Brain Drain

I don’t normally do this here. But here goes nothing…

• I went to Brisbane over the weekend for the Brisbane Writer’s Festival, Brisbane Twestival, Riverfire and just to meet up with friends generally. Overall it was lovely. Infact it was such a vast improvement on my daily life here in Nowra that I am sad and lonely and emo to be back.
• One of the more surreal moments of the Brisbane trip though was being interrogated by a journalist at Twestival. In fairness, he told me that he would just keep asking questions until I started asking him some or told him to ‘fuck off.’ But, yes, anyway, I was telling him about the websites I run… And the part that seemed really comical to me was when he insisted that I must just be being modest. This really made me laugh. Because, to me, nobody cares about any of this crap I do. I don’t know what compells me to do it. Frankly some days even I don’t care and that’s why they don’t get updated. It just seemed funny to me that people want to assume I’m so much more interesting and functional than I am.
• I am looking for some sort of employment. The local options seem really narrow (sadly I’m not a nurse, mehanic, baker, or psychologist) and my qualifications are a bit eclectic. The part where I really fall down here though is that I don’t network. I don’t participate very much in this town. I barely know anybody. I guess I need to do that more. But I’m also going to see if I can do some TAFE short courses in a few things to add to my repetoire. (Tourism is a big thing in this area and it is also where most of my experience exists, I guess.)
• Brisbane was quite liberating, because I could be myself. The flipside of this, however, was that when I got home I felt more constricted than ever. I was prone to bouts of great anxiety and depression. Two of my dearest friends in the world both suggested I talk to someone and I am pretty sure I have alienated both of them by telling them in no uncertain terms that this is something I do not intend to do. And yet, they’re probably right. The more I go through my life the more I realise the things that tear me up inside are the things that are left unsaid. I just don’t want to say them because I fear impending doom… and even that feels slightly disingenuous to my family. It is rooted in a childhood fear where the safest action was always to bite one’s tongue and hope something would change, organically, with the passing of time. But I guess it won’t change by itself. I guess I need to change it. I’m not a kid anymore.
• Somebody who broke my heart into a million pieces is having a birthday shortly. Ironically it is the day after Talk Like A Pirate Day – how could I forget that combination? I was thinking about making a video for them. But I probably shouldn’t. I mean I could easily upload that song I wrote about them breaking my heart, on their birthday… But, as much as I am hurting, I don’t think I want to become that person, you know?
• I don’t know what it is about my brain, that it is somehow hardwired to dwell on the depressing… Some really amazing things happened over the weekend. And while I was there I was frequently sporting a big demented smitten grin, and for the first time in a very long time there was a bounce in my step. And it was wonderful. And if I’m being really very honest with you I am absolutely terrified that I’m going to do something to fuck it up. And that would be the greatest travesty of all. But I need to just relax and be less neurotic, and things will work out. Probably. I have to believe that. That is what I’m working with now.

Tagged as: Brisbane, depression