Everybody wades through the same coloured shit but it doesn't drag everyone down

So as the acid bath of heartbreak started corroding every speck of my self worth I, rather predictably, started writing some songs (more of that later). A line from one of them goes "...but better is a relative term, there's not much room for things to get worse". It's almost funny how very, very wrong I was.

So that was July of last year. The rest of 2010 was spent trying to cope at work mostly & adjusting to my new life of being a hermit. I did go out in Milton Keynes for a very special colleagues leaving do. It was ok until I, without warning, started blubbing in the nightclub. Not a good look. The works Xmas party was actually pretty cool & briefly gave me hope that things could be on the up. Then came 2011. For a short while I was seeing an old friend in a "friends with benefits" arrangement but, as lovely as she was, it was destined not to work out mainly because I was still far too fucked up over Natalie.

Major digression alert! How mad is this? The lady in question lived in Yorkshire & her house is literally next door but one to the house my biological mother (whom I've never met) lived in at the time of my birth. I'd be in her back garden having a fag looking at this house & marvelling at the strangeness of life. My friend knew the occupants of said house & their parents had it before them & they remembered hearing about the scandal of the child born out of wedlock. That was me! Scandalous before I could even talk.

Anyway it was about April when things started to really unravel. Now this could take awhile & could potentially be quite dull. I apologise in advance if that proves to be the case. Around this time my boss at work announced that she was going to be leaving. This led to me applying for her position. Now I didn't really expect to get the job as registered Manager of a children's home was a bit too much of a step up. Still, my boss backed me & I thought it was worth a shot. A couple of weeks later I got a letter stating I was unsuccessful. This wasn't unexpected but I was a bit disgruntled not to have been considered for an interview. The next day I received another item of mail from work, some literature relating to a training course I'd recently been on. It was notable because it proclaimed on the front of the folder in big letters: Welcome to the next stage of your career. I was a little miffed with this & went & uploaded a picture of the offending statement to facebook along with the comment; "What a delightful sense of irony my employers have demonstrated today". I must point out that neither I nor the photo made any reference to the company at all. Anyway a couple of weeks later I was given a warning for it as I had gone against company policy in relation to Facebook. At the same time a very long-awaited position of deputy Manager came up in my home, a job that I had been waiting for for a good 2 years. I was specifically told that my recent "disciplinary problem" would not affect my application for this position. Strange then that a couple of weeks later I received a letter stating that given my recent warning the company felt it was not the right time for me to be considered for promotion. Bastards!
So that turned out to be the last straw &, though I had been trying really hard not to, I went to the Doctors where unsurprisingly it was confirmed that I was suffering from depression. I'd known this for some time but I'd been reluctant to admit it. So I was signed off work for 6 weeks, which was all well & good except my company didn't pay sick pay so I would only be getting SSP (less than half of my usual wages). When the time came to go back, my doctor recommended that I was eased back into work gradually. This seemed logical & I was asked to "pop in" to work to arrange how we'd work it out. All fine & dandy right? Wrong!
I'll never, ever forget that day. June 1st it was, when I drove to work for the first time in weeks to sort out my immediate future. I knew something was amiss as soon as I got there, my regional manager was there & I was greeted in quite a subdued fashion & led straight into a nearby room for the meeting. As it turned out the meeting had nothing to do with my return to work but was instead to inform me that while I'd been off several allegations had been made against me my members of staff. A couple of these were minor things relating to my practice but one of them was, to all intents & purposes, an accusation of sexual harassment from a junior colleague. I was deeply shocked & really don't feel the need to justify myself. It was a laughable accusation which of course was later found to have no grounding in fact whatsoever. Anyway the upshot of this was I would now be suspended on full pay pending an investigation (yay for full pay). So I drove home. I was about half a mile from home when I was pulled over by the police who were doing random spot-checks on cars. Now many times in my life this would've freaked me out as I've not always been too hot on making sure my car was in good shape or MOT'd or taxed. However on this occasion I had no worries. Which only made my shock much more profound when the very nice officer told me that my driving license had been revoked about two years earlier. Apparently when my license had been endorsed at an earlier time I hadn't sent it off to DVLA to be sorted out. Except I had. Turned out though that I'd needed to send it back again which I hadn't. Police protocol on such matters is that they immediately impound the car. Which would subsequently would cost me near on £200 to get back, this cost rose by £25 a day. As I'd already pointed out, because I'd been off sick I'd been getting a significantly reduced wage. Basically I couldn't afford to set my car free so I never saw it again. 3 weeks later I got a letter telling me it had been destroyed. So that was a good day.

Weeks later, with the investigation complete, I was finally allowed to go back to work. However I no longer had a car, I was still deeply depressed & I could not bear the notion of working with the conniving little mare that had stitched me up. So I quit. Now I know this was quite foolish but the bottom line was I simply couldn't get there without a car. So now I'm depressed and unemployed. Oh & soon to be evicted from my flat. This will happen soon, I expecting the letter any day now. It's inevitable & unfixable. I do have somewhere to go so I'm not gonna be on the streets (yet!) but I'm dreading telling Travis. In some ways I'm almost looking forward to it though. A new start has a certain appeal.

On top of all that I really have become a hermit. I rarely go out, perhaps once a day to get milk & stuff. In the last month I've probably spent about 10 hours in adult company. If I didn't have my computer & x-box I'm sure I would have gone fully mad by now.

So back at the beginning I raised 3 questions. I believe I've answered where I've been & what I've been doing. All that remains is why I'm back in Blogland. It's quite simple really, I'm lonely. I need some sort of adult interaction, I need to be listened to & I need to feel some warmth from somewhere. So far it's a decision I'm very glad I made and it's frighteningly nice that even though I've not been round for ages I've already had exactly what I was after, a little bit of love. Thank you people, I don't deserve you.

And now we're all up to date (well sort of, there is music to discuss) & free to start documenting the day to day doings of my fabulous world of dullness. Bet you can't wait, eh?