31/12/2023
Thelonious in the garden that will take over the world, weather willing. I, for one, welcome our new lawn-Triffid overlords. Your day has come.
Nobody asked, but there are many reasons why I am a scattered husk of a person right now. This year has been an intense one: I’ve moved interstate twice, with many animals, lived in a new city for nearly a whole year, separate from my partner. Financially, it was becoming difficult. And the distance was exhausting. My Dad passed away a few months ago due to complications from liver damage (as an adult, and I think especially living in Australia, some people are, sometimes, confused as to why I don’t drink alcohol. My relationship with my father improved greatly after he stopped drinking but it really only left a few months of having something resembling a normal parent, adult child relationship… and now there is only empty space there. More voids than I’d like to live with, but this is all I have left and I have to sort through it all).
And the emotional roller coaster of that, and unstable and sometimes aggressive other family members (mental health issues run through my family like pond weeds), and the distance, the endless distance. It has not been a simple string of grief, but a messy ball that I’m still untangling. Then there’s physical health stuff, as well. Biopsies and pain, weak muscles and things I cannot digest.
I feel like I’m an ailing physical and mental health sandwich, with me being a big old slab of cold, unflavoured, quivering tofu slapped in the centre. Just add salt.
And sometimes the animals have food and water and are safe and that’s all that I can offer. It’s a day by day thing.
