Frying Pan

Just looking at my calendar and I've seen that I only have five months left to endure in this dump. That's a relief. I was beginning to think this misery would never end. I don't know why I do it to myself, I really don't. I wanted to leave the military because I was sick of being surrounded with people with whom I couldn't have an intelligent conversation, and now I'm surrounded with...well no-one. I believe the phrase is 'out of the frying pan, into the fire.' 

I should have just gone home when I shed that uniform, but I thought I knew better, thought I could just transplant myself into a new town and instantly have friends and a social life and all that other shit you think you'll get when you move to a place with other sentient lifeforms. I found out several things the hard way – the most obvious one being that there aren't many sentient lifeforms in Gloucester, and the ones that do exist don't speak to you if your accent isn't the same as their weird medieval drawl. 

Honestly, it's driving me fucking mental – all I can think about is going home. It's got to the point where I can't even focus at work because all I can think about is how much I despise being in this town, how much I hate them all. Just walking down the street forms a ball of pure hatred in the pit of my stomach...it's taking over my life. I guess it's because there literally is nothing else in my life apart from going to work and going to the gym/running. That's it. That is my existence. And it's horrible. True, I get to see my girlfriend a few times a month...when I brave the horrors of the motorway/wind/rain and mud-strewn pot-hole riddled 'roads' for 3 hours every weekend (well, 6 hours if you factor in the return journey as well) on the motorbike. I'm so fucking fed up...probably why I'm struggling to actually find anything to write about other than how shit everything is, because at the moment...it is. It's like nothing else exists except my desire not to live in this place any more. Fuck the job, fuck everything – just get me out of here. 

When I do get a rare moment of clear level-headedness and actually think about my situation, the answers seem so clear and easy to grasp: jack the job and fuck this place off. Surely mental well-being and a social circle of friends and family is far more important than having something to put on a fucking CV?! I don't know. I'm just pouring my slightly mentally-deficient thoughts out onto the internet. Hopefully, I can look back on this in the future (much how I sometimes look at the archived posts and recall what I was feeling at the time I wrote them) and then laugh heartily (or maybe maniacally) about my ill-fated decision to try to make a life in a new (crap) town. Anyone who is thinking of trying this themselves should think long and hard. In some cases, it may be a risk worth taking, especially if the new location is a town or city that actually has a pulse. If it isn't though, think about how you'll cope with the long evenings of your own company and lack of anything to fill your time with. You'll probably end up hating your very existence and start writing overly negative, world-hating blog posts about your experience. 

In other news, I did finish the book I've been reading. It's called The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks and is the first book in the Night Angel trilogy. I usually stick to science fiction when it comes to literature, but this book is a bit of fantasy novel set in a Tolkien-esque world of magic and war. It tells the tale of a young lad who is brought up in the slums but ends up becoming a kind of assassin's apprentice, and ultimately a master of killing (with a few magical powers too) that can (probably) change the fate of the world. It's a great read, and I recommend it to anyone who likes to root for the underdog. I've just started the second book in the series and hopefully it'll be every bit as epic as the first one.