a) singing is a great nerve calmer
b) the world is one fucked up miserable place……only if you believe that to be so.
c) all fears can be overcome with time, patience, sanity and support
d) always do a good deed everyday and you’ll be a happier person
e) there’s always someone worse off than yourself
f) destiny and fate are two real entities
g) you’ll only ever fall in love three times in your life
h) life is much like a rollercoaster ride – filled with many ups, downs, round and rounds

This is a blog post about emotions. You know, those icky things that sneak up behind you every so often and either give you the mother of all wedgies or slug you so hard in the guts that you’re bowled over.

HAPPINESS

It’s an odd concept, this whole “being happy” kind of thing. I never really understood it while I was growing up. I was either so happy that I was high above the clouds or not happy at all. There was no stable amount of happiness in my life. No sane level of cheerfulness or satisfaction. Everything was either “Oh my fucking God, this is so fucking cool.” or “meh”. The joys of being manic. I could never imagine life without that twinge of mania in me.

It helped me survive my first year of university. It helped me come out of my shell. It got my a radio gig. It helped me keep my current day job. It fuelled my love of limoncello, beer and vodka. It also destroyed way too many intimate relationships, obliterated friendships and probably cost the life of my best friend.

The mania vanished with the loss of my best friend and six months of repressing all feelings associated with losing my father back in August 2008.

My happiness  is music, good food, family, friends (work, twitter, uni and school), old letters, memories and just knowing that even though I look like a stupid ditz with a lazy eye, I’m “me”. It’s all I can be. It’s all I know.

DEPRESSION

I know that I probably come across as someone who is beyond emo when I write something semi-coherent in here. I spent ten years hiding the fact that I wasn’t coping with life. I managed to make some horrible mistakes and to this day, as much as I stubbornly say that I have no regrets, it’s all bullshit. I have regrets. Only two or three that hurt when I think about them.

2008/early 2009 were dark times for me, right up there with turning 21 in 1998. That ten year gap is blurry in my mind. The only few items that stand out are failed relationships, family troubles and losing people.

People tell me that I am strong for not crying when my father passed away or when I received news of my best friend’s death. Not crying isn’t strength. It’s emptiness. It’s having the worst angina pain that you could possibly imagine. It’s having your inner core set alight and all you want to do is find a corner, a cubicle, a hole, a dark place where you can cry and cry and cry without anyone knowing.

I cry everyday. I’m just too chickenshit to admit it to anyone. Even the therapist that’s “helping” me get through all this grief. I’m as strong as that ‘roidmonkey you see at your local gym. Bodybuilder strong. A nine pound emotional weakling. Is that true strength? You tell me.

If my old man could see me now, he’d be shaking his head. If past lusts and loves could see me now, they’d be laughing their heads off. If my best friend could see me now, he’d grab me in a playful headlock and tell me to harden the fuck up. If only I could remember how to.

LOSS

Loss is hollow. If loss were audible, it would make the same sound a rockmelon/canteloupe makes when you gently tap the bottom of it. Hollow. Empty. Desolate. I used to think that I could cope with losing people who were near and dear to me. I’ve lost so many friends to suicide, drug overdoses and car accidents.

I never thought that it would all hit me so hard after losing my father and a few months later, my best friend. My father was a quiet man. A person who liked his footy (South Melbourne/Sydney Swans supporter since 1962), his beer and was devoted to his family. He came to Australia back in the 1960s looking for a ‘better life’ and he found it. What killed him in the end was cancer and his bad ticker. I was talking to him about the footy scores on the day he passed away. One minute he was awake and listening to me babble on about how the Swans had won by four points and the next minute, he didn’t wake up.

I miss him so much. He was one of the few people in my life who helped me pick myself up off the ground after an emotional fall. I sometimes think that my constant emotional falls ended up taking their toll on him.

The same can be said about my late bestie, Saso. I have my regrets. I could’ve handled things in a better manner. It all still hurts like hell and I’d do anything just to see @dopaminekid smile and call me a “dumbass putana”.

Loss isn’t only about death. It’s about messed up relationships. It’s about wishing that things could’ve been handled better. It’s about everything being in it’s right place and not scattered about like a stack of papers on the floor.

CONCLUSION

The Internet isn’t the greatest of places to spill your guts to the world about how upside down your life must feel but when you have nowhere else to really turn, what do you do? Ten years of sitting in silence. Ten years of filling up paper journal after paper journal with thoughts so dark and non-broadcastable. Ten years of wondering whether it gets better or if this is as good as it gets.

One of my Twitter friends told me that things do slowly get better. I believe her and I thank her for her words of wisdom. It’s good to know that even a 140 character tweet, followed by the same thoughts reiterated in person can have such a positive impact on an individual.

The Internet mightn’t be the greatest of places to spill your guts but once you’ve bit the bullet and done it, there’s a feeling of relief. I feel better for sharing my story with you.

I hope we meet up really soon so I can tell you about my adventures. Ok, so my adventures are actual failures but I’m sure you’d understand.

It won’t be long. We’ll catch up soon.

I miss you so much, my beautiful friend.

I remember the first time I met you, dear friend. It was at a mutual friend’s birthday party that I was DJing at. Your mum and his mum were from the same village back in Macedonia. You were there with a couple of your old high school chums, drinking beer and smoking Winnie Blues. You were loudly complaining to one of your friends about the fact that there was a girl spinning records and were wondering why our mutual friend couldn’t afford to get someone like Dirty South in to DJ.

Your friends dared you to talk to me, so you wandered up to where I was and introduced yourself. You seemed so confident and sure of yourself whilst puffing away on your cigarette. I didn’t think much of our first meeting because we were never going to cross paths again.

I was, however, wrong about us never crossing paths again. I spotted you downstairs, outside the back entrance to my workplace, hanging around by yourself. I wandered up to you and we got talking again. You’d scored a job as a phonebitch. You seemed rapt about this. You told me that this was the first real job you ever had that didn’t involve lifting sacks of cement or carrying bricks. You hated working for your dad’s construction company. You yearned to talk to everyone and anyone.

It was from that second meeting that we began hanging out more. I remember spending Saturday afternoons visiting op shops in search of random vinyl records for you to learn how to DJ with. I don’t know how you ended up convincing your parents to buy you a full DJ setup (turntables, mixer, CDJs, monitor speakers) but you did and your garage was transformed into a mini home studio.

There was many a good time had in that garage, mixing it up on the decks while your cousin Zlatko (may he also rest in peace) would dance around as if he were at a rave party. Oh and don’t get me started about the time I took you to your first ever rave party. You were so overwhelmed by it all that you spent most of the night up near the DJ booth watching what was going on.

Those were some good times, eh, Sassie? You hated it when I called you that and yeah, I know that you also got very cross with me when I called you Sasha but you were my best mate. You were the bloke that always had time for me and stuck by me, no matter what. When my father passed away back in August 2008, you took me out near Tullamarine Airport and taught me about “planespotting”. We’d spend hours on end watching planes take off and land. We never really said much in the car. What was there to say? We were staring at a bunch of planes, for crying out loud.

I remember convincing you to join Twitter when you bought your iPhone. I told you about all these wonderful people that were on there and that I had huge respect for many of them, even if I never met them. You started listening to podcasts made by a couple of them. You told me that you felt like you really belonged on Twitter. Well, you know what, mate. I totally knew where you were coming from. Twitter is like a second home to me and you are missed by a lot of the tweeps out there. You seemed so happy online too.

Things changed though, didn’t they after your cousin Zlatko took his own life one day before his birthday. I know that you looked up to him and that he reminded you of your older brother who died when you were just a kid back home in Macedonia. You and I talked on the phone for hours every night after that turn of events concerning Zlatko. You told me that you were afraid of where your life was going. I tried to comfort you but I kept failing miserably. You kept telling me to save all the sales coach pep talks for fat unemployed palookas.

I was never in sales coach mode when I talked you, Saso. I was in normal me mode. The one that I very rarely seem to show anymore for fear that I’ll be judged. I let my guard down around you. Shit, man, I let my guard down on Twitter. Nowhere else though.

You were such a beautiful person and you made me forget about how rubbish my life was. We’d hang out and act like a couple of silly teenagers. We sang Amy Winehouse’s tune “Rehab” at karaoke and were applauded (more than likely out of pity). We pitched a tent in your backyard and had slumber party camps until we either got rained on or it got too windy. We’d run riot on WoW in Barrens chat with our Steve Seagal one liners because we thought that Chuck Norris was so overrated.

You were my burek bitch, peddler of rakija, Guitar Hero pwner, GTA IV comedy relief (“but I’m the Niko Bellic, not this fucker on the 360″), DJing partner in crime (DJ Zoloft/dopaminekid/kid3020) and bestest of best friends.

The last time we spoke you told me that you never wanted to see me again and that I was a walking fuckup who deserved a life of loneliness with a fat unemployed palooka. I knew deep down that you never meant it but when you tore up your Ferry Corsten ticket in front of me and kicked me out of your house, without letting me even say goodbye, I knew there was something severely wrong.

How was I to know that the next time we’d cross paths again would be in a hospital with you unconscious, surrounded by a multitude of machines? How could you snap like that? How could you do that, Saso? Weren’t you always going on and on about zen and inner peace?

I know that I said no but I knew that deep down you weren’t ready. You were as shitscared of commitment as I was and for crying out loud, man, you were 23. We were having so much fun together and I never got to properly say goodbye to you.

I miss you so so much, Sassie. I can’t cry for you though, man. I couldn’t cry for my dad. I can’t do it and I know that you probably still think I’m a walking fuckup.

I’m sorry, mate.

I love you and will never ever forget you. Thanks for the advice all that time ago. I’m going to put it to good use.

“Move forward and NEVER look back”.

RIP @dopaminekid.