Category: Personal

 

A lot can happen in two years.

On this date in 2011, I was experiencing my first day in my new job in radio. I was in Canberra, a big step for a lass from the country. Despite the fact that I made a complete mess of my first commute (the bus driver pointed me to the wrong bus stop, leading to an hour of unnecessary walking, tear-filled calls to my mum and my new boss begging for directions, and a pick up from a colleague I’d never met before), I was so incredibly keen to get started and take on the world in my chosen industry. I was 5 hours drive away from my family, or a total of 12 hours, taking into account my reliance on the questionable public transport between there and home. I was sleeping on an air mattress in the early weeks of the Canberran winter (not the brightest idea, but I coped), I had just moved into my first share house, and my whole being was thrumming with the excitement of living in a place with so much more life than the town I had grown up in.

I was standing on the top of the world and I could see everything panning out beautifully below. The problem with being so incredibly high, however, is that you have so much further to fall.

Like I said, a lot can happen in two years.

I didn’t get back to my family for the first seven months, something that was unthinkable for a girl who’d been able to take weekend trips home from uni and had lived with her parents for the rest of her life. I struggled to make friends, stuck in a cycle of fleeting pub conversations and questionable internet-forged connections. Slowly, I lost the passion for my work, as office dramas piled up; and the pressure of jumping straight into what I saw as a big city began to mount. Unrequited love interests took their toll, and the money was disappearing from my bank account far too quickly, and I spent so much time on my own that I started to get uncomfortable socialising at all. The fall was gradual, but it certainly happened. I was changing, and not entirely for the better.

However, the year and a half I spent in Canberra was also completely magical. I saw live music almost every week, found new haunts that immediately felt like home, read more than I had in years, and indulged in magnificent food at little cafes and restaurants in the city. I fell in love with people, places and pastimes that are now so distant and greatly missed. I wrote ads that thrilled colleagues and clients alike, and I picked up experiences that I wouldn’t trade for the world. I met folks who inspire me and make me want to be better and more interesting and worldly than I am. It’s ironic that most of these things happened in the final months of my Canberra residence, but the fact remains that by that point I was well and truly on the road to ruin. Not even the sweetest elements of my existence could save me from the inevitable crash and burn.

Things have changed so dramatically, it’s hard to believe the life I used to lead was actually mine. These days, you won’t find me sitting in my favourite pub, reading a riveting piece of literature as I sip on a glass of red or a Coopers Pale Ale. If you’re looking for me, you’ll probably find me in bed, wishing the sun would go away or the neighbours would stop yelling at their kids or that for the love of god I could just stop crying.

You won’t see me in an office, working cheerily on a commercial script that I have crafted from the scantest of briefs, or picking voices and music beds that are just right for the specific occasion. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: the idea of writing terrifies me most days, and having to interact with anyone who isn’t a close relative or best friend sends me into spirals of panic. The idea of talking to a client or business contact is completely unthinkable most days, and that fact only deepens my feeling of disgust at the way I have let myself go.

I had so many great plans for my time at home: I was only going to be here for three months, then I’d be back in the workforce again; I was going spend all my time working on a novel or two; I was going to create a website that would reinvigorate live original music in this town; I was going to blog and scribble and podcast and paint; and I would learn to ride a bike.

What do I have to show for the last nine months? A website that sputters along at a rate that makes me feel totally ineffective; a binder full of empty pages, still waiting to be filled with the notes still floating in my head about that story I was going to finish; a work experience arrangement I have let fall into a heap; a Centrelink claim, and a bike I still can’t ride. It’s no wonder I feel completely pathetic. I am.

Sure, there were other circumstances that contributed to this slump: the stress of my job and everything else I was living caused my epilepsy to flair up, leading to one of the biggest seizures of my life, a round of re-testing and a new medication regime; my attempts at a romantic life were a complete shambles, the last of which still aches with a bitter tenderness; I felt isolated, without close friends or family nearby. I was drinking too much and I wasn’t writing enough. Those are just the things off the top of my head. I’m completely certain there were others.

None of that really matters though. What does matter is the fact that I let the bad stuff win, and in doing so, I had to discard all the good stuff I had started to accrue.

I can’t help calling this my “Quarter-Life Crisis”. It makes it feel both important and flippant all at once, like it’s a character building exercise, but one that I can get over whenever the fancy takes me. In reality, it’s neither. It’s just a huge pile of manure that I’ve burrowed into and am flailing around in as I attempt to escape its quicksand-like embrace.

Nevertheless, I’m still trying to get out. Spending my afternoon writing all this out might help, or it might end up as incredibly unsuccessful as every other method I’ve tried. Tomorrow I could wake up in the blackness and the vicious cycle could start all over again.

But that’s not today. Right now, I’m giving all I’ve got. I’m doing something, and that’s better than nothing. It may not last, but today I’m trying, and that’s all I can do.

And it’s so much better than nothing.

Today, when I got out of bed, I was a different person to the one that I have been for the last 18 months. For the first time since January 2011, I was completely and utterly unemployed. For the first time in a long time, I had something that I wanted to do, and by god, I was going to do it.

And for the first time in a long time, I pulled out a typewriter and began to bash out something that felt right.

The last few months haven’t been good for me. (You may have noticed.) I’ve had a ridiculous cocktail of chemicals swirling around my brain, giving me seizures and mood swings, sending me off on ill advised lustful adventures and significant alcoholic benders. I have quite simply been on a trip down the road to drunkenness, sadness, anger, stress, fat, pain and poor health aka Ruintown.

Four weeks ago, I decided to act on my long ignored instincts (and the advice of friends and family) and started taking steps to get myself out of the rut I had backed myself into. I quit my job (finished on Friday) and stopped making plans. I didn’t, and still don’t know what’s going to happen with my life from here on in. And that’s really freaking okay.

Now I’m back at home with my family, where I will be spending an unknown amount of time, writing all kinds of things and not getting paid. My mum is calling it my ‘sabbatical’. I’m just calling it ‘that time when a plan (or a lack of one) felt totally perfect’.

Some of the pleasure of this is in the silliest of details. Yes, I wrote the first draft of this post on a typewriter, and by the stars, it is so much more enjoyable than writing on a computer. The mechanical racket it makes as I pound out each word is fucking glorious, and for the first time in ages, I feel like I am actually doing something. It makes writing a physical exercise. My constructive actions are all around me – letters popping up on the page before my eyes, underneath my fingers as I work to make every keystroke count, and in my ears, reassuring me that I truly am working. You can’t make that much noise without some kind of significant effort.

It may not be beautiful, and it may not be insightful, but this blog post is the first non-commercial thing I’ve written in months. It’s also the first thing I’ve written since I’ve been home.

And by god, it feels so good to be home.

I found a note on my iPod today. I didn’t write it. It was dated Monday 4^th July 2011 at 8.14am. It said:

D8? P

So it seems I’m the world’s most awesome subconscious typist (seriously, it would have taken turning on my iPod in my bag, opening the ‘Notes’ app, phasing between alphabet and number screens AND being coherent, albeit in text speak, all while being on the bus to work)…

That, or my pocket’s trying to chat me up.

I thought about you tonight. Felt like the first time in years.

I was waiting for a bus, kicking the dead leaves of June, like a child in red gumboots. I could feel the eyes of my soon-to-be fellow travellers, all staring at me, asking, “Why? She should be more mature than this! She is wearing lipstick, and has a handbag and has wine in her shopping!” But I didn’t care. I had to pass the time somehow.

Then I remembered you. I remembered how you held my hand to stop me chasing seagulls. I remembered how you got angry about taxes you didn’t have to pay yet, and talked about marriage like it was a matter of fact.

Like we’d picked a date.

Like you’d even asked.

Like I’d have considered if you did.

I was sixteen, back then. You were three years older. It feels like an age ago. It almost is.

But we both moved on along our respective paths. You found a wife and a new land. I found my own adventures, and what adventures they have been.

I’m older now than you were then. And I still kick the leaves. And I still chase pigeons and seagulls. And I still dance in bus shelters for no reason at all, where everyone can see me.

And whenever I do, and that memory of you creeps back into my head, I just softly smile and think the same damn thing.

“Thank Christ I dodged that bullet.”

Because to live the life you wanted for me would have killed me.

That subject header may be confusing you. Don’t worry, it’s meant to. Unless you’re one of those freaky hippy health nuts, or a resident of Hawaii, in which case, good on you.

As you may already be aware, I share my first name with Morinda citrifolia. This plant is also known as the great morinda, Indian mulberry, nunaakai, dog dumpling, mengkudu, Kumudu, pace, beach mulberry, cheese fruit or, probably most commonly, the noni fruit.

There are many reasons why I am not particularly delighted about this particular plant being my namesake.

First, let’s just take the completely shallow angle on the issue. This mofo is UGLY.

I mean, that’s a fruit not even a mother could love. It looks like it’s covered in festering pustules, and could be mildly contagious.

Then there’s the various other point about the fruit that aren’t that appealing:

• The fruit is a multiple fruit that has a pungent odour when ripening, and is hence also known as cheese fruit or even vomit fruit. VOMIT FRUIT. Wow, there’s a species to name your child after!
• It contains many seeds. It is sometimes called starvation fruit. Wow. If you don’t gag on the smell or the bitter taste, YOU MIGHT CHOKE ON A SEED!

But there are some pretty cool things about this fruit.

• It has been used in trials to treat cancer. It has however proven to be completely useless.
• There is quite a high level of Vitamin C in the fruit. But not as much as in a raw orange. Also, it’s much higher in Sodium than oranges, so probably not the best option…
• The green fruit, leaves and the root/rhizome were traditionally used to treat menstrual cramps, bowel irregularities, used to treat diabetes,liver diseases and urinary tract infections. Which is cool, but not quite curing cancer, is it? (Also, let’s be frank, they’re all pretty gross things to be able to cure…)

CONCLUSION: The Noni fruit is a shitty plant to share a name with. It’s fugly beyond imagining, is full of seeds, and is pretty much useless medicinally. (Because lets face it, nobody wants to be named after a plant that treats “bowel irregularities”.) If I didn’t like my name so much, I think I’d wanna be an Apple. At least then I’d be rich, famous, and my dad would be in Coldplay.

x Noni
(The Doll, not the Fruit)

PS. If you want to know more about Noni, then http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noni is where I stole all my stuff from. Wikipedia FTW.

Seriously, I don’t envy the job of people in call centres. Usually, when they call, I am the picture of politeness. (“Yep, look, sorry, I’m not interested. Can you please take this number off your list? Thanks. Bye.”) I know they’ve got a shit job, so I do my best to make it a little less shit.

But sometimes, all my buttons are hit incorrectly in the most wrong sequence possible that I cannot bear to be even vaguely kind in my response.

Case in point: this afternoon. I’d had a seizure at work at about 9am, and Dad had to drive me home. I slept solidly from 9.30am to about 1.30pm. Even now, I still feel like death warmed up, and am particularly irritable. Seriously, no bitch wants to mess with me right now.

So, I’m on the internet in the lounge room, when my mobile phone rings from the other end of the house, in my bedroom.

Thinking it may be a call about one of my many job applications, I figure I should answer it. So after rushing the shit out of my dog-tired self, I do.

And am greeted by a heavily accented female voice, trying to sell me something.

Oh boy, did she get the dud call of the day.

***

Noni: Hello?

Call Centre Lady: Hello, Mrs KERNER?

N: (immediately shitty, and too tired to hide it) No, no, no! For a start, I’m not married.

CCL: Oh sorry, sorry. MIZ Kerner. MISS KERNER. MIZ KERNER.

(Seriously, woman. I get it. YOU DO NOT POSSESS THE ABILITY TO PRONOUNCE MY NAME CORRECTLY. Get on with it, so I can tell you to fuck off.)

Sorry. How are you today?

N: Shit actually. I had a seizure earlier.

CCL: Oh. Oh. Well, I’m calling because we have a promotion for your mobile phone-

N: (cutting her off) No, no you don’t. Take me off your list.

CCL: Oh, sorry. Yes. Thank you.

N: Bye. (hangs up)

Sorry, but if you call me in the middle of the day, on my unlisted mobile, and expect me to be all bright and sunny, then most days you’d be right. But to attempt to continue your pitch after a) pronouncing my surname ridiculously incorrectly, b) assuming I’m married, and then thinking I’m going to be okay with you ploughing on once I’ve told you c) TODAY I HAD A MOTHERFUCKING EPILEPTIC EPISODE, you’ve really got another thing coming.

I’m sorry, Call Centre Lady. I’m sure you’re really a lovely person in a very unlovely job. But seriously, today, you can go fuck yourself.

This blog has taken me hours to conceive. After the down-talk of the last two entries, I was committed to creating a blog post that was at least mildly upbeat, despite the fact that I am only just starting to come out of the pile of shit that has been this weekend.

My first thought was just to do what I’d done with the last two. I figured stream of shit consciousness was about all I was going to get, and for most of today, it was. But I was adamant that this would not be my only output for the day. I had to get over the hump and find something worth writing about.

So I tried. I scribbled poetry, that was so terrible, even by my standards, that I immediately deleted it from being, via an overzealous backspace button. It was so bad, I couldn’t bare to know it existed in an unpublished form, let alone one that could be read by the masses.

I sat at the piano and bashed about. I came across a magnificent tune, but before I could get it down on paper, I had lost it completely. I threw my notebook across the room in fury. You can still see the dent in the paint where it hit the wall. Oops.

I didn’t feel like reading, so I couldn’t bring myself to write anything to add to my other blog, which makes for far better reading than this drivel. I spent most of my day playing The Sims 3, so angry at myself for not having the willpower to do anything with myself other than improve the lives of fictional characters with no real creativity imbued in their false existence. I couldn’t even find the inspiration to write something on things already begun, not even the novel I’m working on, which features a genocide in its first chapter.

Finally, I thought about last weekend. It was infinitely better than this one, spent in Sydney, full of double book purchase madness and taking of advice from drunken birthday girls (well, one in particular) when I should have known better. It didn’t make me feel 100% better, but it reminded me that I *did* have something to write. It may not be for today, but it was there, potentially vaguely interesting, and perhaps something I could be proud of, in my own bizarre way.

This weekend sucked beyond belief. I was out of bed/my room for less than 10 hours from 9pm Friday night to 11pm tonight. I didn’t leave the house at all, and I barely spoke to anyone. I’m still not sure if I can take tomorrow. I’m twitchy and on edge, still highly seizure prone, or at the very least, I might snap and do something I regret.

But now I know I can write a blog that isn’t all doom and gloom. I can’t tell you what a relief that is to me.

At least it’s a start.

– N

I have a very exciting week coming up.

On Wednesday (yes, that would be Australia Day), I head to Sydney. SEVEN HOURS on public transport, so I can see this AMAZING LADY.

Before heading to that exciting event, I’ll head to The Rocks to see THIS DASHING FELLOW.

THEN, on Thursday night, after a day of milling around in the city, I’ll head to the Vanguard in Newtown for THIS BAND OF MAGNIFICENCE. (Which will sadly be one of their last Sydney gigs…)

And THEN, I head back to Bathurst on Friday for my mate Cookie’s 30th drinks et cetera, and spend the weekend in Batho before heading back to Dubbo for the ultimate downer on Sunday.

Busy, busy, busy!

AND I CAN’T FREAKING WAIT.

If you’re in the Sydney area are interested in a catch up, drop me a line on Twitter!

xND