Exhaustion is the word du jour

So a few days ago, I was chatting with a good friend of mine about boys. Did I mention that my ex broke my heart… again? It’s a cruel word, but then you think I would’ve learnt my lesson the first time round. Apparently not.

And when I was telling my friend my sad, woeful story - she replied that it was not that woeful because clearly it was my own fault in going back to him.

Touche to that, darling.

So she suggested an alternative. A way to get over my ex (again) and move on.

I was sure that such an alternative could not exist, unless you count going overseas (which I’ve attempted before, and invariably ended up thinking of him more) or alcohol (which I’ve also attempted before, and invariably ended up messaging him more).

However, my friend promised that she had a fool-proof way. A way that would mean I would never think of my ex ever again (read: at least for a week, anyway).

She suggested speed dating.

Now, I am a fairly conservative, boring kind of girl. And it’s uni holidays, so all I’ve been doing lately is working, nannying and drinking endless cups of coffee. There have also been a few nights of drunken debauchery, but luckily I don’t remember any of those.

None of the above alternatives have worked in helping me get over him. In fact, being so busy working has been counter-active, because suddenly I don’t have any time to meet any one else and thus get over the ex from hell.

So I said yes.

I, Rosanna, said yes to speed dating. Which seems like the single most unlikely thing I would ever, EVER do (unless you count sky-diving).

What does one wear SPEED DATING? What if everybody I meet ticks ‘no’ and someone even writes ‘NOT EVEN WITH A TEN FOOT POLE’ next to my name.

That would be tragic, I moaned to my friend - all the while spending endless hours planning what to wear, how to do my hair, whether to wear eye-liner… all the important decisions in life.

When we walked into the bar and were faced with a group of six guys, standing close-knit beside the bar, I felt entirely out of my depth. What had I gotten myself into? When did conservative Rosanna do something so entirely out of character? WHEN DID THIS ROSANNA TAKE OVER MY LIFE?

But I didn’t run out of the bar, and I didn’t run out of things to say to any of the boys (except one. But we’ve repressed that memory) and I actually found myself having fun.

Speed dating was fun.

There. I’ve said it. This is sort of like cheap therapy, right?

No one there was awful, everybody was lovely - and everybody seemed to happy, confident (albiet nervous) individuals out for a good time. After all, as my mother rightly pointed out, I wasn’t going to interview a prospective life-partner, so I may as well have fun.

And it was fun, and I absolutely recommend it for anyone who wants to try something new, and perhaps find someone new.

After all, if you go through life never venturing out of your comfort zone, how on earth are you supposed to gain any of the opportunities that doing something entirely out-of-character can bring?

You, who I have loved all along

I tell you what, it is exhausting work missing your best friends. So much so that blogging feels entirely like effort, rather than a joy. But not just blogging - everything feels like an effort.

Which brings me to subject of dependence. We’re all dependent on something or someone… right?

When I mentioned I was blogging, my good friend Anna asked me to write about her brand new iPhone - which she officially adores. I was impressed. Adoration for an inanimate object. But as soon as I began to question how she can love a chunk of metal and buttons with such adour, I realised that I am completely dependent on countless of inanimate objects in my life.

Starting with my iPod. My iPod and I are essentially connected by the ears - my iPod comes running with me every day, and were it not for my iPod - I could never finish one of my daily runs. Because when that hill comes up, and The Ting Tings ‘Shut up and Let me go’ comes onto play - that hill seems strangely manageable.

I also love my recipe holder. It was an impulse-buy (as so many of my possessions were) but unlike many other of my impulse-buys, this has been a brilliant addition to my life. It even has little compartments for all the different types of recipes - desserts, meat, fish, poultry. And it looks incredibly chic in my bookcase holder, so it’s a win-win situation for all involved.

But love is not only tangible.

The adoration I have for my recipe folder is not nearly as wonderful as the absolute plethora of love I have for my three best friends.

Of course, tangible love is easy to measure. I love my iPod - until it stops working. I love my recipe book - until it no longer has room for my thousands of biscuit recipes.

But real love, love that makes your toes curl and your heart warm - that can not be measured. And it took my three best friends leaving for me to realise this.

You see, there are four of us in our wicked circle of BBC-watching, ice-cream-eating and Champagne-drinking. And now there is only me left behind, as the other three are off exploring different parts of the world for various lengths of time.

And last week, when the last of them left for Sweden - I actually thought my heart might break. That it would explode into a thousand tiny pieces that could not be put back together, that her departure forever leave a irreversible hole in my life.

And, of course, it was tragic - as airport goodbyes so often are. And it was full of tears and desperation for her to suddenly re-appear back in my street, back in my loungeroom - drinking cups of tea on a Sunday and champagne on a Friday. That suddenly my phone would glow with her name and she would be inviting me for coffee, and that we’d spend hours laughing over nothing - just as we always had done.

But she didn’t come back, and surprisingly - the world didn’t end.

Though it did make me question just how dependent I am on my three gorgeous best friends - whether perhaps I could go on functioning without them, just as I had with them beside me.

The answer is of course - yes. Because here I am, weeks after the first of them left and just a few days since the last left - and I am still functioning, and what was an over-bearing pain against my side has been reduced to a dull ache that I am not entirely sure will ever fade.

Whereas, I am convinced that if my iPod were to leave and go to iPod heaven - I could just buy a new one, and that dull ache would be gone completely.

But you can not buy new friends, and you can not buy someone who will love you effortlessly.

So I think a bit of dependence on others is a good thing. After all, isn’t it better to have experienced that dull ache and to know that there is someone who exists in the world whom you love enough to miss whenever they are not by your side?

When life throws you lemons

Have you ever noticed how much people like to hide behind alcohol? As though the excuse of ‘oh, I was drunk‘ covers all manners of sins.

The other day, my friend was telling me about a colleague of hers who had cheated on her boyfriend. And at the end of the conversation, my friend said that her colleague wasn’t even drunk! As though, if she had been drunk, it would have been better - or even okay. Because then she would’ve had no control of her actions and thus cheating on her boyfriend is perfectly acceptable when drunk.

Only she wasn’t, and hence forth falls her defence.

Except I don’t think that alcohol can be an excuse.

Surely being drunk can’t mask as a reason for how you accidently ended up in bed with someone that wasn’t your boyfriend?

I have to say, I’ve done some pretty shameful things myself under the influence of alcohol. Not because I didn’t know what I was doing, but because alcohol gives you a funny sense of self-satisfaction.

I have to say that, after I’ve had a glass (or bottle - let’s be honest) of champagne or two, eating an entire chocolate cake sounds entirely plausible. Because everyone knows that calories don’t count when you’re drunk, right?

Or sometimes I think that walking (read: stumbling) home in the dark. At four am. In too-small highheels - I think that it’s a great idea and let’s walk even further! All the way to McDonalds and get a giant cheese burger!

So I sort of understand alcohol as an excuse, but never for something as big as cheating on your boyfriend of four and a half years.

Because there’s shameful, and then there’s down right insanity.

Once, on a very drunken Christmas Eve, my aunt and I decided it would be a wonderful idea to go to the local church in a village in England and attempt to sing all the hymns.

Actually all that ended up happening was that I dropped my hymn book and couldn’t work out what the Priest was saying.

But alcohol didn’t mask the guilt I felt when that Priest glared at me with all the fury he could muster. And I am certain that alcohol can’t mask the mistakes we make when we know what we’re doing is wrong.

Unless, of course, you’ve had a whole bottle of Vodka - in which case, shouldn’t you legally be unconcious?

Therefore, I put forward the question dear internet - is being drunk a reason, or an excuse? Please illustrate with examples. The more shameful the better.

I might even share the story of this one time when I decided it would be a great idea to…

If life were a musical

(Apologies for my absence. I have no excuse, except perhaps the word exams. Accompanied by three of my best friends leaving within three weeks of one another to various European cities for work, study or boyfriends. Never fall in love with a foreigner - it is hell for the friends you leave behind).

Have you ever realised just how many times a day you’re told what your life should be like?

My bloody cereal box tells me every morning. Life is a journey, full of wonder and joy… Seriously, I just want to eat my Just Right and get on with my day. Stop telling me how glorious it is to wake up and see the sunshine and smell the roses and all. Because really, whose life isn’t complete without their CEREAL box telling them that life is a journey and we should all achieve the most out of the miracle of every day life.

Those people at Kellogs should be shot.

But it isn’t just my cereal box. It is everywhere. The newspapers are filled with stories about what life should be like, how such and such theatre production will change your life, make you realise that life is about overcoming our demons.

Really? Is that what my life is about?

Because if I’d known that, I would’ve given up years ago and demanded a refund.

And advertisers! Advertisers love to tell us how our life should be. You should wake up feeling youthful and glorious, while you slip your feet in fluffy slippers, draw the curtains and welcome A BRAND NEW DAY.

Oh my god. How did they know that that’s what I do EVERY SINGLE MORNING? I always do a salute to the sun before I skip off (joyfully, of course) to eat my healthy, balanced breakfast from a cereal box that speels off some pile of junk about getting the most out of my life.

Because life is a journey, says Kellogs.

Well hooray for the journey, but this is my journey - not yours, Kellogs.

And I am demanding my life back.

For example, a few days ago, I did something that my friend titled ‘morally reprehensible’. (It’s a good word, reprehensible. It suggest that whatever you did can not possibly be forgiven).

You see, when I told her what I’d done, she said I was making a huge mistake in life.

My answer to her was that, yes, perhaps I am making a mistake in life - but it is my mistake to make.

So I don’t think life is what the back of a Kellog’s cereal packet says it is. And I don’t think life is some amazing journey that you have to embrace every single day. Because that’s just hard. What about the days when all you want to do is stay in bed and watch Mr. Darcy in your underwear? WHAT HAPPENS ON THOSE DAYS?

Instead, I think life is all about trying as best you can to just keep going.

Sometimes that’s all people can expect of you.

So, tell me - is anyone else tired of being told how they should act?

After all, as Carrie Fisher once said:

“I am somewhat nonplused by the event that is my life.”

Interruptions

Apologies, my life currently resembles a train wreck.

I promise, as of next Friday, that I will fill you in and posting will resume as normal.

Have a brillig weekend.

The wicked webs we weave

The ideal Rosanna would wake up, go for a jog, eat six small, healthy, balanced meals every day.

The ideal Rosanna would never procastinate during swotvac, would never watch Star Wars when she should be studying, would never use going to the gym as an excuse for not doing homework.

And the ideal Rosanna would certainly never consider sex… with the ex.

When I was about fifteen, I met this delicious boy who I ended up dating for a few too many years. And I can’t even begin to tell you how much I adored him - not because I think I genuinely did love him, but just because I think I was too young to tell the difference between love and lust.

But a few years existed between us, and by the end - I think I did genuinely love him, with a heart so large that it filled the entire scope of history between us. And I just don’t think you ever get over your first love.

Mostly because they were your first - the first to make you laugh, the first for you to miss like something chronic, the first to bring your flowers, the first to make your heart flutter.

But we broke up. Perhaps because that’s invariably what happens with first loves, perhaps because we’d been together too long (perhaps because he cheated on me), perhaps because I was just too young - or perhaps we just grew apart, until I couldn’t remember any of the reasons why I was with him, except that he always made my heart flutter.

Even after we broke up and I wanted to (ring his neck) tell him to leave me alone - he made my heart flutter.

And now - well, now it’s been several years since we were together. Several years for me to recover from all those first times - the first time he walked to my house in the dark, in bare feet, just to make sure I was okay, the first time I saw him after he came home from overseas and my heart did flip-flops in my throat, the first time he rang me to say he missed me…

Clearly, I am over (read: not over) all those first times. To the point where now, when we go to the gym together, I can’t remember any of the reasons why I’m not with him.

Except that he’s my ex, and it’s one of the great rules in life: never have sex with the ex.

I need advice, internet. Am I doing the wrong thing here? Am I letting this situation get out of hand?

(I would like to add here that I think it is already way too far out of hand, and that any actions from now on will invariably lead to an argument. Or worse… a broken heart).

After all, Captain Wentworth went back to Anne - and they found a way to make it work.

‘Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant… I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight and a half years ago.’

The truth, and everything in between

The other day, my mother and I were having one of our infamous arguments.

This is because my grandfather is Irish, and thus everything is accompanied with fury in my household.

My mum was bitching about her friend, saying how she couldn’t believe how seflish her friend could be - fancy not ringing her!

Yes mum, fancy that - I replied, but then I followed this up with a clarifying statement; Too bad everyone thinks of themselves first.

This was naturally followed by a lecture from my mum about how cynical I am.

But I don’t think I’m a cynic - I’m a realist, and there’s a difference.

After all, I have been convinced for some years now that everyone is inherently selfish. And of course, you can cry out about all the charity work you do, and how you always put others before yourself - and I say hooray for you, but I bet you don’t put others before yourself 100% of the time.

I don’t think it’s physically possible to put others before yourself 100% of the time.

Take Safeway as the prime example of this.

First, you battle it out for a carpark - and you couldn’t care less how many other cars you piss off in the process of trying to reverse park, or squeeze between two impossibly large SUVs.

Then you battle it out for a trolley, always trying to get the one that doesn’t squeak or doesn’t have a mind of it’s own. I always try to get the half-size trolleys, so much so that I will ruin the beautiful, organised trolley line just to get the half-size trolley.

There, I’ve admitted it. I’m a seflish wench.

Then you race around the aisles, trying to find whatever it is you need lest any other cretins find it before you - all the while, dodging other angry trolley-drivers and screaming children. I generally find that aisle behaviour is really the perfect example of what life is like in general - angry, and all-too-often rushed.

Then you race to the check-outs, weighing up your options for the fastest escape. And you don’t care if you push in front of someone who isn’t as quick on their feet as you - you want to get the hell out of the horror that is Safeway.

And then you walk back to your environmentally un-friendly car, carrying your environmentally un-friendly bags - and you come home and preach about how selfless you are.

Call me a cycnic, but I just don’t think it’s possible for anyone to be entirely selfless. Surely there is a ingrained aspect to humans - an auto-pilot that we switch into when we’re under threat. And tell me that anyone on that auto-pilot would ever think of others if it meant the threat to their own survival.

And of course, there is goodness in the world. People are wonderful, people do the most incredible things - but you can’t be one hundred percent good one percent of the time.

Clearly, my mum disagrees. But I’m fairly sure she’s never been to Vegas.

So, am I wrong? Is there a person who is entirely selfless every single minute of every single day? And who is this person, and are they free on the days I go to Safeway?

The Great Race

Today, Obama beat Clinton in the Democratic primary. It is the first time a black candidate has ever had the ticket for an American Presidential Election.

And considering that the republicans are essentially bending over to kiss their own backsides goodbye, we can assume that the democrats are going to do rather well.

Obama for President, anyone?

Empty is the hand of faith

Sorry folks, it’s been wack-job week in the land of Rosanna.

I had no idea that these exams would be so tough. Given that I’m a politics student, and only have twelve contact hours a week. The whole notion of studying is rather elusive. Or it was, until two weeks ago - when it occured to me that I better start.

So, on my daily walks to the train station in order to go into the library - I pass a beautiful, sky-reaching Church that glows in the sunlight and whose stain glass windows cast coloured shadows across the foot path.

The Church has a weekly quote posted out the front, and this week the quote is:

Faith is not just what we can see, and feel with our hands. Faith is believing in what we can’t see, and what we can’t feel with our hands.

And it made me think.

That may be true for some people - that faith is believing in what can’t be proved, and at one stage in my life, I am sure that was the case for me too.

But I no longer believe that faith is only trusting what you can’t see. I think you can have absolutely faith in the things you can see.

There was one very European winter morning when I went for a walk through the mountains surrounding Salzburg. I had always wanted to go to Salzburg - not because I am some crazy Mozart lover, but because (even worse) I am some crazy The Sound of Music lover. And when I woke up to a beautiful morning, with a glittering sun and snow-capped mountains, I knew I had to go for a walk.

So off I treked, into mountains where no one knew me - and where no one in the world knew where I was. And I walked for hours, past lakes that were post-card perfect and through tracks that looked over snow-capped alps against a bright, morning sun.

I walked through mountains in a country impossibly far from home, and I imagined that my friends were looking at the same sun - thousand of miles away.

In that moment, it wasn’t that I had faith in something I couldn’t see - because the ground was real, and the alps were real, and the way the sun drew silhouettes across the sky was entirely real too. 

Instead, I had faith that in a moment that was entirely my own.

So I have to disagree with the church I pass on my morning walk. And I have to say that faith is not only believing in the things you can’t see - but faith is believing in the things you can touch, the moment that can make your heart soar, the people you can love with everything you have.

And faith is believing that they can be just as perfect.

Is faith only believing in the things you can’t see?

PS: In case you needed convincing - here are some photos from that morning walk in Salzburg:

The great debate

Well, has this week been the week for utterly bizarre public transport stories or what.

It started on Monday.

Monday mornings are usually horrendous for getting onto Melbourne’s over-crowded train system. Because, let’s face it, no one wants to be there. Monday mornings are comprehensively horrendous.

I have a friend who argues that Monday mornings should be abolished, but I don’t see a lot of logic in that argument. Surely if they were abolished, we’d just have Tuesday mornings instead? No, time to get over it- Monday mornings are always going to be awful, but you have to start the day somewhere.

So there we all are, on this packed train - and this woman starts singing.

Singing.

And you know, good on her - if she wants to sing along to her iPod, good for her. Anything to make my Monday morning a little bit more exciting is fine by me, but obviously this one guy in a suit had such a terrible weekend that the idea of a woman singing in his crowded train carriage offended him to the point of no return.

And fair enough to the man in the suit, too. He was in an over-crowded carriage, with some uni students arm pit in his face.

So, the man in the suit politely asks the lady with the iPod to stop singing, please - on account of the fact that she was no Edith Piaf - and she was singing Eye of the Tiger. At the top of her voice.

It became fairly clear after only a few seconds, however, that our singing budgie didn’t want to stop singing - and she not-so-politely asked the man to please mind his own business, and rack off.

Well, clearly the man in the suit had some sort of control-freak complex - because he couldn’t let it go. He immediately ripped into her about personal space, which is sort of amusing - given that he did have some jock’s armpit in his face.

By this time, everyone in the carriage is trying to look anywhere except at the two arguing, and the woman has now moved onto a whole new song - she’s now up to Sexy Thing, which was possibly the worst song to come out of the 90s.

I was a little bit torn over who to cheer for in this situation: the man in the suit, who clearly didn’t enjoy his personal space being invaded by the worst singer this side of the city, or the lady - who clearly didn’t care if she was the worst sing this side of the city.

Obviously, we all have our little personality defects.

I would have to define mine as chewing gum. It’s the most feral, disgusting habit - but I am completely hooked. My mother has tried banning me from (gasp) cooking, I’ve tried banning myself from shopping - but nothing will work. And I am so vehemently opposed to gum - I think trying to be a lady, while chewing gum, is the ultimate sin.

But I just can’t stop.

The woman on the train can’t be the only one. We all must have personality defects. Tell me your worst.

PS: If anyone does have a remedy for excessive gum-chewing, please let me know. It will save me any more unnecessary embarrasment.