Existential crises are a right bitch

An existential crisis is a stage of development at which an individual questions the very foundations of his or her life: whether their life has any meaning, purpose or value.

I decided, for a time, to take a break from the internet. The internet and I were not 'over' per se but I felt like I needed some space and take the opportunity to reassess whether this relationship was really good for the both of us or whether we were in an emotionally abusive place and were too involved with one another to grasp that yet. So I quit facebook, I stopped blogging, I stopped checking out other blogs (mostly, but these Buble stalked by a Raptor tumbls aren't going to read themselves) and I started spending less time in the matrix and more time in the 'real' world. Just to see how it felt, try it on for size and decide if I could be one of those people that doesn't have a firm grasp on what 'paypal' or 'podcasting' is. The sort of person who doesn't get a joke about 'the newest tumblr book deal'. Your dad basically. I wanted to see if I could become your dad (not literally, your mum is nice but I don't like her like that). And, despite my presence here right now I found I sort of could, to the extent that I haven't felt like I'm missing anything. It hasn't been a bad experience by any stretch of the imagination it's just been like... life. Life has happened all around me and I've felt somewhat more present for that than I normally do. Which is nice. But, if it's so spigging great living outside the matrix in your little spaceship with Lawrence Fishburne then why come back I hear you cry. Well, part of giving it all up was that I didn't know why I was writing words down anymore. Not that I fell out with words or felt like words and I needed a break (I have still been communicating, or at least attempting communication with forces external to myself such as; people, dogs, the tv, mosquito bites on my legs) but just that I wasn't sure what the end result was. Hence the existential crisis. I would think of something I would like to write down and then another voice inside me would go 'to what end' so I'd let it dance off into the sad little place that thoughts go when you don't turn them into action (the polar opposite of this - where action exists without thought - is known as the 'Big Brother house' and you can view it up close and personal from Wednesday). I sort of lost sight of or forgot a couple of big things; 1) what I wanted to be when I grow up (which at the moment is Jane Lynch or an Educational Psychologist. Maybe both) and 2) that I enjoy writing down thoughts sometimes which is kind of the end in and of itself. I felt suffocated by the persona I had created that was someone who enjoyed wroting things down and wasn't sure if I was still that person or if that person had become a habit. The lollable thing is: I still don't know. However, I've given one new personality a try (being your dad remember?) so now I'm going to see what the 'old' me feels like now I've gone off and started filling my time productively with skate lessons and whatnot. Whether I can incorporate the old with the new and not feel claustrophobic as a result.

Of course, had I stopped to look sooner I should have known the matrix would have the solution to all my problems. The matrix knows all. (Just like my mum in fact).

Parentheses angst

Sometimes I text people stuff in parentheses so that when they read it in their head, they say it to themselves as if I am saying it to them in a voice like kind of how you would describe as 'under your breath'. (Do you follow thus far? Good. I am not sure I do)

So, ok, to illustrate, I am hoping they read:

'You keep telling yourself that'

differently from:

'(You keep telling yourself that)'

Like, the first would be louder I guess. As if I'm just saying it directly to their face with my eyebrow raised. More blatant dissing. The second would be me sort of rubbing my nose and looking away saying it quietly with a glint in my eye but knowing they've still heard me and trying to pretend like they haven't and then getting all faux-offended when they act real-offended: 'What? What? I didn't say anything! You're so effing paranoid!'.

My worry is that the people I text with these parentheses asides don't actually 'get' that so they just think I'm stupid and don't understand the rules of basic grammar or am mentally deficient in some way and think I'm attempting to make emoticons but haven't quite figured out how yet ("me make happy face lol. now me make sad face boo") So my question is, do I just ask them (which kind of ruins the joke a bit) or forever live in fear of being an unrecognised comedy genius? (WHICH?!!)

So, yeah, I just wanted you to know in advance; if I text you something in brackets then I am probably pretending like you didn't hear me ok? I can record the sort of voice I would say it in if you need a guide for how to say it in your head. It saves me time and angst if I can be sure we're all on the same page 'jokes' wise and I really need to be sure you are doing my jokes justice by reading them to yourself with the right inflections and cadence and shit. Don't ruin it like that stupid woman on 6music ruined by M People joke by reading out my email with the wrong empathsis on the wrong words that one time about three years ago is all I am asking (still bothers me!). Is that really so much to wish for?

(This and Gary Lucy's hair and Charlie from Party of Five is keeping me up at night! For realsies!)

The more you know

Ahahaha. omg. So, when this was out 'in theatres' (as they say in their charmingly oldtimey way) I went to see it and remember thinking that it was pretty good. Real funny. I couldn't get why so many people were so angered by it, lots of nice effects I thought - that black goo stuff was marvelous right? - things happened and it seemed interesting, Kirsten Dunst's hair looked pretty, why so serious everyone? (I also thought it was cool how I could know The Joker's catchphrase about a year or so ahead of anyone else knowing about it).

Then I saw this.

In case you hadn't guessed, I was pretty stoned when I went to this movie the first time and I've never been moved to watch it subsequently. Just this minute or so of footage (from a scene that made me LOL and made me LOL HARD at the time) I can sense that, if I were to watch it again sober I'd probably 'get' why everyone else hated it.

Also makes me wonder if it's a good thing I gave up the weed. Went and PAID to see 'Law Abiding Citizen' a few weeks ago and I think I would have gleaned much, much more enjoyment out of that patentently ridonkulous film had I been high. Which brings us back to the age old question of whether it really is better to see things as they actually are, or live in a cocooned bubble where you convince youself that everything is greater than it really is.

Man, Spiderman 3 jazz club scenes are really good at bringing out the existential crises in a girl.

Oblig end of/start of year reflective post

The last year has been the biggest pile of shizer I've experienced since records began. I hated it and myself for most of it. Though it started off all nice and in head-over-heels love it went rapidly downhill from about on January 1st... And just kept getting progressively worse from that point on. (Really, when you think things can't get more stressful or dramatic God lols heartily and likes to prove just how silly you are. THANKS GOD! 'No problemo Sazz!')

What's worse is that I actually said things like 'he's the only one that's ever really understood me' (WITH MY VOICE! TO OTHER PEOPLE!) which is cringingly embarrassing now I've started falling in love with my friends again. And they are pretty kickass. One of my resolutions is to continue recognising that and to see as much of those peeps as I can (partick the ones that I have not seen enough of in recent months/years). Bros before hos you know?

Enough of that icky lovey dovey shit.

I stand at the edge of 2010 a changed woman. Like, for one thing, I can refer to myself as a 'woman' unironically. That's a change. For seconds I'm actvively trying to untangle all the threads that have been tangled up for so long and making it difficult for me to like myself and do right by myself. It's sort of daunting in a way that makes me feel like throwing up if I stop and think about it too much (like when you start learning to drive and think you'll never be any good -- some of you aren't btdubs -- because it's too stressful learning everything at once and having to be aware of all the other stuff going on around you that doesn't stop just because you're new to it and you make mistakes and some people are annoyed but you keep at it cos of independence! and awesomeness! That's what this is like) but I think I just have to keep chipping away and getting those uncomfortable tummy feelings and letting myself feel those feelings. It seems important in a way I haven't been able to quite articulate yet. Regardless, although I don't know what is going to happen within the next 365 days I'm going to take a good go at it nonetheless. Three months ago being plucky and determined were not emotions I could have imagined experiencing ever again. That's another change.

NEWAYS! Whatevs! I just simply MUST catch up on my correspondence...

Dear 2009,
Boo you whore. You sucked. Good riddance. Etc.
Love
Sazz x

Dear 2010,
Please don't be as lame as 2009. I am not joking about this.
Love
Sazz x

Happy new year everyone! Continue being awesome and remember you're perfect just as you are even if they try and convince you differently.
xoxo

Twister

I've sort of decided I need to chill the fuck out a bit. Which may sound utterly incomprehensible to your ears because of how, you know, all those people come up to me all the time just to comment 'Gurl, you is so chill!' (no they don't): so you're all 'Sazz? Chill out? Wha!?' (No, you're not). But, you know, even the chillingest of us need to take extra time to chill occasionally (no. You don't).

It's just, I've put all this pressure on myself to be happy and good and do stuff. Like make badges of dogs out of beads and wire (October craft project: check) without really considering about whether or not I enjoyed doing it at the time (in fact, the whole time I was thinking 'I must get this completed just so I can check off October craft project'). Just completing a task to tick the box rather than living for the moment and doing something I want to do because I want to do it. As a result I have not been feeling very present in the present. I'm living for the future version of my self that doesn't yet exist (and probs never will) rather than worrying about whether the me right now is having a good time.

It's such a difficult balance to strike though because eventually you MIGHT end up doing nothing as there is the distinct possibility that the natural impulse to create (whatever it might be: opera, novel, dog badge) never strikes so you end up stagnant and sitting and watching RuPauls Drag Race just to fill the slow hours before reaching your inevitable death. BUT! PARADOX! I've ended up doing that anyway because I've put so much pressure on myself to fill my time and be productive that it's caused me to flap my arms really really fast - rather than do whatever I was meant to do according to the list system - and fall into a deep dark hole of depression whenever I get to Wednesday (or whatever) and am still a week or so behind on everything I wanted to have got done. I thought by forcing myself to do all this weird shit I was giving myself what I needed but I think, on reflection, all I've done is set myself up to fail. I'm loathe to completely disband the list system though as it gives me a sense of structure and purpose that I find lacking within my being in the normal order of things. It's a quandary for sure: How do I keep one eye on the future, one eye on the past, and keep my feet in the present? It's like my soul is playing metaphorical Twister and is just as bad at it as my body is at the physical Twister.

Anyway, here's the dog badge that's caused this week's existential crisis. Look at him sparkle, look at him shine.

He does, at least, have a nice smile.

Ever have a day like this?

I am having a day like this.

Pick Ups

Have you seen The Pick Up Artist on VH1?

It will BLOW YOUR MIND.

Possibly literally.

Basically, some tool in a Jamiroquai hat teaches nerds how to get a one night stand with vulnerable women who are looking for a replacement for their daddy's love (which they feel they never had enough of) through promiscuous sex.

It's the most beautiful, life enhancing show I've ever had the good fortune to let my eyes fall upon.

In Opposite Land that is.

Thing is, there's a lot of talk about 'self empowerment' (and it seems true that the nerds do gain self confidence) but, at the end of the day, they're not looking for long-lasting fulfilling relationships, they're gaining the ability to hunt out women that will have sex with them. I'm not a playa-hater (I am totally a playa-hater) but treating women as an object to be (literally let's not forget) 'picked up' (and then presumably discarded) doesn't seem to be sending out the best message. Wouldn't it be nice to have a show about people that are a bit low on self-esteem and teach them how they are special and unique and don't have to wear a cowboy hat and a cape or dress as a gay pirate to appear interesting or fuckable to the opposite sex? And maybe, once they've learned to love themselves they can focus on finding somebody else to love, somebody who will love them in return just as they are? Wouldn't that be nice? It would also be completely unwatchable so carry on Mystery. Carry on teaching nerds to be misogynists. That is totes what the world needs more of. And also, while you're at it, hire these guys as your wingmen:

Sir Grumpalot

Although I am, by nature, a depressive little soul (I live too much in my head, I over analyse, I focus on the negatives in a seeming fit of trying to locate where the positives might be and yet it leading to me only ever really focusing on the negatives) I don't think too many of my nearest and dearest would say I was someone who was a particularly grumpy. A bit maybe, on and off, more up-and-down moody than inherently grumpy they would probably say. I imagine. However, the last two weeks I've spent an inordinate amount of time just being cross - about everything; people, things, work, life. It's all just annoying me. Working on a Saturday annoys me, my mum asking me how I am annoys me (her not asking me how I am annoys me even more), my friend asking me to help her put up pictures annoys me. I hate being like this. Being in a bad mood puts me in a bad mood.

What's worse is that, although I am not a stranger to grump, because my moods do change quite rapidly and, to the untrained outsider eye, for no reason at all (there is always a reason but you'd need to plug into my logic to understand it which is not something I would ask anyone to ever do because it's exhausting at the best of times) I'm just not used to being consistantly cross. I can normally rely on the fact that by the time beddybyes has come and gone, thanks to my hormonal imbalances, I will awake refreshed and unfettered by worries or concerns or anger that had built up the day before. All the negativity will have been washed away by the dreamiverse (a dreamiverse currently plagued by kidnapping, snakes, rape, Jeremy Irons and an overwhelming sense of powerlessness) and I can start again. Not recently. This wouldn't be a problem if my mood had been plugged into 'happy' or 'proactive' or 'optimistic' settings but it's stuck on 'cross'. This makes me really cross.

In the last week I spent time with a little boy with a chromosonal disorder that can't hold himself up and was one of the smiliest, giggly babies I've ever had to pleasure to meet, a mum of two who is the same age as my brother and registered disabled because of some car accident she was unlucky enough to go through, Michael Jackson died, Farrah Fawcett died, people in Iran were shot in the heart for having a dissenting opinion of the government. None of that really affected me the way it was supposed to. It's all just background noise. The only thing that's really got my goat this week is having to work late on a Monday evening, in a job that I genuinely love (when there are plenty of people without work who would happily earn the pretty pennies I find myself with at whatever time of day or night given half a chance). Grumpy bitch that I am.

I remember listening to one of the ex's albums and him explaining a song being about how this character has decided he's better off taking himself off to the top of a big hill and living the rest of his days out in solitude. Not because he's better off without everyone else but because they are better off without him. At the time (and even now) that idea really pisses me off because that just seems like the easiest fucking option and yet, conversely, I keep thinking that maybe people would be better off without me. For a while at least. I was even wishing that my best friend was on holiday for another week because I didn't want him to come back and me still be a bitch (we're on shaky ground as it is, which is mostly my fault). I'm no good to anyone at the moment, least of all myself, so basically I just need someone to punch me in the face for a while till I cheer the fuck up. That'll work. If you know anyone willing to do the honours then send them my way.

Pulling it all together

I'm trying this new thing of pulling all the versions of myself into one coherent whole. I don't know if it's a girl thing, a 'being in your 20's' thing, or a me thing but I've never felt fully able to display all sides of my character in one go before. Like, if you met me in a work situation that person would not be the same person who you conversed with if you met me when I was with my mother (and the lady that you would meet if you met me through my dad would be totally different again), just as the person I am with one friend can be almost diametrically opposed to who I am with other friends (this especially applies to people I've dated. I don't think I've ever been the same girlfriend to anyone). Like in BSG you've got all these cylons who look exactly the same but are all different characters (for instance, Boomer and Sharon react and evolved as differently as two people can in the face of everything they went through) - that's sort of how I've seen myself in the past. There'll have been special people who have seen a fair number of the cylon-mes but, for the most part, I put on the cylon suit most appropriate for each situation. Whenever I've met someone who I can just be 'myself' with (whatever the fuck that means) I've always clung onto them for dear life because it happens so infrequently. It's only now that I'm starting to realise that maybe I can just be the version of myself I like; with everyone, and let them deal with it rather than stress about it myself. Maybe I can be a little goofy as well as sarcastic with people I work with, maybe I can admit I smoke to everyone and not just to people who already smoke, maybe I don't have to be a sulky bitch with my dad all the time and can let him see me be relaxed and funny. It's never occurred to me that that might be possible before but I'm starting to think it could be.

Having gone through a short but intensive bout of therapy I've been made aware of a lot of things that seems obvious in retrospect but I'd never really given consideration to before. The main one being that I oftentimes meet other people's needs before my own. This isn't a selfless act, in fact, I actually get quite a kick out of it. As a result I think I've adapted who I am and who people need me to be to a point where it's stopped being comfortable and I've found myself in bad situations. Most obviously, how did I end up falling in love with a married alcoholic when I was in the best head-space I've ever been in when it all started? It was bothering me big time. I thought I'd finished trying to fuck myself up, I was done with doomed relationships, I was finally ready to have a grown up, sensible, healthy life. Why would I do something so fucked up and non-sensible and unhealthy? It didn't make sense. Until it was pointed out to me that it all began because I was able to give him something which, in that moment, he really needed. I never would have made a play for him. I wasn't even thinking about what I wanted. It was about what he wanted: always. From start to end. And, as I said, I enjoyed that. I did get a buzz from being so wanted and being able to fulfill whatever he needed. Times I couldn't, I felt lousy. To pretend otherwise is dishonest. I really enjoyed that aspect even though I recognised it to be unhealthy. Leading on from that, why have I slept with men before when I didn't really like them or fancy them or want to be with them? Because I like to give people what they want or they need without ever really stopping to ask whether it's something I want or need. It seems so fucking obvious now someone has said it out loud. However, it's not an aspect of myself I want to get rid of completely as it doesn't have to be a bad thing. In my job; where I have to help people and do all I can to get them out of a bad situation and into a good one, it's obviously a useful desire to have. Otherwise I would suck really hard at my job. But I've become really hyper aware of what my needs are now, thinking thoroughly about whether I'm doing something for me or for the buzz I get from doing something for someone else. It's also made things very clear as to where and why things went wrong for me in the past. Why certain relationships didn't work out, why certain men treated me as a glorified concubine (because I acted like one, duh!). It's kind of annoying in it's clichedness (*cue spinning newspaper* Extra! Extra! Read all about it! 'Shocker: woman puts others before herself!') but I guess cliches are cliches for one reason and one reason alone: they are often true.

Identity has always been a really important part of being human but I seem to find it more fascinating than most. The layers we build up , the costumes we put on, the burlesque we perform each and every day for every single person we come into contact with. It's not that I don't think other people do these things, that I'm particularly special or unique in some way, it's just that I've always been a little too aware of how fractured my personality is. Everyone filters their truths for differing audiences but when I do it, it's not just filtering; it's alchemy. Which makes it sound like a positive thing when it's never felt that way. The number of times I have sat in a room and wished and wished to have the freedom to be another version of myself in that moment; known that I have the power to be whatever me I choose and yet been impotent to access it when it matters. It's like, after a while, you lock yourself into being the person that other people think you are so it becomes a self-fulfilling vicious circle - my dad thinks I am shy because I have always behaved shy around new people when I'm with him, which means when I meet new people around him I'm not vivacious, I don't ask a lot of questions, I don't charm anyone or make them laugh, (even though I can be that person when I want) because my dad thinks I am shy. So that's the role I play: The shy girl. Or at work in some meetings with people I'll be really quiet and not speak up when I have something to say but with my mum and my brother at home I'm a loud-mouthed, antagonistic bitch who is never afraid of letting them know what I think (which sometimes does me more harm than good but still). It seems like it would serve me well to pull all of these disparate entities together - because I think they are all needed - and just let the pieces fall as they may. I search so hard for people who will just accept me as I am but I rarely ever give anyone the option of doing just that.

So I'm trying not to do that anymore. It's not that I don't care what people think of me, it's just that maybe I don't need to put their needs first (and in fact maybe I'm selling everyone short by believing I know what version of me is best for them), maybe I can just find a happy balance of being all the cylons walking around claiming to be Sazz at once because that is what works best for Sazz. She's the one whose opinion matters the most when it comes to being Sazz right?

Trying and failing

Everything my therapist says (which is not a lot really) (oh yeah, btw, I totally started therapy. It's equal parts awesome and horrific) is like a series of bullet points from Duh Aficionado magazine and yet all of it, all of it, is like the most golden glowing genius shit anyone has ever proclaimed. And all of it, all of it, spins me off into thinking about the things I didn't want to look at, and examining the cupboards I didn't want opened, much more deeply than I've ever had to do before. Hence the awesome/horrific dichotomy.

See, here's the thing; for the last three months I've been existing, barely, and certainly not living. Which pisses me off a touch because I spent forever learning the secret to living (which is engaging; as much and as often as possible. Thinking is required but only gets you so far - what pushes you forward and makes you grow is engaging. It's as close to scientific fact that every ancient religious text will get; it's all there, written down: how to live, how to be human. We just need to decode it in the way that gets us to that place - the 'being human' place - and not to the place where transubstantiation is real and you're allowed to hate others for some arcane reason just because some book told you to) and now I have a different lesson to learn and another, vital, secret to unravel but I don't know what it is or where to even start looking for the answers. It's like a computer game where I've completed level one, which was tough (really tough), and now I'm on level two and all the rules have been changed and I could take none of the weapons I gained in level one with me so I essentially have to start from scratch. And now I'm stuck in this weird half-life where I know I don't want to go backwards (I've been there already) but I don't know how to negotiate going forwards.

I've had my heart broken before; a thousand times, of course I have. So have you, so has everyone, but this was different and decidedly darker because it was literally life or death and that is difficult to reconcile because this doesn't happen to me or people I know does it? Death is what other people experience, it's what happens to old people, people who have lived their lives and are wrinkled and crinkled and are done. Not to me or mine. And that's the thing, and part of why I've been scared to make any sudden movements; I don't want the Gods to notice me moving about and moving on because I fear they'll punish me by killing him off once and for all. They've been toying with me for three months and I have had to creep quietly around that whole time hoping they don't awaken from their slumber, praying they'll snooze long enough for him to pull through and start hitchhiking on the road to recovery right under their noses. But that means I can't take my eyes off them for a second, because the minute I do I know they'll wake up and everything will be ruined.

[Before I continue: I know this isn't about me, that it affects other people (not least the gentleman in question) but, on the other hand, fuck that, it is about me. This is how I feel about something; I'm allowed that much.]

So here am I. Creeping around quietly. Praying no-one notices. But that's not really fair on two levels; one - that's not who I want to be and two: no-one does notice. Literally no-one. See, he, assuming he is ok and things do work out the way they're supposed to (I feel scared and dirty even writing that, like I've already jinxed it by saying it out loud to myself that him being ok is a possibility means that he won't be. I'm genuinely terrified of those Gods. It's not just a metaphor) will just look at me and what I've done; working, writing, meeting new people, going to the cinema, sitting in a bar, whatever, and think 'she moved on quick'. I know he'll think that. I would think that if I were him. He won't see the baggage that's been slowly but assuredly accumulating as I stand here stock still. He'll only look at the mirage, the cyborg I created to distract everyone from asking too many questions about a topic I didn't want to talk about. Which has had the intended effect; everyone else assumes I'm fine now because I don't say I'm not ok and also because they wanted to believe in the illusion even more than I did. It suited them all to think I was fine than to deal with the fact I wasn't. I mean, I sort of am fine now, but only because the pretending is becoming second nature. And here's the thing; I've done this before (the pretending I mean), I've made nice with the people who've hurt me, I've smiled sweetly in the faces of people I've wanted to lobotomise - it works for what it is, it eases social lubrication if nothing else, but it's not who I wanted to be. I thought I'd found my way out of it. I thought I'd stopped hiding. I thought I'd learned how to express the truth and be the most 'me' I could be. And I had! That's the thing. I had. But 'me' has been drained. In it's place is a shell that looks, talks, walks, acts like me but she isn't the person I'd just started to know and love.

I said earlier I don't want to go back and that is true. It's not about wanting to wish everything away, it's about wanting to know where to go from here. It seems like everything that happened should have this big important life lesson attached to it. I don't just mean: 'don't fall in love with alcoholics going through a divorce'. That's too obvious and too much about him. I want to learn something about me from it all, see an aspect of myself from an angle I hadn't viewed before. At the moment, mostly, I feel empty, like everything that happened has just completely drained me. I just want to know how to fill myself back up again. I want a manual, a guide that explains what I have to do to get to where I want to go - but there isn't one and it pisses me off. It pisses me off a lot. I'm back asking a question that continuously haunts me and I never really seem to escape from: what now? (Really though, what now?)

Harebrained Schemes

There are (thank Christ) only a few occasions in life where you feel like you are standing on a precipice and have to decide then and there whether to jump or walk away. Times like these are scary but in days gone by I’ve always somehow wound up taking the more sensible route. Whether that means jumping so I escape and land safely on a steady platform of normalcy or have just ended up backing slowly away from the edge to return to what I know, is neither here not there. It just feels like I am hardwired to not be a total total idiot. I wholeheartedly blame my mother for this. She’s fiercely well-adjusted and, despite appearances to the contrary, extremely scary. There’s nothing worse than the look on her face when the occasional fuck-ups she’s managed to discover of mine have come to light (I’m pretty good at keeping from her the things she doesn’t really need to know. In fact, I’m pretty good at that with most people. I lead a number of double lives that are tailored to providing my nearest and dearest – and indeed not so nearest, and nowhere approaching dearest - the version of me they want or need to have. I like to think of myself as a bit of a Clark Kent character in that respect). Although I’m not afraid of fighting with her (which is something that the both of us really do enjoy doing), I am afraid of disappointing her. She’s pretty awesome and deserves a daughter that doesn’t make her cringe in embarrassment when the topic of me arises in conversation.

I know all my mum wants for me is a normal life. I’m guessing that’s all every parent wants for their children. This isn’t to say that she hasn’t supported some of the more madcap of my schemes but every time I come up with yet another harebrained idea she always forces me to think long and hard about the logistics and the practicalities. This more-often-than-not has the effect of me thinking ‘God. Effort innit?’ and it normally falls by the wayside before too long. Now the older I get, the more pressure I’m feeling from her to start considering my future in real terms: Stop messing, start settling. I’ve put up with your binge drinking and god knows what else, with random boys being brought into my home, with you over-spending on crap you don’t need. I’ve indulged your creative pursuits and all the adventures you’ve embarked upon. You’ve had your fun, can you not just get a job that pays alright like the rest of us and stop fannying around?
Not that she’s actually said any of this but it’s coming more and more to a head. Particularly as on Friday my boss laid done a job specification form in front of me and said ‘Let me know what you think of that’

My reaction at the time? ‘Erm…’

My reaction now? ‘Erm…’

The job I have currently I only really took to save money for travelling. I knew it had an end date so I wouldn’t be faced with any difficult decisions about whether I should stay or go as I was brought in to cover someone’s maternity leave. ‘Ooh, but you never know where these things will lead do you?’ people kept saying to me. Errr yeah I do. It’s going to lead me to go travelling around Europe for the summer like a minor character from an American frat movie. Interestingly though, now it’s a definite that the baby-lady is coming back, I’ve had loads of people coming up and saying ‘ahh, having to look for another job are you? That’s a bit of a shame’. Is it? Really? I mean, for one thing I always knew that was what would happen but also I EXPRESSLY ONLY APPLIED FOR THE JOB FOR THAT REASON IN THE FIRST PLACE. Would anyone really take a position advertised as covering maternity leave if they DIDN’T have a problem with committing too fully to something? However, now there’s this option on the table of taking a permanent role that pays even better and would mean I could continue purchasing the useless crap I love so much AND get a place of my own AND be able to afford to carry on putting petrol in my car (something that is getting harder and harder to do). These are all, quite frankly, fairly important pluses – particularly in the short term.

On top of it all, my mum is very insistent that I go for this. It does make sense financially, it would look good on my CV, it has got prospects within, and outside of, local government. What is your freaking problem Sazz?

Well my problem (one of them), since you ask, is that it feels like I’m being forced down this road that I’m not entirely comfortable going down. I know that the less choices I make now about my future the more difficult it’s going to be later on but I fully believe that if I go for this job then that’s it. I know what the next 40 or so years of my life are going to look like. They’re going to be pretty much in the standard template of every other person in the western world: Get a good job, get a flat, get a man, get a house together, get a kid. Done and done. When I think of it in those terms I start feeling like I’m going to have a panic attack. There’s nothing wrong with the average life but it’s just not what I have ever really wanted. The problem being – I don’t really know what I want in its place.
[I should say, for the sake of argument, that this may all be a moot point as not only does the aforementioned job require a degree of technical expertise that I do not possess but also would mean I had a minion. My very own minion. (I know right!). The closest I’ve ever come to having a minion before is my little brother – and even then, he had thoughts and opinions and pride so the minute he learned to talk he pretty much disregarded all his minion duties. Since then, I’ve avoided all sorts of situations where I would be in charge of people in any kind of responsible capacity. So again, I feel somewhat lacking in the skills I would need to cope with such things. However, as Mr Bossman would be interviewing for this role and would continue being my line manager I figure he thinks I can do it. I’m pretty sure the fact that I wear geek glasses and keep myself to myself means that I’ve successfully tricked people into thinking I’m intelligent and conscientious. The devil’s biggest trick was convincing the world he doesn’t exist. Mine is making people think I’m ok at my job. We each work to our strengths I suppose]

It may seem like I’m being melodramatic, that making a choice now doesn’t mean my choices are restricted later on, but how many people in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s that you speak to ever really intended leading the life they have now? Without exception everyone seems to have fallen into what they end up doing. There was no real grand plan, but it was just choice A lead on to option B which meant they had to eventually take route C and suddenly they turned around to find they were at point Z just like everyone else. Then there was no other place to go unless they wanted to start all the way from the beginning again. Even if the only things all these people did want was a job and a wife and a baby with a few other status symbols thrown in... How many of them seem utterly content and fulfilled? I look around and all I can see are people wanting, yet the Groundhog Day continues. Queuing in snaking lines of traffic to get to a job you’re not that bothered about and causes you exponential stress week-on-week just so you can tick off all the boxes of capitalist fulfillment and maybe get to spend a handful of weeks a year doing something different like lazing in the sun, skiing down a slope, or sightseeing in a more exciting city than the one you happen to inhabit. Is this what I’m supposed to be aiming for?

But then, how do I know that aiming for anything different than that would ever make me any happier? Maybe the fulfillment comes from knowing that you fit in, that you’ve taken the path of least resistance, that you have a house and a car and a dog and get to go on package holidays once – maybe even twice – a year. Why am I smug enough to think I could carve out anything less humdrum and more interesting than that? Surely ALL routines just become routine before too long. Whether that means you still live the party lifestyle you had at 25 when you’re 55 (I know for certain that isn’t what I would want either, especially having watched a little of ‘Scott Baio is 45 and Single’ yesterday evening. His mate was ‘that guy’ and I found it more than a little depressing to see men of that age still behaving like that), or you find yourself in an office job which you return to day after day just to keep paying the bills up until you retire. Am I just fighting against something that is ultimately inevitable? Is this just another form of my commitment-phobic tendencies rearing its ugly head? Does my mother really know what’s best for me after all and the sooner I accept that the better?

Yet, on the other hand, I’m sure I read or heard, or absorbed from somewhere a quote along these lines that I keep returning to; ‘no-one ever became happy doing what their parents wanted them to do’.

True dat.

In other news, I’ve also sent a tentative email out to a tv company looking for contestants who love dancing and want to lose weight. Um… only hells yeah. Being part of some kind of dance competition would fulfill about 17 of my life ambitions (well one). Please note: yet another harebrained scheme that probably won’t amount to anything. Maybe we all just need to accept that doing this kind of shit is just who I am.

Groundhog Day

I have a big issue dealing with reality. This is in no part helped along by the fact that I have a very vivid imagination. One that runs wild constantly. Everything in my life has to be done as part of an adventure, or to move the story along, or allows me to take the starring role in the film of my life (more and more I find myself framing the shots, deciding on the camera angles, thinking about what the titles will look like, and working out the soundtrack. Which is worrying to say the least). I’m starting to get the sense that this kind of approach to life may cushion things that I don’t really want to deal with but is perhaps PERHAPS a touch counter-productive. This all became clear at the weekend when it finally dawned on me that fantasyland may be safe and pretty but, in the end, spending all my time there is not really beneficial to anyone – least of all myself.

This has kind of meant that for the last few days I’ve felt utterly lost, I now recognise that that feeling had been simmering for a while but events of the weekend brought it all to the surface. Some expectations I’d had about my future life were cruelly dashed and although I’m quite happy with what now exists in place of those girlish fantasies, it still takes a while for your thinking to readjust and for you to reach a point of equilibrium once more. So yes, although I recognise what just happened was not the motivating factor in my newly reacquired quarterlife crisis, it has lead me to face up to the fact that I just don’t know where I’m going. For one thing I’m seriously behind on all the things I laid out on ‘The List’. The list for me was a document that provoked a feeling that I imagine religious types get from the Torah, or the Qur'an, or the Bible, or Gemma Atkinson gets from Heat magazine. I had complete faith in what was expressed upon its pages. All I needed to do to find myself in a happy and fulfilling life was to follow the guidance therein. And then? And then, December appeared. Seemingly from out of nowhere. It creeped up behind me and tapped me on the left shoulder before moving very quickly to the right so that when I turned around I didn’t see who was trying to get my attention. It then of course couldn’t hide its mirth any longer and made itself known whilst bent double and wiping tears of laughter from its eyes. I just stood there raising an eyebrow and looking a bit unimpressed. It knows I have rage blackouts. Why’s it gots to play me like that? But still, we moved on, went for a drink and then found ourselves in the pub pretty much constantly from that moment on. Every time I made a move to go my favourite song would come on the jukebox, or December would kindly offer me another round, or a group of other people that December knew would come along and we’d end up having philosophical discussions about validity of Gene Hunt et al being brought back for Ashes to Ashes and whether Britney deserved to keep her kids. The important things you know?

Basically I was firmly ensconced in Socialbutterflytown with no hope of escape. However, it was all justifiable as I knew that when New Years was done with I could return to my compound. My deliciously safe compound where I get to be left alone and focus on the important things in life – me and me. But then January decided it was time to shake loose a little. It had spent too much of the past being all stuffy and uptight and just needed to go with the flow man. Thus, as December bid me adieu, tipped his hat and left in a cloud of smoke and intrigue so came along January bouncing up and down and asking if I wanted to do tequilia shots. Err… no January. You and I have a very specific routine wherein you neither force me to talk, nor leave the house unless I run out of food or alcohol. But it insisted; ‘Oh come on, I thought you were cool??’ Ahh, my one weakness: attacks on my ‘21st Century-Fonzy’ crown (in fact, I jest, but the last time that was uttered seriously it did in fact work and I let an ex smoke in my bedroom even though my mum expressly forbids it. I was a little younger than now but by no means young enough that you could explain it away as youthful naivety. So basically yeah, I’m lame). So I stayed out with January who was looking a little dishevelled and obviously needed to just go home and rest but was insistent that He could handle the party lifestyle. I tried reason, I tried shouting, I tried throwing something shiny out of the window in the hope of getting enough distraction time to make my escape. All to no avail. January would not let me rest. We were going to party and we were going to do it right. Having an inability to say no and a tendency towards going with the flow meant I eventually just shrugged and went with it. February would sort me out I reasoned, and in the meantime it meant I got to flex my hostess skills. I increased my meal repertoire for guests from one dish to about five. I got to replenish people’s drinks, teach people how to Guitar Hero, arrange taxi’s, collect people from train stations, make sure people had clean bed linen, all those little things that make the difference between going to someone’s house and being a guest in someone’s house (in my mind’s eye I do all these things whilst adorned in a hoop skirt, retro cardi, and a gingham pinny with my hair in a ‘up-do’ ala Doris Day but I think that may be the over-active imagination coming in to play again). This is normally the stuff that ‘me’ runs scared from ‘cos it’s like, responsible and sociable. These are not words that I use in conjunction to myself. But I enjoyed it. Plus I knew February would be here soon. God bless dependable February. February has been around the block a few too many times and is far too world-weary for any kind of shenanigans. February just wants you to SHUT UP! Jeez! Sit down. There. That’s better right? Cup of tea? Yeah? Ok good. Now let’s just be quiet and rest ok? February’s got a headache and just needs you to shush.

This is what I was guaranteed. I felt sure of it. Ok, January made me a month behind on ‘The List’ but AS SOON as February got here I knew I’d be able to start getting things done again. However, we’re now a week into February and time keeps drip, drip, dripping away. I’m too tired (slash emotionally exhausted from aforementioned weekend japes) to do anything useful with my time. Monday PERSISTS on turning into Tuesday which is ADAMENT it wants to become Wednesday and so on and so forth. All the while I have books left unread, stories left unwritten, and correspondence unreturned. I need some way of pulling time up a bit. If the universe could just give me a week on pause I know I could get some pretty darn good catch up sessions going. As it is I get home from work, eat dinner, watch a Come Dine With Me and then all of a sudden wake up the next morning to find myself repeating the whole process again. It’s Groundhog Day but I’m not learning the piano or buying insurance from Kirstin’s dad out of Heroes or finding increasingly amusing ways to commit suicide. I’m just letting that time keep dripping. If anyone knows a good ‘time plumber’ I’d be truly grateful. But maybe this is where I need to stop wishing for a fix and just… you know, do what I gotta do. Can I be that girl? Watch this space. [Not literally].

I miss sleeps

First day back at work. I spent most of my time perfecting my 'performance artist's impression of a 'tut' through movement and facial expression'. It went down a treat (by which I mean most people left me alone all day). I don't even know why I found it so depressing going back, (well, apart from the fact that I can't spend 70 per cent of my day sleeping anymore) but, given that I only have a few months to go before I get to spend a whole chunk of time not washing my hair very often and panicking that I'm not going to catch my train in many different timezones and countries, AND I think I may even have a new work pal to gad around the place with (all thanks to not being a miserable curmudgeon at the Christmas doo... Imagine! A friend! I might even be able to have conversations with more than myself and the items of stationary I've given names and character traits to on my desk. But this is very tentative so let's not get out hopes up too high eh? I'm still me after all).

The mystery of my work-related melancholy was puzzling me until I got to the bit in this book that talks about how great primary school was (albeit with lashings of irony and insightful humour). I realised that the dull ache I have in my stomach when I think about work matches up exactly with the dull ache I get/got in my stomach when I think/thought about school. I'm not just talking about the usual 'uh-oh it's Sunday evening and I haven't done my homework yet' dull ache that everyone got, this was a special feeling that I'm not sure everyone recognises, the; 'oh Christ. Not that again. Haven't I been through this torture enough yet? WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE SEVEN MORE YEARS OF THIS TO GO?!! I've already been putting up with this crap for six years already! That's more than half my freaking life!'

School was literally just something I had to plow through before I got enjoy the good stuff*, (save for a brief time just before I left my first secondary school when it all kind of alright. I often wonder what would have become of me had I stayed in an environment where I fitted in... I doubt I would be nearly as bitter and twisted but that's part of why I love me so let's keep it all the way it was. For now). Most of the top five memories of my childhood come from managing to find increasingly sophisticated ways of skiving off school and getting my mum's undivided attention for a whole day. Other good memories include; finding outfit combinations for my Barbies that were fashionable and flattering (the play part of the Barbie escapades holds less allure. Normally those slutty little Barbies just ended up having sex with the better looking Ken doll I possessed. In fact, I can't remember one situation; fashion behemoth Barbie, professional artist Barbie, famous singer Barbie, that - in the end - didn't just denigrate into a tawdry show of her minxing her way into Ken's pants. The male readers may find this surprising but I know for a fact most of my friends had similarly whoreish Barbies. At least, I'm pretty sure it's not me being some kind of precocious sexual deviant anyway. I digress, point is I liked the dressing up aspect the most), finishing Donkey Kong on the Super Nintendo, the rather sophisticated imaginary games my brother and I used to play - including one that started with me as his mother, him having to kill me to save the future of his planet (can't remember why exactly but do know there was a complicated ritual involved as it was part of a religious ceremony) and then me getting reincarnated as his crime-fighting buddy going around as renegade's to keep the planet from being overrun by 'the bad guys'. At the end we both died and then were always reincarnated again as brother and sister who went and had a picnic (usually consisting of kit-kats and Ribena). If I heard an eight and a four-year-old came up with that now I'd be extremely disturbed and worry for their future selves - particularly given that it sounds like an elaborate plot of a schlocky sci-fi film from Eastern Europe (and this is just the pretend world that I can remember. I dread to think what other twisted shit we came up with at the time... ). It does, however, lend credence to the fact that the 'me' that I recognise as 'me' hasn't changed from when I first remember having conscious thought. The inner monologue that analyses everything for me (darn you inner monologue, darn you to heck) and has always kept an objective eye on mine and other's actions, is the same as it always was. Outwardly my appearance and output of expression (i.e. I use bigger words now) have changed dramatically but I think it's just that I have learned to articulate all the crazy shit that goes on in my mind box better. Noone else ever seems to talk about this though. Childhood is thought of as a completely different landscape inhabited by alien-beings that have no real connection with the adults they later become, save for the space and time dimensions they happen to occupy remaining more or less similar. Yet, the older I become the bigger the feeling of relief that all those years spent not feeling 'quite right' were just that I wasn't the right person as yet. I'm not sure I'm explaining myself very clearly but imagine that all the thoughts I put down here were in an eight-year-old's head... because I'm pretty sure a lot of them were but I didn't know what they were or how to manifest them. For a brief time I did wonder if all that 'not quite right-ness' meant I was a big gay lesbian but, luckily for my parents, in fact I'm not... well, maybe mildly, but let's not go into that now.

That wasn't the point... The point is that none of my happy go-to youth memories were formed around school. Above and beyond being a freakish child, part of the reason I hated school so fervently was that I just seem to have a natural disposition towards despising all institutions. I don't like being told what to wear, how to act, where and when to do things, and I certainly don't like rules that have no logical basis - which is what made up most of the school codes I was expected to swallow (I'm more than happy to accept rules that I don't like, or don't benefit me personally, if I can understand why they are there). Not that I was a rebel, I just got on with it and hoped no-one pointed and laughed at me too often. And yet, when I need money I always seem to find myself in an office job. The more astute of you may realise that offices ARE institutions. Particularly those affiliated with the Government. Now, I get what Lucy Mangan is saying, given that the book itself is a nostalgic look of what it is to be a girl and that most geek girls loved primary school. But I hated it. I guess I've always craved being free to do whatever the hell it is I want to do but experience shows that, when I'm left to my own devices for too long, I get progressively insane and lazy. I have this idea that if I could just live then I'd be spending my time creating - painting and writing to my hippy-heart's content - but in all honesty I know I'd just get R.S.I. from too much Guitar Hero and get sucked into watching Come Dine With Me marathons. Although, at the moment, that lifestyle doesn't sound too bad. I need to weigh up my options on this score a little more methinks. Queen of the Dole Queue does have a certain ring to it after all.

*i.e. sex, drugs, rock 'n roll, being comfortable with my freakness, etc.

Caring sucks.

Despite finding conversations with the majority of people I don't know to be tiresome and repetitive and useless, I don't actually mind being forced into certain situations where these sort of conversations take place.

Well, no. Obviously I do, as the above sentence says I do but, I mean, when I know I'm going to be stuck in a room with 'unfamiliars' for an hour or more I've reached the stage where I know, if I put some effort in (the 'if' forms the crux of the matter) then I can walk away safe in the knowledge that while they may not necessarily like me they certainly won't actively hate me. Or, they won't hate me enough that they openly flaunt that fact in front of my face.

To some this may not appear a remarkable feat. To those people I say, you know not of Sazz circa 1987 to 2005. That Sazz changed dramatically in appearance many many times (both in stature and in fashion sense: from dungarees to leggings to ill-advised purple cord flares - Blossom you have a LOT to answer for - to the tweed era, which, I'm going to kid myself, was the last time I committed any really punishable sartorial crimes). But where my personality is concerned - although there had been developments; there hadn't particularly been any dramatic changes. 'Wallflower' doesn't even begin to describe it. The thought of any sort of social interaction would make my throat close up and all concept of words, least of all sentences, would be lost to me. I'd get palpitations if a friend left me to converse with a stranger and would just stare blankly at a spot on the floor hoping against hope for the moment to end as quickly as possible whilst getting more and more panicked. Part of the reason I took up smoking as a hobby is that, if your mate has pulled and you're left standing on the edge of a dancefloor like some character from a Pulp song then, rather than being forced into making *shudder* small talk with an odd looking fellow who has similarly been abandoned by his better looking mate, you can light up a smoke and stand there with a scowl and be fairly confident of being left alone (except for all the times I wasn't and felt a bizarre need to not be mean or rude to these guys that had blatantly been told where to go by every other single female in the room so was left with the desperate option of trying it on with me). With a cigarette to hold you can take on the persona of a 'lone wolf' rather than just a 'loner' (seriously kids, smoking IS cool. Or, at least, you feel cooler while you're smoking even if you just look like a sad fat kid who's trying to be cool). This was me then.

Now, within the last couple of years, for whatever reason, I've found how to not be a complete social retard (although I haven't quite escaped the lure of the cigarettes I do still only mostly do it when I want to be left the fuck alone. Melancholy, in particular, works so much better accompanied with a park bench, a wistful gaze, and a roll-up). I couldn't pin point when things shifted exactly but I am aware that it's mostly down to a combination of three factors:
1. Realising that when I do pull out all the stops - it always ends well. As in, if I try hard enough I can make people walk away from talking to me thinking 'she's alright I suppose'. This is a vast improvement on people thinking 'she's seriously fucking weird, or a mute... in fact, she's probably both'.
2. Realising that, when all is said and done, I'm not a bad person. I can even be more-than-ok on occasion.
3. Realising that I don't actually care if acquaintances don't think that highly of me. It's obviously nicer if people do like you where the old ego is concerned but if they don't... meh. The weird thing is, this particular realisation gives you complete freedom to be yourself and thus, increases your chances of being liked. I know right! The crazy world of paradoxes continues apace.

However, even armed with all this knowledge. Even knowing that I'm a different person than before and not really phased by social gatherings one jot, on Friday night as I walked into the pub with the newest addition to my small-but-perfectly-formed circle of pals I was so nervous about meeting his friends that I thought I might throw up. This was bizarre for me. I remembered that feeling as soon as it hit and I remembered that I didn't like it. I'm so glad that I only found out how many people were coming as we were on our way there in the taxi. Had I had a whole week to mull over the number of people I would be expected to impress I probably would have been contemplating throwing myself down the stairs come Friday in order to legitimately get out of it.

The good thing is, this boy knows me. He knows I'm not really a people pleaser. I think it's one of the things he kind of likes about me as he does need the love and affection of everyone he comes into contact with. It amuses rather than disgusts him that I don't. However, I felt pressured seeing as:
- he's ingratiated himself with pretty much every single person I'm close to, without even breaking into a sweat. So, were we to compare our success rates with each other's friends, he pretty much already knows he's scored a home run (or whatever sporting metaphor makes sense when in context of 'won the game').
- I already have a lot of ground to make up as I suspect that, due to some of my history with this boy and some of the youthful escapades (read: being a psychotic girlfriend) this history contains, his friends used to despise me and are probably not thrilled that we're approaching friend-level now.

So there was that to contend with but, and the kiss of death for me acting like me, I was astonished to find that I cared what these people thought of me. Not caring has formed the basis of every social interaction I've had in the last two years. It's my key strategy in the war of the casual acquaintance encounter. Without my key strategy I was lost and frightened. Worse than that I realised I cared because I like him so much. He makes me laugh ("I'm going to call you 'Sazzalicious' because look what the addition of 'licious' has done for Fergie") and even though we haven't spoken much in the last four years or so every time we have met up we've connected again almost instantaneously (give-or-take the presence of 'eep! history and that' feelings). He's a good thing in a world of not-good things so I want him to stick around and be my friend for a while yet. That means having his friends like me too. In the end I gave it my best shot. After five minutes of sat there scoping out all the best escape routes (which the bastard cottoned onto almost immediately. I pointed out that him pointing out you could see the look of terror painted on my face did not help me feel more comfortable. This just amused him further) I sort of tried to join in. I didn't have much choice as he kept trying to draw me in to the table's conversations. I'm pretty sure they thought I was mildly retarded as, for one thing, I was much too enthusiastic with my facial expressions when someone was telling a story and laughed too hard at things that really weren't that funny. But I think I did alright. Not great but alright. Trouble is, my 'alright' is other people's 'one notch below wanting to punch someone in their face'. I haven't had feedback from him on my performance (and I'd be loathe to ever actually ask... make myself vulnerable to criticism or rejection! Ha! Maybe in bizarre-o world!) but at least he texted me to say he liked his birthday mixtape so he's not not-talking to me. This is as positive as I think I can be about the whole thing.