antiques

Lately I have been feeling swamped by the amount of things that I feel I must write about. The only way I think I can fix this up is by completely purging myself of every little thing that has crossed my mind (possibly Kerouac style, but let's not get our hopes up).

I guess the most monumental thing that has happened recently, in the realm of the real - actually it's funny that 'realm' has the word 'real' in it. Has everyone else noticed that? Anyway I found this old diary of my mum's. Mum and my sisters are at the Open in Melbourne, leaving me at home with my friend, free to put mattresses in any room of the house and go looking through whatever bookcase we want. This diary is so amazing to look at. It reminds me of Riddle's diary in Harry Potter because it's clearly been submerged in water at some point and has indents in the cover from where string has been tied around it. The pages are crispy and watermarked. Some of the writing is illegible because the ink has smudged. I guess it's a terrible thing of me to have done, snooping into my mother's private, deepest thoughts. But to me it's like reading a story and in some way I feel that my mother's 19-23 year old self/ves wouldn't mind someone else reading her thoughts. i myself have blithely daydreamed about passing on my various journals to my children one day. Anyway I guess it hardly matters what the content is all about, more that now I guess I feel that I am not alone in some way. To illustrate what I am talking about, here is a selection for you:

"talking to him on the phone it was like 'playing the game'. I didn't know him. In fact I've never known him. It was (and is) all A GAME. Me living, me acting a passing of time, me playing a game. This book is the only truth, it's what I think but never say. It's really who I am. I MUST LIVE IT"

Of course there are disturbing parts about sex and stuff but I somehow find it comforting because my mum has been alone for so long in my life, it makes me happy to know once she had fellows pursuing her. Also there are certain criticisms that I have about the writing - it's not really how I write (any more), but who can say what happens to one's style! Actually there's some very morbid, suicidal, depressing themes that surface quite a bit which alarms me because I had thought my mum was only depressed after my dad died. Although it quite explains something mum told me in year eleven: that I wasn't allowed to kill myself because she didn't (note: at the time we were talking about Sylvia Plath but why does one read Ms Plath? I think we all know why). Regardless of all this melancholy, I tell you I find quite a bit of comfort in the whole affair. Actually my newer readers should take care to note that I am not a novice in the "snooping-into-parent-texts" game: last year I found a notebook of my dad's and carried it around with me for some time as I found it to be a generally beautiful collection of observations culminating in the engagement of my parents. Also it contains vivid descriptions of Scotland, Norway and America - I didn't even know my dad went to America. For the interest of those reading, he totally went illegally but got caught out by the polizei and was asked to leave.

This newer discovery leads me to ponder - what some would call - 'deeeeep' stuff. I mean, what happened to my neurotic, paranoid, overly emotional mother? Where did she go? I've come up with this new theory that you are alive when you finish your teens up until the point where you get married and/or have kids. Because then you have to stop being so selfish, give yourself up to another person's life. You are effectively dead. While you have your children you watch them have their own lives, recall your own. I mean even now I long for the days when I could just roll around in the grass and worry whether my doll has had enough to eat. That's probably why you have kids, just so you can see that happening again. I guess in some ways that Marian lives on in me and my sisters. I mean combined, my sisters and I are pretty much just all mum. It is a bit crushing to feel like you aren't yourself. I want to make this whole affair about me and be selfish - because I am at the proper age for it - so I probably will, even though I KNOW I shouldn't. I feel like I am no longer a me, and that I'm just part of this never ending line of the same type of woman/girl (feels odd calling myself a woman). I don't know, I feel like a part of something good but I also feel like I have lost something. Individuality perhaps. I am pretty much certain though that kids just go on to be either exactly or nearly the same as their parents, as much as they are loathe to admit it.

*BREAK*

I want to address Dave again but I feel like I am not doing it in the right way, even though I actually have no other way to do it. I guess because i am not cool or enigmatic I can't think of a good way to pretend that I'm not actually speaking to him. For those who don't know what is going on, you really suck and should just get your stalking on and go check it out. But to Dave, cool, thanks. I actually don't know anything about you and am unsure how you know that I am from Horsham, but I'm glad that you don't mind that I stumbled upon your blog realm. And also, to other people's blogs who I follow, I doubt that you'll have continued reading this saga, but I think you should read Dave's blog (also I hope your name is ACTUALLY Dave, but Murray told me that so I'm going to keep on doing it) about the nature of blog followery. Although I imagine that you are probably down with that if you're reading and not leaving comments. Does that make sense? Hardly matters now, does it? I like that it doesn't matter if you don't really REALLY know the people whose blogs you read and I guess if you read them for long enough you will.

I hate it when I write and reuse the same sort of words over and over again. It becomes quite difficult to make sense of something.

Because I talk about dreams a lot in this blog, an excerpt from last night:

The house was on fire.