You probably know who you are

So - i have been doing a bit of thinking the past few days. I know, i'm prone to thinking all the time, but i've been thinking on something in particular. I have recently - as in the past week - made a connection with a nice young guy who lives a whole tonne of hours away from me. He seems really sweet and certainly seems to think i'm pretty nice. I'm not just assuming this. He's told me, several times, even several times in one day, in the few days we have been chatting. He has my mobile number and i gave it to him on the condition that he only use it to text message me - which he has, repeatedly. Its not that i think he's a stalker or anything, he's just very enthusiastic. He sent me an email today in which, amongst other things, he mentioned that he has already imagined meeting me and maybe we could, eventually, be an " us ". I knew he thought a bit of me, but it was slightly confronting to be told he'd thought that much.

It was confronting because as much as it might be nice to be in a relationship, i cant be in one with someone who lives so far away. I cant do it. At one point i thought i could, and maybe sometime in the fuuture i could but as of right now its just not a possibility. I have realised that i cant indulge in an emotional relationship with someone if i cant have that person here to hug me; kiss me; hold me when i'm upset; spoon me as i sleep; or even just have plain old sex with. I have realised that having that emotional connection without the tangeability of the physical might just do my head in. Or my heart in, but for me thats all connected.

My problem is i have met some really great people over the internet and they always live so far away from me. There are three in particular that i appreciate beyond measure.

Let me put it like this : its like my life is a room. The first guy came into my life, not so long ago, when the room was dark, and he switched the light on. The room was basically still the same but i could see everything clearer - it wasnt so much different, just a better, more illuminated version of the room i always had, but didnt know was there. I'd never been able to see it in the dark. I loved him for it, and meant to tell him so, but got my words ( or meanings ) confused . After that, i dont so much think he switched the light off - more like the bulb blew and i havent gotten around to fixing it yet.

The second guy is slightly different. I've known him for a very long time and its only just recently that i've realised i love him very much. Its not so much that he switched a light on - rather, he's trying to get me to switch it on for myself. He always has, i see now - he's always told me i can get that ladder, get my arse up there and change that light bulb, all on my own. If i believe i can climb those few feet, everything will be lit up again, and it will all be of my own doing.

The third? Well, firstly she isnt a guy, And secondly, she doesnt quite fit into the whole " life is room " metaphor. If she did, she'd probably be one of the rooms i'd want next to mine, in the same house, one you could swap furnishings with or that would inspire you to re-decorate. Truth be told, she's the kind of gal every other gal would want as friend, thats why i love her too. I'd say we were faux lesbian lovers only i believe that whole fake girly infatuation thing may have been passed onto someone else for now :) .

So thats what i was thinking, that some of the people i appreciate most i havent actually met, or in one case i have but i dont know whether it will ever happen again. And the only reason i was thinking that is because someone wants to meet me, after only a few days. How can he even know me yet? Sure, its probably because he wants to know MORE about me, but 8 and half hours is a long way to come just for that. Perhaps after a few months, but if he confesses to having thought about it already, how patient will he be before it turns to misguided infatuation ?

Or worse - boredom and ultimate rejection ?

Seriously, its like i'm stuck in a loop here

I wish my sister would shut up. Right now i'm here in the kitchen on the computer and she is in the lounge room, with her boyfriend, and she's on the phone. She's so bloody loud that all i can hear is her raving on down the phone to one of her friends over some thing that, if the friend does it, will make her the " most disgusting person " my sister knows. As far as i can gather, because i think my sister believes i'm deaf or something and cant actually hear her, is that this friend is considering having anal sex. Whatever. I dont care. Thats not the point.

The point is that the way she is carrying on - the tone in her voice, the way she's speaking, the words and phrases she's using - is reminding me of the girl in high school who thought she was better than everybody else. The one who thought she was cooler than everyone else, and that everyone cared what she thought, as if they'd obey everything she ever said. You know that girl?

Yea - i wanna punch her in the throat....

Amy is....

1. Uploading songs to her ITunes. She's making a mixed cd for her sister to use for her beauty therapy room.

2. Tired. Very tired. And wearing stripey pyjamas.

3. Kind of bored - why do you think she's making a list ?

4. In love with yoga again. Yay!

5. Wishing she hadnt have eaten those last few pieces of chocolate. Seriously, she feels nauseous.

6. Feeling good about giving blood tonight. And for signing up to donate plasma aswell.

7.Working on her own in the dispensary all week. Not so bad, her colleague does deserve some time off, after all.

8. Listening to Evan Rachel Wood sing The Beatles " Blackbird ". Its sweet.

9.Almost ready for bed - did she mention she was tired?

10.Going to remember to call the lady about her fathers birthday present. Its his birthday this Friday, so she should probably get a move on.

11.Is over the list. But she wanted to finish it on an odd number, just to be different. Peace out yo....

Getting real, as dictated by me

This just in - i am tired of being a victim. Or at least, playing the victim. Feeling the victim. That being said, not much has ever really been done to class me as a " victim ": what i mean is i'm a victim of my own thoughts, my own emotions, and i'm tired of it.

I'm tired of having more frequent depressing days, more intense depressing feelings and increasingly frequent depressive episodes.I am tired of having crying jags so bad that i give myself a headache and bruises from where i have pinched myself, just so i would feel some justifable physical pain. I am aware enough to know that most of what makes me feel like that is entirely in my own head, but i am not strong enough to stop it. Not on my own anyway. I am seriously considering getting more professional, therapeutical help. Oh, and medicinal assistance. The last time around it all worked wonders and i believe it would be of great help now.

Dont mistake me, i am not taking this lightly. I've been trying to fight it for almost 8 months now and so far, on my own, i havent been entirely successful. I've made an appointment with a GP for a general check-up for Friday and i intend on discussing it all with them. When i tell her that i'm having more " down " days, that i sometimes have to bite my lip or the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying in inappropriate places, that i havent been able to sleep soundly most nights for the past few months, and that yes, on the odd occasion i have been having suicidal ideations - well, i'm pretty sure she'll at least refer me to a counsellor, especially if i say this a reoccurence. She'd have to, wouldnt she? And i know some of you are sitting there, reading this, and thinking me melodramatic, or that depression is entirely an emotional weakness but i firmly believe that it has a physical cause aswell. Like i said, i'm lucid enough to know that a lot of my thought proceses are based on nothing but how i IMAGINE things to be, yet i feel completely powerless to stop them coming, to stop the crying jags, to stop the pain. If my brain chemistry operated properly, well, that would be half the battle won already.

But enough of that. Today is the day that i am putting my foot down. Meekly perhaps, to start with, but its down okay? there will be days where i will not be able to stop myself from crying, days where i will have an overwhelming feeling of loniless, days where i will want to run away and crawl under a rock somewhere to die - but i resolve to make these days and less. I also resolve to not do it on my own. Why ? Because i am man enough ( human enough ? Obviously i'm not an actual man, that'd be a far bigger problem .... ) to admit that i cant do it by myself. When i feel tired, or lonely or completely distraught i will let someone ( other than my blog ) know about it.

I am going to try and get out of the house more. I'm not sure exactly where i am going to go, or with whom, but i'm going to try. I will be at the gym four times a week, so that has to be at least a start. Soccer season has started again so i will go on a Sunday morning to watch my brother play. I will try and speak to some of the other spectators, even, and especially if i dont know them. If i am invited for a weekend at a friends of a friends place ( which is on the cards ) i will not make an excuse not to go. I will suck up the fact that it is cold and i dont really know them and i will go, and i will be charming and witty and perfectly fabulous, instead of shy.

And lastly, i have a goal now. Something i am passionate about and hoping to work towards. I'm not going to reveal yet what it is, but in time, when things look more promising, i will.

Buenos noches people, it is bed time!

Please go away, you're doing my head in

My house has been taken over by teenagers. My sister has invited her boyfriend, her best friend, and her best friend's boyfriend over for the evening. They are slightly annoying. But, more than that, they are depressing.

I am doing everything in my power not to cry. I have bit my lip so hard it has started to bleed. The last thing i want when i come home is to be reminded, so obviously, of what i dont have.

I'm thinking of packing it all in and going to bed. And i would to if it weren't only 8.45pm. Somehow going to bed at such an early hour would make me feel even more of a loser....

Long Way Down

So i've just finished one of the best books i've had the pleasure of reading in a long time - " Long Way Down " by Nick Hornby ( an no, SvD, the title does not refer to The Goo Goo Dolls song of the same name ). If you have never read Nick Hornby ( Do you know the films " High Fidelity " " Fever Pitch " or " About a Boy " ? Adaptations of his novels ), you are totally missing out. The man is a genius. He's able to write with such wit and humour that, at times, i really am laughing out loud; yet he manages to instill such emotional sincerity into his writing that i just want to dive right in and actually know the characters, be with them, BE them.

In the case of " Long Way Down " i actually WAS them, at least for a while. And maybe not on the same scale. See, " Long Way Down " is basically about four suicidal people who meet on a roof top, on New Years Eve, right before they had planned on throwing themselves off. Before ending it all. Before pulling the plug. But instead of offing themselves they end up having an awkward conversation and the rest of the book is about how they find some of themselves by having found each other. Its funny, and sad, and uplifting, and depressing and, for me, entirely relatable. So i never actually made it up to the top floor of a building, or found myself sitting in the bath with a razor within reach, or even curled up in bed with a bottle of pills on the bedside table .... but i thought about it. A lot. All of the time. So, reading the book, which is written from the four main characters points of view, in turn, i could read what each was saying and go " yep, totally been there " ; " yep, completely understand that "; " yep, that is so funny, i used to think the same thing! ". It was like a wake up call - i USED to be like that. Things seem like shite sometimes now, but they arent as bad as they were. On pretty much every page, or at least once or twice a chapter, there was something that i would read that would make me feel... something. Whether good or bad. But the point is, it made me feel.

I would love for all of you to read it. You'd be doing yourself a favour - like i said, Nick Hornby is genius, and then you go and read " High Fidelity " and fall in love with Rob and his music obsession, and then you could watch the movie version which is the best film adaptation of a book i've seen. But for now, i'll just share with you three excerpts from " Long Way Down " that i held onto:

On the way the world works - " It's just life. One person bumps into another person, and that person wants something, or knows someone else who wants something, and, as a result, things happen. Or, to put it another way, if you dont go out, and never meet anyone, the nothing happens. How can it ? "
( How many people have tried telling me that ? )

On seeing someone actually jump from the roof while they ( the four main characters ) were trying to have a reunion meeting - " .... Firstly, he made us realise that we weren't capable of killing ourselves. And secondly, this information made us suicidal again "
( That one in particular applied to me.... )

One of the characters, during her first ever plane trip - " And you probably also know that when you look out of an aeroplane window and see the world shrink like that, you cant help but think about the whole of your life, from the beginning until where you are now, and everyone you've ever known. And you'll know that thinking about those things makes you feel grateful to God for providing them, and angry with Him for not helping you to understand them better, and so you end up in a terrible muddle.... I don't know how these jet-set people who have to fly once or twice a year cope, i really dont. "
( I'm not much on God, but its the sentiment i can relate to.....)

Two things

Two things that i have realised in the last 24 hours:

1. I am still completely enamoured with yoga. I kid you not - yoga changed my life. I know that sounds entirely ridiculous and very much hippie-dippie, but yoga was one thing i very much loved to do and i thought i was pretty good at. It made me feel strong, physically and mentally, it made me appreciate what my body could do and how disciplined i could be. After over a year away from classes, i went back last night. And there it was - that yoga high, all over again.

2. Apparently, i'm not a big fan of mice. I saw one scurry through my living room and behind my TV cabinet and that was it. I was in semi-hysterics, on the phone to my father, pleading for him to come get it out. He said not only was he in bed and not getting out, he couldnt chase the mouse out even if he tried. No matter then - i decided if the mouse was staying in my house, i wasnt. I slept at my parents place last night. First thing this morning my dad went to my house to lay traps and guess what ? the mouse is now safely smooshed and i can sleep in my own bed tonight.

Yep, go on, say it.... i'm a total girl. I dont care. Yoga rocks and mice are ewwwwwwwww!!!

Interesting - much.....

So my good friend SvD emailed me an interesting article the other day regarding a mental health study. Knowing that i am slightly mentally unstable and very much aware of it, i suppose he thought it might make for some enlightening reading on my behalf. Enlightening ? Not quite, but interesting, yes.

The article was written about a long term study into " hardiness ", the quality that determines how well we cope with change - how well we roll with the punches so to speak. Basically this study broke hardiness down into three sub-qualities:
Control: an individuals ability to believe in, and assert, their control in an effort to influence outcome.
Commitment : an individuals want to have involvement that leads to social fulfilment rather than social isolation.
Challenge: an individuals ability to embrace change as an opportunity rather than a threat.
Basically the study found that those people who believed in their level of control, that they could be proactive in managing or controlling certain events, those people who were ambitious in their social lives, that sought company and social activity, those people who took change in their stride and used it positively - those people were more likely to have come from a supportive family environment; that they may have had stressful events in their early lives; and they were more likely to have had a fulfilling and supportive school environment. These people were deemed more hardy than the others. It seems the more positive your early life, the more hardy you were. If you were from a broken home, if you were a bad student or at least had bad teachers, or if you had suffered any stressful events in the early course of your life, you were apparently more likely to fall into the " less hardy " column.

What i found most interesting about this article is not so much its findings, but rather how they relate to me. According to this study i should be a hardy person.I should be adept at handling change, at lowering my stress, at overcoming burdens and using obstacles to my advantage. But, and i can readily admit this, i'm not. At least, not yet.

Lets see:
* Supportive family unit - check. I have one of the most loving, supportive, unquestioning families that i know of. I was almost always told i could be whatever i wanted, that if you wanted something enough you could make it happen. My family has never strayed from that loving, attentive path.
* Postive school environment - check. I was ( still am ) a feircely intelligent girl. I was Dux of my primary school, and was always encouraged to engage myself intellectually. Academically, i was told the sky was the limit.
* Stressful events - check. Unfortunately. So my brother died when i was almost 6. My uncle committed suicide when i was 11. And for much of my early years my family was what you would call working class - we didnt have a lot of money to indulge in clothes, or holidays, or school excursions, or anything considered a luxury.

So, based on all that, i should be a bonafide hardy person. But i'm not so much. Thats what i find interesting - that this long term study would, based on those life experiences, brand me as postively unstoppable, like a noxious weed that just refuses to go down.

Unfortunately, i find myself more like a beautiful yet fragile tree being slowly overgrown by a parasitic ivy....

Friends

So no-one told you life was gonna be this way
Your jobs a joke, you're broke
Your love life's D.O.A
Seems like you're always stuck in second gear
When it hasn't been your day, your month
Or even your year and...
I'll be there for yoooooooooooooou......


I am now casting for a: Joey, Ross, Chandler and a Monica or a Rachel. I already have one of the girl ones, i just cant decide whether she is a Monica or a Rachel yet ( perhaps i should call her Ronica? Machel ? ) I'll be Phoebe and if someone could throw me a trendy inner city apartment, a cool job, and cute little coffee shop/cafe to hang out in everything should be all good from now on....

Someone stole my fucking sprinkler

Yes, i am pissed off - someone has stolen my fucking sprinkler. Someone has come into my yard, during the night, in the dark, and taken my lawn sprinkler off the end of the hose and run off with it. Fuckers. I am really riled up - like, i know its only a sprinkler for watering your lawn, so its not the end of the world, but its the principal of the thing. Someone has come onto my property and taken something that belongs to me. Its rude, its disrespectful, its just plain old annoying, and i am fucking mad. I mean, i went away one weekend last year and someone had stolen one chair from my patio furniture. I had a little bistro set on my front verandah - one little round table and two little chairs where i would sometimes eat breakfast or have coffee with my mum - and someone stole ONE fucking chair. One. Why not take the whole bloody set ?

Sorry about the swearing but seriously ? Who takes one chair ? And then who steals a sprinkler ? Seriously? Whoever it was, you're a fucker - i hope no-one comes to your house for coffee and i hope the drought we're in ruins your lawn. Wouldnt that just be hilarously funny?

Yea about as funny as stealing my god-damned fucking sprinkler....