time to carry on the things I've been enjoying over the last week or so.

On the plus side, one of the things I have been enjoying and will now stop, is having a beer in the evening. It was only ever one beer (or two on a weekend), but I know well enough when to stop. Well, with alcohol I do, anyway...

So, what next? Well, I'll try and claim part of next weekend as my own, for a start. I think between now and then I'll have to make up some lost time with my family. Which I am happy to do.

Giving up.

I believe in you
I'll give up everything just to find you
I have to be with you to live, to breathe
You're taking over me.
- Evanescence, 'Taking Over Me'

There was a time I would have given up everything to find God.
In fact, I did.

I gave up the thing I loved the most. A thing that wasn't harmful like porn.
For a while, it made me a good and happy person.
But not the person God wanted.
So, although I knew it would hurt, I let go, and went after God.

So, why the hell am I having such difficulty letting go of porn?


Sorry, I'm feeling a bit down right now. I guess there's only so much alone-time a guy can use before... well, I did the 'guy alone' thing. The thing I've been trying to give up. I so nearly made it to the end of the week, too. I think I underestimated how lonely it would get.

On the plus side, I think, now, in the aftermath, I'm realising something. Or starting to. It's wierd. I think it's God. I'll let you know when I figure out what he wants.

Save Concorde!

I'm still having a great time here, drinking beer, watching wierd sci-fi movies and listening to all the music my wife hates! And rediscovering a few hobbies I had to abandon a while ago, and never really got round to picking up again.

A couple of the guys at higher-calling agree that this is a good thing, so I'm not even feeling guilty about all this healthy self-indulgence! (No, I'm not over-indulging. A can of beer of an evening is as far as it goes, and that will stop once the family gets back.)

I will have to find a way to carry this on and be a dad. I think that's key. I think I've spent so much of the last few years figuring out how to be a good husband, and now a good father, that I just forgot I was still me. Porn became something that was just mine. And it nearly ruined me.

Oh yes, the title. I was just 'by-the-way-ing' for the last three paragraphs. One of the things I used to like doing was plane spotting, and going to airshows and stuff. So when I heard about this, well, I think I may have found another hobby...

The batchelor life.

I think I've come to a realisation.

I miss the batchelor life. I miss having time to myself. I miss doing my own thing, having my own hobbies, listening to my music, having a beer and watching some sci-fi on TV or a wierd DVD. Or, as at the moment, reading a Stephen King doorstep.

I'm only just starting to realise - having had a few days to do all that stuff without a wife and a baby around - that I don't want to spend every evening watching crap on TV with the Mrs. It's as if when I became a husband I stopped being a person in my own right... ohmigod, my single friends were right!

OK, maybe it's not really that bad, but I have spent less time on the hobbies I had before we got married, and I think in some way I have tried to compensate for that by finding something else that's mine, my way of escaping from married life for an hour here or there, and I've found something that I can do while I'm ostensibly at work...

Or am I just trying to find another way of blaming my wife for what I've been doing?

Rookie mistake

So I went on a binge last week. I thought that could be the end of it, that I could move on. And I could have done, but for one silly mistake.

I didn't clear up after myself properly. And when one of the images I had sought leapt unbidden from my PCs deeper memory yesterday, I had a moment of weakness and went for it.

Thankfully, I later had a moment of strength and did a thorough purge of my PC. There's no trace left that I know how to recover now.

So I'm picking myself up again, after another slip that should never have happened.

I think I'm ready to move on now. Day One, here we come...

Thoughts for a Friday

Something needs to be said here. I'm not sure what it is, but... well, here's what happened.

Since my last post, I have found temptation harder to battle. I think I weakened my defences with MB, then that dream came along, and... I can't even remember what triggered me, but yesterday I just jumped in. I went into full-on binge mode, and spent practically the whole day up to my neck in porn. Ugh.

Then this morning, I log on to find that a new comment has been added here. That has raised some serious conflict of emotion. When I first read it, it was great. That any woman read that post and went to the trouble of adding that reply means a whole lot.

It did, however, make me feel a whole lot worse about yesterday. (Which is no more than I deserve, of course.) Having said that, I think drawing my attention back to that post might have reminded me what it is I'm fighting here. That's who I have been, and I don't like that person. It's time to redouble my efforts and finally become who I was meant to be.

Rose, if you're reading, thanks. You may have given me a kick up the backside when I most needed it. And all because we both read Stephen King. Gotta love those mysterious ways, huh?

My brain and it's evil plot

My brain - or the Addict's brain, maybe - has been playing some nasty tricks on me lately.

It's latest accomplices: old girlfriends. Sick of the post-baby sex-drought, it starts wondering what might have been. What if I hadn't turned down that blind date? What if I had gone out with Samantha? What if I had that dance with Emma? What if I had been a bit more adventurous with holiday romances? Or just bit the bullet and asked one of the girls I knew out on a date?

Truth is, of course, I didn't do as badly for girlfriends as I thought I did at the time, so I'm sure another one wouldn't have stopped me becoming the person I am. Not in a good way, anyway.

And what's worse is when my memory springs one of the girls I did go out with on me. One of the girls I saw a bit too much of. One of them came to me in a dream last night... I try not to be bothered about dreams - after all, I can't control them - but it's still bothering me. She is othering me, almost as if I had actually run into her last night, rather than just imagining that I did.

I suppose it will pass, as these things do. It's just another symptom.