Answer

"Think of me when you're out, when you're out there
I'll beg you nice, from my knees
And when the world treats you way too fairly
Well it's a shame I'm a dream

All I wanted was you..."


Today I lay on my bed and stared out the window as a cloud turned into a dragon, then to a dog, then to a mouse, and then disintegrated like candyfloss.
As I watched I was thinking:


"Why doesn't anybody think before they speak?"

"Am I not allowed to have a moment of weakness? A moment of insecurity?"

"Don't I deserve to have that insecurity vanquished?"

"Do I always have to be the strong one?"

"What do you do when your body and mind are fully rested, but your soul is exhausted?"

"Does anyone really know how I feel?"

"If not, then where do I go to get the answer?"

"In trying to stop beating myself up all the time, have I gone the opposite way? Do I now think I'm better- kinder, prettier, more fun, more patient, more thoughtful, more selfless- than I really am?"

"Why do I get so insecure?"

"What is wrong with me?!"

Abandoned

"The truth is hiding in your eyes
And it's hanging on your tongue
Just boiling in my blood
But you think that I can't see
What kind of man you are
If you're you a man at all...
Well I will figure this one out on my own
On my own...

I'm screaming 'I love you so'
But my thoughts you can't decode.

How did we get here?
I used to know you so well.
How did we get here?
I think I know..."


People are strange. You think you know them, and then they go and do something totally unexpected.
Some people are stranger than others, and this kind of strangeness spills over into the relationships they have with other people. The relationship becomes strange... becomes something out of the ordinary, something others cannot understand. From the outside it can look wrong, disturbing, unnatural; but from the inside it's the safest thing each person knows. For some, it can become like a back stop. A fall net. When your boyfriend breaks up with you, this friend is there to help you not to lose your sense of beauty or worth. When your other friends get petty and catty and ditch you, this friend is there to make sure you are not alone. When the world fails you, this friend is there to step in. And when you have a friend like that, you will defend them to the end. You defend their anomalies, their strangeness, their failings, and especially you defend your relationship, because no matter how intense and unnatural it may seem to others, it's your security.

We were tight. We were tighter than tight. But he has disappeared off the face of my earth, and it's like a rug being pulled from under my feet. I fell, and my safety net should have caught me halfway down... but I'm still falling, and I think I'm beginning to realise that sooner or later I'm going to have to save myself... or break into pieces on the ground.

It almost feels like losing a partner. I dread seeing him around uni, and yet I wish I would because then I could shout at him. I could demand to know where he was when I needed him. I could make him hurt, and be sorry, and then maybe... just maybe... we could be friends again. I could have my net back. I could be safe again. I could stop feeling so abandoned. So bewildered. So lost.

"Where were you when I was burned and broken,
While the days slipped by from my window watching?
Where were you when I was hurt and I was helpless?
Because the things you say and the things you do surround me.
While you were hanging yourself on someone else's words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun."

Chapter Four: Apathy

"Still it's hard to just get by
It seems so meaningless to try
When all I want to do is cry
No-one ever knew I was so sad

Cause even though I get so high
I know that I will never fly
And when I fall out of the sky
Who'll be standing by?

Will you be standing by?"

A month or so ago I went on the pill and things have not been the same since. I've felt so down all the time... not the drama-filled, stormy down that I'm used to, but a general rainy cloud over my head. I've never really had mood swings before, but I know now what they are. Happy one minute, sad the next, for no apparent reason. And I feel so hopeless and helpless to resist... and in fact, it's as if I don't want to. I'm drowning in apathy. I don't care.

But I know that in an hour or so I probably will care.

It's so confusing having this leaping thing inside my head all the time. Up, down, up, down. I worry that next time I have to make a proper decision about something important, I'll be on a down and not make the right one.

But next time you see me, I'll probably be smiling.

Staying happy these days is like reaching for a star. I'm a long way down and it's a long way up, and I'm scared that if I ever catch it, it will burn my hands.

Purgatory

"The world is a drought when out of love
Please come back to us
You're all of the above
'I'm making a choice to be out of touch.
Leave me be,' He said, he said, he said...

'Leave me here in my stark raving, sick, sad little world!
Leave me here in my stark raving, sick, sad little world!'"



I haven't posted for a while... I guess there hasn't really been anything to say. I'd closed that chapter- it was quite a short one I guess. I thought it'd be that easy. Cut the ties. Turn in a new direction. Start a new chapter. I should've known.
It was really weird actually. I was thinking that as I loaded up my blog, and then the latest entry under Danny's blog said something quite similar. That seems to happen to us a lot.

Today I logged into msn for the first time in ages to sort out my mess of a hotmail inbox. There was a message from Shadowboy in it, just a general thing sent out to everyone. He called it Travel Log, and it was just an account of what'd happened to him so far... but reading it made me so... so sad. I suddenly realized that, by cutting the ties I had to him as more than a friend, I'd almost cut him out of my life. Made him someone neutral, normal, unknown. And it hurt. Evidently there are still some sore spots from where I cut the ties, and they haven't healed yet.
So, patience. I must have patience and wait for them to heal. Silly really- I shouldn't've thought that it'd be that fast and easy. I should've listened to you, Danny, when you said time. Twice.

I'm in purgatory. In limbo. Just waiting.

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.