Silverai's Space

Hi Dreamwidth/Livejournal,

It's been over two years since I've posted, and I've not bothered to read my friends list much in that time either. I've been hanging out with the cool kid, Facebook. Except I now have too many friends there, diverse enough friends on Facebook that I feel trapped there, that I can't post a great majority of what I think, feel, have opinions on, and so forth for fear that a friend will know it's about them, or a friend will think it's about them even if it's not, that a friend will self-identify with something and then our friendship will be hurt, or even that different segments of friends will get the wrong idea about me which will negatively impact my ability to act and contribute within real life groups.

In desperation, I have come back here, just so I have a place to vent. All my friends here have probably also moved on too, I dunno. It's still kinda public though, while being hidden away from the main part of my public life and the only people I've friended here and therefore hopefully the only people who know about this journal, I'm happy to have know this stuff, so this journal will do.

I have too much on my plate. So many different things on there. Things that once gave me joy and are now just additional heavy weights of responsibility and obligation, full of joylessness. I am also failing at fulfilling many of those responsibilities and obligations, which in itself is another heavy weight. Furthermore, I cannot see anything that I am willing to take off the plate right now, it is all things that I feel must stay on there.

I am currently surviving with the mantra "just keep swimming, just keep swimming" because logically it's the only thing to do; keep swimming forward and doing what I can, because not doing anything won't help the problem. I feel like it's hopeless though, that there's no winning, that failure in multiple avenues is inevitable. I am working to clear things off the plate - in another week one thing will be clear, and another month a second thing will be clear. Regardless, I feel like no matter what I clear off my plate, I will simply discover other things underneath to take its place. There is too much. I have other things that I should be adding to my plate in order to get ahead in life, and I find myself reluctant to add those things. Even though I will long-term benefit from them, because short-term (one year, heck even six months) it's all too much. The plate is creaking and I stopped being hungry a long time ago.

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming. But don't bother thinking it will all work out in the end, I'm tired of thinking that it will get easier or lighter. It's all a burden, and it sucks, and I'm tired of bearing the extra weight of making myself think it will be fine. It's not fine. It's hopeless. But I'm swimming anyway.

This entry was originally posted at http://silverai.dreamwidth.org/109822.html and is automatically cross-posted here.

About a month or so ago, Zig announced he was planning to go bushwalking for two or three days. So this week he took Thursday and Friday off work, and started out on the Bibbulman track from Mundaring Weir yesterday morning, planning to be picked up from Brookton Highway on Saturday evening. I wasn't too worried about him going alone because 1) he had a phone with good reception and GPS, and 2) Zig is resourceful. I was going to miss him, but I was also looking forward to some time at home alone. Last night, he called to say he was going to cut it short (the track had more 'hills for no reason' than he thought it would) and would get picked up this evening instead.

I found myself unsettled. I found myself less able to enjoy the time alone I still had left, instead dwelling on the time to come I would miss out on. I'm finding myself resentful. It's annoying to feel this way, but I feel this way anyway. Time alone occasionally can be rejuvenating, and I had settled into expecting it for two nights, only to have it, as it were, snatched away from me. I hadn't quite realised how important time at home alone was - before he left I was more missing him in advance, although there was still looking forward to time alone a bit.

Zig doesn't go out that much, and I'm often with him when he does, or out somewhere else myself instead. Time alone at home doesn't happen that often for me. I think I'm going to encourage him to be absent from the house for a couple of hours at night sometimes, visit his friends or family or something. Because clearly, if him coming home early has affected me in this way, it's something that matters more than I thought.

This entry was originally posted at http://silverai.dreamwidth.org/109348.html and is automatically cross-posted here.

Details for my Halloween party this year:

- When & Where. Saturday 29th October, 6pm on, at my house as per usual (Bassendean).
- Theme. 2011 is "Capes". Wear a cape and be fancy or plain with the rest.
- Dinner and beer provided (dinner aimed to be served at about 7pm)
- Friends allowed if you let me know for courtesy and catering purposes.
- Kids. No worries if they mix well in crowds, but our house is not set up as "kid-friendly" - please make sure they don't damage things/drink poison.

Anyone on my Dreamwidth or LiveJournal friends list is welcome, other people just leave a request comment but the answer is likely to be yes. - come and join in the fun :D Bring a friend for courage ;)

RSVP appreciated for judging food quantities, and so I have an idea of what's happening in general also.

This entry was originally posted at http://silverai.dreamwidth.org/109042.html and is automatically cross-posted here.

There was a Facebook meme going around semi-recently, where someone would give you a year and you'd write about what happened. Somebody sent me "2001", and I earmarked it for later, since I felt I would do it more justice outside of the restricted FB character limit. Finally got the motivation for a journal post...that particular motivation can be so slippery sometimes.

So, 2001: a Revisitation.

I was 19. I had been in a relationship with Zig since 1998, and so I was now currently living with Zig at his family's place - we were in a place called "The Studio", separated from the main house by an open-air passageway. We still shared the family dinners, and the bathroom in the house.
I was doing Year 12 at Cyril Jackson, having finally gone back to complete Yr 11 the previous year. It was good to be around all my friends who I'd met the previous year, and many of those friendships still persist to today. I was also on the student committee and the 4 or 5 of us on it organised a smashing medieval ball for everyone at the school, we did excellent work!

2001 took its rough turn about midway*.

Zig and I moved out together to where we are currently still living and renting, just a couple of minutes down the road from his family home. Spent the last of the estate money from Grandad on a washing machine so that we didn't have to keep handwashing (I'd dwindled the money down by living off it for the previous year or so)(oh, and still have that washing machine, yay!). Shortly after, the Yr 12 mid-year exams took place. I was in the middle of an English exam, staring at an essay, and I just got to thinking "why am I doing this?" over and over. So I collected my things, stood up, and walked out of that exam and out of Yr 12 entirely. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, and was completely at loose ends.

Hm, and now I'm writing this, I think all this time I've been smooshing 2001 and 2002 together in my head. I went to write the second half of year 2001, and then remembered it couldn't possibly have happened in 2001 because I didn't get my license until half-way through 2002. So I guess 2001 wasn't so jam-packed as I was remembering. I guess I was just at loose ends for most of the rest of the year? I think I got onto Centrelink payments at some point too (and lost them the next year).

And that was 2001.

*Which wasn't as rough as I thought, since 2001 and 2002 are now separated in my brain again, heh.

31 days until I get to hand in my notice. As per my last post, yes, I'm still quitting. Why am I still waiting to give in my notice? Well, when I was looking up the award rates for the casual dude who was starting back in late January, I discovered some very interesting stuff. See, he wanted to know his award rates, rather than just the stated rate during the interview. This was a good thing for him, as it resulted in him getting more money (ie, the legal rate) as opposed to the minimum wage (which only counts if you're not covered by an award, which we are). This was also a good thing for me. I discovered two interesting things in fact. The first I won't go into, but the second was about long service leave. Apparently I'm entitled to 8 weeks long service leave after 10 yrs, but if I leave after 7 yrs then I'm entitled to a pro rata payout of that long service. Almost six weeks pay for free? Yeah, that's worth waiting until May to hand in my notice then work another four weeks after that.

Meantime, I'm left waiting. I'm waiting for the "quitting date" to arrive, I'm waiting for the wedding day to arrive, I'm waiting until my whole life shift gears rather suddenly in June with so many things changing at once. And so my whole life currently is in a holding pattern, just flying around and around in the same old circles, getting more and more frustrated while waiting for the time when I can finally land. Meantime, everything is batshitcrazy insane breakneck pace. All these things need organising, and all these things need re-examining and re-working out and all these things needs to be dealt with and argh argh argh. I've got so many worries and energy drains: Health, Money, Work, Life, Wedding, Honeymoon. And yet, even though I'm doing all this, somehow my life is still standing still, watching the "quitting clock" tick down day by day agonsingly slow, the "wedding clock" tick by incredibly fast, and the "my whole life suddenly changes and I can relax" clock drag even slower than the quitting clock.

How is my life changing? Well, I'm getting married. Now, on the surface, that doesn't really seem like a huge change. Paperwork gets signed, and we continue our relationship. Sure, but what about the big huge event that I've been planning for years suddenly being done and over? BOOM, suddenly it's over, suddenly there's nothing to focus my attention on, nothing constantly demanding my time and thoughts, nothing to plan for. Suddenly I'll feel FREE, but also empty and lost. Suddenly at about the same time, I won't be trundling off to work 5 1/2 days a week, I'll be left to command my own time, left with nothing to force me out of bed and keep slogging away at life, be free from the demands of customers, the irritations of the same old tropes repeating themselves in front of me year after year, free to eventually choose a new something, with new and different celebrations and challenges. Suddenly the world will be calling me by a different surname. Suddenly I'll have massive amounts of time on my hands. Suddenly I won't have money coming in regularly, whatever I manage to save up before then is all I'll have until I tackle the future again. Suddenly I'll have to pennypinch in even tighter ways. Suddenly my health will have the time and space it needs to hopefully improve.

All this happening at once, coming coming coming, but not yet here still, not yet here still, wait just a bit longer again again again, but it's almost here, almost here, so close and so far. So much to get done before then, running against time, against sheer ability to keep going without dropping, so that I can make it to the green pasture finally, eventually, sometime that's so close I can taste it in the air but not close my teeth on it. And fears, fears that I won't be able to handle the sudden shift, that I'll feel so empty that I'll collapse in on myself, fears that I'll self-destruct and not get back up again to look for new income, fears that my mind will rebel against going back to the grind of regular work and my plan of taking at least July to rest before looking will backfire and I'll just keep resting and resting, unable to face it. My mind currently can't handle the thought of something new, but I know I will be fine after a rest, after a break. But what if I'm wrong? What if money dribbles out of my fingers like it currently is doing, dribbling out on my health, on this pill, on that powder, on the chiropracter, but fast, so fast. What if I'm not able to find new work, what if noone wants me, or nothing better is out there, what if I'm stuck, without money, without choices, with money becoming a irritant between me and Zig and wearing away at our relationship like it did 10 years ago?

All these fears are obviously false, and yet the huge illusions are built from tiny kernels of truth and so they have just enough power to niggle away in the background, in the peripheral on my concious mind where I almost don't even notice them because I'm much too focused on all the other craziness that needs to be dealt with right now.

And life keeps happening. Tick. Tick. Tick.

A lot has happened since August. I've been stressed out, had upheavals in the life around me, had low points, made concious decisions to do things differently, and have made big breakthrough decisions about how I do things and live life.

Starting small, and recapping a little on the last post, my legs: Doc sent me to an allergist, who was also an immunologist. That guy applied the label fibromyalgia to me. Being aware of this has made big differences, knowing what's behind stuff helps me to forgive it happening, helps me change my reaction to them. I'm only on the lower end of the scale of what it can be like, it doesn't affect my life in a huge way but they reckon my legs are just a part of that, along with my occasional drops in energy. I've also noticed that sometimes I get hyper aware of things touching me, my clothes, the bedsheets, people touching my arm, etc. Knowing what is behind the hyper-awareness helps me not be irritated by it, helps me process it and to a certain extent ignore it. Back to my legs; for a while I was staying off excessive sugar and off alcohol on work nights as I found that they could sometimes trigger my legs. Since then I've discovered that drinking water at the same time as the alcohol reduces the trigger a lot, so I guess it was the dehydration doing it mostly. I also do 1-2 minutes of stretches before bed and take an Advil along with my Lyrica tablet at bedtime. My legs haven't stopped me sleeping for a while now, my gameplan that was slowly worked out over a few months has been effective.

So how have things with my health and life looked over the last year or so? In May or so I quit the big band. After that I had shoulder issues so I didn't go to the brass band either for a while. Then I had sleep and energy issues what with my restless legs and all during which I didn't do much of anything except work. So after that got better I decided I would drop the brass band also, although I'd still be available for the occasional performance. Sometime in Spring I stopped going to the regular steak nights with friends and only went occasionally. So very slowly all my commitments were cut down and removed. In September and October I ended up being insanely busy and stressed. I don't remember all the reasons why, but there were a number of things going on. In November I spent to first half simply wiped out, and the second half trying to get some wedding plans done while barely semi-recovered. Also in November my closest friend left to live in Canberra. December ended up full of stress for various reasons, including work being busy, having no replacement at work (I even ended up working because of it while I was way too sick to do anything much), social commitments, present shopping, and lack of my friend. Was feeling very wiped out towards the end, but was barely hanging on with the promise of the Xmas break as a light at the end of the tunnel. Well. Xmas break I was very wiped out. But I still dragged myself to a friend's birthday and various Xmas gatherings and necessary shopping and such. There were a few times when I didn't do anything, but I was so wiped that they were as effective as mosquito bites. So January 4th came around and work started again. I tanked. Completely and utterly tanked.

Suddenly it was all too much. I had dug into my energy reserves and hit the end. I hadn't even realised I was so close, although in hindsight it was pretty bloody obvious. But the stress and the lack of adequate downtime and lack of support and lack of any replacement at work still after such a long time and no sign of anything being done about it and the usual insane busyness that happens at work after the xmas break. Yup, I tanked. Big time. I was crying at work. I had anxiety all the time. I was dragging myself around with no energy, managing to somehow get through work each day then surviving the drive home before collapsing in a pile of tears and drainedness. I was miserable and there was no light at the end of the tunnel. I was very close to a nervous breakdown, but narrowly avoided it. The end of that first week saw the beginning of clawing out of the quagmire, of inching away from the cliff edge. This happened with learning that there were finally plans in motion for a replacement. There was no good timeframe, but even knowing something was happening was good. The next week I find out that I could actually get my usual Thursday off after all. That was a blessed relief. I still had to go in and open up shop and close at the end, but in between I was free. That day off turned out even better, with my temporary replacement deciding they could also close shop. My temp replacement and I are friends, and he decided that although he had issues with doing my job, he was prepared to do them anyway so that I could have futher time off. So I took the following Monday off too. Oh joy, oh bliss! Having two days off in a row with no commitments, no pressures, no requirements. The peace I felt on that Sunday was amazing, it was nirvana. That week I was still crying a lot, still had anxiety, still had no energy. I was having trouble at bedtime because going to sleep meant that suddenly it would be time to have to drag myself to work again, and it was almost unbearable. But it was getting easier to cope, and things were very slowly improving. Zig flip flopped between being amazingly supportive and leaving me dangling alone as he is fairly self contained and semi-expects me to have the same skills. There was an amazingly supportive moment when he told me during a crying storm "Just quit. This is affecting you so much, just quit and we will deal with it". However things had improved enough that I kept hanging on.

It is February now, and things have changed. There have been ups and downs, but every day the cliff edge gets more distant. Things have changed for the better, and I have changed my approach to my life, and I am conciously paying attention to what I'm doing, how I'm thinking, what my reactions to things are and doing my best to change them. I have a replacement now, and was able to take a week off work recently which I filled with rest and relaxation, with restorative processes, and a few catchups with select friends. A couple of days after my holiday the anxiety finally stopped. I have a casual helper for two late afternoons a week as well as Saturdays, which helps a lot. And I have a plan to quit in May/June, which took the last month and a half to slowly form into a concrete plan. I don't have anything lined up after that, but that doesn't matter. Zig is being incredibly supportive of this plan, and the plan makes sense on many many levels. I am not sharing this with anyone at work (other than that one friend/colleague), I will most likely pass in my notice in April or May, and will allow enough time for someone to be adequately trained to take my place. I am fairly certain that I will have left before my wedding day in June.

There are a few months between now and then. I am using this time to adjust myself, embrace myself, put things into practice, create habits that allow me to perpetually support and love and nuture myself. I am using this time to notice how I interact with the world and improve upon it, to take personal responsibility for everything I have done for my life to be how it currently is, and to use that personal responsibility to finally change things for the better. I am adjusting my reactions, my expectations, my vibration. I am doing this so that whatever comes next in my life will be different and improved, so that I don't find myself in the same situation again, so that "same shit, different bucket" is not what I find my self doing. I am making these adjustments with the deep inner knowingness that every small thing I change brings me that much closer to an alternate future, to a happier and more fulfilling place.

I am connecting with myself. I am connecting with the faeries. I am opening to the universe and its myriad possibilities. I have a mix of feelings, but I've needed to do this for a while. I have tried before and not succeeded, but now there is no option except to succeed. I have hit so close to the lowest I can get, and I cannot accept the idea of being there again. Change must happen, and it is up to me to love myself and treasure myself enough to go through the painful and joyful process of reaching towards myself and my potential.

TOTALLY EXCITING NEWS for musical and Monty Python fans!

The musical Spamalot is being presented in PERTH! Whoot! Only $25. Only downside is that we have to wait until November, which feels like forever away.

I think a group should totally be gotten together for this!* Totally! It's sure to sell well, so this is best not left for too many weeks.

Here's the link:
http://playlovers.org.au/?p=199

*Whether that's done by me or someone else thinks they have a larger base of people likely to be wanting to go and me just jump in on that group, I am completely happy either way. But perhaps a show of interest in the comments would be a start?

So I eventually got to the doctor, maybe 5 weeks after onset of crapness. He knew all about restless legs, and prescribed me a drug called Lyrica, which makes my nerve endings not care about my legs complaining, thus meaning my sleep is not disrupted and I get get down to theta and delta instead of just REM and back up again over and over. I've been having fabulous sleep these last few weeks, and life is a bit more normal. I'm still trying to keep socialising down a bit, as part of me still feels overloaded. But, you know me, I end up socialising anyway! A little less socialising than "normal" though.

My credit card debt was high before I went to Europe years ago, and went even higher while over there for 5 weeks. Since then, I have paid it off to about the level it was before I went gallivanting, but for the last year or so the total has remained about the same. I'm kinda sick of the debt, so I've starting budgeting a heap more strictly than before. Strict budgeting was depressing me quite a lot before (as normal), but I've hit a good groove these last couple weeks. Buying lunch and dinner all the time, plus often a pie for breakfast, was a big part of the budget spenditure. Now, if Zig doesn't cook dinner and has already eaten, I go home and eat nachos for dinner instead of buying take-out, it works out to about $3-$4 for the meal. I've been eating healthier lunches, which is cheaper than buying it everyday. Food during work is a tin of salmon, small tub of yoghurt, baby mesculan salad (the packet lasts a week), an apple, and mandarins from my bro's tree. Plus 2-3 pots of herbal tea. Breakfast has been oatmeal made with rice milk (to reduce dairy intake) and some honey on top. Other budget cuts include not spending as much going out and about, and reconsidering my urge to go to shows (such as The Cat Empire playing soon which I would love to see) against my desire to get rid of this debt. I still feel frustrated to some extent, I feel like I should see greater rewards sooner if I'm restricting myself so much, however I KNOW that I'm getting somewhere and I just have to keep believing it too. Part of me despairs when recurring costs like chiropracter and health tablets are a constant drain, and other costs are coming up such as birthdays and my Halloween party and then Xmas! Plus I'm to see an allergist specialist at end of September that won't be cheap. That's no excuse not to keep trying though, still better to keep the spenditure down so that the costs don't make the card total go up higher than otherwise.

Zig's 30th birthday party in July was good to begin with, then was upsetting, then ended alright again. Basically, the first ever fight happened at one of our parties. The people who started it were not normal attendees, and are not welcome back again. I feel terrible for my friend who turned up 20 minutes before shit happened, and copped the worst of it. However the guy who punched him despite Zig standing in the middle playing mediator? that guy broke his hand. So my friend, Zig, and I feel a little bit better that he didn't get away with it. Wish it had happened at Halloween or even just a normal birthday party, not at Zig's 30th. Nevertheless, it happened and is now as resolved as it gets. Still heartsore over it when memory occurs - after getting to sleep that night I had terrible dreams before waking that shook me badly.

In lighter news, we've had a stray rabbit in the backyard off and on for weeks. It's a big white fat one, with one ear up and one ear flopped. I discovered he had a taste for lavender only after my three little plants in pots got eaten to within an inch of life. They are now planted in the garden (finally, after months!) with little triangular fence fortresses made out of the fridge shelves which Zig pulled out of the beer fridges to make room for fermenter kegs. We also discovered why the rabbit seemed to like the cat, and the cat seemed to dislike the rabbit. After noticing the rabbit always going towards the back of the cat, Zig experimented by holding the cat still. The rabbit went behind the cat...and then hopped _onto_ the cat. The cat was not amused and swiped at the rabbit. Hasn't stopped the rabbit still going for him, or the cat teasing the rabbit by sitting on a chair out of reach with a paw ready to claw. Two Mondays ago, so Zig told me, he saw a lady in the front yard peering into the back at the rabbit. He asked if she wanted it back and she said yes and expressed concern that Zig wouldn't be able to catch it. He caught it the next day simply by picking it up (animals always seem to be at ease with Zig). So he took it down the road to where it lived and gave the box with the rabbit in it to the girl there. He told me so that night when I was home, and mused that perhaps we should then take down the lavender fortresses. I told him better to leave them just in case. Just as well, since the rabbit was back again in the morning! Zig said that he wasn't going to bother catching it again, since they couldn't be bothered making things good to keep rabbits in. They haven't come back and asked for the rabbit again yet either. Rabbit doesn't hang around quite as much as before though, which I'm sure the cat is happy about!

There's yellow dandelion daisies blooming on the roadside. I don't care what the weather does, those yellow dandelion daisies always mean Spring is here to me. When I see them, I get nostalgic for Bindoon. I grew up on a hobby farm in Bindoon, and the long driveway had masses of yellow down the sides in Spring, it was so glorious! Seeing the daisies makes me think that perhaps it's time to take a roadtrip to Bindoon someday soon.

Now, if you've read this far, then you will get advance notice of my Halloween party this year! This year's theme is Masquerade, so time to get masks organised and brush up on your mysterious air. It will be a week earlier than when other Halloween parties may be - it is on Saturday 23rd October. The usual deal applies: at Zig and I's house, dinner and beer provided, a few of your friends are welcome with you if you let me know for catering and courtesy purposes.

So, my legs have been aching for coming up to three weeks now. For the last two weeks, I've been feeling:
depressed, agitated, easily irritated, too quick to swear, tired, stressed, strained, stretched, sad, headachey, put upon, "all too much", brain not 100%, people are stupid, weary, morose, angry at circumstances, sick of always breaking, incompetent, responsible, chained, short of personal time, drained, small, diminished, dragging myself to keep going.

I'd LIKE to be feeling again:
happy, content, relaxed, relieved, understanding and forgiving, brain 100%, joyful, appreciative, thankful, healthy, whole, plenty of time, contemplative, at ease, peaceful, capable, at one, full of energy, flexible

I have an irrational love of boxes. I don't really use them, even the cool ones that I wish I did use somehow, but something inside me goes "SQUEEEEEE!" about boxes, especially the small cute ones. I have a little useless pile of them at home that I can't bring myself to get rid of, although I try not to add to it.

The last few soups I made in the slow cooker have all had this odd taste to them that detracted from the flavour horribly. The second last soup I made, I didn't put in any of the previous things that I thought might have caused it, but it was still there. Thus, I worked out that it was the half a bulb of fresh garlic I put in for the last several - the slow cooker made the flavour come out way too strong and changed it from a straight garlic flavour to this sort of manky taste. So, I made soup again last night, and put in a single teaspoon of the crushed type from the bottle, and it was perfect! This is a relief, as Zig had pretty much said he wasn't going to eat any more soups I made. I just have to convince him to have some of yesterday's leftover soup for dinner tonight, since he went out last night and escaped trying any then!

Still tired, but behind my eyes where it doesn't show on the outside to the world so much. I'm mostly functional otherwise and can almost forget I'm tired occasionally. Still affecting me though, I wigged out and cried a lot on Sunday, and get a random flash of "must cry!" a few times through the day - just a flash of feeling, no actual tears. And my legs are still bugging me which is annoying. There's this thing on tonight that I'd love to have gone to, but I'm staying home and will get an early night instead, since I might be staying up a normal amount tomorrow night and I had a normal bedtime last night and an hour short this morning due to Zig chronically sleeping through his alarm and me not quite awake enough to be able to turn over and wake him up after I realised he wasn't getting up - I usually give him at least 20 minutes before bugging, since I doze 20 minutes past my alarm too (on purpose).

When I was so "over it" about the wedding due to all the brain arghs about guest list and therefore venue etc, I stopped reading the offbeat bride website. Started reading it again about a month ago, I was about 17 pages behind! Read it slowly-ish, just caught up today. When I feel more up to it, I'll dive back into the ning forums for offbeat bride again, but I think that's going to be a big effort since I've got 684 unprocessed email notifications about new threads and comments on the groups I've joined, etc. So, I'll put that off a little longer until I have a lot of time and feel like I'm capable of the huge mental effort. Good to catchup on the straight blog website though, hoorah :)