Dig deep

dear diary,

I'm up at 4:30am. I'm not too hard on myself for it though. I have been working for the past couple of days. I've been working some really long shifts. I went from 11am - midnight yesterday, getting home at 1am, sleeping at 2am. Waking up at 6am, then working from 8-5. I don't regret it in the sense that last year I was working even more insane shifts than that with preparing for 7am starts (5am wakeup). I'm not complaining as such, this is wha tthe real world is like for many people. Hats off to them, I'm not so good at managing. I've binged a little bit but on balance, I have actually not eaten very much over those two days, so it balances out. I needed some high calorie foods to get me going. I felt really hungry and tired throughout some of the day, but I did manage to get some food in, and I did have productive moments.

I wish I could tell you the highlights of the things that got on at work. Some of which I must respect the confidentiality of the client, but it was fun all the same. It was exciting at times and there were so many glamorous outfits. I have an attraction to one of my colleagues, and we have a great banter together. It's funny actually, my brain totally changes the way it thinks when I'm around her. I've not felt that kind of giddy teenaged excitement in ages.I treat it as a physiological reaction, maybe her pheremones make me want to fuck her. She's funny and makes me want to talk and talk and talk and makes me act charming instead of all distant and cold.  I think it shows my feelings and its really obvious as well. I won't think too much of it. But it is nice to have happy hormones in my brain at work, there's this other colleague who made me laugh really hard. This colleague helped me open up about myself and talk and I told a funny story from my college days. I like opening up.

I started thinking about some really dark stuff during today, mostly because I was just sitting bored for 8 hours. I did manage to read more of my book review. I read just under 100 pages today. The things that went through my mind were kind of therapeutic. There is a quote from the book I'm reading which goes something like: when we have grief, we are reminded of old grief. My uncle died, but my piano teacher died earlier last year as well. Both of these events are swirling in my mind. I was trying to think to myself today why those events meant so much to me, why they have upset me.

I could say in some shallow sense: that's the normal reaction that anyone will have to such things. Yes, that's true, but I wanted to find more analytical reasons, more introspective insights that said more than just the facts. I thought the following things:

• Piano lessons and music education are a big part of my life, of my heart. Piano made me the person I am. My piano teacher made me, me.
• My uncle represents a big chunk of my growing up. Not my childhood (he moved to the UK in the mid-late 90s), but early teens onwards. I had a really awkward transitional period to adulthood. I am rethinking the narratives i give myself of those times.
• Both of them were around during when I was at secondary school and sixth form. The time between about 2000-2004 seemed like a lifetime and not four years. The people from those memories are gone. There's a metropolitan police advert on tubes lately about theft saying: "all you will have are memories", its about property theft, but in the context of what happened, its a painful reminder that I'm alone

 

I said in counselling that lately I've not been thinknig about the past much (and to a large extent this is true). I've been so busy with the present. In a way, that's the situation I want. I'm feeling really tired right now, so thinking or doing isn't much on my agenda right now. I've been playing elder scrolls to warm down my mind, enjoy something and just forget about thigns for a while. I might take a little while to recover from all the activity today. I'll check my weight later. I slept earlier and I may be up for another hour.

Sometimes in times like these, in utter exhaustion. My sleep is earned, and the greatest pleasure I can have. I tend to get quite emotional when Im tired. When I'm worn down to my last ebb of strength, my feelings start showing. In the words of my badminton trainer friend: dig deep.