X marks the spot

He picks up on something – which is that whether you’re a 50-year-old or an adolescent, you’re on some kind of hormonal rollercoaster in those two age groups. So I’m not quite sure if it’s serious comedy or funny drama.
Geoffrey Rush

Family – I have lost whatever respect I had left for my father and step-mother. I visited my 11 and 13 year old sisters on Friday night. It was the fourth night in a row that they were left alone, with no food in the house, whilst their parents were out getting pissed and putting money in pokies. I think my sisters see my like their mum.

My 19 year old sister is at university in the middle of outback Australia. She feels pretty isolated, has no money and no job. I have been tough on her since she has been there. I have not helped her out at all with money because I don’t want her to turn out like my father, who expects other people to bail him out of the life he has created. She is going off the rails and I know that she is taking party drugs, drinking too much and sleeping around. I feel like I don’t know her any more, she is changing so much but I remember that I did all those things and didn’t turn out too badly. I am not being a moralist but I do worry about her developing mental health issues like mine.

Work – Is political. Is stressful. I manage a great team of 12 people. I love my team. I don’t like the environment I work in some times. It is internally competitive. People like to play the blame game and scrutinise others, rather than just getting the job done. My team seems immune from this disease. Also, people don’t speak out and tell it like it is. There is an undercurrent of fear there.

Despite this, I do feel valued there. I had my annual review this week and was given a large bonus and a completely unexpected huge payrise. I am blessed in that respect. After having grown up with being hungry and missing out on most things the people around me had, it gives me a good feeling a security to know that I can look after my mum when she is no longer able to work. I guess workaholism does have its perks.

Study – I recently enrolled in Uni and was accepted into studying a Bachelor or Adult Education. It will be alot of work but I have missed studying for a long time. I need something else in my life other than work. I am doing Saturday intensives which means that the classes get squeezed into four weekends a semester, with readings and work on-line that can be done in my own time.

Volunteering – I have been accepted into the YWCA Big Sister Program in Sydney. I just have one stage left in the pre-match process, which is for them to meet my two flatmates and check out my house to see that it is safe for a kid. The program matches you with a kid aged between 7-19 who is at risk and you develop a friendship. It takes about 3 months to match you and then you make a 12 month commitment to spend 4 hours a week with them, talking, hanging out and just generally being a friend. Through the screening process, they mentioned that they might try and match me up with someone who had lost a sibling, as my life experiences would help with that.  

Friendship and Love – I have 2 friends out of work. One is Sarah, who is a special needs teacher for kids. I met her at my brother’s wake 12 years ago. She is younger than me. I think I used to be her role model but now it is the other way around. She has so much passion for life, she is the most determined person I know. She talks alot and does my head in at times because she is just so high energy but I love her all the same. She is great is small doses.

The other friend is Mike. I have had an unrequited love situation with him for about 6 years. I hired Mike at the place we use to work at together. We swapped jobs at one point, I moved out of HR into his line management role, him into mine. When I went overseas, he moved into my apartment. When I came home, he moved out and went to live in Cambodia for a year initially to teach HR at a University. I was really looking forward to him coming home but he stayed another year because he had met a girl over there. He is now home and hearbroken that his girlfriend has ended their relationship and gone home to her birth country. We occassionally share a meal at restaurant or go see a flick at his local cinema. We don’t need to pretend around each other when we are flat, which is comforting to a social phobe who hates to fake it.

I have three close work friends (people I would bother keeping in contact with if I left). The first is Gemma. She is unhappily married with a fouryear old girl. Her husband is not the sharpest knife in the drawer. She is intelligent. They struggle for money, she aches for affection, she loves her daughter. She is probably the person I can most myself with in the whole world. We are very different. Again, she is younger than me. I like her authenticity, I like that although she has constraints in her life, she still has passion in he rlife.

The other two are brother and sister. Andrew and Heather. Andrew is in my team. I think in some ways he is the male version of me, so I won’t shower him with compliments as it will sound like I am blowing my own trumpet. I will sum him up in three words, ‘genuine’, a ‘rock’, and ‘hilarious’. Basically, I would trust him with my life. He is married with a little baby boy and loves his family dearly. I am working with his sister Heather on a project at the moment. She is insightful, delightful, creative and again makes me belly laugh at every opportunity. She also has a partner, a little girl and another on the way. I met their wider family last weekend and their parents are just like mine, mad. I met their two brothers as well and they are all PLU (people like us).

This time last year, I met a couple through Andrew. I didn’t realise they were a couple at the time. The guy, Adrian was good looking in a geeky kind of way. I think he has an Italian background. Just what I like, dark hair and a loud laugh. We really clicked until I realised he was with his girlfriend there. After that bbq, Andrew told me that Adrian was probably going to end their relationship. A year has passed and I saw him again the other day. I felt instantly shy and avoided making eye contact with him but he made a bee- line to come and say hi to me and he remembered my name.

I took Andrew to lunch this week for his annual review and he said he wanted to remind me that Adrian ‘fancied me’. I said, what do you mean ‘remind’, you have never told me this BEFORE!  It has been a long time since someone liked me. A long time. Years in fact. I have been feeling like a complete freak because I have been on my own with no prospects for so long. Even if nothing comes of it, my mood has been lifted a little this week because of it. I often think that I would just feel so much better if I had sex regularly. It is like eating and sleeping to me and at the moment I am feeling sex deprived. 

Health – I am having trouble remembering to take my medication regularly. When I don’t take it I get the bendz and go up and down like a whores drawers on navy day. I crashed my new car the other day because I hadn’t taken it and was a bit aggro on the road. I was pissed off but I told myself to put it into perspective – I didn’t die like my brother.

Emotions – My most overpowering emotions now are loneliness and longing. They have taken over from despair and bitterness and prior to that years of anger.