Archive for Family
At least I don’t seem to have insomnia anymore
Ack, sleep gone very weird. Only had one proper lucid dream in the past four months but last week I had an odd two days of something like anti-lucid dreaming – knowing I was awake (sensing the bed, hearing the room around me) but not being able to control the free-flow of my thoughts, resulting in something very dreamlike.
Displaced
I’m having trouble wrapping words around my thoughts, which means I’m not sure I understand what I feel.
In simple terms, it’s half homesickness, half performance anxiety. The more I pull at those ideas though, the more they unravel.
Every expatriate I know says that months three to six are pretty hard. Quite a few of them talked about randomly bursting into tears. I haven’t been doing that, but I did sob all the way through The Book Thief, which is perhaps equivalent.
I haven’t been feeling depressed or manic, or any of the things I know how to identify. Just bemused resignation. “This is my life now.”
I am beset by overly romantic memories of London and the occasional, “Why would I give that up?” but I still want to know the world, even if doing so takes me away from people and places I love.
So, pretty confused on that front.
But come what may, we’re here until March. And fuck knows what the next 10 months will bring. When I think of my first six months out of uni, or the first six months in my last job, it’s hard to believe those times segued into the ones that followed, so different were they.
I am impatient though, even if I am better equipped to deal with change (or waiting for change) than I have been before.
Work has been a strange merry-go-round these past months. In brief, got job, hated job, temporarily lost mind, got new job, got counter-offer from old job, moved from Health to Creative.
This is perfect because it’s a great agency and ‘proper’ creative is what I really, really want to be doing.
But it is terrifying because it’s a great agency and ‘proper’ creative is what I really, really want to be doing.
What if I’m no good? I have more than two years’ experience, so I am expected to know my stuff, but I came from a small agency that didn’t focus much on teaching so I don’t feel like I measure up to the creatives here.
I know the whole point is that I’ll learn and get better, but now I have the opportunity I’ve been waiting for, I’m scared of finding out that I’m not as good in real life as I’ve imagined being.
It’s another part of growing up I guess. Watching our imagined lives stumble and get left behind as we embrace the median.
I haven’t accepted an imaginary Nobel prize since I was 17. Maybe I’ll be ok.
No on 8, too late?
Last year Californians voted in favour of changing their state constitution so that marriage is defined as a union between one man and one women.
It was previously defined as a union between two people, meaning the state recognised same-sex marriages. The amendment is called
Proposition 8.
Now the “Yes on 8″ guys have filed to forcibly divorce all same-sex couples married before the amendment was passed.
I am not American, and I don’t expect to ever marry a girl, but this shit should matter to all of us. The video below is beautiful and
heart-rending.
And then there were two
Non-monogamy is not just about sex. Love plays a big part as well.
It’s easy to love more than one person – ask anyone with kids. It’s also easy to love your friends. Once you start sleeping with the friends you already love, things do get a little tangled.
2009
What better way to start the new year than finding yourself at 0630 in the local cop shop, saucer-eyed and gurning, trying to explain that the police have requisitioned access to your building. Try even saying requisitioned with that many drugs inside you.
It turns out there was a fire. Until 0005 on 01.01.09, there was a launderette on the ground floor. Now there is just a big hole and a lot of soot.
It’s a great testament to Edwardian architecture that the rest of the building is still structurally sound, and fortunately the place was empty so no one was hurt.
But there is smoke damage, water damage and post hoc structural damage (where the fire brigade gained entry to each floor).
There is also no power – the meters are melted to a wall somewhere. It’s likely to stay that way for at least a week (a third of the days we have left in the UK) so I can’t see us letting the place anytime soon.
Happy new year!
This is not a pipe dream
I have no idea who reads this blog. According to the stats, hundreds of you. According to the comments, about half a dozen.
If you know me well and you’re hearing this news for the first time, I apologise for the impersonal means of its conveyance.
Touchy feely
I got mad at my mum last night, because of a perceived misdemeanour that made me feel I was being treated like a child. I was still angry when I woke up, and struggled to own that in any positive way. My over-whelming urge was to sulk or lash out verbally, in order to punish my mother for making me feel upset.
It was only after I’d left to come home that the irony of this struck me. I don’t always notice how easily I fulfil an anticipated role – sulking in response to conflict with my mum was exactly what I used to do as a child. Or to frame it more pleasingly – if I want her to treat me as a grown-up, I’m going to have to do her the courtesy of acting like one.
Anyway, back to this morning. As it turned out, I was able to get something positive from my feelings, thanks to mum because she came to talk to me so that I wouldn’t leave in a bad mood.
This allowed me to say lots of things I somehow hadn’t found the time to mention before (for the past 28 years!). I told her about my feelings of defensiveness when compared with my sister, my conflicting desire for autonomy and support, my wish to communicate better with her &tc.
She didn’t have loads to say in return (it’s the sort of stuff that probably needs a bit of mulling, anyway) and I don’t expect the conversation to be the agent of any great overnight change, but I do thing it was a very important step in a healthy psychological direction.
rant
You tell me I can’t communicate, but maybe that just shows you don’t know me. Maybe you didn’t notice that I spent the past decade teaching myself to talk, cos no one showed me how when I was growing up. Making noise doesn’t make you meaningful.
You tell me you can’t trust me, you don’t seem to realise that words like that can hurt. You’re cleverer, she’s smarter, I’m just the dumb kid you have to look after. Dumb cos I take a few risks? Dumb cos I want to live my life, experience things you can’t show me? Dumb cos no one needs to hold my hand?
Fitting your life around old patterns doesn’t make someone smart, acting predictably doesn’t make someone trustworthy. It just makes them seem safe.
I want you to engage with me. I want you to want to know me. I’m scared you won’t be able to.
/rant
