Anna’s Adventures

I am moving out by myself! I’ve found a place - a one bedroom flat very close to transport, and 2 blocks from my mum and sis’ place.  I am excited! A place to my very very own for six months at least - 12, I hope.

A place with a door I can shut, lights I can turn off, windows I can close. I will invite people in, and then ask them to leave if I need to. Wow. No dramas. At least, not other people’s dramas.

Alone. I hope I don’t feel too lonely.

So things have been churning within me for a little while and I haven’t had much time or energy to post blog entries. A large part of my brain just wants to watch House and Oz, and vege out heavily while the other parts of my brain process what they have to.

Now, like Deep Thought, I finally have an answer. The meaning to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything is: “do what is good for me”. Not just what will be good for me. Not what I can tolerate. Not what I will put up with in order to be happy in the future, or preserve a romantic ideal.

Do what is good for me. And all it implies. Goodness. Timeliness. Me-ness.

With this in mind, I am trying to find my own place to live for a year. I need space and boundaries. I need to be able to tell myself when to come and go, when I need to eat, sleep, work and be entertained. I need to recognise when I need friends, and to seek them out accordingly. I need to be without material restraint on my emotional life and vice versa.

Something that I saw on facebook today and liked was that my tarot of the day is Queen of Swords:

Queen of Swords

The Queen of Swords card suggests that my power today lies in advocation. I have been there, done that and can be trusted to judge, perceive or tell it like it is. I own my authority and honor my authentic nature and wisdom but use my sharp wit responsibly and accept that not everyone will “warm up to me.” I have a sleek, keen but detached sense for quality, classic style and truth and my reputation for communicating or protecting justice, the greater good or serving as a pioneer is well-deserved. I am empowered to endure by obligation to my code and my virtue is order.

I am feeling very virtuous and orderly. My psychologist and I (mostly I) are looking at why I feel like caring-for; why I get myself into caring-for relationships, when I do actually want something mutual (or nothing at all).

So I have worked out some things that happen to me, and how some of them are related to bipolar. How going off the rails at formative times has lead me to overcompensate by being too committed to failing projects now. How going off the rails has lead me to not trust my own judgement as I should, and instead, relying on other people’s input way too much (even when these people stand to gain from me making bad choices).

So its back to being a little bit more selfish, and a little less gullible. And (shock horror), trusting myself. As a new acquaintance recently taught me: when everyone else is gone, you’re still in a relationship with yourself.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Yeah, cool man. But like, where the fuck is that step? Where the fucking hell does my foot point when I make that step? Who the fucking hell is Anna Aniston, anyway?

Well today, I feel like I’ve got some answers for you. For me. Yeah, coz really I am my own interlocutor. Maybe the reason I haven’t been blogging so much of late is that my psych meds have diminished the little Anna in my head: the “you” that I’m always talking to. What’s there to say, when there’s no-one to say it to? Instead tonight, I am writing to you, you, loyal reader whose name I shall not intone. You know who you are.

I am in pain. My RSI is killing me! My shoulders are hunching and tight. My new stripes are looking more and more like a cat scratch and like less of a problem.

The emotional pain of the last year feels as thought it has evaporated in the last apocalyptic fight between Kal and I. And now, everything is sweetness and light! I feel like a big weight has disappeared: the weight of jealousy, the weight of ownership and control, the weight of nit picky clinging and mutually destructive love.
Kate and I are looking toward plain sailing for a while… or that is the hope at any rate that the crises will subside and we’ll get a chance to just see how it all goes for a while.

Alcohol is no longer running in my blood. Far from being my favorite drink, I consume it rarely and in moderation. But when I do drink, it doesn’t send me straight to the maison manic. I can finally hold my booze. Kal reminds me of when a sip sent me into a manic frenzied drinking binge where I never felt a need to moderate. Never ever.

Can I say I love my mummy and my sissy? As always, but now more than ever. I see what it is they put up with and what it is they do for me all the times I cannot do for myself.

My meds are working! They are working! I’ve got my period, and with it, the most intense mood swing I’ve had in a few months… I feel a little bit sad and don’t know why. That’s all. A little bit sad and that is all. I feel like I finally lifted the couch cushion in my brain and found the remote control. Control! Life is wonderful. Truly.

I am shedding layers that are not important, and diving into a richer experience of life. I’ve shed some friends (alas) over trivial matters. But in exchange, I am spending time making art and plans for the future. I plan to exhibit soon, and to look into having kids in the next few years.

A future! It is mine.