Post Two Hundred and Twenty One: The Ties That Bind.

I saw online that a close girlfriend of mine from school was due to be married.

The next night I found myself in a Fetish Club watching two costumed women. They were fervidly circling a seated gentleman in a cyclone snare of knitting wool, and even though off-stage, their unique dramatic indulgences gained them a particularity that distinguished their act from the other kink around them. Their victim was yarn bound from shoulder to knee, nipples popping out like the corners of flattened milk carton spouts. I imagined cutting him free, watching his cocoon fray upon release into an erogenous pom pom. I was lost as spectator, suspended in wonderings of how a young man found himself publicly flogging his wife in stocks, or in another instance, how a man wearing a thong and a traditional Native Indian headdress first experimented, slinging his girlfriend up with rope ties from a roof hook. 

After the group dynamics of the more involved patrons were established, and probably after I realised that no-one was going to lay into me with a paddle without my consent, my own self inquiry emerged. I was comfortable there among the ladies in latex, and perhaps even more so among the men dressed as ladies in latex. This place of assumed disrepute seemed to be a place of unparalleled respect and honesty. It appeared to be a joint where partygoers could congregate to escape the repression of that which truly made them feel alive, and their bold and brave pursuit of self actualisation made me wish that mainstream culture could make room for such authentic confidence and adventure. 

It was the next morning that I saw online that my mate was getting married. I felt a surge of rejection, and even though I hadn't had much contact with her for many years I was confronted by the realisation that although once close, most of my friends had drifted away. I'd been noticing the special occasions of those that I once deemed dearest pass by not with my own involvement but with guilty mouse clicks through profile pictures and status changes. The internet makes it easy to be a voyeur into other people's lives and not active participants in them. Herein the self discovery lies, of rejecting the path of no resistance; the one in which we wake just to work, scrub our decaying teeth and repeat until death, save for the brief illusory pleasures of youth and conventional asylum. I don't want to rely on the security of established safety nets, even though I might mourn the natural extinction of them. I want to push back at my social networks to see who would really like to share with me the type of life that challenges and inspires. I'd like to see who'll play with me, maybe not with whips and ropes, but with an undertaking of honesty and courage and a commitment to having an endless collection of colourful stories to share. After all, life seems to be a delicate jig around pleasure and pain. 

Post Two Hundred and Twenty: Riot.

Depression is such a dick.
Here is a real story.

Riot.

I've heard it referred to as a black dog, but the depression that I know isn't like a pet. It's not something that I would breed pure and parade at a showground. I don't seek companionship with it. It isn't a beast outside of myself, mostly it just feels like I'm divided into vacillating healthy versus unhealthy hemispheres. I'm generally managing work and (minimal) social stuff, but running in the background like some sort of corrupted app is the volatile presence of feebly suppressed fear. Oh, and sadness. Much sadness. Super negative and sometimes violent self-talk results, and like a set of pop-up notifications they are super fucking tricky to disable.

It has helped that I sought help and received a diagnosis, and I am learning how to make triggers lesser...well, lesser triggers.

I miss how I used to be before I was depressed. I guess I hope that somehow knowing what a big old dark emotional pit looks and feels like will make me less of pretentious, privileged asshole. I don't know. Maybe the state of being depressed is a result of trying to make it in this unjust, unfair world where people are starving and others are wiping their shitty asses with wet wipes just because it makes their anus' smell less like their ego.

One benefit of wanting out is wanting change. The change part is good, because it's a way of giving energy out to issues and causes bigger than myself. Discrimination and social injustice; these matters actually matter more in the world outside of my head, and another by-product of feeling shit all the time is being able to see and help others that are actually being treated like shit.

And I don't really know how to end this blog. This is my attempt to be transparent, and maybe even make someone else feel more comfortable to do the same.

We're all fighting our own riots, right?

Post Two Hundred and Nineteen: Troglodytic is an Actual Word.

Troglodytic. It means that lonely, unfriended sack of shit feeling of self-unworth, or at least the preceived state of being sat in it. I'm in it, I can't get out of it, and I suppose that's how I found that ludicrous word to begin with.

I'm feebly resisting that end of year, calendar-imposed slip into self absorption, that brooding over what is tangibly done and dusted by December's close. It's hard to buck. What sticks out most, as I fight the urge for both good and bad, is that on this last day of this year, I feel small.

I don't want to fall victim to it.

I was at the gym a couple of months ago busting my ass.  I don't consider myself particularly fit or sportsminded but I was genuinely enjoying the results of a routine workout. I was about ten minutes into my session and I noticed three gym members sitting on a weight bench in the corner, laughing at the active class. Laughing, I assumed, at me.

I went home distraught because I'd already been feeling like a stranger in other areas of my life and this sensitivity was processed in the dark, self-feeding mechanism of the depressive think tank. The more rejection I assumed, the more I would and continue to bury myself away in defense. The gym had been a way for me to connect with others and dare I say myself, in a healthy way. It was a place where physical and mental strength was fostered, and this was a motivation form that I could see benefit from.

After that evening and that particular episode my nervousness and sensitivity levels have run high. Even though I can reason with these feelings in general, a mini moment of sad can act as a trigger for all those other, big bullshit feels. I forgot a friends birthday and I wanted to disappear. I had a fight about a tomato on the bench and I wanted to disappear. No one called me, and I wanted to disappear. Someone called me, and I had nothing to say, and I wanted to disappear.

Here's to a stronger year, each little battle win or loss at a time.

Post Two Hundred and Eighteen: Blue.

Like an offering to the sea; yonder swept. Farther drifting, stalled afloat for a time unencumbered by all but the bulging, briny deep.

___________________________________________________

"Just do us a favour, O'Connor. Write something."

Post Two Hundred and Seventeen: Until Then.

Love. Love hard, and without hesitation. Love your way. Connect with love, because when everything else fails be it with your environment or your dollar bills or your mental and physical health or your material distractions, true and honest love will be the only thing that you will wish not to let fall from your fingers if you have just a minute left to live.

After five years of burying and cremating people, this is what I've gathered as my richest insight. I have substantial evidence that through the height of our grief for each dead or dying person, the legacy that one leaves behind seems to perpetuate the balance of pain and happiness for us left, for those still living. 

Directing memorial events, washing, treating, suturing, dressing and coffining dead bodies, giving information and assistance to grieving people, driving hearses and body transport vehicles; these are tasks that the average funeral director may execute every day. Sadly though, a funeral directors role (or at least in Australia), is considered an unskilled labour. The salary is underwhelming, the hours can be unbearable, and the support systems hollow.

Now hear me in this. Funeral directors in Australia do what they do as a sacrifice, be it for good or for something else entirely. An individual collecting trolleys at the supermarket brings home $5 an hour more than the professional who might collect your grandma from her deathbed. The funeral director who will roll her gently with dignity and respect to tuck a sheet around her. Who places a rose on her chest as a gesture of appreciation before taking her into their care. Who will answer your calls in their own time at the gym, at the supermarket, at their child's birthday party, at the dinner table, on the toilet, while they are supposed to be getting sleep. The funeral director who will clean your grandmother's soiled body and rest her with care as if she is in fact their own family member and still an individual walking amongst us. And this is just the beginning of the relationship between funeral director, funeral commissioner and deceased person. With little care of sounding conceited, I sure as hell believe that the role of the funeral director is in fact one of immense skill and great dedication. I sure as hell believe that a funeral director should be respected as the professional that they could and should aspire to be.

There is always a but, and this blog entry cannot escape such extension. Not all funeral directors feel such motivation in their role. Some seem to not think about death, or loss, or love. They go through the motions, generally well. They wear the same suits and drive the same vehicles, but their disconnection to reality and the gravity of their role in the life and in the death of others seems to pass them by unawares. Perhaps this is why some aspects of traditional funeral custom are slowly changing due to consumer awareness and rejection, and thus the antiquated views of the stern male funeral director in tails and a top hat, smoking outside the chapel are slowly being shaken off.

I quit my job as a funeral director on Friday.

I have resigned from this career because my understanding of my potential as a funeral director has divorced from how the varying duties can be honestly and ethically executed within the current Australian death care system.  It has been a difficult decision to step aside from my experience and a unique skill set. It is disappointing that I have to start from scratch, perhaps doing something that I am not as intrinsically excited and inspired by, because the basic conditions of the job have not allowed for my pursuit of self actualisation. I would stay in the job, but I cannot honestly do that without my basic needs being met. I need to grow, I need to be able to pay the bills and save up to pursue my goals, and I need to be able to rely upon the experience and dedication of other funeral directors who should by the very nature of the role share the same altruistic traits as myself. It is sad, and maybe I'm a giant wanker for expecting others to meet me up there, but I expect the highest standards of a business that makes money from such an unavoidable circumstance as death.

It's not there yet. When it is, I'll be back. 

Until then, unless it kills me in the mean time,

Peace and love.
S.

Post Two Hundred and Sixteen: Shifter

I'm sitting on my bed with an animal hat on my head, eating peanut butter on toast for dinner. I'm nearly at my 29th birthday. The bread just fell out of my hands and on to my t-shirt, wet side down. I feel reluctant to move it. The woman and the little girl in me, sitting one in each other like a stack of chairs. I'm contemplating on age and sorrow like an antique in a new store.

I ask myself how much of my identity is based upon being a funeral director. Without my job, without my insider's upper hand on something different, what else might I be.

For five years my life has run alongside a track next to my professional duty. If I wasn't to continue in this career, who would I be? I still question death, this bastard, this cause of immense suffering, without answer. It's like shooting hoops alone at night, with no way of finding the balls that bounce off the hoop and into the shadows.

Post Two Hundred and Fifteen: Elephant

You said love. You said we made it, and you signed off with it.

But when you were in another country, another bed, another woman 

 

I felt the closest to you.

 

It ate the food off of my plate. It lay between us and stole the blankets.

 

You said love twice, while the animal was out of the room.

 

You said love. You said we made it, and you signed off with it.

But when you were in another country, another bed, another woman 

 

I felt the closest to you.