Mood Swings and Angry Cooking

I don't know what my problem is today. I think the sleep deprivation might have finally pushed me over the edge. I've been sitting around rainy, depressing Zagreb doing nothing and hating on myself.

I managed to get real sleep last night, which is perhaps why I'm really annoyed now. I thought I'd feel better, but apparently the sleep debt still has a few repayments due. It might even have accrued interest. In any case, I got up determined to do something with myself, so I ate 4 bananas (the only thing I had that resembled a breakfast) and disappeared into the city streets. I should have known right away that something was wrong, but I still had residual happiness lingering in my psyche. I thought it'd be enough to get me through.

So I'm walking down the street and I'm thinking about throwing myself in front of a speeding tram. Then I'm thinking about beating the hell out of a gyspy in the street, crying out for change. Then I'm drifting through history thinking about the violence in human nature. Then I realise I'm lost. How did this happen? I only took one turn and yet I'm hopelessly awash at sea. The rain is in my hair and in my shoes. I feel like shit. I hate Zagreb and I can't be fucked with any of this tourist shit any more.

So I rally. I go through the motions of all the things that usually cheer me up. I pick a goal and follow it through: get something to eat and get back to the hostel. I do this, but it isn't enough. I hit the computer and I want to write something but I'm just so damn sick of myself that I sit impotently at the blank screen.

I get on the internet and talk to pretty much every friend I have in this world on a combination of Skype, MSN and Facebook chat, and impossibly, I still hate myself. What is going on here? I try another walk and nothing. I start stewing in it. I think awful thoughts, and I think them real loud. I want to get back, get on the blog and just rip myself apart for everyone to see. I guess in a way that's what I'm doing now, even though I no longer intend it.

I realise that I need to get some dinner so I go out to find something. I don't want to eat out, I don't want to be around people I don't want anyone looking at me. Somehow I can't find the supermarkets, even though I've been to two just the day before. I'm getting really worked up. There's a storm inside me that's far worse than the weather outside.

Eventually I find the stores and I calm down enough to walk inside in a composed way. Inside a crazy woman is wreaking havoc with the staff, making outrageous demands in Croatian, scratching her hands, her string-hair shaking. I want to just snap her neck.

Later I've calmed down. I'm in the hostel chatting with a nice Canadian guy with a cool sense of humour. We seem to 'get' each other. After a chat I decide to make myself dinner. I've picked up some rice, some frozen vegetables and some kind of Asian mystery sauce. (I can't read the label). For some reason whenever I'm feeling angry, sad, self-pitying or self-destructive I end up attempting to cook. So far everything I've made is edible. It shits me not being able to make anything decent. I hate having to buy minimal and shitty quality things. I have no choice. No storage space, can't take things with me, can't trust people not to steal my shit.

This day was a mess. When I get back I'm going to cook something real.

Premature Thoughts About 'Home'

The other day I was thinking a lot about the forecast depression that supposedly awaits me on my return to Perth. Being the emotional, susceptible person that I am, it wouldn't surprise me if said depression does eventuate. For a time I was sure that it would. Then I went through a phase of being so excited about the future, so ripped and ready and roaring to go, so full of plans, full of beans, footloose and fancy-free, that I was sure that I wouldn't.

There are about a million things I want to do when I get back. And all these plans and schemes and hopes and dreams are THE thing that is pulling me back to Australia. It occurred to me then, that this might be the way that the post-travel depression was sneakily preparing an attack on my flank. Perhaps all this exuberance is what's going to ultimately destroy me? Maybe the confidence that I can make things happen the way I want is going to turn out to be my Achilles heel.

This is probably truer than I'd care to think about. There's been plenty of times in my Perth life that I've had great ideas and felt highly motivated and have ended up doing nothing with them. Often it seems that my ideas require the input of others that are equally motivated, and when I can't find that support, I crumble. Maybe the person I am now can make things happen, can keep the momentum rolling through whatever obstacles. Or maybe not.

Long story short, when I get back, if things aren't going the way I want them to, I think I'm going to move away. If I can't start the new life I want in Perth than that's too bad. I can't wait any more.

The beauty of travelling

The beauty of travelling is that one minute you can be sitting around on a filthy, smelly couch doing nothing, feeling isolated and alone on Australia Day and not wanting to have anything to do with the yobbos downstairs, feeling so low and depressed that the suicide thoughts start creeping into your mind like Nazis on the Night of the Long Knives,and the next minute you're getting high in a hostel room with a gorgeous Argentinian girl, laughing yourselves stupid because neither of you can understand what the other one is saying.

Strange Thought # 327

Today I became alarmed when I couldn't remember what colour an Australian 20 dollar note was.