the albatross flies high

Putting your faith in someone to have it destroyed is a damaging experience. The fall out is nuclear. It lasts for a very long time.

Such was the way with the albatross.

With majestic ease my princess had managed to develop and build at least four differing personas. There may be more, who knows? Four was enough for my brain to try and unravel. I was simply the fourth prince charming to awaken her with a kiss. And boy had I awakened something. A spirit so twisted I’m amazed she could lie in bed straight. But lying and lying in bed was a full time occupation for this particular species of womanhood. It’s hard to comprehend how anyone could split their life into such a variety of lies and deceit and remain the very essence of calm and sophistication. But that she was. Even today if she presented herself to me, if I was brave enough to remove my hands from my pockets it’s my own sanity I would feel for, not hers.

This was not so much identity theft as simply theft. She already ‘owned’ the identities. She simply kept them alive and allowed them to mature.

By working abroad during our married life I was an easy target. She knew I wouldn’t be around. There would be no one to question the bank statements, credit applications, catalogue purchases, insurance scams, fraudulent pension claims and god knows what else. Her problems arose when I decided to return.

Expecting a wondrous reception and healthy bank balance I was met with a depressive shell in both departments. As an actress she was and still is superb. She pretty soon had me pandering to her every whim.

As the bottomless pit she had been draining disappeared the pitiful bottom I was to encounter hit me square in the face. The day was fast approaching when she would make it look as if she could not survive without my pecuniary input, and worse, she had the medical records to prove it. The persona she had built around my name would make application to a court for maintenance. She had captured my wallet by batting her eyelids and could legitimise highway robbery without the same effort.

With my sofa as company over the coming year I made excuse upon excuse to myself to try and justify the intensity of feelings and emotions that welled in me.

The bottom line was I’d been ‘done over’ by an expert.

Let me Explain

It says it all really. Middle age does not come alone.

At least by 40ish the greater percentage of the male populate will have been stripped of all their worldly possessions by the person who once proclaimed unswerving love. There may of course be a lot of variant strains to a tale, however, it always ends the same way. The price of freedom is sore.

Difficult to remember the cumbersome infection of pubescent lust when the best on offer is a sofa and an empty bankbook. By the third bottle of cider the vision of a 'grifter' smiling fondly as he enters the hallowed turf that once shared a warm bed with you eats generously at the soul.
Is misery and internet porn the best on offer?

Perhaps there is another way.

And so to a story of success, neither financial, nor therapeutic but nevertheless much more rewarding. Words are cheap, a 'blog' proves that. Actions, now therein hangs a tale or two, and an inability to 'hang his tail' is inevitably what drives the middle aged man into despair. The desperation of of the single clubs, dating sites and god knows where else. The one ingredient to change the constitution of this fruit cake is the spiritual relief that loneliness can never afford. What price the youth of old, the wisdom of entitlement born only in the battle scars of life.

What bollocks.

Driven by being the last piece of the jigsaw that came out a different box, I decided to rearrange my life, throw off the bondage of trite banal mediocrity and set free a soul of rampant desire. Was the world ready?

Not knowing and better still, not caring, the ultimate judgement of the harshest critic I know, myself, is the greatest treasure available in a world of decadent decay. There are many ways up the mountain. I know, I've tried them all. In the end the mountain won...or did it?

It's mighty fine setting up camp in the valley. The echoes of laughter are not lost to the winds on the lofty peaks of egotistical fortune. No brother, I have gained greater pleasure in the contentment of less selfish extremes. I am willing to share my experiences with the less able, and to this end I praise whatever lord there is. Bestowing me with an ability to digest and divulge brings me a greater pleasure than pleasure itself. Lay on McDuff, as the actress said to the bishop.

Tales of misfortune and wondrous merriment let to the sofa. Dreams of glory and burning ambition lost to intolerant behaviour, of myself and others. The albatross will be forever banished to the wilderness. One thing is for sure, she will not go down without a fight.

As the frustrations of daily life unfold I will enlighten those who wish to be lit. The albatross may not be as big a cross as Mr. October. Only the reader can decide.