i know what my life is:
musical chairs
dancing around
watching others
find seats
when the music stops
i always miss
only just
and yet
by enough
to feel disappointment
a turning away
a directional change
a pile of what if
building
in the corner
on top of if only
as chairs disappear
Two current news stories have been rattling around in my head since I stumbled across them. I can’t shake them. I think I know why. I think I’m meant to gain some understanding from them to slot into my jigsaw-puzzle brain before I’m allowed to move on.
The first is a sad tale of a teen party gone wrong, a few suburbs away from me in West Perth. Kertisha Derschaw, 17, befriended a guy at a party, 24, who for reasons unknown, bashed her unconscious and leapt off a balcony. She later died a day before her 18th birthday and he strangled himself in jail.
Tragedy all round, really.
The second regards Rebekah Lawrence who in 2005, at the age of 34, reached the end of her workday, took all her clothes off and jumped out the second storey window to her death.
She’s in the news because there’s now a coroner’s inquiry into whether the intensive self-help course she took on the weekend had anything to do with her naked death leap the following Tuesday. Apparently, quite the possibility, since another guy threw himself out a window to his death while on the same course years earlier, and another guy got naked and stabbed himself to death three days after taking the course. Allegedly. Not for me to decide.
Here’s the resonance: I see myself in both of these incidents.
When I was 17 I too found myself at a random party in West Perth where there were a few older people I didn’t know (and here’s where mother has kittens..). There was no thought at all that I might have been in any danger, but what if I was? What if I was only two steps away from having danger come bash me in the head and I never knew it?
Also, at the age of 17 I hooked up with a 24 year old, which went on to work out perfectly fine (well, for 11 years anyway, before it went Pete Tong), but in the beginning, who was to know that for sure?
Now, at 34, I find myself battling inner demons probably much like Rebekah’s – a ticking biological clock, a strange sensation of floating between being a happy and productive member of society and being a packet of mixed nuts, and a job that at times drives me mad enough to think about throwing my computer out the 18th floor window and following it (disclaimer: I never ever would. Computers are expensive things).
I’m not making light of her situation; in reality, her story has hit me hard. The inner battles I’ve been going through have made me sometimes wonder whether some sort of structured professional help might be needed. I worry about my age and where my life’s heading (or not heading, more accurately).
Here’s the lesson: But for the grace of god…
I stand here, at this place, in this time, doing these things, because it is meant to be. The universe has decreed I be here, doing what I’m doing, going through what I’m going through.
If it was meant to be any other way, it would be.
Perhaps on another parallel universe, I’m Kertisha, or Rebekah, and they’re me. Perhaps their lives continue, and mine’s ended prematurely.
It’s fatalistic, but I can’t help feeling that fate is a thread wound through more of my tapestry than I realise. Sure, I make decisions, I sit at the wheel pretending I’m a competent and licensed driver, but maybe my ever-hardworking guardian angels are the ones ensuring that I stay within the boundaries of my fate.
Now at the end of this thought process I realise how totally self-centred this sounds. Two young women have died in horrible circumstances, and all I can think about is how it affects me. Well it’s not entirely true – first thoughts were of the horror, the tragedy, and the families’ grief, but after that, doesn’t every tragic situation begin to rotate and work its way into our psyche through personal connection, to allow us to come to terms with it?
Maybe that word which for years I have had trouble grasping the definition of, is finally starting to make some sense to me – catharsis.
atrophy is not my friend
it’s time to end
isolation self-imposed
will kill the seed
trying to grow without the sun
is death before
everything has just begun.
this isn’t fun.
on a train,
unguarded moments.
humanity revealed in a sideways glance,
a ponderful stare into space,
a man engrossed in a book.
breathing, thinking, existing.
thought-clouds
like fog around heads.
silent synchronicity,
all perfectly still
travelling at 100kmh.
a common bond
of anonymity.
When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried?
The last half a dozen years or so, I haven’t belly laughed anywhere near as much as I should.
Apparently seven hugs a day is the minimum requirement for a happy and healthy life; I would add to that at least three body-rocking tears-inducing belly laughs a week.
Two old friends, out of the blue, emailed me today about this blog. One was the most sweetest kindest praise I’m sure I don’t fully deserve (but will happily accept as awesome motivation), and the other was concern over the state of my mental health (“bloody hell, your blog’s a bit depressing.. are you ok?”) – made me chuckle.
The thing is, I used to be funny. I used to be able to write with a comedic bent. I used to make people laugh. When did that stop happening? When did I become so serious?
So now I’m trying to remember the last time I laughed until tears rolled down my face. I’m trying to rediscover the funny.
Oh, I’m in luck – I remember. At work, of all places. My alarm didn’t go off and I woke up five minutes before I was due to start. I threw myself out of bed so fast I was still half asleep and my right leg was still fully asleep, leading me to walk as though I had cerebral palsy, banging into every wall more than once as I stumbled sideways into the bathroom.
That, coupled with the shakes, made it.. let’s just say, entertaining, to try and get my legs into pants. I didn’t even try and attempt to wield a hairbrush.
I burst into work half an hour late, panting, pillow creases still adorning my face, hair like a madwoman, and started telling the story of my morning, giving a visual demonstration of my physically-challenged walk, which made me and thankfully my very understanding boss laugh so hard we cried.
Why can’t every morning start like that?
Have you ever been around someone with an attack of the giggles? How hard is it not to join in? In 1962 three schoolgirls in Tanzania got the giggles which spread to 2/3 of the school population before going on to infect another 14 schools and countless villages, only ending about two and a half years, and 1000 giggling people later. Now that’s contagious.
Let’s forget the fact that laughter reduces pain, releases endorphins, brings down stress levels, pumps oxygen through the body and increases blood flow; it’s just so damn fun – why don’t we do more of it?
And from now on I solemnly promise to try and throw in a couple of chuckles among the darkness.
The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
-- ee cummings
A bug spoke to me today.
He said I was miserable.
Still not sure how.
He was a small speckled dot on my desk. When I nudged him, he moved and started on an aimless trek. And said I was miserable.
He meandered slowly and placidly toward the keyboard then casually turned and headed for my desktop map of the world, and said look at this desk. Look at the misery formed at this desk. As I trudge across it, so you trudge through life sitting at it, directionless, dusty and dry as a desert.
He paused at New Zealand and rotated as though he was taking in the rest of the world. You should be out there. You should be walking the earth. You should be learning in the school of the world. Don’t you remember your dreams? Your yearnings?
Strange that he paused in the place where I started this life.
He walked the Pacific Ocean heading for Russia, and fell on his back, legs flailing. Ok, maybe Russia’s not for you.
He righted himself and headed back to me. Think about it. There’s nothing holding you here now. In this place. Now is the time to go.
And he went. Down the side of the desk. To where, I don’t know. I didn’t look. More mysterious that way.
He’s right. I’m miserable. There’s actually nothing holding me in this place. I should go. But to where? To do what? I feel useless not knowing how to answer that. Bug didn’t hang around long enough to enlighten me in that regard.
Could it be that my spirit guide is a nameless speckled bug? I always thought it was a gecko.
i am origami.
fold. crease. fold.
unwrinkled paper
shrinking in size.
every fold. crease. fold.
creating a weak spot.
greasy fingers that
fold. crease. fold.
and leave a residue.
who folds?
who manipulates?
what am i?
box.
crane.
stick insect.
flower.
or just
a piece of paper
once smooth
now wrinkled.
To be misunderstood.
How long do you call it ‘misunderstood’, before you start calling it ‘reality’?
How long does it take for you to turn, “people misunderstand me. I’m always misunderstood” into, “people must see me how I really am. I’m the one who’s got me worked out wrong”.
I’d really like to know, because the only thing that holds me back from adjusting the focus is my rage, and the fear that if I embrace everyone else’s misunderstandings of me as reality, I’ll slip into a deeper, darker, den of despair – a padded den, in which I can more easily, quietly, slowly, beat myself up.
Does everyone have an aspect of themselves they think they’ve got worked out, only to have everyone else think the opposite? Even random things, like humour, or level of compassion, or body image? Or is it just me?
I’m always wary of people who think I’m this fantastically wonderful person, or great at something in particular, because I don’t see myself that way, or at least at their level of wonderfulness. It’s not an act of self-deprecation, I just honestly don’t think most of my every day actions warrant what others think of me.
It puzzles me.
It also works the other way – if people see certain actions as awful, or slutty, or immature, or just plain wrong, but in my head I know I’m not doing anything wrong, I just don’t get it.
The difference is, when people think better of me than I think of myself, I’m confused, but I try and take their word for it. I don’t think I’ve deserved even half the praise received while I’ve been on this earth, but I try and graciously accept it.
However, when I’m thought of worse than I think of myself, I do one of two things: up the hackles and bring the rage, or more commonly, doubt myself until I’m a shaky mess rocking in the corner.
I’m sick of people making me doubt myself. I don’t know how to stop it, except for rage and indignation – and they’re not much fun to have as house guests. They’re always tearing the place apart and doubling my electricity bill. When they finally leave, it takes a lot for me to put the house back together.
But the alternative – doubt, is like an infestation of termites, eating away at the foundations until my house collapses (Ok I think I’m over this analogy now).
Anger, or depression.
There has to be
a door number three
-world, please?
sick of licking my wounds.
sick of wounding myself in the first place.
sick of my supposed reputation.
sick of not being trusted.
sick of being treated like a child.
sick of self loathing.
sick of games and politics.
sick of my egocentricity.
sick of this ride.
unimpressed
with the rest.
for shame
those who are to blame
and i at the top of the list.
retreat
regroup
radio silence.
