Down but not out

I've been fairly depressed recently.

A couple of weeks ago, the regional police media liaison officer, Tony Tamplin, died. This was a guy who had been the media face of the NSW Police Force in the Newcastle/Hunter Region for many years. He got to work one morning, collapsed and couldn't be revived. He was very well known in the local area, and a lot of people mourned his passing. The funeral was so big that it was held at Newcastle City Hall.

I realised that, when I die, there simply won't be that sort of level of interest. There won't be that many people who care. I'm just one of those people in the background.

Then, on Tuesday this week, I spoke to a work client on the phone. He's about the same age as me, and is a well liked and respected person. He died in his sleep that night. I don't know if he had a known medical condition but I'm still trying to come to terms with the fact that someone my age died in his sleep.

I'm still at the I can't actually believe that he is dead stage of grieving. I've re-scheduled my nail appointment next week so that I can attend his funeral. It is going to be a difficult day for me, and for many other people who knew him.

I've also had a few other time consuming things happen recently, including attending a day long work related conference in Sydney, which meant getting up at 5:30am, catching 2 trains and a bus to the venue, then reversing that process to get home around 7:30pm. While the conference went very well and was very productive, I didn't get to sleep until after 2am, leaving me completely wiped out on Saturday.

As a consequence, I've fallen a long way behind with emails, paperwork, etc., and that makes me even more depressed. The pressure that it creates makes me less likely to spend time transforming myself to go out en femme, because I feel that I can't afford that time. Re-scheduling my nail appointment also guarantees that I won't be able to get to that appointment en femme, because I'll be working in the morning then finishing work at lunch time to go to the appointment.

To top it all off, today is Mothers Day in Australia. I rang my mother and unfortunately, as usual, she made a negative remark my nails. Even if I do manage to get some productive work done in what little is left of today, it's likely that there will be some comfort eating happening too. :(