white flag rising

Well, it didn't take much longer than 17 seconds for me to want to slam my forehead into my workstation, upon arriving at work today.

I know that out there, somewhere, many someones are wishing for jobs, and I know that I don't really have too much cause to bitch and complain - but right now, I really, really hate my job.

It is a familiar sense that swallows me now - one part resignation, one part apathy and two parts frustration. It is a beast I can no longer outrun, and the motivation to battle onwards eludes me now. Today I felt a shift as I realised all that I wanted to do was run away and be gone from this environment - and more than being a momentary glitch, it was instead a notion that settled into my bones and made itself a home.  I haven't felt this way for a really long time, and I recognise it as the beginning of the end.

Where to from here?

SB

woman of letters: to my greatest fear

Dear Fear,

You are a long time enemy of mine, one that is so deeply entrenched in the dark cavernous mess that is my mind, that it is difficult to ever imagine myself - minus you. For defining me, without you, seems somehow unnatural. Whether I like it or not, you are the beast that often drives me, in that you stall my forward motion.

There are so many forms of you, that clog my moving parts. Sometimes I fear, fear, that it is only the 150mg of venlafaxine that oils my mind machine, that helps me flick you aside, or drown you out, so that I may keep moving - even if that movement is laborious and difficult to measure.

There are so many facets to your dark mass - you are a whispered thought just as I surrender to sleep; the ill-advised judgement - spoken at a weak moment; a dark passenger, creeping in the hallways of my mind, only to shout at me through muted, messy thoughts, something unhelpful and perhaps untrue? But who's to really know? The truth is, fear - you may be right, or you may be wrong, but there will never be any knowing for certain and it is the constant threat of the 'maybe' that makes you so fucking dangerous.

Let us be specific now; let us delve deeper to discover what is at your black heart...

I am afraid of ending up alone - of never loving, or being loved in the way that gives ones life meaning. Afraid of only ever being a daughter, a sister, an aunty, a friend and never a lover, a partner, a mother, a wife. The problem of you being such a part of me, is that you can use actual truths to twist and hurt me deeply. You know, for instance, that in my 28 years, I've never had a real, hearts on the line, adult relationship...and it is you that tells me this is perfect evidence to suggest my fear of being alone is plausible and highly likely. I fear, fear, you might be right.

When I was a confused 17 year old girl, trying to make decisions about my future - would I go to university? what would I study? what would I do? who did I want to be when I grew up and got adult? It was the fear, fear, of never becoming anyone or doing anything of consequence that scared me then, and even now, leaves me in a fit of cold sweats. In science class, it was discussed that all organisms have their niche - a place they were made for, and meant to be. I fear, fear, that I will never find mine. Perhaps because it doesn't exist.

Of course, I have the everyday fears, the ones that regular people like to override with their coffee, cigarettes or casual sex. I worry about the state of my world, the lone dog on the street with its tail down, it seems lost and I worry what its fate will be - seeing this dog, reminds me of my own dog, and then I worry about her, about how she might die and I worry for how I will overcome the grief when this does eventually happen. I hear about sick children, and begin to worry about my niece and nephew; I hear about violence in schools and new drugs on the streets, and I worry about the ways in which I cannot protect the children in my life. I hear sirens in the distance, and worry that they rush to meet somebody dear to me, I make a silent outline of a cross on the palm of my hand, like I was taught to do when I was a child hearing sirens - an invisible well-wish for the people those sirens are actually for...and I worry, will anybody ever need to make a sign of the cross for me?

I worry that I'll be miserable, no matter what my employ - for the entire length of my working life - I worry I might never discover where my talents really lie - that I might never be anyone special, that I might never amount to much of anything - except a lonely cat lady.

I fear I am forgettable.

Words like 'never' 'won't' 'should' 'can't' - these belong to you, fear, and you dangle them in front of me every single day.

But my greatest fear of all, fear, is that I will always be afraid - that I will never outrun or overcome the doom radio transmission. I fear, fear, that you will always define me - as you define the things I don't do - you are the negative space that draws the outline of who I am.

I fear, fear, we must learn to get along, in spite of each other - because just as you are me, I am also the centre of you. Without me, you are nothing. Well, perhaps you are actually nothing much at all. In this case, I fear, fear, that I will have given credence to something unworthy and imagined my entire life? My entire life?

I fear I will forget these revelations.

Fearfully yours,
SB

seventeen seconds and I'm over it...

Wearing me out
(All this)
Hanging around
(It just starts)
Getting me down
('till I'm just)
Looking for an easy way out

Back to the reality of working life tomorrow.  I must not let my life become a series of sad routines.  How can I break out?

SB

the empty places

Today I had to return to my 'old' workspace, to collect some final things we had left behind. It felt strange, to be in the place where for so many years, it had been my work-home; a place where many moments have passed - some joyfully memorable and others I would prefer to forget.

Now, the rooms sit empty - a shadow of what they once were; suddenly the peeling paint and imperfections are more noticeable - a burden to the beholders eye; and echoes of nothing where the walls once bounced with laughter are oddly cold now.

I had to go into John's old office, to pull some personal things off the walls. I stood for a time, in my loneliness, at the very spot he once sat - it was a sobering moment to realise that the place he once occupied was now empty - not only in that room, but within me too.

I still think about him from time to time, and momentarily wonder how he is and what he is doing, but it is an old habit that washes over me quickly now, as I realise he scarcely has the same regard for me. I miss him, I do - but I think now I look upon him like a fragment of nostalgia - much like how one might pass a photograph on a shelf, briefly stop and maybe smile as they recall the moment the picture was taken. I do not measure the distance between us anymore; like a weighty balloon, it has finally lifted and floated away.

Mostly I am left with disappointment, because we used to support each other - and it would've been in times like these - this week - this month, that it would have counted. Today would have been a nice day for someone to ask me "are you ok?"

Why yes, I think mostly, I am. Best of all, the way I'm feeling has nothing to do with him anymore.

SB

when the mood becomes the face

It's been a big day for a Monday.  At work, we are currently shifting the department into a new building - a building which is a manifestation of the word: suboptimal.

I want to talk about all the things that annoy me, and all the ways in which this happens - but I realise this stuff consumes me too much.  Maybe I take things too seriously, maybe I just care too much.  I don't know how to reconcile self preservation with self worth - because I want to care about my job, I want to enjoy where I am and what I'm doing, but I also don't want it to be the thing that makes a poor mold of me.

At the moment, I fear I am beginning to manifest this face:

When really, I want to be: happy driving my car...

happy washing my face...

happy...eating fruit..(?)

happy on the phone...

happy brushing my teeth.

Happy, all the time! Except maybe not when washing my face - it just doesn't seem right.

Hmmm... I don't think it's a coincidence that all these "happy" photos are stock photos that require payment for use.  Plenty of free grumpy ones though.

SB xx

parlez vous strangebird?!

It has been a well measured exercise in persistence - requiring the devotion of both time and consciousness. "A Fraction of the Whole" by Steve Toltz is a mystery to me, no-more!

I finished page number 561 a few hours ago, but there's so much more to follow.  My book looks like a homage to the sticky flag. Ordinarily, I don't do this to my books...well, save for years 11 and 12 English Lit class, where quote marking was a necessary evil. But while reading this book, I just felt I had to mark every occasion that saw me wide-eyed, open mouthed - re-read a sentence or paragraph that had made an impression on me.  There were a lot of these occasions.

I cannot appropriately describe my feelings about this book - as I lack both the adequate vocabulary and experience to do so; but I can say that I found this read, one of the most enjoyable of my adult life. So many times, when I read a book, particularly a notoriously good one - I feel like I'm on the outside; one step behind the joke; isolated by clever words and unrelatable story. However, this was different. For want of a better way to articulate it - it seemed like the writer, Steve Toltz was speaking my language.

No arrogance intended.

* * * * *

Because out there in the real world, freedom means you have to admit authorship, even when your story turns out to be a stinker.

He held the photograph under my eyes. I don't know if faces can be the polar opposite of each other...this one grinned as if he'd been photographed on the happiest day of not just his life but all life everywhere.

The past is truly an inoperable tumor that spreads to the present.

I saw all the dawns come up too early and all the middays reminding you you'd better get a hurry on and all the dusks whisper "I don't think you're going to make it" and all the shrugging midnights say "Better luck tomorrow."  I saw all the hands that ever waved to a stranger thinking it was a friend.  I saw all the eyes that ever winked to let someone know their insult was only a joke.."

The game is an analogy for life: there are not enough chairs or good times to go around, not enough food, not enough joy, nor beds nor jobs nor laughs nor friends nor smiles nor money nor clean air to breathe.. and yet the music goes on.

I realised that her sweetness, the way she carried on with the people of the town, was her mask.  It was a good one, the best kind of mask there is: a true lie.  Her mask was a weave of tattered shreds torn from all the beautiful parts of herself.

The faces of a city take on a supremely cruel and indifferent quality when you wander through it in the midst of a personal crisis.  It's depressing that nobody stops to hold your hand.

These dumb, bored, unempathetic people are all around us.  We can't trust anyone to behave himself. We always have to be on the lookout.  Here's the case-winning example: it doesn't happen every day, but every now and then, people shit in public swimming pools.  That just says it all to me.

There's something disturbing about a thirty-two-year-old man putting his thirty-two-year-old soul into the mouth of a child...

Eddie, Dad's best friend, was a thin Thai man with a sleazy mustache who always seemed to be smack bang in the middle of the prime of life and not a day over.

The meaning of faith is our understanding w/ Creator that he will not eavesdrop on our mind's whisper to itself unless invited.

I think her love for me has nothing to do with me except proximity - wrong place, wrong time.

I ran & suddenly I was not alone: along came the shame of a man who all at once discovers he's been ungrateful so we ran thew three of us - me & shame & ingratitude running together like three shadows of three men who were running just ahead.

I'll teach you how to yell with your mouth closed & how to steal happiness & how the only real joy is singing yourself hoarse...& how not to leave the windows of your heart open when it looks like rain & how everyone has a stump where something necessary was amputated...

I couldn't see it but I knew the sun was around there somewhere - its yawn had lit the air.

..and I thought about how when the apocalypse comes there's bound to be someone with big hair standing in front of me...

That's the problem with people who suffer right in your face.  They can't so much as scratch their noses without its being poignant.

The moment stretched its way into infinity, then snapped back to about a nanosecond and rebounded, so all in all it lasted about eight and a half seconds.

There's little doubt that when the defining moments arise in which charatcer is molded, you'd better make the right decision.  The mold dries and sets quickly.

I saw him as a spider who woke up thinking he was a fly and didn't understand he was caught on his own web.

That's the great thing about blame: she goes where you send her, no questions asked.

It was as if a thread in my brain had become loose, but I was afraid to pull on it in case my whole being unraveled.

I remembered how Orwell described the future as a boot stamping on a human face forever, and I thought that all around me were boots, people so terrible that the whole human race should be punished for doing nothing to curb their existence.

See your doctor if loneliness persists.

SB xx

rock boy

It's been a big week, and an exhausting Friday.  I think I need me a rock boy tonight. My unusual choice is Johnny Mackay from Children Collide - I saw him in action on the Nick Cave tribute concert, and thought he was kind of a crazy dude, but also interesting...

rock, rock, rock, said the boys on top....

(This fine photograph is the work of Kate Griffin)

SB

my, my, my

Bon Iver and I are slowly getting to know one another. At the moment, 'Skinny Love' sticks with me long after the song has finished. It simultaneously scares and intrigues me, that I don't immediately know what he's singing about - I feel like I really have to think about what I'm hearing, and try to process it...and even then, I don't know if I'm pulling the 'right' things from it.  Regardless of what he has to say, I suspect it's worth the effort to find out.



Come on skinny love just last the year
Pour a little salt we were never here
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my

Staring at the sink of blood and crushed veneer
I tell my love to wreck it all
Cut out all the ropes and let me fall
My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my

Right in the moment this order's tall
And I told you to be patient
And I told you to be fine
And I told you to be balanced
And I told you to be kind
And in the morning I'll be with you
But it will be a different kind
And I'll be holding all the tickets
And you'll be owning all the fines...

* * * * *

I think I'm kind of living in an altered non-moment - so far removed from the now, that during those times I have glimpses of the real, I start to wonder if I'm crazy, or just asleep. Simple things, like the things you do everyday and don't think about - like learning the delicate balance of the accelerator and clutch when you're 17, now at 28 it has become innate - like pouring cereal, or locking a door - it's autopilot.  I glance up at my wall and wonder did I really hang that picture there... I don't remember making that decision... did I lock the door - or am I just remembering when I locked the door yesterday, one week ago, eight years ago? I think I'm always living two moments ahead - I suppose that's what happens when you get too comfortable... every day starts to feel the same because it kind of is.

SB xx

The Lovefool

Yeah, yeah... so it's valentines day again tomorrow. I shall spend another year knowing the name on that little florist card is not going to be mine.

Blessings to all the loved-up folks out there; to the 'real' couples who fight the challenges of life in their ultimate warrior pairs. It is the enduring, quiet-spoken love that inspires me. Stolen looks and subtle smiles - the keeper of the button manual, but the presser of none. Modern day heroes; the lucky ones.



Dear God, please, don't let anyone ask me if I'm expecting any flowers tomorrow.

SB xx

all the fass

This man, Michael Fassbender is so handsome, it actually hurts (it hurts me.. I suspect it's quite advantageous for him).  Nothing like a little bit of Sunday afternoon loneliness to induce some 'real man' appreciation.

Oh my giddy gosh?! Insert swoon.

He can be the tormented Mr Rochester to my Jane Eyre any day.  I always fancied myself a period drama kinda gal too...

Now I have a legitimate excuse to source and 'endure' "X-Men First Class".

SB xx

I got that summertime sadness

This song is my latest Lana obsession.

SB xx

I am having the thought...that I am falling apart

Tearful breakdowns at work in the past 2 days: 2. Uh oh.

I am not a public crier, this is not what I want to be doing.  My manager called me in for a chat this afternoon, and I was sure I was going to get into trouble for something.  I didn't. She wanted to know why I was looking so stressed - I didn't know what to tell her. I don't know what to tell myself. All I know is that every time she said the word 'stress' or 'pressure' - a tear formed in my eye, and then I couldn't hold the dam any longer. I dissolved.

I'm so embarrassed, for being so weak, for not being able to hold myself together.  There isn't any one thing that is stressing me out - I'm just tired - of work, of people, of being me, I think.  But how do I begin to fix this?

I think it's time to start paying attention to that doom radio playing in my head, again.

This can't be happening, again.

SB xx

Just another bad day

My top lip has a permanent red scar from the mean cold-sore of 2007. I'd like to thank my dear sister for this, as it was her bridezilla tendencies who created a very stressful three days for me during a bridesmaid dress expedition. Today, I awoke to find a very angry red scar... and very quickly a bubble... then the pain... and the itch.  Good fucking morning, bitches!

I don't even know how I got this asshole of a virus anyway.  I only wish it was through kissing some hot bad-boy in a darkened pub corner. I suspect that it may have come from a poorly washed cup, utilised by my bastard pig of an ex-boss, during my part time job, about seven years ago.  Either that, or being the born worrier that I am, the virus sidled up next to me and just decided my body was where it wanted to be. I feel that both of these hypotheses are equally possible. (Hypothesis - now there's a word I know I haven't used since 2009).

So, I woke up with a cold sore today, and bad hair... and just a plain old bad attitude.  I always feel more vulnerable to general worldly shittiness when I feel ugly - like there's a chink in my armour, and thanks to the cold sore - everyone could see the chink. This provides almost perfect proof that attitude and outlook determine so much.  See, it's interesting how I know this, but yet I am still unable to shake the pissy, frustrated attitude I find myself wearing more frequently these days.

Then, add a family drama.  Today my sister had to take my five-month old niece to see a paediatric therapist (who belongs to my department at work), for follow up on a fairly benign issue.  I hear that at this appointment the stupid, old, bitter therapist tells my sister some horrific things about the state of my nieces head - introducing words like 'brain surgery' and 'never in all my years'.  At first I was a mixture of concern and anger - and then selfish thoughts, like why me... I can't take any more today. Then I got upset because I knew this 'news' had sent my sister into an episode of tears and poorly informed google-ing. So, I was trying to calmly talk it out with a co worker who I trust, but then of course, my voice starts to shake and I get teary - because in my heart I'm fearing for my niece, but in my head I'm wondering how someone with half a centuries experience can be so fucking insensitive with a new mother.

I just get so scared when I think about anything being wrong with my nephew or niece.  Like a parent, I want to protect them from bad things.  I don't want to see them disadvantaged, hurt or sick. I am genuinely scared, and they aren't even my kids. I also can't help but feel a little responsible; because of where I work, I encouraged my sister to seek out assistance with the initial problem... and now she's just in a state of utter panic, because of what my co-worker said to her.

There are just some days where I wish I could melt into the walls unseen - remove myself from waking life and just be deleted for a little while.  I wish I could have done this today, and taken my lovely niece with me.

I am so worried about all of this; I hope that it all turns out to be nothing - but that giant neon 'WHAT IF' hangs above my head.  I guess all I can do is hope, and pray and love the shit out of the people I care about, while I can - because the scariest truth of them all is that I can't control anything.

SB xx

Fool me twice...

You used to be the one on my secret pedestal, sitting casually, swinging your legs to the beat of your own drum. I thought you were going to be the one to change my life, make it right somehow. I used to think that I would do anything to climb up that pedestal, to earn my right to sit alongside you. Now I have pushed you off, or maybe you jumped off? It doesn't matter, because at least you are gone. And that wobbly pedestal, with its splinters and awkward size - now I like to watch it burn, because I realise a house is no place for a single towering pedestal, and neither is the mind.

To me you were once a man-shaped heart; a world of possibility - with eyes of the ocean and your body, a place to make a home. Now, I see those eyes, still beautiful - but empty and cold, like a well, hidden in the shade. You are blood and bone - just a man - filled with fear, guilt and maybe pain - you are so full, but so empty.

I have been foolish - to hurt my heart, to offer it as sacrifice to someone who never asked for it, who never cared to know it was there. Someone wiser than me, tells me this is an human experience, that I shouldn't be ashamed - part of me is though, for being so silly for so long. Shame on you for tricking people with your charm, but shame on me for taking the bait - again, and again.

Like the lyric says "if failure don't hurt, then failure don't work".  Oh, it worked, and it hurt - so I guess it was a successful failure. I won't lose the lessons though. I dare say you haven't even begun to scratch the surface of these cold truths yet. Pity you.

That wise person also tells me that I wasn't wrong in the choosing, but perhaps just wrong in the choice. Next time I choose, I'll make sure he is willing... and worthy. Because I say now, without a shred of doubt, that you, are not worthy.

SB xx

the art of remembering

Reading an article in the most excellent frankie magazine on the intricacies of nostalgia, got me thinking about the kinds of things that transport me to the past.  The article, entitled 'rose-tinted' states:

"a recent Chinese study links nostalgia with a psychological state called "resilience" which is basically our ability to cope with life's little knocks. It found that people with resilience use nostalgia as a coping strategy."

How interesting.

When I was a little girl, I was given a lovely lockable diary. Recollecting the exact details is difficult - its puffy white cover with a pretty water colour illustration and elements of gilded gold - a little girl, perhaps a straw hat and puppy dog too.  It was filled with lined pages of various pastel shades, and the pages emitted a gorgeous girlie scent.  I cannot begin to describe the exact smell, but whenever I encounter it, I am immediately reminded of my special diary - and the smell of secrets. The safety contained in the writing on these pages was eventually lost to paranoid teenage years - but the smell always takes me back to a time when things were simpler.



SB xx

New Anthem

It's not Florence circa 'Hurricane Drunk' anymore, it's Jagwar Ma baby! I love it!

SB xx

cold war

Sometimes I find it hard to remember what I'm fighting for - but this song reminds me that I best get feisty - no matter if I'm fighting or hiding. Time to take control!

SB xx