volume one hundred and twenty-two
lockdown diaries (part 9)
📍Written from Perth – Western Australia, with a beautiful staffy snoring on her bed across from me and the radio playing in the background, informing me the heat wave is breaking and rain is coming!
🎤 Upcoming Shows:
The Traffic Light Game at The Leederville Comedy Club, December 14th
Sunday Slouchers Comedy, December 3rd
✏️ This is part nine of my lockdown journals. You can read part one here, two here, three here, four here, five here, six here, seven here and eight here.
2021
May 13th: The podcast community is growing, the magic is growing, the love is growing and my understanding just keeps on growing. Eternally grateful. Always.
May 14th: Almost a month of sobriety and I felt a shift tonight on a Zoom with [friend]. I was funny, silly, thoughtful, witty, engaged… more than usual and without anything needed to get me there.
I was saying and doing kind and thoughtful and funny things and became super aware of how raw and authentic all of it was.
It felt magical. It feels magical to be truly in the moment and honest with my amazing friend. I deserve to be present and others deserve me to be present.
May 15th: I am so grateful to be (partly) vaccinated. What a privilege.
May 22nd: I spent 4 hours* in a social situation sober. I was full of life and I was funny. I am now aware, alert, in control and proud.
*4 hours used to feel like an eternity in those early days. Look how far we’ve come.
May 24th: Absolutely BAWLED my eyes out watching Moulin Rogue tonight. I’m in need of a proper, real* hug.
*The kind where you don’t have to be scared you’ll kill each other by doing it, you know?
May 31st: BREAKTHROUGH! All this time alone has made for little distraction and influence. I am the most authentic version of myself ever right now. I love her and I’m loving getting to know her and trusting her gut.*
*This was a big, powerful, game-changing day. With this knowledge I continue to take periods of solitude on a regular basis — now it is no longer compulsory to ensure our safety — by travelling somewhere alone where I know no one. This is one way I stay in touch with the real LD.
June 7th: I’m glad I am making the decision to move to Halifax.*
*The rental crisis and everyone having the same idea meant I did not in fact move to Halifax but never say never!
June 8th: I attended my first writer’s room today and wrote 909 words! I’m so proud of myself. I’m excited about this new habit/way to start my day, and am excited about where it may lead*, too.
*Oh the roads it has led me down! I love you and am so thankful for each and every one of you in the London Writers’ Salon!
June 13th: The feelings I felt today during my first symphony orchestra were incredible. I’ve really been realising lately that while I was scared to “have to feel” all of my shitty feelings once I got sober, I didn't realise how much I’d feel all the good ones. I’m so fucking happy. I’m so lucky. I feel so grateful for my sobriety and for my happiness being felt at 100% like never before.
June 14th: I feel HIGH off of my life with a Henry Winkler-esque* lust for life.
*If it is now what it was then, his Twitter, which I cannot view without an account, says it all: JOY.
June 15th: Writers’ Hour 2.
June 17th: “What are you willing to give up in order to have the life you keep pretending you want?”*
*Here is the proof of my first time hearing what a lot of people know to be my guiding quote in life. The game changer. It sits in a frame next to my computer, and as a digital nomad, this means I carry that frame with me everywhere. Liz G wisdom on the go!
June 22nd: Restless. I rearranged my whole house today. Am I staying? Am I moving to Halifax? Will I get a new job? When can I go home? Do I write? What do I write? Why am I taking on so much?
June 24th: Writers’ Hour - finished scene 3!
June 25th: If you ever doubt your bisexuality again*, just remember that’s your demisexuality messing with you.**
*You will.
*Or comp-het and you are a lesbian. Or bi-erasure being ever-present as always which includes it being internalised! So fun!
June 26th: I got sober and I’m still a fucking weirdo. I am happy that I am me. Also, I heard a rustle outside the window and peeped to see a BABY squirrel. We came nose to nose through the glass and I melted.*
*This squirrel would be great company for me until it and its family decided to chew through my walls and live in them, to which the landlord did nothing and I eventually moved out. This was very cute though! BABY SQUIRRELS!
July 2nd: My sobriety has made me patient and energized as an aunty. I am so happy not to be a zombie on Zoom with them.
July 3rd: Is life a little normal? Am I feeling excited? Am I feeling like maybe I might stay a little while? Let’s wait and see.
July 6th: You’ve fucking got this! Take the leap! Believe in yourself! I’m counting on you to make life enjoyable in every aspect you have control over. Don’t waste time in fear. You can fail following someone else’s dream so take a fucking chance on yours and never be in the position where you have to look back and wonder “if only”.
Lovely reader, what messages have you received from being out and about in the world lately?
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here are three things I struggled with this week:
🤼 Motivation to do the things I love.
🍦 It is impossible for me to eat ice cream without wearing it.
🥣 Procrasti-snacking is my favourite thing!
here are three blessings from this week:
🏳️🌈 IT IS PRIDE HERE IN PERTH! It wasn’t until I got to the parade that I realised it was my first Pride event on motherland soil, since I have been out. Blessed.
📻 The things I didn’t realise I missed about Australia, like the pub rock that I grew up listening to, playing on the radio.
🥹 Crying. I love a good cry.
here are three goals for the coming week:
🔥Take the fire I found again over the weekend by watching this video for the thirteen-millionth time and apply it.
🎙️ After taking a much-needed break (that was longer than planned and I have no regrets) to settle into living in a new country, I am recording more new podcast episodes starting this week! Stay tuned!
🌹 The Bachelors is starting again this coming week so I will be tuning in once I get back to NSW. If you know, you know. (If you don’t, I do not watch reality TV, but I watch it when Nan watches it and her commentary is the best thing ever).
pics or it didn’t happen:
I love you. Now I am off to prepare for my comedy sets, after doubting myself for a week and procrastinating and hating everything I have ever written and then writing a new joke I am proud of and excited to tell on stage and so goes the cycle of a creative life!
"I got sober and I’m still a fucking weirdo"
- I love this. Also, same.
This reads like the first line to a poem I never wrote.
"You can fail following someone else’s dream so take a fucking chance on yours and never be in the position where you have to look back and wonder “if only”."
- 🙌 It's fun to help other ppl achieve their dreams (if they're good ppl) but you gotta take care of your own, too.
I don't get out and about in the world much so messages are limited. I miss being able to go out and about and feel peace and joy in the things and people I'd see.
P.S. have a staffie and one of the cats currently acting as space heaters. Lovely, warm furball energy, and much cheaper and way more comforting than paying greedy assholes money we don't have 😆
So fun and interesting to read about your life back in 2021. I'm glad you found sobriety and writing and us! ☺️