Tuesday, June 23

Dear Squidge,
I remember once, we were talking about your depression and I asked you what you get like. This was pretty early on, I think. You said you get sort of quiet, sort of broody. I said I hadn’t seen you like that before and you said I wouldn’t have, because I keep it away.

You’ve been quiet lately. In a way that I feel guilty hanging around you, like I’m doing something wrong. I worry that I’m not only failing to keep it away, I’m causing it. I don’t feel like I’m enough for you, sometimes, that I’m too boring and you’re not challenged. That you should have a fun girlfriend, not a girlfriend who crashes on the couch the second she gets home.

I mean, really. I don’t go with you when you go out with mates. We go out for dinner just the two of us, and that’s nice, but your friends must be wondering if I even exist anymore. I wonder if I’m the sadsack, lying around with a headache and being too tired to do anything all the time. All. The time. And that it’s sucking the life out of you.

You just lost your job. Money is getting low. But there have been hard times before and you’ve let me share them. I had to ask you to, but you used to let me in. Should I ask again? Do I pry?

I feel like I ask you how you are about a thousand times a day. It’s how we start our conversations, now. You say you’re fine. Just feeling a bit low.
I used to be able to pick you up.

So. So, what? Is it me? Is it us? Is it is it isitisit?

K.

February 23

Dear Kay,
I am so old. Yesterday afternoon Squidge and I went walking to the cafe on the corner and I rolled my ankle in my shoe. It hurt, but I kind of just walked it off and it seemed ok. Then when we came back I had a snooze on the couch (Sunday arvo snoozes are basically the only reason I live) and when I woke up it was KILLING. Like, incredibly. Way way more than seemed, y'know, rational. Way more than necessary, that's for damn sure.
There were ice packs, tears. Mum came round with a bandage and wrapped it up for me while I pouted and got frustrated. At one stage I had my leg over the back of the couch and it wasn't sexy at all. What the fuck is that shit?

Anyway, I'm 'working at home' today, which means logging in to my email every half hour and then fucking around on Facebook for three. So not really much different to when I'm actually there. Could actually get used to this working at home thing, if it weren't for being couch ridden and having to hobble around like fucking Igor.

Still, this is the closest I've been to a legitimate sports injury in a while. I'm almost proud.

Squidge has been very lovely and looking after me so that's nice. I'm actually feeling a lot better today, I slept with it up on a cushion and it had calmed down enough that I managed to sleep for a bit last night. Mostly I just feel old, and annoyed that I wasn't doing anything interesting at the time. I emailed people at work and they were all 'Oooh what crazy shit were you doing at the time?' and I'm all 'Umm...walking...?'
Mmm.

I miss you.
--K.

February 8

Dear Kay,
Some of my books have arrived in the post, I went and bought some folders and some books and some pens. I've applied for four hours of study leave per week. I've already flicked through my study guide.

I am fucking nerding it up.

I am looking forward to using my brain, to being creative, to learning stuff again. I'm shit scared I'm gonna bomb out but also going to give myself a chance. I'm going to be one of those nerdy mature age students I used to hate in my undergrad classes.

Gulp.

--K.

January 24

Dear Kay,
I'm sick of me. I'm sick of nine to five, corporate fucking boring arse pale no interesting clothes thinking about money all the time fucking me.
I'm tired of go to bed early no writing anymore always having a headache me. I'm tired of blimpy ruining her figure by sitting at a desk all day totally unfit and zero energy me. I'm tired of not being able to fix all my problems by just lightening the fuck up, and instead thinking up ways to sort myself out by doing boring self indulgent shit like therapy and going to the gym. I'm sick of boring no art can't draw doesn't even own a fucking paint set boring arse working me.

And MOST of ALL I'm sick of woe is everything stupid sitting on the couch not actually doing anything except buying pretty shit off etsy rather than doing anything creative myself me.

Is what I'm sick of.

--K.

November 25

Dear Kay,
I wonder why I still write to you. Maybe because back then you offered me solace, and a place to go when shit got too tough. Maybe because I'm hanging on to that time, because it made me what I am today, because I can't let it go. Because I feel like, as tough as that was, they were my Halcyon days. Because I look back on it and think positive things, despite all the shit that went down. I credit you with that, almost entirely.

Work is boring. I got promoted, discovered they weren't giving me enough money for the trouble and demoted myself. I've been feeling like I'm slipping back into my old ways...I wake up and my jaw aches from clenching it all night, I go home and my head hurts from scowling. My shoulders ache (but not like they used to), my jaw clicks (but not like it used to).
I wonder now, if my meds are even working anymore. But coming off them and onto new ones is so stressful and awful, and I don't have six weeks spare to go through it all...knock myself down and build myself back up again, that I'm staying on them even if they don't work as well. I feel ok (but not like I used to).

Squidge and I are moving out together soon, in like two weeks. I'm so excited. He mentioned last night that he's looking forward to it, because he's never really made a home for himself. He actually said, he's never 'nested' before. That made me smile, and then flash back to the last time i wrote and feel guilty. I knew, of course I knew, that the issue wasn't my wage or the TV or anything like that. It was because he was feeling a bit lost, and a bit unsure, and a bit nonplussed by everything. And I took it too personal, as usual.

Anyway. Work was so boring yesterday I finished all my Christmas shopping, which means that now my budget is like, 100% crap for the new house. For some reason, Squidge is fixated on lamps, and lighting in general. I'm fixated on table settings, and Christmas decorations. Really nice table linen, and cool lamps, and funky rugs and awesome prints on the wall. I should be checking out Etsy, and I would except it eats up my net allowance and I spent it all yesterday on facebooking for 8 hours. Who has a net allowance and work, for fucks sake? What is this...the fucking middle ages?

Anyway. Back to 'work'.

I miss you. I relish the imaginary time we still have together.
--K.

November 9

Dear Kay,
I'm sorry I only write when shit things happen. Here is another example.

Squidge got back two weeks ago. It was great, it was a bit awkward, he was tired and I was emotional and it was ok again after I tearfully confessed I was concerned that it was awkward, blah blah blah. That day we decided to go away for the weekend, but not that weekend because my sister was coming down for her birthday, so instead the next weekend. This weekend.
We just got back.

Friday I went to the dentist and had half a root canal (the gum is too inflamed to do anymore, I have to take antibiotics and wait six weeks). That was a pretty massive effort, and afterwards we went straight to our chosen holiday destination; him, tired at being up so early to get to the dentist and me, numbness slowly wearing off to reveal pain, and a bit freaked out, and a bit tired too for good measure.
That night was great. The day was great, but the night especially was really good.

And then Saturday was also great, until the afternoon when we decided to go out and watch the sunset at a seafood restaurant (we were on the Bass coast, it was really lovely but shitful cold). Anyway, I thought to myself 'Hmm, this would be a nice place for Squidge to propose...'
Why I keep thinking that, I don't know. I really do love him, and I think perhaps this is the first time it has felt like it would be really possible to marry the person I'm in love with. And I'm scared it's all going to go to shit so I'm trying to nail it down, I suspect.
Anyway, we muck around, I have a gigantic plate of fish and chips and he has his risotto and we're both kinda sick because we ate too much, and I ask, not out of the blue but I can't be arsed describing the lead up, whether he thought one day we might get married. He said, 'maybe.' For some reason, I got a bit upset by that. Because there was doubt, when there had been none in my mind, and I suddenly realised that...oh fuck, we might NOT be together forever and ever. We might actually break up, and he might really hurt me, and I might never recover. And all these sorts of meloramatic things that I'd managed to insulate myself from for all this time by idlly wondering if he'll marry me and playing house.

So, I got upset and I got weird and quiet and suddenly I thought to myself, 'do I want to be with someone who isn't sure?' but I know that I do and that I'm getting so incredibly far ahead of myself that it's me that's being unreasonable, not him being commitment phobic (although he kind of is, but that's another story).
Anyway...of course I want to be with him, everything is wonderful, and we're moving in together and wtf am I doing?? I was so completely insanely irrational and I couldn't kick myself out of it. So we left and I cried and told him tearfully that the idea of losing him breaks my heart so much I get sad just even thinking about it. He told me he's not into marriage right now and I practically begged him not to feel like he had to justify himself to me because I KNOW that, I don't want to get married either right now (but I want the possibility, and then suddenly the possibility was in doubt, is that what got to me? I think it might be...) and then I told him he didn't have to justify himself, I was just being nuts and it wasn't about marriage it was about losing him.

Because I've just been bobbing along, y'know? Not thinking about where this might be going except to fantastise that we'll get married one day, and have kids and do all that shit, live our funky inner-city family life. Never have I actually really considered that we might break up, or that we might end up hurting each other to such an extent that we just can't stay together even though we want to. Ouch, just to think about it.

So we went back to the hotel and watched some TV, and warmed up because it was just fuck-arsing cold on the Bass coast after sundown, and then he went to sleep and I felt weird and went to sleep with my tooth aching menacingly.
But I feel like it was all sort of ok. He knows I was just freaking out because I care so much about him, and love him so much. Y'know, the usual.

BUT NOW...
Now it's weird again. We had breakfast this morning, and I went off to clear the bill with the hotel and check out and all that shit. He asked me how much he owed me and I shook my head because I still owe him some money from when I ran up his phonebill while he was away (we're talking like $800), so to call it even. He went quiet after that.

Then we drove home, for about two hours, in basically total silence. And then we got home, and it was silent. And then he sat out in the sun in the back yard reading, and I went and sat down next to him, and he didn't say anything. And then eventually he got up and packed up his chair and didn't say anything, just went back inside. It doesn't sound like much, but we're very verbal people. So I'm wondering if it has something to do with the fact that while he was outside reading in the sun, I bought a TV online for $700. That's pretty freakin good for a 32" LCD HD blah blah tv, I reckon. Shit no name brand but who cares? Anyway, I keep spending money (and we'd agreed to go halves, which is why I got the shit no name brand instead of the Sharp one which was $200 more) so I kind of also just spent his money, without asking him. Anyway, it was on one of those one day sale type websites, so I got it. And the furniture was delivered while we were away, and there's an increasingly large pile of boxes in my room containing various appliances.

What I'm doing is, I'm setting up house for us. I'm fucking NESTING, is what I'm doing. I am building us a nest. A nice one with a new couch and a decent TV. Does he feel shit that I've paid for everything so far? Is he feeling cornered that I'm building us a home and he just wants a roomate he can occasionally feel up? Is he feeling panicked about not having a job and his girlfriend spending the dollars like there's no tomorrow (which I am, it's true, and if there could BE no tomorrow that'd really be great for my credit rating)? I don't know, and part of me just doesn't care. He can get the fuck over it, and he will in his own time. I'm not going to counsel him. I'm proud of my earning power and the shit no name brand TVs I can afford because of it.
But that's not what it's really about, I don't think. I don't know what it's about. And yeah, I guess I don't care (I do of course care, I'm just trying to be tough).

I just hear the faint sounds of discord for the first time, and it worries me that I've pressured him and created a rift or some decay or something, which will eventually rot the whole relationship. And going by last night, the idea of that clearly throws me into a totally melodramatic mindfuck of issues.

But on the other hand, it's Sunday afternoon. It's a nice day. I bought a new TV. Shit happens.
--K.

October 19

Dear Kay,
Last week at work, I stole a wall calendar from the Postgrad office and was setting it up with all the little stickers and shit it comes with (while sitting cross legged on the floor, it was a nice kindergarten type craft moment). I marked up exams, semester dates, all that crap. And then when I was done I looked back at it and I suddenly thought to myself, I kind of know where I'm going for the next little while. And I'm ready.

Not, obviously, for stupid semester dates. I was more thinking about the next year at work, and home. Squidge and I are moving in together in December, and I can't freakin wait. I've already started buying furniture, plates, knife and fork sets, spatulas. Quite a few spatulas, actually.
And last week I enroled myself in my masters course, so I'm also going to be studying (part time, off campus, at Deaks. I'm hoping they'll give me study leave since I'm reinvesting my pay into their fine system to the tune of like, 15K).

And I emailed Squidge to tell him that I got in and had enrolled myself, and he wrote back that a 'magnifique' summer awaited me (he was in paris at the time)(what's with me and brackets tonight?)(also can't type for shit right now). Anyway, he was right but I hadn't thought of it until he pointed it out. Moving into the house, possibly Christmas at hours assuming that we can wrestle it off his mother, hanging out in our own place doing our own thing on our own furniture. Honestly, I can not wait. I'm predicting BBQs and citronella candles at dusk. Not that we own either a BBQ or a single candle but whatever, we've got two months to get it together before we move in.

And he gets back in 6 days! The cat is very excited, and so am I. I misss himmmmmmmm. I spoke to him this afternoon on the phone, he's in Oslo and it was like 2 am, and he'd just spent the night with a bunch of drunk swedish backpackers (as one does) and even though he'd had company, he still sounded a bit lonely. He's going back to London in a few days to hang out with his mates again before he comes back, and I'm sort of glad of that, because I think...now more than ever, he's feeling a bit isolated. I mean, he's in Norway which is kind of isolated anyway, in terms of the rest of the planet I mean, and it sounds like there aren't many other tourists around because it's so hellishly expensive, so he's feeling like the only outsider around. Apart from the Swedish backpackers.
I'm not worried about him, exactly, but I don't like the idea of him feeling crappy when I can't really do anything about it.

Anyway. It's Sunday night, and his flight lands 9 AM Saturday morning. So, 6 days. Sort of.

I miss you.
--K.