ZoeZombie

I have been betrayed. I have been taken advantage of. This feeling I have is almost nauseating. A grave injustice has been done by me, and taking the high road is stifiling. I want to take the low road. But I won’t.

Sometimes taking the high road is the most difficult thing one could ever do.

Shortly after my grandmother passed away, we gathered at my mum’s house. It wasn’t because we were really doing anything - just sitting around watching television, eating what would have been christmas lunch and trying to support my grandfather. The usually large house felt small - crammed with people I never really saw. Visitors coming in and out, paying their respects. At times, it often became too much to deal with the crying, and endless questions. “Why?” was the most popular. And no one had an answer.

It was one of these busy days where I decided that I had to get away from the crying and the zombie-like state. I went to go into the living room to watch TV but I found my Mum, Dad, brothers and my grandad sitting around talking in a hushed manner. They stopped when I walked in. I sat down with them and asked what was going on.

It turned out that my grandmother in fact had committed suicide, and she had left a note that my grandfather had found. It was written in Greek and he wasn’t strong enough to attempt to read it. Mum, on the other hand, was going to keep it from me. She didn’t want me to know. My grandfather said he didn’t want me to know because my grandmother had always felt protective over me and hated to see me upset -more than anyone else.

I suddenly flew into a rage and insisted that I leave immediately. I felt somehow betrayed. I was angry at my Mum for trying to make me think it wasn’t a suicide. I was angry that she was going to keep it from me even though I believed it was a suicide the moment mum called me that day. I was angry that this was even happening. I was angry that I had known it was a suicide and everyone told me it wasn’t - then were going to keep the secret that it was.

I couldn’t hide my anger and mum attempted to calm me down but I was inconsolable at that point. Why was this even happening? Why were we all sitting in the living room trying to pretend our hearts weren’t ripped out instead of ripping wrapping paper off presents that we didn’t need? And why were people lying to me when I was the only one who really understood what was going on?

Eventually, I calmed down. And my grandfather was upset because he believed he made me upset. He felt more upset that he believed he had done something that upset his now deceased wife. Obviously, it was an incredibly upsetting situation for all. But eventually, he read the note. And it was hard to listen to, but I needed to hear it. And it became all too much to understand and process.

Months have gone by and I feel mostly healed. Except for any given moment of peace is interrupted by my mind replaying the sound of my grandfather wailing in the background when my mum had called me to tell me the news. And I loathe the phone. Every time it rings, my heart sinks to my stomach.

But since this time, I’ve had a pretty bad run with luck. I’m expecting some kind of major Karma payback at least some time soon. But the months have been difficult and hard to live through at times. And sometimes when I’m by myself, I might cry. Or I’m so silent that I can hear my cats breathing.

In those moments, something happens that I can’t really explain. My grandmother. But I’m not thinking of her or how much I miss her. It’s like I can feel her presence. It’s an imposing feeling. Not like when you suddenly remember something. It’s like she is there, saying hello and I am to say hello back. It’s the most odd feeling I’ve ever encountered and have not experienced it before. It has happened a few times in the past few weeks - and I’m a bit too far away from the initial grieving stage to think I’m just suffering from it.

Yesterday morning, I made my way to a very unpleasant and stressful meeting.  I parked my car, shoved some coins into the meter and purchased enough time to take me through to 9:58am.

After the meeting was over, I walked back to my car and saw a meter maid. I thought nothing of it.  I got into my car and sat there, crying with my sunglasses on. Trying to look as though I was not crying. I looked at the time. It was 10:26am.

I didn’t even think about it at the time, but I did not buy enough time for my ticket and I could have easily received a parking fine. But I didn’t, even with a roving meter maid. And I’m grateful that the universe let me off this time. Thank you for doing me a solid, universe.

A woman with no country.

Long story short, I’ve come to a crossroads in my professional life. Maybe I was never meant to be a web designer - even though my psychic friend told me so. Maybe I’m not actually good at it. Maybe I’m just a nice enough person that people deal with me. Maybe I don’t have anything to offer.

Or maybe everything that has happened to lead up to this point is just a test. The universe wants to see if I can hack it. If that is the case, I’m probably going to fail something for the first time in my life. Because I want it to. I am done. This used to be my passion, my art. It’s no longer the case.

ghost story

The below story is just one of my many encounters with ghosts/spirits/whatever. Since then, I would go on to have many more. Most, not so nice. And this is one of those.

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When I was 14 (maybe even 15, I can’t remember that far back) I went to Margaret River on a band camp. Oh yeah, and I also played flute. But this was the time before American Pie, so the phrase “This one time at band camp, I stuck a flute in my..” did not exist.

Thank God.

It was 6 to a cabin, 3 bunk beds. The official word was no mixed sexes in a cabin at any given time and if there were, you had to leave the door open. However, our music teacher/camp leader was somewhat of a hippie and I’m pretty sure he snuck off a few times to smoke some weed.

About a day into the camp, there were boys and girls in a cabin at any given time (with the door closed. gasp) and every single cabin was playing with a ouija board. Why a ouija board, I’m not sure. And why everyone was doing them, I’m also not sure. But there was no where to escape the ouija mania. Talk about cabin fever.

When it was lights out and we had all gone to bed, I noticed that there was one extra sailor aboard our ship - one of the guys (who we all knew was gay, but had no concept of what really being gay was at the time, just that we knew he wasn’t going to make a move for some reason) was sitting up in a bunk with one of the girls. He was afraid.

“We contacted some guy and I’m afraid! I can’t go to sleep alone.” He said, when one of the girls asked what the fuck was he doing in our room.
“No you didn’t. You’re full of shit.” (Or something to that effect)
“No! We really did!” He was shrill. “I don’t believe in this shit, but no one was moving the pointer.”
“Whatever.”

If only I had the same reaction. I was on a bottom bunk, lying on my back. I could see the entire room in the moonlight and the scary shadows the tree outside was making. I started going nuts in my head. I wanted to ask him more, but I was afraid what he might say. Eventually, I fell asleep. I guess the worrying had worn me out.

The next day, it was round two of “Let’s contact Satan this time and ask when I’m going to die.”. It was absolutely impossible to get away from it. I had gone into the abandoned music room (where we were supposed to be practising but no time. too much ouija) to sit and read a book. ANYTHING to get my mind off what was going on. I didn’t really believe in spirits and ghosts at the time, but I remember being afraid of the ouija board which is why I never participated.

After a short while, a couple of my cabin buddies had found me.
“Did you hear?” One of the girls asked.
“What?”
The other girl rolled her eyes. “It’s all bullshit. There are no ghosts!”
“Yes there are!” Girl #1 said. “Didn’t you hear all that banging last night?”
I told her that I hadn’t, that I was fast asleep.
“I thought it was knocking at the door and I was too afraid to answer.” Girl #1 said.
Girl #2 looked at her like she lost her shit. I remember her losing her patience. Lot of rolling of the eyes and huffing and puffing when claims of the paranormal were made.

Ouija Time only broke for breakfast, lunch, dinner or 5 minute band practices. Over which, a lot more stories of encounters were shared. Unexplainable bangs in the night, things being misplaced and then found in a random place and also, weirdly enough, sounds of furniture being dragged along the pavement outside (in the middle of the night!).  I tried to brush it off as much as my friend did, but it bothered me. I was ok until it was lights out once more.

The cabin was a full house that night. There were about 10 people - almost two to a bunk. I thoroughly believed in cooties then and also personal space, so I had my own nice little bunk. The usual - the bottom bunk in the back corner. I was closest to the light switch, so I turned it off and we all tried to go to sleep. After a few minutes of general chatter about how scary everything was and guess who we contacted blah blah blah - I had tried to block it out. I just wanted to wake up and for it to be day time.

So, I’m lying on my back. And I decide ok, stop worrying just close your eyes you will fall asleep. Everyone is still chattering away. It was annoying but slightly comforting at the same time. But I was still awake, still concious. And it was at that moment that I felt a force grab my left shoulder and start to pull me down. Well, it wasn’t so much as a force. It was a hand. I felt the fingers. I felt the thumb.It was like someone was underneath me, pulling me down.

I screamed and jumped out of bed and turned the light on. I looked at my bed and then the bunk above, checking to see if the guys above were playing a prank. There was too much distance between the bottom of the top bunk and my bed for someone to stick their arm down there and move there hand as if they were grabbing me from underneath the bed. I looked under the bed - luggage. As I should have known.

In this time, everyone was asking me what the fuck had just happened and what was I doing. I walked over to the mirror and checked out my shoulder. I don’t know why. Maybe I thought I would see something on my shoulder as some kind of proof. But there was nothing.

I tearfully told my friends what had happened. They and I was more afraid than before (except girl #2 who proceeded to tell everyone else what happened the next day and of course to tag on “she’s lying” or “she’s crazy”). We slept with the lights on.

To this day, I can still remember exactly what being pulled down like that felt like. I don’t know why that spirit targeted me - maybe because I wouldn’t play along? - and I don’t know why they decided to pull me down into the bed - maybe just a prank? Needless to say, I have not and will never forget it. 

Has something like that ever happened to you?

I’ve been thinking about marriage a lot lately. i guess it’s really been brought on by the fact that i am now married and there are times where i wonder why we do it. why some women (me included) stress so much about that moment when your boyfriend asks you to be his wife? as if it’s the absolute defining moment. and once married, why do some women use it as a rule of authority over other women who aren’t? are some married women ‘better’ if they have been married longer than the others? do they perhaps know some kind of secret about it all, that we are yet to discover?

yes, there are really people like this in my life. one of these women is actually younger than me and she seems to think i am immature compared to her because she’s was married before me. as if being married at 22 is something that i would be jealous of (i wouldn’t). she does this by giving me unwanted advice. she takes something i say about my husband, no matter the subject,  and twists it into a problem (when it may be something as simple as ‘my husband likes to play this video game’) and then gives me advice about it (‘maybe you’re having communication issues because he spends too much time playing computer games. why don’t you set aside time to talk about yourselves. go back to that moment that you first started dating.’) i mean, come the fuck on.

and then there is marriage itself. if you think about it, we know some of our friends longer than we’ve known our significant others. i’ve known my best friends for not even a decade. my husband has known his best friend since he was 2. and yet there are still some things i don’t know about my girlfriends. but i know them well enough. and it’s always a day of discovery. however, some women will meet a guy and in 2 months will know that she wants to “be with him for the rest of her life”. such was my line of thinking when i met my husband. how is that so? and then of course, when marriages break down we wonder why.

in the same vein as “never say never” why not “never say forever”?. How do we really know that we will be with that person for the rest of our lives? And how did I know that at the age of 21 when I had barely even begun to live my life? why are we so comfortable to take a gamble on something that we believe is destiny with someone who we may have only known for a short amount of time?  “i will, till death do us part” seems like it should be rewritten to say “i will until we fall out of love or things go bad or i find someone else or i can’t take your crap no mo’”.

i don’t believe in happily ever after. and i don’t see marriage as a title to hold over others. i never think that love is enough. love itself should not be enough. if people believe that everything is greener on the other side when you finish saying “i do” - it’s just not the truth. it’s against our nature to be monogamous. we are meant to have multiple partners and continue to feel a ‘spark’ with new people. so saying ‘i do’ for what should be forever with one person requires work.

but of course, if you really love that person and you really want to stay with them until death do you part, then you would have no problem working at it. even if it means you have to work until the end because it’s worth it, after all. for me, anyway.

It’s been over a month since I have been working for myself. Even though a few weeks of that month was spent in going through a little piece of hell, most of it has been quite good. It’s really made me think. Why the HELL didn’t I quit my job in September 2009, when I had originally cracked the shits and wanted out?

That particular day in September, my manager yelled at me in front of everyone for something that was absolutely ludicrous. I can even remember what it was about. He had forgotten I had told him about a certain issue. When he spotted it, he said how dare I put words on his mouth and told me to go sit down, as if I were a naughty child in his classroom. In all fairness, I snapped back at him. But at that point, I wasn’t going to take it anymore.

I think that was really the issue that set me apart from everyone else. I had a very low “taking shit” threshold, which caused me to put people in their place.  I have a sharp tongue but I’m also highly emotional which can make me erm, not so sharp.

I think a lot of what I was experiencing was in my head, but at the same time I definitely felt belittled on a week-to-week basis. Not just from my boss but from my environment. I realised that I was doomed to repeat some sort of twisted “high school” for the rest of my life if i was so hell bent on trying to get anywhere in that company. I wasn’t prepared to bend over backwards for the “popular crowd” who would make you jump through hoops only to tell you that you STILL weren’t one of the cool kids.

I knew I made the wrong decision when I took another position in the company. I thought I would be challenged and learn something new because my old position was growing stale and I knew the only way to remain in my masochistic relationship is if I changed to another department. It quickly turned into hell. There was so little time to do actual work in admist the multiple bosses, the endless meetings that didn’t actually require my attendance, the disorganisation and the random projects flying around that of course it was easy to label me as the scapegoat for their bad sales targets.

However, I did learn something. Hell hath no fury like a boss scorned.

Apparently, giving in my notice (which I had kindly extended to 6 weeks at the time) was so offensive to my boss that he talked to everyone else about my leaving except for me. I had tried to go about it the right way and get a hold of him before it got out, but my OTHER boss (so many bosses, so little time) decided to get in with the goss first.

After I learned what had happened, I felt like I had been slapped in the face. Not the kind of “my staff is leaving me and giving me enough notice to find someone else, how dare they” kind of drama queen slap-in-the-face. I’m talking “working my butt off for a company who turns around and says they don’t give two shits about you. You’re expendable.”  I went to my other boss (boss count: 3) and told him to change my leave notice to 4 weeks, which is the usual kind of notice period.There was no way I was going to hang around for 2 extra weeks, working my ass off for these people when I had freelance work waiting in the wings. My loyalty was finally shot to shit and I was done.

I ended up leaving December 2010 - over a year after I swore that I’d leave. I came out on the other side standing by my firm belief that if you work hard and you are good to people, amazing things will happen (thanks, Conan O’Brien). There were a few people who got the short end of my stick and they deserved it. And maybe this shows me and you how utterly bitter I had allowed myself become. That’s not who I really am. And that’s not who I wanted to be.

Now that I’ve left, I can’t believe I didn’t leave sooner. I learned a lot of great things and a lot of bad things - it was all part of the experience. There are some lovely people I’ll never forget, and a lot of jerks that I’ll gladly forget. And maybe they’ll gladly forget me as well, which is ok with me. I would never want to step foot in there ever again. Even though I’ve accidently left my runners in my old locker.