To be fair, I don’t know if it actually always rains, or if my memory just thinks it always rains, but it very definitely rained today and since that fits with my pre-conceived notions of what today should feel like I’m going to go with it.
It’s been fifteen years since the 19th September first meant anything to me. Fifteen years is a long time. It’s so long that I can’t properly remember the person I was back then. It’s so long ago that my friends are different, that my life is different, and that whatever it was I hoped and dreamed of at the time is long forgotten and given up on. I’m a grown up now – it’s all behind me – none of what mattered then matters now. Life moves on, people change, you stop looking for the big answers and start dealing with the little questions one by one.
Today shouldn’t mean anything to me. It’s an anniversary of something that only I remember and that has no meaningful impact on my life now. Like I said, life moves on.
Every year, the 19th September comes around. I dread it for weeks, and then it comes around and before I know it, it’s over with. I try to mark it, but I never manage to mark it well enough because…. Well, because – how do you mark a thing you want to remember but don’t want to acknowledge out loud?
As it goes, the best I can do is to withdraw into my own head for the day. All I can do is make today about today – I can let my thoughts rest on things I don’t otherwise let them rest on – I can stop for a moment and I can let everything that has happened in the last 15 years settle around me.
I’ll wake up tomorrow and today will be over with. That’s the beauty of it, isn’t it? Today doesn’t matter because tomorrow is on the way.
What you’ve lost is less important than what you have. Hope is important.
Hello, good evening and welcome to my world. My world isn’t exactly awesome but I’ve got tea, a comfy chair, and plenty of hugs if you’d care to stick around for a little chat…..
How’re you doing? How’ve you been? Milk and sugar? Please, have a seat. Me? Oh – well I haven’t been too well lately but there’s no point getting my knickers in a knot about it now, is there?
All things must pass and these things are sent to try us and – I get knocked down but I ALWAYS get up again. I’m fine now. Well no. That’s not quite it – I’m not completely fine but the end is in sight and I’ve just about figured out how to get there. If in doubt, walk towards the light. That’s what I say.
Am I talking too fast? I’ve been doing that lately. I don’t really know why unless maybe I’ve been trying to make up for how slow it all feels on the inside. That would make sense, right? I mean that makes sense in your head as well as my head doesn’t it? I’m not sure I can completely trust my own head yet.
Work’s fine thanks. I’ve been lucky there really. It took me a while, after my last proper job, to find something I could settle into but now I have. I like what I do, and I’m good at it and I can split my time between home and the office which means I get to be useful AND have the doomy gloomies all at the same time. Sometimes it’s hard because my work puts me into contact with a lot of very angry people and it can be difficult to understand why people are so upset about the things they’re upset about when the whole sky is falling down around you. Still, I try not to take it personally and to be honest in reminds me that things could be worse. I mean, the sky could be falling down around me AND I could be very VERY angry about drains as well . Silver linings, you see. There’s always one.
More tea vicar? I’m sorry. I’m incapable of offering a second cup of tea without saying that. Think yourself lucky I didn’t make a pot because then I’d be forced to do the ‘high tea, low tea’ thing while pouring and I’m yet to meet another person who finds that nearly as hilarious as I do……
Mr Awesome Thing Number Five is, well, awesome. Can you believe he’s been part of my life for three whole years?! The guy’s got the patience of a saint, really. I don’t know how he puts up with me but he does and I’m glad he does. When I look back, I think the past three years have been the steadiest and best I’ve had. That’s his influence because he keeps me more grounded than I’ve ever been or thought I could be. It isn’t the kind of thing I say, because you know, I’m not a squishy kinda person, but he is the best thing that could’ve happened to me and I love him for so many different reasons. Most of all I love him because he had the time and patience to let me be me.
Ahem. This is getting a bit serious, no? Why don’t I put some music on… Any requests?
I LOVE that song. I can’t remember how I came across it but it’s on pretty much every play list I make because it makes me feel happy in my heart. Anyway…..
No gossip to impart I’m afraid. I think the biggest thing on my radar at the moment is the forthcoming EU Referendum. Has anyone outside the UK even heard of the EU referendum? I don’t know, but it’s a pretty big deal in UK politics and that makes it a pretty big deal for me. Sadly – I am contractually and legislatively bound not to express an opinion on the EU referendum until polls close, what with purdah and all. That’s the worse thing about my new job – although maybe some people are glad to have been spared my usual political rants on various social media platforms. (There’s no need to agree quite so readily, really) This, I guess is the reality of being a civil servant in 2016: the pensions aren’t what they used to be and you can’t be a keyboard warrior when you want to be a keyboard warrior more than at any other time in your life.
Oh – I didn’t mention Gryff, my cat, hasn’t been very well. Nothing major as far as anyone can tell but he did lose an awful lot of weight for a while there which completely gave me the creeps and made me want to put him in my handbag and take him with me everywhere I went and feed him cheese and tuna and crisps (which he loves almost as much as I do). I didn’t put him in my handbag at any point – not least because that would have meant taking my life in my hands to get him in there. Nevertheless I did feed him crisps and cheese and tuna at every possible opportunity and he’s almost, but not quite, back to his usual grumpy self. What do you mean he’s getting old? I don’t want to ruin a perfectly good friendship but …how very dare you?! And anyway, even if he is getting old that cat is going to live forever because I’ve decided. Let’s change the subject.
More tea vicar? Shit. I’ve done that joke already – haven’t I?
Our shower is playing up. Total pain in the arse and way beyond our considerable combined intelligence to fix… anyhow, I thought I’d mention it because if I wind up dead in the shower with either hypothermia or third degree burns you’ll be able to attest to the fact that it really was just a horrible accident and not the result of some kind of foul-play. I’ve been watching Line of Duty recently, you see, and I’m on my guard against fit ups and double bluffs and horrible deaths that may, or may not have been an accident.
This is just getting weird now, isn’t it? And boring. I’m sorry. Let’s wind this shit up.
I’m glad you stopped by. It’s been nice to talk about my life without getting lost in all the nonsense that goes on in my head. Sometimes I forget that no matter where I get to, my life keeps on going and that there is ALWAYS more to me than the mental shit I contend with. Onwards and upwards eh? Onwards and upwards….
Take it easy, chicken. And stop by again soon. It’s good to talk.
Love you all lots like loads and loads of jelly tots,
It isn’t always easy being a WeeGee. Sometimes, my brain gets mixed up and I feel sad in my heart, even though I have no good reason to feel sad in my heart. And it’s hard to go about being an ordinary little WeeGee when your brain is all mixed up and your heart is all sad and none of the sense you have been counting on makes sense anymore.
The past couple of months have been tough. I’ve been hurting, and I’ve been angry, and I’ve been perpetually awake. I’ve been confused, and unsure, and at times a little frightened. I’m not really any of those things anymore. Mostly I’m just tired. I feel washed up, like a shipwreck: scattered and broken – made up of pieces that used to fit together and amount to something.
Right now, I don’t feel like I add up to much mostly, I think, because I don’t care. I’m empty. I’m not doing the things I do, or thinking the things I think, or being the person I am and I can’t really bring myself to care. I keep thinking about who I used to be and how unattainable that person seems to me now: just another ship that sailed….
People change, and things move on, and nothing can stay the same. I know that but I wonder how other people manage it. How do you leave yourself behind, when yourself if the only thing you’ve been cultivating for your entire life? How do you go about getting older when you’re already an awful lot older than you intended to be by now? How does anyone make sense of this – day after day, month after month, year after year? How do you keep on doing it, when your brain is mixed up, and you feel sad in your heart, and nothing makes sense, and you are not who you used to be, or who you want to be, and you just keeping get older even though you need time to stop so you can think before everything changes again?
I’m doing the best I can. I’m waking up in the morning and I’m just going with it. I’m taking the days as they present themselves to me. I’m investing myself when I get the tiniest little spark that suggests I might actually give a fuck. I’m putting one foot in front of the other until I find my way to bedtime and I fall asleep hoping that tomorrow will be better because I know that if I can hope for tomorrow, I can hold on until it comes.
Hope is the most important thing of all. Hope is the thing that carries your heart when it’s too heavy for you to bear; hope is tomorrow and every tomorrow after that; hope is why things change, and hope is why things get better.
Hope is where you get to when you have nowhere else to go and hope is the best thing to cling to on your way there. At least that’s what I hope, and that’s what I’m clinging to….
Since last I wrote I have mostly been being awake but, looking on the bright side, I have at least been awake at all the usual and required times as well as for THE WHOLE REST OF THE TIME when all the sensible people were fast asleep…..
My last post was one of those bleak affairs that I’m wont to turn out every once in a while. For a while I felt bad about writing it but I’ve had one of my little thinks and decided that if a gloomy post every once in a while is the worst thing my brain can come up with then I’m probably doing fairly well in the main scheme of things. Of course that’s more looking on the bright side. What can I say? Welcome back to WeeGee Land, I guess….
Safe to say my blog has been a little quiet of late. For the most part it has been the worst of times. And it has been the worst of times. And, put simply I couldn’t be arsed to turn my computer on. My broken brain has been misfiring all over the place and I’ve felt like my whole life was under siege. I got to the point of thinking that NOTHING WOULD EVER BE OKAY AGAIN. But it will, in time. I know that because I didn’t spend all the time I spent learning all the things I learned about living with a broken brain to go and forget that when it mattered the most.
When the chips are down time stretches until you think it might never end and you think that’s the problem: time marching on (and on and on and on). The thing is, when the chips are down, the only thing you need is time. Of course it marches on AND THAT’S THE BEAUTY OF IT. The next chapter is just around the corner and I’m starting to remember that I’m going to get to it whether I think I want to or not.
This is yet another toe in the water. There have been a few in recent months but eventually, surely, one of them will be just bold enough. I’ve been living in my own head, hiding from the world and from all the things that are very definitely better in that out. I’m yet to find a better remedy for my hiding than blogging so I happen I might stick with it this time. Or at least try to…..
I thought I’d try and revive an age old tradition and leave you with a song. It’s a whimsical song that doesn’t really mean a whole lot (except of course, those are always the songs that mean the most)
We had one of those miserable little posts earlier in the week, didn’t we? It had been a tough day, during a tough week, at the end of a tough month and I’d been doing my best to pretend none of it was happening. When I put it like that it’s no real surprise that I popped up with one of those miserable little posts…..
I’ve been blogging for a while now, and I’ve written an awful lot of posts where the most sensible start seemed to be “I don’t know where to start”. I really don’t think I’ve ever meant it more than I do now. So many things, so many feelings, so very many squillions of things I ought to say and not one single clue about how to get the ball rolling. In case you haven’t noticed I’ve also been blogging for long enough to know that when you don’t know where to start, writing about not knowing where to start is a perfectly acceptable way to get the ball rolling.
Now the ball is rolling I can’t help thinking that the best thing to do is cut a long story short, mainly because it’s a VERY long story with lots of ins and outs and bits in the middle but also because the whole story doesn’t belong to me and, when it comes to telling stories, I’m pretty careful to stick only to my own.
The only way to make the story short is to say that it really is ALL CHANGE here in WeeGee land and that’s making for confusing, if occasionally exciting times. Everything is up for grabs: where I live, where I work, what I do for a living and how I go about living this little life that I’ve carved out for myself. It feels like a tall order because I’d only really got back to the straight and narrow after what I now know, with the benefit of hindsight, was a pretty major attack of the mentals.
When I was unwell I felt that I was constantly on the edge of something – usually a cliff. I feel a bit like that now and if I’m honest it isn’t a feeling I much like. Right now I think I’m feeling a little scared because I’m going to have to face up to a lot of endings in the coming weeks. Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while will understand exactly where the fear is coming from. WeeGee doesn’t really do endings and I think I’m learning that that doesn’t change when WeeGee is well and medicated and not in the frame of mind where jumping out of windows seems like a good idea.
Earlier in the week I wrote that I didn’t really know which way was up at the moment and I think that was the only part of my post that made any sense. On the one hand I’m in a place in my life where opportunities are around every corner. On the other hand reaching out and taking them is going to mean saying goodbye here and there. Every time I think I’ve got that figured out in my head it all unravels again….
Anyway. I think that should just about do it for today. I’ll be back once I’ve had another one of my little thinks – they are in plentiful supply of late.
I leave you today with a song from my past. It’s one from my teenage years when I was angry and optimistic and cynical and hopeful all at the same time:
While we’re about it, we might as well have a sweet little acoustic version of the same song because it’s nice to mix things up a bit isn’t it?
Meanwhile in other news I have nothing else to report today save that I love you all lots and lots, like JELLY TOTS,
I can’t quite believe the amount of time that’s passed between today and my last post. I didn’t mean for it to turn out this way – I’ve had so much to say. I just didn’t know how to say it. I think we might have arrived at the story of my life.
My head’s pretty jumbled up right now. I’m a little bit AWESOME insofar as that I’m full of good ideas. And what’s wrong with being full of good ideas? I sorta know the downside….. And I’m scared of myself. Of course I am. Awesome is exciting but I just want the steady life.
This isn’t the post I thought I’d write.
Okay.
I’m better than I’ve ever been. I’m not jumping out of any windows, or hurting myself, or trying to get away.
Truly though? I’m not okay. I’m not coping and life is tough and my brain won’t play.
I’ve spent most of this week wandering aimlessly around my life as if it doesn’t belong to me. If I’m present it’s in body alone – my mind is elsewhere, if indeed, it’s anywhere at all. There was a time when my feelings were all red, and angry and violent. Now I feel a little bit grey and little bit blue – inky I guess. Some things happen and some things don’t happen and I look on feeling quite certain that it doesn’t matter one single little bit whether I’m here to watch them happening and not happening. Things will happen and things won’t happen whether I’m here or not. I’m not going to be jumping out of any windows any time soon but if someone offered me the opportunity to clean disappear from my life I’d bite their hand off to take it…..
It all started with one of those throw away comments. You know the sort of comments that don’t mean anything unless you have the kind of brain that likes to pickle throw away comments so you can think about them for the rest of time? I’ve never had a shortage of pickled comments to beat myself up about although to be fair, I’d kind of hoped I’d reached a point in my life where I wasn’t going to add anymore. It’s laughable really. Sometimes I think that hope is the most important thing and then I go and have a little and I remember exactly what hope does for you.
There is nothing wrong at the moment – at least nothing a good nights sleep, plenty of clear fluids and some good food won’t sort out. On the one hand I know that, and on the other hand it doesn’t matter that nothing is actually wrong. Everything FEELS wrong and I can’t figure out how to make it FEEL any better. Feelings, eh? Who’d have them?
I think this might be the most pointless blog post I’ve ever written and I hope you will forgive it. I decided that if I could write about what’s going on I’d have to think about what’s going on. I guess I need to kick start one of my little thinks – so look at this as CPR for WeeGee’s broken brain. I’m feeling very broken but at least I’m still looking for ways to put it all back together again.
I’ll be back with an AWESOME post for you very soon.
As always seems to be the case these days it’s been a while since last I blogged. I must confess that it’s been an awful lot longer since last I read any blogs. I think I might have gone and turned into a bad blogger, but then again and in my defence, there’s been an awful lot going on here in WeeGee land…….
The last time I popped up the crazy was leaking out of my ears. To be honest, I had a serious case of The Dreaded Jitters and there was so much noise in my head that the only thing I could think of to do was boo fucking hoo. I’m not jittery anymore and I’m bored with the whole boo fucking hoo thing, so I guess I should do what we mental blogging people tend to refer to as a ‘proper’ update.
So. How did I get to where a) I was and b) where I am now? That’s what you’re going to need to know if I’m going to do a ‘proper’ update, isn’t it?
I suppose I got to where I was because I took my eye off the proverbial* ball and let myself get a bit overwhelmed. Mostly, I think, I was overwhelmed with work stuff which was a pretty overwhelming thing to happen given that work has always been a constant, and often a means of keeping myself on the straight and narrow.
As to how I got back to here? Well I did my very best to remember that if you don’t like where you are there are two things you can do: 1. Change where you are or 2. Change the way you feel about where you are. Of course remembering wasn’t the hardest part, but I’ll spare you the ins and outs of the therapy – most of you know that for yourselves. The headline is that I’m putting a lot of time and effort into managing my feelings right now and (can we all please touch some wood) things are starting to come back together again.
It strikes me that now, when I have one of my little wobbles, I seem to get back to where I started with another tool in my kit bag. Sometimes it’s a dark journey, but I don’t think I’ll ever go back to my darkest days. Being mental is, for the most part, a pretty bum deal. But it isn’t all bad because recovery brings some special things with it – insight, and self awareness, and the understanding that there really isn’t anything your brain can chuck at you that you can’t survive.
I think that’s all I can write for now. I had a wobble, I’m less wobbly now, and I’ve remembered that I’m an active participant in the things that happen to me and this thing we call living.
Meanwhile in other news Mr Awesome Thing Number Five gets a little bit more AWESOME every day and I have a new minor TV obsession in Walking Dead. Nothing else to report save that it IS NOT A GOOD IDEA to chop chillies then pick your nose. Quite aside from the obvious hygiene implications it doesn’t half sting…..
When I’m all better and proper strong I’ll get back to reading your blogs. In the meantime I hope you’re doing well and I love you all like lots and lots of jelly tots.
WeeGee xoxoxo
*is the ball proverbial? I’m not convinced but it sounded right….
This post comes with rather a lot of warnings, the first being that it’s late at night and no-one ever really turns out their best work late at night. I’m also in the midst of the most ginormous wibbly wobbly wobble that I can remember in a long time, which isn’t going to make for easy reading.
Oh, and before you ask, this post has nothing to do with a pair of jeans unless of course we’re going to accept that WeeGee is having a ginormous wibbly wobbly wobble that she’s trying to pin on a pair of jeans even though the jeans have nothing to do with it. Welcome back to WeeGee land……
It all started a few weeks ago when it seemed that my life divided in two. On the one hand I had the whole ‘I’m doing well, it’ll all be fine’ thing going on – on the other it was all a bit ‘what the FUCK, this isn’t supposed to be happening and I’m not too sure what to do to make it right’. I suppose I should have spotted the problem coming down the tracks, but, you know, brains don’t really work like that, especially not alien brains. I’m not going to beat myself up about that.
Anyway – so there I was, wobbling about all over the place. On the one hand everything was fine, and on the other hand it really wasn’t but I was just about managing to ignore the crazy. And then the crazy started leaking out of my ears*
Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been so crazy that the crazy leaked out of you ears. I mean, I hope not, because it SUCKS, but then again, at the very least, I’m hoping you’ll know what I’m talking about? For me, I guess, it was one of those moments when I was reminded that I’m not always going to be able to do this whole being alive thing by myself.
So, I did what it used to take me along time to do, and I asked for help.
In some ways I’m lucky. When I ask for help a whole support machine seems to swing in to place around me. But then again, that’s only because of where I’ve been, and what I’ve (somehow) managed to survive. But it’s there, and the most important thing I’ve discovered this week is that I can ask for it.
Tonight I’m feeling very quiet and frightened and, to be honest, a bit boo hoo. At the same time I’m proud because I’m trying to stop the worst of me from happening to myself. I’ve said so many times in my blog that dealing with crazy is about doing the right things even when they feel wrong. Now, I suppose, it’s time to put my money where my mouth is.
As for the jeans? Well they don’t matter at all, so I’m not going to talk about them other than to say that if clothes from the past no longer fit then the past is surely a healthy distance away.
Here’s a song to end on. It’s about jeans. Sorta:
I love you all lots like a million billion jelly tots xoxo
*I borrowed this phrase from a fellow crazy. I know she won’t mind.
I’m just going to have to face up to it. You know that birthday post I’ve been promising? Well I’m afraid it isn’t going to happen. The birthday in itself was completely AWESOME, full of Mr Awesome Thing Number Five, and a sleepy little English town, and feeding baby penguins which shat in my shoe, and a visit from my parents and…… AWESOME birthday. The thing is, my birthday was a long time ago, and since then I’ve been feeling ALL OF THE FEELINGS and the recent past isn’t really something that I feel much like blogging about because I’m a bit lost in the here and now, which – let’s be honest – is a little better that being lost in the then and gone or the still to come and unknown. Am I sounding a little manic to you? I’m feeling a little turbo charged so I wouldn’t be surprised…..
I woke up this morning feeling a little bit disjointed, you know? Like my brain wasn’t attached to my body anymore. I used to get that all the time – that feeling that my brain was a completely separate entity from ‘me’. Experiencing it now, for the first time in a while, I’m struck by how little sense it makes. I’m inextricably connected to my brain so how come it sometimes feels so ‘other’ every once in a while? The answer used to be ALIEN but that feels a bit unsatisfactory today. I believe myself to be lots of things but I don’t really believe myself to be an alien. I mean, it would be convenient, and it would explain an awful lot but being an alien would surely throw up even more questions than answers so it can’t possibly be the answer. Then again maybe I need to work through all of the questions and maybe being an alien isn’t as daft as it first sounds.
Still a bit turbo charged but not exactly AWESOME here. Alien brain strikes again?
I know that I’m not AWESOME because I don’t want to talk to most people. I don’t mind talking to some people but when I’m AWESOME I want to talk to everybody and as far as I’m concerned everybody can fuck right off. I can’t figure myself out right now so other people are a HUGE step too far. World. Shut. Your. Mouth.
I’ve written this post as it comes to me – stream of consciousness style. I’m just glad Mr Clever doesn’t get to read what I have to say here because I fear I’d wind up in trouble…..
WeeGee is not a happy WeeGee. Not at all. The brain is all broken and I’m a little bit angry and a little bit STOP because I’ve had enough…… Time for a song:
How do you eat an elephant? 