floating in a most peculiar way

[freckles_and_doubt]

I seem to be vanishing into myself in strange and alarming ways just at present, so herewith a Resolution to resume the meeping into the void which constitutes my blogging activities: perhaps, if I write, I will persuade myself that I exist. I do not like the twilight limbo occasioned by my continuing, repulsed and miserable desire to flee my job, and by the identity-crisis-induced helpless inaction which that desire generates in the absence of any immediately obvious alternatives. It's a shadowy, liminal hellscape, and I'm a shadow in it. On the other hand, I lost myself in my own ten-year-old blog posts for half an hour a few days ago, looking for a book reference, and it made me feel more real than I have in months. Words, it turns out, when they are my words and I have wrought them to my will, flood the shadow space with light: they give me a sense of identity. Thus blogging again. Go, little words! construct me!

Also, the blog dive reminded me of the Bunny. Remember the Bunny, and the anvil doom which ended his miserable twee existence? I remember it fondly.

I have, in the last few months, negotiated two massive and prolongued doses of 'flu, with added sinus infection and glandular wossname, and am still very tired, which may be implicated in the sense of vanishing. I am also stressed, because my small Jyn kitty picked up an abscess while I was away last weekend but one, and I didn't find the Suspicious Lump until Tuesday night. I made a vet appointment the next morning, but by the time I took her in on Wednesday afternoon, the horrible thing had ballooned to about three times its size, and had to be lanced, mere antibiotics no longer being sufficient. She has a giant shaved patch and interesting drains and things (man, feline healing is weirdly fast, and occasions strange workarounds) and has been bleeding gently on pale surfaces for the last week. She recovered very quickly after the op, and was almost immediately full of beans again, to an extent which made me realise how horrible she must have been feeling; I'd put the subdued affect down to Feline Displeasure at my absence. But I used to suffer from recurrent abscesses as a kid, I know only too well the enormous, incredible relief of having the damned thing dealt with, both in reduction of pain and pressure, and in the recovery from the general nausea and an infection causes. I feel her. Poor Jinian. Also, being me, I feel horribly guilty that I didn't pick it up immediately, before it got to the point of needing lancing. Cat owner fail.

Pandora is being quite kind to her, which is nice. Proof of a photographic nature (Jyn's wound is on her neck behind her right ear, and thus allows a pleasing illusion of wholeness):



In parenthesis: it is my almost invariable habit to sign all of my emails, other than the most absolutely formal ones to Big Cheeses, "jt" - my initials, in lower case. I've done this for years, at least as long as I've had this job. It occurs to me, in the context of vanishing, that this is a self-minimising technique. Little lower case me. Unassuming, and unlikely to infringe on anyone's space. It figures.

Comments

[firstfallenpanda]

Alived! You should come visit. We'll feed you lots of gin and go show you a giant naked man on a hillside.

[freckles_and_doubt]

I am alived and owe you email, as per usual, sorry! see "vanishing into myself", above. I would love to come and visit, but it's not on the cards financially for a while. You may have to content yourself with random visits from my mother, who has just moved back to Dorset :>.

Hellooo!

[torquetum]

Good to see you back, *JT*. I hope your words rebuild you to your satisfaction.

Re: Hellooo!

[freckles_and_doubt]

thank you :>. It feels surprisingly good to be blogging again, I have missed it.

Floating..

[crinklybee.typepad.com]

Hello Freckles and doubt,

I just found you via 'James and the Giant Cat' in my blogroll and feel compelled to comment. Your writing is beautiful and has in one fell swoop resuscitated my faith that there are still great blogs out there. it does help that so much of what you write here resonates with me immediately- for example this: 'I do not like the twilight limbo occasioned by my continuing, repulsed and miserable desire to flee my job, and by the identity-crisis-induced helpless inaction which that desire generates in the absence of any immediately obvious alternatives'... captures deliciously exactly how I feel about work on a pretty regular basis... it's one of those so-rare passages you read over, thinking 'I wish I had written that myself!'

The other bit that chimed almost spookily is the reflections on being away from writing/blogging for a good while, and the feelings (yes, actual definite existence) engendered by getting back in there. That is quite exactly where I find myself this week.. which was why, having just pressed 'publish' on a post yesterday, I was trawling rather randomly around looking for who was still out there.. and found you.

I've similarly made a resolution pertaining to continued bloggery.... good to find someone else who is doing so! And look forward to reading more.

Jonathan

Re: Floating..

[freckles_and_doubt]

hello and welcome aboard crinklybee! and I do love that name. I am very happy that my resurgence of bloggery and wrestles with working life should have struck a chord with you, long may we both continue to burble. If only to demonstrate, as you say, that blogging is definitely not dead.

[woollythinker]

Blogging is an amazingly effective grounding technique. I seem to practise it as a very self-indulgent and weirdly public form of therapy, and I have mixed feelings about that, but have none the less made my peace with the fact that I need it. Glad to have you back.