Today was an out-and-out awesome fail. The pub itself (King O’Malley’s in Civic, Canberra, Australia) is awesome (I even wrote about it here). CJ was awesome, smiling tolerantly as I fished ice cubes out of my Baileys and spat them into someone’s discarded Guiness (because no-one, NO-ONE, dilutes my Baileys). There were fire twirlers outside, and a random person complimented me on my boots through a loudspeaker poked out the window of their car (and why not?) That was all pretty awesome, but I was not.
No-one can sustain awesomeness forever. (Okay, some people can. I hope they get eaten by iguanas.) I have an anxiety disorder, and every so often I freak out for no reason and all the colour falls out of the sky and the air sours in my lungs and existence isn’t worth the souls it’s written on.
Today’s emotional crash was relatively rational, since a few bad things happened (the car had more stuff wrong with it, so it cost twice as much as expected; one of my books has a serious flaw that may involve rewriting huge chunks that I thought were finished; I’m dieting, so a chocolate binge is out despite how fat and angry I feel; my phone is out of credit four days earlier than it should be so I’m trying to go without until then; someone I know is suicidal but not considered sick enough to live in a place that will look after him).
Tomorrow will most likely be a good day. All the things that really matter are okay – CJ and I still like each other, my family is safe and happy, and we still have money in the bank.
But I feel awful. So today’s real awesomeness is to accept that emotions happen.
Play along at home: Eat too much (for me). Write the emoest emo poem ever. Hit something. Whine to a friend. Cancel your plans and watch TV instead. Do something ridiculously indulgent from Steff Metal’s list. Spend too much. Insult a cat/dog/fish with great cruelty. Swear. Exercise too much. Refuse to snap out of it until you feel like snapping out of it. Play depressing music. Cut off your hair. Go to sleep. Stay up late. Cut up your school/uni books into tiny pieces. Take photos of your toes. Leave your heater on all night. Chuck a sickie. Play with matches. Cry. Give it time. (I’ve done six of these, mostly in the last hour. Seven, if you count paragraph 2 as poetic.)
Today’s photo is of yours truly clutching my single glass of Baileys while sitting in the dark:
Tomorrow: Sunday Live – a cello performance. And most likely a better mood.
PS: Have decided the scratch on my leg from “Frolic in a Fountain” is probably shark bite.
PPS: Wrote the above entry last night. Feel worse this morning (apparently I gained a kilo this week, despite not eating chocolate. Epic angry fail). I still reckon tomorrow will be better, but today’s probably a write-off. Some days are. It’s 10:00am and I’m going back to bed until further notice. What are you doing today? Or not doing?
If it helps, and it probably doesn’t, I’m not doing well today at all. I’ve buggered up just about everything I’ve tried today. I’ve been in my office for four hours and haven’t done any significant work. I’m listening to depressing music on youtube and considering the merits of hermitry.
On the plus side, I will be seeing people tonight, so it will likely throw my stupid mood over to another day instead of sustaining it.
Hey cuz,
Sorry to hear things came crashing down today. We all have days like that (or maybe I just don’t want to be eaten by an iguana? who knows!). For those who don’t know me, I’m a grad student in theoretical physics. I woke up one day, convinced that I wasn’t good enough to be a physicist. That’s fairly devastating, when the only thing you’ve dreamt of being for the past 5, 6? years of your life is a physicist. It took a number of friends a lot of cajoling before I felt sufficiently positive about myself to get back to my work. I have a vague idea of how I ended up in that state (not being able to complete my string theory homework late the previous night being the main contributor), but most of all I remember the feeling of despair that accompanied it. And it’s certainly not cool.
Anyway, hope you’re feeling better now. Remember you’ve got a cuz’ across the world who loves you, and enjoys reading about what you’ve been up to every couple of days. Big hugs.
Jolyon, who is just back from his grad school ball and had a great time =)