2008: If It Kills Me

Prescript: I have been tossing up whether to discuss the songs I have chosen for my soundtrack-to-this-year pretend mix CD that doesn't come on a physical disc. A lack of time has decided for me, so without further ado: My soundtrack-to-this-year pretend mix CD that doesn't come on a physical disc is yours to download here (63.3MB, complete with a sad monkey pretending to be the cover art). Offered without comment, because encouraging people to make their own wildly inaccurate interpretations and extrapolations is much more fun for everybody.

So, 2008. What a year.

It started with all the momentum of the extraordinary December that preceded it - still on a roll from arriving back home to find that I suddenly appreciated an Australian summer, then lucking into a job and a place to live with perplexing rapidity, all while coming to terms with the fact that an entirely unlooked-for relationship had shown up and looked to be making itself at home. January saw me making a silly amount of money by doing simple things well, going to see live music¹, even joining a band again. Everything was coming up me.

And then I got sick.

Weeks and months of 2008 blurred into an indistinct mess of exhaustion and waiting. Work, fitness, social life, creative pursuits, in fact almost everything I valued fell victim to the sudden collapse of my physical and mental capacities. Never before had I been forced to confront such limitations; all of my previous failures can, in the end, be attributed to apathy and weakness of will. Now, though, pushing myself meant being practically bedridden for days at a time. Various doctors ordered various tests, ruled out a handful of possibilities, and then handballed the case onto someone else, often necessitating several weeks of impotent waiting. Friendships suffered, inevitably;² isolation set in. It was not a good time.

However: I came to truly appreciate a dimension of friendship that transcends having shared history or emotional parallels or thinking the same things are stupid, a dimension that tends to be invisible until hardship strikes. There are a few people who stood by me in my uselessness this year, keeping the lines of communication open despite the cantankerous alignment of the planets, for which I am more grateful than I can say. It wasn't always the people I would have picked out of a line-up, and I suspect that some of those who kept the suckage at bearable levels weren't even aware of the good they were doing.

Mid-year, with little improvement in sight health-wise, I moved out of the share house I was in and then up to Brisbane. My communication with people in general had pretty much shrivelled up and dropped off by this point, so not only did my departure appear abrupt, I didn't even feel comfortable explaining it to those who asked. Not my finest moment, and in some ways I was vindictively happy to be leaving the city that I felt had let me down so badly,³ although there were pangs every time somebody said they would miss me (and every time some bodies didn't say it).

There followed some new challenges: adjusting to new living arrangements in a new city, while too unwell to get out there and stamp my stamp on this new life; reconciling homesickness with the desire to start afresh; getting better. That last, at least, is a struggle I am winning - looking back, the second half of the year looks like a long, slow climb upward, with the only serious dip being the entire month I lost to the aftermath of moving house again at the end of October. While I'm still not going to be capable of walking from Berlin to Postdam⁴ again any time soon, and it takes me hours to hack together a long piece of writing, things are looking up.

For all that it was miserable and pointless, it was impossible to come through this year without learning a lot. When all you can manage is introspection, for days on end, you discover how much time there is in a day, and how much it's possible to introspect without running out of navel to gaze at. I realised how many basic things I had always taken for granted, how little I missed some things that I had thought essential, how much I missed some other things that had always seemed fairly inconsequential. I guess you could say that I had no choice but to spend a lot of time nose to nose with myself, and there are no distractions or excuses in the world that can withstand such prolonged scrutiny. I'm really onto myself now (a mixed blessing, and no mistake).

A visit to Melbourne at the start of December was a wonderful chance to reconnect with people and places, and reminded me that for all its faults Melbourne still feels like home. Seeing the Mountain Goats for the first time⁵ was the highlight that really pulled everything together for me, though, and I returned to Brisbane newly energised and determined. On a mission from God, as Elwood Blues would have it.

I will not take good fortune for granted, ever again. And I am no longer prepared to sit around spinning my wheels, idly thinking about the wonderful things I want to do instead of freaking doing them. Heck, no. I am going to crack the bones of life and suck out the marrow. And if I don't? I'll have only myself to blame. I'm cool with that.

1. Including The National twice in two days, and getting to thank Matt Berninger personally after the second show. What a weekend that was. [↩]
2. I had sown the seeds of my own doom, never knowing it at the time. [↩]
3. It's easy to blame circumstances on anything but themselves. [↩]
4. Or Hampton to North Coburg. Ah, memories. [↩]
5. Or, to be more accurate, encountering John Darnielle in person for the first time. [↩]