Just about being enough.

The long and winding road of just being enough.

I post some social media to a mens mental wellbeing group on Thursday morning, I said I'd help as I'm good with writing copy and producing visuals. Someone that's actually grateful for my graphic design believe me, goes a long way. I also help the ladies boxing exercise class run by the same guy with social media. I'm indebted. He's done a lot to turn my life to the better reasons for still living stuck in a grimy fighty town as my potential drained away years ago - excuse the gravitas more on that later. 

Of course I couldn't mention either of these altruistic causes I do in my spare time to the boss, as the concept of someone offering something out of the kindness of my heart without a financial incentive simply does not compute. Why would anyone do that? "He must be not telling me the whole story - he's up to something - is there a percentage to be had?"

I headed off to work, the gate at the end of the apartments was stuck open, as yet again the Italian electric motor had broken, Lord knows why it was installed, Italians making any electronics that get wet is just not a good combination however they've attempted to seal it, just ask my brother who owned a Ducati motorbike, or indeed anyone that owned a rusty Alfa Romeo in the 80's. I walk on to the car park descending the disabled ramp from the building to see who's illegally parked in the demarcated spaces today, this happens a lot. 3 cars I don't recognise, 3 people who think that those who live here who pay to park don't matter. All walks of life. A camper van, a small white hatchback, and some vulgar silver Mitsubishi kerb cruncher. Three people that chance their arms terminating in a raised middle finger on a daily basis to the world of social graces.

It's bitterly cold today. The carrier bag I'd filled with warm water was thawing the ice on my windscreen, only for it to form again, crystals crazing across the glass. Then I get the wipers going, as soon as I take my foot off the gas they slow down drastically as bored with the cold snap as me. This is not good I think as I see my breath inside the vehicle. It's a Smart car not what you'd class as fully featured but cheap to insure I often have to punch the dash to get the heater going, only to find a helpful pothole usually does the trick. 

The whole engaging rough and tumble drive in these little things is quite addictive, its visceral and makes you feel a symbiosis between man and machine unlike in some cosseted bubble. I like Smart cars, I have nothing to prove. Maybe that's where I've been going wrong in a cold world, a world thats cold even when the weather isn't. People see me as a joker in a joke car, not an Alpha male, just a guy fading away with a talent for art, quite possibly from too much REM sleep for years as I'm always tired. I'd love to spend some time in your head the accountant said the other day...

Hidden in plain sight. I like that phrase and I was waiting for a challenge at work. 

One of the firms in the building at work has kind of adopted me as one of their own and ask me out on their Christmas do, I take it as a big compliment as the director is the life and soul of the party, all thick grey curly hair and tweed, something of a dandy with a dry and sharp sense of humour. He's just sold his company. I can be very funny in the right circumstances. They were an affable crowd of people, the food was great too although being an outsider I felt it polite not to cane the menus price points.

We retire upstairs, I'd had the Katsu Chicken burger, very nice but needed mayo to get the thing down as it was quite dry. It's about 10pm. I see a barmaid in this slick Northern Quarter loft style bar and restaurant that back in 1859 was a spinning shed, so it's a characterful place. She has long copper red hair with a slight wave, lengthwise just below her shoulders, she's like a prettier Scarlett Johansson and has continued her eye liner beyond her eyelids like a Egyptian princess to impossibly fine points, cat like with an amazing bone structure. She has porcelain skin, she's probably mid to late 20's and she's perfect for a personal project I'd had in mind for some time as an artist to mix my digital art with some face shots. The face had to be right, timeless, sculptural, and hopefully affordable, all boxes were ticked. She's mesmerising for a subject in a wholesome sense, she's art.

I realise in my 50's this could look all wrong, but I summon up the courage share my website address and ask her if she's a model, in the most courteous way I could articulate realising I was possibly walking a fine line albeit with the best of intentions. It could be perceived as a terrible chat up line from some chonky silvertop unaware of his limitations. She seems pleased and flattered, was outgoing and friendly and was indeed on someones books for modelling, but was looking for opportunities to expand her portfolio. She couldn't do anything until the new year, but that was fine as it's been a long term thing for me anyway. The local art shop has photographic studios in the basement and it's just around the corner from where she works. So on the face of it - all tickety boo, and a win for me despite my initial trepidation. Until...

"Trainee Viking" young bearded part shaven headed guy we're out with immediately assumes my conversation with the flaxen haired fair maiden needs stopping as my intent must be nefarious. He leans in and says protectively "Is there some problem with you getting a drink Chris?" White knighting in full effect, testosterone sparking in the night air. I find this insulting as I probably have older things in my fridge than him but at that moment he felt I was beneath him. The actually rather docile silverback challenged by the young male. I hadn't got myself down as some kind of deviant from the prior exchange he wasn't even party to. "I'm FINE" I say pointedly. 

I tell him what I'm doing a few minutes later even though I didn't have to explain myself I thought I should at least demonstrate to him why he now might feel like a bit of a chump, and that not all mid 50's guys are social pariahs around younger women, he's on the same inevitable path just doesn't realise it. On the contrary girls are not his territorial claim or corralled harems either. He probably had the type of father that said "go on son" as a mantra on repeat. A father figure was something I never had a a child. It makes for bumpy terrain navigating life every day. 

I left shortly after this, part disillusioned with what just transpired, part with the dwindling numbers of the group getting progressively more pissed as large white wines sloshed about and a woman with a leg brace for broken bones careered around the dance floor. ...Not that there was a dance floor.

My whole plan for the evening out had hinged on the fact that the trains were still running. I walk up to Piccadilly station seeing a nigh on empty hall and rows of ticket machines are out of order apparently having joined the industrial action. I walk up to the attendants desk through the bank style ropes that guide you to the counter. A guy that looks like something from Trailer Park Boys with a scruffy blue Network Rail shirt informs me "Veez no trains to Bolt-un mayte, try the furty six or furty seven bus" in strangled Salfordian. I leave somewhat crest fallen back into the night air and walk down the wet salty mud covered concourse lined with shops and spy a beacon for the weary traveller - Greggs box lit sign in the distance. 

Its now 11pm and I now required a treat - I wasn't hungry, just fancied a fix. I get two vegan sausage rolls seemingly from a barely awake Stranger Things 'Dustin' in a badly fitted red hair net and leave. Theres a homeless guy propped up against a bin he's just as salty and dirty as the road bless him. He asks me for change and I don't have any so drop the bag of vegan sausage rolls in his hands. He's happy, and none the wiser since the porcine equivalent tastes exactly the same anyway. I didn't need them I was just compensating myself after being deemed "old" in a bar by 'Work Experience Asgardian'.

I walked down to the bus station, the night is cold, dark and crisp, always the scene of some kinds of working class mayhem and I don't mean that in the pejorative sense it's just the demographic, petty squabbles swearing and fights. Sure enough a bus spews out its contents of teenage girls and boys already taking swings at each other, the driver had already called the police and two vans arrived with the blues and twos. Groups of fights like dividing cells are now all over the place. This gets sorted. Guys standing round watching two young girls fight rolling about on the tarmac pulling hair, or a guy punching a girl never sits well with me. Intervention generally results in a pummelling from both sides of the now former adversaries, so I stay clear. I've seen it too many times. If it was a lone guy hitting a woman, I'd think differently.

Then a little later a strange gang of early 20's very immature Pakistanis arrive, scrawny and clearly intoxicated on something, the main protagonist looks like his family tree didn't branch, massive nose and bulging eyes. He's wearing a Hawaiian garland of plastic flowers which makes his inherent threats to people standing at the bus stops oddly comedic. He's about seven stone wet and says he needs more booze under his breath. They get bored and decide they need a new sport so settle for kicking the broad yellow side of a departing Metrolink tram and spitting at the windows while abused passengers look on in disdain. How brave. A small vignette of a new dystopian society.

I get talking to a woman at the bus stop, a very pretty petite brunette. She's very stylish in a red winter coat, grey wool stockings and those Victorian ankle boots with the little metal lace guides. She's 52 and reminds me of my ex with the twinkling eyes and ready sense of humour and well articulated opinions. She has copious notebooks full of handwritten memo's and is in marketing. 

We'd watched the ensuing mayhem and struck up a conversation we got into the deeper layers of life pretty quick. J told me her husband had left her because she was "barren" in the sense of children - what an awful thing to say to a woman. She was my type, not that I have a type any more since having my heart broke 5 years ago. I sit life out. With no buses evident we decide to get a cab together.

She "needed a wee" so she sweet talked a bouncer and he let her in. We headed toward the Midland Hotel. nothing cabby, more minibus, so we kept going. We walked next to an already full bar and nightclub Revs de Cuba, with people still queueing to get in. Crazy that I used to do that too. We see a black cab who quotes me £60 to Bolton. It's a no from me, but like an arctic explorer that simply can't go on she offers her profuse apology and says she'll take it to her less distant destination. I don't blame her. 

I walk past the theatre that was near where Granada Television (now ITV) used to be for those that know Manchester's geography. I spy a contradiction, a white black cab. I enquire about how much it was to get to Bolton, after by now probably walking a third of the distance! Again "the notorious rate book" comes out - £60 again. 

A minicab pulls in behind a silver grey Toyota estate. The drivers name began with an L I remember that. He was quite a squashed looking little fella in hi early 50's, he didn't look very healthy. He said about the guy in front "Don't use him, I know him, he is bastard" he said when I secured a fare for £35 and sat down. "I knew you were gentleman, I saw the way you talked to the driver in front, and I thought you are like me." We get talking, he's in poor health due to a penchant for whiskey and large quantities of cocaine. In his off time he tours the worlds prostitution hotspots, trawls through his phone, "Pakistan 2 for £100 all day" showing me two happy nubile girls dancing in a hotel room, "Thailand £60 for this one, Morocco £80, she even let me feel her arse in the nightclub, but my cock was like a button as I'd done too much cocaine." Telling me how much he liked to eat a certain area of a girls anatomy. These frank admissions and visuals while he's attempting to drive in a straight line. It was a very surreal journey, he said he'd take me on holiday, I was glad that I avoided exchanging numbers with an Asian Hunter S Thompson. I get home and fall asleep on my mattress, fully clothed under the quilt as it's bitterly cold. A double height ceiling in a flat seems very designer until you have to heat the thing.

It's Friday. It's now my third attempt to get an uber car to the Trafford Centre. The trains are really on strike today. You look at the Uber app and you seen the white cars on the map close to you milling around like koi carp. The driver can reject jobs so one by one my little fishes disappear, I'm left with 4 requests with no results. I go home and have a coffee. 

My gifts to immediate family are not generally well received, passed on or returned, or an inevitable did you keep the receipt? I'm world weary of trying to please so many people, that don't even feign 'a little grace' when I gift something - so today after the period of abortive attempts to get the Uber cab to go to the shopping centre, I hit the internet and bought gift vouchers. Dull with no flair - why bother? - you'll be punished - at least it's not a present to be criticised or rejected while I'm standing in front of the recipient. I also bought them the equivalent of a golden boxed empire state of shortbreads, creamy fudge and chocolates, so that will keep them entertained while my brother complains about carbs and fat - there's a certain bit of the devil in me there I admit.

Finally at 3.30pm or thereabouts I finally get an Uber. My phones quite old and doesn't like the cold while I stood outside the apartments waiting for phantom Ubers its power plummeted from 50% battery to 3% in about half an hour. When Asif finally arrives in a rather nice dark blue Passat with intergalactic mileage I cradle the phone on 49% on my lap to keep its sensitive soul warm, fully aware that it needs to be alive at the Trafford Centre in order to pay. 

I learn a few things, his license says he's from Wolverhampton. I say that's a heck of a distance to make Uber in Manchester profitable surely. He says no, my licence is in Wolverhampton I live up here. Apparently its a fraction of the price of a Manchester equivalent and less stringent on criteria to get your car through. It's the bane of Black cab Drivers who have to pay a huge premium which is ultimately passed on to the customer.

We talk, he touches on marriage and asks if I have any kids I say no, and no. He says why, and I explain my own past was a a bit of a mess growing up and I wasn't so sure I'd make much of a role model, that was the second time I felt sad that day. The first being when I knew before I bought anything today that my presents would not be deemed acceptable by my closest of family.

I tip him a fiver on the app, as it least he's genuinely interested in the passengers.

Christmas is a hard time for me, I'm alone and have been for 5 years I'm flotsam and jetsam pulled in briefly from the waters for a seasonal meal, before being cast adrift from this family thing once again to use up my wasted life as the eccentric guy. I know I'm a failure in their eyes, even though its not said. I lost my brother years ago, I barely know him, conversations awkward nothing flows through awkward silences. 

Fractures and damage have been a theme in my small families chequered history. I have a blanket and a chair as a sleeping arrangement, and yes the heating goes off. It's even more gruelling than it sounds when I have to spend the next day in my own bed it's a big waste of a weekend without wanting to sound harsh. 

I'm desperate to build the momentum creatively to realise my creative potential even though I have limited resources - even if it's to prove to the ex I do actually have ambition. I'd pack it in tomorrow if I could afford to as employed commercial graphics with the pressure of never saying no to any client just leaves me cold. You don't get to cherry pick and are required to being enthusiasm to the most bland of brands and people that run them. I think about a Coldplay lyric before they became shite "So I want to live in a wooden house where making more friends would be easy" and I get that entirely. 

I'm a warm person in a cold and lonely world contentment and the feeling of Hygge is rare. Ironically this Danish concept of cosiness encapsulated in a book was bought for me by an ex who turned out to be the epitome of a cold and methodical LinkedIn Premium. One more person that bailed on me spying a prize further up the ladder, but I couldn't blame her at all. She was beautiful and smart and had just stepped on to an express train to a dead end the way my life was going. She has a label hungry daughter to think about who'd mastered playing both parents off against each other in a messy divorce. This lady didn't need the weight of my problems either, but bubbling up in the bottle of singledom she sadly was the Mentos sweet for my Coca Cola. 

I spend a lot of money on lotteries, The Omaze House, The Royal British Legion, The Postcode Lottery, it's my pension plan... even if it involves black magic. Let's face it I need some money to get on with my realising my destiny a journey of a 1,000 miles in my case does not begin with one step at 55 years old - rather a cash advance...