Wish you were here...

Dear mum, last night I had a trippy dream. I know that's not unusual for me, as I make movies every night I sleep. But this one, it was the most random one in awhile, yet quite poignant.  So it started with me getting to meet Blue October. I feel like my love for them, from the age of 16 when I first heard "Hate Me", turned to obsession after you passed. They always got me through, as if their music was a vital piece of my survival. A coronary artery, keeping my heart in check. Maybe I tried too hard for that to be the case for you, too; theirs being the last music I would constantly play for you, jumping from one song to the other, while all you wanted to do was rest after your chemo. Keep going, mum...  Anyway, I don't know how I managed to get a chance to meet them in my dream, but it was happening. Only, ten minutes before, an announcement came and a scene played out where Justin, the lead singer, was approached by a man wanting his jacket. Justin didn't wa...

Dear mum, we, Joey and me, moved house the other day. We only moved across the street. An exchange.  It's a beautiful house, and I'm lucky to be making it home. I just wish we left a beautiful house behind. Our house. The family home. I never wanted to carry on there, to take over. It was too big, and littered with sad memories. It wasn't home in the end, rather a burden that became too much for me to carry. I'm sorry.  Most nights, I cry myself to sleep. I don't like to admit that, nor do I want you to worry. But I'm sad - my heart is broken. Missing you, still grieving that massive loss, and a feeling of guilt that won't go away. Guilt, I've been packing in bags and carrying with me since I was a child. I don't know how to throw it away, or how it keeps attaching itself to me. I've nothing to feel guilty for. Have I?  Many people, family included, have always looked at me as someone who had everything handed to me. Like I was some spoiled...

Dear Mum, Did you ever read The Yellow Wallpaper? Maybe you did, as you flew through books like nobody's business!  Anyway, I'm sitting here, having my own descent into madness. Here, by the way, is the house I've been staying in until we - me and Joey - move in to our first home. I'm sitting on the kitchen floor, Dragon Soop in hand, staring at the paper peeling off the wall. Yellow paper. Bit on the nose, eh? Given it's a day where I'm fighting with my depression. Not manic today, just majorly down in the dumps and for want of a nicer phrase, "not giving a fuck". Crazy that, innit? Not giving a fuck, when giving too much of a fuck about everyone and everything is the problem. Heart's no longer on my sleeve - it's swinging from my fuckin' throat like a pendant on a necklace. Fascinating to look at, but irritating as anything to keep it dangling there.  God knows why the paper is peeling now. Or was it like that when we got here? It...