I think about sabotaging opportunities and also relationships. It feels like procrastination but it isn’t. It is neglecting to respond, refusing to apply to jobs, leaving ideas unwritten and projects unfinished.

It is the same feeling as procrastination. One part wills me to do the thing, to write the words, to press the button. Another pushes back. It is stubborn, it refuses to respond. There is no budging this part of me. It knows what it does not want.

With relationships it is much the same. I leave messages on WhatsApp standing. Try not pressing on them so they don’t appear seen. But of course they are seen. But I cannot respond and I leave it until they stale like fruit in a fridge.

Friendships stale, relationships fizzle out like a drink that has lost its gas, and opportunities pass me by, papers remain perpetually in progress. Soon the consequences will face me. This is what I have, unconsciously it seems, wished for, but now I relent.

I scamper back. I try to make amends. I try to justify myself. I try to salvage something from the wreck of my creation. Sometimes I succeed, other times I fail. I almost lose some friends and do lose others. I rue the missed opportunities and leave myself stranded.

I begin to pay attention to what I sabotage and it shows me my desire for new horizons. I pay attention to the relationships I have sabotaged and feel only a dull pain. I hope I can recover some. I accept that others are beyond mend.

The loss is all mine. And the fault perhaps is, too. But I accept what is gone forever and try, try to save a chapter or two from the drowning book. Perhaps I will find that I can recover at least half of the story.