cukey

So I am a small windowless building but the reality is I use to be a much bigger windowless building which is truly saying something.
I wasnt always that way but after events in my life it was a defense mechanism.  I figured that if I got huge then I would be left alone but boy did that not work.  So then after much more crap I found myself not only still being chased by men in a negative sense but also fricking huge.  GAWD.

So I was 46kgs down...put 9 back on...and am losing the extra bits again.  I'll always be boobs and bum...I have the Tasmanian backshelf.  Its an evolutionary thing that stems from Tasmanian men needing somewhere to sit their beers.

Generally these days I feel happy with who I am.  I still have men chatting me up left right and centre when I go out and such like but occasionally I am reminded of the journey and the reason for the journey and that just sucks.

It's amazing what things you find when you are cleaning out drawers.  What a dark time this was.


First there is shock, then a deep, deep sadness.
All thoughts flee and all you can do is stare into nothing.

You wait in the nothing waiting for a saviour to rescue you from it.

No saviour comes.

Confusion comes though.

You slowly grip the edges of the nothing trying to drag yourself from it's grip.  Eventually you escape only to find yourself in a new place, a place called shame.

How cruel is this place?  It torments you, it deconstructs your sense of self until all that remains is your brokeness.

Once again you wait for a saviour.

No one comes.

In your brokeness you try to be normal but you no longer recognise normal.  Normal left you long ago.

You wear a mask hoping no one will see how different you are but how do you cover the pain and heal?

After shame, anger finds you.
It stalks you, torments you with it's cruelty, it's harshness.
It reminds you of all that has been.
At night it mocks you.  It shows you all.
It lives well in the emptiness.

You wait for a saviour....

...but no one comes.

In the anger you eventually realise that this is not what is meant for you.

You crawl wounded and hurt from it before falling back into the pit of sorrow and shame.

You wait for a saviour....


....but no one comes.
                              T.J. 2004-2005

I've been sick this week.  I have managed to have a couple of mornings in bed but generally life goes on.  I still have had to work. still have had to do concerts and you know what...it's sucked.  Really and truly sucked.  All I have wanted to do is sleep and get better. 

During my feverish times I have reflected on recent events and to be honest that sucks too. 

I feel overwhelmed by this sadness sometimes, I just don't know what to do.

I miss some things...some friendships that arent what they were...friends that have had to move on for whatever reason.

I miss the way things were but then the way they were wasn't good either...so youre screwed either way...I dunno.


I guess I should be grateful for the friends I still have in my life and move on...but moving on is hard to do when youre sick.

I promise to make a decent attempt at it when I'm better.

12 years ago.  I remember getting the call. Gawd.  On the 24th August 1997 I farewelled my dad who had been staying with me.  For some reason the act of saying I love you and seeing him saying the words too has stuck in my mind so vividly.  It was getting dark and I was standing on the top step and he stood at the bottom next to a white rose bush.  He leaned around the bush and came back to say it to me.  I know it seems silly but I do so vividly.  The next day was his birthday he had travelled back for dialysis in Dunedin so I wasn't going to see him.  That afternoon I got a call.  It was Dad...he had had a brain hemorrhage and couldnt talk.  He had been rushed to theater to try and relieve the swelling on his brain.  His damn birthday for goodness sake.  
 
I drove to Dunedin immediately to be with him.  When I got there he was in critical care in a coma.  I stayed in Dunedin until 30th August which was the weekend.  I had to go home to sort things out and get some more clothes and things.  I also had to think.  My Dad had always hated it when I spoke about God with him, he considerd me to be a flake.  He had had a bad experience with a Billy Graham crusade in his youth.  So he never wanted to talk about it.  The whole time I had been in Dunedin I had a nagging feeling that I should talk to him about God/Jesus but I felt so conflicted knowing how he felt about it.*sighs*

So when I got back to Dunedin I sat with Dad.  I decided I needed to talk to him about God...I know...but it was important to me at the time to do that.  He was still in a coma and I hoped with all my heart he could hear me.  I told him that the thought of him dying and not going to heaven was too much for my heart to bear.  The thought of not being with him was horrible and I sobbed and cried for him.  Then I went through the sinners prayer with him.  

On the 31st August we were called into a small room to talk with the specialists who informed us that they had decided that if he lived he could possibly end up in a vegetative state and so they had decided not to give him dialysis anymore.  They had decided...not us...they had.  We had no choice.  They didn't know that he definitely would be a vegetable but they were going to withhold the treatment he needed to survive.  I thought there were laws about that kind of thing. We had no choice, our hands were tied and the rest of his family just seem to accept it.

So they unhooked everything and put him in a quiet room to die.  That was the purpose of the room...a dying room.
The family decided to sit with him as he died but I couldnt bring myself to do it.  I know that might seem like chicken liver stuff to some but I could not sit and watch the one person that meant the universe to me die.  I couldn't do it.  To make matters worse and this will sound pathetic but I am very smell driven and when a person is dying in Dunedin they would put drops of lavender in the persons mouth to get rid of the smell I death.  I hated the smell of lavender for years after that. *shudders*

So I went back to the hotel and slept until the phone call came in the early hours...he was gone.  
My heart broke but I didn't shed a single tear for him at that time.  It was a horrible time just horrible.

In fact I didn't cry for him at all until at his funeral after I sang Ave Maria for him (something I was determined to do was sing for my Dad at his funeral) as the final note faded away I broke down into tears.  I had done what needed to be done.  The reality is if I had let myself mourn him before that moment there is no way I could have sung.

Anyway anyway...Dads death also symbolises the destruction of my family.  Deaths bring out the greed and dysfunction in families.  It was one of the bleakest times of my life and ended badly but anyway...

I have spent the last 12 years trying hard not to think about any of it.  I try not to think about what he was like, how I felt about him and growing up with him as a solo parent.  Whenever little thoughts of him would creep into my mind the hurt and pain and loss flooded in quickly.  So I just learnt to stop any thoughts of him at all.  I have decided however to spend today actively remembering him.  I'm going to go to the cemetery (in the rain) and lay some flowers and sit for a while.  I'm going to sob and wail and gnash my teeth and remember the good and the bad today as hard as it is...I have to.  12 years is too long to shut someone you love so much out of your life.

So there you go...12 years...at the age of 56.  
 

Overwhelmed by those around you
Emotions paraded in a cloak of darkness
Lost in a sea of tormented hearts
Drowning in a despair of someone elses creation
What becomes of the anguish?
What becomes of the tattered remnants of a soul destroyed???
Nothing....nothing.

My lips are sore from pouting today

I wish I wouldnt worry about things I have no control over.

*grumbles*

Generally I love my job....but today I hate it.  It's really the people who don't man up and tell you when they have an issue thats getting me down.  I hate hearing whispers....  I hate being the last person to find stuff out.


Stupidheads.....

Man, I am so not patient *wails and gnashes teeth*

I hate that feeling of wanting something to happen now that you know is going to happen but it's not the time yet.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It makes me want to roll around on the floor kicking my heels and thrashing about like a 2 year old.

I want it now!! I want it now!!! I want it now!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!


LOL okay...I'm fine now.  I will wait patiently.

* blows huge raspberries* thhhhhhhhhhhhhrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrppppppppppppppppppppp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah, much better :o)

I need to go to the gym.  Really really need to.  It's been ages since I have been for various reasons.  Even the gym chicky noticed and txted me to find out where I was.  So I planned to go yesterday so I could get back in to the routine.  Then on Sunday night I tried to break my foot.  Sitting in A&E yesterday feeling desperately sorry for myself all I could think about was how guilty I felt that I wasn't at the gym. *sighs*
Well, it's not broken thank goodness but today I'm resting it in the hope that I can kick arse at the gym tomorrow.

You can't truly know everything about another person.  I'm not saying that the person hides things intentionally from you but there is always something that remains hidden...intentionally or not.

I've pretty much lived my life with the catchphrase of "guard your heart".  I share different things with different people.
There are only a handful of people that really know, know me.  In fact probably less than a handful.

Alas I have also found that the more I share with people the more I open myself up to being hurt by that person.  Which is not their fault and not my fault it just is what it is.  I guess the reality is I'm not very good at guarding my heart.

Anyway anyway, during the last few weeks I have had complaints from a person in my life that I don't tell them everything and that I am hiding things.  Thats what got me thinking...don't we all have a right to keep something for ourselves? or is it our duty to expose ourselves completely to someone in our lives eventually? 


Ramble ramble...ah well it's all bullshit in the end anyways ay.

There is a mourning that takes place when a relationship changes.  I dont even mean when one ends but any change can start a mourning process.

It could be when you stop meeting a girlfriend for a drink after work on a Tuesday or when the guy that would ring you with stupid questions just before bed once a week stops.

There is a loss.  You probably never even considered the things or the relationship significant enough to mourn but it happens anyway.


Mourning is a healthy thing.  It sucks big bananas as you work through it...but its healthy.

Fives years ago I was attacked by a man who was not only an elder in my church but was/is also a neighbour.  He was 69 at the time and I trusted him as he had a lot to do with my family, was loved by all that knew him and in reality I felt I had no reason not to trust him.

He set me up completely.  He planned how he would get me where he wanted me.  He knew what he would say and how he would act.  It was completely premeditated.  He knew exactly what he was going to do that day....

I won't go in to details here because they won't do any good to anyone and the vivid images in my head are for me to live with, not the rest of the world.


The end result of this whole event was him eventually pleading guilty in court to a lessor charge.  Lessor because I didn't have the strength to speak the words that were needed.  There were many many reasons, some were very selfish.

Since his sentencing he has continued to torment me.  He drives slowly past my house staring intently in.  He waves to me as I pass him driving home.  A couple of months ago it reached a whole new level when he showed up on my doorstep asking if he could talk to me.

When I saw him standing at my doorway I was so incredibly scared.  This man represents so much to me.  This time however I didn't freeze.  I yelled at him to go and slammed the door in his face. 

I was so angry that he dare feel he is able to do such a thing as turn up at my home.  He obviously still feels he did nothing wrong. 

However, I learnt something about myself that morning.  I learnt that I have reclaimed a piece of myself.  Instead of freezing and not fighting back as I should have done the day he did what he did.  I reacted.  I didn't let him win again.  I valued myself enough to protect myself. 

Why am I bringing this up now?  I guess because I realised how much I have moved forward.  Until a couple of months ago I couldn't even walk to my mailbox because I was terrified of seeing him or of him seeing me.  I struggled to visit friends, I wouldn't go out much, I was living with constant flashbacks, nightmares and other Post traumatic stress related issues.

I've come a hell of a long way in the last few months.

Lying in bed staring at the ceiling
which is bloody hard in the dark
So I lie there and listen
all I hear is my own breath
My mind is racing as usual

-TJ 8/09