[Miscellany]

I'm struggling lately with feelings of low self worth. I've always struggled with this stuff, as long as I can remember but recently I've felt it more than usual. I do remember being about 6 or so and feeling that I wasn't good enough for my family or friends or school or anyone and those feelings have always been with me ever since. I look back now and know why and how I started feeling like shit about myself but you know..24 odd years of feeling that is a long time to turn a habit into something ingrained. The truth of the matter is that I've never known what it's like to feel that sense of 'this one person in the world accepts me for who I am' - which I'm imagining that most people feel at SOME point in their lives even if it's from their parents or a lover or good friend or offspring etc. Part of this I can credit to my upbringing and part of it probably goes to myself for actually NOT being good enough. I may be self critical but I'm also extremely self reflective and not unfairly either. I do tend to see things as they are, in the harshest possible light, without any kind of rosy glow. It's also true that no one could ever tell me anything to my face or behind my back that I haven't ready flogged myself about a million times already. I've thought of everything already.

Reality; for all my imagination and fanciful thoughts I'm extremely good at it.

My ability to do this has kept me grounded but it's also given me a serve or two up the back of the head - maybe I'm concussed. Right now, I'm being pounded with shitful (made up word) feelings. Feeling undervalued at work is part of it but not all. The house thing isn't going to plan, there has not been anyone boy-ish around in forever and the friends are starting to dwindle. Family too hasn't kept up the bargain of love and respect and all that nice stuff. Health wise I haven't been right for a while either. I don't know what to say - when it's one or two things that aren't going right for a little while then you can put it down to the alignment of stars but when all is very wrong for a very long time then one asks themselves Maybe I really don't deserve any of that nice stuff that normal people have, and the old favourite what's the point?

It's a shitty time of year for being reflective though, I'll admit that. Christmas is seeing people all happy go lucky but I don't feel that way at all. I just feel really empty and like I don't belong. I feel like I'm renting a space and the landlord is going to come along any second now and say 'hey, you're just not living up to expectation' and evict me. Not quite sure where I'll go...

Labels: christmas, fear, fed up, feel like crap, feelings, oh I don't know., questions, sad sack, wonderings

posted by M at 12:02 am 23 comments

Earlier this year when #1 and I heard that Crowded House were reforming for a concert tour we decided that we'd risk the dreaded 'old band getting back together and they might not be as good' syndrome that seems to be taking over the world and go see them anyway. I'm glad we did - yes it was a throwback to better times but it was also sincerely a magical night. Back in 1996 when CH had their farewell concert in Sydney, #1 and I conspired to go but since I had no car (or license for that matter) and there was no way in hell her beat up car would make it up the Hume Hwy - we had to miss out. Flying up was a no go, with both of us struggling with weekend jobs and a poor uni lifestyle. I sat on my living room couch and cried while watching it televised on the tele instead.

Years later when drummer Paul Hester tragically took his own life I had the same reaction. He was my favourite member - purely for the quirky humour he carried with him, in a public sense if not anywhere else. I remember being very young (about 9 or 10) and just adoring him. It's always the funny guys that get me where it counts. It broke my heart when he died. It still breaks my heart. I suspect that there may be a few differing opinions on this - and maybe some stories to the contrary (I don't want to know if there are) but all the good ones seem to go early.

So last week, leaving the bub behind #1 and I made our way through a perfect spring evening, no clouds hanging over the domain; yes only one season to contend with - and had a few emotional heart strings tugged by an otherwise forgotten favourite band. Who knew they could still do that? We were also serenaded by a drunk guy sitting in front of us but that's another story (I love freaks).

I think Crowded House will always hit an emotional chord with me. I remember feeling so excited by the song Sister Madly, which caused me to bounce around joyously from lounge chair pillow to pillow as a little one. I thought they were singing about me; after all I was a sister and sometimes I did step on bro's head, just like the lyrics mentioned. Not long after, I remember watching the video clip for one of their better known songs Better be Home Soon one morning on Video Hits and feeling the tears fall down my face. I still don't know why that happened but I remember it clearly, as if it was yesterday. One second I was watching the television and feeling normal and the next I was ambushed by a state of desperate sadness - the song was so true of things I didn't even know about yet - which sounds weird I know, but I understood the song on an emotional level even though I hadn't experienced that kind of longing Finn sang about yet. I remember arguing over the correct lyrics to Don't Dream it's Over on the phone with #1 (obviously this was before the internet and thus all the information we could ever want at our fingertips was in every household) and laughing like a maniac at the song Chocolate Cake - which I can't stand now but loved the ridiculousness of back then.

Nowadays it's these two songs that do not fail to give me goosebumps.

Four Seasons in One Day, for its sublime Melbourne references that you only understand if you live here and now forever Paul Hester's tribute (the Melbourne boy). For the little lump that catches in my throat every time I hear it and the gorgeous imagery in my head.


Four Seasons in One Day - Crowded House


Private Universe, which always starts with a tingle at the back of my neck, floating down my shoulders and finally settling in the pit of my stomach. This one, is really my song. I just get it.

Private Universe - Crowded House


It's funny how that works - when songs mean something to one person only and no matter how hard you try to make someone else feel the significance as deeply as you do, they can't because they simply aren't you.





(don't worry, I haven't forgotten Split Enz)

Labels: endless summer lift the curse, feelings, finding out wherever there is comfort there is pain, memories, musical monday, nostalgia

posted by M at 1:08 am 15 comments

People are pretty weird. Everyone is. Even the most well adjusted; married, kid, house in the burbs, job people have a little something about them that is a tad weird.

One of my co-workers is obsessed with rabbits, she loves them. Another plays Scottish music (we're talking bagpipes) on 11 so you can hear it all the way down the corridor as soon as the kids leave for the day. Yet another is so obsessed with running that she runs every single day, even when she's ill. She enters the marathons and everything. One man I know acts like his dog is a real person - we're talking birthday parties. I know a German Shepherd owner whose devotion I would easily compare to that of a hard core Christian - church on Sunday; puppy school on Sunday. Praying every day; going for a walk everyday. Trying to convert everyone to Jesus; trying to convert everyone to liking Alsatians. Same - yes ma'am. I am friends with fashion nuts, shoe whores, self help book devotees, sex maniacs, gardening experts and people who write everyday, some of which whom write for an audience they've never met.

The point is - people have things that make them happy and some of these things are weird. Scottish music guy whistles a merry tune along with his bagpipes. He's happy with that and who is anyone to argue? My good friend is happy with a cat laying peacefully in her lap and purring softly while she strokes it. Sometimes all I need is a dark theatre and the celluloid screen to feel content with the world. I can't imagine anyone being more happy than me in that moment and who's to say that anyone is? You want to challenge me on it? Are you sure? How do we compare exactly? Whose scale of happiness are we using anyway?

Happy is what you feel in your heart and since each of us has only one heart (our own), then this happy feeling we're all so opinionated about is something only the individual can really know for themselves.

I have this acquaintance who constantly gives me the old patronising 'awww you still single?' speech every time she sees me. Perhaps I am missing out on something but I dunno, if the hubby and the babies were the only things that truly made her feel fulfilled then why does she still have that funny little teddy bear fetish?

I think we judge each other too harshly based our own ideas of happiness and fulfillment, when clearly these things are personal indeed.

Why do we see the child laden couples as happier than the gardener who has just grown his first organic tomato? Is it possible they both experience the same level of happy - just about different things?

What weird things make you happy?

Labels: feelings, happy, questions, wonderings

posted by M at 9:35 pm 26 comments