Retrospection brings Revelations

My mate Jim and I are doing Dry July. At a sober dinner and subsequent Koko Black chocolate inhalation session tonight, we had a mini retrospective. I just realised that it has only been 2.5 years since I moved out of my parent's house. I'd spent 3 years prior suffering clinical depression. It was so bad that my mother gave me two tasks in the day that were all I had to achieve: Make my bed and check the mail box for mail. Those two things would exhaust me. Some days I couldn't do one or both and I'd sob at my failure. Some days, I'd do both and we'd celebrate the success.

When I left Darwin at the very end of 2011, I wasn't quite sure if I'd be able to feed myself, work an entire 5 day week or stop myself crying if I ever started. Since then my failures have been vast but all lessons learnt. My heart has been broken once since but it kept beating. My brain chemistry has kicked my arse several times and I kicked it back.

I don't cry randomly anymore though. I don't wish to die. I pay my own bills and cook my own meals. I finally forgave myself for not being perfect. These are major achievements for me.

It has only been 2.5 years and I'm functioning quite well now. Even I'm impressed.

Thanks, Jim. You made me articulate it. This isn't an affirmation. This is surprise and pride mixed with slightly too much chocolate.

And then it disappears in a puff of smoke

“She said, ‘I’m so afraid.’ And I said, ‘why?,’ and she said, ‘Because I’m so profoundly happy. Happiness like this is frightening.’ I asked her why and she said, ‘They only let you be this happy if they’re preparing to take something from you.’”

- Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner 

Getting Back Up Again

It is raining in Canberra as I write this. Having grown up in the tropics, rain to me is warm and welcoming. It washes away the day and pushes back the heat. This feels like the right time to sit down and take in the last few months.

As one of the most stressful episodes of my life comes to an end, I am learning to accept that I can survive pretty much anything that life throws at me. I can survive it and not fall apart.

The thing is that surviving doesn't mean that I prospered during that time. It doesn't mean I felt happy every second. It doesn't mean I smiled and was thankful for what got me there.

There is a powerful myth in our society that dictates that happiness is something we must feel 100% of the time and if we aren't then something is wrong. That is wrong and causes a lot of self-doubt when people have a bad time. They tend to think that any emotion that isn't under-pinned by happiness is a fractured and bruised existence.

Feeling other emotions is not a failing. It is life. It is normal.

As long as there is a general happiness and more good moments than bad then I am satisfied that my life is going well.

In July, I experienced something that no woman should ever have to face. I found myself in a position that I never expected and realised that those who were obliged to protect me were unwilling to do so. That shook my view of work and life and people, in general.

The following weeks saw me slow my life down and finally stand still, in some hope that everything would stop spinning. The weeks lead to months and I didn't start working again until one week ago.

It isn't easy for anyone to not work for that long but if I hadn't had that time to rest and recover, I wouldn't be so energised and ecstatic about what I find myself doing now. Burn-out from over work and the horror of July meant that I spent weeks at my parent's house sleeping and trying to get my brain going again.

It wasn't like when I had severe clinical depression. It was nothing like that actually. There were shitty moments but it never felt so hopeless like falling in to a bottomless pit. It was tough though and there were nights for months where I slept with the lights on in my bedroom or didn't sleep until the Sun came up. For some reason, day time seemed safer. That or I was becoming a vampire. I do sparkle.

Anyone who has been through really bad patches will tell you that being in a rut isn't the most horrible part. The being in it part is something you can accept as what you are going through. It is falling in and climbing out that are the most challenging moments. No, not moments. Moments are short and fleeting. These are periods of time and everything slows down like when you stack a push bike and see the ground coming at you.

Right now, I am climbing out. Back at work and thriving as part of a real team where I feel I belong. I'm not allowed to work more than 40 hours a week which leaves me 20 more hours for life that the last job didn't. Yeah, no more 240 hour months.

Restabilising takes time. My new routine is being established. My old friends and new colleagues and awesome family and wonderful social circle are helping me bound back to a semblance of a normal life. Soon it will actually be a normal life. Accepting that I am no longer tripping on every tree root as I run blindly from the wolves is not as easy as I'd hoped. I keep checking for the wolves when a granny with a chin walks by. Sometimes, I even lose it and say I'll just give up and not participate anymore but I wake up the next day and I do.

So, I'm getting there. There are so many people I have to take aside and thank for holding my head above water. There are others who don't deserve to be mentioned or even to have a thought wasted on them. They don't matter. Only the good ones do.

And I'm a good one too. Just one who is trying to get the rhythm back in my life.

A New Year of Respect

2011 was an interesting year for me, as they always are. This one highlighted one thing that I knew but had to realise. It goes along the lines of being happy first before you can make anyone else happy. That I realised, goes for most things in life.

Be rich before you give money. Be happy before you give happiness. Be wise before you give advice... or have a blog and too much spare time.

This year, I focused on honouring and humouring myself by finding the things that I liked and wanted to commit my life to. Work has been narrowed down to two areas I like and think make me a better contributor. Now I have to continue on that work path and make it work for me and my job. Friendships have solidified or dissolved to ensure that they are healthy and not damaging. Passions for hobbies and interests lost have been retried and some rekindled.

I am more of who I want to be.

One thing that I found repeatedly was sacrificed was respect. Respect for my guiding principals. Respect for people who deserved it more. Ultimately, a recognition that I sacrificed self-respect to make others happy and to respect them, when I should not have.

There is a fine line between generosity and giving because someone insists on taking from you.

Yesterday was Christmas. A symbolic day for new life. The right time to take back some of what had been taken from me. A time to stand up and silently rescind the hold that others have had over me that came from my giving and giving and their never actually asking but always taking.

Maybe everyone else is just so good at maintaining that balance but I suck at it. That is why I had to bring it back to one concept and one word that I could focus on for 2012.

Respect.

Respect for myself first then I'll deal with the rest of the world.

She rises up like the tide

This weekend past, was a lot like those weekends I remember when I was a teeny bopper. It started with a fabulous night out with my girlfriends. We drank bubbly, met two new girls to add to our crew and then danced until our feet hurt and our eyes went all blinky. Then we went to a mates where we cooked frozen chips and covered them in MSG loaded chicken salt (with some Seth Arfikan) name.

The rest has been a slow blur of chained naps, necromancy via fiction, teddy bears with 20's headbands and constant grazing.

Tomorrow, it's back to work with early breakfast meetings to head off project dramas and then on to writing code and getting stuff done.

There is only one thing I need to get life to the point where I am 100% satisfied with it - physical health and that starts Tuesday with my new personal trainer. Apparently, his name is Dorian. I can only imagine he is super fit and hides a painting at home of an ugly fat man. Oscar Wilde would be happy with that scenario.

Maybe happiness is just being who you want to be.

Now you're just somebody that I used to know

There is a song bouncing off the walls at the moment by Gotye called Somebody that I used to know. My need to listen to it over and over again comes late at night at that time when it takes clenching teeth to keep my eyes open.

I was sitting at my work desk on the 22nd of September wondering what I'd forgotten to do. Did I miss someone's birthday? Did I have an appointment for a pedi or a massage? Was there a bill due?

I forgot it again. Even after toughening myself up a couple of weeks in advance for what would have been my fifth wedding anniversary or our 14th year together, I still forgot.

Right now, that seems to be a good thing but I can't lie. When I did remember, it ached. Ached through my entire body. Skin, organs, limbs and the split ends lying on the floor of my hairdresser's floor.

There may always be a pain there... where he used to be. Even now he's just somebody that I used to know.

Oscar Says

Officially Old

As my 35th birthday approaches, I wonder what age is "officially old".

It keeps moving as I age but I wonder if I should be looking back and remembering when I was young. Instead, I feel at my peak each year. As if there is so much more ahead of me than behind me.

My mother just turned 63 years old. She is sharp, vibrant, beautiful and brilliant. Nothing is out of her reach. She is writing a book, teaches 5th and 6th grade, tweets and facebooks and wants to go to see Janet Jackson with me in November. She isn't old to me.

Maybe it's 80 or 90 years old but then there is my grandfather who was born in 1900. I met him when he was 96 years old. He died at just over 100. He had all his own teeth. He said it was because he always chewed sugarcane. It's fibrous and cleans even with it natural sweetness. He chewed beetle nut and walked over ten kilometers each day. He walked slow but he walked. He laughed at jokes and smiled at our youthful wit. He wasn't old to me.

Maybe it isn't about an actual age. Maybe it's about your attitude to life.

Recently I met an amazing man who inspired me to see life as wonderful. He taught me to not treat anything as a tragedy, no matter how Shakespearean it seemed. He was my muse, yet he condemned himself to the life he entered via an early contract promised to honour. It was sad to watch. He was my friend and taught me so much but partially through knowing that I never wanted to sacrifice my promise and happiness for an earlier agreement. I never want to be like him.

Life is following your passion. Finding it. Naming it. Living it. Holding it. Pushing it.

Promise me something. Promise me that YOU will be everything you can be. That you will follow the amazing that you are. Hold the hand that takes you home. Live your dream.

Putting Up Walls

Accept It

People are always telling me that I will find someone who is right for me. Someone who will respect me and not be intimidated by my brains, success of flirty personality. They say he will treat me right and not lay a hand on me in anger. They say a lot of things.

My bestie Allison said that people say that because they think that is what I want to hear. The truth is that I don't want to hear that. Seriously.

For the first time in over a decade, I am truly happy. Each day, I get out of bed and look forward to an amazing life filled with meaning and love. That to me does not mean "a man" to complete me. In fact, I feel complete.

Every time someone tells me that I will find that person, I actually feel a little cr@ppy. I don't feel incomplete. There is so much love in my life. My loving family and my amazingly wonderful friends make me feel complete in that way. I have no doubt that people love me and that I am lovable beyond belief.

The thing is that I feel complete. There is nothing missing from my life. Nothing lacking. Nothing lost. If I found a great friend who I wanted to spend my whole life with then I would but I certainly don't need that.

Please don't tell me what I need to hear. Just accept that I'm happy and be happy for me. Please.

I love you all and appreciate your help. Love me for who I am.