Well, a lot has happened since I last wrote here. Basically, I've been ill. I went back to work too quickly after the chest infection and the antibiotics. I was desperately trying not to spend time on my own in a lonely house and in consequence pushed myself too far and too hard.
It all came to a head on a Saturday lunchtime when I felt distinctly odd. So odd that I called the doctor out. Gill came round to stay with me too. The tests that the doctor did were all to see if I had had a stroke. The basic consensus is that I had an episode of some sort but they are unwilling to diagnose me as having had a fully fledged stroke. Certainly whatever it was has left no gross impairment.
Physically, I've been feeling completely crap and spiritually all sorts of poisons from the past have been bubbling up. It's been some weeks of complete inner and external turmoil during which I've had masses of support from friends and family so thank you one and all.
I actually went to spend a week with my parents. Roland was good enough to drive me up after a concert performance of Andrea Chenier that I ducked out of. Well three hours culminating in heroic self-sacrifice was more than I could face even if it meant missing the wonderful José Cura. The drive up was great through the Welsh marches and it reminded me just how much I miss the shape of the landscape from living in the centre of a massive conurbation.
The time with my parents was good. They provided some common sense, some links with the past (we spent an afternoon looking through photograph albums), much love and attention. Why do I need to get into a state of crisis before I can accept that I am loved? It's like Colin said - I value myself by what I do rather than simply for what I am - me, myself, i.
Anyhow, I'm back in London now - with a car (formerly my dad's) with
some time on my hands to start sorting things out and I guess that
that is going to be the story of the rest of this year. I am beginning
to wind down a bit though the sleep patterns are still a bit
unreliable. I've given up smoking. Don't know why. Just did.
Woke up and realised that I hadn't been smoking at my parents, that I had
continued not smoking back in London and that I now thought of myself as a
non-smoker. I'm less skittish but I still run out of energy and feel
dizzy a lot of the time (well what do you expect from a gay man?
However, I'm, starting to put some good things into place. I've been following a relaxation programme that my mother used after her scare with high blood pressure, I'm going to keep up the aromatherapy massage and we'll see about introducing something like yoga or Tai Chi. At some point I may well do some formal counselling but that's very much for the future.
Although all sorts of materials from the past have been popping into
my head and will need reconciling at some point, for the time
being I'm just noting them. In the past, I've tried almost to
counsel myself (stupid boy 
).
This time, I'm going to deal with it at an appropriate time and
place using the materials I've been recording but are not
for publication here.
You'll forgive me on that score but, although this journal is a record, it is not a record of absolutely everything and I certainly don't want it to be David's public therapy broadcasting medium. If I throw a switch one day and want to do that, then I'll try and get myself onto Oprah - except, of course, I'm not extreme enough to gain my 10 minutes of fame on TV - thank God.