[Miscellany]

There haven't been many term breaks when I feel unable to function but these school holidays have me at a loss.  I'm walking through molasses and I can't explain why.  There is seemingly no rhyme or reason... except of course there is. There is nothing without reason.  I don't and can't believe that chaos theory is a complete explanation of why things are or how they came to be.  The problem is of course, that I'm avoiding that rhyme or reason.

I'm not exactly missing the everyday slog of being at work and yet I find myself as a ship without an anchor without it.  I know I have to write that pesky resume.  I know I have to go through that pile of work.  I know there are so many things I want and need to do but I can't seem to be motivated enough to do any of them, including writing.  Though, funnily enough I've been drawing...

MVOR said that I need to go on a journey and have a holiday.  I owe it to myself to have a break and to have nice things to look forward to.  Before this term break started I was motivated to do just that but as soon as the bell rang on Friday afternoon last week something within me changed.  It was that simple.  One second I was ready to take on the world and the next, I wasn't.  Every day since then has felt like I've run a marathon before I open my eyes each morning.  And every night has felt like the longest night that I've ever lived.

This feeling of frustration and angst at my life is a new feeling.  I think before, I was resigned and numb about the status quo but now I am struggling with a sense of needing more from my life than daydreams.  I can't quite seem to get it together to make that happen though.

Anyway, the other day I found myself in a record store when this song by The Chills came over the loud speakers.  I felt an immediate sense of nostalgia for things that never were.  I stood there for a while, with Kate Bush's The Kick Inside firmly in hand and remembered a life I never lived.  It was kind of surreal to say the least and I'm sure I'm not quite explaining this out of body experience right but ... I guess you had to be there (in my head).   If I were 10 years older I think this would have been a firm favourite of mine "back in the day" however as it stands, I heard it for the first time  a few days ago and have played it every day since then.  It's a great song... a bit depressing but it suits the current mood.

Pink Frost - The Chills

Labels: blurry girl, brain fuzz, choices, constellations, music, musical monday, sad sack, wonderings

posted by M at 11:31 pm 4 comments

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

Being back at school means I'm busier than I've been in many months. I realise now that although the art role was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done - and rewarding beyond belief - this role, teaching these first year students is all encompassing and means not one moment to myself. I'd forgotten how much of yourself you lose when you're a teacher. From wake - almost all the way to sleep I am consumed by my job. I'm putting in 12 hour days every day and come home exhausted, only to wake up to do it all over again. On my salary, that is above and beyond the call of duty. This is not so good for my psychosocial wellbeing but yet it also means I don't have a lot of time on my hands to think about other things that have been getting me down lately - which is probably a good thing. Somehow though, those things - that have been going on lately in my life that I've pushed underneath the carpet - have reared up today anyway. I don't know, sleep seems like such sweet relief at the moment and the only thing I can handle doing that is classified as "me time". It's the only thing in my life I really want to do. That can't be good can it?




The World Seems Difficult - Mental as Anything

The World Seems Difficult

Labels: loony loony loony, musical monday, sad sack, the mean reds

posted by M at 11:13 pm 2 comments

 # posted by M @ 11:13 pm

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

"Is this...? Is it...? Oh it's him..that Morrissey! I haaaaaate him" she groaned passionately. "How can you listen to that?"

"Well, it's The Smiths actually - what's to hate? There is only love here". I say matter of factly. "Only love" I add for emphasis.

"My sister used to listen to him all the time during year 12 and draw these pictures of Morrissey. I hate him"

That would be my work colleague saying that, with her hands thrown up and looking a little miffed. She happened to walk in while I was playing The Smiths very loudly as I prepared the materials for my next class. I don't know what it is about The Smiths that get people so riled up but someone always has some sort of opinion on them.

It's embarrassing but since those who read these ramblings of mine already understand just how much of a dork I am I'm going to share how I first became acquainted with The Smiths. I was first introduced to The Smiths via the character Spike from Degrassi Junior High - yes that's right that funny little pre-teen Canadian show (that I'm still a big fan of by the way). She wore the band t-shirts quite often and I, being a fan of her character thought that whoever they were they were obviously cool. So the seed had been planted like that, you see. Sometimes things work out that way.

It really wasn't until quite a few years later that I actually realised how awesome they were - Morrissey's witty lyrics combined with Marr's brilliant guitar became the soundtrack to my university life.

I guess the cliche of The Smiths is that it's sad sack music for disaffected youth. Okay, fine I understand that - Morrissey's lyrics aren't exactly sunshine and lollypops - they are a product of Thatcher's Britain after all. Then again the instrumental behind the lyrics isn't sad music at all - it's upbeat and it's rhythmic, even poppy. Not exactly music to lay down and die by. I enjoy the juxtaposition of music and lyrics very much.

That being said - I listened to them most often in that period of my life where everything was black except for the music. Imagine a pin prick of light that grows just a little bigger every time you play a song and here you have how I felt about music then - and The Smiths were part of that. I don't exactly know how I made it through the smoke except to attribute it to the music - and for the record there was lot of music involved not just The Smiths.

Unless you've been there in that kind of hopeless situation then you don't know what something seemingly arbitrary like music can mean but I take it that there are a few people who do know what I'm talking about because they have been affected by music to the point where their life is changed by it too. We're the true fans who have given the music life beyond the record. I know it's a cliche but it's true. The Smiths were around at a time where nothing else but music could get through to me. They're part of the significant and important soundtrack of my life. That's not to diminish the cause because soundtracks are some of my favourite of all albums.

Maybe the truth of the matter is that nice, well adjusted people with a halo like glow around them don't listen to The Smiths. I know one other person who really loved them. "I listen to them every night. I listen to them when I'm stoned" she said once. A few years later she was living Girl, Interrupted lifestyle complete with hospitalisation so...I don't know - maybe only a certain type of brain chemistry finds The Smiths worthwhile. You do have to wonder: "what came first, the music or the misery?" but for me any misery had came before. The Smiths have made me feel nothing if not alive.

As for the offended song that prompted the diatribe above. Why of course, it was this one. I've played it on the journal before, but it's worth a second go. It's the brilliant and perfect This Charming Man.

This Charming Man - The Smiths

Labels: music, musical monday, musings, sad sack

posted by M at 3:38 pm 23 comments