The Song of Purple Summer

Number one, on today's list of three positives.

Facebook Validation.

My Facebook Feed informed me today that one of my friends 'liked' the group "Depression is not a sign of weakness, it is just a sign that we have been strong for too long." Not only do I think that it is the biggest load of bullshit but it doesn't even make any sense. Thank you Facebook for your failed attempt at validating my existence (sarcasm noted?).

Review

After hours spent bearing the depths of my soul, thousands of dollars changing hands and what has become a lifetime of evaporated thoughts, I still don't think anyone really knows me. What frustrates me more is that I don't either.

We have been trying to find one another for months a lifetime. Now we're finally getting close; I can feel it.

Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.

Self-portrait.

In a rabbit-fear I may hurl myself under the wheels of the car because the lights terrify me, and under the dark blind death of wheels I will be safe. I am very tired, very banal, very confused. I do not know who I am tonight. I wanted to walk until I dropped and not complete the inevitable circle of coming home.

But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defenseless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get.

Le sigh...

I have known in my own mind for months that things were bad, but it's only now when my exterior is failing that others are starting to believe it too. It is frightening when you have no control over your own being; the things that you think, say and do, the way you react to others and how much your eyes can give away during periods of particular vulnerability.
I don't believe I am losing hope, rather that I have already lost it. I am coming to terms with the idea that I will be young forever in the eyes of all who know me and am almost relieved that by letting myself lose I really will win in the end.
I technically haven't given up. I have kept my appointments, taken my meds despite my dissatisfaction and have asked for help when the only way out I could see was black.
I went to see A. as soon as she returned from overseas. Having been so ill while she was away and not feeling completely confident about my state of affairs, I thought perhaps the visit would ease my anxiety as she has an uncanny ability to make light of flaws within myself without making me feel dismissed.
Perhaps it only reiterated my worst fears. She noticed the things that no-one else had; the weight loss, my tired eyes and now noticeable hand tremor. I admitted my hatred for my medication and its menagerie of uncontrollable side-effects, my inability to focus and struggle to maintain a minimum standard at work and my almost overwhelming desire to give up completely. If I had been able I would have cried, but my tears have been stolen by my heart which is turning itself a more melancholy shade of blue with every howl of sorrow that only I can hear. She placed a call to Dr Slime who was unsurprisingly unavailable so promised to call before I started work at 1pm.
I received a call from Dr S's secretary asking me if I could come at 3pm.
"No, sorry I have to work."
"Ok, we'll see you at the end of the week then as planned."
Confused, I called A. She was furious. I let her rant for a minute before she relayed the initial conversation she had with Dr S. She was reluctant to mention the possibility of hospital as I demonstrated the exact reaction she had expected. Promising to get him to call me, the conversation ended. I was stunned, before feeling worried, and anxious and ultimately terrified. I was just about to lose my last ounce of control.
I went to work. I can't say that I actually did any work, but I was physically there. My tea break was greeted with a voicemail from Dr S. Amongst a whole message of superficial concern and generalised assumptions he suggested to reduce my medication if I "feel safe". I almost laughed. I found it amusing that someone with an occupation requiring such a high level of knowledge and responsibility could still come across like the next dumb ass. By reducing the dose it left me susceptible to not having a drug concentration in my blood to stop me (fingers crossed!) from dying, but on the other hand, the current therapeutic levels weren't stopping me from wanting to anyway - go work that one out wise guy.
So I thought, whatever? That morning I had run out of capsules and in my haze had forgotten to stop for more. After getting that voicemail I decided I didn't need to worry. I was sick of spending time and money and hope and belief in everything that had previously let me down.
I pushed everything from that day out of my head and focused on being the presentable and hospitable host at my birthday cocktail party. The benefit of hosting such an event is that you are excused from conforming to acceptable party behaviour with the excuse of preparing food and drinks, welcoming guests and controlling the sound and aesthetic environment. The added benefit of a birthday is that there is no such thing as too much to drink.
Knowing full well that my imminent hangover would not appreciate the continuous mixed drinks, I keep drinking anyway. Even when the party moved from venue to venue and my standards slipped enough for me for be unfazed by the cranberry juice streaked down my white skirt, I disregarded the proposition that anything was a bad idea. The possibility of taking risks was almost thrilling, because I had convinced myself that I had nothing left within me to lose. At 3am I decided the idea of walking home from the city was much more appealing than the convenience of a cab and would have done so despite my heels if it hadn't been for a friend pulling me into a taxi and letting it speed off before letting me go.
This morning I woke up still drunk and spent the day ignoring my hangover. It wasn't until dinnertime that I wondered how much of my current state was alcohol induced or withdrawl? Not that I cared really, because when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.

I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.

Am I intolerable? Am I the person that everyone avoids until caught out and pleasantries take over that I, foolishly, mistake for genuine acceptance? Ironically, people are ignorant when they think that I don't notice when I am ignored. My mind is over-analytical; I know when you don't call me back or reply to messages. I see when you change direction in the hall or walk away when you see me coming. Should I be surprised? I'm not that unintelligent - surely I should be able to pre-warn myself that people are fake, misleading and give me false hope that perhaps I mean something to someone; anyone really.
Perhaps with the added year today brings I have made a revelation; I have a constant uphill battle with myself and have already lost to the world. Maybe now is the time to forfeit.

Happy Birthday to Me

A Birthday Present

What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?
It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges?

I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.
When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking

'Is this the one I am too appear for,
Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar?

Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus,
Adhering to rules, to rules, to rules.

Is this the one for the annunciation?
My god, what a laugh!'

But it shimmers, it does not stop, and I think it wants me.
I would not mind if it were bones, or a pearl button.

I do not want much of a present, anyway, this year.
After all I am alive only by accident.

I would have killed myself gladly that time any possible way.
Now there are these veils, shimmering like curtains,

The diaphanous satins of a January window
White as babies' bedding and glittering with dead breath. O ivory!

It must be a tusk there, a ghost column.
Can you not see I do not mind what it is.

Can you not give it to me?
Do not be ashamed -- I do not mind if it is small.

Do not be mean, I am ready for enormity.
Let us sit down to it, one on either side, admiring the gleam,

The glaze, the mirrory variety of it.
Let us eat our last supper at it, like a hospital plate.

I know why you will not give it to me,
You are terrified

The world will go up in a shriek, and your head with it,
Bossed, brazen, an antique shield,

A marvel to your great-grandchildren.
Do not be afraid, it is not so.

I will only take it and go aside quietly.
You will not even hear me opening it, no paper crackle,

No falling ribbons, no scream at the end.
I do not think you credit me with this discretion.

If you only knew how the veils were killing my days.
To you they are only transparencies, clear air.

But my god, the clouds are like cotton.
Armies of them. They are carbon monoxide.

Sweetly, sweetly I breathe in,
Filling my veins with invisibles, with the million

Probable motes that tick the years off my life.
You are silver-suited for the occasion. O adding machine --

Is it impossible for you to let something go and have it go whole?
Must you stamp each piece purple,

Must you kill what you can?
There is one thing I want today, and only you can give it to me.

It stands at my window, big as the sky.
It breathes from my sheets, the cold dead center

Where split lives congeal and stiffen to history.
Let it not come by the mail, finger by finger.

Let it not come by word of mouth, I should be sixty
By the time the whole of it was delivered, and to numb to use it.

Only let down the veil, the veil, the veil.
If it were death

I would admire the deep gravity of it, its timeless eyes.
I would know you were serious.

There would be a nobility then, there would be a birthday.
And the knife not carve, but enter

Pure and clean as the cry of a baby,
And the universe slide from my side.

It has come to my attention that I have a tendency to surround myself with people who aren't emotionally available. Is this a subconscious choice I have made when deciding who I like and don't like? I reject the idea that it is my choice. Everything that I think and feel becomes so amplified in my own head so that I often find it impossible to escape. I crave being able to sit alongside someone and be distracted with things from their mind and the world around us and feel able to say I'm sad, I'm scared or simply I need to be held; to remind myself that this isolated place that I live in really is a part of something bigger and that as hard as it is for me to see sometimes, I still mean enough to someone for them to sit beside me in the first place. Now I just need to find that person.

Florence + The Machine

Don't ask me why, but this is my favourite song at the moment. I think there's something in it that brings me as close to happy as I have ever felt.

You've come this far. You may as well dedicate the next 8 minutes to watching this.

Hug me.

My last hug was a Friday morning, three and a half weeks ago. It came out of no where but was exactly what I needed without my even realising it. Since then I have left the country and returned, had a general anaesthetic, been a patient in 2 different hospitals, completed 2 courses of antibiotics, seen numerous doctors and am up to 7 sick days. So no, I haven't hugged someone today, but gosh it would be appreciated. Any takers?