[Miscellany]

I've gotten to that stage where the one stable and fulfilling thing in my life is work. Mind you, that's not to say that work is good but it's just better than what else is on offer in my life, which isn't a lot. There, I'm still facing working way too hard for no recognition and dealing with, what has been described as a 'hornet's nest' by more than one outsider. I won't tell you what the insiders say. I need to leave, but I can't because it's the best thing that I've got going. Them's the breaks.

My family, that old chestnut, is fraying and unravelling like an old knitted sweater with a loose thread. Bro is absent and has been for a couple of years leaving me to deal with a mum who is stressed and heartbroken with a situation that is beyond my means of coping with. I put in more than a full day of work at my job and then make up the rest of the week helping to run a business for my mother and trying so very hard to be both daughter and son to a Mother who has lost a husband and who is by nature very high maintenance. I am an only child, in so many ways.

Somehow money has become an issue, with bills creeping up in such a way that have crippled me financially. I can't quite put my finger on how it disappears but it does. I don't spend excessively and I haven't been on a holiday in years, not even a weekender. I'm currently deciding whether to fuck it all and put a holiday on the credit card and deal with it later...but who knows if that's the right decision either?

Even MVOR isn't able to really help. With the money situation being typical for a teacher (bad) and the medicare situation not being good at subsidizing what they see as an option extra, like head shrinkers. I've had to drop back to once a month, which is really just enough to reiterate what I already know: Things are quite shit thanks.

Needless to say my health has felt the effects of this. I am tired all the time. I could sleep standing up if time allowed and have even, at times fallen asleep in the middle of a meal with my head resting on the plate. But sleep is a beautiful respite and I welcome it, whenever and however it chooses to find me. My humour, doesn't quite reach deep down far enough to cleanse what it used to so I trigger it with endless re-runs of funny, sweet happenings on my ipod, computer or television - trying to medicate the hole that was once filled with true emotion and real laughter with scripted stories that help me lose myself for a moment. It is the next best thing and thankfully they are readily available to me. I do lose myself frequently and it's glorious when I do.

What's left of my mind is really just hanging on by a thread. Every day I make it out of bed is an achievement that deserves a gold star right now and I've been good at hiding that fact from others who think that things are difficult but not yet desperate. I passed the sign post to desperate miles ago and I'm heading straight for ... well, who knows what comes next?

A festering knot of pulsating stress gnawing away at my insides doesn't even come close to describing what is going on inside me right now.

Soo... how are you?

Labels: melancholy, sad sack, truth time

posted by M at 11:14 pm 8 comments

I have come to realise that these (now) monthly visits with MVOR, the genteel lady with whom I share my innermost thoughts, are not going to fix me. There is no fixing this state of mind I carry around with me.
There's no cancer to isolate.
There's no lump to remove.
There's no ...waiting it out with bed rest until it goes away.

This half nutty, soul destroying melancholic anti-heroine didn't just happen when I awoke one morning. She was created from conception to survive the Big Bang of my life. She was created, like some kind of terminator to keep living and keep doing its job at all costs, eventually acting on its own accord at its own pace.

I've done a thorough job on her, yes I have and she, in turn has repaid the favor and done a thorough job on me.

She is in the bone and the mind and the blood - coursing like traffic on the Eastern Fwy in peak hour. There is very little that keeps me from surrendering completely to her and that is the tiny glittering hope, like a mirage in the driest desert that things will turn around.

I hate that hope. It's a tormenter and a tease and yet
...it's there. Blinking away in my peripheral vision.
I guess I left a light on somewhere.
I guess.

Labels: melancholy, MVOR, wonderings

posted by M at 7:03 am 2 comments

Why do street revelers always look so carefree? Is it the alcohol?

Knowing something about someone without them knowing you know the thing you know is pure agony. A lesson in how to feel the effects of a relationship shifting without push or pull.

Does anyone else ever look at their friends and wonder whether they have anything in common anymore and if not, then what am I doing here?


At first glance she looked capable and strong but the high pitched shrieks and giggles gave her away. She was a promise, broken.

Can babies see into your soul in a way that adults can't? If a baby doesn't like a particular adult then is that a marker of a bad person?

An ex colleague asked for her child to be in my class next year. This is one for the "too hard basket". It's a lot of pressure. She is not the kind of woman who could take 'no' any other way than personally and badly.


Can I really afford to go back to school? If nothing material comes of it, can I just put it down to a really expensive but worthwhile venture?

Two people in my extended family had a dream about my father this week. One had a message to tell. All I can say is that the right person had the right dream. She didn't look happy at all. The other (her mother) also had a visitation. An omen. We've been waiting for one for a while. So now, we shall see...

I was also "visited" but that's another story. Message - rather hard to take, but understood nevertheless.

I hate when people are passive aggressive. If they have something to say, they should just say it. Hiding behind snark is so unbecoming.

I can feel myself pulling away from everyone I know (and they are equally pulling away from me). I'm walking around in a haze. I'm not sure where the blurriness came from but I feel tired all.the.time.

What makes things "worth it"? Is it something as small as 'the smell of fresh coffee' or does it have to be something big like 'love'? What keeps people going?


Do you believe in signs (meta-physical ones)?


Last week I wrote about one of my favourite albums by Weezer and so speaking of wonderful albums, Moon Safari is beyond doubt one of the best albums released in the last 10 years (soon to be re-released!). Strictly only for lovers of moon music, modernity, space travel, French stuff and of course - good taste. I have played Air a couple of times now and each time it divides people equally. They are not 'typical' which tends to polarise opinion about them.

This song is sublime. I wish mornings really did sound like AIR. Instead it sounds like the alarm clock jackhammering through my dreams and into my brain. If mornings really felt like AIR sounded, I think I'd get through the day a little easier.

Ce Matin Là - AIR


And for night time - strictly for stargazing and wondering about living on the moon.

Kelly Watch the Stars - AIR

Labels: melancholy, musical monday, musings, questions, thoughts, uestions, wonderings

posted by M at 11:07 pm 23 comments

It's funny sort of morning, warm and sunny but there's chill in the whip of the wind that will later develop into a blistery grey day. I'm standing to the side of a weathered basket ball court supervising children run back and forth in a seemingly endless relay. It's 9.15am and their faces are already shiny with sweat - the sky is a perfect expanse of blue and judging from my weepy eyes, spring is definitely in the air. I'm switching balance from foot to booted foot - and thinking about life and being alone. Not exactly a cheery Monday morning thought. I know these things are never really permanent unless you decide they are, but this feels permanent.

I don't think I've ever been more aware of being alone than right now. Friends with children have become unaccessible. Phone conversations reduced to "so how are you?" and before I can have my say it's "...oh God, baby crying, gotta go bye". I've simply stopped saying anything about myself at all - instead I ask about them. As yet, they haven't noticed the change but it's just easier for everyone concerned. God knows lack of adult conversation means they don't speak to anyone else either.

Then there are the 'too busy to talk' friends, and the 'last ditch effort to inject some life into their lives by transferring overseas' friends and the 'not as close as we used to be' friends. I'm just feeling a bit displaced and lost - is this an 'almost 30' thing? Is this normal?

Apart from the usual coffee and dinner occurrences I find myself spending a lot of time doing things alone and while I'm not bothered most of the time - it's just the feeling that people aren't *there* for me anymore is what is making me question whether things will always be like this. Maybe I'm just being melodramatic...

As for melancholy moods and Musical Mondays I think I've found the perfect song for imagining you're floating mid air above a field of daisies or something nice like that. I wish I was doing it now. An occasional spattering of clouds have settled overhead and I'd really just love to lay down somewhere and make up stories in my head about them while listening to Mazzy Star and thinking about life.

Fade Into You - Mazzy Star

Labels: melancholy, musical monday, thoughts, wonderings

posted by M at 2:55 pm 32 comments