To Europe and Beyond #10: Back from the Brink

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To the cultured readers of these hallowed pages I would like to offer this little excerpt by way of apology for keeping you uninformed of the crazy travels of my former life. I know that it's been a while, guys but they're back on track now and you should have plenty of my misfortunes to keep you going through the coming months.

With the permission of the editors I have been allowed to insert this little 'tell all' session into my travelogue as, though it doesn't really focus on my travels (that comes after I get all this shit off my chest), it does appertain to the life and times of a traveller and a travel writer.

Let me explain.

You see, guys, when I began writing these travel tales of mine, I was in a fairly healthy frame of mind, full of the joys of spring and very glad to be working for the Boots guys on a project that didn't involve five different editors changing my every word or have an agent screaming periodically down the phone to me about deadlines. But that was soon to change.

I'd gone through a lot of shit in the past six or seven years and though I had managed to put it all behind me I had never really learned to let it all go. I suppose some of the stuff were like dirty little secrets or bad photographs (the kind taken at a drunken party where you are vomiting soundly into a bucket whilst a bearded man paints a rendition of the Mona Lisa onto your bare arse using only toothpaste, 'Loctite' glue and meatloaf residue), in the past but not entirely forgotten.

Though they came up no longer they were still there, subconsciously gnawing at my smile, colouring my words and darkening my skies, sneaking around in my psyche like cowled monks, occasionally stomping dirty boots down onto my existence when it was least expected.

In short, the twin assassins of depression and nervous breakdown were, in effect, leaning out of the window of the Dallas Book Depository (I apologise to any American readers for that one), taking aim and getting ready to squeeze off a couple of rounds as soon as they had a clear shot.

Well, that day came and, as often happens with depression and nervous disorders, I didn't even notice until about four weeks after I had been gunned down.

One morning, that summer, I just awoke feeling like shit, feeling not quite right, feeling just a little under the weather and that sense of restless unease just would not fuck off no matter what I did. I surmised that it was probably me just suffering from wanderlust and itchy feet again so I took myself off to Turkey and that didn't help at all. In fact, it had the opposite effect as I found myself not only homesick but also craving solitude and singularity.

I realised that I could not stand to be around people but, more importantly and more worryingly, I also realised that I just could not stand to be around me any more. I look at it this way. If you had a close friend and you spent nigh on thirty years with them, just you and them and no one else, then you mightn't be surprised to find that you had grown a little tired and a little bored of them. This was the way I looked at my own company as I had spent over a quarter of a century cooped up in my own little psyche with my own demented personality and I came to understand that he was driving me nuts.

Now, when one grows bored and annoyed with one's own company there is (unless medical science has taken a grand leap forward in the few months that my brain was out to lunch) not a great lot you can do about it, unless one decides to make a desperate grab for a Remington shotgun and paint the walls of one's bedroom a rather natty shade of brain.

Now, as much as I desired to go for the Remington option I realised that there are a few people out there who love me beyond belief (my mother being most pertinent amongst them, God bless her chain smoking ass) and if it was the Remington I opted for then I would, in effect, be little more than a multiple murderer. As much as I wished to end the maelstrom currently resident inside my whirling noggin (that's Northern English speak for head/skull/brain) I knew that if I took such drastic action then it would plunge my family into an abyss much darker and much worse than mine and besides, I've never been one for taking the easy way out, well, not when there's a much more difficult route open anyway. Instead I made the assertion that I would spend the next few moths going completely and utterly round the bend as this seemed like the most sensible approach.

I had fought back so many times from anorexia, drug addiction, near death experiences and spectacularly failed relationships and I was completely certain that I didn't have the fight left in me to get through another long and protracted battle. I'd beaten the demons before but I was sure that this time they were moving into the neighbourhood for good and that there would be no shifting them.

I'd always had goals before, you know, first I wanted to get published and get some respect as a writer so the determination from that got me over my first battle with anorexia. Then, after I got my heart broken the first time (in a very turbulent relationship), I threw myself into building up a little company and that became my crutch for a while. When the company plans went belly up (through no fault of my own, well, other than trusting and loving someone too much) and I found myself directionless and once again heartbroken, I threw myself into a proper job and the joys of travel, but eventually even that got too much for me.

I had been lucky enough in life to always somehow manage to work with stuff that I really enjoyed. From writing to doing drama workshops, from being a political aide to working with art, to finally getting paid for visiting wondrous sights. But I came to realise that it had also been the ultimate curse. All I had succeeded in doing was to transform everything that I loved doing into a form of work which ultimately became totally unenjoyable and I could stand doing any of them no longer.

So it came to pass that this summer I was in a position where I could not trust anyone enough to let them inside my closed off little world. I couldn't bring myself to look at art, I couldn't bring myself to write. I hated the thought of even so much as getting on a plane or a boat again, let alone boinging around a country for weeks at a time...and I was beginning to loathe my own company.

I was at university at the time, making a determined bid to become a Professor of English Literature in a record time so even the last bastion of safety that I had (the ability to lose oneself in the joy of the written word) was disintegrating rapidly as the classical works I loved so dearly became weapons of studious torture.

In short, guys, as you may have by now gathered, I was completely cuckoo, out to lunch and in a very dangerous place indeed.

Nothing in life could even inspire the slightest smile, nothing gave me any satisfaction. I churned out college papers in a very cold and clinical manner (which wasn't really a bad thing as my grades went through the roof), I turned out articles and stories without any real thought or effort and it all ensured that when I viewed the future, it was a future that did not have me in it. I was dying slowly and I was very afraid. I so wanted to be loved and love someone else again. I so wanted to feel happiness again, I wanted to laugh and cry and feel alive again but the monkeys on my back were really weighing me down.

September came and I found myself sitting in a university office not really wanting to be there and, in truth, not really wanting to be anywhere. I wanted to be dormant, I wanted to be ethereal, I wanted to be non-existent. But then things changed.

Oh, come on guys, do you really think that I would put you through all that if this woeful little excerpt didn't have a happy ending. What do you think I am, nuts or something?

Eventually I got myself to a point so low that I confessed to one of my closest friends that I didn't really see myself being able to carry on any longer, confiding in him that I thought I was nearing the end of my stay on planet Earth and that everyone could just get on and deal with my demise as best they could. I had no passion left for anything, everything was grey and unfriendly but then, as I sat down one day, scowling at the world, I looked up and there, right in front of me, sat an absolute angel.

Now, I don't think I've told you this but there have been certain times in my life (and I haven't been wrong yet) when I just know that people I meet are going to play a big part in my life. Don't ask me how, I just know. And as I looked across the table at this woman I just knew that there was something about her.

Sure, she was as beautiful and as graceful a girl as you could ever have the fortune to gaze at but that wasn't it. There was something about her which spoke to a place inside my soul, that much I was certain of and I had not even talked to her yet. I would like to say it was love at first sight but it wasn't, it was something else much more important than that, much deeper than that. She intrigued me and she interested me and this was something that had not happened for such a very long time.

It was only a few days before fate threw us together (good old fairy godmother, she never lets me down in my hours of need) and we got to speaking as we shared cigarettes on the steps to my university building. She was American (but hey, I can forgive her for that), her name was Amber and, over the next few weeks, she stepped into my life and, without asking, began to rub away the grey from my skies and kick down all the doors that I had put in place inside my heart and my soul. We became close friends in a freakishly short space of time and soon we were spending pretty much all of our spare time together but still I could not tell you how I felt about her.

I knew that there was something about her, but I just did not know what it was. Maybe it was because I had not felt emotion for so very long that I couldn't see the love that was growing inside me. All of that changed one night when, as we sipped beer by a fire in a comfy little pub, she took hold of my hand and said, "Ian, I think I am falling in love with you."

I would like to say that my heart leapt and I professed a love for her too but instead all I managed to do was nearly choke myself on a mouthful of beer and stammer unintelligible sounds (pretty much the kind of noises a baboon would make if it was choking on a chocolate bar) before I made the decision that it would be a really neat idea if we went back to my house and got hammered on rum, Jack Daniels and Vodka.

I will spare you the details of the next few weeks as the situation was a trifle complicated (and I'm kind of wrapping things up happily here) so I'll cut to the chase and tell you that I eventually came to realise that I felt the same way and that we are now very much in life and very much looking forward to a glorious future together.

As a result of this, I am now writing again with a zeal I have never before felt. I am now reading poetry and classical literature again. I can now smile and feel joy again and I can now envision a future with myself firmly in it. When we talk, we talk of children and of future travel plans, we name the pets we will have, we talk of decorating and marriage plans and we talk of honeymoons and making love. In short, my life has once again changed, only this time, I am assured that it will stay this way forever.

I have had my belief and my faith in life restored and I can offer her no greater compliment than to tell her that I love her so very much and that she has, in effect saved my life. From being a living corpse I have been brought back to life as a tramp given the kiss of life by an elven princess. She has become my rock and my morning cup of tea, my peace and my sanity, my joy and my hope, my warmth, my blanket in the cold night and the essence of my sweet dreams.

Ok guys, so I know I'm getting a little gushy here but hey, I was on the fucking brink man, so cut me a little slack and allow me my little wanderings.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that no matter how bad things get, keep your head down, try and dodge the bullets (or if you can't then fuck it, stand up and let the bastards do their worst) and always try to keep the faith. Life can get a little shit at times, believe me I know, but sooner or later things will change and when they do, grab onto it with both hands and don't let go.

I say this to you because I know that it is often dissatisfaction with life that leads a lot of us to travel in the first place. If I had a penny for every traveller I had ever met who had a story similar to mine then I would be a rich man indeed and I just want to offer this up as a message of hope for any who feel, or are worried that they are coming to feel, as I did before I met Miss Amber Jorgensen.

I know a lot of readers will sympathise or empathise with this excerpt so I thank you all for allowing me this indulgence. I think, in part, I needed to get this off my chest now before I really could say goodbye to the past and hello to the future. I am in love and so very happy again and I hope that you will all stick with me now as once again I plunge you into the varied misfortunes which accompanied my skinny ass on my big European adventure.

Thanks guys, thanks for your support and thank you for the letters and e-mails that I have had in the past telling me that you like my work. Well, if you thought it was funny then, wait till you see the spin I put on things when I'm writing with a dirty big grin on my face. I'm aiming to have a big chunk arriving about once a week from now on so please, keep reading guys, and I hope that I can do you all justice. Keep the faith and never give up trying.

P.S. Oh and I've decided to stop arsing about in rural France and get to the bright lights of Paris to tell you about a knife fight I had with a pimp (well, he had the knife, I just had to make do with my fists and that most English of weapons, the forehead), so keep your eyes peeled.




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