The Diary of a Break-Up. Day 1.

So, that’s it. As of yesterday, I’m officially single.

For the first time in four years, we slept apart for a reason that wasn’t me kicking him out of bed because his snoring was keeping me awake, he had woken up to watch sport, or one of us was away.

We slept apart because we were no longer a couple.

That is a really fucking strange sentence to write. It doesn’t feel real yet. It’s only the first full day of having to correct ‘is’ to ‘was’, of having to feel that little sting every time you need to correct present tense to past.

It’s so strange when you break up with someone but you’re still living with them. Already the little things we used to do when we were a couple (here come those tears again) like leaving the toilet door open when we were peeing, letting the dog out in the morning without wearing pants or clothes entirely, showering with the bathroom door open, already they have changed.

I went to the toilet this morning and closed and locked the door for probably the second time in the two years we’ve lived here. He had a shower this morning and closed the door for probably the third time in all the time we’ve lived together as a couple. He used to enjoy looking at my butt as I waited for the dog to finish toileting as all I generally wore was a t-shirt.

That doesn’t happen anymore. And this is going to take a bit of getting used to.

The things we used to do because we were so comfortable with each other as a couple now need to be separated. The entitlements need to be removed, the privileges stripped away. The routines and patterns we’ve both settled in to just suddenly…stop.

I told him I think it would be wise for him to go to his parents place for a little while as I need time to be alone, and not just the ‘alone’ that sees him in another room and I just want to completely withdraw into my bedroom and not come out (which, incidentally, is exactly what I’ve done this morning.). I need to begin the healing process, I need the routines we created and the patterns we had to end. I need to start learning how to be completely independent again while trying to figure out exactly how to deal with this, how to deal with me, how to move on in life, how to grow, what to take out of it, what to leave behind, what to hold onto, what to let go. And I can’t do all of that with him being here as a constant reminder of what used to be.

He wants us to remain friends. He wants us to remain a part of each others lives. And I’m okay with that happening once I’ve learnt how to be ‘just me’ again. We both need to learn how to do that and there is no chance of it happening, at least for me, if we’re still constantly in each others pockets every day.

For now I’m going to have a cup of tea and watch Generation Kill. And cry a whole bunch more. I’ve set myself a timeline – my moping will end this coming Sunday night. After that I’m going to get seriously productive, but for now I just need to emote.

Yippee kay-ay motherfucker.

This post is for Lucas and will be nothing more than a rambling stream of consciousness.

I’m watching Die Hard. I remember my stepdad used to have every single sequel on VHS and I never saw the appeal of them, he was also a massive fan of Jean Claude Van Damme and did taekwondo presumably so he could try and emulate Van Damme’s level of badass-ness. Hint: he did not. And whoever carpets a taekwondo studio needs their legs broken. Sweat is nasty. Collective sweat of twenty people three times a week is worse.

I have a new job supervising the bistro at a local venue. Approximately 120 seats. Today I hand wrote four fucking pages of how to not fuck up as a new supervisor because of course I’m crapping my dacks. My golden rules are treat people how they want to be treated, accept that you wont be perfect 100% of the time and to stay positive. The latter is probably the best advice I’ve read on the subject.

I’ve been working on my fitness lately. Or moreso, my health overall. I never had a very nutritious upbringing so now its up to me to give my body the fuel it deserves and to treat myself the way I should have been treated as a child and once I became independent. I’ve been lifting weights and already noticing some improvements, but something I’ve started to work on today is my Anterior Pelvic Tilt. Google it because I can’t be arsed explaining, but its quite prevalent, especially amongst females. I turned myself into a pretzel after doing some reading on stretches today and I can already feel the muscles in my lower back adjusting.

I don’t know what else to put here. I made a cup of tea and now I’m going to drink it and watch Bruce Willis kick the shit out of Alan Rickman. Til next time!

Chocolate is the answer. Who cares what the question is?

Recently, I was trying to remember a time when I wasn’t overweight. I thought and thought, thought some more, and eventually arrived at the conclusion that the last time I was kind of even remotely healthy was probably my second last year of primary school.

For those of you playing at home, that was seventeen years ago.

I actually just took the time to meditate on that after I typed it, because fuck me, thats a LONG TIME. Seventeen years of being unhealthy. I didn’t know any better when I was a kid, I ate what I was given and what we could afford, which generally was a whole bunch of crap. I used to lock myself in my room during high school and watch the cricket while chowing down on a box or two of Cheezels and swigging Dr Pepper. When I bought pizza from Dominos, I’d get two large thin and crispy pepperoni pizzas, a ten pack of chicken kickers and two 2L cokes. MAN, no wonder I was always overweight. And miserable to boot.

Without getting into it too much, because it just shits everybody and honestly I cant be fucked waxing lyrical about everything I’ve done to get healthier recently, earlier this year I realised I hated myself to the point of being suicidal and I have no doubt part of that was due to how severely I hated my body. So I switched it up, and to date I’ve lost four kilos since I started in late August. I have more energy, my headaches are gone, my posture is better and I’m much, MUCH happier. And I’m not even CLOSE to being done yet.

Self improvement is a thing thats finally happening. I just figured I should write it down. Oh, and I somehow have three new projects in the creative development stage? Two are collaborations: one is a Bowie tribute show and the other is kind of a modern adaptation of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The one I’m figuring out on my own is a two handed drama/romance set in Sydney during the 1920s…the previous piece I was writing started to lose its grip on me fairly quickly, there just wasnt enough story there. But this one is already crazy and so are the two others, so hooray!

Until next time. Ps, hey Lucas, you’re an asshole! 😛

I followed my heart and it led me to the fridge.

Recently I recalled a very distant memory, something that had been buried for a very long time. Andi had come across a survey on tumblr for writers and she was reading it to me, and the question was something along the lines of “recall a time when somebody recognised your writing in a positive way”.

I honestly have no idea why my mind jumped back to this particular point in time. It was like a switch had been flicked and this memory was the instant bright light that fills a room.

OUTSIDE.

There’s a building site next door to where we live. When we originally moved here in April, we introduced ourselves to the neighbours. And by that I mean we spoke to the one poor bugger that I think we woke up at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. His name was Dale. It probably still is, actually, we just haven’t seen him since.

When we talked to him, we asked him about the building site. He said he reckoned whoever bought it must have run out of cash, because he hadn’t seen any builders on the site for well over a year. On closer inspection we discovered he was probably right – it looked like they’d just downed tools and pissed off. The slab was down, the frame was up, bricks had been delivered and the wiring had been put in, but there were water bottles, some lunch containers and even a lathe blade just lying around.

So we lived in relative peace and quiet for a time. The house frame became a home for our punching bag, which we only used twice. More often than not the site became a thoroughfare to show people that our fence was in the wrong position and when we needed to go and collect firewood.

INTRODUCTION.

G’day.

I haven’t blogged for quite some time. But there are things happening in my life that I feel an overwhelming urge – okay, its more like a nagging mother poking me with a stick sort of feeling – to put down on paper.

For a start, I’m currently experiencing a major depressive episode. I’ve suffered from depression in a clinical form for most of my adult life. It comes and it goes, like a tide, or a moon phase. Right now I’m a full moon depressive phase. I’m a fucking supermoon and its hell. Recently I’ve been having more suicidal thoughts, it all came to a head last week with the passing of Robin Williams, mounting personal troubles and my ability to destroy basically everything I touch. I had to physically stop myself from jumping out into traffic on the Calder Freeway and then had a dream about driving off a cliff into the ocean that same night. Not the best. So I’m taking some time out so regroup and to just focus on myself for a little while.