On suddenly appreciating Gotye.

Everyone knows I can't stand Gotye.

But when I hear "Save Me" blaring from the radio, I am taken, heartbroken, and uplifted at the same time. I am not sure if it is the bittersweet sounds of the song, or the lyrics, or both that get me... but every time I hear it I feel as though my heart is ready to burst.

That is the effect that music has on me. Paralysing, heart bursting. But it's also a magnetic way for me to deal with my feelings.

And then, this morning I read the lyrics.

I was spellbound with the common theme... about me, and about others in my life. This  state of sadness that captures us and causes an endless spiral; the inability to love when you can't save yourself.

There have been moments lately when anger has taken over, since this massive life change that I've undergone. The sheer listlessness of my 'self' dealing with the consequences of sadness and guilt, the moves from place to place, people who are too selfish to understand: this has all taken its toll on me. And yet I have removed myself from a situation in which I needed to be saved, despite how selfish and sad that choice was. I realised that the only person who needed to 'save me', was myself. 

And now that I'm on the other side, despite being tired and scared about my future... I can see so clearly, those around me, who need saving. Whether it's those experiencing depression, constant drinking problems, anger, disengaging from life... whatever.

And the inability to love, is the first clue of that reality... that some people just need to deal with their own problems, before anyone else can save them.

So I have a different take on Gotye's song. I don't believe it's a song about someone needing to be saved, it's a song about how someone has tried to save them, but in the end, it's yourself that needs to know and love yourself, first and foremost, in order to satisfy anyone else's needs. And therefore that is the only way you can satisfy your own needs.

I'm too tired now to do that job for anyone else. And I won't waste my time trying. I want to live, and be uplifted. Because now I know the road, and I know that all of us need to spend time fixing ourselves. Most of the time, our problems are due to past hang ups... people who have burned us, partners who have hurt us, parents who haven't loved us, fear of the unknown... whatever that hang up may be, that is what causes us to be paralysed within life. 

"And I could not love...

'Cause I could not love myself.

Never good enough, no:

That was all I'd tell myself

And I was not well...

But I could not help myself -

I was giving up on living."

One of my students came up to me the other day and showed me a photograph. My heart surged as this seventeen year old boy introduced me to a picture of his newborn 'daughter'. I thought I hadn't heard right. But there he was, scared as all hell, as he finally opened up on the secret that he had been hiding from me, and everyone in his year group, for months.

It now made sense why he sat at the back of the room, expressionless, and didn't participate or talk to me all year. He had his own problems to deal with. But he explained to me many things as we had our little chat in my classroom... He had always had a problem in opening up to people, and that he was hoping this situation, with this girl, and his daughter, would help him to connect with people again.

See, he had hang ups. He had seen four people killed when he was only four years old.

Now I could relate to that immediately because at nine, I thought my father had died. He had attempted suicide... and I will never forget walking into hospital with my brother and seeing his body being rolled down the corridor, covered by a green sheet. It was an image of death. That is a reality that no nine year old ever wants to face.

It is an image that haunts for all of eternity. And this poor boy in front of me is finally opening up to someone, about the deaths he witnessed, and about his inability to trust and open up to people... and the biggest of all... the fact that he, by accident, now has a daughter.

This boy needs saving. But I know that he needs to save himself. And perhaps through this image of new life, so perfect, so beautiful in his arms, perhaps he will be able to rectify the horrors that he's seen in his life, and witness the perfect cycle of life: that he has now created life.

I may not be able to rectify the wrongs I've done, for a long, long time. But I know it's nobody else's problem, but my own. And if I can share solace in others' stories... if this boy found the strength to share this secret with me, perhaps knowing inside that I would understand... then perhaps humanity is a beautiful thing after all.

We all need to take that step one day to save ourselves. And that's why I'm proud of this young man. He finally realised he needed to talk to someone. My heart burst as I walked out of the classroom that day. Just like the Gotye song, I couldn't decide if I was sad, uplifted, or just... amazed by the complexities of life.

On reconnecting with my past.

The strangest thing happened last week. 

There's this friend of mine, who has always been in my life since the time we were 9 years old. Coincidentally, That was the same year that something disastrously big happened in my life, in my family. But that's for another story. 

She met me at a time that I was vulnerable. I was shy and didn't have a whole lot of friends. We lived down the road from each other and the first time we met, I was taken back by her assertive and forceful way of giving a backhanded compliment. But I liked her.

We spent almost every day together, from that time on. We were pretty much inseparable. Every day I would wander over to her house and knock on her door and trudge into her room where we would listen to music or play with her barbie dolls and sift through the never-ending mess that cluttered her room. She was free and wild and loud-mouthed, the complete opposite to me, and yet we loved being friends. 

As we grew older, things changed. The expectations from my family meant that I couldn't see her as much; couldn't go the the same parties as her, couldn't stay late at her house. I started to retreat inside myself. I had immense jealousy towards her lifestyle and yet at the same time I wanted to scream at her: "Get your shit together! You can't be wild forever!" 

And yet, she influenced an important side of me. 

As we got older, it became more apparent that she needed my sense of responsibility, and I needed her sense of freedom. She represented everything I didn't have. She didn't care about what people thought of her; she just went with the flow. 

One thing we always had in common though was low self-esteem. How original. Teenage girls with low self-esteem.

We just dealt with it in different ways. 

It's been ten years since our teenage years, and it's been three years since I last talked to her. The last time was painful - I cut her out of my life because I just couldn't deal with the emotions of our friendship anymore. There was something resentful and seething underneath, and I couldn't deal with what was going on. So I shut her out. I cut her off. I never spoke to her again.

I never stopped thinking about her. She has always been part of me. She has grown in me, even in her absence. Often I would think of certain situations: What would she think of that? But I remembered - she wasn't part of my life anymore.

Recently, with lots of changes going on, we've been thinking about each other more. 

I emailed her the other day. She called me that night... and we cried and cried. It was like no time had changed, but at the same time, so much was different. She let me know that she had actually tried calling me two weeks earlier.... and she was having bouts of insomnia two months earlier than that. It was like the world was calling us to reunite. 

I believe all things are meant to be. At certain stages, things happen, people change, circumstances gravitate in different paths, and all of it makes sense in the very end. 

Having her back in my life is a blessing. Because we have learnt that we have both become more like each other over that time. She has become more like me, and I have become more like her. I'm not sure of the significance, but I think true friends will always make it back to each other in the end. 

I told her that in many ways, I needed her out of my life to figure myself out. She agreed. 

And now I'll be attending her wedding on New Years Eve. I'm super excited for the future. I can't believe how much has changed... and how nice it is to experience moments of revelation with somebody who understands you more than anyone in the world.