The World According To Me

I've been in a bit of a state lately. This blog is not a completely appropriate forum to vent, as I think I've said before, but it seems that the people I usually am able to vent to is having their own issues. I even tried to call my trusty old gran the other night for a sook and before I could get a word in she told me that my Pop had a heart attack and now requires a triple bypass operation, my uncle had to have an emergency operation to put a shunt in his head and now he has 'cranky issues' and no short term memory, my aunty is having problems with her pregnancy, she's in hospital for complete bed-rest and shall be until the baby is born, and THE CAT DIED FOR FUCKS.

Yesterday I was convinced I was having a break-down. I held it together all day at work, through the most horrid day I can remember, work-wise. I had to make and take heartbreaking phonecalls from which I can usually distance myself, but yesterday everything seemed to affect me profoundly. I sometimes wonder if working in family law is something I can really cope with long-term. I think the mistake I am making is that I just sometimes care. Not care too much, just care. That's the problem. My boss told me once that when he sees new clients one of the first things he says to them is "Well, if you're meeting me, things are already bad for you. You don't want to be meeting me". I wish I could really just distance myself from clients, but it's so difficult. They are going through probably the worst time in their lives and that can't not affect me. I have trouble feeling true sympathy for my close ones simply because if someone is having a hard time of it I make the right noises but really I am thinking of how much worse it can (and does) get.

But this doesn't stop me feeling sorry for myself from time to time. No siree. Because, quite rightly, whatever is happening to me is faaaaar more important and tragic and sad. Because it's happening to me. Yesterday on a scale of one to pathetic on my sook radar, I was at a movie-moment twelve. I drove home from work, my chest tight and feeling overwhelmingly panicked. My eyes stung with tears threatening to spill. The five-minute drive dragged on for what felt like hours. I got inside the front door and then (I'm not proud of this in the slightest) just sank to the floor and howled. Still holding onto my keys, and my handbag, I curled up on that floor and cried my heart out. Gulping, wretched howls and snot aplenty. Lucy came and gave me a lick on the face, then backed away and stared at me, with her head cocked to one side. Esme curled up quietly next to me. Agnes was nowhere to be seen, but then she's the sort of cat that doesn't 'do' emotions. Why all the drama? I didn't know specifically. I wrecked my back last week which required chiropractor appointments and x-rays that I couldn't really afford. My back is still a bit wrecked. I am now officially beyond poor. A lot of my close friends are making plans to move away seemingly en masse, following new, exciting opportunities in new, exciting places. I feel like I'm being left behind. I've put on weight. My house is hot. I'm still paranoid about my job. I've had about 4 consecutive bad hair days. I can't organise myself properly at the moment. I am still angry about why my relationship broke down. I wonder if I am ever going to meet someone who I can trust. I am angry about things my family (the side who aren't taking up all the beds in Perth's hospitals) are doing to eachother at the moment. There's a fucking litany of shit that makes me want to cry and scream and punch stuff. I can't fix everything. I always fix everything. I was told on the weekend, "Kymmy, whatever happens to you you're always so calm, you just take it all in your stride". I don't want them to know that I feel like I've got a frigging tsunami of emotional bullshit inside me right now. It's on red alert.

I have started obsessively listing everything. This is a coping mechanism that I engage to make myself feel as though I've got some control and order in my life, but it's getting laughingly pathetic at the moment. The other day I had to go to the supermarket to get bread and tuna. Two items. Before I left I took the little notebook out that I keep in my handbag and wrote "Bread" and "Tuna" under the headline of "Supermarket". Ridiculous.

I need to make some decisions. I need some focus. I need to formulate some goals and start achieving again. I function better when I'm under pressure, if I'm left to my own devices too long my head hurts and usually my heart does too.

And I promise that next time I post, it'll be something happy and good.

My alarm went off at 5am this morning, and I duly ignored it for a full hour. I'm getting very good at that. I dragged myself out of bed, my body tight and sore from returning to the gym last night with too much vigour. Shuffled to the kitchen, flipped the kettle on.

I turned to walk into the sun-room and open the back door, when my eyes were drawn to loungeroom #1 (of 2). The one where my Christmas tree is. The Christmas tree I finally got this year after 8 years of living away from home and promising myself every one of those years that I would get one. The Christmas tree which I and my sisters lovingly decorated with fairy lights, purple metallic drums, thick silver tinsel and dozens of shiny red baubles (Hey, I never said it was a classy Christmas tree).

The Christmas tree that was now strewn across the floor.

A little grey furry head popped up from the middle of it dragging the thread from a shiny red bauble in her mouth. Given that Esme weighs less than a kilogram, I was pretty positive that she hadn't acted alone in this crime of Christmas. And sure enough, behind the sofa Agnes peeked out with an expression that truly, honestly (and I'm not just being a crazy cat lady here) could only be described as sheepish. She raced over to me and rubbed herself against my ankles, purring to either distract me from the festive carnage in my living room, or to apologise in a cat way. I'm pretty sure it was the former.

The kitten discarded the bauble and moved on to chewing the dislodged casing of a fairy light. Where Aggie had at least had the grace to look ashamed over the 'incident', as it shall be referred to from now on, the little one simply looked defiant; "Yeah, whatchya going to do?". cruch. crunch "I'm too cute for you to get mad at. You know it and I know it". crunch.

Problem is, she's right.

*sigh*

Another weekend of self-indulgence. This time it was decidedly less social, however I found it just as lovely. I cleaned my house. OH HOW I CLEANED. My hands still faintly smell like bleach. I also bought a number of items which are completely unnecessary at this point in time (Margarita set anyone? I don't even know how to make them. At least I have an excuse to learn now. I think learning in this context will be fun) and now I am unnecessarily poor. This makes me quite sad.

I had a feeling this morning when I was getting ready for work which I have not felt for a very long time - dread. Goodness me, it's awful. I have been working with the same company for almost five years and I have never felt like this. Over the past few weeks there have been 'happenings' and 'goings on', all in attempted secret. I call them 'shenanigans'. I hate it that 'they' must think I'm so stupid so as not to know. I hate that I am using inverted commas so excessively. Or at all. I don't know if it is my mindset right now but I am pretty much in the town square of Paranoia City when it comes to my job. Is it time to move on? Jump or be pushed? What if it's not as dramatic as I thought?

And it's funny how a disturbance in one part of your life flows into the others. I am usually quite successful at segmenting my life so that, for example, if I've had an upset at home, I don't bring my foul mood into the office. This is probably only because I get really quite cross when people do that to me. I'm not so good at this at the moment. I need to get back to the gym and lift the fuck out of some weights or something to get it out of my system.

I've been thinking for a long time now that maybe I need a change. As in a complete change. The ball has already started rolling in recent weeks, perhaps I need to keep that going, go the whole way. I'm talking new job, new home, new state. I don't know. I remember listening to my wonderful waxing chick once, as she was ripping hair from my nether regions I sighed and said to her "I think I'm going to move to Perth. I need a change". She said to me (and I can't quote her exactly, as it was (a) a long time ago and (b) I tend to remove moments of such pain from my mind) that maybe I was just wanting to run away, and that my life wasn't necessarily going to turned around and have me perpetually blissful just because my bedroom looked different. And I agreed with her, I thought about it some more, and I stayed put. Problem being that these episodes I have where I think to myself "I need to move, I need a change" are becoming increasingly more frequent and I wonder if now (or soon) really might be the time to take the plunge.

I used to have no qualms about moving. It was fun, it was exciting, I had nothing to lose. My parents shipped me around the country all through my childhood and I was a seasoned professional. When I flew the nest at an alarmingly early age, I kept on moving. Bit of a nomad really. I've now been living in the same area for the entire of my twenties and I thought I liked it. Not the specific location necessarily, but the slowly built feeling of stability, forming sustained friendships with people. The security of not being the new girl everywhere. But with that also comes little problems. Everyone knows your business. Your options are pretty limited. If you decide to have a latte instead of an espresso one day the barista makes comment. I think maybe I want to be the new girl again.

Lordy, this post is a rambling mess. Much like my head at the moment.