The Final Written Chapter

Birthdays. Bloody Birthdays.

The time of year has come around again where I face the fact i'm a year older and not anymore wiser. What have I gained this year? Maybe it's better to rephase the question and ask what i've lost this year.

Yes being 22 years old wasn't the most funniest of years. Don't get me wrong I rocked out with my wkd bottle many a time. I had some damn good times with some damn good people. But obviously the bad of this year outweights the good by about 10 trillion to 1. Sometimes even though I had many famous hysterical nights it felt like I was sleep walking through everything. Numb to the bad times and numb to the good. It's a worrying sensation to have which one can only hope disappears in the times ahead.

Good times I hope too. Yes being 23 should be my age of enlightenment and fulfilment. The year I turn things around. Right now if you looked at the form book i wouldnt be a very good bet. I'd be an under pressure football manager. A horse with one leg longer than the other. But like the rank outside I'll pull off a Wimbledon style FA Cup win and stun the world. The long and painful road to redemption for David J Rooney. From out the dark clouds I ride on a crest of a wave with a fine broad on one arm and the other hand raised in clenched first held aloft. As the song says the next year will 'bring me to life'

Either that or i just get hammered for the year.

In all seriousness being 22 has sucked badly. The year ALMOST broke me. I've been low before but this year taught me exactly what being low actually entails. I lost nearly EVERYTHING i held dear to me. I replay the events of the year in a haunting fashion. Maybe i could have done something different to save it all. Somehow though here i am on the eve of my birthday and escaping this wretched age. What was so different? How did I get here?

Well i suppose a rather camp thank you would go to my friends. A lot of different friends who in different ways have helped me. There is the drinking friends who came out with me on a minutes notice and drank my troubles away. The listening friends who let me whine and rant about everything else except my main troubles but yet it still helped. Then the texting friends who perhaps didnt know what to say whilst watching a guys life car crash into a steel temple. But the texts helped. It all helped. To this I thank them.

Perhaps I also coped through the battles because I knew the consequences of 'falling'. If you fall you don't get back up. If you 'fall' you can't help those who need help more. And probably more importantly i knew what a whiny bitch 2002 David was then his problems paled in comparison to that of 2008 David. (Poor bastard)

Here i am. Bigger and stronger and better. Well maybe neither of them but i'm still standing. With a crooked leg and black eye. But standing.

Someone made a rather smart observation about my current life at the moment. I considered it pretty spot on.

"You're holding it together while falling apart, and you don't seem to mind it one bit."

I thought it was incredibly insightful. Probably a bit too insightful. The bastard...

So here I am waving goodbye to being 22 and not caring one bit. Yes aging is a worry. The excuses for my mistakes and my immaturity grow less. But at least I can move on with my life and pack up the boxes of the past 12 months. I can underline everything and say "Yes my life got fucked but here I am still standing, still dancing, still drinking, still breathing, still making the innuendos, still joking, still hiding behind humour as a self defence mechanism...still being the flipping man"

I am David Rooney. I was 22 years old. That was the story of how I survived injustices. That was the story of how i fought and lost in vain some of the most important things to me and some of things i held most dear. That was the story of how I went close to the edge but got pulled back by my friends and my conscience. I am David Rooney. That was the story of how I fell.

Now time to write the next chapter.