life without a plot

Second day of Christmas baking. I've come home exhausted and vowing never to touch another Christmas cookie again before, but this year for the first time I never really enjoyed it to begin with; just another... duty, almost, something to be done; except - what (whom) for, exactly? Or why? Because I've been doing it for the last 30 or so years of my life?

(Also, don't try the cookie thing with a 13 months old kid around. I love my niece, but, gah. It's impossible to get any work done with anything approaching efficiency.)

I usually love finding & giving gifts, but this year I wish I could (not that my job lets me) just forget about the whole Christmas thing altogether. I haven't bought anything for anyone so far, I don't know when I will, and really don't particularly want to. I wish I had the money and time to take a few weeks off & a plane to some sunny, warm beach somewhere where Christmas isn't celebrated. Or heard of, if that is at all possible.

I'm so tired of it all. Mostly I'm tired of all the repetition and sameness in my life.

The therapist always tells me to focus on what's positive in my life, myself. Now that's something that's hard to find/see at the best of times, and something I can't really seem to influence either (the perception, that is; either I see/feel it, or I don't), but it increasingly seems a wasted effort, because when I'm not putting up a facade for other people, but being honest with myself instead there isn't anything. I'm 35, and what I'm doing is sitting at my computer listening to NIN & writing a livejournal entry which is 2/3 whinebithchmylifesucks and 1/3 fanishness. Before that I was watching an episode of Smallville. Before that, baking Christmas cookies for no other reason that because I've always done it. Tomorrow I'll return to the same crappy job I've been whining about for years. My four years younger sister has a boyfriend, a child and a dissertation that's more or less finished. How is that life not a failure? How is that worth anything? Because it isn't.


Eh.


Also, while we're talking about immaturity & pointless life time wasting?

Don't do this to me, Smallville. I finally dug out the S5 box set I bought ages ago & never watched, because Christmas-stress induced brain-deadness seemed like a good state of mind to approach this. And, predictably, crap. And not improved by James Marsters. [Insert redundant rant about this show's wasted potential.] Until the Christmas episode, which, just, guh. Heartbreak. I might have sniffed a bit. Oh, Lex. Episodes like this leave me semi-convinced that someone does actually know what they're doing, because the characterisation was absolutely stringent for once instead of all over the place as usual. I've been randomly scribbling down thoughts during the earlier episodes and it seemed pretty obvious that Lex is looking for power because the one thing he's afraid of (and not entirely unjustified, growing up in this family), is to be powerless and at someone's mercy. So it's actually nice to hear that the show's creators and I are on the same page here, because most of the time I suspect the characterisation I see in my head exists only there. I don't think I've ever seen Michael Rosenbaum in anything else, so I really have no idea how good an actor he is when he's not on SV, but there he's very good indeed. Or can be, if they actually give him enough screen-time and development do something with his character...

I rarely have nightmares (that I remember); what I usually have are anxiety dreams and the kind of dreams that, when snatches of them come back to me under the shower I realise should have been nightmares, but never really felt frightening at the time. Tonight I actually managed to scream myself awake, or at least I dreamt I was screaming when I woke up. It's hard to articulate or convey what was so frightening, perhaps the part that it was so normal and realistic? As far as I remember, which is very little except the waking up part, I was at home, sleeping, and a woman was bending over me. I can't remember if she even did anything that was particularly threatening or looked that way. After that I slept with the light on, badly, and woke up before the alarm went off, despite having only gone to sleep at 2 am. Made it through work surprisingly well, but was yawning and unfocused during Spanish class, and having missed the lesson before the Easter holidays due to nin-nostalgia and doing all the catching-up on Wednesday, when I'd had three weeks for it didn't help either.

::smacks lazy self::


Lots of strange, very vivid dreams lately.


Also, three months to make it out of the post-Christmas winter depression. Three months. That's a quarter of a year feeling less than myself; more, if you add December where I generally don't have the time to feel much of anything, except exhausted. Starting to see the therapist (and I still kind of resent even typing this, avoiding the phrase 'my therapist' like the plague; hate how it makes me feel damaged and needy and dependent, even when a more rational part of my brain argues it should not. It's a step towards getting a grip on my life and if anything I should feel proud to have taken it. And, god. Now I'm starting to sound like a self-help book.) probably helped things along, too, not to mention spring and sunshine... But yes, definitely feeling better, more balanced and positive, even more open and communicative recently.


Something I realised during/after the last therapy hour is that I can ride out my emotional ups and downs - or, going back a few years, could really, really wallow in the downs, having effectively lost sight of anything else; insofar the riding out and knowing that things will eventually change is already an improvement - but I can't do things X or Y 'to cheer myself up'. [Consumerism? All the stuff (not that much, because I've learned that lesson a while back) that I've never worn, never used, never watched, never looked at again are the things I bought when I was feeling unhappy or unbalanced.] There has to be a spark already somewhere within me, at least a slight need to make me want to do something, plan something, listen to music, read a book, watch a dvd, go out. Look at the world in a certain way. Without that, it always leads to even more frustration - I can force myself to go through with things out of a sense of duty/obligation (as in, you can't sit at home all the time), but it doesn't result in happiness or enjoyment. And I can't consciously create that spark. The only thing I can think of is trying to create a personality, a more positive environment where that spark is more likely to appear/burn a little brighter?


It's a strange thing to realise, because I used to think of myself as a very rational person.