Rituals...

Backing track: Marshmello - Alone 

 When I flew in to Perth in June, Ricky picked me up from the airport late in the evening and ran me out to my mother's house, then hung around for an hour or so before leaving me to get far-too-little sleep.
When I left, Ian picked me up after work and we went to The Kewdale Tavern for dinner before he dropped me off for my redeye-horror flight back. 
The next morning, after transiting through Melbourne, Bridget picked me up bleary-eyed on her way to work and took me home, where I collapsed into bed and slept for most of the day. 

When I flew into Perth a fortnight ago, Ricky picked me up from the airport and drove us out to Alfred's Kitchen to get a late-night feed and hang around the fire for an hour or so before running me out to my mother's house to sleep far-too-little.
On my way back, Ian came out to pick me up after work, and took me to The Kewdale Tavern for dinner before dropping me off for my cushy Business Class redeye flight out.
I was just as bleary-eyed when Bridget picked me up to take me home, then worked from my desk for the rest of the day when I crashed out in my own bed and slept through the day. 

The first two times I went back to Perth after Leaving For Good, I wrote trilogies of blog posts about my sense of dysphoria as I went; one on the flight over, one whilst there, the last on the flight back.
This time I seem to have managed to leave that dysphoria behind, so I talked about that, and the Joy Of Work instead, and when I settled into my extravagantly-comfortable paid-for-with-Points fully-reclining seat I realised there was nothing I felt the need to say, so enjoyed a glass of Chivas Regal while I read my book then found some sleep, and let the third trilogy end at two parts. 

Backing track: Pendulum - Not Alone (Calvin Harris cover) 

I can't help but notice patterns, and I'm instinctively inclined towards building seamless systems that work smoothly. I might walk a path that's chaotic, but I have routines which ensure that every time I walk out the door I'm prepared, with all of my tools exactly where I expect to find them when the next wave hits; book-ending the chaos with order helps me stay in control, and means I never leave my phone charger in the hotel room when I check out. 

My mission over the last few months has been to break the patterns I've found myself trapped in so that I can walk a new, different path, without leaving Beckett waterlogged and glowering at me from the gutter where I emptied my bath of self-pity. Mostly, I seem to be succeeding. 

"I enjoyed your last post," Ian told me over Beef Brisket Rendang and Chicken Korma, "it's a departure from your recent milieu, but the character is still recognisably 'you'. 'A day in the life' is an established literary mode and you do it well. How you banged that out while travelling and staving off sleep deprivation is impressive." 

I might be making an effort to reinvent and resurrect, but I *am* still Me; Me with my penchant for three's, and my cyclical narrative-style. Breaking the cycle of misery and cutting out the things that make you miserable doesn't necessarily mean making wholesale changes like throwing out the bathwater, and your furbaby along with it. It can be as simple as changing your approach in smol ways, like limiting your lists to two things instead of three, and using fewer semi-colons.

You can, and should, take a knife to anything that stands between you and where you need to be; yesterday's Sacred Cow is today's graven image.

You can, and should, hold on to the rituals you take comfort from when you kick yourself out your Comfort(ably Numb)-zone; we may have put down childish things when we became a 'man', but we still observe the Sabbath and keep it holy. 

The space you carve out between the two can become room for a New Covenant you make with yourself to be a You that's better, maybe even one that's more whole. 

No matter what tho, always leave room for another Special at your Favourite Burger Joint On The Planet, or this week's Brisket Special at the Conveniently Out-of-the-way Gastropub, so that when the opportunity arises you can enjoy them with your sweetest friends, who'll love you no matter what you become.