Do you ever wonder why?

Why you have friends, perhaps? I wonder that all the time but then I realise we're all just a bunch of weirdos.

I just had the best and strangest exchanges via text I have ever had with maybe one of my closest friends.We're getting lunch today so I checked in and all of a sudden - !

Oh but we didn't just end with the heart attack inducing jokes. We, as coffee culture kids looking forward to a tete a tete over the roasted bean, drag things out because we can. And whats ever wrong with putting on a show?

It is indeed. Of course, I felt the need to elaborate to make sure James (a swan among ducks.. or like one duck. It depends where he is really) knew I had nothing against the majesty of the longer necked birds.

And then I had to calm his own fears among the banter. But also reiterate a stake already placed. That said, James is a fabulous breed of man lover so its a little more like staking a claim over the stake that wouldve claimed me? Maybe this is more complicated when I explain it...

And with that, I should probably get some work done too. I guess? 

Maturity, am I right?

I have had to deal with a lot of poopy stuff. Crappy lecturers, awful people, bad stuff happening like death and cancer. Sometimes I wonder how I managed to get to where I am – employed. In a relationship with almost 0 drama (aside from my own occasional outbursts). In a family I love to death even though they're all weird as balls (I mean, have you SEEN balls?).

I think it's about just doing the job. There are always going to be people who pick on you, who don't understand or your brain is just wired funny and you can't handle everything at once.

I've been meditating a lot lately. Just breathing, dealing with thoughts as things that don't affect me but exist. I've been having to deal with one of the most frustrating humans I've ever met at work. I broke down yesterday – hating everything about my life, job, the world, the universe. But when I went home, picked up by my partner bearing bubble tea, I had a moment.

My partner is a human being who has survived therapy, something I've never been comfortable considering – let alone doing. He has been a rock through some of the toughest times - unfortunately quite saturated in the last two and a half years. He didn't say anything other than “get out of your funk, Im coming with bubble tea.”

And that was it. Only the self can let crappy people, butt situations or random events affect you. You are in control of you and the situations presented to you or created by you. Why spend all your energy fighting something, being angry or frustrated or depressed. Just do. Just be. Just get the hell-damn on.

Yes, it's easy to say at the end of the emotionally tumultuous rainbow. But hell, I have a cat to take care of, meals to plan and bills to pay. I have family responsibilities and a responsibility to myself to do the best I can. What else can you do but your best, right?

Guppy the Anti-Cat-Pressant.

I got a cat recently. I call him Guppy and he is my stand in for antidepressants. When I got him, it was drama, drama, crap-in-the-car.

Firstly, I was sad and let my mind wander. It wandered to the future I want. Sure, a place I could call my own with my partner. We've had conversations now about how we'd get a cat because then you'd have perfect out when you're exhausted at 2am and trying to get away from social situations (you may notice a lot of this has got to do with me and avoiding all the large scale social situations).

So, I thought to myself “why I don't I just get a cat now? I don't like going out and I don't like feeling alone”. So, via enabler the Fashionable Faraz I got a cat. I picked up a scrawny noodle of a cat dubbed “Kutu” but the SPCA staff. I was too polite to come up with a name at the time so he is registered as Kutu... yes, like the lice.

On the way to the office (where I intended to keep the cat until the end of the business day), Kutu/Guppy lost his shit. Literally. First we was freaking out because cars. Then it was “I NEED TO BE NEAR YOUR FACE FOR SOME REASON”. And then he was looking for hiding places and my heart sank. So I lifted him up so he wouldnt crap in my handbag and OH MY GOD DID THE CAT JUST FART HOLY BALLS HES CRAPPING EVERYWHERE.

It happened and it was all together glorious and awful at the same time. Faraz lost his sense and was laughing hysterically, tears in his eyes (from laughter or the smell? We'll never know). So I took the rest of the day to work from home (thank god for relatively flexible hours) and change into something that didn't previously contain a neat pile of cat poops.

So I became a cat lady from then on. I spend the weekend alone and running around – buying a litter tray, cat food, a little rug to go under the tray. Buying hangers to get my clothes off the floor so the cat wouldnt poop or sleep on it. All round just lining my life up with this cat I decided to adopt. He joined the ranks of the “indoor animals” that only include my brother while the other cat and our 3 dogs live outside.

Do I regret it? Sometimes. Sometimes I wish I had self control and didn't go out of my way on a weekday to bring a surrendered animal into my house... especially when he sits on my face or paws at my cheeks, mewling in hunger because I've basically turned him into a massive fatty.

But the rest of the time, we cries for hugs, paws at my face when Im in a good mood and sits with me when Im playing something at the PC. He curls up next to me at night and ninja-jumps at me when I get home. He had helped me practice patience. He has helped me manage my moods. He has helped me get up in the morning.

I love you Guppy, you stinky butt fatty.  

Holy Anxiety, Batman!

I am a relatively young human being that is unable to remember a time I wasn't constantly nervous or worried. In the past few years, the typical “worrying” has mutated (I'm a real X-person ma!) into occasional full blown anxiety – panic attacks and all.

Yesterday I was overhearing a particularly loud office “discussion” and it triggered an attack. So far, a lot of my attacks have stemmed from consistent worrying culminating in shaking in a dark room somewhere trying to calm myself down. However, yesterday I just went to the corner of the thankfully empty room and meditated.

Nothing spiritual or special, I just focused on my breathing and forced myself to calming acknowledge what was happening around me. Basic stuff, you know? And it helped.

Usually, my attacks see me end up with a snotty nose, tear-stained collar and messy hair from frantic pulling. While I did rock back and forth a bit, I forced myself to sit up and still – told my brain I was in charge and I wasn't going to let synapses fire all up the way they are used to.

I guess it all stemmed from the fact I am sick of the attacks. Sure, I'm not “used” to them or am a long term sufferer but I definitely don't want them to pop up every time the smallest thing starts to bother me. I've had enough years with circular dark moods a la my depression to want to develop something new.

At the same time, I'm also trying to deal with my depression... and work is not helping. I am not a “collapser-under-stress” – I handle it fairly well. I know how to deal with deadlines and commit to a cutoff point because, because, because – that's how life works. But work is starting to wear on me.

I don't know if it's “same-old-same-old” fatigue... I highly doubt it is. I mean, I worked at the same thing for 8 years, I know this burnout is not the work. I guess it goes back to the yelling.

I like a healthy environment. I like being able to work somewhere where I don't have to worry about my anxiety or depression triggering. I like being able to focus, not forcing myself to in a place where its scene after scene, drama upon drama.

I just want to work... is that so bad?

I've never dreamt of what I do

Am I lucky? I find myself in a fulfilling job - yet today as I lounge around my house, trying to dose myself through the pain of the mystery boil, I wonder how I got here.

How did I become a writer?

I often find myself correcting myself or my mother when I am introduced. I do not feel like a journalist - after 3 years in a journalism school I knew that wasn't what I wanted to do (that said, after the same three years studying politics, I knew that wasn't for me either).

Telling stories has apparently been a pastime of mine since I could talk. As a kid, spending my weekends steeped in Suva coffee culture, I would rattle off to my mother's friends (about god knows what) endlessly.

As I grew, I found myself unable to speak. I grew nervous and worried but watered my imagination everyday and now it sits, unkempt as my body hair, overgrown and wild.

This imagination garden, my haven, my home, has become my double edged sword. I have so many stories, but it's grown a life of it's own and often manifests in anxiety, a curious depression and doubt.

I worry that while I love my job, I love where I am, the people who surround me and everything else... that I am beneath it all.

I worry that my job is not "a real job" - not the classic 9 to 5 we expect. I always have a story idea lurking at the back of my head, a concept for a piece, a video, a proposal. I worry that I have a voice that shouldn't be seen or heard because... well... I worry I am not "Fijian" enough.

But isn't all of that just the fine print? Why not continue to colour the walls with sweeping gestures, painting a wide, wide picture that no one will really see detail in - hiding the details from scrutiny?

Ah well, maybe this is all part and parcel of my unkempt, life-of-its-own garden. Who knows?

Time flies, so you might as well have fun

It's 2015. The first week of the year is over and I can barely wrap my head around the fact it's a new year and I only have 51 weeks left.

I can remember this time last year so vividly... but that might just have been the stress of it. I started the year as an expectant graduate, counting the days to the ceremony to receive my piece of paper that still lies among a whole pile of others today.

I felt pressure to figure it all out; pressure I had put on myself, it has to be said. I wanted to work for real. I wanted to finally find out what I wanted to do with my life. Hell, alongside all that I was still reeling from the fact I had lived through a whole year and then some of my "grown up" relationship.

The year sped by. Now my graduation, the second anniversary, my grandmother's cancer experiences, my first real job (lasting a month) and my second (that Im grateful I still have)... it's all over and gone.

All I've got are the memories that make me, me. All I've got are tattoos I've gotten along the way, including the two newest from the past year. I've gained weight, an extra hole along my outer ear and few new bugs to last me the rest of my life and an intense love to work.

Here I sit, pulling together work at midnight for the morning back at the office. I mull over whether I should make a list of resolutions, think about how seriously I want to take my dive into vegetarianism and wonder if I am really going to get up at 6 and do some app-guided yoga.

I'm going to be 23 and while that may not seem like much, at my age my mother was married and probably expecting my brother. I'm going to be 23 and while it doesn't feel like much I wonder how much it means to be the first of my secondary school year to make it out of university. I'm going to be 23 and I shake my head at the fact I still havent made it to a papsmear.

2015, you are going to be a rollercoaster. Let's enjoy the ride, shall we?

Please stop fixing everything by shutting the door.

Imagine if you will: I walk into work this morning, sit at a cubicle and scroll through my morning newsfeed, full to the brim because I haven't touched it in days. However, now out of my drug-induced haze, words actually have begun to make sense. But I find nothing that really makes all that much sense.

It's been about a week of not coming in to the office so I may have also forgotten my social skills but there was one thing I had to share in the newsroom: “Village enforces law”.

Now apparently there's a problem in Cakaudrove; marri3d wom3ns bin touching up on th3m bach3lorz. Or something. Yes, I totally take this issue seriously. Honestly, it is a bit of a concern given the article suggests that violence ensues when the whole affairs come to light.

The “solution”?

"TRADITIONAL leaders and village elders in Cakaudrove have enforced a decision to have married couples drink grog in their own homes."

Ok. So... enforceable valuable family time? I don't know, but honestly I don't think this is address the real problem. First, there may be the nature of marriage in the area. Is it shotgun? Boredom? Love? Who knows!

Again, if you aren't spending time hanging out with your husband, how much do you like him really? Again again, are the bachelors blameless here? Apparently so.

Perhaps then the real problem is the issue of communicating - expressions of frustration and anger bound to be expected but we're supposedly higher beings with the ability to process and have thought and highly developed language on our side. Or maybe we just don't use any of that... I guess.

I don't know if this whole solution will fix anything. I hope things get better but I don't think all the problems will go away with a closed door. Unhappy marriages are still unhappy.

How about we get our values train back on that “sanctity of marriage” track? Have babies, do whatever, be whoever and love whoever – but keep that huge rest-of-your-life commitment maybe for someone you actually want to spend the rest of your life with.

It's funny people in power still refuse lifelong partners recognition because they may be of the same sex when stupid straight people can do whatever they want. Sigh.