Dis – oriented : daily reflections

Thursdays usually revolve around me getting to therapy on time but Katina is away at the moment and that is a kind of relief, but it leaves and absence too and apart from that my routine is entirely shot to pieces this week. Jasper seems to have hurt his paw somehow and he wont let me very close to it without letting out an almighty yelp which really startles me, so he hasn’t wanted to be walking first thing and so I have been taking myself off and out and sometimes walking but sometimes just sitting in the car by the lake watching the wildlife and scenery or reading my book in the car. I took myself off to the vegetable markets today for lunch after that and to buy my veggies and fruit but when I got home I felt so very disoriented and very judgey with myself. I judge myself because

my life isn’t together

I spend so much time alone

I didn’t look after my dog properly and now he has hurt himself

I have too many ‘things’ and books because instead of spend time with others I go ‘browsing and cant help picking up trinkets or bric a brac or a book. I seem to be constantly on the look out for books and then judge myself for having too many.

I am sure there also a million other things I am judging myself over all of the time which is why it a big relief to get out of the house and off my constant inner dialogue with myself which never seems to be positive. Its probably not even worth writing about but I am also missing the 3 pm therapy timeslot so maybe this date with the computer page is a stand in, at least for today.

My judgy head seems to have quietened down a little now. I just did a bit of tidying up to appease the inner critic and made a small pile of books I can take to charity, this sort of urge to cleanse or purge myself of ‘stuff’ is not new, but I do have to watch it as I have given away or sold stuff in garage sales in moments of madness I wish I never did : case in point my three fold original album of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road that I used to listen to when I came home from school most afternoons all alone in the lounge room before Dad came home at 5 and barely engaged with me or even said a word. There was also the beautiful antique wooden letter pigeon hole shelf that my ex husband retrieved from a Heritage listed property he was doing the garden maintenance on many years ago when we were first married. I sold that in a moment of madness when trying to purge myself of some of the pain of him leaving me.

This 3 pm time slot still lingers with lonely memories at times and I look back now and see I did not have to be as captured by the loneliness as I could be but somehow the distance/separation pattern has just repeated. I had some down moments worrying before that I haven’t visited my sister in the psychiatric facility for over two weeks now and when I think of calling my brother something just stops me. All of this said I know I am actually okay at the moment and I have started to move on from the past in some small way, its just a source of sadness to me that my life was so doomed over years to the repetition of old patterns.

On another note by a case of weird synchronicity I visited the library before close to where my Mum used to live and picked up a book written by a Canberran author covering the area and time of history around the 1920s and 30s when my Nana and Mum were living in an area that used to be know as West Lake and is now renamed. I think my Mum may have known the author as she has a familiar surname. I didn’t borrow the book but was fascinated by some of the descriptions in the book about how cold it was in winters and how pea souper fogs covered the landscape. Mum used to tell me how Nana had to leave home at 5 am and walk over suspension bridges carrying a hurricane lantern to light her way to her job cleaning offices.

I was listening to Stan Grant again in the car and he spoke of how we are the continuation of our ancestors and how we dream or live their story onward, I thought of how I now live alone with my dog, just as Nana and Mum lived alone following the death of my grandfather Bluey Brander. But after 7 years my Nana met another man who came to be much loved by my entire family, Arthur Lester or Poppa as he affectionately came to be known by my older three siblings although he died when I was only a baby. I think of how soon Scott may be here, all things going well and maybe in time I may get my second chance too. If not there will be new opportunities for me I am sure. Kat will be back in two weeks and therapy will resume and I will probably miss the quiet time at home just being able to relax, at least when the judge gets off my case. I am having those moments of reprieve right now. Writing helps me get free of this force for a time as do my forays into nature. And I most categorically know I am not the only one to suffer from it.