i-want-more

I was dressed for success…

Soundtrack: Slanted and Enchanted by Pavement

My recent anger has subsided and turned to boredom. I hate this bloody month, it gets to me every time. 31 days of misery stretching out before me like a gaping chasm.

I’m not looking forward to the 23rd. This is essentially the worst day of the year for me. In the days PT (pre-therapy) it would loom in the diary like a hulking great monolith. These days it sort of sits about lumpily like a medium-sized Henry Moore.

Thank god for that very un-English of things, psychotherapy. I think it just about saved me from self-destructing. I understand that it doesn’t work for everyone but I am keen to sing its praises (particularly when I’m getting stick for having had it). I come from a family that believes in bottling your woes up until you are certifiable, which really isn’t the way I ever wanted to be. Neither do I want to be the sort of person who unburdens their troubles on everyone, all the time. I think I may have been like that at points over the past year. [I sincerely thank those of you reading this whom helped me through this bad patch.]

Something that has given me pleasure over the past week has been an email from a relatively close cousin on my Dad’s side, who is living in Brighton. He has sent through some great pictures of that side of the family: real stunning Victorian stuff, all big hair, raffish moustaches and dress uniforms. My Dad was a little ashamed that he had let contact with his family slip. It feels good to be able to redress the balance a bit now.

A couple of days ago I went to Bill’s funeral (mentioned a couple of entries ago). It was OK as funerals go. Bill happened to be cremated at the cemetery where my Nan is buried. I was after going to look for the resting place until I realised the graveyard was about three miles long - sod that (sorry, May). At the funeral itself, it was good to catch up with Liza and Gregg, whom both seemed to be holding it together.

And again, the line from Abide with me that always sets me off: 'Change and decay in all around I see'. It's profoundly gloomy, that. The pessimist's motto.

posted by deafdisco @ 7:07 pm