2003-05-15 - 5:18 p.m.

I've found myself uncharacteristically depressed at times recently. I don't know if depressed is overstating it, but it feels like that sometimes.

I have a lot of insecurities that I feel I need to deal with on my own, that don't affect Jane and my relationship but occasionally affect my state of mind. I don't think it's fair to talk about them with Jane because they pertain (yes they pertain and that was in perfect context Ellie and Cindy) to her past, experiences that we don't share, feelings of inadequacy and intimidation, and they pertain to things that would more than likely upset Jane. Not upset Jane that they are an issue for me so much as simply upset her talking about it because they are not her anymore. And I think it would probably confuse and frustrate her to think that they affected me so much when the simple fact is that she doesn't want to be who she was, she wants to be who she is, and she is in love with me and she said that she doesn't want any option that doesn't involve me and how can you not be touched by that and can't that be enough dammit??

I think one of my main insecurities is the idea of missing out on something. For example I'm already stressing out planning my overseas trip next year for fear of missing something. But far more of an issue for me has always been what I can't change. How I lived my life compared to other people and whether I was missing out on some valuable life experience. Jane used to do a lot of drugs. I've never touched them. Jane has no real desire to do them anymore. I am curious. There's nothing so wrong with being curious- I think you need to experience things for yourself to make an educated decision, but it got to a point with Jane where drugs were a problem, and so I don't think it's fair to involve her in my curiousity when it is something that was her but isn't her now.

I mean I'm talking about trying an e at Splendour later this year and that's fine, I've never done it before and I want to have experienced that, and I know it will never become a habit because I don't hang around that sort of crowd- but only a year or so ago Jane was taking them every Friday and spending the rest of her weekend "staring at the wall and not wanting to talk to anyone". I think it's perfectly reasonable to say "hey, just because I've heard the bad side of things doesn't mean I shouldn't try it for myself", I mean look at alcoholism-it's never stopped me drinking. But I don't know if it's so reasonable to have these discussions with Jane when they represent a part of her life which is confusing and upsetting to look back on.

It then extends to things like Jane used to be big on random pashes while I could probably count the number of people I've pashed on two hands (hmmm, let me think about that one)- it makes me feel bad for my lack of self confidence when I was single, but why is it an issue for me when that's not an issue any more, we are both where we want to be now, and that's with each other exclusively, I don't find myself wanting to play the field now at all, I find myself wanting to have done so, to have that as part of my life experience. Is that completely fucked?

So anyway, that's the tip of a very big iceberg, but it hasn't so much been my insecurities themselves that have been depressing me but my inability to express myself. I don't want to write a lot about the insecurities themselves in here, because if they involve Jane's past then I don't think they have a huge place here, but I've really felt the need to write down how I'm feeling, say in my "pen-and-paper" diary, because that's a form of catharsis, and it's like it stops the stupid thoughts going round and round in my head and kind of opens a floodgate and stops them festering in there. It's kind of the opposite of dwelling on the things I'm writing about, which at face value it might seem I'm doing by constantly retreating into the past.

Aha, it must be a time for a Gatsby quote to break up these murky thoughts. The last sentence of the book in fact....

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past"

Shall I continue? Yes, writing this stuff down can save my sanity. So when I have three days off and I resolve to do some therapeutic writing and it doesn't eventuate, it is the fact that I haven't done it that tends to upset me more than the thoughts themselves. It then makes me feel disorganised and like I can only think about one thing at a time, and that I still feel like I'm living like a teenager and am not able to coordinate all the things I either want to or need to do.

I had a really good talk to Ellie about it the last few nights- and it's helped, and I think writing this is helping a lot.

But the other night I was a mess and it wasn't for any of these reasons.

I'd been talking to Ellie for 3 hours. I might have mentioned that I'd been feeling neither here nor there, but I wouldn't have put it down to anything. And then I talked to Jane and said something similar about having felt a bit "blah" that day, and that I didn't put it down to anything in particular, although I knew it had a bit to do with my inability to deal with the huge differences in Jane and my past, and my subsequent inability to express that to her. And then somehow Annie came up, and the fact that I had been feeling a bit "blah" must have triggered this outpouring of emotions that I completely didn't see coming.

It was Mother's day. I had had a fair bit to drink with my family. I was talking to Jane and she had said she had thought of Annie today and I said I had too, but I couldn't remember why. And then I did.

Her Dad. He died when she was 10. Late last August Annie deliberately overdosed on Prozac, and Jane had to call an ambulance. And two days later was Fathers day and Jane made Annie go with her to her parents place because she wasn't going to leave her alone in that condition on a day like that. I was talking to Annie a few weeks later and -as is often the case when you realise you took the choice of life and death out of your hands and that hypothetically (apparently and very wisely they don't put enough Prozac in a bottle to kill you) the only reason you are still there is someone else- she was the most optimistic I'd seen her in a while. That sentence was too long.

Anyway, my point was that she told me how she had taken Jane to see her Dad. And that she was thinking of taking Ken, because she thought "everybody else is doing things with their Dad, fuck this I can too". And it hurt me so much that she was telling me this but not even thinking that it would have meant so much to me to be there for her and go with her to see her Dad. I had to say that I would too if she liked, and I never did.

And it upset me so much just thinking back to it, because I realised that I never understood our friendship. We had something special and we both loved each other in one way or another, and she would always tell me I meant so much to her but she didn't see my the same as her other friends. And she wouldn't let on to Jane or Ken back then how close we were. I look back and feel like people must have seen me as a tragic obsessive person who couldn't take a hint. Our relationship, as much as it meant to be both of us, seemed to be confined to when it was just me and her, or when she needed to turn to me. Or when she needed to talk to me because I was the only one who knew. The only one who could possibly understand. But I look back and wonder if perhaps she never gave anything back and I was too blind to see it. She was so volatile and unpredictable and I was so happy when I saw the side of her that I loved and not the one that I loathed that I didn't care if all that she did was talk to me about her. Because just hearing her say she loved me, that she didn't know what she would do without me, that she couldn't even start to thank me, was enough.

What are you doing without me Annie? Who are you calling late at night? Who's heart is it breaking to see you cry? Who's heart are you warming when they see you smile? What are you thinking when you read the words I left you, the pictures, the feelings? Do you throw the book across the room like you used to rip the stereo out of the wall everytime he came on the radio? Do you even still have it?

I'm not still in love with her or anything, and I love Jane with all my heart, and she understands best of anyone how much Annie meant- to both of us- but I think about these things and it makes me so sad. I told Jane that night that I just needed to be sad for that night. That it wasn't a matter of what could make it okay because I didn't want to be, not then.

I put on an Annie album, "Echolalia" by Something For Kate. And I cried. And I've only ever cried for two people- I think.

I realised that I never wanted her. I wanted someone I wanted her to be. But I loved her. And I miss my beautiful friend.

_______________________________________________________________________________

YOU ONLY HIDE- SOMETHING FOR KATE

so i keep watch

and you keep breaking

breaking formation to become

someone else

and your eyes become corridors

where i wander with a candle

calling out to you

and you only hide

because you know i'll find you

you say you just want to feel

the way you used to feel

the way you should feel

and i wander through

the lost city of you

and you only hide because you know i'll find you

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