Mentalechoes

It’s seems now, looking back, that it was somewhat fitting that my last blog post three months ago was centered around death; or to put it another way that isn’t so morbid, about endings. I didn’t know back then with any surety that something foul was happening, but I could sense in the wind that things were changing with work. The rock that had been my standing stone for going on two years was suddenly starting to tip and roll. If only I had’ve been able to see the cruel fall that was to come. Perhaps if I had’ve taken off the rose coloured glasses I was wearing, or maybe adjusted my world view to something more akin to our waking reality I would have. But alas, I was blinded by my hope and desire for my brutal relationship with Joost to continue. So it came to pass that on a fateful Tuesday – the week before this particular entries publish date – our estranged leader personally came to us in Europe and dropped his corporate ‘Fat Boy’ on the assembled masses. The result: total anhilation! In his wake he had left the complete and utter destruction of our dearly beloved Leiden office (metaphorically speaking).

That weekend saw a rampage of emotions playout within my humble flat back in Amsterdam. It was like a medium term relationship with a psychotic abusive girlfriend had come to an end; I still loved her, even after all the shit she had put me through, and I didn’t want it to be over. In the end, she gave me a half hearted hug and pat on the back by way of apology, and then she walked out the door. I walked the hallways of my apartment in a pissed off swager wishing a face would present itself that I could slap with a closed fist. I wanted something tangible I could vent at, some focus for the built up negativity that was swimming in my blood. That we were wronged was without argument, we had in fact been fucked pretty badly on a number of different levels. But really, by staying as long as we did, we’d all agreed to be corporately fucked. Deep down, we all knew it was going to come to this, so we had noone to blame but ourselves. Maybe that’s what hurt me the most, the fact that I didn’t want to see what was inevitable, but rather surround myself with delusion made out of fluffy hope.

I struggled through Sunday and Monday. When Tuesday came around I had reached the final end; I lay myself down on a bed of ashes that was my nuked Joost carreer and calmly smoothered the last of the self pity. It was over, and there was nothing I or anyone else could do that was going to change that. For all the ex venice chat griping rhetoric, and endless games of what-if, Joost was gone, never to be seen again.

I suppose it’s when life is at its lowest ebb that you tend see the lifelines that are thrown to you from outside the mists of uncertainity. Three of us that day took a train ride up to Amsterdam for a meeting with an unlikely pair of allies; a young company of two guys spinning up an outsource venture, who brought with them a tempting offer. They had a promise of work, and desire to partner with the company that so far we’d only talked about. Who would have believed such luck was possible with such auspicious timing? Certainly not me.

While the future still has vast tracts of uncertainity, I’m feeling a heightened sense of excitement and enthusiasm that I’ve only felt on very rare and momentous occassions; such as when I left Brisbane for the first time on a one way plane ticket to London. It’s during times like these that there is no such thing as mindless repetition, each day presents challenges that are immediate reward when you overcome them – and you do overcome them, you sometimes don’t even know how, you simply do.

At the risk of being overly poetic, I feel that my own personal pheonix has risen from the ashes, and while he is very small with only a few feathers, he’s definitely in the air and moving!

Time to give thanks for all blessings great and small, I say!

Andy.