Back on the dancefloor

Well, just a little bit, anyway.

As Redcap points out in her comment, it has been Quite a Long Time since I last posted, so I thought maybe I should let people know that I am still alive and relatively well.

I think getting out of the habit of posting is a little like getting out of the habit of going out dancing. After a while, you wonder if you actually remember how. And whether you could ever do it in the first place, or if you just looked really stupid and nobody was mean enough to point it out. (Though that last point probably relates more to dancing than blogging.)

I've decided to take the plunge (or a toe in the water) anyway, though I can't say that I am in the frame to be particularly edifying or amusing.

The honest truth is that in the last week I have been experiencing a bit of mania. I've had depression before, and it feels like that, but I'm pretty sure I'm not depressed. I'm happy with my life. I think I just have a temporary chemical imbalance. It's like I can feel myself outside of my body, and I'm not really sure that what my body is doing and (mostly) what my mouth is saying is quite right. But I do it anyway ...

And little things devastate me at the moment. I've had two sleepless nights over a designer moving my words around on the publication I edit. And had a couple of ill-advised, now regretted passionate rants on the topic (to my manager and the poor designer in question).

My perfectionist streak is going haywire.

***

I found out from another parent at Auskick on Saturday that F had been upset that I didn't turn up to listen to his class read on Friday. (I usually do it, but hadn't told him I would and the week before when I turned up the class was missing - in the library, as it turned out - and I had to turn back and go home. So I didn't think he would NECESSARILY expect me.) I was gutted. I felt like the worst mother in the world. Worse (and this is where the chemical imbalance and saying what I know is the wrong thing even as I say it kicks in), I told him that.

An hour or so after I'd first discussed it with him, I bought us cinnamon donuts at Donut King, sat down in the white plastic food court above Dick Smith's and Reader's Feast and pitched a heartfelt apology. Which was fine, I think. Then I shook my head and said, with real feeling and a heavy sigh, 'I'm a terrible mother'. Which was not fine.
'You're not!' he said, with real concern. 'You're a GREAT mother! Look! You bought me a donut AND a milkshake.' (Which did NOT make a great mother, incidentally.)
'Thank you' I said. 'I'm sorry.'
'Don't ever say that again.' He looked a bit distressed.
'Okay.'
'You're being like me' he said, after a minute had passed and his donut was gone.
'Sorry?'
'You're being too hard on yourself. Just like you told me I was doing at footy.'
'Thank you. You're right. I am lucky to have a son like you.'

And I am. I'm also lucky I gave him such excellent advice earlier in the day, at Auskick. It coming right back at me like that, at that moment, is the best (and most literal) example of good karma I've ever experienced.

***

Some of this may be because I have accepted a trio of quite high profile public speaking events in the next fortnight and I am terrified. I suffer from terrible stage fright, and though I do generally manage to pull it off, there is always the fear that I will forget my words or my voice will shake. And I haven't done anything in front of an audience for some years, and on radio (where no one can see you, so safer) for six months or so. I'm a facilitator at these events, not the person people have come to hear, but still ...

I am trying to tell myself I am not worried and that I will be fine. Maybe all that nervous energy is just being displaced to the rest of my life.

Hmmm. You may see from this jumbled string of thoughts why I haven't been blogging so much. Ah well. Maybe I'll be a tad more graceful next time around.