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Sep. 29th, 2010 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quiregrrlI haven't posted properly for very many months now... there's lots of reasons, but the overarching one is that I'm just feeling withdrawn, and... I guess disengaged.
I don't know how much of it is just embracing my introvert side, how much is depression, and how much is laziness. I do know that it's a combination of those three things, this reluctance to engage beyond the absolutely necessary, or purely pleasurable and simple.
I rarely go out, I rarely see or speak to people other than a select handful, and only regularly speak to two people outside of my work life. If I do go out I find myself choosing small events, where there will not be more than a dozen or so people that I might be expected to speak to, and I know most, if not all of them. Everything else feels too much like hard work, too scary, too annoying, too overwhelming, too hard...
I don't feel depressed, not in the usual desperate obvious kind of way that I usually experience in my down cycles... intellectually I figure i must be, I recognise that my behaviours reflect a certain level of dysthymia... but ... it's really all just a bit... bland. I don't feel VERY sad, I don't feel VERY happy... most of the time I don't really feel very much of anything.
Which is not to say that I'm UNhappy... for the most part I'm fairly content. I like having limited social contact, I like not forcing myself to try and be what i think other people want me to be, I like not having to worry about filtering myself, I like cruising and talking to myself and reading and being quiet and spending whole days in bed with a book and the cat, and playing my guitar, and not analysing everything that I think or do. Mostly :) And I enjoy the socialising that I do engage in all the more because I never feel like i HAVE to be there, or i'm doing it for any other reason than I want to spend time with those people in that situation... and if sometimes i feel lonely, or cowardly, well I guess I'm willing to accept those for a life that feels safe.
Anyhow, enough introspection... I continue to practice my guitar playing, and although it's abundantly clear that i will never make a living as a rock star, or even a moderately good busker in the central station tunnel, I am now able to play a few songs and sing along at the same time without fucking up the playing part too badly. I still fuck up more if other people are listening, or singing along as well, than when i play on my own, but I'm reasonably proud of my persistence and the pay off :)
At this point in time, I can play and sing recognisable versions of:
Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper
Throw Your Arms Around Me - Hunters & Collectors
Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison
To Her Door - Paul Kelly
Jolene - Dolly Parton
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) - Green Day
Lean On Me - whoever sang that
I Kissed A Girl - Jill Sobule
and I can play a recognisable version of Every Rose Has A Thorn by Poison, but can't quite coordinate the singing with it just yet, need to practice more :)
Perhaps soon there will be another Poi In The Park, or a BBQ in someone's backyard, or some similar small quiet safe gathering of people I feel comfortable with, and I will bring Lola and strum her in public...
Oh and in complete contrast to the general tone of this post, i will be getting naked on a stage in front of people on Friday 15th October at Fierce Flesh, at the Red Rattler (deets on Facebook)... coz it's about that time of year when i feel the annual urge to have people applaud me for being naked on a stage :)
I don't know how much of it is just embracing my introvert side, how much is depression, and how much is laziness. I do know that it's a combination of those three things, this reluctance to engage beyond the absolutely necessary, or purely pleasurable and simple.
I rarely go out, I rarely see or speak to people other than a select handful, and only regularly speak to two people outside of my work life. If I do go out I find myself choosing small events, where there will not be more than a dozen or so people that I might be expected to speak to, and I know most, if not all of them. Everything else feels too much like hard work, too scary, too annoying, too overwhelming, too hard...
I don't feel depressed, not in the usual desperate obvious kind of way that I usually experience in my down cycles... intellectually I figure i must be, I recognise that my behaviours reflect a certain level of dysthymia... but ... it's really all just a bit... bland. I don't feel VERY sad, I don't feel VERY happy... most of the time I don't really feel very much of anything.
Which is not to say that I'm UNhappy... for the most part I'm fairly content. I like having limited social contact, I like not forcing myself to try and be what i think other people want me to be, I like not having to worry about filtering myself, I like cruising and talking to myself and reading and being quiet and spending whole days in bed with a book and the cat, and playing my guitar, and not analysing everything that I think or do. Mostly :) And I enjoy the socialising that I do engage in all the more because I never feel like i HAVE to be there, or i'm doing it for any other reason than I want to spend time with those people in that situation... and if sometimes i feel lonely, or cowardly, well I guess I'm willing to accept those for a life that feels safe.
Anyhow, enough introspection... I continue to practice my guitar playing, and although it's abundantly clear that i will never make a living as a rock star, or even a moderately good busker in the central station tunnel, I am now able to play a few songs and sing along at the same time without fucking up the playing part too badly. I still fuck up more if other people are listening, or singing along as well, than when i play on my own, but I'm reasonably proud of my persistence and the pay off :)
At this point in time, I can play and sing recognisable versions of:
Time After Time - Cyndi Lauper
Throw Your Arms Around Me - Hunters & Collectors
Brown Eyed Girl - Van Morrison
To Her Door - Paul Kelly
Jolene - Dolly Parton
Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) - Green Day
Lean On Me - whoever sang that
I Kissed A Girl - Jill Sobule
and I can play a recognisable version of Every Rose Has A Thorn by Poison, but can't quite coordinate the singing with it just yet, need to practice more :)
Perhaps soon there will be another Poi In The Park, or a BBQ in someone's backyard, or some similar small quiet safe gathering of people I feel comfortable with, and I will bring Lola and strum her in public...
Oh and in complete contrast to the general tone of this post, i will be getting naked on a stage in front of people on Friday 15th October at Fierce Flesh, at the Red Rattler (deets on Facebook)... coz it's about that time of year when i feel the annual urge to have people applaud me for being naked on a stage :)
