Travelling Under the Speed-Limit

It’s so strange for a fast girl to have to take it slow. I’ve always been the fastest talker, fastest thinker. The first to say yes, the first to try something. Even my metabolism is super-fast! When I decide to make a change – in housing, job, partner, style – it’s made within days or weeks. But as I get older, some parts of me have begun to slow.

The time at Turner St was a comparatively short time, but it affected me so much that it feels like a life-time. A life-time of foggy memories, and blurred days, bright nights colliding. A life-time of a woman living as if suspended in aspic. Sometimes crying out, and not even hearing her own cries for help.

But it was not a long time. Not really. The apartment was only ever partly home. Josh flashed in the pan, burned and died-out, and has been reborn many times. I slipped away from Luke and Daniel (to some extent) before I even realised I was slipping, and my inner-child and my dreams and pride suffered neglect at my own hands for less than a year.

But the way I saw the world changed so dramatically. The colour of my eyes – from blue to midnight-grey. The way I held myself – from high to slouching. The tingling of excitement in my fingers and toes became dull, the smile on my face became more often one of resignation. I did not study. I did not write my thesis, or even talk about it, and very few people asked. I did not write or paint or draw, and my blog entires became scarce and forlorn – passionate outbursts of feeling caused by problems I could not yet solve. Was not yet ready to face and conquer.

I shrank. I bled. I got messy. I was lost.

Then the girl who was always the fastest – frightening people, and herself with the way she could change in an instant, and move on to something, somewhere else, becoming someone else – made her first move. Asking Josh to leave was heartbreaking. It took something that I had forgotten I had in me. It was instinct, and my love for him, my emotions and desires rallied against it. But I did it, and it was done.

And a loneliness descended that I did not have the tools to cope with. It was a physical loneliness, a loneliness of pride and self-neglect, and a philosophical loneliness. It took me a long time to forgive and reconcile my understandings of his betrayals, his pathologies, and my own self-destructive self-neglect.

And the memories of the good times shone like a lighthouse light, so bright and so like home that they blinded me for a while, and I could not see other people, and I felt that they could not see me.

And I could not see another life.

Then the second decision – to move to Wollongong. I gave up the life that had left me bruised and wrung-out, but I had no real memory or image of any other. For a time, I was in limbo. Sometimes stagnating, sometimes taking two steps forward and then one back, sometimes taking one step forward and two back. ‘till I forced myself to take some leaps – Marrickville, teaching, stepping-up my commitment on my thesis.

But for the fastest girl, this healing has been slow. This re-orientation to myself feels like it has been a life-time coming. And it’s still hard to remember a Me without shame, without sadness and isolation, with uncompromising optimism and self-belief. But dancing at Marnie’s bday at Sly Fox, singing with my family at Folkies, speaking at the Bod Mod conference, and hanging with my friends and my wonderful lover at the Impy again – connected, open and interested – I begin to remember what it felt like to be me before:

It feels like life, peace, energy and harmony. And time begins to glide again – seasons to touch me, sleep to be restful and my muscles to relax. Time flies calmly and majestically when your soul is having fun.
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For the time of quietness and healing that mum, marnie and the gong provided me... here are the lyrics to one of the most beautiful songs I know:

"Small Blue Thing"

Today I am
A small blue thing
Like a marble
Or an eye

With my knees against my mouth
I am perfectly round
I am watching you

I am cold against your skin
You are perfectly reflected
I am lost inside your pocket
I am lost against
Your fingers

I am falling down the stairs
I am skipping on the sidewalk
I am thrown against the sky

I am raining down in pieces
I am scattering like light
Scattering like light
Scattering like light

Today I am
A small blue thing
Made of china
Made of glass

I am cool and smooth and curious
I never blink
I am turning in your hand
Turning in your hand
Small blue thing

The Universe and Everything...

Everything is everything, God is dead and we are all trashed.

Wednesday was Marnie's bday and we hit the Sly Fox dressed as Geisha! All in matching outfits that aaron and I made.

We danced like psychos, took heaps of substances and had a fantastic time. Saw Brian and Alan, and Josh came over the next day.

Marnie is now (two days later, mind you...) finally looking sleepy, and she is as stoned as a heretic. But none of us have noticed, cos we are too busy cleaning the glass walls of our houses.

MMMMM top shelf cask wine!

I have had a wonderful few days - dancing and dressing up and all the rest - and not a pokie in sight.

Praise be for great family, good freinds, quality substances, fun times and stability.

Tonight I feel like a stable-table. Built strong. I can take your TV-dinner... and some!