On Friday night I had a car accident.

I’m ‘okay’. I was at fault. I turned out of the left lane exiting the M2 onto Pennant Hills Rd and didn’t check my blind spot. I’m not injured. The other person wasn’t injured. They drove a Saab. The excess is $2150 as I am under 25 (even though only for the next 4 months). This is the only information that my parents really want to know about it. I cried in front of my mother afterwards when I told her and she said ‘What are you crying for? You better clean your room so your father doesn’t have even more to yell about because you are a disgraceful slob and I get complained at every day.’

My mother doesn’t understand that I was an accident waiting to happen.

I feel guilty for sleeping and resting a lot. The week leading up to the accident I averaged 4 hours of sleep a night. I was running on not very much. My teachers actually said that I was ‘on edge’ and my head teacher Sue asked me on Friday afternoon before the accident if I was alright because I don’t normally make stupid mistakes like handing in my construction assignment without the construction and sewing a seam 1cm wide even though I know perfectly well (having patterned and cut it) that it’s 2cm wide. 

I feel like I’ve cut back on heaps. I no longer am a nanny. I have virtually exited Thieu Nhi doing only a nominal amount of work. I no longer go to parties. I no longer go to shows – except for Med Revue and I felt guilty for going to that. I only really saw friends if I was in the area at all or if they came over so I could multitask. But I worked myself to way past midnight every night on my assignments the weeks before the accident and waking early so I could get to TAFE early to use the machines or to get a quick hour of sewing in before I went to class. I took every shift at work. I work on Thursday when I’m supposed to be at uni – I work at Jeffs before lunch, go to my class and then leave to finish the day at Jeffs.

I’m not particularly ‘okay’ at the moment. If I don’t distract myself I start to sob a little. I’m tired and unhappy despite sleeping for 15 hours straight. I feel guilty for bludging and sleeping. I am probably still in shock despite the incident being on Friday. I can’t have a decent conversation about the whole thing without my voice shaking. In fact, I’m bludging so much, I’ve told my boss that I wasn’t working today and I didn’t go to TAFE on Monday. I have so much work to do. There’s just so much work to do. I worked throughout the entire weekend after the accident and then stayed up on Monday all night to do my Actuarial assignment.

I feel so frustrated. I feel like a complete failure. I’ve worked so fucking hard and then all of a sudden something like this accident comes out and I can’t control my life anymore and I’m in hysterics all the time. I can’t do anything right and even when I’m trying so hard to not flunk out of TAFE and not flunk out of uni and to make money and pay off my debts I do something incredibly stupid and it sets me back all over again. I feel like I’ve failed my parents. I’m so upset. I’m so tired.

My siblings have been total champs through it. Timmy got me a present and he gave me advice and said “Even though I don’t say anything doesn’t mean I don’t notice what’s going on. You need to sleep. I know you are working hard – I can see that you’ve grown up and are more self disciplined. But you do too much, you’ve got to cut back.” He rang Quynh in London and she told me to calm down and that I do too much and to not worry about the money because she’d pay the excess for me. That we’d sell the car and that she’d give me half the money so I wouldn’t have to work so many shifts. I love my siblings so much for their love and support. I think that was the first time I showed so much emotion to my siblings. I completely broke down and was crying for a good solid hour. I’ve never done that in front of them before. Tim even rallied my friends round and bought me a lovely present (an awesome electric scale – perfect for making cupcakes and sundry other baked goods) because he was so worried.

Even though I’m still in shock mode – I need to make decisions about how to stop doing too much. Diploma has been really good but also an insane amount of work – especially for an overachiever. I had a chat to my head teacher this afternoon – after she walked into the work room and told me to ‘go home’ instead of staying back any further. I told her that after next Wednesday (even though the thought of doing any more work makes me want to die inside) to hand in the batch of assignments due next week and then completely not go to TAFE and focus on my university exam because I am finding it really hard to keep up at uni. Then I’ll come back and work through the rest of the semester and staying back semester week – the week that the teachers spend marking the semesters work.

My parents told my sis that they didn’t want her to sell the car just yet because I go to TAFE so far away. That car however has given me nothing but grief. When my sister suggested selling it, the reason was to stop me from believing that I can be in three places at once and doing three things at once. Not having one will force me to choose to be in only one place because logistics will be more difficult. And I really like that idea. I’m going to not drive it once it gets fixed even though the deal is that I drive it when I go to TAFE and nowhere else. I’ll just take it when I have to cart in rolls of fabric and big storyboards, but on ordinary days where I don’t have anything big, I’ll bike it to the station, catch the train and then bike it to TAFE.

I went to work in Canberra a couple of weeks ago. Just for one night, I was in a motel room by myself (being virture the only female in the group) and I had a TV, a heater, a kitchen and me. It felt wonderful. I really need a holiday. I think this Winter hols I might actually take one instead of just working through it like I normally do.

I’m still really burnt out at the moment. I cringe internally at all the work I have to do, especially if I know I’m going to take the next couple of weeks off TAFE. But I’m so grateful of the love and understanding of my family, my teachers and my friends. Viet Anh and Ness have been total champs listening to me whinge. Adam and Moffie have been there when I just collapsed at uni and I literally cried on Moffie’s shoulder.

I’ll slog through the next month of TAFE and uni. I’ll get there. I hope you guys understand if I’m a bit preoccupied these days but I hesitate to say that I’ll see you before my Actuarial final on the 16th.

After over 3 years of my Revue Reloaded T-shirt being AWOL, it was finally found this weekend in the dregs of my younger brothers closet.

I am one happy girl.