Drinking - Pretending - Laughing - Writing

I need to give it all place. Or else I can't keep up. It can be too much good or bad things spooking around. I can't put it to rest until I have made some sense of it all. Or else it feels like a waste of time and energy.What am I talking about? The questions and answers or the clouds in the blue sky..

Practising what I preach..that would be something that I beat myself up over. I love telling people to slow down, to take a "chill pill" and to relax. Reminding people to look after themselves properly.. But I can't do it myself. Maybe it's hypocritical.. I don't know. But I would never listen to what I would tell others. I'd want THEM to do it, so THEY stay well and healthy..When it comes to me doing it, it a whole different "ball-game". It's not so easy and it feels unnatural. A person can think they know when it is they need to take a "chill pill".. They rely on their body to tell them when "enough is enough".. But how does that feel? How does a person know when their body is telling them this? Surely their body becomes immune to the feelings and after so long of living the busy lifestyle, they grow to think it's normal to feel like this... So therefore this person will maybe only realize to slow down, when it's too late.

I've a real good example..When I was working in Austria, in 2004, it was party party party.. Day and night. I would work from 8 in the morning, till 6 in the evening as a receptionist, 6 days a week. The first 3 weeks I was there, my body was adjusting to this new lifestyle because it changed dramatically. We would go out drinking heavily 5 or 6 nights a week. We would crawl back home at around 3 or 4 every morning, and I had to up at 7 o'clock, to start work at 8..I would need the whole day to recover, during work and by the time it was 6 in the evening, there were new plans to go out drinking again.. This was my routine and carried on for 4 months. During the first 3 weeks, I was adjusting. So I constantly felt sick, drained and tired. But once my body got used to this, 3 weeks later, I was as strong as an ox.. I never got the flu once the whole time I was there. I never overslept.. I was able to keep on going.

The point I'm trying to make is that when your body has adjusted to a certain feeling, you forget what it was like to feel normal, because your usual feeling of "normalilty" has been replaced with a different feeling of "normality". So therefore it feels natural and fine... So it's hard to know what signals a person should look for..It's hard to know when to slow down and when to change your lifestyle.. It takes courage to see that a certain lifestyle isn't working for you and to change it and it also doesn't happen over night..

This seems to be lot a babbling about nothing in general, maybe it is, maybe it isn't.. But I'm not too bothered.

There's something else that I can beat myself up over: Am I fooling myself, day in day out, by ignoring Anna as much as possible? Is this all this just a load of "gibberish" about nothing..Me thinking I'm doing well, when really there's nothing being done? Am I just pretending that all is well and good in my world which is setting myself up for a downfall? Or am I just looking for attention? But I don't want attention, that's something I would like to avoid as much as possible these days, so that can't be it either.. I pretend everyday that I want to eat in order to eat. I don't feel I need it, I'm never hungry, always full and doing nothing but sitting around, but still I apparently need it, so I just get on with it. I ignore guilty feelings whenever they pop up. Does this mean that I'm trying to be someone I'm not? By ignoring the guilt, I'm training myself. But training myself means that in a natural state of being, I have different behavior that rules my life and this is surely who I truly am..right? If I'm just a happy chappy, by nature, then surely I wouldn't feel awful every time I laugh or make a joke? By having to make such an effort at ignoring Anna shouting at me on days that I'm feeling fine, will this mean that I'll never be able to enjoy things in life again, without pretending, ignoring and training? Hummm...

I love to make jokes, I love to laugh. It's the best thing in the world. I always remember when I was working in London, working with a Scottish guy, Ivar. We had the exact same sense of humor. In the office the 2 of us were constantly tittering and giggling about absolutely everything (looking back, this would have been so annoying for the others in the office..oops..). I've never met anyone since who I can laugh that much with and everyday he used to be amazed and say.."Niamh, you laugh so much, you'll live till you're 150 years old.." My reaction: "Right back at ya, Ivar!". They say that laughing is healthy which is more than likely the reason why I feel so bad whenever I do laugh. I just wonder if I'll ever be able to laugh and enjoy the feeling it gives me without having to pretend I'm someone I'm not. But surely, if I'm just being myself, and I laugh or crack a joke, then that's my personality.. that's me..right??

It can be so confusing. Sometimes I'm just so sick of it all as well. I know that I should just take a day or two and not think about anything. But, then I feel like I'm not doing the best I can, I feel like I could then be doing more to get past all of this and make sense of my life, more quickly. Which again I know is putting pressure on myself.

This brings me back to being "productive". But in a positive way I hope.
I lay in bed yesterday afternoon. Thinking as usual. I realized that only 15 minutes a day to "reflect" and think about how I'm doing and where I am right now (not where I literally am of course) is enough for me to be able to write a book on things that I've become aware of. 15 minutes is all it takes. As Diann once said to me: "Niamh, you don't feel as if you've lived a day if you haven't anything to show for it or if you haven't achieved anything". So when I'm being driven by Fay I realized that, nowadays, I don't feel as if I've lived a day if I haven't written anything or if I haven't been creative. It seems to have taken over. But it was my choice and it's the course it's taken. To a certain extent it's beyond my control. Maybe by all this "just being myself" and discovering who I am, I'm automatically doing what I feel I like best..Maybe my own self is coming through and I'm not resisting it and the urges to write as much as I can is taking over? Maybe it's a combination of 2 things.. It's might be to show me how different my life could be..that's there's a different approach to each and everyday with my ability to write whilst looking at the world and at my life through the eyes of Fay..

Who knows.. I certainly don't.. But not to worry. I've done enough of that over the past few days and now I'm leaving it to rest..