Monday, October 26, 2009

And so the wheel turns again...

And so the wheel turns again...

Saturday, 24. October 2009, 05:33:51
Hi,

Bipolar sucks the big one. After having a couple of weeks up in hypomanic world, I have the soul crushing crash. Where I wake up wishing I was dead, and every other thought during the day is how the hell do I get through this again! By about mid-afternoon, I can smile again and at least feign interest in what's going on around me. Although of course I feel guilty about letting down the people around me, shed the odd tear over it all, and try to pull myself back together.

Anyway enough about that. Joy of joys, yesterday Ronnie got into the compost again, and something has badly affected his digestive system. I came home from shopping to a flood of runny poo all over the kitchen floor. Between gagging and having to step over said mess to let fresh air into the room, Ronnie was cowering in his box and needed to be encouraged to leave the room. It was all mopped up quick enough since it was liquid, but the poor dog is still feeling miserable. So miserable that he barely touched his dinner, and when I locked him out to go to the loo, he went and huddled in his doghouse. After calling him to come back inside, and having no luck enticing him, I decide to take his jacket out to him and leave him in his yard for the night. That way at least if he desperately needed to evacuate his bowels, the flood would at least not require immediate fumigation of the whole house.

I remember at the school fete in Hamilton, the grade sixers would run a wheel of fortune. You'd pay ten or twenty cents to have a spin, and were awarded a luckydip prize, some lollies, or if you're really lucky a big prize depending upon what you landed on. The wheel was always situated on the stage of the town hall, and you'd have to climb up the stairs that were overlooked by the Honour Roll's from the Great War's. The polished timber columns and the shiny gold lettering always fascinated me. I thought they'd have to have been pretty special men to have their names put up like that for all of Hamilton to see. The fete was the highlight of the school year for me, a day filled with lollies, toys, cake, and the best bit of all was that Nonna would come and see me during school. One year I bought her a geranium that was so pale that the pink of it's petals was almost white. It was well worth forgoing the forty cents worth of lollies to buy Nonna the first gift I'd bought on my own. I can almost feel Nonna's hands on my face as she cupped my cheeks to lift my face to hers as she thanked me. lol, I'm getting all teary and sentimental thinking about how much we loved each other...peas in a pod just a couple of generations apart.

Anyway, I'm well and truly sidetracked. I started out telling you about the wheel of fortune because life is like that wheel in so many ways. Partly because you had to risk ridicule by climbing the stairs in front of not just the school but every extended member of the schools family. To me it felt like the whole of Hamilton was there (I had a habit of making a fool of myself in front of the school, like picking baby Jesus up by the leg and trusting him at Joseph as it was announced that I'd given birth to the saviour of mankind. All because I was shitty that they hadn't procured a real donkey for me to ride into Bethlehem. Resulting in the parents and older grades rolling around laughing at me...as you can see I don't tend to do things by halves). Secondly you have to hand over some precious money which you could use to buy exactly what you want, but you chose to risk not knowing what you'll get. Thirdly, you spin that wheel hoping against the odds that the number it lands on is what you want, the wheel spins and spins making you dizzy as watch the numbers cycle up and down and your hopes whiz up and down with them. Finally your number comes up, and me being me never winning any big prizes in my life, I get one of the lesser prizes, which although I'm disappointed I open my luckydip, and find something wonderful inside. LOL, my favourite prize was a suction cup frog on a spring, that when you stuck it down and the suction eventually let go the frog would fly through the air. I think I was in grade one or two when I won that.

I guess what i'm trying to say is that in life we put ourselves up for ridicule, and hand over things that are precious to us, to watch our hopes and dreams fly by, experiencing emotional highs and lows, sometimes we're lucky, but no matter what we get some reward, and it's what me make of those rewards that enriches our lives. So I'll take my plastic frog, which many people would call trash, and enjoy the hell out of it, purely because it's just what I wanted and needed after all.

Here's a song that expresses it all wonderfully.
Cheers, Kate

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (from Monty Python)

words and music by Eric Idle

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.

So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...

No comments:

Post a Comment