28-02-03

Friday, 28th February 2003

    well, i am living in hamiltr0n. have moved here for a course that started on the 28th of January, a month ago exactly, i just notice. i moved down on the 25th, boarding with two weirdo wankers, so after 3 weeks, i moved again, into a flat slightly closer to campus, with 3 students who are easygoing and friendly. much better. the rats are happy, all 8 of them in one cage. i'm glad they're here with me.
it was all a mad rush moving down here, something i was mentally prepared for, but to move in may, not now, with only about a week to prepare everything and move. it was horribly sudden, and very stressful.
     the worst part was probably the first night here, once dad had left. having only that one week to sort everything meant i was in such a rush, sleeping about 4 hours a night if not less, and i did get everything done - enormous pressure does seem to work on me. but despite seeing people to say goodbye for now (a quick coffee at the civic with Chris, phonecalls to Lex, Bren & Gra, Nich, and dinner with Scott, utterly exhausted but wonderful still), it was too rushed, i wasn't really there. i was ahead of myself. and when it caught up with me, when i was there, and everything in my new room, and it felt still - then i was very lonely, and upset, and with no one to hug me while i cried. once more, i was so glad for the rats.

     then once the course started, it wasn't so bad, there were things to do, keep me busy. and the course is swiftly turning out to be fantastic, 4 weeks of it past now, and i've learnt so much, and had lots of fun. spent lots of time online, chatting, sending emails, and on the phone, mostly to rupert and ben, some to michael and benjamin. also louise and papa. occasionally scott.

     i'm missing not having people to come home to and talk about stuff, people to make stupid and silly jokes with, check out chicks with, dowload pr0n - i miss the guys. and i miss having people to hug and to hold me, to beg shoulder massages and my hair being played with, to kiss and caress. being deprived of such physical contact is almost torture to me. horrid. sure i get cuddles from the rats, and i get to cuddle Mickey too - my magnificent horse - but it's not the same, really. When i went yesterday to see a massage therapist for a 30 minute massage, i luxuriated in the feeling of someone's hands on me for an entire half hour, being touched so intensely. it was wonderful, and made me fantasize about being stinking rich and eccentric and having slave girls to give me massages anytime i liked.

Claude Monet - an old favourite. and these pictures have a very melancholy air about them, perfect for my mood right now. Marriage - why? i cannot understand the motivating factors, not even thinking back to why i was so eager to get married? what is the big deal? is it society's conditioning that makes us believe there is a deeper intimacy to be attained in marriage? do we seek approval? conformity? have i simply grown so disillusioned and jaded in the last few years, that i cannot follow my then motives at all? shake my head in disbelieving laughter, almost self-mocking, when i re-read old diaries, gushing about love ever after and having a family (me??) - thinking, was i ever that young, that stupid? what changed? when? i can see how coming out of a marriage, as it breaks apart, is disillusioning, and destroys any leftover naive and youthful thinking - but if there isn't an immediate, urgent reason to the breakup, when does the disillusionment happen that causes the breakup? what is it exactly that is lost, from that first big relationship, when you think that everything is perfect, that it will always be like this? where does that bitterness and cynicism come from? seeing one's original, first dreams and ideals be burst like a soap bubble? it is a loss of innocence. but still - why marriage? why bind yourself to one person so much? perhaps - yes, i can see it to some extent. but i cannot see right now that i would ever have such trust again, in life, fate, any person, trust that it wouldn't all go wrong. the pessimist approach - you can only ever be pleasantly surprised if you expect the worst. and yet love, when it revisits again and again, tries to inspire that hope and optimism. idealism. head in the clouds. it's no good - that's not where life happens. what is better? then, when i knew what i wanted? or now, when i'm not sure what i want, but know exactly what it is i don't want? what has changed in me, that now i know i love people, i am intimate with them, i have even let go of myself enough to fall in love - but is there still caution? something - i don't know what - that i'm holding back? what was there in me that isn't there now? and also - why am i puzzling over this, when i so adamantly don't want this again - this monogamous committed bullshit, "a relationship in the nature of marriage". am i deceiving myself? am i trying too hard not to fit into any moulds, not to conform (although i've never had to try hard, really) that anything vaguely 'normal' needs to be fled from?

there should have been more anger. i wonder if it will ever erupt, hit me out of nowhere. i do think at times i deserved it, and it didn't come. was it right, doing it the way we did? not kind to either of us, really. freightened and cowardly, and really rather unkind. like Claire said, though talking about moving rats into the same cage together, "sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind". so much easier to be comfortable, and prolong the internal agony. even now - is there not glossed over anger and annoyance? expectations and demands, and yet the pull for freedom already. wanting it now, yesterday. always impatience. wanting one thing now, and the other never.

i do laugh at myself. i will look back on this in a year or two, and laugh. life's mysteries take time, and not much else. and things that take time demand patience, and i have precious little of that. time to distract myself until time catches up with me, and i look back and laugh in comprehension and newly acquired wisdom. growing up never ends, and in some ways you need a foolish past to gain a wise future. until that wisdom seems foolish by the light of the new experiences. why take anything seriously? and yet the now commands attention. back to the present.