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I’m thinking…

Angst, Cynicism, Relationships No Responses »

Mar 162007

I’m constantly thinking. I’m very introspective. I think I think too much. The cogs in my brain are constantly turning, and I come up with some strange ideas and theories on why things are the way they are.

I’m constantly trying to make sense out of everything that happens. I want to know everything about everything. I think this is not just a generation-y thing, and I think I should stop explaining it away as that.

I think this won’t be the last time I write something pointless.

I’m overwhelmed by the sensation of missing someone or something. The Shins new song “Phantom Limb” is such a perfect metaphor for this feeling. It happens to thousands/millions of people every single day, so why do I feel so alone? Why do I hate so much when people try to compare my heartache to what they were feeling at a time that they think was similar? That’s not even what they’re trying to do. I know that. They’re trying to make me feel less alone in my pain, but it doesn’t help at all. It makes me rail against their attempts at comforting me.

I don’t want to feel like this any more.

I don’t want to feel discarded, unwanted, like my best efforts are simply not good enough.

It’s very difficult to retain any self-esteem in a situation like this. I’m just not good enough, and I have nothing more to offer.

Nil admirari – To admire nothing

Angst, Relationships No Responses »

Mar 162007

I thought that I was a fairly self-sufficient person. I thought that I was an introvert – recharging my energy by taking time out by myself to sit and deconstruct situations.

I think that I might have been wrong about all of these things. Or maybe personality is just too complicated a thing for these definitions.

I’m not too sure of anything at the moment. I’m sure of the pain, but that comes and goes. Nothing in my life is reliable right now. I feel like I can’t trust anything, or anyone.

I think that the reason I felt like I was self-sufficient was because I didn’t often let people in enough to be able to hurt me. The reason that I retreated was so that I could breathe and step back and remain at a distance that would allow me not to make any connections that would hurt me too much when they were broken.

I’ve always been a giving person. That seems to have magnified and taken over my personality now that I’m older. I give my time, energy, emotions, money, posessions… and perhaps it is a way of trying to make up for what I feel that I am lacking. I try to bridge the gap between my worth and someone else’s by giving more of myself. I also give in the hopes that this will prompt a return of the same from whoever I am giving to.

I don’t know myself enough to know what I really want. I know what I want in the heat of the moment, in conflicts that spring from feelings of worthlessness and taken-for-grantedness, but when I am happy, I generally just tend to want whatever I am getting. I don’t know what I want from others because I’m too busy concentrating on what I’m giving to them, in the hopes that they will be able to tell what I want and give that back to me.

I give to people what I think that they want from me. When a relationship affects me deeply, I give so much of myself that I lose all sense of what it means to be me. I lose my ability to think and function on my own. I base my self-worth on the way that other people treat me.

How can I learn from this? How can I comprehend anything, above the pain that I am feeling?

You really begin to understand what loneliness is when you’ve spent a great deal of time with someone. It’s a visceral thing. It eats away at you inside until you’re lying on your bed sobbing, wondering how you’re ever going to feel right again in your own life, how you’re ever going to enjoy anything that was a part of your life before this whole thing happened.

I keep getting the feeling that I’ve gone backward in the level of my maturity. I keep getting these flashes of who I was years ago, and feeling like I’m back there, at that stage in my life – an idiot, unaware of the way the world works. It was okay to be that clueless back then, but now… I should be more self-aware, more developed in my emotional and mental understandings of things. I feel like, if I go back to the things that occupied my time before I was in this relationship, then that means that I’m the same person. I’ve started to resent the person I used to be, and I resent the person that I was while I was in the relationship even more, because that person led to the end of something so important. So who is there left for me to like? How can I ever feel of value again?

I can’t keep basing my value on other people’s opinions and perceptions of me. If the only pride I feel is when others recognise me for something I’ve done or am, how am I ever going to feel okay just with myself?

I guess I don’t trust myself, because through my own actions, thoughts, insecurities, I have let myself down time and time again, more than anyone else could ever let me down. I have hurt myself more than anyone else could. I’ve done stupid things, and it doesn’t help to beat myself up over it, but if you don’t learn from your mistakes then there was no point in them being made in the first place.

I never knew that anything could hurt this much.

Just the facts

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Jan 072007

I haven’t really felt like writing for the past couple of weeks. I guess I haven’t really had anything I needed to get off my chest or vent about. Not surprising considering that I wasn’t at work. These have been the most relaxing two weeks of my entire year, that I can remember anyway. Tomorrow marks my first day back at work. I’m trying not to think about it, which is pretty difficult for me because whenever I’m anxious or stressed about something, I tend to work my way through every possible scenario in my head to prepare myself for whatever could happen. It doesn’t work, so I stress myself out for nothing. I’m trying to not pre-empt and let things eventuate on their own, and just take things as they come. I’m not saying that I’m being very successful, but the point is that I’m making an effort. I think.

I thought I would sum up 2006 for me with the major events of my life.

1. Stepped on foreign soil for the very first time
In January of last year, Lauren and I flew to Heathrow via Brunei and Dubai from Brisbane. It was the most exhilarating, exciting, eye-opening and overwhelming experience of my life thus far. We visited 9 countries in 12 days via Contiki tour, and then added another one to our list by booking cheap flights through Ryanair (their planes were scary) and flying to Ireland. We also did a quick three-day visit to Berlin, and then toured some of the English countryside on our last couple of weeks in the UK.

2. Completely re-evaluated my life
It may not seem like it, but when I got back from our overseas trip, I felt as though I had changed fundamentally. I was no longer the same person that had left Australia six weeks earlier. I felt that I needed people to see me for who I was, as someone new, and treat me accordingly, or I would fall into the trap of acting the same as I had before and being the old me simply because that’s the way people were treating me. I went through a dark time of depression when I tried to reintegrate into my old life – settling back into the old routine of work, sleep, work, sleep, ad infinitum. I felt that I was wasting my life. I desperately wanted to be learning, to be at university or just somewhere else different entirely from my old life. I wanted to escape and keep travelling, either change the world or make a huge change in my own life.

Despite my current work situaion, I’m much happier now. I still feel unfulfilled, but I see it as a good thing because I know that there is more out there for me. I’m looking forward to learning and developing myself in other areas, and discovering which path I should be walking to get to where I want to go. I just know that the next job for me is just waiting for me to reach out and grab it.

3. Broke my arm
This was a huge thing for me. I seem to have quite a lot of injuries, but nothing that’s really obvious. Everything that I have is long term and I’ve learnt to deal with whatever effect it has on my life. In early June, I was playing around on Rosie’s new(ish) skateboard in the downstairs part of the house. The statistics of injuries involving skateboards or the title of this point should make it obvious what happened. I tried to tic-tac, and then ended up flying through the air and landing very hard on my arm, with it twisted around behind my back. It was broken in three places, as I found out later. Anyway, I eventually (about two hours later) got to the hospital, and a couple of weeks later I had to go back in for an operation to have my wrist re-set and so they could drill into my bone to screw bits of metal to it. The pain after the operation, when I was at home recovering, was so bad that I would just lie on a mattress in the lounge room writhing around and whimpering. After they took the recovery cast off, I had to wear a splint for eight weeks. My recovery was fairly speedy apparently, but my left wrist will never be as strong as my right wrist.

4. Dinna died
My beloved cat, Dinna, died on the 14th June 2006. This was also Rosie’s 18th birthday. Dinna had been sick for a while with bladder problems. This day, though, the vet discovered that he actually had a tumour on his spine which was causing all the other problems he was having. He took a sharp turn for the worse and mum called me at work to tell me that the vet recommended he be put down. He was given the injection while I was at work, and mum and Rosie picked me up at about lunch time with Dinna in the car with them, so that we could take him to Lauren & Nathan’s new house to bury him. Dinna was an important part of my life. I’d had him for four and a half years. He’d moved interstate four times since he was a kitten. He was a beautiful cat, loving and affectionate. R.I.P. DeeDee.

5. Another family reunion
Well, a reunion of sorts. I think pretty much everyone travelled to Townsville for Aunty Helen’s 50th birthday celebrations. It was great to spend time with all the cousins again, and to see Laura all grown up and FUNNY! And to see Luke and his fiancee Kate (they’re now married) and Francis and his girlfriend Bron (now engaged – getting married on the 24th March). It’s strange seeing people have changed so much while you’ve been too busy concentrating on living your own life. You don’t realise that other people are getting on with theirs until you meet up again… So I’ve grown up quite a bit, but so has everyone else. It was so good to see everyone, even Norm & Yvonne came up from Leeton for the weekend. I went home early because I got sick, which started the conspiracy theory that I always get sick at these big family events (this one was the hat trick).

6. Lauren and Nathan got engaged
I think everyone knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of time. Nathan proposed to Lauren on her 25th Birthday this year, on the 20th September, while they were having a special birthday meal at the Three Monkeys in West End. Lauren’s the first of the Brisbane children to get engaged, and she’ll be getting married in January 2008. She’s already acting like the wife, and PeePee is their son.

7. I got a new kitten
Napoleon kitten was born in August some time. I went to collect him from D’Aguila (yeah, where the HELL is that???) on 24th September. He’s a manx kitten, now just growing out of his awkward teenage phase and turning into a real cat (he’s growing into his arms and legs). He’s a bit bitey and scratchy (as anyone who has seen my hands and arms recently can attest), but I’m sure he’ll grow out of it, especially once he’s been … you know what’ed. He is the loudest purring cat ever in the history of the universe, and he has the best smell. Kudos to Christian for the image.

8. Made new friends

Christian and Neo are very special friends, I’m glad to have met them. I’ve learnt a lot about photography, domains, self-aggrandising entries on Wikipedia, fluffyness, fully-grown cats… not to mention Trailer Park Boys, Borat, Bruno, Snow Leopards, and Fawlty Towers. I’ve also been fortunate in meeting wonderful people through work – Calum has been a great source of fun, knowledge, inspiration, and help and reassurance, as has Benyamin. Chris (Chrisanova) is important to me also. I’m lucky to have so many special people in my life.

In summary, this year has been pretty turbulent. There have been periods of nothing much at all, and then periods of everything happening at once. I’ve changed significantly from the person I was at the start of last year, but in many ways I’m still the same. My style has changed, my circles of friends have changed (apart from a few mainstays). Fundamentally, I think I’m still the same. There are things I still aspire to do, and to be, and I hope that this year will see me reaching some of my goals. I’ve got an entire year to look forward to. I’m going to make the best of it!

Noli nothis permittere te terere – Don’t let the bastards wear you down.

Angst, Cynicism, Work 2 Responses »

Dec 242006

So I’m finally getting a break from the stress of work. It doesn’t come without its own stresses, though. Mainly financial worries. The fact that work is so barbaric as to categorically refuse any leave requests over Christmas makes a joke out of their whole philosophy. Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant! – May faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy! But I’d better not write anything NEGATIVE about work, how could I ever come up with anything NEGATIVE about the place that so many people have left over the last few weeks? How could I say anything against a place that doesn’t make any effort towards retaining their existing staff, and just treats them like naughty children? No, no, I’d better not, in case someone types something *random* into a search engine that just happens to be a string containing the words casbot (nothing specific about that!) and where I work, and also makes assumptions as to what I would be posting about.

Let me tell you something, those of you who are here from *random* search strings (I’m thinking just to prove that if you trawl through ten pages of irrelevant search results just to find a page with one reference to what you were searching for, I believe just to justify your outrage that I would even write about something that has caused me so much pain in the first place) my blog is the least of your worries. The fact that you’re concerned about my blog being negative publicity, well, it’s ludicrous. I understand you have to protect your interests, but if you thought about it for a bit longer, you might realise that someone being treated badly by who they work for is going to have a far greater circle of influence on business than a blog found through a random search string. The disappointment, the stress, the fact that people around me can see how much I put in to my work and the amount of appreciation, recognition, ANYTHING that I get is aboslutely zero, speaks far more loudly than a few paragraphs written on a blog site as an outlet for the frustration that work causes. If I never spoke another word about how I’m feeling, the obvious effect that this is having on me would be just cause for indignation on the part of my family and friends. How many more people are they going to talk to? Think about a workplace that treats its staff well, and you’ll find that their general reputation in the community is a very positive one. If an employee can vouch for the company they work for, that’s a good sign. People get that.

The fact that my blog is apparently such a threat makes me wonder why my mouth hasn’t been sewn shut. For all I know, that could have been in the fine print, which is so often skimmed over because one might believe that the size of the font may perhaps be relative to the impact that it will have on their life and day-to-day activities.

I’d just like to say that, however it’s dressed up in corporate terms to make it more palatable to the people who are enforcing it, it’s still essentially censorship.

Protected: These dots hurt! – Ralph Wiggum (emo entry)

Angst, Cynicism No Responses »

Dec 172006

I’m feeling sorry for myself, but I don’t think that I deserve any sympathy.

Still, it’s that which I feel I least deserve that I most want.

I’m not my usual self. I’m not vibrant, happy, fun, funny, outgoing, exuberant and excited about things. I’ve given so much of myself, or, in some cases, had so much expected and taken from me(mostly by people that never cared in the first place, being part of a huge corporation means that you don’t have to think about giving, just taking everything you can from everyone) that, right now, I have nothing of that vibrancy, happiness, humour, extrovertedness, exuberance or excitement left to give. I will give everything else that I have, because I know that people don’t just stick around for nothing. Everyone has to get something out of you to make their time worthwhile.

I’m still expending so much energy on trying to give people something to make me worthwhile. It just seems like lately, I’m ultimately disappointing to everyone. This disappointment cuts me so deeply that I end up exhausting myself by worrying that, soon enough, everyone’s just going to decide that they’d rather not spend time with someone who constantly disappoints them. I’m exhausting myself by trying to make up for disappointing everyone, but I don’t know what to do.

Because, right now, I need from people more than I can give. I need time to recuperate, and time to just relax and not have to worry constantly about whether I am giving enough to everyone else. I need understanding, patience… carefulness. I need people to be gentle with me. I know that people are getting impatient with me and the fact that nothing they do seems to help anything. I wish that they could know that it does help, more than they could ever know it helps.

Rest In Peace TeeTee

Angst, Animals, Family 1 Response »

Oct 282006

Rosie’s cat, Tippy Two (aka TeeTee, Tippy, Teepee) died on Thursday. We’re not sure what happened to him, but he was found by our neighbours lying on the pavers around their pool. At first they just thought he was enjoying the sun, because he was stretched out and looked like he was asleep. However, when they returned later in the afternoon and he was still laying there, in the same position, they decided to check it out and found that he was dead.

Mum and Helen collected his body, and he was taken down to the vets last night because the ground near our house was too hard to dig the hole to bury him. That made me sad, because if he wasn’t going to be buried here, he should have at least been buried near DeeDee out at Lauren & Nathan’s place. I would have been so distraught had DeeDee not been able to be buried, not to actually have someplace that I knew I could go and visit him, and somewhere to put the little stone that Lauren painted for him. Rosie should paint a stone and put it by DeeDee’s at Lauren & Nathan’s house.

Rosie and TeeTee suited each other well. TeeTee, being black and white, was the ideal emo/scene cat. He was aloof and effortlessly cool. Rosie is aloof and makes an effort to be cool. She learned all her best tricks from him, such as curling up into a circle to sleep in the sun, walking around like you own the place and everyone else is just hanging around while you tolerate them. He was a beautiful cat, the prettiest out of all our cats, and he had the sleekest black fur you can imagine.

Rest In Peace TeeTee, I hope that you didn’t suffer, and that somewhere in the afterlife you’re hanging out with DeeDee and keeping each other company.

It rains down so damn hard in the city, don’t it cleanse our souls, don’t they shine pretty like a crown

Angst, Health, TV No Responses »

Oct 042006

I feel like crap. Today was a very flat day. A grey day. A horrible, stupid day.

It’s dumb, because I’ve felt really sick these past two days, and so I haven’t been able to eat anything, but then when I don’t eat, my physical reaction to the drop in sugar levels in my blood is to cry. For no reason. Well, maybe I had reason to this time, but most of the time I have no reason, and it’s just a coincidence that this time there was a reason.

I remember when we were in Berlin, and we had just gotten to the hostel. That morning, when we had left, everything was great. When we arrived in Berlin, at the airport, when we got outside there was SNOW everywhere, and it was SNOWING! And I made footprints in the snow on the side of the covered path from the airport to the subway. My boots, due to the fact that they were so awesome, left imprints of “GET LOST!” and a picture of a kitten in the snow. So it was always a novelty to make a perfect boot print. Anyway, there was an actual reason for me telling this story of Berlin. That being that the day started off so good, and due to the expenditure of energy required to carry bags from the airport to the subway, and then catch the subway and find the stop we needed to get off at, then transport our luggage from the subway stop to our hostel, all of this along with trying to keep warm was VERY exhausting. So I used a lot of energy, and, consequently, started crying and couldn’t stop until I’d had something to eat.

So, therefore, me being sick and upset is a really bad combination. And most of the time, if I’m sick, I’ll also be depressed for the very reason that I don’t/can’t eat.

Whew. Good story is a short story Cass! Thanks Calum. It’s not that I’m not aware of that; it’s just that I’m such a stickler for details.

Anyway, NCIS is on. Ima go watch.

If love is a drug then we’re all sober

Angst, Animals, Friends, Video games No Responses »

Sep 222006

I don’t like it how Singstar came out and made everyone take themselves too seriously. You can’t have fun with it, because it’s the lines on the screen telling you that you can’t sing. If you’re not concentrating on getting it perfect, and you’re just having fun, you’re up and down and vocally spewing all over those bars on the screen. How many points did you get? Oooh 300! Luuuu zzz errrrr.

Anyway. I maybe might get Napoleon tomorrow. That’s a big maybe though, because really we were always planning for Sunday, and we don’t know if the person who is looking after the kittens is working Saturday or not. And I haven’t heard from Brooke because she hasn’t been in to work since Sebastian broke her nose!

I’m tired. I have to find this number so I can cancel this appointment. Seems like that’s all I’m doing lately – cancelling things. Or causing problems. Either way, it’s dumb. I just spoke to the vet and I’m sad.

Don’t forget to lodge your complaint with the relevant person.

Angst, Family, Friends, Going out, Pictures, TV, Work No Responses »

Jul 302006

Tired. Wrist sore. Sick of people.

Okay. Not everyone, and not forever. But for right now, people are dumb and THOUGHTLESS. Oooooooooh crap another rant?

Tonight sucked. Got hit on by some gross guy who was so inebriated that he couldn’t understand a word we were saying, let alone make himself understood. And to make matters worse, he started talking in French. I spoke French back to him, and he said “whassss? whass you sssshaying?”. Dick. He had said to us, “Parlez-vous Francais?” And I said, “Oui!” But this sort of had him taken aback as I don’t think he expected me to say yes. This is the second time that a drunk guy has tried speaking French to me, without actually being able to speak the language. What is it about French? Do they think they’re being romantic, while drooling and spitting and hacking out some clichéd French phrase with an Australian accent thrown in? Do they think that it’s impressive? This is something taht I don’t understand. I said back to him, “Pourquoi as-tu dit que tu parle français?” But he couldn’t answer me. He also did that whole “Play it cool” thing like off the Simpsons, where grandpa simpson is teaching homer his smooth moves in winning the ladies. Which includes doing the yawn-stretch-put-your-arm-around-her-shoulder routine. And this was extended to lean-in-to-ask-a-question-and-surreptitiously-feel-her-leg-and-hold-her-hand-and-move-in-for-the-kill. GROSS. So I said, “I’m going to go dance.” and Noelle and I left him to his quest to get as intoxicated as possible without passing out. He wasn’t giving up easily though, and grabbed hold of my hand as we were walking away and nearly bruised my fingers, he was holding on that tight. God. Desperate much? On the upside, they did play some cool music. On the downside they had no aircon, and of course they wouldn’t have windows, and so it was so stuffy inside.

Anyway, now for a photo before I fall asleep at my computer: (I will post more photos from last night when I wake up tomorrow).

This is not so much a picture from last night as a picture from yesterday daytime at work. There is a sign in the stairwell that says something along the lines of “don’t feed the possums.” I have never seen a possum in the stairwell, and I would be inclined to doubt their existence if it hadn’t been for that damn Simpsons episode where Homer was the driver of the monorail and there were possums in the electronics closet or somewhere, and so that lends a bit more veracity and context to the sign.

Where has all the congeniality gone?

Angst 3 Responses »

Jul 032006

You know what? Maybe I do actually care about the things I make a point of pointing out. Maybe that’s the point.

Maybe I’m going to try not to care in future, because other people obviously don’t care as much as I do.

No, I’m not on edge, I’m in a well of disappointment. Where time for friends does not exist.

You hear? I have NO TIME FOR YOU.

That’s how I feel. What’s the point in even taking the time to say to someone “we’re friends”, in saying those words, when it means nothing? AGH. I’ve had too much time to sit and mull over this. I’m not giving you my time anymore, if you won’t take the time to CALL or EMAIL or say HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU?

Thanks.

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