I was horribly depressed all today, and for reasons outside my control ended up being subjected to the vast majority of the Sound of Music. This was a film which I hadn’t seen since I was about nine, at which point it reduced me to floods of tears. It reduced me to tears today also, although I would like to point out that I don’t normally cry in films and it was my personal situation which caused me to feel somewhat weepy. That said, despite all the cheesey singing and dancing it *is* a rather depressing story. I feel especially sorry for the oldest girl, whose boyfriend turns out to be a Nazi and stops speaking to her I enjoyed seeing the footage of Salzburg actually, which I think is the most beautiful city I have ever seen, although I am a little confused as to how one can climb a mountain from there and end up in Switzerland.

The story at least has a happy ending for Maria, who escapes a terrible fate as a nun. Purely coincidentally, over the last couple of weeks I have been meditating on my own good fortune in escaping life in a convent, and so I felt happy for her I very nearly joined a convent when I was eighteen because I was terribly distressed by not being straight. There is nothing wrong with joining a convent, indeed it is an admirable thing to do, but only for the right reason and my reason was decidedly skewif. I don’t think I would have been well suited to the lifestyle anyway. Whilst I could have managed poverty, chastity and obedience, I think the confinement would have been the end of me. If this past week at Bradenham is anything to go by, I don’t react well to being imprisoned and closely monitored

I am slightly ashamed by the fact that on Saturday afternoon I started talking to a Scientologist in order to avoid an encounter with she who nearly landed me in the convent. Well, I was in the city centre on Saturday afternoon and not in a very happy frame of mind on account of what had just happened in my private life, and I saw her walking towards me down the main street. My instinctive reaction was “aaarggh, I can’t deal with this now” and so I quickly stepped to the side. Being in the area of town frequented by the religious nutcases, I was able to accept a leaflet from them and talk animatedly until the danger had passed.

Now, like the dreadfully inbred Catholic which I am, I can’t help but feel guilty and am suppressing a ridiculously strong urge to email her and apologise. You *can’t* sensibly apologising for avoiding someone who doesn’t realise you’ve avoided them, but still I feel like I did something impolite.

It’s weird how you don’t see someone for ages and then all of a sudden they pop up everywhere. I hadn’t seen this girl for a good twelve months until I unexpectedly ran into her a couple of weeks back. It was a strange encounter. We went for a coffee, but neither of us actually said a lot. It was the sort of situation where you don’t need to say a lot. We both have had pretty much identical backgrounds and upbringings which has the happy result that we can convey in a sentence something which would take the best part of an hour to explain to someone else, and neither of us has the temptation to exclaim “i’m sure your family wouldn’t *really* react that badly” or other similar well meant yet insensitive remarks. I feel vaguely guilty about this episode too, because I made an excuse to leave earlier than I technically needed to. There are some parts of the past about which I do not wish to reminisce and some memories which I have spent far too long burying to want excavating again. Life is already complicated enough.

Life is indeed complicated. I want to call in sick tomorrow but probably won’t. If I spent another day in this house with my parents I would go stark raving mad, and it’s too dangerous to loiter round the city centre whilst pulling a sickie. In any case, I am supposed to be working for my line manager and much as I feel that I can’t face work right now, I know I can’t afford to blot my copybook with him any further than I already have, and so I need to force myself to go in. I am just unnerved because I don’t know where I am working tomorrow, who with or what I will be doing. Who knows if it will be something I can cope with.

I still can’t decide whether to go to the doctor. I feel like I ought to but am worried he is going to prescribe me some sort of horrible medication which I won’t want to take, rendering the whole exercise pointless. I don’t actually want to talk to him, or to anyone, because there isn’t anything particular to talk about. I am miserable without justifiable reason.

In other news, I was shocked last night to discover my church had splashed out on a new carpet for the altar. We’re celebrating our fortieth anniversary this year, and so a bright ruby colour has been chosen to replace the discreet green which we enjoyed before. The overall effect is quite hideous, and creates the impression that somebody has bled horribly all over the floor. I am glad that I am not going to be getting married, because it would look most unattractive in the photos!

Tags: depression, sound of music

This entry was posted on Monday, May 26th, 2008 at 11:24 pm and is filed under Random rambling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.