You know that album ?

You know that album ? The one that you loved all the way through, or the one that reminds you of a certain time in your life or specific event, or the one who's songs kept you company during rough times ? Everyone has one of those albums and, for me, its " Dizzy Up The Girl " by The Goo Goo Dolls. Its the album that i will always come back to, no matter what. I was reminded of it yesterday ( by a god-awful rendition of a Goo Goo Dolls song on the radio ) and so i was playing it today, whilst i got ready for work, and put it on in the car. Its funny how comfortably i can slip back into the feelings the songs give me, how i may have changed, my circumstances, my life, but the songs resonate the same way.

" Dizzy Up The Girl " was released when i was in Year 9 and it remained my favourite album all the way through high school. I listened to it with my friends but, more often then not, i'd listen to it by myself, shut away in my room. Everyone knew " Iris " - to my friends it was a love song from a movie soundtrack, or just a really good Top 40 song, but to me it was something different. The chorus to that song almost summed up exactly who i was for the formative years of my life. I know one of you out there has blogged about the same chorus fairly recently, but here's my take :

" I dont want the world to see me/
Cause I dont think that they'd understand/
When everything's made to be broken/
I just want you to know who i am ."

Yes, its contradictory - you dont want to be seen, but you do. By one person. I think for me, that was part of the point. I DIDNT want the world to see me, EXACTLY because i didnt think they'd understand - in fact, my major problem was terrified of people knowing, and not liking the real me. I thought people would judge me, they'd find me tto smart, or too quirky, or too uncool, or too " whatever " and i lived in fear of being judged and humiliated by those judgements. But at the same time, i wanted to be broken down and just have at least one person really, truely know me, and love me anyways. I'd wanted to break down barriers and have at least one person, whether it be a friend or a boyfriend or whoever, know my innermost thoughts and feelings and ideas and be able to look at me and say " You know what ? You rock! ". And what is weird is that i found myself singing that song again in the car today - and wanting exactly the same things.

But it wasnt just " Iris " - i connect to almost every single song on the album, and those that i cant find a deeper personal meaning in are, at least, still good songs. " Slide " despite seemingly being about abortion ( i've had that discussion/disection with a friend too - i'm sticking with the abortion theory ) was the first, and only song, i have ever sung solo in front of people, and i love it for that. The only reason i COULD sing it in front of people - classmates, on a school excursion, because i was the only one who actually knew the words - is because i loved it so much. I couldnt have got up the courage to sing a song i had no feeling for.

" Name " was the same kind of thing as " Iris " - just wanting to find that someone who knew me and wouldnt go sharing my secrets with the world, who wouldnt risk my humiliation or embarrasment. Plus, it has that great guitar bit towards the end where i could imagine that Johnny Rzeznik was singing just to me. " Black Balloon " was a comfort to me when i was really depressed and contemplating killing myself. I just liked thinking that maybe someone would miss me too. I later found out the song is actually about heroin addiction, but everytime i hear it, i think back on how bad i used to be and am glad that its not that way anymore. " Slave Girl " was a cover, and not technically a fantastic song, but i liked the rhythm - it was a song i could rock out to in front of my bedroom mirror.

I have other albums too - " Tuesday Night Music Club " by Sheryl Crow, " Hybrid Theory " by Linkin Park - albums that arent technically brilliant, that werent absolute best sellers, but that meant something to me in a time and in a place and that i'll always come back to. I guess thats the best part of music- you can always come back to it, and it will, if you love it enough, almost always come back to you.

Not again

I have been reading up this afternoon, on Wikipedia ( good old Wikipedia ) on the definitions, symptoms, physicalities, what have you, of depression. Clinical depression, major depression, bipolar depression, unipolar depression, dysthmia and social anxiety disorder. And as much as i know it, it is not good for me to be filling my head with all that. But i can't seem to stop.

To make matters worse, i am having a fight ( for lack of a better term ) with my sister - she through a hissy fit for something i said in jest, but which happens to be the truth but she refuses to acknowledge, and she in turn through back an actual insult at me. She apparently does not understand the gravity of what she has said, nor how much it has hurt me or why. She has been texting me relentless for the past half hour, but i cant do this right now.

I just want to sleep.....

Dearest me

So i have been tagged, by the lovely Miss Gates, and challenged to write a post - a letter addressed to my 13 year old self. It wont be pretty, but here goes:

Dearest 13 year old Me,

Your going to have to read this very carefully, and take all my advice to heart. I know you really dislike being told what to do - you do, after all, have a mind of your own - but if you dont pay attention that independent mind that you value so dearly will turn itself in on you to the point of wanting to die. THis is no exaggeration.

Firstly, your English teacher Miss Martin, is not an uppity bitch. She appears that way because this is her first proper teaching gig so she is nervous, by the end of Yr 8, you will both have a mutual admiration for each other. She will make you think Shakespeare is cool and encourage you to write, and you will realise that the only reason it appeared that she was picking on you was because she was trying to challenge what she recognised as a feirce intellect.

Secondly, be nicer to your mother. I know you are like chalk and cheese and sometimes you feel like you hate her - HATE her - but you know what? You dont. You hate you, you just dont realise it yet. Sure, she gets on your nerves because you are really as different as two people can be but she's trying to help you, to be there for you, to be the best mother she can be, in her own weird way. So cut her some slack, ok ?

Here's the important paragraph, so pay attention. I'm going to spell this out in big capital letters, because you need for this to sink in: NOBODY IS THINKING THAT ABOUT YOU. Thats right - nody is thinking you are any of the following - too smart; too fat; not pretty enough; not cool enough; uninteresting; unfriendly; retarded, lame, disgusting, hideous or anything other crap you can come up with in that over-active brain of yours. If you keep thinking, and believing, those things you're going to do your head in. You will wind up living inside your own thoughts and you will miss what are supposed to be the best years of your life. So if you want to have a boyfriend soemtime during high school, to be invited to all the " cool " parties, to be able to shar secrets with your girlfriends without fear of being ridiculed stop believing your own, made up press and begin putting yourself out there. You will most probably suffer embarrassments at some point, but you will thank me for it later.

What else ? You're going to go on a school excursion later this year. When you are crying by the pool and Ryan asks why and he sits next to and tries to have a conversation, do not shy away. You think he's cool, make sure he knows it.
Dont stop playing netball. You'll miss it when your 23 and too old and out of shape to get back into it.
By the end of Year 12, tell Casey to pull her finger out and stop being such bitch. You know she is, everyone else knows it, someone needs to let her in on the secret. Also, when you walk out of Mr Hanson's dont just walk out while he's stalked off down to the staff room. Wait til he comes back and proceed to tell him what a c**t he is - THEN walk out.
Try to get overseas sooner. Super Cheap was a nice place to work but you cam alive when you were living away. Keep going to counselling and stay on the anti-depressants to work through your shit than leave as soon is financially possible.

And i thats all i can think of right now. Aside from being good to your family - believe me, you will learn to appreciate them - and keeping up a positive mindset, i dont want to burden you with too much. I want you to use that independent thinking of yours ( i am still you after all, i'd die without my own free will ), i still want you to make your own minor mistakes. Just trust me on the big stuff i've mentioned, yea?

Your ever-loving, slightly-screwed-up, pseudo-hippie 23 year old self.

Just read, dont ask questions....

I have just written an email to a friend whom i inadvertently offended last night whilst on a self-destructive head trip. I just wanted to briefly post one paragraph of this email, because, as i said to her, i cant fully explain what goes through my head, but i wanted to try:

Next, i'm not going to try and explain the intricacies of whats been running through my mind, little by little, slowly creeping up on me, the last few months, but i will tell you that it sucks. " Dark " periods have been accumulating for a little while now, but it seems like the last month or so ( except when i was on holidays ) they are starting to get pretty regular, and yesterday was my worst day for quite a while. There was a whole little succession of things that just added up to the point where i found myself at work, my head pounding, trying not to spontaneously burst into tears, wondering what it would feel like if i stabbed a screwdriver through my hand. I kid you not - i spent a good 10 minutes imagining myself picking up screwdriver and jamming it into my hand, just because at least then i'd have a valid reason to be in pain. I've actually been questioning lately whether i might be a bit bi-polar, you know, just for a change.

There you have it. Yes, i know, it makes little sense, but i just felt the need to get it out so that i can possibly get more than 3 hours broken sleep tonight....

Umm, yea, actually, i have....

I was asked today, by someone who had been reading my blog - have you ever thought of leaving Dubbo ? For those of you who do not know - presumably because you are not Australian and, thusly, have never heard of it - Dubbo is the name of the town i live in. I prefer to refer to it is " DubVegas ", purely because it is so NOT like Las Vegas at all.

Anyhoo, my answer to the question was " Actually, yea, heaps ". He then wanted to know why i wasnt more motivated to actually leave and not just think about it a lot. It was a brief conversation but i've been thinking on it for the last few hours. He seemed to think that leaving - that throwing myself out there in the big wide world - would do me some good. That it would force me to meet more people, different people, people who could do wonders for me. And i understand that but there are two things i keep coming back to:
1. Just how do i go about leaving ?
and
2. What if it has the opposite of the desired effect ?

Lets confront those issues, in turn. Firstly, how do i go about getting out ? Do i think of a suitable place to move to, somewhere that i would like to live, and then find a house and a job ? Or do i look for available jobs and houses and then move wherever there is work and accomodation? Do i move somewhere far enough away that i'm out on my own but still close enough to visit family and friends regularly ? Or do i move interstate, across country, and be entirely and utterly alone ? the second part of this issue is i'm not entirely sure what kind of work i would do. I have a job, a career even, but i'm not sure i want to be an optical dispenser forever and, besides that, its the not the kind of occupation that has vacant positions all the time. I'm thinking it might be difficult to find work in that field, at least in area that i would be happy to live in.

Secondly, what if the move has the opposite effect than what i intended? That is, my whole reason for moving would be to be happier - to make new friends, have new adventures, find new horizons. But what if that didnt happen ? What if i couldnt find people i was compatible with and i retreated into the shadows of depression again ? i wouldnt even be near family and friends who already loved me and could lend their support. I'd be alone, and three thousand times lonlier. Would i have to come slinking home with my tail between my legs and a dark cloud over my head?

Dont get me wrong, the more i think on it the more it is something that i will seriously look into. But it cant be something that i rush, i'd want to be pretty sure of what i was doing and confident that i could turn things around if something went wrong.

The last thing i'd want is to feel trapped again by my own decisions.

The definition of me

So i know almost everyone in the entire universe uses Facebook, so you know what i mean when i start talking about applications. I receive so many application invitations that sometimes i just add something and then completely forget about it for weeks. And so it has been with the " Define Me " application - at some unknown point i added it and it wasnt until this afternoon that i re-discovered it. Basically its an application that allows your friends to add words, anonymously, that they would use to describe you.

This is a somewhat strange concept - firstly because its anonymous so i generally have no idea which person thinks what about me, but secondly because of what they have written. Thus far i only have a small pool of words, but here is how people have chosen to describe me:
1.Reliable
2. Tough
3. Cool
4.Fun
5. Happy

Reliable i am happy to go with - i think thats fairly spot on. Its just how i've been raised. Cool i am pretty sure has come from one of my good friends, who actually, truely, really believes that i am, in fact, cool; or someone on my list who barely knows me at all and just couldnt think of anything more descriptive to write. Fun i think would go along the same lines.

It is the tough and the happy part that has me in a spin. It has intrigued me that someone out there thinks that i am tough. I'm not sure whether they mean in an emotional context or in a " she could totally kill you if the urge took her " kind of way. I'm more of a lover than a fighter so i'm working on the emotional conotation of the word. Ami tough ? I dont think i would describe myself as such, at least not right now. One day i would love for someone, perhaps the man that i love, to describe me as " fierce " - independent, proud, confident and all woman - but that time is not right now. In fact, some days i think it wouldnt take much more than the worng word to make me crumble. For someone to say, or imply, the wrong and all my bravado would completely fall away and i'd just be that empty shell again. At least one night a week i ponder my present situation, and question the future, and that brings me to tears. That is not tough. Perhaps if you c0nsider that i am no longer in the depths of depression, that i no longer want the earth to swallow me up, that i no longer have thoughts of killing myself on a daily basis, that i've beaten all that then, yes, perhaps you could describe me as tough. But personally, its something i aspire to, i just dont see it yet.

And happy ? I think i'm getting there, i'm still working on it and certainly on a day to day basis i'm one of the cheerier people you'll meet ( or at least my co-workers tell as they drain cups of coffee to kick start themselves.... ) but it makes me both oddly concerned and weirdly proud that someone would describe me as happy. Proud that someone would see me that way, because its something that i stuggled with for so longer and perhaps some light of happiness is beginning to show through; but also concerned because there are, as i've just said, moments of supreme sadness, lonliness, and isolation and nobody see them. That concerns me, because thats how i fell into the black hole in the first place. Everyone thought i was ok and really i was hiding my shit away from them all. I think for the most part i AM happy, or at least the majority of the time, its just those dark moments i still need to conquer that keeping me from being the true epitome of the word.

I guess this whole post was just me questioning what others think of me - or perhaps i might be questioning the way i think of myself ?

BIggest belly laugh of the day goes to.....

Saturday night fever

Its Monday night and i'm already pining for the weekend.... isnt that sad ? And its not because i absolute hate work ( although i am doing stocktake tomorrow and, as anybody who has ever worked in a retail environment will tell you, stocktake sucks ass ) but its because the weekend has so much more potential for fun.

I get to sleep in and then hang out. Most of the time i dont have anyone in particular to hang out with during the day but that just means i can please myself - go shopping ( ok, window shopping ), watch a movie, just drive around town with my windows down and my music turned up. Sometimes pleasing yourself can be boring, or lonely, but most of the time i focus on the fact that its the weekend... who has time to be depressed on weekends?

Its actually Saturday nights that i look forward too. I know its stupid, juvenile even, you'd think someone my age would be over going to the pub every weekend, but i'm not. I look forward to getting dressed up every weekend, seeing how sexy or stylish or cool i can make myself look on a week to week basis; to catching up with my very good friend AJ, even though she's the same person i go out with every week; to seeing who else is out that i know, so i can chit chat with them; to having random conversations in the womens loo, maybe comforting a fellow female in need after some arsehole guy has wronged her; to having the occasional flirt either with a drunk older guy who is like TOTALLY into me, or a cute younger guy who is obvious just trying it on with an older woman. Mostly i just look forward to the people watching because i'm an observer by nature. I dont claim that my local hangouts are everybody's thing - i know one of you has experienced the DubVegas pub culture with me first hand i dont remember it as being too thrilling of a night - but its something to do, to keep busy, to say that you've actually been somewhere and seen somebody this week.

And i guess thats what it, and this post comes down to - seeing people, doing things, writing stuff, just to prove i'm still alive...

Have you met my friend Horse ?

Well, i have come to the conclusion that i am just going to have to throw myself out there more - its the only way to meet people. Not just potential male love interest type persons, but anyone. New friends, colleagues, acquaintances. And, as such, i started my little exercise last night. It bore some fruit i suppose - i did have a nice little flirt/chat thing with a cute guy who was probably no older than 18 ( i'm such an old hag... ) and his friend, Horse ( and yes, apparently there was a reason for that nickname - unfortunately i investigated no further ) and had my bum squuezed about 30 times by several members of the Rebel motorcycle club who happened to be hanging out in one of my local pubs. Normally i wouldt really stand for that much touchy-feelyness but hey, i didnt want to get on the wrong side of them and get stabbed in the neck or something so i just let them fell away. So sure, i had a few random conversations with individuals whom i've never met before and that kept me amused for the evening, but nothing more than that - yet.

My new found courage, as it were, to put myself out there also surfaced today when i decided to text this guy friend i have that i ran into last night to tell him i should have bought him a drink. We've had a few kisses before and he's pretty damn cute, so hell, why not ? The least i can do is test the waters right ? Either he goes for it or he thinks i'm a stupid tart, but hey, at least i gave it a shot. The good thing is, however, that if he doesnt go for it and thinks our text conversation was just the height of hilarity, is that he isnt out very often so by the time i do see him out again he will probably have forgotten it all.

So there you be - some semi-fun and frothy from me instead of depressing shit that i seem to be posting lately. Dont worry, i've noticed it, i know its been sad crap, but sometimes my past depression hits in new waves that wash over me pretty quickly. Actually, sometimes i worry i might be manic-depressive but thats a whole other post now, isnt it ?