the NPC who tells you the bridges are open

This lasting good mood may not last, or at least not sustain its peak, so I'm considering ways to sustain it.

1 -- Get out of the house! And into the sunlight, particularly. Which won't be so hard ifwhen I go travelling the world, but it's so important for me to remember it. No matter how shit I feel, I'll feel shittier still if I spend days in my dark flat. Sunlight, fresh air, time with the computer switched right off.

2 -- Image overhaul! As you can see from my last post (access-locked), I'm not looking particularly gorgeous. Skinnier than suits me (I have no breasts!), dressed in dark colours and unflattering clothes, and don't let's start on my hair. It's been over half a year since I did any serious clothes shopping. I don't know where to start! Except with shoes. Shoes, I need some -- have just a couple of pairs of battered boots and I need new ones.

3 -- MUSIC. New music, especially, no more ruts of going months without a new band. A dose of tuneful rock in a major key is a reliable pick-me-up -- wonderful for my mood, any time. For god's sake, block the sad songs.


My last exam is tomorrow. I think it'll be the hardest, but I can't say I'm too worried. Simply relieved, because that's it, then. I'll be back to work on Tuesday, and can then send in my application for the career break. I mentioned this to juliet on IRC -- I'm seriously going to need some emotional support going ahead with this. I know in a lot of ways that going abroad for three years is something I can certainly handle, that it'll be good for me in many ways, that there is nothing about it that spells 'mistake'. I feel I need to, too. (Freiheit 09, hah) But I'm going to have to tell my mother about it at some point before I leave, and she's already been very negative about the idea.

I'm not under my mum's thumb. I don't live near her any more, for one, am no longer financially dependent. When I want to do something, I just /do/ it, tell her about it afterwards if it's relevant, and I know she won't be able to stop me. But this will be the biggest change I've ever made in my life and she'll be horrified at the idea of my not being safely in the civil service for the next few years, never mind travelling all over the world. I was an incredibly obedient, passive girl for years, and I know she's going to put all the emotional pressure she can on me -- probably not even consciously, but her anxiety will choke me if I let it.

I don't usualy think of myself as being lived through, the child who follows their parents' wishes and ambitions. But, maybe. She wishes she'd joined the civil service, been safely placed where I am now. She wishes she'd had the opportunity to go to college, which I've had over and over. She'd rather I be secure than take risks, even (or especially) to experience the world more fully.

I'm actually quite okay with dealing with apparently "letting her down" this way. I know what's right for me, at least in this case. And my sister will support me, for sure, and you all will too. I'm not sure what is scaring me -- that I will seek an excuse and use her reaction as that excuse?

Really, this is clearing things up for me. Yes, my mother is going to hate this. Yes, I'm going to have a certain amount of horror from her, and quite probably from my aunties and grandma too (though one auntie, I think, will thoroughly support me, and the other may too). Perhaps even from Dad. And I can handle myself -- for all my emo and occasional ridiculous lapses in action when it comes to getting things done, I'm a calm smart cookie who makes things work out when it matters. And I'm going to be okay -- the only thing I can do wrong is to decide not to go, and I'm not going to do that.

What's there to do but think about where to go, then? :) Australia is still my primary choice, though I've heard on the grapevine that visas may have been closed for this year -- going to look into that on Tuesday and find out more. I won't be going until September, anyway, which gives me a little time to get things sorted. The UK is of course a good place to go first, to find my feet and get to job-hunting/temping for the first time in years. I'd like to live on mainland Europe and attain fluency in a language other than English -- I've a smidgen of French, enough to read quite well and understand a few words, but I'd rather live in the Netherlands or Scandinavia than in France. And these are still just the close-by countries -- who doesn't want to explore farther afield? I sure do, though I don't know where to start!

( some thinking/thoughtdump in text )

I'm seeking meaning in the everyday, literally. Running an experiment on my perceptions, asking myself to 'see' meaning in everything, to read something into everything I see. Asking myself for an emotional association from everything that catches my eye. (Not people, I have practice at that, too much. This is partly for my photography, so I can develop a visual symbolic language, and partly just because it's good to knowingly tweak one's perceptions.)