Prediction

"Shame on us
We knew from the start.
May god have mercy on our dirty little hearts.
Shame on us
For all we have done
And all we ever were
Just zeros and ones."


I have just realised that nobody in the house drinks milk except for me. I was away this past week and the open carton in the fridge was half full and smelled off, while the unopened carton expires tomorrow.
I'm not sure why this hit me in such a strange way. I guess it's just prediction of the near future... I wonder if anyone will buy milk when I move out? This week was like a test for my parents of how it's going to be in about a month's time. They missed me so much it was kind of sad. And ever since I made them see that me moving out was a reality, they've been behaving much better. They've been much nicer to me and to each other.
My cat is at the vet at the moment, staying in the cattery because they can't figure out what's wrong with him. He's not eating or drinking well and he's lethargic and there's something wrong with his liver. I really, really hope he gets better; it would be so utterly horrible if he died. Not just because I'd miss him so much, but for my parents. Their youngest child is already moving out and all they'd have left after me is Shandy. What if he's not here?

Despite all my complaints and their inadequacy and horribleness, I don't want them to be lonely.

Educate

"Why do I feel so numb?
Is it something to do with where I come from?
Should this be fight or flight?
I don't know why I'm constantly reeling.

Helpless hysteria
A false sense of urgency
Trapped in my phobia
Possessed by anxiety."


I had my first day of music teacher training today. It was... intense. There's so much they feel the have to educate us on... and I'm paying attention as I've never paid attention before, despite the feeling that it's all common sense. You know, stuff about being friendly and that. I don't know, I'm going to have to look through my notes again. My head is overfull of information; it doesn't even know where to start cataloging.

Also I had an instant coffee today with too much coffee in it and went on a nasty caffeine trip. I got all anxious and panicky and sick-feeling. Why do I do that to myself? Why haven't I learned about my low tolerance for caffeine? I had two coffees and a tea today. I must get out of the habit of drinking things like that just to look grown up. I think this is an example of what that girl said today, Laney (the other new vocal teacher), that learning is conscious. You have to choose to learn from something.

A tiny baby has just come into the world. My niece, Lyrical. She is so, so tiny. It's daunting. I feel afraid when I hold her, nervous of the huge responsibility that comes with such a tiny thing. I loved the idea of "Auntie Sheen" but now that it's down to it, I'm scared. The vulnerability and dependence of a newborn baby is staggering. Her entire life, aspects of her personality and her behaviour, they are in our hands.

What will she learn?


Well, I'll teach her to sing. And that coffee is bad for you.

Escape

"I'm gonna paste you up, cover you in wallpaper
Screw shelves into you and call you a wall
That's all you are to me, trying to keep people inside
Inside your sordid little house; this is no white abode

You can have skirting board shoes and plug sockets on your knees
I'll hang a painting on your lip
And put tinsel 'round it at Christmas
Trying to keep people inside, inside your sordid little house
Trying to keep people inside, inside your sordid little house.

You can't keep us inside much longer now
We've seen the view from the windows..."


I have an escape route.
It won't be much longer that I have to live with this. To put up with them hurting and doubting me. "You'll never manage," dad said. "You'll never cope." What kind of parent tells their child that?
And the shouting. If it's not at each other it's at me or someone else. The whole atmosphere in this house has become poisonous. I won't be sorry to leave, now. Not now that I have my escape.
It might hurt them, what I'm going to do. I don't much care anymore. They can't make me stay, not by law. And I won't let them use words.

Chapter Six: Out

"So fill your head with what you think you understand.
My ears grow tired of listening to this constant recital
Lend yourself only when it suits
For this worthy cause, for this worthy cause
Feed the elevation that you so desperately, so desperately...

And in this voice of confidence
Too proud to admit flawed opinions
Bound to his verbal crusade
Preaching his infected position.
These tones will always deceive the unfamiliar
Still glorifying your misperception.

SO IN LOVE WITH THE SOUND OF YOUR OWN VOICE
And why? You would talk for eternity
The watcher runs
With the circles of his debate
And in the end, what's been achieved?"


It's definitely time to move out.

When you admit a huge weakness in your character; when you ask a small favour of your mother in order to help you overcome this weakness, and you are denied on the grounds that this person who is meant to love you and care for you is too lazy and busy to do this small thing for you... it's definitely time to move out.

When you come home late, exhausted from a stressful weekend worrying about and crying over your soulmate who has had to spend a night in hospital, and from nursing him back to health; when your father attacks you so personally that you break down in tears and sob so hard you cannot draw breath, and even then he has no pity for you; when your mother calls you selfish, thoughtless and immature, and then expects you to come over to the couch and make her feel like she hasn't done anything wrong... it's definitely time to move out.

When neither parent seems to understand how the weight of keeping peace in the family, the weight of all their countless fights, the weight of the negative emotion that they spread in any house that they live in; how that weight descends upon you and bears you down, crushes you to the floor while you try and lift it away from yourself... it's time. It's time. It is time.

From now, the money I earn from teaching is going towards that one goal. I will endure until I have enough. Then I will leave.
I've been procrastinating, inventing and imagining amazing situations where I could keep my beautiful new house with my window seat and evict my parents, evict that negative emotion. I haven't faced the fact that it will take sacrifices to escape this situation. I feel like I've grown up all of a sudden.

I have to get out of here.

Chapter Five: Accident

"Hopelessly drifting
Bathing in beautiful agony
I am endlessly falling
Lost in this wonderful misery
In peaceful sedation I lay half-awake
And all of the panic inside starts to fade
Hopelessly drifting
Bathing in beautiful agony."

I didn't want to go, really. It was Jared's first time in the South Island and we really would rather have stayed in Christchurch and seen the sights there. But we got roped into it... and really, once we'd left, it was very fun. Until it wasn't.
We all piled into the car: my brother Dylan, his wife Tania, her daughter Azriel, Jared and I. Off we went on a 2-hour drive up to Porter Heights, the nearest snow-covered mountain. As we went through the curiously flat Christchurch countryside, Azzy was remarking upon all the farm animals; she reminded me of me at her age. "Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep..." she'd chant. And then "cow, cow, cow, cow...". Horses deserved a special exclamation and she'd point them out to me, because I said I loved horses too. We had a lot of fun laughing at her because somehow she knew all the pop radio songs, even Lady Gaga and all those people. Nobody had a clue where she'd learned them from.
Eventually we got there, not without a few "are we there yet"s. We parked the car, kitted up in our borrowed snow gear and set off.
As Tania, Jared, Azzy and I set off up the snowy walkway, Dylan decided he'd go and see how much it was to rent a toboggan. It seemed the only place to toboggan was the walkway we were trudging up, which seemed strange, so after throwing a few snowballs at each other and slipping over a couple of times, we approached a ski instructor to ask where the best spot was. He waved us over to a rather steeper hill on our left.
It was tough going to climb up this hill. Too tough for Azzy and the pregnant Tania, in fact. So Dylan had the first go, climbing up the slope about four metres and sliding from there. Azzy got the next go, from about two meteres up the slope. In the meantime Jared and I set to climbing the near-sheer snowy incline. I got to a patch of exposed tussock grass and sat on it, my legs tired already. To my left was a cliff of about four or five feet; to my right was a gentler slope. Dylan climbed up to us with the toboggan and we surveyed the path down.
Even Jared said that he wasn't going to do it, that it looked too risky. But none of us seemed to be thinking properly. Maybe the cold air, with so much less oxygen, got to our brains. Maybe it was just spur of the moment. But I decided to go. Fearless, I laughed at Jared. "Move over, chicken boy", I teased, and crawled over to where Dylan was holding the toboggan. "Be careful", he warned. "Once you get in the thing it's going to start moving straight away."
I planned to aim for the hill to my right, so I wouldn't pick up so much speed. But Dylan was right. Once I sat in the toboggan, he let it go... and I had no control.
It took off so fast that I was whiplashed onto my back. It started sliding away to the right and went over the five-foot cliff. I landed heavily on my left side, still in the toboggan. It curved off the the right and I came out of it and kept sliding straight ahead, right into a fence. The bottom board hitting my jaw spun me around and stopped me.

All this time I wasn't afraid, I was just so bewildered. The whole way down I was just going, "what?".

Winded, I struggled between the impulse to breathe and the impulse to scream. Screaming won and I yelled, as loudly as I could for as long as I could... and then everything went black.

The thing that struck me about it was how peaceful it was. No light, no sound, nothing... just velvety warm darkness, like that moment between sleeping and waking. I could've quite happily stayed there forever. I was utterly, totally and completely convinced that in a moment I'd wake up safe and warm in my bed back at my sister's place after having a bad, bad dream. And then I heard Jared. I couldn't hear what he was saying, but I heard his voice, and I thought 'oh, right. Jared', and opened my eyes.
The next few seconds were the most terrifying experience of my life.

There were people all around me. I couldn't see a single face I knew and they were all way, WAY too close. I didn't want them there, I wanted space, I wanted air, I wanted to organize my thoughts and figure out why I was on this hillside and what had happened to me before I dealt with anything else. I was horrified. The next second, pain hit me. I screamed and screamed and screamed, right into the face of a lady paramedic. In the same instant I noticed that my jaw felt wrong, that there was blood and tiny hard bits of tooth in my mouth. I wanted to ask if I had any teeth missing but I couldn't stop myself yelling long enough. I was so, so frightened. Then I noticed someone was holding my hand, and I managed to calm myself enough to listen to what that person was saying.
"Love, it's alright. It's okay, I'm here." Jared. Jared was here. I tried to process that. If Jared was there, then everything was fine. He kept up that chant the whole time, holding me in, keeping me sane.

I managed to answer the paramedic's questions between involuntary moans and sobs. One of the guys had a hat in the shape of a fox on his head and I remember being worried that I was hallucinating, and then wanting to laugh, even in the midst of my terror and pain. They checked me for paralysis and I could move my legs and arms. I remember saying "thank God". I know Tania's face popped up at one point, detailing out what had happened to me in the logical way that she has. I remember Dylan, with a strange face on that looked like he wanted to smile for me but was too worried for it.
Eventually they got me back to the first aid place on the mountain. They did more checks and said I'd chipped a tooth, but they were all still there and I hadn't broken anything. I had huge bruises on my jaw and my ribs, and a deep, deep cut on my leg, but when I was ready I could go.

At the end of the day I struggled to my feet and somehow made it down the hill to the car, leaning on Jared and Dylan. They settled me in the front seat and, with Tania driving very, very carefully, we started back home. And that would have been that, if I hadn't started bleeding out of my ear.
Dylan called dad and explained everything, saying that he'd probably take me to Christchurch hospital and to meet us there...

...a few kilometres away, my mother and sister turned to each other and said, "She didn't want to go"...

...We got there eventually and they wheeled me into A&E. I remember protesting proudly against the wheelchair, but succumbing to group pressure. Jared had to leave while we were waiting and he was away quite a while. When he came back I gave him my hand; I could see that he'd been crying and I said softly, "oh, love...". He buried his face in my hand and his and broke down. It must have been so horrible for him to watch me slip away.

Eventually, after many x-rays and examinations, they told me that my jaw was broken in three places; down the middle and on each corner. Because my ribs were just bruised, I was okay to go back to my sister's place.
I was so afraid to sleep that night. I was terrified I'd wake up back on that mountain, back in that nightmare. But I was exhausted, and there was no fighting it.


I won't dwell on the other appointments; the painful plane trip home, the annoying south african doctor who said I'd have to have my jaw wired shut, my determination that I wouldn't, my healing of myself so much so that I impressed the surgeon who came to check me out, my slow-seeming but relatively fast healing ribs, the plethora of drugs and pills I had to take for the first week and the alternate birthday celebration I had to have.
But now I have experienced being hurt that badly, and I never want to again. And it could have been so much worse. I'm lucky.

It could have been so. Much. Worse.

Assignment

My first English 121 Assignment:

"The tearing crunch of gravel spoke directly to my memory. It threw me back over seven years ago, over the handlebars onto the path of a park in Mt. Albert. As I blinked and turned around visions of a ten-year-old’s exaggerated injuries crossed my eyes and I started to think about that evening; that moment when I sat, still dazed and tumbled, blinded by the simple realization that the world- and the people who live on it- is not as kind as we think.

It had been one of my father’s failed attempts at getting me into exercise. He was tall and thin, dark-haired and a bit of a fitness freak; I was blonde, short and chubby, so it was inevitable that he would endeavor to turn me to the dark side. I was somewhat unimpressed by all this, but he was my dad and I had to humour him.
Every evening after dinner we would go for a bike ride through the local park. I had to have an escort, because it was the kind of park where people hung out and smoked strange smelling cigarettes and dumped trolleys from Pak n’ Save in the creek. The pathways through it were made of loose, chunky gravel, hazardous at best for an inexperienced cycler. Dad was teaching me how to use the gears, as up till then my own personal choice of wheels had been pink and sparkly with a back-pedal brake and streamers on the handlebars. He was always telling me to push harder, especially on the inclines. At the time I thought he just wanted me to “challenge myself”, but this wasn’t the case; and like so many childhood accidents waiting to happen, I didn’t listen.
On one particular hill I was slowing near the top. One tiny, inconsequential handlebar movement later and I was in the air, flying sideways, the wheels of my ten-speed ripping through the gravel as it toppled. With a sound like the tearing of a dove’s wings, I landed, sliding for metres, bewildered and panting.

My family used to call me a “drama queen”, and make out that the things that I got worked up about were trivial, and I was just looking for attention. But the truth is I was never very good with attention. If I’ve been upset by something and somebody tries to be nice to me, it only makes me cry more. If I’ve fallen, I’d rather people just left me be, because I get so embarrassed. But if I ever needed attention, I made enough fuss to get noticed. If I ever needed comfort, it was then.

“Are you alright?” My dear father said, laughter shaking his words slightly. I know now that this is a male thing- they can’t help but laugh at people falling over- but at the time I couldn’t believe that he could be so condescending.
“No, no, I’m not alright!” I responded hysterically.
Dad pedaled over to me and sat on his own mountain bike like a disapproving statue, towering over me. “Come on,” He said. “Get up.”
I found this such an inadequate response that I didn’t even try to comply. I just sat there, defeated and hurting, as my many scrapes and cuts began to sting and bleed.

All this jumped through my head in an instant when I heard that sound again, the tearing of someone’s pride, happiness and skin all at once. The scrape of flesh and metal against concrete. I turned around on the stairs and saw a boy who looked around my age half sitting, half lying on the ground. Without thinking, without even alerting the friend I was walking with, I rushed back down the steps. An instinct as strong as motherhood and not far from it urged me to run to this boy’s side. I crouched and extended my hand to him and saw my ten-year-old face gaze back up at me out of memory, dazed and confused and upset.
I knew what we were thinking, both my child self and this young man. True altruism is becoming rarer and rarer in this world. With our mouths we say, “Yes, I do help people when they are in need”. With our minds, we begin to quietly reel off exceptions. Unless I’m too busy. Unless I’m running late. Unless there’s lots of people watching. Unless they are fat, ugly, poor, rich, black, white, Asian…
Since that evening seven years ago, I’ve made my mind echo my mouth. I help people in need. No exceptions.
Today I can’t figure out why the fallen boy sat there so long, why he didn’t take my hand and get up. The look on his face still baffles me; he looked childlike, astounded… as if he had found his own epiphany in the dust."

Breathing

"You...
You believed ...
You believed in movements none could see.
You believed in me...

I'm alright now...
It's time for us to let you go."



With the absence of many of her possessions, and the presence of so much of her love, I feel stronger.
I'll love and I'll live for her. I'll play piano and I'll sing. I'll help others, I'll be a shoulder to lean upon. I'll be thoughtful and loving and kind. I'll do my best to be her, so the world isn't robbed of another wonderful spirit.

I have big shoes to fill. A big soul to fill. But I'll do my best.

I love you, Nana. I'll see you later.

Atmosphere

"Since you've been gone I've been lost inside
Tried and failed as we walked by the riverside
I wish you could see the love in her eyes
The best friend that eluded you lost in time
Burned alive in the heat of a grieving mind

But what can I say now?

And it couldn't be more wrong cause there's no one there
Unmistakably lost and without a care
Did we lose all the love that we could have shared
And it's wearing me down, and it's turning me round
And I can't find a way now to find it out
Where are you when I need you?

Are you there?"


I should know by now that movies and tv shows are nothing like real life. But once again real life has gotten sick of being ignored and has come back to bite me.
On screen when someone dies, it's simple. They die, you grieve, there's a funeral and from that you get closure. Simple. Done and dusted. In real life it's nothing like that.

But that's what I was expecting. I went to Nana's funeral fully expecting that this would close the book; that I could start a new chapter of this life in total security, looking forward, feeling new. And I truly believe that I could've...

The problem is that nobody else was thinking like that. Everyone else is expecting their grief to carry on for ages, and so it will...
I've become a great believer in the school of thought that says that the mind controls everything. If you think you're recovering from a disease, for example, that can go a long way towards making you recover.
I'm a planner. I plan out my week, my month, my year, and that makes me feel like I have a purpose in life, that I'm going somewhere. Because if I didn't feel that then I'd crash. My plans are the only thing that keep me sane. And so I get upset when something or someone happens to upset my plan.
So I planned to feel better after the funeral. I planned to make a fresh start when Uni started again. I planned to look forward, to move on, not to forget Nana but to forget the pain, because she wasn't feeling it anymore. But other people keep screwing it up.

It's not really my elders' fault... I know they have to sort out the legal crap, her will and her possessions need to go somewhere... they do have to think about her all the time. But nobody else seems to think like I do.
This is going to sound so horrible and tactless, but I'm sick of thinking about it. I'm sick of everyone thinking about it. Don't they understand that life has to go on? Don't they know that the faster they move on the better they'll feel?
And even if they can't stop thinking about her... I just wish they wouldn't keep mentioning her to me. "Oh, Nana would've loved that..." "Nana would've been so pleased/so proud/so tickled about that"... Would've, would've, WOULD'VE. The plain fact is that she's gone. We all know this. Why do we have to keep reminding ourselves of it? Why does everyone feel the need to do that?
If they're going to keep doing that, I kind of wish they'd all just leave me alone.

And yet I know all this is me acting incredibly selfishly. And I hate it.

I don't know what to do. I'm so impatient for life to go back to normal. And when I leave this house it nearly is. Nearly. But the instant I get back the weight of the family grief descends upon me like an avalanche.

I think what I'm trying to say here is that I'm fine. All the denial and the heartache and the other assorted crap that people usually have to deal with when someone they love dies... I've dealt with it. I should be fine... but I feel like other people aren't letting me get over it.

Oblivion

"Why? Tell me the reasons why
Try, still I don't understand
Will I ever feel this again?
Blue sky, I'll meet you in the end..."



My Nana died on Thursday at 4.30pm.

As I walked through with the rest of my family to say goodbye to her, I turned my head to look out the ranch slider. The afternoon sun hit me full on my face, and it filled up my eyes with warm golden light. My first thought was what a beautiful afternoon...

When I walked into her room my eyes first fell onto my Mum. She was an absolute mess. I went to cuddle her. Then I looked at Nana. But she wasn't there.
Her body lay there like... an object. An absence of life. I couldn't even look at it- not because I was afraid, or even sad. Just because there didn't seem any point. She wasn't there. She was everywhere... everywhere else. In the afternoon sun in my eyes. In the dust motes in the air. In the tears of every person in the room.

I let go of Jared's hand. I walked over to the body on the bed and laid my hand on its arm. I looked into the sun, and then I spoke. "I just want to say, thank you. For being such a wonderful Nana. And for giving us this lovely... lovely afternoon."

I left the room, straight-backed, as dignified as I could be. Jared followed. I made it all the way to the deserted lounge, and then I was immobilized by the swelling of terror and grief. I felt like screaming, shouting, doing something to show the world some part of how horrible it was going to be without her with us. Instead I choked it down, stifled the cry, let it stream out of me in tears and trembling. Jared and I held each other as the despair rained down from the ceiling of the house my Nana had lived in since the age of sixteen.



We went for a walk down to the end of the street, to revel in the beauty and promise of the evening Nana gave us. Peace began to enter my heart with the cold air in my lungs, and I looked up to the sky, right into her eyes. She's where she belongs.

Glimmer

"And if it ends today
I'll still say that you shine brighter than anyone..."

Things that have made me smile this week:


The convenience store on K Road. On the static sign above the shop it says, "ONE STOP CONVENIENCE!". On the flashing neon sign on the window it says "ONE STOP CONVENIANCE!".

The manhole on Wellersley Street with part of the white road marking line painted over it, that's been accidentally put back into the road so that that portion of the white line is at a right angle to the rest of the line on the road.

The hippie guy in his brightly coloured psychedelic t-shirt, meditating in between the roots of a huge tree in Albert Park. I wish I'd gone to chat with him!

My bright blue stockings.

Waving at Danny across the park, awkwardly as I had part of a chelsea bun in each hand...

Craccum; I thought it'd be some gay little newsletter thing, but it's absolutely fantastically mad.

"Find Biker Girls
Meet Local Biker Girls Near You. View Profiles 100% Free. Join Now!"- proof that everybody needs love...

Rise Against playing one of the best concerts I've ever been to. Getting rather pummelled at said concert and loving it.

Realizing that after I hand in all my stupid essays, I have two weeks holiday starting next monday.

Nana coming home from the hospital; even though I can't go and hug her as I have a cold.


Resolution: When I go back to Uni, everytime I see someone awesome or think "I should talk to that person", I will.
I will ask the girl selling newspapers on the corner of Victoria Street whether they're supposed to shout like oldschool paper boys.
I will talk to the bus driver about whether they enjoy their job.
I will ask my tutors how they became tutors.

I'm tired of being aloof.

Syncopation

"I'm just a face in the crowd
Nothing to worry about
Not even trying to stand out
I'm getting smaller and smaller and smaller
And I've got nothing to say
Its all been taken away
I just behave and obey
I'm afraid I'm starting to fade away..."


It's so beautiful and sunny outside. Hot, too, if those builders in their shorts are anything to go by. It's crazy to think that about a week and a half ago there was just concrete in the back yard... then, over the course of a day, the framing for the first floor went up... then, just last friday, we came home and the second floor was up too, and the framing for that. It's all happened so fast, it makes me wonder what takes so long when a house is built... Dad says the plumbing and the electricity, and the furnishing, and things like that.
Anyway, it's so beautiful and sunny outside, but inside this house it's freezing. Or maybe it's just me? I've had to move my computer out to the lounge because my room is an icebox. I'll need the electric blanket on my bed soon. And it's still March!
I'm so annoyed with the amount of work I have to do. I've got a written assignment, a 1500 word essay, a sight-singing assessment and a close reading test all on the go all at once this week. I suppose I should've started all this stuff earlier, but nobody told me to. I guess this is my first taste of how Uni is different from school.
But I can't even say that's why I haven't been blogging or commenting or facebooking or beboing or any of that rubbish. I'm constantly very much in danger of making Jared my whole world, forgetting there is more to life, there are more friends and there's more work and other things to do. I have to discipline myself. But even the most time we two can spend together doesn't feel like enough. I'm not sure what to do about it.

My parents were away all weekend down in Christchurch with Meredith and Phil (my sister and her partner) for a much-needed break from the stresses of having a dying mother...

...anyway. Mum said I could have Jared over to stay the weekend, which was astounding; she's very paranoid about no-sex-before-marriage and all that jazz... but she seems to trust us. Which makes me feel bad as we'd already violated her wishes in that respect. But it doesn't matter, really... Jared is my soulmate. We will get married, we just can't afford to right now. It's all just a matter of time.
It was really fun. It was like a little taste of the life we'll have together when we finally save enough to go flatting or buy our own house. It seems strange in this day and age what with career women and whatnot but I have a real housewife-y streak in me- I love cooking for Jared, or with him. I get really excited when I think about future meals and things, and about making the house look nice. Even cleaning doesn't seem so bad when I'm doing it for him. Which I can tell is going to come in handy when we're living together.

I went in to visit Nana on Friday morning and she was so pleased to see me, it was very warm fuzzies. She seems a lot better after going through a hell of a lot of pain because of this operation they gave her to try and prolong her life. We were having a lovely peaceful time until my Uncle Richard showed up.
Richard's a pastor in his family's church. I'm not sure if anyone reading knows this, but my family is really quite Christian... my personal close family is the least religious of the bunch, and Auntie Christine (my mum's sister) and Uncle Richard's bunch are the most.
Anyway, he showed up in Nana's hospital room, in "pastor" mode, and started talking to her about death. He was asking her how she felt about it and going on about "a better place" and "where you belong", and every so often- twice in the space of about twenty minutes- he would notice I was quiet, elbow me in the ribs and say, "Pretty deep stuff eh Sheen!" Nana told him I was working things (spiritual beliefs) out myself, and I said that I'd rather figure it out myself than trust what anyone else fed me, and he said fair enough; but in true Christian style, he decided in his mind that this made me an Athiest, and showed me this little trick with his watch, saying "if I threw all the components of this watch up into the air, how many times would it take for the pieces to fall back into the shape of a watch?", which is supposed to say how could the world have come about by chance. I am not an Athiest!
Then, when I got up to go put my coffee cup in the rubbish bin, he shuffled over and took my place sitting right next to Nana, and she asked him to pray for her before he left. So he took her hand and turned his back towards me- a true cold shoulder. As if me joining in on this prayer would poison it or corrupt it. When he finally left I was in tears.

Lately I've been feeling as if I've reached an age where nobody- least of all me- knows quite what to do with me or how to behave around me. I am an unknown entity. Am I an adult? A child? Do I belong to a religion or not? Am I a friend or an enemy? Do I have full responsibility over myself or can I let others make decisions for me? Who are my friends? Who is my family?
The whole world wants to define me, and I evade its grasp- not because I don't want to be defined, but because I'm not finished yet. Let me do it myself. Don't force me into a mold of someone I will be sick of in five years' time.

I just saw the wood for the roof supports being delivered. Soon the skeleton of the house, its body, will be finished. And then the complicated stuff will begin.
For seventeen years I've been making the skeleton of myself, growing it, letting the plumbers and the electricians and the interior decoraters run riot, swap seats, have food fights, throw parties. Now maybe it's time to sit them all down and get to work on who I really want to be.

Insomnia

"Tell me where our time went, and if it was time well spent
Just don't let me fall asleep feeling empty again
Cause I feel I might break
And I feel I can't take this
Tonight I'll lie awake, feeling empty..."

I can't go through this another night, I surely can't.
Tonight's even worse because there's nobody for me to talk to.



I really should know better than to watch Grey's Anatomy when I have a relative in hospital.

Tonight there was the story of an old couple, where the wife had had multiple operations on a tumor in her brain; so many that every time she went in to have another one, the couple would say "goodbye darling" "goodbye my love"; and when she came back out they'd say hello again.
The wife signed a do-not-resuscitate form, and the husband agreed. But of course, this being Grey's, she didn't come through the surgery, and the husband wouldn't let her go... he continued to keep her heart beating just by pressing on her chest. He said, "I can't let her go. I can't be the one to let her go."
I know the doctors are doing everything they can for my Nana. They're trying to get her well enough to come home; since she can't move herself on her bed at present, and she's too heavy for Mum to move, she has to stay in hospital and get stronger. But... what if something happens in hospital? What if she dies? How can I know, knowing they know she's not going to live that much longer, that they'll do all they can to keep her alive? Is there even any point?
And if she does get well enough to come home, and she dies here... wouldn't she have been better off in the hospital? Couldn't they have done something? Again, is there even any point?

I should know better than to torture myself with "what if". To worry about things that I can't do anything about. But it's me... of course I think these things.


I don't understand how day can be so easy to exist in and night so hard. What is it about the dark and the quiet that brings out the bad feelings in me? In us?
How must Nana be feeling, all alone in that hospital ward? I would hate it. I would want to come home. It's not cold in the hospital, not overly, but it makes me shiver... and the instant I'm alone, it makes me shake. I would hate it. So dark, so cold. So alone. So quiet.
One of the things I fear most in this wide world is silence. I'm terrified of going deaf- not an irrational fear considering the gigs I've played and the music I've listened to. As long as I could still hear I could handle any other sense being lost. But if I lost my ability to listen... if my life was consumed by silence... to never hear my beloved's voice again or listen to him coaxing beautiful sounds out of his instrument, or the wind in the trees, or the sound of John Petrucci shredding with such soul, or the piercing cry of two voices in perfect harmony, or the swish of my beautiful girls in ball gowns, the hum of excited talk, the sound of my Nana's piano, though slightly flat, still giving me a way to express my soul. My whole soul's expression is through sound.

I don't know where I'm going with this ridiculous ramble. I only know that I can't do anything else... I can't distract myself with the rest of the internet, with facebook or bebo, or hotmail or msn, or internet games or blog sites or online comics... or with the Sims or designing houses, or thinking about my future wedding (which is what I usually do when I'm upset). I can't settle on a song to listen to or a book to read. And even if I did have someone to talk to I have no idea what I'd say.





I can't let her go. I could never be the one to let her go.

Chapter One: Inevitability

"Spinning round and round it goes,
I can't let up, I can't let go,
Out of control, my wheels in constant motion."


My Nana and I are very close. She's about the only person in my whole family who I feel connected with; the only person I never get angry at or frustrated with. A kindred spirit in my family full of christians, drama queens and hypocrites.

A few years ago she had breast cancer. Luckily the doctors were able to operate and they removed one of her breasts, annihilating the cancer. At the time the only thing that worried me about it was that it was possible my mum, my sister or I could get it in the future; it might be hereditary.

A few weeks ago Nana started complaining of pains in her chest. We took her to the doctor, who sent her to hospital to get scans and things and sent us home with pain drugs, and we settled down to wait for the results.
Then the pain developed into something else. Nana started having difficulty breathing. So we took her to the doctor again, who diagnosed fluid in the lungs and sent us home with drugs for clearing unnecessary fluid in the body.
My Nana and I are the same. We hate taking pills.
When the breathing problem didn't get better, we went back to the doctor a third time. He acknowledged there was something else wrong and packed her off to hospital. They did more scans and x-rays and things. They couldn't do the scan they wanted to because they had to put dyes through her kidneys and they were too dehydrated from those pills the doctor gave her last time, so we had to wait a while. But they finally got around to it.

The fluid in my Nana's lungs has cancer cells in it. They've also migrated into a bone in the front of her chest. The doctors can operate on the bone and slow down the growth of the cancer, but they can't cure her. They can't make it go away. And they can't yet say how long she has left. Dad thinks it could be up to three months. I remember my heart stopping when he said that. Three months.

This isn't right. She's been around forever. She has to be here for my sister's wedding, for my wedding. For the birth of her first blood great-grandchild. For my graduation. For my life...


When I walked into the hospital today I felt awful. I really hate hospitals... they make me feel nauseous, but not in my stomach, in my heart. It's like all the pain and worry and sadness that's gone on inside that building has somehow seeped into the walls and the lino floors, the doors, the elevators. I know that good things sometimes happen in hospitals too... people do get better, babies are born... but to me, and especially today, a hospital is a hotel for the dying.
Nana is so weak. It's just... so weird to see her like this. Her mind is sharp as ever, but her body is letting her down... she can't walk, she can't even shuffle up in the bed by herself. Every movement causes her pain. Her voice is so quiet and wavery... not that she was a loud person before, but she has always had a firm, strong voice. She's so tired and sleepy all the time... she said "I just want to sleep". I don't know if I have words to sum up how different she is, except for this: she's dying. And there's nothing we can do about it.
Every time I speak to her I think "this is one of the last times I'll say this"... I shouldn't, I should stop myself because it just upsets me, but it's true. It's true.

The day I found out we were losing her, I didn't want to think about it- I still don't. If I close my eyes I'll start thinking about her, but if people can just leave me alone, not touch me, not hug me, just let me sit and stare... it's like I can slow down time. That night I didn't want to sleep. I was afraid of dreaming, or thinking, or waking up and forgetting. I stayed up till 4am deliberately not thinking. I just want to escape. Get me out of this world gone mad.
Last night was okay because I got to snuggle down in the arms of my beloved, but tonight will be another sleepless one.
I don't want to sleep. Nana can have my unused slumber. And soon she'll be under the deepest sleep of all.
I don't want to sleep.

I don't know what I'm going to do without her.