Note to self: don't blog while sleep-deprived.

You remember it later, read it back and feel bad about yourself. Ugh.

Character? Or rock-hard thighs?

Well, Blog, you're officially unread. And perhaps unreadable. For as long as it's you and me, anyway, I think I'll just riff. Which is so markedly different from what I've been doing until now.

I am super sick right now which I mildly revel in because I've had to take time off work and just bum around the house. It's given me time to think and ponder some stuffz which ultimately feels overdue but nevertheless lovely. My birthday was yesterday and due to being ill and having made no important plans previously it was spent eating junk food, watching TV and hanging out with my sister and a fellow sick friend. So basically how I would likely have spent any other Monday night this year. I joke that turning twenty is essentially the quarter-life mark, like, sixty years to go. The reason I am so openly macabre is simply due to my belief that twenty-firsts are ridiculous milestones for us all to celebrate when legally and socially they mean very little these days and in this country so let's look at something close to that that has at least some significance. Nope, even written down like that I still sound crazy.

My family and friend got me beautiful gifts which was wonderful and the fact that I am turning another year older at all deserves celebration, as ever. But I doubt being a year older will feel like... anything at all, to be honest, until I've left the house for the first time in days and seen people. I think I'm becoming more of a dreamer as I head into adulthood which is strange but I spend most of my time these days idealising things and planning for far-off or unrealistic futures rather than truly living in what I have. I can't bring myself to be sorry for that though so while I am still very much nineteen-years-old and wondering what it'd be like to be twenty and still clueless, I'm happily contemplating all the novels I'm going to write and the beautiful cities I'm going to see.

People have been asking me a lot about post-grad plans and the fact that I have none doesn't seem to stop me talking a really big game. But I don't know what to do since "write" seems way too self-indulgent and insupportable so I say "social justice" and hope no one calls me on how broad and cliched that answer is. What do I do though, really? Where do I take myself, how do I live with myself, what do I 'work on' for the next decade or half-century or whatever of my life? Identify a passion- how do I do that when they're such short bursts and are so varied and I have to pick just one? Knowing that I will always choose paths rather than be forced down one or step straight onto one out of indifference or fear makes me curious to see which children's story will resemble my life. Ruby slippers? Bread crumbs? Red hood? White rabbit? I take heart in the fact that they all end happily and try not to worry about the turmoil to come in the meantime. Besides, if it's anything like last year's adventures and my childhood reading preferences, the chaos in the middle might be my favourite part.

I'm in a fair bit of pain right now, with throats and heads and things, so I don't really know how much sense I'm making. It seems absurd that I'm of a generation that works out their issues publicly- AKA on the internet- before properly dealing with them privately when for so long the assumption was that one should only do it the other way around. I'm just musing on my identity and mental health in the most public forum there is because somehow it feels safer and more anonymous than doing so in my own head, or talking about it with people I love across my own kitchen table. I worry that one day I'll regret that there are so many pieces of me scattered across cyberspace, little crevices of my memory and consciousness that I can't see in the darkness but that unknown others may uncover with flashlights and feather dusters. It seems fairly self-obsessed to assume someone would bother though, so mostly I feel fine about displaying all my neuroses here, not bothering to censor myself. I guess I hope I never have reason to regret having such low self-esteem.

11:04 | City Loop Train | Stopping All Stations.

Melbourne is brilliant right now. Autumn is illuminated: the raised arms of the trees are backlit by an exuberant sun. Today feels glorious through every stop on the train, each suburb drenched and sparkling. I wish you were with me, to see this, but I love drinking in the beauty alone. It's painful almost, feeling this love for a city I've always planned to fly away from as soon as I can, for forever or as long as that seems. Even the graffiti-covered fences warm me today, Autumn's strange hot-cold emotions pervading everything from my lounge room to the train carriage to the parks I'm passing.

I console myself with the fact that the falling leaves I love so dearly don't belong here; the gold lining the streets is false compared to the places I want to be. The music caressing my melancholy comes from a modest New York artist I can't wait to hear sing live, maybe even meet. My clothes, my books, my ideas- all that I carry with me- are acquired due to my unapologetic wanderlust. To love this journey, today, for showing me a sun-blessed city seasoned with foliage and frost... this is not weakness. I don't need to be sad. This is bigger than me, or today, or Melbourne. It speaks to the part of me that's already flown elsewhere, keeping vigil, patiently waiting for the rest of myself to be ready to leave and never come back.

Don't fix my smile. Life is long enough.

I made a list of things I wanted to do on my mid-semester break and stuck it on my wall and not one of them got done this week. Not even "vacuum". I'm overwhelmed by how underwhelming my existence is.

I didn't study. I didn't exercise. I barely left the house. I just ate, spent time on the interwebz and watched Gilmore Girls and Glee. It brought home how exhausted the last eight weeks of (badly) juggling school with a lot of work hours has left me. I have no social life right now, I watch characters on TV shows laughing hysterically together and wonder why I don't have that before I realise that all the people I used to giggle and goof around with are just email addresses in my inbox right now. Ugh, sucky, selfish idiot I am.

Highlights of my day today:

- Finding a lone condom (wrapped and unopened, by the by) on one of the book trolleys at the library. That was funny for about fifteen minutes.
- Eating good, nut-free muesli for breakfast. It's more difficult to find than you'd think.
- Replaying the one album by a band I just recently brought myself to listen to over and over again for the three hours of my shift. Dancing to it some more when I got home and my sister had moved all the furniture to the side of our lounge room so she could vacuum. I saw it more as an opportunity to bust out some sweet moves without breaking something.
- Looking down the tunnel at the underground station while the wind started hitting my face and the light rounded the corner as the train was arriving.
- Making a favourite soup I didn't realise I no longer need a recipe for. Eating it with bread and brussels sprouts and realising I might actually be eating healthy because I want to, for once.
- Realising all of these little things bring glory and happiness I didn't know was possible in such a small day and a small life.

A requiem for the soul.

What you think about
when you’ve suddenly lost
a person whose path
you’ve not often crossed:

Takes a moment to remember
And another to regret
Until all you have is sorry
And a thousand little debts

But you never were that anxious
To see them on the day;
It stains your newfound grieving
And can’t be wiped away

Still you feel you loved them
They always seemed so nice;
Just fragments of a person
That charmed you once or twice

In your firm denial;
The sadness you’ve embraced
You honour a small friendship
You really should have chased.

She never cared for me. But did she ever say a prayer for me?

It's only when I feel really hopelessly sad that I remember that I don't really talk to people about this stuff regularly. I don't have an emo phone friend who listens to me cry about little things that set off my melancholy or a person who hugs me and tells me everything'll be okay when I collapse onto their couch. It's not that I feel like I couldn't have somebody, I just don't seem to think to establish relationships like that before I hit rock bottom so when I do I look around in vain for someone to pity me. It's a very small problem, really, but I do envy the support other people seem to get from their rainy-day relationships, the ones that are somehow well-served by the ice-cream anti-socials and long chats about negative emotions. Friends who feel better after crying together and who see cups of tea and sympathy as necessary to a healthy diet.

Ironically, I don't even know what's set off my angst. I've been feeling pretty positive lately, getting to work on time and enjoying all the reading I have to do for school. I eat green apples and go to movies with friends and dress in bright colours and ride my bike to get groceries and buy books. Things are good, they're progressing well and in the middle of the day I don't have many complaints at all. Sure, I have my off moments which usually result in a midnight blog post or solitary sulk in an out-of-the-way cafe with a coffee and a book. For the most part, though, this is unexpected. I can only assuming it's hormonal or the stress of mid-semester is getting to me.

I have a major essay due tomorrow, a presentation to do in my morning tutorial, a cake to make and a lecture to listen to online. And yet. I'm writing this because I hope the catharsis will lead to all of these things going and feeling better. But I'm calm and I don't know why. Part of me thinks stressing about it all might work more but even when I get emotional these days, it lacks the frantic desperation I used to be so full of. I'm still figuring out how that can be and whether it'll ever change. I guess I hope it'll help this loneliness dissipate a little quicker. Tranquil or not, I want this sadness gone.

Too school for cool.

Fangirling in a really hardcore way. I don't know where I get this from but I assume it's hereditary because my sister is right there with me. Either that or we spend way too much time together.

I've suffered a few minor heartbreaks. Nothing good enough to really dwell on, just the niggling disappointment felt when the person you were developing feelings for tells you about their new love interest. It's not that I think I ever had a chance with any of the people I was attracted to; I just like their company. As soon as there's a partner on the scene, you automatically see less of your friend. And if that's a friend that made your heart race, you take it a little harder. I should've learnt by now not to quietly love somebody. It doesn't change anything except me; adding a little more melancholy and taking hope I could've directed elsewhere.

I'm studying and working right now and apart from compulsive youtubing (which I maintain is a coping mechanism and not part of a genuinely hopeless unrequited love for Chris Colfer), I guess all I have to worry about is that special somebody that sees me as neither special nor a Somebody. I wish I could just focus on school and not think about any of that romantic stuff that sneaks up on me when I think I'm fine but I get stuck in this depressed mood. Can my Gothic Fictions course start already? That I feel I could connect with right now.