Tables Turned

“I don’t want to be here.”

“I don’t want to be here, either,” Thabo responded.

The mood was low the day after we arrived back in London and it hasn’t quite lifted since. (Like being injected with a dose of ‘depression.’) These few days I’ve been experiencing a growing anxiety and fear that I’m about to go on a downward spiral again. I know that I’m probably just going through the normal experience of post-holiday blues. It doesn’t help that it’s cold and grey. But how do I know that it’s not my medications failing me? As a result, I’ve done the very bad and frowned-upon patient thing. I’ve self-medicated by increasing my dose of citalopram. I’ll see how it pans out and luckily for me, I have a few GP friends and a pyschiatrist friend with whom I’m meeting up in a week. And I’ll do the very annoying request for personal advice “because you’re a doctor”. Interesting to have the tables turned.

Or having the shoe on the other foot.

Fish Out Of Water

Stepping out into the hot balmy air is like being wrapped in familiarity. The sensations of past experiences come flooding back (the ochre Aussie accent, the laid back friendliness, tanned exercised bodies, the singing cicadas) just snapshots in a collective time creating livestreams of relived memories. In short, nostalgia. That was me at the airport. Even the coffee from the little airport cafe tasted better than any of the shit they call “coffee” in London.

I’ve been in Brissie for 4 days now and have settled except for the ongoing jet lag. At 3pm sharp daily begins the battle to stay awake. I’ve succeeded once so far and going by past trips home, will take a week to resolve, which is fortuitous since we have a wedding to attend at the end of the week.

We celebrated my birthday having drinks at an old friend’s home (Mitch, and his boyfriend, Ryan, who would put any one else’s Vogue Living featured house to shame) with a handful my the dearest friends and their partners. This was followed by a flash dinner which Thabo insisted on paying for in its entirety. He has yet to realized that although the pound goes far in Australia, it doesn’t make one obscenely rich. It was a fantastic night with everyone having a good time.

Thabo and I went back with Mitch and Ryan for a few more drinks. Part of the evening went like this:

Ryan: “Where’s the fish?” Their Siamese Fighting Fish was not in the fish tank on the kitchen diner.

Me: “Has he jumped out again?” This would be it’s third time since they’ve owned him – he was once found on the floor and another, in the kitchen sink – both times he was able to be resuscitated by placing him back in the tank.

Mitch: “Is he on the floor?” And so we all look towards the ground. By our feet was most of the fish. The rest of him was smeared across the floor.

Me: “Did someone step on him?” Quite clearly someone had but I felt the need to state the obvious.

Thabo: “Well, it wasn’t me.” At this point, we all looked down at the soles of our shoes. There was no fish seen but on the sole of Thabo’s shoe was a wet stain. Amphibious fish; Can survive on land but is no match for Thabo’s foot.

I really miss hanging out with old friends.