So.

You move to Australia.

Partly because of a girl, partly because you need a change in your life.

Things don't go as planned.

You see a doctor about anxiety attacks. She refers you to a counsellor. One year later, you're still seeing her.

You find your depression, which has been around for a long time anyway, getting worse. You start cutting yourself. Long shallow cuts and short deep cuts along your arm. All to test whether or not you will actually be able to kill yourself when the day comes. A day that you think about every morning when you wake up and every night as you're falling asleep.

You do a job, which you discover you don't like, and which you begin to suspect you might not actually be very good at.

With each friend, potential and actual, there comes a turning point, a single conversation, where you go too far and reveal too much of yourself. The result being that both of you have to pull back to a safe distance. Nobody wants to have to deal with someone at that stage in their lives.

After 18 of the worst months of your life, you think 'Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I shouldn't have come. Maybe I should go home. Family, friends, people who need me, who'll support me, and maybe the next 18 months won't be as bad.'

You mention this to people, casually at first to gauge their reaction. One of those people is the same girl you kind of came over for. A girl with whom you had that turning conversation with during the first few months here.

"I think I might go home," you say, "i don't think it's working out."
"Oh," she replies, "well. I think that some day you'll look back on this as a really positive experience overall ."

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sometimes silence is its own reward.

anyway, i'll be at these things: st kilda film festival, and the australian sci-fi film festival, if anyone else is interested.