It has been a week since my last entry so now is a good time to put something up here to (remind me in future) let you know what has been going on. Last week was exhausting. I’ve been getting up to my old tricks again. Smoking too much, staying up too late, sleeping too little, eating too little and drinking too much. I think, sometimes, that I lack the ability to have for myself a balanced, settled existence. I want to eat well, sleep well, do normal things that don’t involve staying up until 5 am on the computer. I want to have early nights, to have a good sleep, and wake up the next day as a fully capable adult member of society. I think, what it is, is that I have a desire to conform. I have always been a non-conformist. I always said to myself – No kids, no marriage. Now look at me. Despite my unsettled youth, teens, and early twenties, I can see myself doing both of those things. All it took was someone to love. I know that sounds cliched but there is no other way of saying it. But, anyway. What I want is a normal life free from all nighters, from junk food, from doing no house work, free from smoking. I want a clean home, a clean life-style. I want nights out as a couple for dinner and drinks, not nights in in front of a computer. I just want to be normal.
I never thought I would crave normality – it’s almost like a reversed social rebellion. I’m a conformist. I yearn to have what others have. A house, a wife, kids, a car, a mortgage, family holidays. In many ways I feel like Renton in Trainspotting:
So why did I do it? I could offer a million answers, all false. The truth is that I’m a bad person, but that’s going to change, I’m going to change. This is the last of this sort of thing. I’m cleaning up and I’m moving on, going straight and choosing life. I’m looking forward to it already. I’m going to be just like you: the job, the family, the fucking big television, the washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electrical tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisurewear, luggage, three-piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing the gutters, getting by, looking ahead, to the day you die.
I am a bad person but I want so desperately to change. I want to be like ‘you’. Honest, dependable, trustworthy, calm, gentle. Normal, I guess. Just normal.
