Gosh. Well now.

My word, it's been a while.

I didn't even do my depressingly repetitive New Year's questionnaire this year (seriously, almost nothing has changed since the previous one, except maybe that I'm not as poor as I was).

But hey, here I am, alive and well (I guess). The truth is, I really only come here when I feel like there's simply no one else I can turn to. I can say things here that I can't say to anyone in a face-to-face situation. I don't want to be a burden, I don't want to bore people with my pathetic misery.

But.

I'm broken. It's the conclusion I've finally reached: there are things about me that aren't right, and can't seem to be fixed.

Every day, I find myself hating something new about myself. I can't seem to feel happiness, or joy, and I can't find peace within myself. I'm filled with frustration and self-pity and anger for things I have no control over. I'm enslaved to my wretched failure of a past, despising it for making me what I am, and despising myself for being so dependent on it.

Every evening, once I'm alone, I find myself sobbing pathetically over a sappy TV ad, or some ridiculous TV show, or a piece of music, or just about anything, really.

My sleep patterns are disastrous, I eat badly, I waste far too much time on pointless things, I have no social life to speak of (and when I am invited to something, I generally make some excuse to avoid it, and then feel miserable because my life is so dull), no hobbies, no real interests, no life in fact.

My existence is a waste of time, I am a waste of space. My only reason for really actually still being here is that my daughters need me. Well, the younger one anyway. My elder daughter is more or less lost to me - she's only 16, but she hasn't lived with me for almost 6 years, I rarely see her and she rarely seems to feel the need to have anything to do with me. But yes, sweet L still needs me, and C, well, she needs me but probably doesn't realise it - she needs me to pay for all her stuff at the very least (I pay her school fees, school trips, clothes, scout camp, holidays...).

Otherwise, I really don't see the purpose of my existence. I get up as late as I can, I faff about, I eat crap, I watch crap on TV while making a semblance of working, then I go to bed at dawn. That's it. That's my life. It's a waste of time.

And I'm incapable of changing it.

I'm wretched at the thought of growing old (or older) alone, but can't bear the thought of having to live with anyone. I yearn to be loved and complemented and made to feel special because I've never had that, but know that it's never going to happen. I want to feel comfortable in my body, but can't, seeing only the unfit, flabby mess I've become. I want to write, and paint, and create things, and go to exhibitions, but can never find the energy to do anything other than stay on my sofa and escape into my fantasy world.

Oh yes. The fantasy world. I have a whole other life in my head, and the best time of my day is when I finally crawl into bed and can escape there. It's not perfect, but I am loved, and beautiful, and happy there. So much better than reality.

So there you have it.

I'm sure you're delighted I'm back - yet more moaning and whingeing.

There is some positive though: after a wretched 2017 from a work point of view (I've never earned so little in my entire career - and most of what I did earn came from the last 3 months of the year; the rest of the time, I was literally counting centimes and too poor to buy food even), this year has been really pretty good - I'd earned more in 2018 by the end of March than in the whole of 2017. I got a new (additional) job, teaching English (of course) at the School of Architecture and, while I don't exactly enjoy it, I get paid every month and that's a huge advantage, even if it's only €500. I've done loads of translation work, found new clients, kept up to date with my payments (VAT, taxes, social contributions) and generally got that area of my life more or less in order. So that's something I guess.

Well, I'm glad to have got that off my chest at last - I'm not sobbing any more, and after the current episode of True Blood that I'm watching (my God, Eric Northman is sexy...) is over, I'll be off to bed, maybe even before dawn (though not much I guess).

I do just wish, though, that I could feel things the way other people do - I feel dead on the inside, incapable of any positive emotions, feeling only worry and anxiety and frustration and anger and self-loathing.

Ciao for now.