Personal #3

or, What happens when you accept Reality in public…

My watch almost gleefully reminded me this morning that six hours sleep is ’non-restorative’. No shit, mate, I feel as if I have been dragged into a hole by a multi-tentacled monster. We went especially hard on our Wednesday HIIT class because this week is a ‘Feature Week’ and the soundtrack was a full-on Trance throwback. If there’s one thing that gets me moving, it’s a bunch of Trance Bangers [TM].

I was asked during last night’s Live Launch of Forest Management what my walk-on music would be if poetry was a contact sport. For a long time I would have picked Firestarter by The Prodigy, because I imagined myself a lot more cooler than has EVER the case. Faking it until you make it is only sustainable for a certain period of time. Last night, I was honest with the room.

This is the point where Old Me would have felt appallingly sad and disappointed with the turnout for an event which I worked very hard to promote. I am hugely grateful therefore to every person who told me they couldn’t make it, who was honest with me about their reasoning, who cared enough to send me a message to apologise for their absence. This is a massive step forward from three years ago.

This is also where it is apparent that my own perception has again failed, that I still find it quite hard to appreciate how certain relationships are framed in relation to interest. My assumption is always to assume the best, that if I have conversations in a certain manner with someone else that we are sharing a similar level of friendship. Yesterday therefore was a significant wake-up call for my brain.

Remember when you accepted not everyone cares like you do? YEAH THAT.

It was one of the best in-person nights I have had for a very long time, regardless of bums on seats. It was a space to accept that I am not a light and joyful poet a fair proportion of the time, and that is perfectly okay. There is also a video of me reading a poem that will be entered for something in 2027, for no other reason than why the fuck not. We are looking forward, always, and not backwards.

We’re not done with promotions, of course, there are still two more events to do (one virtual, one real) which will again no doubt alter my perception of reality further. There is the intractable too: I have sold many books, more I believe than was the case last time. There is new interest in my work. Ultimately there is also a respect from people and in spaces that did not previously exist.

My pamphlet has secured me a job that will carry through the whole of 2027.

There are three failed post drafts in my folder right now, where I tried to wrestle with some very real issues that Forest Management has presented me in the last two weeks. It turns out that none of them are really that important in the larger scheme of things, and represent my mental health taking a turn very much for the better in the time since the pamphlet was written.

We will delete them once this is posted and not dwell. Not dwelling is the best thing to do when it becomes apparent it is your own perception that is at fault. Lessons will be learnt. More than at any other point before in my life I feel it is crucial to make the most of the moment I find myself within. It means this morning pushing past the fatigue and concentrating on the next task.

It also means finding the space to bring some joy and celebration back to my work.