Friday, 28 March 2014

Words fail me

There are things I just can't tell you, blog.

Whether they're things that I'm too ashamed to admit I have stupidly done or longings I might describe that would alienate any individual who reads them. There are things I can't describe. Like how I'm desperately feeling both the desire to disappear and the urge to be more present than ever and how those clashing feelings are turning me into a puddle of confusion. There isn't the space on these pages to transcribe the narrative that is going on at warp speed in my head. Nor is there a font or size I could choose that would truly express the significance or shockingness of the denouements of some of these garbled plot lines. There are secrets that aren't mine to tell. Or at least I'm sure they can't be mine because that's not my idea in my head or at least I was a different person when I thought it and I'm not even sure really how this person who is inhabiting me now got the password to my account. There are things too dull, too inane, too related to the bodily function (which is disfunctioning) to relate that if I told you all of them I'd bore you to sleep, even though these are the very things that keep me up at night.

In short there are too many words in me that have nowhere to go and they are ripping me apart. They seep out of my eyes at inopportune times. I built a life around words but now I want them all gone. I want the peace that must exist in the absence of language.

Saturday, 15 March 2014

Familiar feelings

I realised this week that I have now had 6 first days at 6 different higher education facilities in the last 14 years. No wonder the creeping sense of deja vu was resting on my shoulder for much of this week. So, what do I think of my new course? Well... Let's see, there are people in my Creative Writing class who confess to not having any fondness for reading or writing which I find alarming but my tutor just took in her stride. My Philosophy tutor is young, cool and slightly good looking and boy, doesn't he know it! He spent most of the class trash talking Deakin, the university experience and philosophy as a subject so I'll be interested to see where he takes us. My Film Studies lecturer clearly has stand-up comedy aspirations but seems to be a decent fellow and my Film Studies tutor told me it's basically impossible to fail the class, so that's reassuring.

This week has also seen my triumphant return to the MTC Box Office following an absence of nearly 4 years. It's all much as I remember it although the staff are all different and I can't work out where I fit in the pecking order just now. I feel like I had such a busy week but since work only made up a small part of that I will only be receiving a depressingly small amount in my pay cheque next week. Already the sinking feelings that accompany poverty are settling in the pit of my stomach.

It occurs to me that I have once again withdrawn from all social interactions. I haven't checked Facebook to find out if any events are happening and I haven't reached out to any of my friends to catch up. It's hard. I feel so tired at the moment and my timetable seems so intractable. Plus I'm broke! But spending all my time curled up in bed with my laptop is not a path to wellness.

I shall endeavour to venture out of my cocoon at least once next week in what will hopefully be a more settled week as I settle into my new routine. Hopefully my new routine will soon also incorporate visits to the gym at Deakin but right now the whole no time + no money = impossible life equation is making that difficult. Still, something to aspire to, one must have goals, even if they are trivially small.

I feel like all my current life goals are very modest. Stay well enough to keep out of hospital, start exercising again, pass semester 1 of a Bachelor of Arts. I wish I had at least one impossible dream or lofty ambition. Perhaps it just means I'm grounded and living in the real world for once. I'm sure I'll find a way to be happy here.

Thursday, 6 March 2014

Transition times

It's laughable sometimes what I write in my blog.

Like in the last post when I was all 'rah rah, gonna sleep well, do yoga and be organised' and then proceeded to partake in the most exhausting, disorganised, yoga-free weeks I've had in a long time.

Sleep has been a real issue these past few weeks. Being particularly busy on top of feeling mildly depressed and highly anxious has left me exhausted. I got into a terrible habit of getting home from work around 6.30pm and going straight to bed, waking up around 11.30pm, starved and wired, browsing the internet for pictures of Benedict Cumberbatch for a few hours and then finally going back to sleep between 2.00-3.00am. Not good.

Because I was sleeping through all the useful hours of the evening it meant that I didn't organise myself well for moving house, I didn't make it to yoga and I'm woefully underprepared for starting uni.

But I did move house. That happened and now I'm living in a sea of unpacked boxes and bags. It does not aid with my sense of my life being disorganised. I must say it is nice to come home and be greeted by hugs from my nephew Max and dinner being made by my brother Nick, so I think it has overall been a step in a positive direction.

Uni orientation was this week although I only made it to one day as work asked me to stay on an additional week and I'm not really in a position to be refusing money right now. I have bought all of my text books and looked up all my assigned reading and quite frankly I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. The sheer volume of reading is immense. I was a few paragraphs in to Plato's Symposium when my wandering mind remembered that I urgently needed to update my blog. Tiredness doesnt help with this distractedness and I just hope that the first few weeks of classes aren't marred by this.

There is a small slice of good news and that is that I have been offered a job in the MTC Box Office. Hopefully this means I'll have enough income (along with whatever measly amount the government sees fit to proffer) to keep me in lithium and chicken nuggets for my uni days. It does mean I'm going to be busy though, already my next two weeks have jam packed schedules.

I'm not going to be so foolish as to discuss my plans for coolly breezing through these next few weeks of transition. That would just be bullshit and I do want to keep this a BS free zone. My psychiatrist summed it up for me when I saw him the other night, he said, "But hey, look at you surviving all this crap." And he's right. I am surviving. If I can make it through these transition times it shows how far along I've come.