La Dolce Vita

Untitled

Dolce — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:28:25 +0000

To my dear friends who live in my computer,

Wow. You know you rock, right? Yes you, the person reading this. You! Do you have any idea how lovely you are?

I disappear for a year. Come back and whinge like the Dickons. Roll around like some raging emo kid. And you don’t ignore me. You don’t roll your eyes and shake your head.

No. You make me feel loved. I have been completely astounded by the depth of kindness and compassion you’ve offered me. And I wanted you to know that I am deeply, deeply touched. And not just in the way of the cuckoo.

Hope, compassion, love, strength, support, kindness, empathy…and always, a little silliness. I hope you too have people who share these with you in abundance.

So, from the squishy bit in my left ventricle, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

La (almost back to being) Dolce Vita

Tagged: thank you

Exposed

Dolce — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:06:34 +0000

I flay myself open. The scalpel draws a red line down my chest. Sharp metal like a zip. The skin tugged back. Look there, the red flesh of me. Sinew and meat. Glistening, shiny me. I lie opened. On display. Skin pinned back like the wings of a moth, like the grand curtain of a stage. The line of each perfect muscle. The shape of bone. The connections of cartilage. And you stare. And stare. Mouth turned down in concentration. Brow furrowed. Your gaze intense. You watch the dance of veins and ponder the pulse of a hidden, bruised heart. You cup your chin in your hand. You sigh, and you say, “This is not what I expected”.

Obtuse

Dolce — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:42:48 +0000

How curious this. This breaking of rules. This exploration of darkness. This permission to be bad. I know it’s the other side of a coin. I know it’s not safe. I know I shouldn’t. I know there will be regrets. I know. I know. I know. But…

A boy said to me, once a long time ago, “I want to suck the marrow out of life”. I keep coming back to that. To the choice one has. To exist. Or to live. The crazy challenge being to brave the hurt without hiding. To brave experience without building a callus of uncaring. To be fierce without causing harm.

Sometimes I wonder how I’ve reached 36 and can still be so naïve. And sometimes I grin with glee that there is still so much to do. That old adage, that the only thing you’ll really regret are the things you didn’t do.

It’s been a good / bad week. And I’m not entirely sure what to do with what it’s brought me?

A collection of random

Dolce — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:32:13 +0000

I seem to be the only person actively hoping that the Myans were right. A nice apocalypse would go down really well about now. In fact, couldn’t we just bring the schedule a little closer? Say, like, next Tuesday?

Facing ‘life as we know it’ or ‘the alternative’ (love a euphemism), why aren’t I embracing change? If I’m planning the destruction of my piteous being anyway, why not just sell the house and travel for thousands of South African Rands worth and then top myself. Even better, why don’t I borrow vast sums of dosh, live like there is (literally) no tomorrow and then send a picture of my chosen bottle of life-ending pills to my bank manager? Huh? Huh?

Why do people think that inviting me to parties will lift me out of the sads? Self: I feel like gnawing my wrists open and praying for Yahweh to stamp on my face. I know what I need! A room filled with strangers who want to get right off their narcissistic faces and ask me godawful meaningless questions like “how are you?” and “are you having FUN?” Do you really want to know? No! So fuck off.

There are lots of sad people out there. Lots. Was this always so? Have I just been a total arsehole for not noticing? And we all have names for deep black hole that we slide inexorably into: the black dog, The Nothing, the sads, the sea, the big blue, the wilderness, the darkness, the gray. Things get named. This interests me enormously. It implies a presence, a kind of physicality to what plagues us. We don’t name other emotional groups like this (do we? Not with a definite article, surely?) Which is comforting. Because it means it’s not ‘all in head’. If it’s named, it is. And so it isn’t just me. I haven’t made this up to get attention or to provide an excuse to lay about in bed all day. And so the naming makes me sigh a huge sigh of relief. This isn’t a figment. Make sense?

People don’t seem to react much to my profound statement “I have depression” (largely because of the melodramatic, mock-gothic tone I use – I’m still taking the piss a bit, in an effort to make it manageable.) However all of that changes when I idly suggest I might be pondering, in a most happily Plathian way, the most effective methods of making it stop. That seems to scare the crap out of people. I think I might have to reign back on that level of sharing.

Oh, and by the way, in case you’re wondering. No. This is not a cry for help. I wish it was. But it’s not. It’s just a rant. A vent. A whinge. When I start posting pictures of sad bunnies, you can start to worry.

The wind has been howling in Cape Town. For days. The violence of it makes me feel better. I like being shoved around on my forced marches (I’ve been taking forced marches, because apparently exercise helps). I like coming back looking like I’ve been in a blender. It makes my outsides look like something is going on, even if my insides are like a beige carpet. So I go outside. And take it.

Tagged: random, the sads