Ambivalence

Ages ago I bought some Rowan Summer Tweed from ebay seller Cumberpatch.  I was planning to make Hey, Teach!  The ebay seller was great (check her out, she has some great deals), and the yarn is LOVELY. 

Except.

The bright flecks are brighter and more contrasty than I expected.

It really is beautiful but I just don’t see myself wearing it.  I just don’t have the flair.  The ones on ravelry that are knit up look fantastic, but given that it’s still lurking in my stash a year or so later, and I still feel ambivalent about it…

It needs a new home.  I looked online and it looks like Summer Tweed goes for about thirteen bucks at the cheapest, here in Oz.  I’m willing to part with these ten whole skeins to a good home for $90 and I’ll post it to you free.  The bag is the original bag and has not been opened – not even to fondle!  I’ve been very restrained.

Here is the rav link so you can go look at what other people have done with it.

Anyone intersted?  I’ll check the dyelot in case anyone wants a single skein or two.  Maybe then I can justify keeping the rest…

Greener

There were a million things I wanted to do today.  Well, not really.  That I wanted to be done.  To have done.  Dishes, fold the laundry, cook, make marmalade, sand the wardrobe etc etc.

But I couldn’t settle to anything.  So instead, I took Black Dust Dancing out onto the lawn and finished it.  I started it on my Melbourne holiday in July, and never got it finished.  I had to basically start from the start again because I couldn’t remember who was who and what relationship they were to each other.

My ex was from Pirie and I have these really vivid memories of it in summer, the blazing sun.  I got heatstroke once from a half an hour in the sun, the first time I went.  And his family were lovely, I loved his mum and she loved me.  I would totally still visit her if… well, if she didn’t live in Pirie!

I had a thought last night, and it’s the first time I ever thought it.  I thought ‘I wish I was a man’. 

Just like that, popped into my head.  I was thinking about something and I thought ‘this would be easier if I was a guy’.

I think it’s the future thing.  The being with someone and having kids.  Even if those aren’t things I end up doing, I spend an awful lot of time thinking about them.  I don’t even know if I ultimately want either of those things.  Certainly thinking about them now is not actually helpful, beyond a certain point.  We are way past that point, folks.

But I seem to have to constantly reexamine myself on the subject.  I am alone.  Am I ok with this?  What if I’m not ok with it?  What if I am, what does that mean?  What do my current relationships mean?  What if I want kids?  Do I want kids?  If that was my kid would I do it like that?  What would I be giving up?  What would I be gaining?

Not that I am some kind of crazy person.  Weellll… ok, that’s debatable.  But it’s a constant background.  A quiet hum, not the uppermost on my mind, but I run things through the filter.  And maybe I am just thinking about it more at the moment, and it feels like that’s how I always do it.  My friends and family are all coupling up, getting engaged, married, pregnant.  And of course there are other filters that I run things through.  I’m just noticing this one today.

And I think, yes, I think it would be easier if I was a guy.  This was my thought last night.  If I were a guy, I wouldn’t have to go ‘I’m almost 26.  That’s young.  But not that young.  If I do want to do those things, I should at least work that out soon.  I mean, what if…’  Because, you know, the world totally works that way.  You decide you want a man and a baby and that’s what happens. 

I don’t really know what conclusion to bring this too.  That’s pretty much where my thoughts are up to so far: why do I spend so much time thinking about this?  Because it’s exhausting. 

As well as being stupid.

The end.

My garden, let me show you it

This is the garden bed that gets the most sun, by a small amount.  I put the trellis thing up yesterday for the peas.  Snow peas or regular peas, I’m not sure.  I think snow peas?  I can’t remember which bed has which.  Marigolds in the front looking a bit daggy, the green clump in the middle is I think foxgloves.  I’ve planted corn and pumpkin and a couple of chillies in here, and just off to the left is spinach.  And you can see the lemon tree on the left, creeping into shot.  It’s an attention seeker, you can tell, can’t you?

This is my favourite corner.  I know, it just looks messy.  But really, it’s delightful.  The bed we just looked at is to my left in this photo.  The straggly grass is lawn, but it doesn’t grow that well under there and I thought I’d just let it go to seed for the birds because it’s depressing when it’s mown.  The garden bed bit there I found was paved, when I went to go dig it, can you believe?  And covered over with dirt.  I don’t understand.  So I dug it up and did a super dodgy paving job in the front, as you can see, with the left over pavers.

Looks much more orderly like this, no?  I don’t know what that purple flower is to the left, but it’s pretty.  And the neighbour’s tree (mandarins?  I think…) is hanging over.  That’s the neighbours that have epic table tennis battles. To the right is the treehouse, under which I planted mint seeds but they haven’t come up, and then the bunnies and then the shed.  And then that weird cubby house thing and then another garden bed but I’m getting ahead of myself.

We have two kinds of tomato (roma and something else, wow I am good with the technical details!) and capsicum and a chilli and zucchinis and peas up the back.  Originally I bought two punnets – snow and regular, and I think the regular ended up here but I might be wrong.  Anyway, only about half of them made it cos some of them got smooshed and then they dried out, so I bought another punnet of snow peas this weekend and they went in up the back.  I figure snow peas are more likely to make it into the house, so I went with more of them.

WOO TOMATO WOO!!!  Some of the plants in this bed show evidence of NIBBLING so I shall have to get some sand/sawdust and also some beer. 

This is the other garden bed that I was talking about earlier when I was getting ahead of myself.  Oh, hi bike and laundry door!  And also to the left is a walkway which we don’t use much because my sister parks her car so you can’t really get out of the gate.  But there is a surprise down there, oops, getting ahead again.

This one has cucumbers, squash, basil, chilli (I don’t have a weird fixation on chilli, btw, I shared the punnet between all the beds) spring onions and I think that’s it.  It’s a bit bare, but I have to figure out what else I’ll achully eat.

To the right you can see a pot which has parsley in it.  Continental, natch.  To the left off shot is this

Mmmmm spinach.  It has been the first thing I have been eating.  So I planted more this weekend.  And the one to the left of it has chives and thyme.

So I’ve basically turned around in a big circle from where we started, and from where I took the photo of the above bed, if I turn to the right is this:

And the lemon tree is just above those white pansies on the far right.  And if I kept walking straight I’d go down the other side of the house where the washing line and also the jasmine is.  The smells of laundry and jasmine are getting a bit conflated in my mind.  Also you can see the bits of the wardrobe out for sanding.  I bought an electric sander yesterday!

I love those ranaculas so much.

So much, you get more!  MOAR!!!  Also, pansies.  There are dahlias in there too, and some other bulbs that may or may not come up.  I hope the tulips do because I love tulips more than ranaculas, even.  When I was a kid, there was one red tulip with a black centre in our garden bed, slowly being taken over by seaside daisies.  And when it bloomed, I always knew it was almost my birthday.

Anyway, back to that last bed, the one with the trellis and the… was it…

Peas!  They are so pretty.  This was one of the first things to go in the garden and I have no idea if they are just ornamental or not.  (Serious, guys.  Memory of a goldfish.  Which is part of the reason I’m doing this here.) They certainly had a hard time working out the trellis.  But they’re so pretty!

Around the back of this trellis are some strugling poppies which I planted at the same time as the peas.  They have buds, but they’re awful droopy, so may not flower.  I hope they do because I love poppies the most out of any flower ever, even more than ranaculas and tulips!

And if we keep walking around the corner, down the path towards the car and the bins, there’s some miscellaneous shrubs and…

Huh.  That looks like a something.  I wonder if…

OH SWEET JESUS THERE’S AN ALIEN ON MY TREE… oh, wait.  I guess that is a flower.  A passionfruit flower. 

Show off.  Think you’re all special and stuff, don’t you.

This one was a bit of a surprise.  (Literally – I saw the flower from the kitchen window last night, and I almost jumped out of my skin!) I knew it was there, cos I had seen the vine creeping along the gate.  But I couldn’t figure out where the plant was actually planted.  Granted, I didn’t give it much thought.  It’s all draped over some shrubs, and I thought it was planted behind them, but no:

It’s in the middle of that bed, but just sort of hooked on a nail.  Seriously.  So it’s crept off to the right and found something to support it.  I might have to get some more of that plastic trellis stuff and hook it up because this part is really sad looking and I don’t really want a huge vine taking over the bins.  I pruned it a bit but I want to wait until I can sort of get it properly strung up and then maybe I’ll feed it.

That’s my garden!  I realise that photos of beds with straw on them is not really fascinating, but just looking at them I feel all excited.

Now I’m going to go sit in it and enjoy the sun.  Bye!

Lol!

I woke up with ‘Heavans Mr Evans’ in my head this morning:

So of course I had to listen to that on the bus, and then since it is not my favourite I listened to ‘On the Floor’ which is the John Hewson/Paul Keating rap off.  Those two things made me think of these two things:

and

Comedy Gold.  When my parents were building our house, my bedroom was opposite where the TV was.  Since it was still being built, my door had no doorknob.  I would stand very still in my dressinggown, watching the Late Show through the hole.  I didn’t get almost any of it, but I knew it was funny.  And  can still got from standing to feigning sleep in 2 seconds.  Life skills, people.

And then I found more late show skits that I know off by heart: Understanding Wogs, Shirty the Slightly Aggressive Bear (ironically played by Russell Crowe in the bear suit), some Something Stupid sketches, Graham and the Colnel.  Some significant holes.  Only one G&C skit, one Dinner Party sketch but not the best one, not the one about the people you will encounter, where Rob ‘plays’ an up himself know it all and Santo ‘plays’ the one who is always getting it a bit wrong, nicely foreshadowing every episode of the Panel ever.  No Santo the magnificent, which I ripped off in its entirety for my Year 12 Retreat talent show performance.  No Shitscared!

I guess I’ll have to go home and crack out the VHS tapes.

Best idea ever

Lemon curd pavlova.

Shiny things!

I picked these today

I weeded around the side of the house for our inspection this week (hey, ho) and then I thought ‘I’ll pick some of those lemons.  The second crop is coming in.’  Now my sister is cross because that’s her laundry basket.  Whoops.  You can’t see from that photo, but it’s a good half metre tall.

I’ve already got three jars of lemon curd mouldering in the fridge, alomst certianly off by now.  I think I will make some more curd to make a pie to take to work (hub week this week, oh, the joy) and then make marmalade since we are OUT which is UNACCEPTABLE.  Only it’ll have to wait until next week because I only have one cinnamon stick and it’s pretty old and crusty.  Also I haven’t the patience today.  Or maybe I’ll try a batch of microwave marmalade.

Does anyone know what this is?  I’m having great luck asking you people things so far, so:

Is it bugs?  A disease?  It’s on the weeds around the back and if it’s a nice bug, I’ll leave them there.  I’ve been squashing snails like crazy but I feel ambivalent about the caterpillars because I don’t know what they are and I like butterflies.  I am afraid my knowledge of garden beasts is pretty limited.

And here is a fuzzy soft focus photo of my bedroom, circa two days ago

I took it to show off the nut and bee prints, before I took them down so that the inspection lady doesn’t think I’ve been drilling holes willy nilly.  Whoops.  Also because I’ve since moved half the furniture.  You can’t see them very well but I love them so much.  They are sleeping animals – a tapir, a deer and a bunny.  Like almost every etsy experience I’ve ever had, Nut and Bee was fantastic, and her prints are so lovely I want them all.

While we’re here, you can see my painted bed, reflected in the mirror of the wardrobe that will eventually be painted-maybe-I-am-not-sure-maybe-I-have-changed-my-mind.  Also the bedside table which MAY be painted although probably only white again – it’s shiny which I am not a fan of.  And the handles are gold.  I don’t like gold.  The little IKEA cabinet that houses the rest of my jewellery (earings top drawer, brooches middle drawers, random crap bottom drawer) is pretty much how I was originally planning on painting the other wardrobe.  The blue actually looks great with the white, I think.  It is sitting on a chest of drawers that has been through several houses with me and is probably one of my oldest pieces of furniture.  Come to think of it, I don’t think I own any large pieces of furniture that I acquired more than three years ago.  Huh.  I want to paint it, too.  I am not discussing colour at this moment, I simply refuse.  I was thinking of getting some knobs from here, there are plenty that match my intended colours.  I had a brief convo with the seller, who was lovely.  But it will be expensive so I’m putting it off until I know what I’m doing.

You can also see my modest collection of necklaces.  Since I started rambling about them, I went and took photos of them.  But of course!  As you do.  They include this tentacle from bunnyx productions, which I only bought a few weeks ago and has been worn often and commented on almost as much.  It came on a really long piece of leather and I want it to sit higher up so it’s on a dodgy ribbon choker I made, (to wear to my dad’s funeral, actually.  I put it together while VERY drunk the night before and it’s a tad wonky, but it does) but I ought to go find some treated cotton and make a proper one.  Get thee to a bead shop!  It’s hanging in the blue/green group (of course) along with my green button necklace from Sarah’s shop, which I love SO MUCH.  This one has a story, too.

When Sarah started her shop, Emma linked me. It was when I had just moved and I was paying two lots of rent.  I saw the green one and knew it belonged to me.  But I didn’t buy it, because I was being fiscally responsible.  A week later, after thinking about it every day, I threw caution to the wind and went back to buy it and it was gone!  I was genuinely upset.  That weekend, Emma and I went shopping and she told me she had a housewarming present for me.  You guessed it, it was the necklace!  I may have squeed.

Also in that bunch are the fake pearl necklace I bought for 50 cents at a church op shop on Goodwood Road, near where I used to live.  It was open weird hours – Tuesday from 10-2, that kind of thing.  But it was so good inside, and the old ladies who ran it would offer you tea and biscuits, and then when you went to pay, charged you a dollar the lot.  A boon for a poor uni student!  And lurking up the back is the jade necklace that Megan, my best friend in China, bought me as a going away present.

Since a lot of my winter work clothes are various shades of grey and black, these ones get a workout.  Along with the red bead ones which I bought in a market in China – I’m pretty sure they were meant as supplies, but I just wear them.    They were from the bird and flower market in Yunan.  That place was seriously fantastic, I could have spent a week in there and not gotten bored.

Then there’s the black group.  I like black.

The one on the left was bought at Mudhoney in North Adelaide.  I bought it to go with a dress I bought in Portmans at harbourtown for $10 dollars down from $200, to wear to my work christmas party which I didn’t end up going to because I had to work that night, and the shipment was three hours late, so by the time I got home to change I ended up getting subway and going to bed.  The middle one is freshwater pearls.  Apparently they’re genuine, but I am suspiscious since I bought them for 100 Yuan in the guest shop of Astor House as I was leaving China. 

I stayed there for the one night I was in Shanghai on the way home because I was too tired to find somewhere cheaper and it was far too swanky for me.  It was so Colonial and rich.  I have this really vivid memory of the hallways - rich wood flooring, and it all creaked.  The bathroom was incredible!  Especially after a year of living in buildings that were meant to last a couple of years and then they’d pull them down again.  A lot of my memories of China are like that – really visceral, visual, aural, I can practically BE there again.  My suitcase fell apart on the way out the door to the taxi and the bellboy was mortified and fixed it for me.  I didn’t tell him it’d be threatening to do that for quite some time.

Whoops, memory lane!  The last one on this branch of the lemon tree is from Untamed Menagerie on etsy.  I also bought a brooch and some earings from them.  I broke the brooch in our last move, and then two weeks later the chain of this necklace broke in my hand.  I mentioned this in my feedback and they refunded my money AND sent me out replacements, even thought I broke the brooch myself, not their fault at all.  I’ve not had any trouble with this new lot, and they get a lot of wear.  They don’t have much stock at the moment, but they’re worth a look.  I want almost everything in the store and I’ll definitely be shopping there again. 

In the same vein are Isette  (I want everything in that store no exaggerations.  But the epershand necklace and moustache earings will be mine before the year is out.  Yes.  Yes, they will.) and, more cute and less sophisticated, Cupcakes and Mace and Plastique, which I love because I’m a font geek. Oh no, I just found a new one to covet: Sarah Keyes.  I’ve also got my eye on Sophie Hill, who is Australian which I always like to buy if I can.  There’s a lot of lovely acrylic jewellery out there and, especially if you like rings (which I am too much of a fiddler to wear) they are all different enough from your normal fare that they make a splash.  Especially somewhere like Adelaide where everyone shops in the same places, it’s lovely to have something a bit different.

Well.  So that’s my necklace collection.    Riveting, no?  It was a nice trip down memory lane.  I hadn’t thought about Astor house in probably a year or more.  I like that they all have stories – except the ones on the left, the blue ones, which I bought variously in China and at the CAA store when it was still called CAA and not Oxfam, and I was volunteering there.  Well, I guess they do have stories, but not very interesting ones.  I never wear them, I should just get rid of them.

And while we’re on things that I like that I will tell you about for no reason: some podcasts I have been loving lately.  Escape Pod, an old friend, I am enjoying new stories and old ones that take me back and make me think.  Steve Eley is fantastic.  And my new find, Stop Podcasting Yourself.  I often find humour podcasts too blokey and too mean.  Perhaps it’s cos they’re Canadian (racial stereotyping omg!!!) but I really love this one.

Cheating

I started writing this as an email response to Janet’s comment on my post.  And it got really long and I thought that it’s something I’d want to blog about eventually, so here it is.

After I went to bed last night I was thinking about it some more.  I think I feel so frustrated because, for example, I get upset one day because I find something that reminds me of my dad (the serial code inside a computer game, the writing inside a christmas present book, something to do with astronomy).  So I get upset, and I process it and maybe I blog, and I feel heaps better.  Then the next week, the same thing happens.  Because of the way I’m built (I have a Meyers Briggs test to prove it!  But I didn’t need it to tell me…) I really hate going over the little stuff all the time.  I get frustrated.  So I just stop doing it. 

But it’s not the same thing coming back.  It’s a new thing, even though it looks the same.  So then it all backs up and it’s like a cupboard full of old broken things and after a while I don’t even want to open the door because it’s all going to fall on my head.

 

So, yes.  Like Janet said.  Movement is good.  Movement makes it feel like something that I’m doing, not something that is happening to me.  It makes it feel like something that has, if not an end, then at least a purpose.  And essentially the blog is for me, not for you guys, although you’re an awesome bonus.  So I will write what I damn well want. 

The thing is, I don’t want to write about it because I think essentially I want to be done now.  Which, when I think about it with my actual brain is ridiculous.  It’s not even been a year!  But I’m tired.  And we’ve hit the bit now where people sort of assume I’m over it, fixed, ok again.  I am pretty sure I am never going to be ok again.  That’s just not on the cards.

 

That said, I am also totally ok.  I know that I’m doing ok, and really, most days are frustrating but fine.  But I just feel a bit like if I put something out there that isn’t fine, people won’t have a context to put it into.  Which is silly because my blog readers/commenters have consistently proved to be the people with the best context.  You are people who know about grief, about life, about how easy things can be hard from the inside sometimes.  And I know that when you blog about the hard bits of life, even if that’s all you blog about for a while, I don’t hear it as whining or complaining or being gloomy.  That’s what life is like sometimes and it makes me want to hear from you more because that way I know when you say something is good, today was good, you mean it.

I had a long talk with my oldest friend last night, who also works with me.  She had a modified version of the ‘I’m worried about you’ talk.  (I really hate that – then I feel bad because obviously I wasn’t doing a good enough job pretending to be normal and now other people are put out!  Oh no!  I failed as a human being!  Which, again: stupid, but tell my social conditioning that.)  We both agreed that something has to change.  I feel like my workplace – specifically a few of the people and the general culture – is draining my life force.  Which is upsetting because I love it there, and while I’m not crazy about all the people, I love the culture.  But I just don’t have the energy, and there’s not really a ‘turn up, do your job, go home’ option.  Everything is about being involved and part of the community.  Which is lovely.  Except then my community requires me to listen to long speils on social justice and then gives me typing to do about suicide prevention.  It isn’t feeling very supportive.  And since the pay is… not great, and a bunch of the awesome people have left recently, it doesn’t feel like there’s that much to stick around for.

I had a job interview a week ago for an admin job in one of our unis.  I was apprehensive about even going because I’m not keen to be in admin forever.  Then again, there’s nothing else I specifically want to do so… why not?  Anyway, it turned out to be a really good situation (more money too), but on the next Monday I sent them an email to ask them to take me out of the running because there’s an internal job that is not admin that I have applied for.  The person whose job it is is super keen and talking to me like I already have it, but she’s not the one making the decision.  Also I think she just kind of wants not to feel guilty about it.  At the time I was all excited about it, although there won’t even be a shortlist for it until next week, but now I’m not sure.  How much would change?  Would the things that are making me want to crawl under my desk and yell at everyone to go away change?  Or just shift to the new job? 

I’m pretty sure a change, any change, even the weather getting nicer, will help.  Currently in my job I am both bored and irritated.  So being engaged and irritated might be a step up.  And maybe I wouldn’t be irritated.  Who knows!  All I know is, after last week, I wish I hadn’t sent that email.  I wish I was starting a new job soon.  I wish I was working in that nice clean office on the eighth floor of a building right in the city with new people whose hangups and foibles I don’t know yet, who presumably manage to unjam the photocopier by themselves most of the time.  I don’t regret it much, but I regret it.  Enough to be considering sending the contact person an email saying ‘I changed my mind again!’ even though I’m almost positive they’ve already hired someone.  That would be silly, right?

Painting

I have this laminate wardrobe that I got for free just before we moved.  It’s actually an old kid’s wardrobe from IKEA.  It’s a really lovely midnight blue colour, which I actually love, except that it goes with nothing I own and is a bit dark.

I was originally thinking of painting or sticking stars on it and making it like a night sky.  But when we moved and I started on this painting kick (six months ago, when the weather didn’t hate painting) I decided I’d paint it.  Right now I have two conundrums.

The first is, I have this primer so you can paint laminate with normal paint and it’ll stick.  The instructions say to lightly sand the laminate and then paint with primer, leave for a week, etc etc.  I’ve sanded half of the wardrobe pieces, and it’s been sitting out the back for about three months because I HATE sanding and I can’t get up the energy to do it and also all this blue dust comes off and if it’s warm enough to sand it’s too warm to wear gloves which is the only way not to get stained hands.  <deep breath>  The trouble is that ‘lightly sanding’ does nothing and in order to get any roughness at all, which I assume is the point, there has to be quite a bit of sanding.

So my question is, I keep deciding to just chuck the sanding and paint it, or just do a lick and a promise sanding and then paint it.  And I keep chickening out because I am a Good Girl™ and I follow the instructions, especially if I don’t know anything about the process.  Do all you good folks out there have any advice for me?  I am thinking of painting one of the shelves to see, but I really want to get it done ASAP.  Really.

The next question is colour.  I have three colour variations.  Blue, Green, and White.  This is the green:

And this is the blue:

And the white is… white.

My bed is blue, obvs, and the other furniture that will be in my room will probably be blue, too.  I was thinking of painting the outside the same blue, the doors white (possibly with some sort of picture on them) and the inside green.  But then I keep changing my mind – inside white!  Outside green!  All of it green!  Blue!  White!

So, with the proviso that I’m probably going to ignore you all and go with whatever I feel like at the time if I ever get around to painting this damn thing… what do you all think?

Lying fallow

I’ve been doing that thing again where I try and ignore the fact that life is happening, because I feel like I’m scrambling to keep up.  Or maybe it’s that thing where I need some down time, a quiet space, to deal with things.  Only I’m not, really, I’m ignoring them.  I’m not sure which thing I was doing, to tell you the truth, but I know it meant not blogging.

Part of it is because, once I haven’t blogged for a week or two, usually that’s enough time for something to come up about my dad, or my mum, or how my life is more complicated than I’d like it, or whatever.  And often I don’t want to blog about that.  Partly because I’m often avoiding thinking about the issue, because it’s hard and painful, partly because this is not a grief blog and I don’t want it to be, but mostly, I think, because it’s too hard to frame it.  I want to say ‘this is how I’m feeling: shit’ without it sounding like ‘and everything is always shit and will always be shit’ because that is absolutely not what I mean.  Or sounding too self indulgent or always glum – isn’t it funny how much we self edit?  ‘Oh, I mustn’t say this patently true thing, because then people will think I’m a whiner’.

But, of course, ignoring things doesn’t help.  And in fact, ignoring the fact that I’m sad just makes me sadder, because then I have to expend more energy building walls around it and pretending to be normal.  I remember Janet and then Suse telling me that everyone needs a surplus, and it’s important not to push yourself if you don’t have one.  Well, I’m on the bones of my emotional bum at the moment, folks.  And, because I am a REALLY SLOW LEARNER OMG WE JUST DID THIS ALREADY I keep forgetting that.  I keep thinking ‘oh, I feel fine today, in fact, I feel perfectly happy!  That must mean I can go out and see all the friends I haven’t seen for a month!  All of them!’ and then having a little mini-crash.  Because any large amount of emotion – even good ones – are a bit much right now.  So I’ve been out of contact more than I’d like, not visiting, not catching up for coffee, not blogging.  Beacause being normal is too hard.  I’m angry about that and I don’t want to admit it, but it’s true.

The latest post over at Fugitivus made me realise this.  It’s not that I don’t know how to act like everything is ok.  It’s not that everything isn’t ok – in general, it is.  I’m fine.  And even when I’m not fine, I know I will be again, soon.  It’s spring and the sun is shining and I’ve planted a garden and ok, work is mental and I’m conflicted about my future in this job or another and I don’t know what decisions to make, but in general, life is pretty ok!  But some days it isn’t, and that’s ok too. 

Some days I feel like I’m too broken, I’m traumatised and tired and that everything that has happened, and is happening, is a big lump inside of me that I’m dragging around and just being a normal human being is hard enough.  Just turning up to work and making small talk is enough.  Especially where I work where suicide-mental-health-trauma-how-are-you-feeling-let-me-touch-you-reassuringly-now-lets-talk-about-social-ustice are lurking around every corner.  Which is also fine.  Except when it’s not.

I feel the need to make another qualifier about how I’m fine and everything is fine and look at the sunshine!  But you’re all intelligent people, so I’ll just say: take that as a given.  That is the background to this.  This post, and any like it, is a focus on an event and not the larger picture.  I am not going to say that again.

Because I think that’s one of the big things that’s stopping me from blogging.  The same way I am starting to self edit in real life conversations.  I will start to say something completely innocuous about my dad – something that happened when I was a kid, for example – and then I will stop myself, and not say it.  Because whenever I do, there’s this little silence, this space in the conversation, where people try to work out how to respond.

And that makes me so angry!  I don’t want to edit him out of my life.  Ok, some days I do – this week I’m angry at him again.  But it makes me mad that everything is so weighted.  It makes it harder to work out what, as Harriet put it in her post, is ‘right’.  So I avoid people more than I’d like, even people I like.  Because I always feel like I have to be on my gaurd.

But then I was reading the Fugitivis post, and also Janet’s post, and I was leaving these long comments.  And I thought ‘you know what?  You have your OWN blog.’  I forget how helpful blogging is.  Part of that is, when I’m in hiding mode, blogging is the opposite of what I want to do.  I want to find a warm, quiet, safe space to curl up in a ball in and pretend like everything’s ok.  And that’s fine, for a while.  But you can’t stay there.  You can have an evening where you have a bath and read a romance or you watch a movie or just lie in bed.  But then you have to get up and go to work and talk to people and be a human being.  And if you stay in the headspace of the safe-warm place, where you don’t articulate the things that are upsetting you, you end up tying yourself in knots.  And then you bring that back to your safe hidey hole and that place isn’t comforting anymore.  Ok, everyone needs down time – sometimes I am just so tired of feeling broken and on the edge of my emotional seat (lots of derriers and emotions today, not sure what those metaphors are about!) that I have to go hide just to have a rest.  But it’s not helpful or constructive and it doesn’t make anything better for more than a couple hours.

Because I need to articulate the things that upset me.  Because that makes them less of a big deal.  I think I’ve been avoiding doing it because to do it with an audience makes it feel like a big deal.  Makes them feel important and big and A Thing that is Happening.  Which, inasmuch as they are part of human experience, they are.  But I think I need to pin them to the page (or screen) to give them their place and their moment, and then leave them behind.  Because dragging all this crap with me is exhausting.

I wonder what ratio of my blog posts are ‘I’m back and I’ll be blogging regularly again’ posts?