On Saturday life as I knew it came crashing down around my ears and for a certain amount of time, I couldn’t see how there could ever be a way forward again.

I have tried to write this post about six times now, and each time I have had to abandon it in the middle because the words are not saying the things that I want them to say. Whatever I write ends up sounding too flippant, too self-pitying, too incoherent.

It is impossible for me to simply write what has happened. And yet, something needs to be said. Something beyond “On Saturday the world ended. The weather continues to be good”. Because I don’t think that life will ever be the same again.

In some ways, this is a good thing. A burden has been lifted, and I have the chance for a new start. In other ways, it is a terrible thing. Or more precisely, I have done a terrible thing and now I am having to face up to it. It is not as hard as you might think to do something terrible, and it is only when people find out what you have done that the full impact of quite how terrible it was hits you in the face like a bucket of cold water and then you are left screaming at yourself, “Why?! Why did I do that?”, and you realise to your disgust that you do not know.

Someone once told me that there are questions to which there are no answers. Such a world view offends my mathematical perception of the universe where everything is symetrically paired and well ordered; it should not be possible for questions to float around in the big black nothingness unless there is also an answer floating round somewhere with which they can be coupled. Yet I can not find answers to the questions I am having to ask myself, much less to the questions other people are trying to put to me. This frustrates me.

To some extent it is possible to hypothesise, but there is always the temptation to hide behind excuses and explanations, to make your actions seem less base than they were. There is a certain thing which, had it not happened, would have meant that I would not have ended up doing what I have done. And yet I am very conscious that what I have done can not be blamed on that. One event was not the unavoidable consequence of the other; I believe very strongly in personal responsibility, and what has happened is my fault and my fault only.

It scares me. It scares me what I can be capable of. It scares me that I can do things without realising the impact they are having on other people; that I can see the consequences in front of me with my eyes and yet not actually *see* them, because I am somehow so caught up in a twisted fantasy which has nothing to do with reality. It scares me that I can be so caught up in a cycle of protecting my own interests that I can end up hurting the people I care about the most, and that this can actually not occur to me.

Whether this makes me a crazy person, an evil person or a stupid person I am not sure; I am a confused person at any rate. And perhaps a very weak one. An old RE teacher of mine used to habitually say that the road to Hell was paved with good intentions. I never quite understood what she meant, but now I think that I do; I have never deliberately set out to cause harm, and yet I have caused harm which most people could not even dream of.

That the people concerned might be able to forgive me seems to me to be incredible. I always used to believe that whatever I did wrong I would be punished for it in the next life. If the next life no longer exists, however, I need to be punished for it in this one. Perhaps part of my punishment is that I will never be able to forgive myself. Myself is something which I would very much like to escape right now.

If you want some advice in life it is this:

Watch your thoughts; they become your words. Watch your words; they become your actions. Watch your actions; they become your habits. Watch your habits; they become your character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

My thoughts became my words, which in turn became my actions, and grew into my habits. Whether my habits have become my character and my character my destiny, I do not know. But I hope to goodness that that is not the case and that what I have been given now is a chance to turn my life around.