2006-02-09, 1:37 p.m.,

Just catching up on my posts I couldn�t put in here without internet access. It�s a bit longer than the norm. And for the record, I feel much better now. Going to the doctor tomorrow so we�ll see what happens. Train journey was amazing�more on that later.

Monday Feb 6, 2005

Not Sure when I �ll actually get to post this into my diary but I�m on the train with my laptop just thinking that I should write out a lot of what�s in my head lately and post it the nest time I�m anywhere with internet access, At the moment I�m not anywhere near much of anything but a whole lot of red red sand and busland. Just watching it pass from my humble cabin with it�s huge picture window. Sort of clich�, but like a movie passing by.
I wasn�t going to well the night before I left for the trip. Not entirely sure if it was a combination of a few things or what but I went to this work dinner on Friday night and toward the end I just got a bit quiet and sad.
Saturday I spent the day on the verge of tears thinking something awful was going to happen. I was convinced that while I was away on this trip I would come home and something drastic would have happened. I was panicking all day to the point where at about 1 in the morning when my girl had gone to bed I went into the bathroom and took a shower and I was shaking and crying and I just sat in the floor wrapped in a towel crying for no reason at all, its not good and there�s a few things I think I could attribute it to, but who really knows.
To make it worse, I haven�t been feeling well. I�ve been neglecting a few things and keeping myself so distracted with work and my lovely one that I just haven�t been paying proper attention to myself , I�ve been getting head spins a lot and I�m always really dehydrated , my hands and feet are continually cold, clammy and tingling. And I�m running to the bathroom to pee every ten minutes from all the water drinking I�ve been doing.
Diabetes runs in my family on both sides and I don�t think it�s any secret that it�s in the mail for me in coming years but I think I need to get tested when I come home because that time seems to be now.
And I�ve just finished reading a book that I probably should have put away halfway through, I should have put it down after page 2, But I kept reading and it�s affected me pretty badly. It�s a book called Lucky by Alice Sebold that is essentially an account of her rape when she was a freshman at university, It�s got me thinking a lot about my experience in university, although not quite nearly as violent as hers.
But reading her book has just brought back a lot of my insecurities and made me realise how I don�t talk about it and how much of it I keep in because really, who wants to hear about it?
She was saying that how after you tell someone what happened, whether it be a friend or a lover, you change in their eyes, Either its admiration or awe or sometimes repulsion, how some people feel as though it�s their mission to pull you back from it. But you don�t ever get back, you sort of save yourself or stay there.
Sections of the book were talking about post traumatic stress disorder which is what I was being treated for in Arizona, in the book it was saying how people who have it don�t have a normal baseline of alertness that we are on this elevated level of continually being alert, constantly expecting danger. More sensitive to noise, have poor reaction to unexpected stimuli, take longer to fall asleep and wake more frequently during the night. It reconditions the nervous system. And it does. I am in a constant state. Of waiting for people to betray me and fuck me over, I expect this from people and never really fully trust them . And while many have accused me of putting walls up and being hard to get to know it�s because I know what people are capable of and I anticipate it and would rather be on guard at a distance, It�s not that I don�t want people to know me or be friends with me, I guess I just don�t trust them and it takes me a long while to trust them completely and when I do, I�m inevitably disappointed by them.

I hate being surprised, I hate being ticked and touched unexpectedly I don�t sleep well ever. I hate noise and bright lights and would probably (and have quite often while home alone) spend days in the darkness of my house without ever turning on a light or music or television.
Regardless, the book has brought back a lot of nightmares and I�m weary and tired and last night while asleep on the train feeling the bouncing back and forth on the rockiest part of the track I was convinced that we would derail, And again I had a panic attack envisioning the cars slamming into each other at 100km crushing each cabin and the folks inside them in a desert where n o one would come for you for hours, I laid in bed thinking of everyone I loved and if they would be ok with me disappearing forever, It�s madness now, I realise that , But at the time I resigned myself to dying in a massive train wreck. But this morning I awoke to a deep orange sunrise pouring in over hot red sand and I�m still alive. Although I couldn�t go back to sleep,

And today this carriage is very much like the episode of sex in the city where Samantha and Carrie travel by train and the shower and the toilet are all in the same little compartment. The toilet folds down from the wall and it�s all very compact and snug and just unbelievably a fantastic and unique way to travel. I�d definitely do this again, perhaps next time do the one that goes east west from Sydney to perth,

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- - 2007-06-08
My absenteeism - 2007-05-24
Defining Yourself - 2007-03-19
odd sort of flatness - 2007-03-06
Welcome Home - 2007-02-27

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