The Healing

Alternate Universe Theory

The other day, I posted this on facebook...

The world seems a little odd when I'm the emotionally stable one in a relationship or the less dramatic friend in a friendship or the person less likely to pike on an appointment.
It is possible that I have entered an alternate universe.

... and boy, does it feel true.

There was a massive revelation to myself at this point. It was that every time some speed bump happens in life, I've been looking to myself as the cause. Always wondering what I did wrong this time and searching for a way to fix it.

The revelation is that I am not often the cause of the drama these days. I have my moments. I'll always be the centre of some kind of attention but now I realise that others cause it too. Not just me or at least not me every single time.

What a fantastic way to start the year. Yes, sometimes I am a right diva. No, I am not always the troubled soul.

Yay, me!

I don't draw the curtain

It is probably best I live on the top floor of my eight story building because I never draw the curtains closed. I have never really seen the point to it.

In the day, I like the cleansing sunlight. In the night, I like the calming dark. The dawn brings me slowly to wake and the dusk shares a glass of wine.

Maybe my opposing neighbours know too much about me. Maybe. Who cares?

Does it indicate something about a person when they like to control what is let in and what is kept out?

Even if no one ever looks in due to fences or trees or lack of interest. Maybe the closing is to commit to complete dark or complete light. A binary setting. A semaphore even, with the half open - half closed option.

Then there are those see through curtains that let you leave the curtain open but cut the insight. What does that mean. Is that making it all about hiding or is it all about light?

Maybe curtains aren't the eyes to the soul but I'm starting to think that it is reflective of how much some are willing to share and how much some couldn't care less.

I don't draw the curtains.

Some love never dies

Sweetie,

When I left home, I went to you. I remember that you weren't always cold. There were nights when you were so warm that neither of us slept a wink.

In 2006 we were at our happiest. My 30th birthday. Dancing lessons. A wedding. So many friends.

And then something broke.

Sydney came between us. My depression didn't help. You weren't there for me but then again... maybe I left you and that added to me breaking. You were always there. I mean, you existed but we were not together. Both alive and breathing but not together. Maybe there were days when we saw each other again or reconnected. Hell! There were entire weekends. It didn't stop the separation though.

When it got bad, I felt you had gone forever and that nothing could ever change the memories that then pained me so much. My escape to Darwin or my exile to the north was necessary. You were thousands of miles away and didn't so much as show you cared.

I spoke of other loves, of Darwin and Sydney and places that you weren't.

In 2011, when I thought I'd healed, I ventured back to the start. To that cold place. Us. It was not until 2012 that the memories were rewritten and you no longer made me cry. In fact, I could think of you and smile.

Sometimes I still hate you. Sometimes I still can't stand how cold you get. Sometimes I smile because we knew each other so well and that is coming back.

Thank you for coming back in to my life.

Thank you, Canberra. I am glad I am here and that we are back together.

Yours for now,

Mana

The Dragons Meet

Yes, today is the first day of 2013. A new year.

We are however still in the Chinese year of the Water Dragon.

I was born in the August, 1976. That is the year of the Fire Dragon. It is an extremely lucky sign to be born under. Every 12 years, there is a year of the Dragon and I amuse myself with how lucky I will be that year.

Now, I'm not saying I believe that I am one of twelve types of people. Leos never believe in that stuff :)

What I am saying is that since I believe it is my year and that my year will be full of luck, that gives me a positive view of the year. Maybe I subconsciously approach it in a different way that makes me a little bolder (yes, it is possible). Then I boldly go where no Mana has gone before.

As a Fire Dragon in the year of the Water Dragon, I knew it would get steamy and it did.

The year was full of winning moments. There was so much propulsion that many things happened that I had to stop and take in later.

Today as I sat in the Jolly Mont Centre waiting with a good friend catching a Murray's bus home after visiting me in Canberra, I joked about being easily amused by silly jokes and small wins. I said that I would always be happy because it didn't take much to make me so.

That is a key to happiness. Not needing something giant or overly important or drop dead hilarious to make your day. Laughing at myself and wonderful little moments is a sign that this dragon has enjoyed the steamy year.

In the upcoming year of the Water Snake, I shall let my Fire Dragon embrace the eel like year which is said to be the best year in which to start again.

I choose to start a new chapter and make it the best one so far.

Bring it!

Don't listen to a word I say

I've been quite good with my New Years resolutions over the past two years so I am stating my next one.

This year's was to be mentally stable supported by having a stable job and a stable home. I've smashed that! :)

In 2013, I want to live a life with self respect and unwavering respect for those around me - be it friends, work mates or boyfriends.

There is a quote that says "Character is who you are when no one is watching."

That is driving my new year.

What is your NY's Resolution?

Whiplash

There are so many people who I have interacted with lately who are a whirlpool of inconsistencies. They say one thing. They do another. They think they think but they really just apply logic to their emotional responses.

For all my flaws (and they are vast), I have one thing going for me. I am quite self-aware. Yes, I still do stupid stuff but I have the skills to sit down and work out why I really did what I did. Sometimes it takes seconds, sometimes hours and sometimes years. In the end though, I can attribute my actions or my emerging feelings to real human reasons.

Maybe I fear something so I figuratively hit it with a stick. Sometimes I resist something due to a trigger and it takes me a long time to realise the trigger is something that I've hit before many times. Sometimes I cry and although I think it is out of sadness, it is out of anger or joy or confusion.

Logical people are the worst. They make a decision quickly and attribute their actions to that very rational reason. Often, logical people are hyper-rational in an attempt to control the loss of control that emotional reaction has.

Lots of things are lower level. They come from our lizard brain (yes, yes, I know that's not biologically true) but they can be tempered with mindfulness.

Mindfulness is not about controlling your emotions or thoughts of responses. It is about taking in the whole situation and slowing down until you're dodging bullets in a Matrix like fashion. Then you can work out what is what and who is who and why is when. Sometimes, you don't work it out and just ride the wave until it takes you to your destination.

Rather than applying reason where there is none or even the wrong reason to an action and giving someone interacting with you whiplash, take a step back and try to work out why. Most often, it isn't the worst assumption possible that is driving it. Often it is a small thing or a nothing that has blown in to a huge thing.

Sometimes we are just grumpy and it has nothing to do with anything. We just are.

Try to align your thoughts, your words and your actions with their real sources and don't make up are good reason for your bad behaviour.

Sometimes we just behave badly.

Why your lack of delusion limits you

There is something that all amazing people have in common. No matter how normal they look or how sensible they act, they all have a slightly delusional side.

Optimism is a human state that propels us to want for more and truly believe it possible. One of the toughest things about being depressed is that you see the world in its raw reality, ignoring its wonderful possibilities. I see pessimists in a similar way but they don't give up trying like those suffering depression. They instead go on suffering reality for all the ordinary averageness and vanilla moments.

Now, really extraordinary people believe in things that have not been achieved successfully so far or even thought of as possible before. They aren't just optimists who believe in succeeding. They believe in achieving what everybody else thinks is just plain nuts so why even try.

Often people don't understand them but get swept up in their dreams. Often people don't believe them and snigger loudly at first and then sigh quietly when the dream becomes reality.

I surround myself with people who I've now realised dream bigger than they are allowed. Often, without asking permission or giving apology. The thing is, they succeed.

Children are a great example of people who haven't been told they can't yet so they just do and do well. Adults on the other hand are constantly aware of and restate their limitations with "I can't" and "I don't" or "I would but" statements. Adults live within their bounds and achieve what their limits allow them. The limits society set for them or they for themselves or their partner or their boss in their job.

Once you grasp the idea that there is nothing that can not be achieved then you are free to be great.

As It Seems

By Lily Kershaw

Well I knew
What I didn't want to know
And I saw
Where I didn't want to go
So I took the path less traveled on
And I'll let my stories be whispered
When I'm gone...

When I'm gone
When I'm gone
When I'm gone

Well in this life you must find something to live for
Cause when the darkness comes a callin'
You'll go back to where you were before
Cause this life is as
Fragile as a dream, and
Nothing's ever really
As it seems...

As it seems
As it seems
As it seems

Well I lost my innocence when in I let him dive
But the way that he looked at me
Made me feel alive
And now I know
Nothin' at all
But the release that comes when you're
In mid fall...

In mid fall
In mid fall
In mid fall


Cause in this life you must find something to live for
Cause when the darkness comes a callin'
You'll go back to where you were before
Cause this life is as
Fragile as a dream, and
Nothing's ever really
As it seems...

As it seems
As it seems
As it seems

One sided conversations

On my last night of a work trip in Auckland, I sat alone at a table in a restaurant. Beside me were a retired couple. Both Australians who had moved to New Zealand to be with one of their two daughters who had given them grandchildren. They'd spent several years of their retirement on the Sunshine Coast and finally gave in to the call of the grey babysitters.

Old couples are cute. They obviously know each other well and have stuck around for the long haul. I don't have flash forwards to my own life of aged coupledom or wish for that for myself. In fact, I am of the belief that I will always be young and beautiful... even at my current 36.

Those couples are comforting though. To know that people can persist through the good and bad and even the boring to come out the otherside together without one of them deserting is healing for me.

The wife was the one who told me their life story. The husband didn't make eye contact with me and spent most of his time staring out the window. This I understand. Not everyone is an extroverted puppy like me, who longs to connect with people... with anyone. She was though.

What irked me about the whole situation was that as the courses of their degustation dinner were served, she discussed each one in detail. She referred to how it should be done according to Master Chef or how you'd achieve a running creamy egg after baking it for two hours on 65 degrees Celsius.

He said nothing. He grunted once in a while during moments of scoffing food. He looked out the window a lot.

He did not share her passion. He didn't even humour her.

At that moment, I knew that I'd hate to sit in a restaurant savouring food and longing to discuss its nuances while my life long partner showed little to no interest.

Not saying he is a bad person or unloving or anything like that. For her to stay with him until death do they part, he must be something wonderful to her.

It was just that when the sum of your life is almost calculated and you are double checking numbers and reconciling the steps that get you there, I'd hope that the person across from you is at least in conscious attendance.

May I never share my passion and receive only a grunt.

Don't drive angry

There is a fantastic scene in Groundhog Day where Bill Murray's character is committing suicide for the umpteenth time and he lets the groundhog drive the car over a cliff. He casually says "Don't drive angry."



It is such a simple scene and wrapped in so much humour that you laugh it off without a second thought.

As someone who has watched that movie more than twenty times, it is poignant. It has meaning beyond a navigator guiding a rodent.

Life is this journey that you have to take. A road trip that you are destined to drive. An excursion that you must go on because you've been told to.

Awful stuff happens. Awesome stuff happens. Sometimes you don't want to participate. Sometimes you want to punch someone. Ok, maybe that is just me.

Bill Murray has it right when he says "don't drive angry."

Do not live an angry life. Do not hold contempt for others. Let it go and enjoy the new moments.

Malachy McCourt was right when saying "Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die."

Let the things that have been done, be done. Enjoy the rest.

Lengthening My Attention Span

Over the years and particularly through my depression, my ability to concentrate became almost non-existent.

I worked out a while ago now that multitasking is a fallacy. You end up doing twice as much stuff but half as well. For me, focussing on a task and ignoring interruptions has resulted in higher quality work and more enjoyment for me in doing it.

People will often hear me talk about mindfulness and being aware of and involved in each moment as it happens. I've been reading a lot of books exploring existentialism that encourage the idea of authenticity of experience.

For me, mindfulness and authenticity are a result of participating in the experience and savouring the moment as it envelops you. It is like a perfect kiss where you breathe each other in and kiss each other back.

What I have worked out in the last six months is that to truly appreciate life and live it in the best way I possibly can, I must pay attention to the parts and not live it in an event driven way where I follow the distraction to... well, distraction.

Even while writing this, I have flicked to Facebook several times to see what my latest notification is and then Twitter to mock the way I can't focus. I have a long way to go.

These are my current methods for lengthening my attention span and they are working:

Read 20 pages of a book every day

Reading has been the most successful mechanism for lengthening my attention span. At first I could read only 1-2 pages before feeling sleepy. Now I can read 10-15 before I start to wonder what else I could be doing. Fiction is the most successful thing for me to read but I'm trying non-fiction from time to time.

Spend time without my phone

Great ideas come to people in the shower because they are not distracting their mind with anything. They have time to think. These are called gap moments and we spend so much time filling them with distractions that we are losing the ability to think of nothing and let thoughts emerge. When I am standing in a line or waiting to meet a friend, I no longer use my phone as a distraction. I actually stare in to space or mini-meditate while doing nothing much.

Give people with you all your attention

Nothing bugs me more than being with someone who will take a phone call in my presence. If someone is with me and in the same room then they get my priority. Some person who calls me on a whim is not going to trump my present company. I will often take the call and say I am busy and will call them back or I hit a button that texts them and says I'm busy right now but will respond soon. Giving attention to the person I am with shows respect for the time they are giving me. I wouldn't spin my chair around and join another table in a cafe mid-sentence so why would I take a call and put the here-right-now person last.

These are just some of the skills that are helping me rebuild and hone my mind so that it is the bright little spark it was in my mid-20s.

If you have any other suggestions that work for you, please do tell me.

R U OK?

A lot of people are new to my life and they don't know anything more than the smiley faced girl with the tendency to talk too loud, talk about the awesomeness of cats and giggle at life often.

I wasn't always her.

I am here today because people asked me if I was OK and cared enough to listen.

That is not an exaggeration. In fact, it is such an understatement that I should really explain it.

This blog exists to explain it and to document a journey through the depths of depression that left me without solid memories of a time that although I'd rather forget, I know remembering will stop from happening again.

One day, if you get a chance, take a read. Between early 2009 and late 2011, my black dog held on and didn't let go. It is no longer dominant but it will always be here.

Without the kindness of my family, my friends and sometimes complete strangers online and in person, nothing of me would remain. Kind and gentle words are all your need to take someone from believing no one cares to knowing there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Some people were quite actively unkind. Some were unfeeling, without empathy. Some told me to hide it and never speak its name. Some were fair weather friends. They don't matter now, though it shattered me at the time. Apathy or avoidance of the temporarily weak means that they lost someone who came through the cloud as a strong, wonderful, happy and understanding person.

Writing what I wrote and the comments I got online and in real life, showed me that I was not only in what seemed like a lonely struggle to not drown in everyday life. A lot of people experience the same thing and like having cancer, it is not a choice that you can just unchoose.

On the recommendation of a friend, I took photos of myself and events in my life and recorded them publically on flickr. The transformation in that time from opaque sadness to true honest happiness is visible. The events of my life that I recorded and have little to no memory of because of the effects of my deep clinical depression are there for me to form memories around now, now that I am ok.

R U OK?

Working Everywhere

My last job and my new job have involved a lot of travel.

People look at me with eyes full of sadness and pity and ask why I am made to travel so much.

That makes me feel like I'm some sort of abused little girl who is forced to live a life against her will.

I do realise that other people may hate the idea of it but for me, seeing new places and getting the chance to work in them and hang out with locals is exciting. Eating foods I don't get at home and in places that seem so magical to me is exciting. Smelling salt air or polluted air or hotel air is all exciting to me.

It's true that I have a tolerance for about one week of travel that can be stretched to two weeks if I must but it is not forced or suffered and painful to me.

As someone who was tied down for so long, the bounce in my step as I close the door of my apartment and head off on a new adventure lifts my soul.

Until it stops feeling that way, I will travel as long as there is demand for my skills and I want something from it.

Do not pity me. I'm drinking champagne in another country while I do my job well and take in the culture.

My life doesn't suck.

PS. Vietnam in early August.

Nothing is planned but

I don't believe in fate. To be fatalistic to me, is to be a non-participant.

We aren't meant to sit on the couch and choose the easiest option. We aren't meant to wait for something to come and and solve a persistent issue or make us thinner or have our perfect partner appear!

Damn no!

We are supposed to get out there and get involved.

Walk for miles if you need better thighs. Read a book or five if you need a better brain. Talk to people who take you outside of your comfort zone if you want to meet someone awesome.

I've lived in too many cities where you can't see the stars. I have never waited for guidance. I've gone out there and screwed up with the best of them.

Don't wait for life to happen to you.

You are missing important moments.

This is not a bank ad.

The Northern Wall

The first reaction to any real pain, is to build walls around yourself. To defend against a known or unknown enemy. It will protect you. It will stop any further attack.

There are other ways to deal with situations that hurt. There are ways that are less inwardly destructive.

See, I have this theory...

It is that you can feel the kick in the stomach and then curl in on yourself and rock until it stops hurting and then never uncrunch because that is the safest way not to take another kick. The other way to deal is to get up again and face what is coming.

You don't need to defend and you don't need to attack. You simply need to get up and be a little more prepared. More prepared for the chance it may happen again but not so over-prepared that you never move again.

I don't quite understand why people are cruel. When I have my moments, they are usually driven by insecurity or past pain. I guess everyone has baggage. People have something about them that they have built a wall around so they will never be hurt again. They have closed themselves off.

Right now, I want to build a wall so high that I don't spend another weekend thinking about the whys and hows and WTFs. However, I don't think that will help.

Let the pain happen. Feel it. Let it register. Grow some scar tissue. Learn and move on.

Don't let that same person who injured you do it again. Never allow them the chance. Build the bloody wall around them.

Let the wonderful trusting person that you are trust again. Maybe the next chance won't kick you in the chest.

Believe

There is so much power in belief. I won't rant about religion or faith or passion. You've heard all that.

I will tell you about the power that comes with life and lesson and learning.

We are all here. That's it. There may be no meaning. There may be no purpose. There may be no script.

There is however, honouring yourself. Living a life that is a tribute to the essence of who you are.

Growing up and maturing is realising that you have to be who you are supposed to be. Your meaning. Your presence. Your reason. It comes from a different place with every person.

Nobody can decide what that is for you. No one can set your path. It isn't written. It isn't predetermined. It isn't chosen or walked or lived or decided. It is what you choose. What is right for you.

Someone can love you and not get that. Someone can adore you and not get that. Someone can give you everything and not get that.

There is responsibility. There is responsibility. There is.

Don't hurt others. There is no need. You can find ways to be who you are without hurting others.

There are ways to be a good person. Be loving. Gentle. Kind. Even a little broken. All. All, without hurting someone else.

Believe.

The problem with Australians

There is a thing called Tall Poppy Syndrome. It is a case of cutting down the tallest poppy so that all the poppies are the same height. Australian's invented this idea. They own it and it is so engrained in our culture that it will take generations and a lot of American TV to negate it.

People often find me inspiring or irritating. I think it's because of the same thing: I think success, beit mine or others is a wonderful thing. I use the word Awesome a lot when good things happen to people. Unlike my ex-husband, I don't laugh at the misfortune of others despite friendship of not. I think life is nice and if it isn't then it's up to you to realise it is.

There are many great things about being an Aussie. Lots of positives but Tall Poppy Syndrome and that national cynicism is pathetic. We are better than that. In fact, we are awesome. Accept it and stop taking others down.

Gasp

I look for you. Not in a search light kind of way. More in a Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan kind of way. The way that you know only happens in movies. That moment when she's searching a bookshelf and extracts a book to see him on the other side.

It's lame. It's even nuts because you aren't even in the same world as me. That doesn't seem to stop me from looking in to the crowd in an eatery or looking at the opposing escalator for your shoes and your knees and then.. oh no, that's someone else.

Sometimes, I sit on a seat and wait for you to pass by. You are walking another street in another place in another town, somewhere. You may even walk passed me and I don't see you because I'm staring in to the faceless crowd and looking for you in another time. A time when you would have smiled right up to your crows feet to see me.

That's the thing though. Even if it was a scene of only you, I won't ever see you again. You don't exist. Too much has passed. Too much is broken. It is so unfixable that for you to ever live again would involve time travel and amnesia and Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and fiction.

I think I'll keep looking for you. I hope to never be disappointed and actually see you. That would so ruin the feeling of the quick gasp before it's evident that it's not you.

Choose a Choice

Take one table and call me in the morning

People keep asking me for advice on choosing between a tablet and a netbook and then which of the array of choices will suit them. It's an interesting question but one that has only a single answer. Uno problem, uno solution.

I have a MacBook Air. I have an original gangster iPad. I have a MacBook Pro. I have an iPhone 4. I have an iPhone 4S. I have every accessory. My first computer was an Apple Mac. My Dad brought home an Apple IIC. When it comes to the PC camp, I love myself a good Tecra. Toshiba makes the best hardware for running Windows. The Tecras are the membes of the Toshiba family that sip French Champagne at family dinners and watch amusedly at the Dells and Compaqs that can't hold their cheap beer and local house red. When it comes to eBook readers, I'm a Kindle girl. Seriously, choose a eBook reader based on what you're willing to drop on your head when you are reading in bed and doze off. The Kindle was gentle tap your skull while and iPad will brutalise it with a jack hammer.

So when I'm asked what tablet someone should buy and if they should wait for the latest release of iWhatever, I die a little bit.

Just choose. It won't be the last choice you make.

I spend ours with my iPad. It's not the latest. It's not the greatest. There are droids and Sam-hungs and lots of other choices. There are netbooks that can be like a tablet with a real life keyboard with slightly more peripherals. There are small full-sized laptops with minimum-expansion but more use. Each step takes you closer to… to what. Ask yourselves that question as you say "if I only spend this much more, I'll get…" because that will stop you.

My recommendation is buy whatever is good at the time. Use it. Don't just buy it if you don't really want it. Use it. Get your money's worth. Accept new stuff will be released within a blink of an eye. Whatever you buy will one day be retro.

Accept that and you'll forget the overload of choice and simply enjoy your next purchase.

Scuze me

Resolutions and Mixed Tapes

Let me tell you story. You must of course agree to believe that this happened to a friend of a friend of mine, or I shall refuse to continue. OK? OK.

There was a girl who lived a life blessed with love, beauty, friends, words, brilliance, sunshine, great legs and the prettiest face. She walked a privileged path that consisted of blissful moments and first world problems.

She sat alone on the night of the last day before the last day of the year. It had been an amazing year of lessons learnt, treasures earnt and friendships burnt... down to the ground like a pyre. Adele smashed away in the background saying sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead. She listened and sniggered. She had learnt that the past is the past and if you can take something or anything or a smidge of a story from it then you'd done OK. OK?

We were born and raised in a summer haze, Adele continued. This time she smiled because we were. The sun has always shone on us.

For all the ups and ups and downs and crashes and grey bits, life was pretty damn good.

She is 35 years old. She is smiling. She looks to tomorrow and likes the way the plans are laid. She likes that the grey bits are hazy and unwritten. She is good with life.; good with the people she loves; good with the future; and good with the results of the choices she has made.

Now let it play out.

Nothing compares

No worries or cares

Regrets and mistakes

They are memories made

How I saw Lego

This is how I saw Lego, as a child and this is part of a brilliant advertising campaign.

Chew on the furniture and start bar fights

Break it

You're walking down a leafy sunny street in the middle of the holidays. Most people are eating lunch with their families and aren't out and about. Those you do see nod and smile. They aren't friends but you have seen them around and they do the nodding thing and you do the nodding thing.

There is an actual friend-type person that you are on the path to running in to. It's a planned rendezvous. A tryst of sorts.

You keep asking yourself "What makes a friend?" How does that label get assigned and attached and maintained? Songs tell you a friend is someone who walks in to your house like they live there but the police will do that in cop shows you see on TV so it doesn't quite sit right. Others give analogies of gardens and tending flowers but your vivid imagination extends that to weeds and barren soil and other parts of the analogy where worms turn the soil to better it but are still icky.

This person that has been placed in your line will soon be in your sight. The thing with sight is that you don't always see what is in front of you. There is a plumish hue when he appears. As if the sun is setting in his stead. There is a warmth that you feel when you see photos of people having picnics. Not that cuddly corny warmth but the feeling of the sun on your skin, even when all you are doing is looking.

You call him an actual friend but your actual friends sigh and roll their eyes when he ultimately emerges in the conversation. Those are the deep and meaningful talks resulting from too many ciders and an unyielding urge to tell someone or anyone or maybe an actual friend, about him.

It is nothing new to you that he controls the entirety of who you are when you two are "us". At first it seemed like he was leading you in a tango. Sexy and strong and dominant and all the time caring that you are ok. He will look after you, so you follow.

You aren't sure when but the dance became more like a fight. You both wrestled and he slapped you. He loved it. You broke a little. Then you danced again.

Each time, you saw the glow as he approached and forgot the darkness when he left. Always thinking he brought the sunshine with him when he came and realising he brought nothing but the darkness which he left with you when he'd gone.

This will be another crossing of paths. Maybe a paving of cow paths. It always happens and starts to feel like that is what happens. You cringe. That should paint you a sign. That should bend the neon tubes that illuminate a Vegas like detour but you will tread the road.

He comes and talks and it wouldn't matter if you are there. You are inconsequential. Did you want a coffee? My shout. He talks through you and you feel the sound reverberate over and around and fizzily through your particles. What once felt like a buzz, now feels like a zap.

He leaves and there you are again walking through an empty suburb with trees. Yes, trees. There are people. They are strangers. There is sun in your eyes and you sneeze. Everyone is locked in their house with families that they tolerate. You wonder why it is getting so dark.

Break it. Break it so it is so broken that it can never be fixed again. Break the trees and their damn streaming rays of star light. Break the path you walked over and over again. Break your shoes that you walked it in. Break your rose coloured glasses and throw the jagged lenses in the street so car tyres will be punctured. Break it all.

Then start again.

Who you are

I write to you but I don't think you read it. It could be because I don't know who you are. Maybe you read it and wonder who it is that I write to but never think it is you because of course, I don't know who you are.

Please Enter

Someday

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.

2011 - Top 10 Photos

Top 10 sets of my photos on flickr...

Creatures

Shoes

Happy Mana



Outdoorsy



Nails



Bling

2011 - Top 10 Tunes

My favourite songs of 2011 were...

James Blunt - Stay the night




Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song




Rihanna - S&M




Jessie J - Price Tag




Adele - Rolling in the Deep




RIP Amy Whinehouse - Rehab




Plain White T's - Rhythm of Love



Gym Class Heroes - Stereo Hearts




Gotye - Somebody that I used to know

Crowded

It is a strange numbing sadness that comes to you when you realise that you belong nowhere and there is no person or people that you are joined to in any way.

That could be why I am a nomad. Why I have so many acquaintances but no best friend. The reason I want to be so far from family and friends, where no one knows me.

I don't mind people. I enjoy their company but what I long for is my own place and my own space. Somewhere that I don't have to be diplomatic or ask if what I am doing suits someone else.

There is little to no doubt that I will be a crazy cat lady and I will prefer that.

A Promise

I shan't ever look for you again in my dreams.

Friend Portfolio

My friend Jen Coombes introduced me to the idea of the Friend Portfolio. She is the greatest friend thief I will ever know and the best inspiration. She taught me that if you mesh with someone then just let it happen. Don't fight friendship. Don't try to force it. Let it happen and forget the rules and regulations.

I was at a Halloween party recently for a recently made friend, with my girls Olga and Elmo. I was busy in the kitchen dressed as an iPhone making my famous margaritas when I ranted about how friends betray you. The friends that you surround yourself with and the amazing people around you say more for who you are than any constructed identity or brand. They are the definition of who you are.

The girl with the strong Italian accent asked "where are you friends tonight?" and I pause and then answered "They are the two fully clothed girls who are swimming in the pool and attracting all the male attention".

Self Hurt

Once there was a song that defined me... at least for a moment in my life. It is a song by Nine Inch Nails that was covered by Johnny Cash. Cash did the more powerful version. Some of you already know that the song is Hurt.

I wasn't an emo in that I cut myself . I wasn't an X-aholic that took substances to numb the pain or raise my mood. I wasn't going out and looking for fights.

No, I went out and looked for the worst people I could find. I wanted them to disappoint me and confirm that the world sucked. To reinforce that all those who breathe were going to let me down, like others had.

Today is different. I don't hurt myself today to see if I still breathe. I am aware that I breathe. Aware that I am alive and wonderful. That is a big thing. I don't want to be disappointed anymore. There is no validation in finding that and absolutely none in seeking it. People are people... flawed and wonderful.

There shall only be hurt when there is hurt. It will not be something I seek. Disappointment will not console me. There will be more. There is. Those people who validated my world view before are not allowed to anymore. They can be who they are but they won't make me believe the world is bad.

My positive self is here. It will not be bad. Life is good. Let it be so. Believe only that.

I won't let you down. I won't let it hurt.

Form me a habit

It takes six weeks to form a habit. Yes, six weeks. Forty two days. Then you can keep doing it because it is part of your life. To not do it would feel uncomfortable.

If people would accept more that they are not as in control of what they do as they consciously believe they are, then maybe they would honour the instincts and intrinsically driven reactions to stimulus that we have.

It is actually ok not to fully understand what you do. If it causes problems in your life then yes, maybe you should work out what triggers you and drives you. Otherwise, it's ok to do something or like something or be something because it feels ok to do so.

We spend so much time trying to match patterns. It is what humans do. The thing is that we do things that feel good and that positive reinforcement causes us to do it again and again until it is habit. Then there are things we do that don't feel good but are good for us. Do it over and over again and you will start to like it.

Cause and effect are often quite bi-directional. It is like happiness causing a smile and the newly discovered effect of a smile causing happiness. If you have a bad moment and smile then you will feel better. Don't believe me? Try it. You feel stupid at first and then even the feeling silly will make you smile.

If you are going to form a habit then choose something good for you that doesn't feel so great all the time. Commit to six weeks and it will be who you are or at least part of you.

You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals...

What do we want?

Managed Competition

Necessity is the mother of all invention and that doesn't just go for inventing things you can touch. It applies to all ideas.

Human beings are resourceful creatures who spawned from primordial ooze and morphed to omnivores with warm blooded adaptable bodies; stood up on only two paws and used an opposable thumb to strike flint to make fire; and then finally built industries and cities that crumble under their own over-consuming cyclical debaucherous weight.

Each time we boom, we bust.


Each time we build, we crumble.



Each time we make, we break.

Each time we prosper, we fail.

What makes us the dominant species for the foreseeable future is that each time we learn. We keep learning. Although our primal drives satisfy our lizard brains, we keep alive the great ape in us. That part that says "make this system better".

The city of Chicago renews it's garbage collection contracts about every decade, along with other city wide contracts that are held jointly by the public and the private sectors.



Each time the contract goes up for grabs and during the lifetime of this committment (which spans multiple mayoral terms) the private sector is judged against and compared to the public sector to see who does the job at a better price and simply who does the job better.

Often once a big contract is won, prices go up or quality goes down. After all, government pockets are bottomless, right?

In this system, the private sector always has competition and not just from the rest of the private sector. The huge in this case is the public sector and that keeps the competition alive. There is a maintained basic level of quality and an understood and accepted cost.

When these contracts have gone up for grabs in the city of Chicago between 1979 and 1994, The Economist states that "the private sector won 34 contracts while the public sector won 22."

What a simple and effective way to privatise yet keep quality and price in check. It even fairly applies those same constraints that private companies must operate under to fat cat public servants.

There is probably a lack of perfection in this way too but I like the transparency and constant reappraisal. The fact that providers of a service can thrive if they should or fail if they should seems right. The fact that privatisation makes sense in some decades and not in others might be reason enough to try this shared responsibility via managed competition.

Darwin

My recent denouncement and departure from Darwin was preceded 48 hours earlier by the travel book publisher Lonely Planet recommending the city in the top ten cities in the world to see for 2011.

It spoke of a bustling nightlife; access to an ancient culture and pristine wilderness; and of a city with energy and oomph. Maybe not those exact words but that was the gist of it.

I don't want to sound like my hipster friend Cathie but I liked Darwin before it was cool.


It isn't though. With all feedback, you must take it as input in to your system and weight it with what drove the source to say it, or in this case rank it.

Lonely Planet was the travel book of choice when I was a crumpled, life-in-a-backpack traveling twenty something. It was for those moments when I took a break in my life and on a budget travelled the world in search of people to drink with and adventures to have.

There is no shame in that. Lonely Planet was my $50 travel guide as I saw places I had read of in books or googled while cheating at pub quizzes. It took me beyond the Eiffel Tower and to a lovely wine and cheese stall that allowed me to buy a bottle and some milk products and gaze upon that industrial marvel from a nearby park, while others sweated and stood in a line to be sheared at the top of the lift of the tower, all the while being unable to see the forest for the tourists.

Lonely Planet led me down thousand year old streets to restaurants in dark dodgy parts of town where I was welcomed joyfully and replied in broken language, only to discover the waiter was from Melbourne.

Lonely Planet took me to vending machines that sold beer, ice cream and used school girls knickers and on to restaurants that displayed lacquered food while serving fresh minky on dried seaweed.

Lonely Planet took me everywhere, made me feel safe, slept in bed bug ridden sheets, sat next to me while I was kissed in Paris, was a pillow on trains across the worlds greatest mountain ranges and even silenced a very annoying Irish backpacker when I needed to sleep.

So when my home town is named as a top ten city to see, I may still agree with Paul Keating and say "The best view of Darwin is from 40,000 feet in the air on your way to Paris" but that is my 35 year old self speaking.


There is a reason for the youthful traveller with their unkempt hair and non-Veuve budget to come here. It will give them stories, experiences, tales, memories and heartache for places that are so different to what we grew up with that we take a breath as we survey them and hope that our mum will wire us some money when we blow our last money on a cold local beer.

Airports and Roundabouts

There are a lot of beautiful things in the world and many many mundane ones. Inanimate things. Areas. Spaces. Structures that give you no thought but to negotiate your way past without hitting them.

It's a case of airports and roundabouts.

Thing is that if you stall long enough to have to think about them, they are magic in their own way.

The modern roundabout is simple and highly effective. It is a control structure that regulates traffic with easy rules and without bringing everyone to a stand still. There is immense beauty in its simplicity. Simple rules of uni-directional flow and everyone knowing who gives way to who.

Next time you meet a roundabout, absorb the structure and give way to the right.


Then there are airports. You enter through some sliding doors and check luggage and print tickets and clear security and drink bad coffee. Around you, large canisters full of highly explosive jet fuel hit the ground and leave it at extreme speed. A bunch of people in a tower sew their paths, as thousands of people arrive and depart on their way to another identical depot.

At the most, you walk a hundred meters to a gate and wait in managed silence for your horseless, groundless, floating carriage to arrive. Then you climb aboard a vehicle with a hundred strangers to share air and bad food, while you achieve uplift and cut what was months of travel in to an annoying several hours.

People talk of smart phones, mapping the genome and coloured contact lenses and they are fabulous. There are also things we take for granted that if you stop and think of, you will release that we live in the future.

He doubts my source

Today he told me on the phone that pain only initiates the art and that my beautiful words then flow afterwards.

He is wrong.

When a passionate emotion owns me (beit pain or lust or love or hate or exhaustion), it drives every word I write. There is no eloquence in starting a sentence with it and ending it with another.

It is his way of living with the bump in joy he causes me. Bump down. Bump up. All cause.

I write it. I feel it as I write. It is good.

If you read this and feel the ride then say. Tell him, he is wrong.

Fatalism and Free Spirits

Last week left me with many thoughts after a 3 hour conversation with an old acquaintance. It is not a conversation that I see being repeated but it was an awakening moment.

This person kept telling me that he is a free spirit. That he deals with the here and now and does not plan for things to come or worry about things that have passed. I listened carefully and with interest because even though I am quite random at times, my view of life and destiny are quite separate from his.

He spoke of life happening and just taking it as it comes. I cringed.

I have heard this cry from many people. They are usually stuck in a rut of some sort. They are uneducated; unable to turn the tide that carries them in to and out of situations of life; and they are happy in their silent surrender.

There is peace and happiness in accepting your lot in life but I believe there is meaning and adventure in owning each turn you choose to make and driving out a life based on choice and consequence.

Life is not something that happens to a person. Happiness does not choose or unchoose you. It is not written by a deity with all knowledge, all sight and all presence. For me, I am lucid. I am conscious. I am the person who decides what happens to me.

Maybe, I am not a free spirit who can just sail along on the crest of existence, only breathing and sleeping and eating and... well, all those basic things. There has to be more and I make it so.

The second that I lie down and believe that the outcome is determined before I took the steps towards it, is the day that I will give up.

The free spirit thing is fine as long as they are not actually a fatalist that has signed a contract with lazy and opted for letting life happen to them.

Absense

I stopped writing when I found you.

It took a long time to work out why I stopped writing. It wasn't you. Don't flatter yourself. My drivers are intrinsic.

It was the lack of pain.

The pain gave me a certain kind of agony that no one else can know but someone who knows exactly how to explain their feelings. If you have the words to describe it then you should be able to solve it. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Sometimes seeing something with clarity only means that you can watch in instant replay, the person who stabs your naked body repeatedly while you float above it feeling the knife as it slices your soul. Bleeding nothing but the essence of who you are.

Pain leads to art. Pain leads to music... paintings... drawings... words of whim... words of wisdom. Pain is truth. Truth is pain. There is nothing more honest that the rare raw bruised feeling that life leaves you with after you've stood and fought or loved or represented and then lost.

A friend once told me that there is no losing in life. That life is not a competition. Any true perfectionist will explain to you that losing is a game against yourself. It is the motivation to be more than you are and then the inability to reach an _apparently_ unattainable goal. Try tell the perfectionist that they can not reach that apple and they will make you sit in a comfortable chair as they prove you wrong.

The words come from the tearing of your being. They are the beauty you can only show when the lights are out, the vodka has been poured and the world has forgotten you.

I'm getting harder on the inside

My smile travels to my eyes but not my heart anymore.

lolhorsie

My head is stuck in the clouds

I met him again. He's stuck in my head. My head is stuck in the clouds. It's one of those never-gonna-happen situations. That doesn't seem to kill it. It just is what it is. Over-thinking it will make it more than what it is or ever will be. Breathe. Live it. Let it happen. Then let it die.

Memories in red and green

I married in dappled sunlight under the trees of a rainforest next to an emerald green river, surrounded by everyone I loved. I wore red.

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.

Style