Nothing like a good bit of illness to make you feel better!

When I was somewhere in my late teens (my brain says 19, but my logical structure thought process isn't convinced), I had tonsilitis and glandular fever at the same time.

It wasn't fun.

Not even close.

I didn't leave the house for a long while.

Illness is a weird thing. Given the right circumstances it can induce some sort of weird catharsis when coming out of it, and enlightenment whilst in the grips of it. I was barely able to function for the first couple of weeks of that time, but as soon as it loosened its clutches around my (absolutely pain drenched) throat and neck, I had to find ways of passing the time.

My dad had 2 Oxford English Dictionaries, the 'shorter' versions I'd guess they were called, but, there is still in excess of 3,500 pages of it, full of words, quotes, icons, figures of mythology and history, information, so, of course, whilst delirious with illness I decided to set about reading both of these, AND took notes to boot. Many pages of mad scribbles, illegible sentences made up around these words that were intended for insane song lyrics, some of which made it, some formed the basis of the idea for one of the earlier bands I started, Tangaroa (a name found in said books), and some of which I still have now, some took up finality in the piece I wrote 'Day One Promise', but most still languishes, unfinished, un-used.

It opened up a whole new world though, gave me some kind of focus to keep on going each day, as well as maybe also making me feel like I was experiencing some kind of psychosis at the same time.



Somewhere else around my late teen state, I had a wisdom tooth out, and was laid up for a long while with a massive square jaw, lots of pain and at least two weeks of house-bound time to pass. I seem to remember some similar kind of psychosis and catharsis engulfing me, but I can't quite grasp what happened this time. Weird how your brain can block some times out. Even though I know I was there, it all definitely happened, but I just can't unblur the facts.

I've been off work for what is now coming up to three weeks. I've had physical illness, but deeply seated in there also is just pure exhaustion and utter depression. I just don't feel like I can fight all the shit anymore. I just don't feel like running, or even walking, or even crawling in stages up the hills. If this is the catharsis that I'm going to garner from this situation then I'm very much not impressed. If this is the great light at the end of this particular tunnel then I definitely got on the wrong fucking train at the start of the journey! However, I'm not going to argue, I just don't have the energy, and it would do me no good, so I'm just going to accept things, once again, and I'm still listening to The Orb from a few hours ago, and I only managed a couple of hours sleep, and tomorrow is another day, and things can only get better and whatever world full of clichés I can muster up to help me get through.

I feel quite gutted that D:Ream made the 'things can only get better' line so horrible to say out loud though. At least Brian Cox is now up to something a bit more impressive these days.

It's going to be a long day I feel. I might just have to go back to bed and try to sleep some more.