Saturday, April 1, 2017

Seasonal Adjustment Disorder

Hi.

I've been feeling so awful about my life over the last six months or so that I haven't wanted to blog about it. I just didn't want to spray my shit around. Even my high moments at the writers festivals and the etc began to feel like a total writers' tour that sounded so brittle and way too much like social media happiness. Please note here that I have not been feeling the social media happiness. I've been crying drunk and burning my hands every night trying to stuff too-big, shit-burning banksia logs into the fire.*
Best friends were dropping dead from things like liver cancer, hitting trees too fast on their motorbike. You know. The last king hit was an out-of-the-blue early morning stroke while she was walking her dog. Then another one. Grief is a street fighting beast. It just belts the fuck out of you.

'You'll get better at this,' said a good friend who'd lost a few.
'I never want to get better at this!' I wailed. 'I never want to feel anything less than this!'

Last weekend I went to a memorial. Actually, last weekend I went to two memorials. Saturday was for a young lad, a pig hunter who drowned at sea. 'It's a pig, the cigs or the sea that will kill me,' he'd said once upon a time. And Sunday was for a local matriarch who'd said, at 97 years of age, 'I think I'm going to have a little lie down.'

I think you can guess which one was the most joyous.

*Banksia wood burns slow and cold. Burn it, if you want to spend a winter crouched over a fire like a desperate, heartbroken beast.


11 comments:

  1. Life is shit when you get older. My brother sat down to read the paper and two hours later he woke up on the floor. Stroke. 1 year ago. He walks with the aid of what he used when he was a cattleman, he says he feels better with it than a poncy walking stick or zimmer frame. P's mother is 96 and I could shout at him when he moans about her cooking, in fact I shout at both of them when they bicker along. They don't know how lucky they are. Most of the shit about my life I can't even begin to put into words myself let alone on a blog. I know what you mean. Hang in there.

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    1. I hope you bro doesn't go onto the streets with a cattle prod. :~)

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    2. He was told not to take it on a plane.

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    3. *splurts orange cordial out her nostrils*

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  2. I'm sorry to hear about all of this, Sarah. Just remember that these sort of events all seem to happen in great bundles and I don't know if it would be better if were spread evenly and thinly throughout your own life before it is your turn, or whether the gaps in between give you a chance to adjust before the next batch.

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    1. Yes they do turn up in bundles don't they?
      Waiting for a reprieve right now.

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  3. Ahh thank you Tom and Rachel. The day after I wrote this I worked gardening for a couple in their early 90s. One has a stent and said he'll 'live to a hundred now.'
    His wife looked at him and said, 'I don't want to live to 100, dear.' What followed was an intimate discussion on the reality of imminent death. I felt very privileged to experience this practical knowledge.
    I looked at her her and said, 'That's not long! You are 91!' and she just shrugged and smiled.

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  4. That sounds like shit, Sarah. Platitudes don't help but can I say, it does come and go but the reality is it comes more often as we get older. Keep gardening. Keep talking {to real people).

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  5. Wow again. Been struggling myself. And disgusted that I ahve become unbelievably nostalgic - mourning for my youth, which was really, really fucked and I could barely function. How idiotic is that. And regrets....so many regrets - despite declaring all my life that I don't believe in them.

    Fuck getting older - if it gets worse I'd rather go now.

    I do still think there is a zeitgeist of reckoning operating ion the world. I look at the global picture - a perfect storm of climate karma, the effects of overpopulation and decades of rampant consumersism, all fuelled by alpha-male ego destructiveness. The rising up of the Goddess is upon us and she isn't taking prisoners, even us women-folk.

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  6. Hi Michelle. I will ring you in the morning x

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