Teenage Dream
Dec. 28th, 2010 10:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maryI've been up in Brisbane for the past week, and for all of that week my mood has been wonderful, optimistic and organized and bright and jaunty. I had a wonderful Christmas hanging out with my family and have watched far too much awful awful reality television with my mother (Tabatha's Salon Takeover is the best of the lot).
That's why being down today was actually kind of good, in a lousy way. Because it was a reminder that I can be having an amazing-bordering-on-surreal holiday (more on that in a second), not have work to worry about, be surrounded by people who love me, feel positive about the future and myself... and still have all the dark, shitty, self-destructive thoughts creep up and punch me in the face, still spend half the day sleeping fitfully, still feel like a collection of broken pieces that don't fit into a whole.
It's a good reminder, because I was getting into that 'I'm on a new dosage and I have made lots of resolutions and now life is going to be easy and happy and awesome!' mindset, and while positivity isn't a bad thing, it would have been a bad thing for me to continue ticking along without a reminder that along with that chipper-ness I have to find a sense of compassion towards myself, to find a way to feel optimistic whilst still being realistic about the fact that my mental illness exists. It doesn't magically go away because I'm on better medicine or because I have some time away from my job, but that doesn't mean it has to rule my life either, so long as I accept that the bad days will come sometimes and I just have to live through them.
ANYWAY. The actual reason I sat down to write this post is because yesterday afternoon something amazing happened. I was going to meet Gracie at the Starbucks in the Queen Street Mall, and I got there a few minutes before her so I went inside to look around -- it was pouring rain outside, but it was the heavy warm Brisbane summer rain, so I'd been walking through it and getting wet and laughing quietly to myself about it, rather than worrying about getting out the umbrella in my bag.
So I step into Starbucks, looking like a drowned rat well overdue for a haircut and smelling like an overweight Melbourne girl who's been in the Brisbane summer humidity all day. And queued up waiting for his coffee is Darren Hayes.
Either you know my history as a Savage Garden fan or you don't, but the short version is: they always have been and always will be THE BAND, by which all other obsessions I will ever have will be judged.
I looked like a mess, and not an especially hot one (though a smelling-like-sweat one, sure), but my brain had checked out right around the second I'd gone 'oh, Darren Hayes' to myself at the sight of him.
(The following conversation looks incredibly awkward written out, but it was actually just kind of happy natural waiting-in-sbux small talk in tone.)
Mary: I'm sorry, I know you must get this all the time, but I just wanted to say I've been a fan for years and I follow you on twitter and I wanted to come say thank you.
Darren: [I... have no actual idea what words he used here. But the general vibe was 'that's cool, thanks] What's your name?
He held out his hand for me to shake at this point. I always forget to have a good handshake during the meetings where I actually care what the other person thinks of me.
Mary: I'm Mary, hi.
Darren: Hi Mary. You out getting some shopping done today?
Mary: Meeting a friend, actually. I moved to Melbourne a few years ago, so I don't see everyone up here that often.
Darren: Yeah, I'm here visiting my family. We're doing some post-Christmas shopping.
Mary: Hitting the sales?
Darren: Yeah, though I don't know what's up with this weather, it's pretty crazy.
Mary: Yeah, we don't get rain like this down in Melbourne. Look, I don't want to take up any more of your time, but I just had to come over. Your music pretty much saved my life when I was a teenager. I just wanted to say thank you.
Darren: Thanks so much for saying that.
Mary: I always used to dream of meeting Darren Hayes in the Queen Street Mall when I was a teenager.
Darren: Oh, that's so sweet! Thank you.
And then I left the Starbucks at went to sit at some undercover tables near the McDonalds to wait for Gracie. A little while later Darren and his family walked past, and I smiled at him and he smiled back.
There was so much I could have said, and things I kick myself now for forgetting (you didn't think to get a photo, Mary? Or get him to write out lyrics for a tattoo? Or even, I don't know, not talk about your Mary-Sue daydreams while they're coming true fourteen years later?), but in the end I said the most important part -- I told him thank you. I'm glad I got to do that.
That's why being down today was actually kind of good, in a lousy way. Because it was a reminder that I can be having an amazing-bordering-on-surreal holiday (more on that in a second), not have work to worry about, be surrounded by people who love me, feel positive about the future and myself... and still have all the dark, shitty, self-destructive thoughts creep up and punch me in the face, still spend half the day sleeping fitfully, still feel like a collection of broken pieces that don't fit into a whole.
It's a good reminder, because I was getting into that 'I'm on a new dosage and I have made lots of resolutions and now life is going to be easy and happy and awesome!' mindset, and while positivity isn't a bad thing, it would have been a bad thing for me to continue ticking along without a reminder that along with that chipper-ness I have to find a sense of compassion towards myself, to find a way to feel optimistic whilst still being realistic about the fact that my mental illness exists. It doesn't magically go away because I'm on better medicine or because I have some time away from my job, but that doesn't mean it has to rule my life either, so long as I accept that the bad days will come sometimes and I just have to live through them.
ANYWAY. The actual reason I sat down to write this post is because yesterday afternoon something amazing happened. I was going to meet Gracie at the Starbucks in the Queen Street Mall, and I got there a few minutes before her so I went inside to look around -- it was pouring rain outside, but it was the heavy warm Brisbane summer rain, so I'd been walking through it and getting wet and laughing quietly to myself about it, rather than worrying about getting out the umbrella in my bag.
So I step into Starbucks, looking like a drowned rat well overdue for a haircut and smelling like an overweight Melbourne girl who's been in the Brisbane summer humidity all day. And queued up waiting for his coffee is Darren Hayes.
Either you know my history as a Savage Garden fan or you don't, but the short version is: they always have been and always will be THE BAND, by which all other obsessions I will ever have will be judged.
I looked like a mess, and not an especially hot one (though a smelling-like-sweat one, sure), but my brain had checked out right around the second I'd gone 'oh, Darren Hayes' to myself at the sight of him.
(The following conversation looks incredibly awkward written out, but it was actually just kind of happy natural waiting-in-sbux small talk in tone.)
Mary: I'm sorry, I know you must get this all the time, but I just wanted to say I've been a fan for years and I follow you on twitter and I wanted to come say thank you.
Darren: [I... have no actual idea what words he used here. But the general vibe was 'that's cool, thanks] What's your name?
He held out his hand for me to shake at this point. I always forget to have a good handshake during the meetings where I actually care what the other person thinks of me.
Mary: I'm Mary, hi.
Darren: Hi Mary. You out getting some shopping done today?
Mary: Meeting a friend, actually. I moved to Melbourne a few years ago, so I don't see everyone up here that often.
Darren: Yeah, I'm here visiting my family. We're doing some post-Christmas shopping.
Mary: Hitting the sales?
Darren: Yeah, though I don't know what's up with this weather, it's pretty crazy.
Mary: Yeah, we don't get rain like this down in Melbourne. Look, I don't want to take up any more of your time, but I just had to come over. Your music pretty much saved my life when I was a teenager. I just wanted to say thank you.
Darren: Thanks so much for saying that.
Mary: I always used to dream of meeting Darren Hayes in the Queen Street Mall when I was a teenager.
Darren: Oh, that's so sweet! Thank you.
And then I left the Starbucks at went to sit at some undercover tables near the McDonalds to wait for Gracie. A little while later Darren and his family walked past, and I smiled at him and he smiled back.
There was so much I could have said, and things I kick myself now for forgetting (you didn't think to get a photo, Mary? Or get him to write out lyrics for a tattoo? Or even, I don't know, not talk about your Mary-Sue daydreams while they're coming true fourteen years later?), but in the end I said the most important part -- I told him thank you. I'm glad I got to do that.
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Date: 2010-12-28 11:18 pm (UTC)