The World According To Me

After a long, long, frustrating day being an observer/quasi instructor in Court I saw my first ever client being handcuffed and led away to the Big House by Police. In my time, only 2 clients have ever 'gone down', which, out of hundreds of matters, is a pretty good record, really. And both those times each client was 98% certain that they should pack a toothbrush. Both those times I was safely sat at my desk and my boss came back and reported the result and we made jokes of wrongness about Vaseline*. But yesterday, when the Magistrate handed down the sentence and the Police swiftly moved over to my client, who was standing in front of me, and he reached into his pocket and handed me his squashed packet of cigarettes before resigning to putting his hands behind his back and allowing the copper to click on those cuffs, his girlfriend behind me crying in loud, gulping sobs, I didn't feel very good about it at all.

The wheels of justice keep on turning. Or something. It was fucked.

And it was my birthday.

So the girls at work took me out to the pub and bought me champagne and I drank a bit and then when I got home I poured myself a glass of red wine and smoked cigarettes in my lounge-room. I never smoke in my house, but I thought fuck it. And I took calls from the small number of friends and family who remembered it was my birthday and I appreciated every minute of talking to them and their warm wishes and that they cared enough to pick up the phone. I talked to my Gran for a long time and cried to her for the first time ever and then felt awful for making her upset too. And I put a blanket down on the couch and let Lucy curl up with me and I drank my wine and smoked my cigarettes and felt sad for feeling so hopeless.

Another year gone. Ugghhh.

So, I have resolved, at some stage in the very very near future, to pull my head out of my arse and do my utmost to make good things happen in my life so I never again have to sit on my own, on my birthday, and feel so shit.


*don't judge us, it's a coping mechanism.