It's Like You're Always Stuck in Second Gear

SPRING.

Maya and I bought drinking coconuts on a whim and then had to Youtube "how to open a drinking coconut". This was our celebratory photo.

I say spring, but it really is more or less summer given that spring in Jo'burg basically lasts for September and then we jump straight ahead to summer and stay there until March. But the blossoms are blossoming and the birds are building nests and the jacarandas are only just starting to bloom, so I suppose we can still call it spring for a little longer.

And now I'm going to talk about being sad for a bit. At the end (spoiler alert) I'll tell you that I'm doing better now, so don't panic and don't be sad. Ready? Ready.

I've been spending far too much of my time lately feeling sad, which is especially disappointing because it really shouldn't be a time-consuming activity. And yet somehow it is because of the amount of time it makes me dedicate to crying and lurking and not going places. My mood's quite all over the place, such that the same song that makes me feel brave and strong in the morning is the one making me cry in the afternoon (often this song, which is incidentally a great song).*

My mood just noped out** entirely a week or two ago, so I spent the week crying and wondering if I had to start getting resigned to the idea that sad is just how I am now. Which worried me, because I've been depressed before (fortunately mildly), and getting used to having a very low baseline mood seems to me to be a bit of a slippery slope, even if accepting the sadness is one way of dealing with it. Fighting to be happy and OK is tiring, and sometimes it's a relief not to bother.

I just live here now. NBD. (Source)

But things have picked up a bit since then. I'm still generally dissatisfied with how my life is at the moment and I feel pretty frustrated and powerless, because so much of my unhappiness is related to my job, and there's just not that much I can do about it. It's not worth jumping out of the frying pan into another corporate job that doesn't suit me, and jobs I might actually want to do are pretty thin on the ground. And that's before I even address the other problems, like the lurking fear that I've fucked up all my romantic relationships and I'll carry on doing that because the problem is me.

But that's no fun, so let's not talk about that.

You know what it fun? This "Wait for green" sign, which might as well read, "For fuck's sake, South Africans, please follow the basic rules of the road."

"Stop at the red. Drive on the left. Do we really need to keep going over this?"

Also this can of artichoke bottoms. Tee hee. Bottoms.

Bottoms.

But after that particularly bad patch, I do have a little more energy again now, and I'm trying to do more non-work stuff with my time, beyond just doing puzzles on my lunch break.

Although this is an awesome lunch spot for doing puzzles in. A+ shade, baby oak tree.

On Friday I went to a board games night with my friend Chris, which was a nice change from our usual interaction, the extent of which is swapping sad Facebook messages about our sad office dronery. It was also a nice change in general, because I haven't been to a board games night in a while, and it was nice to try out some new games and remember that this is a hobby I really enjoy.

This one puts me well on my way to a Tumblr of me playing Pandemic while looking stern.

It is also an expensive hobby I really enjoy, but I reason that I can afford a new game next month if I don't impulse buy any dresses or colourful shorts, like I did this month. And last month. And maybe the month before. As miserable as the job may be, I am grateful that it lets me live comfortably and save money and still impulse buy pretty dresses and colourful shorts and board games. I mean, sure it's costing me my mental health, but board games! Dresses! Colourful shorts!

On Saturday night, Ro and I had a Youtube and vodka party, because those two things go really well together (Ro and I. But also Youtube and vodka. So actually, all four of those things go well together). Obviously, One Direction was involved.

I love all these boys.

And this Tuesday, I'm going to a roller derby tryout session, because it's about time I (a) did something interesting with my weeknights and (b) stopped being too lazy to try out something so obviously awesome. I am very excited. I hope that I will be amazing at it, and I expect that I will be terrible. But derby girls are basically cooler than everyone in the whole world, so hopefully a little of that will rub off on me.

123 GO COOLNESS. (Source)

I'm actually a lot happier right now than this post suggests. I've been really sad, and I still think it'll be some time before my baseline mood is back where I want it to be, but actually right now I'm doing pretty OK. I do feel like I'm living my life in the first verse of the Friends theme song (here, in case you missed the '90s), but luckily I'm also living in the chorus, because I am constantly surrounded by wonderful people who look after me and deal with my whining when even I don't want to look after me and deal with my whining. And that makes me feel very lucky.

And that was your tour of the inside of my head. Please return your audio guides on the way out.

Now here is a dog that looks like Putin.

(Source)

*And this is the frontman. Hello.
**We're using "nope" as a verb now. Spread the word.