Things that made me happy today.

Time to take stock. These things made today slightly more bearable and worth it:

• Making the train in the morning
• Picking up Deerhoof’s album, Milk Man (although the case is cracked – what a surprise)
• Discovering our tutor has a personality
• Enjoying a Wednesday ritual of lunch with a couple of good mates
• Actually participating in torts class, despite not doing the reading
• Speaking to new people in my classes that I had not yet spoken to
• A message from a good friend who was genuinely disappointed we did not get to see each other – it’s nice to feel missed sometimes
• Reading in the sun
• Sitting next to a nice girl on the train and realising that, coincidentally, we had sat next to each other a couple of weeks ago. Nice coincidence
• Going to a cafe on the way home with a work friend
• Having a customer take note of how long I’ve been working at the place, and taking interest in what else I’m doing -restores my faith in people (just)
• The prospect of a warm bed to get into

It wasn’t such a bad day. I should try and remember that.

On choosing life.

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up rats you spawned to replace yourself.

Choose your future.

Choose life.

 

I want to choose life. I want to walk the streets knowing that I chose life. I want to breathe in the air and feel it rush to my extremities, feel it on my face, and not shy away from it, but to push myself into it. I want to greet friends and family with smiles and hugs. I want to share laughter, take bad photos of each other, fuck around, make inconsequential mistakes. I want for the world not to seemingly depend on how I’m feeling. I want the weight off my shoulders. I want to run, sprint, get tired, but not from mental exhaustion. I want to go to bed at night knowing that I had a good day, and that tomorrow is not something to be dreaded. I want to destroy all the work I have to do. I want to show everyone how good I am, and I want to remind myself how good I am.  I want to want, and to be wanted. I want to play video games, and be a geek, and not give a fuck. I want to feel happy, and lose this cloud that looms above my head. I want to sleep, eat, exercise, drink water, talk to someone, spend time with friends and family, find myself. Feel better.

I chose my future.

I believe I chose life.

The longest week.

I am fucking exhausted.

Seriously fucking burnt out.

The last week has felt like the longest one in my life. So much has happened, and I’ve gone up and down so many times that I’ve lost count, and I really would like to get into my bed and disappear.

I suppose most important matters first. Over the weekend I called off my relationship with my girlfriend of about six months for good. We loved each other deeply, and I may never be loved so unconditionally again. We invested our entire selves into the relationship and each other (something I wasn’t ready for, in hindsight). We spent memorable times together and, although the relationship was somewhat short, we connected in a way that transcended most other relationships. In spite of these things, it wasn’t the sort of love that I desired. I loved her, and still love her, but not in the way that I want to love someone. I loved her for her care and comfort that she showed me, for her company and tastes, and for the intricacies that made her the person she is. But it became clear to me that I did not love her with the desire and passion that I wish for romance. I loved her in a way that one can love a friend, and, just six months in, that’s not how I wish to love someone. While we gave each other much good, we also drained each other of our characteristics that sustained us prior to the relationship. I drained her of her sense of security and confidence within herself, and she drained me of my independence and belief in my ability to make someone happy. We fought a lot, and brought each other to tears on many occasions, and by the end of our time together, there was a distinct air of uneasiness between us, as if we were ignoring the inherent hurt that we caused each other.

I suppose a great deal of my rationalisation is based around the idea that it was better to end it before it got any worse, before we invested more of ourselves in each other – better sooner than later. Our love had descended into hurt, perhaps because we cared about each other too much. And that’s why it was the most difficult thing I have ever had to do when I confronted the truths within myself and decided to sacrifice what we had built together. A great deal of my suffering is based around feelings of guilt. Guilt for perhaps not appreciating the full and unconditional love that had been afforded to me. Guilt for not simply being able to accept that love and return in a like manner. Why could I not do that? Why couldn’t I be happy? Did I sabotage myself?

When I explore myself a bit more (and maybe this will become clearer with time) I find that I didn’t sabotage myself. Our relationship was flawed in many situational ways, quite separate from any personal feelings of restlessness or unhappiness. Perhaps these situational factors exacerbated my feelings of restlessness, but I don’t think that amounts to self-sabotage. Maybe the relationship was sabotaged from within? Maybe it collapsed beneath its own mass. While I have a tendency to get lost inside my head at times, and question everything, I don’t feel that I pushed myself to be unhappy. I think that I would have been quite happy if the relationship was right for me. Any desires to long for independence, for others, difference, would’ve been quashed if the relationship was right for me.

So my guilt is borne out of hurting someone I care so deeply for. I am guilty because I have deprived someone of something that was right for THEM, in order to be able to find something that is right for ME. I feel guilty imagining her pain and suffering, her confusion, her longing for things to go back to how they were, and I also feel the desire for things to return to how they were. In moments of intense grief and sadness, I wish to return to the comfort that she provided me, to the idealised notion of ‘our relationship’, excluding all the pain and unhappiness that came with ‘our relationship’. It is foolish, but natural, for both her and I, in our grief, to forget how much we suffered within our relationship together. We forget how much we fought and how much was not right, and remember only the feelings of comfort and surface happiness – memories of outings together, nights spent watching movies, curling our bodies into one another in bed as we slept. Our souls are weighed down by those memories and images, and this manifests itself in our grief and suffering.

Alain de Botton in his book Essays in Love which I, heartbreakingly, read last week, refers to the metaphor of a camel. The camel represents our soul, and with such a traumatising experience, more weight is heaped onto the back of the camel as it tries to cross the desert. The camel slows and strains under the weight which forms as memories and images, smells and sounds that remind us of our lost love. The camel is pushed to its limits as the despair of such a situation takes hold, and it is almost unable to continue. But, with time, the camel is able to shake the weight from its back. The camel learns to forget. So as it walks the desert, the camel shakes off nearly every memory, piece by piece. The camel is better able to walk now as it loses this weight with time, and eventually, it shakes enough of the memories off its back and into the sand so that, while not completely forgetting the nature of the relationship, its memory becomes bearable to the soul. And so the soul is able to catch back up to the body.

Now, my camel is straining under the weight. It’s walking slowly. Very slowly. I feel guilt and pain imagining her camel, and at times I wish I could lift the weight off its back; to go to her and, out of the sheer pain of watching her suffer, put my arm around her and tell her it will be okay, that things will return to normal; to be able to see her smile again. But I know that to do such a thing would sacrifice my own sense of self. I would descend back into unhappiness and restlessness, and I personally don’t think any individual deserves to be with someone that cannot treat them as they rightly deserve. In a sense, we both need to endure this time of grief. I need to endure it in order to be able to achieve a better sense of self and continue my search for what is, in idealistic terms, right for me, and she needs to endure it in order to find a situation where she is loved and appreciated for all that she is, in the way that romantic love should be. And while she told me she will never love anybody the same as she has loved me, I sincerely hope that is not true, because I wish her nothing but happiness, and feel nothing but guilt and shame that I could not find true, lasting happiness within her.

To dumb this down – sad face. I feel really miserable. I’ve been so up and down since the weekend and have tried to avoid spending time without being in contact with someone (anyone) at all costs. For one of the few times in my life, I can’t stand being alone. And I guess I am rather perplexed as to why that is. I suppose we invested so much of ourselves in each other that even I have forgotten how to live my life alone. I miss company. I miss comfort. I suppose it will be a matter of time for me to be able to shake these feelings.

Feelings: Guilt (over hurting her); Grief (over the loss of the relationship and someone I cared about deeply from my life); Sadness (general); Longing (for a return to the safety of the idealised relationship); Anxiety (in hoping that things will improve with time); Worry (for her).

It’s enough to make me want to erect a huge billboard warning every passerby against getting in a relationship, to just live life on the periphery, to not let yourself into a vulnerable situation. Ah, the joys of the stoic. The unsustainable joys. I know within myself that it will be okay. I’ll move on. She’ll (I really hope) move on. We’ll see each other after some time has passed, exchange greetings, share a warm, but remote hug, look into each others eyes and, while still seeing the person we care for, know that they don’t need that care anymore. In most senses, suffering cannot last forever. Usually, it cannot last more than a few months, depending on the event. In the end, we all go back to normal, and life proceeds with new goals, new people, new surroundings. But for that time of suffering, life appears as a distant dream - a mirage to the weighed-down camel crossing the desert. It feels as if we will never live again. And while I can speak and think rationally, I still feel as if life is somewhere off in the distance.

In other news, work for uni is piling up a tiny bit. I’ve just been so restless of late and haven’t been able to remain focussed on my work. I really need to get my shit together. It’s getting dangerous.

I’m seeing a doctor in a couple of days for a mental assessment. It’s been a long time coming. I really should have had one a couple of years ago, as I’ve always grappled with feelings of depression and the like. My sister, who is terrific, will be guiding me through it all. I really hope these will be positive steps towards alleviating myself of a variety of things, because I need a hand. I really do.

Songs from the past week that have received a great deal of rotation:

• Galaxie 500 – ‘Don’t Let Our Youth Go To Waste’
• Cocteau Twins – ‘Pur’
• Spiritualized – ‘I Think I’m In Love’
• The Smiths – ‘How Soon Is Now?’
• Love Is All – ‘Busy Doing Nothing’

I suppose just trying to listen to a combination of gentle, sad songs, with some more uplifting ones thrown in there. Also, discovered a band named Faunts through a sample disc. Pretty excited to give them a go.

Okay. Sleep time. Let’s hope things look up.

Living in bizarro world.

I’m feeling very strange of late. My surroundings seem so much more surreal and significant. It’s like I’m feeling everything. Seeing everything. It almost feels like I’ve parted ways with my physical self, and have merely become a spectator. It’s been said that if you close your eyes, it’s possible for the supposedly real world to be imagined out of existence. Or perhaps it is that when you open your eyes, you imagine it into existence. I’m not certain which reality I should be following. But who wants reality, anyway? Reality and truth lack the wonder that sustains our thoughts, that enables us to wake in the morning and see that there’s something worth looking to. So often, reality crushes hope.

 This week I’ve been reading Essays in Love by Alain de Botton. Fantastic book, the way it combines the escapism of a fiction text with the sensibility and usefulness that philosophy can offer, giving some real insight into all those conflicting emotions that arise within relationships and rationalising their existence. It can make you feel a little bit hopeless, however. The fact that it more or less gives empirical explanation that infers that love is destined for heartache is a bit demoralising. In view of all this, what makes an individual wish to embark on these romantic journeys? Do we feel that, if we just find someone who is perfect that all the supposed inevitablities associated with love will cease to apply? That we will wake up next to that person in 40 years and still feel as stunned by them as the moment we fell in love with them? Is that even possible? As I get older, and perhaps more bitter, my perspective seems to be maturing. It’s not likely to be able to live a love in that way. It’s not possible to feel that way for the rest of your life. It’s a soul crushing notion to think that we can find someone who fulfils us in every possible way, and simply makes us fall apart inside when we see their beauty, and still grow to not love them anymore, at least not in that idealised sense that rejects truth and reality.

I suppose from a personal perspective, what keeps my hope in love alive is the prospect that maybe one day I will find that someone who will keep my love forever. Maybe.

 So I saw The Jesus and Mary Chain, supported by Ghostwood and The Rakes, last night. Let’s start with Ghostwood.

They’re a small Australian band, signed with Modular, that sometimes support touring bands. From what I’d previously heard of them, their music seemed to carry that throbbing, sparse bass that was central to the sound of Joy Division. Last night, however, I think they may have piled on the distortion (they were supporting The Mary Chain, after all) and it gave them a much fuller sound. Overall I thought they were pretty good. Certainly surpassed my expectations and I wouldn’t be all to surprised if they continue to grow.

The Rakes were second, and although I’ve never really bothered to give them a listen, I wasn’t complaining about the chance to see a band of such… er… popularity (?) as a support act. I thought they were a bit of fun and were alright for what they were, with catchy songs and a bit of a mini-Bloc Party feel to them, not that that’s really my sort of thing, but I’m not saying I dislike it. Perhaps their set was a touch too long though. By the end I think most people were getting a bit restless for The Mary Chain.

After seeing JAMC at V Festival over the weekend, I wasn’t sure what my feelings were. I suppose I was a bit underwhelmed, but I think that can be partly attributed to the whole festival atmosphere that you get sometimes. The chance to see them at their own show in a good arena was something I couldn’t pass up, and I felt honoured that someone of my age could have the chance to see one of the great bands of modern music. Just as at V Fest, Jim Reid’s voice was spot on. It’s quite amazing that that is the case. And while they perhaps aren’t the most active of performers, I still got the feeling that they were thoroughly enjoying what they were doing, and that’s such an important factor when you go to see a band, especially one that has been doing it for years. My only disappoint was the lack of Psychocandy material in the set (would’ve loved to have seen ‘Never Understand’ or ‘Something’s Wrong’), but for the general atmosphere and musical precision, it was one of the better shows I’ve seen of late. Also, for once, a good Sydney crowd. I don’t think I had one single encounter with an irritating fan, nor did I have a problem seeing, what with the sloped Enmore floor. So in that aspect, another big winner of a gig.

I went to the show with my currently non-girlfriend, and we bumped into a previous girlfriend of mine who was with her boyfriend of the same name as myself. It was actually quite nice though, although I did feel a touch sized-up by my opposite number (‘What are you doing at uni?’). But otherwise it was a nice chance meeting. Matters of a relationship nature, however, grew more confusing overnight, and I remain in this purgatory of uncertainty as to what should be done.

That’s how it is though, and it’s not as if my life will forever be this way, as much as it feels like time is rushing by. Things will resolve, sooner or later, and I will reach a point of contentness.

Back to bizarro world, for the moment though.