Suspicion and mild anger, my default stance on life...

This morning I awoke fresh after a fretful dream, it was 0500hrs. I was in a taxi, a London black cab, and, as I travelled along a central London street, I was aware of interference from outside. Another cab was ramming the cab in which I was a passenger. My cab came to a halt at the side of the road and I told the driver that I would be ‘having a word’ with the rogue cab driver. I jumped out and confronted him as he walked across the road from where he had parked. There followed a tirade of abuse from yours truly, plenty of use of the ‘c-word’. The man in question was a mildly eccentric character; he had shoulder length greying hair and wore a kind of white smock patterned with vertical grey lines about an inch apart. His trousers were made of the same material and he came across as belligerent, but not threatening. Just annoying.

I woke up, heart racing, or rather my pulse appeared to be slightly raised. Summer light was oozing through the curtains in my bedroom and soon I was out of bed and making my way downstairs to make breakfast. It was 0529hrs.

As I walked towards the kitchen I realised that, by and large, I had spent a lot of my life moaning and fretting about virtually everything and that my default stance on life was one of suspicion and mild anger at the notion of being in some way hard done by, tricked or conned. I can’t think of many situations where I haven’t, in some way, been vocally dissatisfied or suspicious of what was going on around me.

Everything seems to be based around being fretful, angry, annoyed and unhappy. The only time I get a break from it is when I hit the road on my bike or when I’m out of the country on business and can chill in a hotel, alone, away from anybody who is going to moan about me or about something I am engaged in, be it the job or my relationships with other individuals or something. There is never complete harmony and it’s getting worse.

Wherever I turn these days there appears to be something to fret or moan about. Even international politics offers little respite, although I would argue that it never has been a cure for anxiety. In fact, Brexit and Trump have given me plenty of opportunity to fire off the C word either verbally or via a text message or email to somebody. The tone of conversation and, dare I say it, the tone of silence simmers with anger and there’s little in the way of a safe haven. Even writing these words is a cause of anxiety and I find it very difficult to escape.

I would go as far as to say that I’ve given up on seeking peace because there isn’t any, there’s no real safe haven. Even taking a holiday is fraught with hassles that make the very idea redundant. Back in the day, when I lived at home with mum and dad and was under the age of adulthood, there were really two big milestones in my year: the annual summer holiday to the south coast and Christmas time. With the former, we always went to the same place (the south coast) where dad would rent out a house on the beach and we would spend lazy days swimming in the sea or walking to a local cafe and then coming home for dinner in the evening before heading for bed. I recall clean bed sheets and hot nights. There was little to worry about, apart from school, and for some reason I never let it get to me, I never fretted about it. Summer holidays by the sea were idyllic and I still go there in an attempt to recapture the magic, but invariably fail miserably. Unfortunately, it’s not possible. I remember how dad tried to rejuvenate it once in the early 90s, but the whole thing erupted into a big family argument brought about by sibling rivalry and behind-the-back bitching. When I drive to the coast, it’s with the knowledge that I’ve got to drive back and it’s with the knowledge that the people I’m going with don’t want to go because they don’t share the memories I have; and this element of the day trip makes me fretful, not only because I’ve got to drive all the way home, but because I know that those around me don’t particularly want to be there; I’m also aware that I’m trying to recapture something that has simply passed and is no longer relevant.

My brother and I often fantasise together about moving down to the south coast, buying a house there and then trying to recapture the endless sunshine, the smell of the sea, the breeze, the waves, the rockpools. We are both under the impression that the carefree and happy life we lived during those magical fortnights away from home are still down there waiting for us, but I’m not sure if they are and even if they were there, I wonder what forces of fretfulness, what dark clouds, would gather to ruin our fun.

Occasionally, there are indications that perhaps I’m living in a parallel universe where the less fretful world can be seen, but rarely touched. Once, back in June 2017, I travelled to Vienna on business. It was the summer and I was alone, staying in a hotel close to the fairground. I mention the hotel purely because it sticks in my mind as being part of the happiness of the trip. I hired a bike and used it daily, parking up outside restaurants for dinner and feeling, it has to be said, elated, euphoric, on top of the world. Was it, perhaps, the daily exercise that released endorphins that upped my mood and kept the fretful world away? Was it because I didn’t interact with anybody who might have introduced an element of fretfulness to my life? Was it because Vienna presented no threat? There were cycle lanes and not just lines drawn on the road, to protect cyclists from motorists, perhaps that was it. I don’t know, but that week in the summer heat had something very special about it. In truth, I didn’t want to return home, and when I later went back to the same hotel a year later I tried to recreate the experience, but life had moved on.