My self imposed prison has turned into a bit of a paradise recently. The weather has been glorious, incredible sunsets, blue skies, cuckoos and a weekend of kayaking. Strangely even with the good weather and the opportunity to travel again imminent I still feel the same anxiety that has underpinned this whole year.

I have been trying to work out why this is and I think it is related to an ongoing struggle with the gap between fiction and reality. A gap particularly present because I am making a film about my life.

We all create stories out of our lives as a way of making sense of things. Stories that are constantly changing. I am clearly a bit obsessed with this, how and why we do it and how we distinguish between what is fiction and what is true. I used to think this was because I wanted to be a filmmaker, but now I think its the other way around. The obsession came first. I had created a whole world of imaginary friends by the age three, probably in response to quite a lot of uncertaintity at the time.

There used to be a time when people believed that the world had a natural order. When things became unbalanced a series of events would be triggered that eventually brought it all in to balance again – order would be restored. You just needed to trust that things would right themselves eventually. But we don’t believe this any more. Life feels random and chaotic, full of uncertainties. Moments of resolution are much harder to find.

I have spent the whole of this year trying to second guess this films narrative which will be defined by the emotional journey you see me go through over the year. Partly because I am a filmmaker and this is what you do, but this has also been about trying to work out what happens next in  life. This urge to jump ahead without allowing things to take their natural course is almost always how I fuck things up.  I know this, but I keep doing it.

Up until very recently I had managed to convince myself that when filming ends my life will suddenly change. I will walk out of the last shot of the film towards the loch and an ever lasting happiness out there waiting for me. When the reality is that all that needs to change is my routine. Of course other stuff will, but the beautifully neat resolution to this year and the film that I want is as unlikely as all of the countless other wonderful happy endings I have written in to my life that haven’t happened yet. Which makes me wonder whether I might have even started making this film in the hope that it would somehow bring about resolution. Fictionalising life in the hope it will behave more like fiction.

This year has been definied for me by continually having to accept limitations I have imposed on my own life. I have even weirldy come to appreciate the freedom my rules have given me. Maybe at last I will aceept that you can’t force a resolution.