The only way is up

It's been a hard couple of weeks. In fact, to be more accurate, it's been a hard 2011 culminating in a near-impossible couple of weeks. However, things now seem to be on the up. Sometimes hitting rock bottom is what it takes for you to gather up the pieces and start soldiering again, and I finally reached this point on Friday, while crying on the phone when a friend called to check up on me (My friends are saints.......saints in very heavy disguise, but saints nonetheless). He, rather bluntly, told me I was being self-indulgent and melodramatic, and, despite being a little hurt, I just had to laugh at myself. It's perfectly true but, at that point, I hadn't the strength to be anything else.

I'm feeling more bolstered now though. I have a lovely weekend behind me, and some marvellous things to look forward to in the next month. With all this good stuff going on, I've found the will to stop wallowing like a luxuriating, mud-bound hippo and inject a little positivity into my outlook. No doubt you will all be immensely relieved to hear this, if only because it means there'll probably be a lot less self-indulgent, melodramatic whining going on here. I'm making no promises of course. I may still be reduced to a snivelling wreck yet again, but at least there is the potential for cheeriness to return to these pages.

I don't think it's me you can hear

An old man on the bus just asked me to turn down my ipod, asking "Why can't people realise that nobody else wants to listen to all that thumping bass?". Now I hate this too, so I obligingly turned it down, but I couldn't help feeling a bit confused as I looked down at the screen. I didn't think Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty Suite was known for its thumping bass.

And breathe.....

So.....a facebook status bemoaning my awful day yesterday prompted a surprisingly large number of people to invite me out. One of the offers was taken up, and I was taken out for drinks and pizza. More importantly I had the opportunity to splurge the whole exasperating incident at a sympathetic ear, take a deep breath and let it go. All gone. Well.......perhaps there's still a bit of niggling rancour remaining, but it no longer dominates my thought processes as it did yesterday.

As a little treat today, I got to sneak out of the office briefly to watch a few moments of the Egypt vs Serbia Olympic volleyball test match. This was surprisingly entertaining, although my disinterest in sport is such that my personal highlight was the rows of boys who lined up and engaged in surprisingly intricately choreographed synchronised sweeping routines over the pitch - presumably in order to prevent the players from slipping on the own sweat. Nice thought, huh?

Kaboom!

Who was betting on explosion? You win. Last night I thought it was going to go the other way, when I burst into tears because a fat, cold drop of rain fell on my cheek at the bus stop. Today, however, an incident cropped up (I won't go into details), which pushed me straight into flaming temper mode. I have spent most of today struggling to keep my cool, and did at least manage to only rant about the object of my anger, not at him. Despite my reasonable success in this matter, I am still so angry that I am dizzy and physically shaking. I assume this is due to the few gallons of rage-induced adrenaline that are currently racing around my body. It's unfortunate that I'm not actually at liberty to give vent to my fury, as I'm sure getting it all out of my system would be enormously cathartic. Still, at least I now have concrete proof that, even in my current state, I can control myself despite provocation.

Grrrrrrrrr

I'm feeling a little highly strung at the moment. Those who know me well have probably recognised the signs, and are currently placing bets on whether I will explode or implode. Honestly? It could go either way. Last night I saw that a particularly emotionally-manipulative Hollywood tearjerker was on iplayer, and cried just considering watching it. On the other hand, a man accidentally put his hand over mine on the handrail on the tube this morning, and I snatched it away with an expression worryingly akin to a snarl. Perhaps it would be safest to enforce a standard ten second delay between anyone saying anything to me and me being allowed to respond in any fashion. On the one hand, my blank, mute stare during the waiting period may lead people to believe I've donated a few dozen IQ points to the needy, but, on the other, it may save them from exposure to irrational temper and/or tears. Of course I may reach the conclusion, at the end of the ten seconds, that they genuinely do deserve the sharp edge of my tongue, but then that's nobody's fault but their own.

With any luck the house sale/flat purchase process which is causing all this will be completed soon, I can dispose of this permanent conviction that something will go wrong, and return to my usual state of near-sanity. Fingers crossed!

Working out

I'm going away this weekend for work. Even though I'll be working over the weekend, and I'm only going to Yorkshire, I'm actually somewhat excited. This is mostly because I get to say I'm going away on business. "Yah....yah......no, I can't this weekend. I'm going away on business". Doesn't that make me sound important? I'm not, but it's fun to pretend sometimes.

Super absorbent

One of my friends called me self-absorbed yesterday. She was joking, but she is actually right. It's a flaw I've been trying to correct for many years now but, ironically, the more effort I put into reducing it, the more self-absorbed I feel I'm being. It's probably something to do with all the additional time spent analysing my own thought processes and behaviours rather than thinking of other people and things.

I tend to blame my high anxiety levels for my apparent preoccupation with my own affairs. My brain constantly seethes with worry about things I've done wrong, things I'm currently doing wrong, things that may go wrong in the future, and the desire to logicise this permanent tangle of stress and confusion leads me to blurt it all out at any given opportunity; not because I think that the person I'm talking to is interested, but because I just need to get it out of my head before it drives me mad. That, and my lack of skill in the fine art of small talk, means that I either end up talking about myself or asking endless questions of people in a clumsy attempt to make conversation. Neither of which is particularly socially agreeable.

And, of course, while I'm so busy upsetting myself about all this, all those little considerate things that make one easier to be around just never occur to me. I'm quite capable of walking past a smiling acquaintance without seeing them, or of putting something in the bin and not even noticing that it's full. I'm sure I must be an absolute nightmare to be around most of the time, and I keep hoping that one day my self-absorbtion will metamorphose into self-awareness and, by extension, other-awareness. It's probably too late now to hope that this transformation will magically occur when I grow up. Maybe there's a course I could take?

Flat as a pancake

I had an offer accepted on a flat yesterday. It's a lovely, bright space in an area with only a mild to moderate risk of stabbage. I can't wait to move into it and put my stamp on it. I'm very excited, although I'm trying not to let myself fall head over heels for it, as nothing is certain until the contracts are signed, and I won't feel secure in it until I have the keys in my sweaty little palm. I can't say I'm looking forward to an extended period of anxiety over all the things that could go wrong between now and then. Weeks? Months? How long do these things take? Does anyone have a piece of string?

I'm also stressing about the teeming hordes of things to arrange. How do you sort out energy providers? Remember all the people and companies to call to advise of the address change? Ensure that your belongings are transferred safely to the new flat, rather than ending up in pieces being picked over by scavenging penguins in the Antarctic? Purchase all the multitudes of silly little things a home needs, the price of which add up horrendously when your entire wage disappears on bills and suchlike before you've had it two days? Prevent your Grandma from going so mad at the car boot that your home ends up furnished entirely with the cast-offs of an ninety year old, pigeon-fancying Yorkshireman?

No, I don't know either. I keep having to remind myself that this is a process that everybody finds stressful. It's not just me and my spectacular inability to function on any sort of practical level. This is hard for everyone. Of course, my incompetence is probably the reason that I'm resorting to whimpering and curling into the foetal position rather than actually dealing with any of these questions, so maybe it's time to get organised. First step......write a list.

1) Calm down
2) No really, calm the f**k down
3) Oh for God's sake.......pull yourself together........

Pay attention

Last night I went out with some old schoolfriends and, at one point in the evening, I managed to miss a crucial scrap of conversation and was astonished to hear that, in one of the girls' home town of Ware, it's illegal to kiss in public. Apparently bouncers will kick you out of clubs if you kiss someone on the dance floor. I was stunned by this restrictive attitude, and bemused as to why Ware has different public decency laws to the rest of the country. Then I twigged. She wasn't talking about her current place of residence, but her imminent relocation to Dubai. Aaaaaaah, I get it now! That makes much more sense!