So said Steve Hogarth when talking about 'The Space' in the liner notes to Marillion's Best of Both Worlds collection.

 

 

The song, and his sentiments, popped into my head as I read the article below and ticked far too many boxes.

 

www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/all-the-lonely-people-20130826-2skkz.html

 

I read the story, and others like it, to try and make some sense of the emptiness and melancholy that have been my constant companions since my mother died. When most people lose a parent, they have adult lives and families of their own to help cushion the blow and give them a reason to KBO (keep buggering on). I don't have those things because I never took the time or trouble to seek them out. Much as I complained about it, I was naive enough to think the protective little bubble I lived in would last forever. Of course I knew it wouldn't but, if not for an unknowable and untreatable cancer, I might have had a few more years to introduce some of the lifestyle changes I now have to manage on my own, perhaps with the help and support of the one person who'd always been there for me.

 

I'm fine as long as I have something to do, something to look forward to and someone to talk to. I'm also eternally grateful for the love of family and friends who check in on me regularly but, as they must, they soon go back to their own lives and loved ones and leave me to deal with the ashes of mine. I'm all laughs, jokes, bravado and ambition when they're around because they give me strength to be that way. They don't see me going to cathouses and parting with ridiculous sums of money just so I can feel (almost) human and appreciated even though I'm paying for it, or arguing with people online until half past three in the morning just so my brain won't go to places that make Katatonia's lyrics sound like Smurf songs.

 

What I need is structure and routine, both of which are hard to establish when your house is so empty it feels more like a cross between a squat and a charity shop than the place I've called home for 34 years. I am, as the poet says, trapped in purgatory. Changes big and small are in the works and my life will be so much better when they come about, but they're taking their sweet time getting here. I just hope I don't run out of sanity before I run out of patience.