Momentus Moments

When I arrived in Darwin, I unpacked all my computer gear first. Laptops, hard drives, routers, hubs, routers, modems, gaming consoles, hand-held games devices and everything else collected over years of geekiness. With that came the rats nest of cables for networks, power and machine to machine connectivity.

With all the spare time that I had ahead of me, I decided to sort stuff out and re-establish that level of order that only someone with OCD can truly understand. Before life went to poo, I was very ordered and organised. There was a place or everything and a moment for it all to exist in. Then

and... well, read all my previous posts if you missed it.

On Friday the 30th of July, I went upstairs, dug out and dusted off my Apple Time Capsule. For those who don't know, it's purpose is to act as a drive to backup my Mac every few hour or so. That way, if any of my devices fail then I have an easy to restore backup. In the past, it has saved my electronic soul on a few occasions. Setting up new machines has been a breezy dreamy chocolate-coated easy occasion.

Who cares? I do. There was this huge mental block there. Something that started when I arrived at my Mum's house and continued for a long seven months. I just didn't have the get up and go to get up and go and set the damn Time Capsule up. It seemed so hard and impossible at the best of times. Of course, I knew it would take me plugging in the power and an Ethernet cable and that was it. Oh yeah, and turning on the Time Machine software on my laptop. How hard is that?

With my past state of mind, it seemed heavier than a train to lift; tougher than a mountain to move; and harder than water to breathe.

I did it though.

Damn, that's a huge achievement. I celebrate all the good things that happen these days. This is one of those moments when it hits you

that you've changed... recovered... healed to the point of usefulness again. It has been a long time coming.


Take that depression! Take that ex-husband! Take that world!

Holy shit!

Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting "...holy shit...what a ride!!!

-- courtesy of Dave Cameron

Bubbles

"I only drink Champagne when I'm happy, and when I'm sad. sometimes I drink it when I'm alone. when I have company, I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I am not hungry and drink it when I am. otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty" -- Lily Bollinger

Dear Friend

Dear friend,

I hope this letter finds you well. I write it on the upward swing of my current mood tide. The last week or so has been particularly difficult, especially in that we are not able to speak. Since things shall continue this way, I decided that a letter to the air is in order. If you never read it, that is ok. Having written it will help with my turmoil.

We always spoke about all kids of crap, from time machines to the perfect breakfast. It helped me more than I ever knew. It distracted me from the ache of living. Kept me laughing when breathing was not so easy.

You never miss anyone. It is what will always make you autonomous. As you know, I miss everyone and that will always make me seek out people. I keep looking but have not yet found the conversation we had, with someone else. Hopefully, it will pop up somewhere soon.

I miss you.

Love, Mana

On My Own

On My Own - Les Miserables

And now I'm all alone again,
nowhere to turn, no one to go to.
Without a home, without a friend...
without a face to say hello to,
but now the night is near and I can make believe
he's here.
Sometimes I walk alone at night.
when everybody else is sleeping..
I think of him and I'm happy with the company I'm keeping,
the city goes to bed and I can live inside my head.
On my own pretending he's beside me,
all alone I walk with him till morning,
without him I feel his arms around me
and when I lose my way I close my eyes and he has found me.
In the rain the pavement shines like silver,
all the lights are misty in the river,
in the darkness the trees are full of starlight...
and all I see is him and me forever and forever.
And I know it's only in my mind,
that I'm talking to myself and not to him.
And although I know that he is blind,
still I say, there's a way for us.

I love him!
But when the night is over,
he's is gone, the river's just a river.
Without him the world around me changes,
the trees are bare and everywhere the streets are full of strangers.

I love him!
But every day I'm learning,
all my life I've only been pretending.
Without me his world would go on turning,
a world that's full of happiness that I have never known.

I love him...I love him...I love him,
but only on my own!

Magician Kitty

No matter how dark the day, kitties make me smile :)

Bling - The Shop

We have set up shop at the Fantasia Indoor Markets in Yarrawonga. The weekend was insane, in a good way. Customers loved the unique fashion jewelry and adored the hand crafted Papua New Guinean gold and silver pieces. We made a LOT of sales and had repeat customers over just the two days we were open.

Here are some photos from the opening day, taken while setting up...

The shop standing completely empty. We have an ottoman now

Katrina setting up the PNG jewelry in a secure cabinet

A shot of the open shelves with the less expensive fashion jewelry

A glass cabinet holding the more high end pieces. We were opening and closing this all day

The solid pieces and pearls are locked away in here. It was nearly empty by the end of the weekend

Bling - The Website

My sister now has a website for her jewelry business Bling. Check out the fashion jewelry and the beautiful hand-crafted gold and silver imported from Papua New Guinea. In a couple of weeks, she'll have Paypal on there and will start selling online as well as in Darwin.

Selling My Sole

Here is a guest blog post I wrote for a good friend's shoe blog.

Best Intro Yet

Your Royal Highness, Your Grace, My Lord Bishop, Your Excellencies, Honoured President, Academicians, Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, artists, art lovers, friends, trustees, donors, distinguished guests and assorted media scum.

-- Stephen Fry when recently giving this speech

Suicide is Painless

On this blog, I have explained a lot of the thinking involved in what has been the hellish and amazing journey through and hopefully out of my clinical depression. You will always hear me refer to it as "my depression" because it is completely intrinsic and can be lived through and overcome by just one person, and that is me. Aid is available and mostly welcomed but the final say in all of this is mine. This is a tug-of-war between My Depression and I.

Most battles are won by me, these days. However, the war wages on.

In this life, I am gifted with eternal optimism and unwavering confidence except when the chemicals in my brain decide they will make me feel something else and be someone else. There are people on this planet who may never see all the light and beauty in the world, for even one moment in their life. There are those who constantly doubt their worth, meaning and purpose. Some believe they have none of those things. That saddens me because from as far back as I can recall, I have always felt my life has meaning and that my existence is to add to the collective well-being of those around me. I am NOT only here to add to entropy.

This is a level of confidence that is not based in arrogance. In fact, arrogance is a lack of confidence that manifests as insecurity negated by outward superiority. True confidence is not pushing others down or even seeing people as being in a different sphere to you, but instead it is the ability to know who you are and be ok with whatever that is. That does not mean never growing and thinking you know all there is to know. Those who are "too cool for school" often aren't. Their facade of strength betrays their obvious weakness and self-awareness of their own flaws. Fractures in your character either define you or give you something to work towards fixing. If we were born perfect and all knowing, what fun would that be?

Be careful not to believe everything that those around you portray. In the end, life is a play as ol' Will proclaimed.

Now, on to that self-inflicted certainty.

When the path you walk is straight and narrow, there is no reason to doubt that it will always be so. The yellow bricks will endlessly shine, glisten and call to you to follow. Life is sunshine and frangipanis until the horizon and surely passed it. The best thing about happiness is that you forget that it ever wasn't there. Happiness is heroine for the soul. We seek it. We yearn for it. We will go out in to the world and do anything within our power to obtain it. I, like you, am a happiness junky.

Depressed people on bad days are junkies without a fix but they are so strung out that they can't even go out and mug someone to make the cost of recovery. It's a terrible analogy that I have used before. Depressed people often bitch slap me at the mention of this comparison but if you have truly felt that loss of control that comes with a down day then you will understand how it feels for your brain to control you and tell you what you will be doing. This exhibits as a 100% feeling of whatever your individually selected depressed emotion of choice is to be.

Imagine feeling sad. Of course, you can do that. Sad happens to everyone. Now turn up the sad ten fold and then another ten fold. Your sadness would be 3 on the Richter scale, while a seriously depressed person would be shaking Chile to rubble. This doesn't underestimate the severity of your feelings. Instead, I mean that if a normal people feels a tremor in their life then the magnitude of that in a depressed person's life will roll the Earth and move continents. Having felt both, I can vouch for the irrational and terrifying relativity of the latter.

The feelings may vary from time to time between sadness, loss, loneliness, emptiness, worthlessness and anything else a person can feel. The positive feelings can also be felt in the same way for people who are bi-polar but that is a post for another Sunday.

Whatever I feel when I am down, it is all I feel. Nothing else exists. There is no room for it. When you suffer extreme emotional trauma you can have a very similar reaction to severe physical trauma (a car crash for instance). The pain is enormous and overpowering. Your brain does the only thing it can to help you cope and to give it time to fix you. That often involves shutting down what isn't vital. Like a physical coma, you can experience what I can only describe as an emotional coma. You feel nothing. You are conscious though. You can interact, have all senses and move but your ability to feel emotions is dissociated. You are disconnected from who you are because you are so overwhelmed that you must be shut down to stop the awareness of suffering.

I have experienced this only a few times during my depression and those moments followed huge life stressors - like my ex-husband walking out on me, calling me to him and then telling me the world was a better place without me. This was at a time in my life when I was isolated and alone, without anyone to ground me. Alcohol never helped the situation either.

My blessing in this case is that my depression is referred to as behavioural and not chemical. This disorder was caused by a combination of abuse from my husband, environmental poisons like alcohol and social isolation (an effect of the abuse). These factors compounded to produce my slow degradation in to a severe depressive state. Unlike people who have chemical imbalances that cause their illness, mine is much easier to overcome. I am lucky... relatively.

The point of this whole post is to make people aware that the effect you have directly on the life of a depressed person is much more exaggerated than the same event enacted upon a healthy you. Empathy will never give you an inkling of what the explosive exaggeration of depression on what would be a normal reaction, may actually be.

The consequences are often drastic but not always visible until something awful like an attempt or successful suicide occurs.

Think twice before you ignore, attack, react negatively to or even bump in to a depressed soul. Tread carefully. They are more fragile than you may ever truly know, until it is too late.

Intervention

I need a favour from you. Yes, You.

Having spent many years as a giver in a relationship and not learning how to prioritise myself and my well-being when making decisions has left me in a disadvantaged position. When I enter a relationship with a guy, I end up giving so much that I forget to think of getting anything for myself in return.

That is what I need help with. I need to look at a situation and realise that I shouldn't be wasting time on someone who won't waste time on me. I can not be the only one who gives and changes and adjusts to how the other person runs things.

You, my friends, must remind me that it is far better to be alone and be myself than to live a life pleasing someone else and never being valued in return.

It's nothing wrong with the guys. It's me. I just have to pick different kind of men. A nice guy who likes me and treats me well. Surely, he exists. Now is the time to do other things and if he turns up then good. If not, I still have you all.

Don't let me fall in to another HE-IS-EVERYTHING-I-AM-NOTHING trap, please.

Why I stayed

Now that I am hitting my stride or at least not falling over my own feet, people are feeling more comfortable asking me questions about the mental breakdown that resulted from my depression and separation from my husband.

The thing people should know firstly is that it is ok to ask. There are few things that have happened in the last year that I am ashamed of. In fact, I'm proud of the way I have handled what has so far in my life, been the worst part of it. I did not just learn from the experience but I blossomed and came out of the muck a better person than she who entered.

Would I wish the last few years of my life on anyone if even just for the learning? Gawd no! No one deserves to suffer the abuse of a narcissistic spouse and the ensuing pain when you are left high and dry to pick up what is left when someone throws an hand grenade in to your life and leaves.

But shit happens and if you don't learn techniques to cope then life is going to eat you up and puke you out. One of the best tools I possess now is the ability to clearly articulate my thoughts and communicate the issues I face with people around me.

Often, a person believes that to be strong you must solve your own problems and by that they mean keep it to yourself... suck it up... deal with pain on your own.

Yes, happiness is intrinsic. You make it and you make it go away.

Yes, mental illness is in your head. No matter how many people try to help you and tell you what you need to do to fix it, the will to do the fixing lays in your hands.

No single other person but you is going to turn the tide. The gun is being held to your head but the trigger is yours to pull. The weapon can be moved away from your temple and the safety flicked on. The thing is that it is you shooting yourself otherwise. It sure as hell feels like it is happening to you but it is you happening to you. Medication - Therapy - Lifestyle Changes will all go towards improving your situation and each one of those alterations are up to you.

You can not wait for someone else to save you. I had to be a self-rescuing princess!

So, the question I have been asked the most lately is one that I expected much earlier on. I guess people didn't push it because they thought I would take it as criticism or judgement... and to be honest... yeah, I probably would have. Now, I feel removed from that pain as if it happened to someone else. I can listen to the question without bursting in to tears. I can try to form the answer. In responding to their queries, it resolves in my head. This could be because I'm the kind of person who talks my way through the problem space and sorts it in to some semblance of sense along the way. Not all of us work that way so I do not write this to give advice but to talk it through with you... with me... with my brain.

The question is "if your ex-husband treated you so badly then why did you continue to stay with him?

It is a damn good question and one I had to ask myself once I realised that I was better off without that destructive influence in my life. It is hard to remove that uncomfortable feeling of looking at the skeletons in a friend's closet but come for the ride.

There are many reasons not to list all the things that were done to me over the final two years of my marriage. One of the last things he asked me was "Do you think I liked doing those things to you?" and to this day, I don't know the answer. Knowing what he was thinking then or now is not something I shall waste my time and thought power on. If you are not that kind of person then you will never be able to truly understand the monsters who are.

What I can explain to you is why women stay with men who destroy them. It may sound like cliches but let me work my way through them for both our sakes.

He wasn't always like that Of course he was. It just worsened slowly over time and I didn't see it because at first I was blinded by puppy love and then I was blinded by loyalty. An abusive person is just that. They start with minor verbal abuse then mental abuse and it escalates to breaking things and people. You convince yourself that he was once loving and the kind of person who would never hurt you but if you really think back, you remember how controlling he was and the consequences worsening over time when you pushed back against his will. It takes time, distance and exposure to other people who are not cruel to see the difference. To see how you should allow yourself to be treated and how you definitely should not.

I loved him and knew he loved me Someone once said that love is pain. Do not listen to that idiot. Love is joy for everyone involved in it. There are tough parts but it should not be painful. Love stories with suffering and sacrifice are all noble but don't think that it should be like that. I thought putting up with the misery of his moods and tourment was part of what I needed to do to prove I loved him. The lows were so low but they made the highs feel so high. In reality, I had to realise that true love is a calm ocean that has stormy days once a while and not the other way around. If he loved me like I loved him, he would not have treated me the way he did. If I had realised that then I would never have allowed it.

For better or worse Marriage is an important institution and so is the Supreme Court. At least the latter does not allow cruelty to persist. Marriage for the wrong reasons, like me thinking I might as well or he'd move out, is really not right. It is about love and forever and babies and forever. It is a decision to be taken seriously. Especially the part about "for better or worse". Unlike me, be sure that there is far more better than worse before you even enter in to the contract. I thought marriage meant enduring through the hard times and it does but you better make sure you are agreeing to hard times with the right person because if they aren't going to stick around for your bad bits then they aren't worth it.

So, I stayed because I thought that was what love was. What life was. I was wrong. If you are being abused or hurt a lot by your partner then you must walk away or at least get help for both of you. Don't stay and be a cliche like me. Be stronger. You can survive on your own. I didn't think I could because that is what he taught me. Now I know that I can and I'm a much better and happier person because of it.

Old Endings

All my possessions that have been in storage for six months since I moved up to Darwin, are coming out today. It feels a bit like the beginning of the Blue Brothers movie.

"We're getting the band back together."

For the next month, I have to sift through everything that was once mine and my ex-husbands and sell or donate it all. Amazingly, I have not missed a single thing except the juicer that Rob gave me for my last birthday. It is a revelation to see how little things mean to you when they are missing. They are just inanimate objects that are replaceable or easily forgotten.

It is a freeing feeling.

I bought two heavy duty insanely secure padlocks for the self-storage lockup and am awaiting the delivery guys as I type this blog post. There are butterflies in my stomach at the thought of facing it all again. Facing it alone.

It will all be fine. It will be a busy month of reacquaintence and disposal. Expect many oohs and ahhs as I go through the lucky dip of stuff that I already own but totally forgot about.

Wish me luck.

People

I don't understand people.

I have spent my whole life trying to work out what they are doing and why they are doing it. Over time, I have learned that the majority of things that I witness and that may affect me are not actually aimed at me. Most people don't mean things personally. It is the rare moment when you meet a truly vindictive person and they deliberately hurt you. That has not happened to me many times and I hope to continue the trend.

With me only working for myself at the moment and not doing the usual 9 to 5 gig at a work place with a manager and people I am forced to call peers, time is a surplus in my life. This is not a complaint in any way. My declarations of semi-retirement are basically true. I may never work a full 12 months in a row ever again in my life if I have a choice. Not because I'm not well enough or don't want to but more because I don't have to. Life is not about money and stuff and working yourself to death for something you do not care so much about. Life is about passion and contentment. Find that inner peace and meaning in the work that you do end up doing and you will find happiness. That is my plan.

Recently, I realised that I no longer yearn for Giles anymore. My heart does not trip and fall when I hear his name or think a thought of him living his life without me. Driving around Darwin triggers wonderful memories of my past with him and I often catch myself smiling and then smile some more. For all the pain he caused me in our last two years together, there were nine plus years where it was wonderful. That is what I choose to remember now.

For all the bad bits that happened to over the past years, I can no longer complain. My life as a whole has been filled with so much love, happiness and success that I guess the Universe had to take a little back. I have given enough now. Time for good things. Time to forget the bad bumps.

I have a best friend. I love him as dearly as I could any person on this planet. He is a very different person to me. We often don't understand what the other is thinking, at all. Not on just a few things but on pretty much everything. We frustrate each other sometimes but always try to understand so it doesn't cause tension. In getting to a point where I see some sense in the way he thinks and am able to articulate my thoughts and reasoning to him, I have discovered many things about the human condition.

He recently made the decision that "it's more important spending time with people that understand you than getting upset with those that don't." And there goes another friend of mine off in to a world without me.

Each day, I try to understand more and more about what makes me the kind of person who people finally walk away from. What makes me not worth the effort? I'm obviously the common denominator but I am unaware of what I am doing.

My current theory is that I think about it all too much. That too much introspection is never a good thing. With this thinking, I have decided to leave my deeply dug hole of analysis and embrace superficiality and spontaneity. At first I thought of sitting down and planning how to do this. Instead, I'm going to live like I blog. I am just going to put it out there and not read it again. Do what is to be done in life and not over think it.

You will see much more writing from me now. More outside and less inside.

Keep up. OK?

Kitteh Philosophy

Oh, so true.

Happily ever after

Disney's Desperate Housewives...

A good lesson to learn

Don't be afraid to make mistakes.

Sail Away Sail Away Sail Away

Life moves upwards and onwards as my friend Cathie always suggests it should. Alice tells me not to underestimate the difference I've made in the past year. Candace reminds me often that I am a good person and should stick around. Kellie says that I should be somewhere that I belong. Allison makes it clear that I am never alone as long as she is around.

My mother has always promised to be my tether to this world, no matter how lost I become. My sister's strength means I am safe from the horrors of my past. My father is always there, always.

I spent ten-ish days in Sydney, Melbourne and in-between the two on a road trip to visit a friend's future university campus. Seeing a campus with all the brilliant young minds and their hopeful eyes made me remember how much I knew the world was mine when I was their age. That hasn't been lost. There is still so much to do. Many things to try at and succeed or fail. It's all part of this journey. Turning 34 this year means I'm part way along that path but that comes with benefits of experience, knowledge and strengthening war wounds.

The recent holiday and time spent with friends in two cities that I love gave me a certainty. A knowledge that I will have to leave this safe sanctuary of Darwin and head back sooner or later.

So the plans have begun. I will be in this city for the rest of the dry season and then head off back to a semi-charmed kinda life. Until then, I'm unpacking and selling the stuff that once belonged to Giles and I. I don't need those possessions to own me anymore. He is gone. They will never be "ours" again. Holding on to them means nothing but holding on to the past.

It is time to move on. To sail away in to the sunset and await whatever life brings. Let it be love, work, friends, family and fun. I shall accept no less.

Chickens

Olga: I can't stand KFC.
Me: I won't eat their chicken because their chickens eat their chickens.
Olga: Yuck.
Me: I thought chickens were herbivores or whatever a vegetarian bird is called.
Olga: Maybe they are like vegetarians that still eat chicken.

Crazy Bitch

This weekend has been the best of what has already been a pretty damn good year. It's hard to pick which bit made it that. It's hard to explain how it started with a low low moment that involved not wanting to walk this Earth anymore. That passed. I had some alcohol and didn't do anything ridiculous. No mania. I went shopping for hours with my sister and friends then a night of dancing with 18 year old girls who were in their mother's tummy the last time I went clubbing in Darwin.

It wasn't a few days about that man I was once married to or any other man. It was just normal and fun. Reminded me of the last few months in Canberra before Sydney when life had a perfect pace and anything was possible.

I'm not 29 anymore but I don't want to be. I'm 33 years old and feel more fabulous than I ever have. Sure, I'm a crazy bitch on the best of days but that's ok. I don't think I ever was completely sane so going for that would be a waste of the awesome that is me.

Ahhh, I shall have a good week of work and then head down to see my Melbourne and Sydney crew. The other geek girl I work with, Jess will be there in Melbourne so you all have to meet her. She is one of the wonderful friends I've made up here.

Life can be anything. I can do it all.

Whoever you are

“Whoever you are, there is some younger person who thinks you are perfect. There is some work that will never be done if you don’t do it. There is someone who would miss you if you were gone. There is a place that you alone can fill.”

- Jacob M. Braude

My mother told me

You must have your own interests, your own life, your own self. Otherwise you will wake up one day, your kids will be gone and you will be left with nothing.

-- @Gabfran

Set me free

On a lazy Sunday afternoon, I had all the time in the world to sit and contemplate what my mistakes are.

Over-think, I do.
Punish myself more than anyone else ever could, I do.
Find answers, I often do.

Today's over-analysis involved trying to understand how giving too much and living for someone else and not yourself could possibly be a bad thing. No matter how progressive the society we live in, women are told to live for their husbands or their careers or their children or all three at once. One thing I know we are not openly encouraged to do is to live for ourselves.

There is a haunting pain that shadows me daily. Some moments are blocked by distraction or entertainment. Some days I punch a volleyball so hard in the hope that I will tire it out and it will recede. Nah, it doesn't.

It is impossible you see, to run from yourself. When it is your existence that causes you to ache then continuing to exist means learning to harness that hum and use it for something else. For me, that is creativity. Slapping paint on a canvas and over some of the floor. Drawing a character that escapes my imagination and filling in outside the lines. Writing a morbid tale of reflective inner sadness is my way of putting it outside myself. Saying to that pain, if you are going to stay around then at least be useful in some way.

As far as I can see, me and my pain are on this journey together. One day we may part ways but while we are here there has to be some way to live with each other.

Unlike my failed marriage, one of us can not run away and think only of ourselves. Unlike my past broken friendships, one of us will not walk out and tell the other that they can't be bothered by them anymore. Unlike leaving a job you agonise about attending when you roll over in the morning, there is no peaceful resignation.

Life gives you one of those suck-it-up moments. Tame the beast or allow it to break you. Trust me, if I didn't allow that monster of a husband to break me then I'm sure not letting some negative thought tear me limb from limb.

You guys have to let me write my suicidal fiction and paint my horned demons without fret. Let me explore the darkness in search of the light. Support me if I fall and celebrate me when I don't.

I know it is only because you love me. I love you dearly too. You are my foundation. My family and friends. I will be ok but I will do it my way. That is Damana.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“We laughed and laughed, together and separately, out loud and silently, we were determined to ignore whatever needed to be ignored, to build a new world from nothing if nothing in our world could be salvaged, it was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn’t think about my life at all.”

- Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Happy Mother's Day

This year, it was hard to decide if a I should get Mum a cake or a bouquet of flowers for Mother's Day.

I got my friend Maria to make her a bouquet of cake.

It's an amazing art. Mum loves it.

My New Project

I'm writing fiction now. My first project is to write a short story in 7 parts in 7 days.

It's here, if you are interested.

Feel free to suggest ideas for the plot or anything else. I have some idea of where it is going but it's already very much crowd sourced.

I am playing with Photoshop on a trial license at the moment, in order to decide if I want to shell out all those dollars for it. There is but 30 days so I better get to it.

Expect lots of experiments on flickr.

Women abusing women

Nothing stuns me more than hearing about women hurting, exploiting and tourmenting other women. For some reason, I expect the default female empathy to kick in and stop such cruelty.

I thought people usually hurt people who weren't like them. It made it easier not to empathise with the victim and allow the destruction to persist. Obviously, people hurt people who are like them and who are not like them. It's the problem of the person hurting them.

Hearing that mothers will assist in holding down their daughters while their genitals are mutilated, with full knowledge of the consequences since it happened to them too, I can not fathom the rationalisation that makes that ok. For me, I can stand back and say I don't understand the cultures in which these happen. That it is something that should be stopped but maybe the women participating have some logical reason for doing so. Of course, that reasoning escapes me but I put it down to culture.

When the crimes by women against women occur in the belly of a culture I fully understand, that is when my mind can not allocate it to the us and them way of thinking.

Mistreatment of women in Papua New Guinea is rife. Men beat their wives while drunk or sober. Men beat their mistresses. Women beat their husbands mistresses. Women beat their sisters in law. This is standard behaviour.

Only recently, shelters for women have been established to give women and their children some way to escape the violence and constant threat to their lives. There aren't many shelters. Certainly not enough to help all who need help. Even if there were, would you end up with a generation of women living in quasi refuge camps away from their oppressors who are also their families. I don't know about you but there is a hell of a lot I will tolerate from family. It's the way we were built as human beings. No one wants to be alone. Being without family in a society where that is your only social safety net is unthinkable. So, where do you go? What do you do?

The most recent tales to sadden my ears are of village girls who are basically used as slaves in the big cities of Papua New Guinea. Where I was born, education was not a right but a privilege. One that you studied hard for and paid through the teeth for. Yeah, there are public schools but the fees are high. They are equivalent to public school fees here except that people there earn a tenth of what we do and their money is worth less. Every year of primary school and high school has an important exam at the end. Students must receive a passing grade for the exam or they will not progress. If there is space in the next year, they can repeat the grade. Every year school fees must be paid upfront or the child can not enter the school. The usual outcome of a failed exam is for the child to drop out and let their siblings continue in the hope the the concentrated investment will allow the next one to do better. Just one successful member from a family can ensure the survival of the entire family, over it's multiple generations.

In the village, there is never much money. They have food from fishing, hunting and gardening but that doesn't enable much more than subsistence. The term village girl or boy is given to young adults (usually mid-teens) who have not passed school or were not able to pay for school fees. They stay at home in the village and wait to marry and continue a village life. There is not often an escape from this. The taste of the western world is given to them in their school years and then lost to them for the remainder of their natural lives.

Keep in mind that one years school fees for a student would be around A$50-75. Yes, for the entire year. For the amount of money I'd spend on a bottle of champagne, the life and lifespan of a Papua New Guinean can be limited to the hardship of living village life.

Previously, I mentioned the social safety net of the family. A Papua New Guinean talks of family in the same way we speak of an entire community. Imagine if someone in your suburb was out of a job and couldn't eat. You and your neighbors would take turns in cooking and delivering food to their house. You'd take them in to one of your spare rooms when they couldn't pay the rent. You'd lend them your car to act as a taxi and make some money. Everyone looks after everyone else.

That's the theory. Of course, any Papua New Guinean will tell you that this system can be abused. This is the wantok system. It is the basis for the social organisation of the entire country. Those connected by language are family. Corruption is a disease in that country and when it's explained to me, it always seems to sound just like the wantok system and what is so wrong with that?

Now, village girls are useful to rich city girls. They are cheap baby sitters, maids, cooks and all round helpers. It is common for city families to bring their village girl relatives out of the rural areas and in to their homes where they live for no cost as part of the family. They are asked to help out with children and housework. It is a much more promising option in their lives and often results in education, introductions to their new partners and an easier life than the village. It often feels more glamorous with mobile phones and modern hair styles. Everyone benefits and the social safety net is working.

Then comes the misuse of a reasonable system. Here comes my story. Educated city women bringing poor uneducated village girls in to their homes with the best of intentions (so, I am told). These girls then become the equivalent of wageless labour. They are now distanced from their immediate families and alone in a big city where the only people they know keep them poor and belt them if they don't obey or work hard enough.

You can sugarcoat it by saying that this is rare or that they are still better off but I think you should call slavery just that. If these young women don't have anyone close by to go for help or any money to escape back to the village then they are trapped in a life of servitude.

This is unacceptable. The fact that women are the abusers of other women leaves me heartbroken. If the most empathic members of our species start kicking the weaker versions of themselves then what hope is left.

I want to help but I feel helpless.

The good ol' days are now

“People so seldom say I love you
And then it's either too late or love goes.
So when I tell you I love you,
It doesn't mean I know you'll never go,
Only that I wish you didn't have to.”

-- I don't know who said this

You just start

People keep asking me how you start blogging. It's not a question that I asked anyone when I started. It was a time when everyone was getting online, erecting a pedestal and taking their place on it to rant at the world.

Of course, that produces so much noise that you might as well have your Twitter stream read to you by a speed reader, in Flemish. How the hell do you sift? People stopped writing blogs and found others to follow. Some kept writing. I think they all should have kept writing.

The joy of user generated content is in the search for what you can find out there to learn from; agree with; or fight with. That is the point. People with differing opinions and new ones. If we all accept that there is a certain way to produce content and that hour voice is represented mostly by what is said then we are going to encourage mediocrity and group think.

The Internet is an orchestra. At first everyone is learning and tuning their instruments and if you walk in and hear it, you think "what a mess!" If you hang around a while then you start to hear the music and maybe one day, you'll join in.

How do you start blogging? Just start.

You will find your voice and your audience. Or if you are like me, they will find you.

Tick Tocks

There are not too many things in life that are a certainty.

I do know for sure that time will pass. It always does. Things will change and we will be taken on the ride no matter how much we protest. Accepting this does not mean surrendering to it.

When I look back on life, there is no year that I would rather go back and live again. Every new day is better than the last and ever birthday marks the end of an amazing year of life and starts the new journey around the sun. This is not about optimism. It's about acceptance.

Acceptance is also the last stage of grief. We go through all the rest and come to the point of peace when we can say that we accept that what is... just is.

Today I deleted my photos of Giles from my phone and anywhere that I may run in to them, while going about my daily business.

Most of my posts hold a photo at the start but in honour of this moment, there will not be one. Instead consider it the absence of the pictures of Giles. The acceptance that what is lost, is lost forever and new paths must be walked.

I can hear them talking in the real world

When I used to hear the word "recovery", I thought of heroin addicts and eating disorders. Rehab is glamorous because if the rich are famous are doing it then it must be cool. In reality, as with all reality, it is hard and takes a long damn time. It is a process of escaping a weight that holds you down. People speak of their demons but until you have met your own, you can not truly understand the horrors that you own mind can create.

I always update you on my recovery and give you a number that represents my position on the positive number line towards better. That number is a percentage. It is a slight guesstimate and is based on a vibe... be it an educated vibe. After all, who knows me better than me?

Now that my friends is a brilliant question that we should all ask ourselves.

Who knows me better than I know myself?

In my case, answering that question last night helped me escape a dark bottomless pit of despair and self-loathing. It is funny that sometimes admitting that we are not as self-aware as we believe ourselves to be can be a freeing idea. A liberation from the punishment of believing that we could have done that better or controlled ourselves in a better way. If we see that some days we are just reactionary lizard brained fools who respond to stimulus then maybe we can forgive ourselves for our mistakes. At best, even learn from them.

There are several people who know me well. I can count them on one hand. Assuming the hand belongs to someone with the normal number of digits who has not been in any chopping accidents. Axioms aside. I spent most of my adult life so far with my ex-husband. He is a smart man and one who knows very well how to push my buttons. Usually, that meant we could cheer each other up or show the required empathy. Not once did I imagine he would turn that all around on me and treat me as he had others who crossed him.

He left. You all know the story. Damana wasn't kind enough or loving enough or self-sacrificing enough so Giles walked out. It happens. People break up all the time. A few of my friends are almost considered professionals at it :o) Thing is, he knew how to push my buttons. Since I moved on and dated other people and learned to enjoy my life, he has popped up now and then to remind me that he still knows me, controls me and ultimately owns me.

Yesterday, he joined Thoughtworks. As you all know, I loved working at Thoughtworks. It was heartbreaking to see them agree to hire the man who terrorised me for the last two years of our marriage and broke me down until I nearly took my own life. I figure for them it is a matter of money and hiring people who can make it for them. He'll do that.

I knew why he chose to work there of all the places in Sydney. He always laughed at Thoughtworkers and called them people-pleasing puppies who could talk technical but had no "real knowledge'. Whatever. I had respect for my colleagues. Why he's joined a group he referred to as a cult now, is something only he can explain.

Last night, I cried. It hurt to the point that I was physically numb due to overwhelming sadness. I played volleyball and then came home and rocked in the fetal position. Then I asked myself "Is this me? Who knows me the best? Dammit! It's me." He may have been able to push down and control the old Damana who thought love was pain and that all the things he told me about myself were true but he can't push this one around.

With that one thought, every bit of numbness and then pain left my soul. He can hurt me. It will pass. I will be stronger and happy again. He will still be him. That is punishment enough.

All in all, I was feeling pretty rubbish for around 4 hours. Then I recovered and I feel more motivated to be me. After all, I'd suck at being anyone else. Accept Angelina Jolie. If I was reborn as her then I'd be awesome. Off topic again. Focus.

Where am I now?

Last time I was 61%. Today, I am a confident and glamorous 69%. Hehehe yes, it's rude but you know me by now and I'm cheeky. Tis my thang :o)

Thanks for all the support. You have been on this journey with me. I hope I have or will help you as much as you have helped me.

Muwah!

Ladies, never wait to be saved

Strength

I heard a quote the other day about strength being the ability to hide things well.

What a load of rubbish. That person has obviously never been strong on the inside.

Inner strength is actually feeling stable and self-reliant. You aren't hiding or faking anything because you really feel like that. The world shaking a little doesn't knock you over.

How do I know? Because I'm feeling strong again and I'm not hiding anything.

No, it didn't work

People told me "Damana, in a year or so you will look back on your time with Giles and remember the good times but you would have moved on. You will see it as a good thing."

It's more than a year now. I try not to calculate exactly the number of days. He felt out of love with me two years before he even left. That was 5 months after we were married. He was the one who wanted to get married.

So he's off now with his new girlfriend called Nadia, who looks like a lovely person. Someone I would even be friends with. She's thin. Flat stomach. Straight hair. White. Not anything like me.

I know that if someone doesn't love you then you are better off without them but I don't feel better off. I still feel heartbroken. I still feel devastated. I still cry myself to sleep. I still hope he thinks of me at all.

This has to end, right? It can't be this way forever. I don't want to feel like this anymore.

My March Playlist

The music I listened to through March 2010...

Hey, Soul Sister by Train
Fallin' by Alicia Keys
Life by Des'ree
Good Luck by Basement Jaxx & Lisa Kekaula
Syrup & Honey by Duffy
Blah Blah Blah (feat. 3OH!3) by Ke$ha
Replay by Iyaz
Tik Tok by Ke$ha
Happy People by R. Kelly
Pursuit of Happiness (Nightmare) [feat. MGMT & Ratatat] by Kid Cudi
Feeling Good by Muse
Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) by Sly & The Family Stone
Bad Things by Jace Everett
Dreams by Gabrielle
Fireflies by Owl City
Have a Little Faith in Me by John Hiatt
Hot N Cold by Katy Perry
Little Lion Man by Mumford & Sons
Love Song by Sara Bareilles
Superman (It's Not Easy) by Five for Fighting
You Give Me Something by James Morrison
You're Beautiful by James Blunt
99 Red Balloons by Nena

Twitter Favourites

On Twitter, there is a favourite button that lets you mark something with a star to show that it was a favourite tweet that you really liked/enjoyed/loved. At least that is what people are telling me now.

I use it in a similar way to a bookmark for something I want to read later. If there is something I want to read but can't download because I'm on a phone with 3G or just busy at that moment then I mark it and look at it later.

The best thing about Twitter is that it is whatever you make it. Use it however you want.

This is how it feels

It's worth writing this right now so that I don't forget the feeling and make it sound glossy and nicer than it is. This depression thing has been dripping away, as I gain control over my emotions and thoughts again. It hasn't owned me at all in such a long time. Then I had an awful cold that I allowed myself to think I could treat like anyone else would. In this case with pseudoephedrine. The problem is that I'm on SSRIs and these two don't play well together. I didn't know that.

Living with depression makes the world look a little different to you than it did when you were "normal". I see it like riding a carousel at a carnival at night. Your parents help you on to a big pink and yellow striped elephant seal with a unicorn's head. It's big and that kind of slippery that plastic is when you are a kid and spend more of your days with sticky drippy hands.

For a while there, you are adjusting and enjoying the ride around and around and up and down, with the music playing and bright friendly lights. You managed to stay on your steed like all the other people going around and around and up and down. You even smile like they do and laugh because it feels enjoyable to be amongst the happy energy.

Then you feel a jolt. It's that big-for-his-age 10 year old bully who you've seen pushing people over when he thinks nobody is looking. He's holding a half eaten and mostly melted ice cream cone in one and and coming in again to charge you with his free fist and shoulder. He's like the psuedoephedrine interaction with your meds. You grip with your hands on the fake mane of the mythical horse seal and dig in your heals, so that you can absorb the hit. Other times, you've managed to stay upright when people have walked by and knocked in to you but this time it's impossible. You see him coming as the ages of anticipation pass before he strikes. You know what it is going to feel like because you've felt like it before. Before you got therapy and medication and changed you lifestyle to remove anything possibly fun from it.

He hits. You lose you grip and slide over the side of your ride. Luckily there is a seal fin and you grab on to it. Nothing around you has stopped but the angle has certainly changed. You look up and the pretty lights are psychedelic, hypnotic and make you feel like throwing up. The rhythmic music you were traveling along to is now a noise of booms and strums and bangs and squeals. Then there are more squeals and it's other people who are still riding the carousel. They are still happy. Still moving around and around and bouncing up and down. The music doesn't phase them. The lights give them energy.

You can't see the bully now but it doesn't matter. The damage is done. As you hang on and wonder if you should let go, you realise that there is nothing but darkness out there and you don't know what would happen if you did. The right thing to do is to hang on until you can get it together enough to pull yourself back up.

Your finger tips get tired and go white from the pure effort of holding on. Your whole body starts to ache and the muscles in your arms start to cramp. Physically, you can make it through this. You have recovered before. Mentally, you don't know if you have the strength to do any more than cry and let go. Fall in to the darkness and not try to go around and around and up and down like everyone else. You wouldn't have to force yourself to smile anymore. You wouldn't be so tired after pretending to be just like everyone else. Faking the ease. Laughing with the crowd.

You decide that you might as well hang on for a while but if that bully comes back again, you hope he doesn't pick you once more because if he does next time, you may not have the energy.

I'm OK now. I'm tired. I want to eat hot cross buns and watch bad cop shows until my mind slows down and allows me to sleep. You all keep riding the carousel. If you see me disappear for a while, don't worry too much. I'll climb back up again. Don't I always?

Please excuse this post if it makes no sense. It is a brain dump of exactly how I feel right now.

Have a little faith in me

When the road gets dark
And you can no longer see
Just let my love throw a spark
And have a little faith in me

And when the tears you cry
Are all you can believe
Just give these loving arms a try
And have a little faith in me

Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me

And when your secret heart
Cannot speak so easily
Come here darling, from a whisper start
And have a little faith in me

And when your back's against the wall
Just turn around and you, you will see
I will catch you, I will catch your fall
Just have a little faith in me

Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me

Cause I've been loving you, for such a long, long time
Expecting nothing in return
Just for you to have a little faith in me
You see time, time is our friend

Cause for us, there is no end
And all you gotta do, is have a little faith in me
I will hold you up, I will hold you up
And your love, gives me strength enough to

Have a little faith in me
Hey hey
All you gotta do for me girl
Is have a little faith in me

John Hiatt - Have A little Faith In Me

This is my dream cake

Since people keep asking, Darwin is Longitude 12° 28' S and Latitude 130° 51' E.

My fave song right now

My sister intro'd me to this song and now I love it. It makes me think of her and smile.

I think...

I think love is when you wonder where I am and what I'm doing, so you come here to check.

How Twilight Saved My Mind

Early last week, the declaration was made that I feel I have reached 60% healing on the way to recovery and victory over the depression that has held on to me for so long. When I hit 50%, I owned it and it just bugged me unlike before that when I was at it's beck and call.

It probably proves my insanity is ripe in that I regularly declare out loud that this depression is my b*tch. It damn well is now and thank goodness for that.

So why the title? How did a teenage love story about sparkling vampires written badly by a mormon 30 something save my mind? Good question. As with most of my answers, you won't see this one coming.

The first thing that goes when you are depressed is your mind. "Well obviously", I hear you proclaim. To be more specific is that your ability to concentrate disappears right near the beginning of your depression. All that consumes your mind is a series of negative thoughts that run through your head so fast that you can't catch them long enough to think your way out of them. It's one good mental kicking after another until you are left too tired to think, sleep or concentrate.

Literature on depression says that it will usually pass within 3-5 years of starting. That is assuming that you are not one of the unlucky ones who suffers life long depression. I still don't know if I'm lucky or not. The progress I am making at least leaves me relaxed in the knowledge that I will be making my own mind up from now on and not some behavioural triggered chemical reaction.

Before I realised I was suffering from any mental illness (ouch! It hurts to use that term on myself but I should own it to own it), it frustrated me to no end that concentrating on anything that required higher level brain function was almost impossible. A workmate (Phil Calcado) once commented on how short an attention span I had when he'd shared a link to a blog post on some topic and he saw me take an entire day to get through reading it. That isn't the normal me by the way.

When my mind was like this and sometimes still is, I don't give up. I persist in reading; doing mind puzzles like crosswords and playing scrabble; writing code outside of work; and painting or being creative in a tangible way. It can take me up to ten times as long to finish a task as I would pre-depression. For me, it was the finishing that made it worth while. That was the point to celebrate and feel triumphant over the fatigue.

My library before the divorce contained many classic books and great works of fiction and non-fiction in every genre you can imagine. It was both my ex-husband and I who loved collecting and reading books. We spent more of our disposable income on books than anything else I can think of, when we were together. Yes, even my shoe collection.

Towards the end of my marriage and the beginning of the depression that almost took me down, I couldn't read anything much at all. My feed reader was always at 1000+ items and the pile of books to read was growing rather than shrinking. That was when I changed tack.

The new feeds I subscribed to were short reads from comics and picture blogs with lolcats to one paragraph updates from comedians and teenage girls circumnavigating the world. Stuff that didn't strain my brain but still allowed me to read. At that time, my book club decided to read the first book of the Twilight series. If you have been living under a rock then it's about a teenage girl in a small American country town who has a chaste relationship with a vegetarian vampire. It's been described as a man falling in love with his food in a New Zealander kind of way :)

The writing is simple and aimed at teenage girls and housewives. Oprah wouldn't touch it on her book club and most book geeks will deny ever having even touched the books. There are four in the series and I read them all. They were a breeze to read and took me around three to four weeks to work my way through them. The achievement I felt at the end of finishing the series was brilliant. I'd managed to absorb the simple plot and get to know the characters without much effort. Yes, they will not win the Pulitzer or Nobel in Literature but they made reading accessible to me.

My ex put them down at any chance he got and made sure I knew he thought them to be for pathetic women with no lives or brain cells. For me, that did not matter. I started them and read them all the way through. Like the lolcats and 140 character tweets that kept me entertained in those days, they also helped me keep my brain in use. That was valuable.

Now, I read a lot more feeds with a lot more words. My books are becoming more complex and challenging intellectually but I keep the fluff around and still roll in it like a dog who has found a dead fruit bat in the tropics.

What matters is not what you read but that you do read. Elitism is a way of excluding people and only makes the insecure feel superior long enough until the self-doubt kicks in and makes them find fault in something else.

Read whatever you want. Play Scrabble or Upwords. Giggle at pictures of badly spelled cakes or comic books with excessive violence. It doesn't matter what does it for you at the time, just keep doing it. Yes, therapy + medication + environment will help you but so will keeping the brain going.

Thank you sparkly vampires and teenage angst. Thank you cheezeburger cats and the Watchmen. Thanks for keeping me ticking. I appreciate you.

International Women's Day

There is so much going on in the world for women, about women and by women. It's a brilliant time to be a member of 51% of the human race. Today is a day to celebrate that and show support for other women.

We can be bitchy and fight with each other at times but I have never seen the support a woman can give be topped by anything. In the first world, we talk about issues of equality in relationships, the work place and on the sporting field. Equal pay. Equal respect. Equal opportunity. In the third world and places in our own society, there are women who are suffering and struggling too much to even sit and discuss such lofty issues.

I am Papua New Guinean, on my mother's side. The culture and guidance that have made me who I am today is shaped by that small nation. The women there are amazingly strong and inspiring to me. They start with nothing and produce something of value - beit in their children; their work achievements; or in their community. Unfortunately, I am personally aware of the violence and abuse they experience on a daily basis. Domestic violence has always been part and parcel of living as a Papua New Guinean woman, in PNG.

"Across Papua New Guinea (PNG), two thirds of women experience physical violence at the hands of their husbands. In at least one region, it is close to 100 per cent. And 60 per cent of men have admitted to being involved in at least one gang rape."

Amnesty Australia has put together an online petition to show the PNG Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare that the world is watching. Please sign it. Real people can be helped by this. My aunties and sisters have suffered with broken jaws that needed to be wired; miscarriages due beatings and lifetimes of mental and emotional abuse on top.

If you get a chance, find a woman who means something to you and let her know that she is a light in your life.

Tears

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love." -- Washington Irvine

I Did Survive

Today marks exactly one year since giles packed his things and walked out on me, throwing me in to the depths of depression and what I expected to be the worst year of my life.

Many people told me I would survive it. I can't say I ever believed them but I had faith. Kellie Scott compared the whole thing to someone I loved dying and the mourning that went with that. She was right, as usual. Lindsay Ratcliffe told me to take one minute at a time and then each hour and then a day and finally bigger chunks. She'd be so proud of the months I now go without a bad day.

Alice Boxhall and Rob Hunter didn't really like each other that much but they both hung out with me in the early dark days and never left me alone for a second. Both of them know the worst I can be and somehow seem to still love me.

My sister called me before _he_ left and said "when is he going?". I answered "the 3rd of March". She responded "I'll be there the next day" and she was. Her and her husband arrived early the morning after and stayed with me through the days I thought I would not survive.

Jane Nguyen came home from work with me the day he left. I asked her what I'd do if I walked in to my flat and collapsed on the ground. She said she'd pick me up. I asked what would happen if I wouldn't get up. She said she'd sit on the floor and have a G&T until I was ready to get up. I never fell over, not that day anyway. The place was trashed and she sat me on the couch and cleaned it all up before 12 of my closest girlfriends came over with fried chicken, chocolate cake and champagne to celebrate the new chapter of my life.

When I ended up in hospital, Catherine Eibner came to see me and brought a picture her 3 year old had painted for her. She told me that it always reminded her that life was so worth living and she'd brought it to remind me. Karen Urquart, Lindsay, my sister Katrina and Angela Tam all came to me that night and the next day. They kept me afloat.

My father took several weeks off work and spent time with me in March '09. He sat there patiently while I randomly burst in to tears at the drop of a hat. He really did see me at my worst.

My mother... well I can't thank her enough if I started today and told her continuously until infinity, for all the support she gave me. She was my life line. She still is.

Today, I am happy and positive about what awaits me and what I will make happen.

There are so many people who helped me survive the last year. Helped me get to the point where today is just another day and the light ahead is bright and promising. I'll try name them. If I forget anyone, please remind me. I'm sure I'll keep adding people as I remember.

Thank you to...

Mum and Dad
Katrina and Taylor
Jennifer and Madonna (my beautiful cousin sisters)
Lindsay (and Guy for sparing her)
Ines and Amanda K @ Thoughtworks
Alice
Allison C and Kellie S
Rob
Candace
Catherine, Amanda and Oli
Cathie McGinn
Christie Brown
Jane Nguyen
Kelly McCusker and Sarah Kitmer
Jason Yip
Raymond
Leonie MacRaild and Rebekah Joseph
Jodiem
Alegrya
Miss Wired
Linda
Kate Carruthers
James Crisp
Suzi Edwards
Tim Brown & the other San Fran folks
All the geek girls of Sydney
Senior management at Thoughtworks Australia and International
Adam and Vanessa Whitehead
My tweeps
All the supportive facebookers

Darkness

There is a darkness in my life that seems to grow each day. It's not necessarily a bad thing but it has become present enough that it is a thing to be acknowledged.

Where before I saw light and colour in everyone and everything, there seems to be a shadow across that once bright land.

It's a type of maturation. Losing that gullibility. Throwing away the naive belief that every person is good and means well. Instead, most people are good but will look after themselves before others. To know this is not disappointing. It's more of a relief than anything else. Like arming yourself with an umbrella against a storm. You may still get wet but not drenched to death.

Hero

“Hero: someone we admire. Someone we look up to. Someone who gives us hope. Not a myth, or an icon, or a legend- someone solid, genuine and real. An ordinary person who does extraordinary things. A hero picks us up when we are down. Believes in us before we believe in ourselves. Inspires us to expand and embrace what’s possible. Helps us realize that we can be heroes, too.”

- Kobi Yamada

Realise this and it will change your life

Resentment is liking drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

The way I cope

The way I cope is to think of that man I once loved as being dead and the new person inhabiting his body to be a different soul. He is now someone I do not know. A stranger.

Who are you?

Hello readers,

I know that I have about 30 subscribers via google to my RSS feed, for this blog.

I get around 1000 unique pages views a month. A lot of that traffic comes from my geek blog.

You know me and know I'll always write what I think but would still like to know who the audience of this blog is. Unlike my geek blog, this is not targeted or themed.

Please comment and let me know who you are. If you wish you remain anonymous, that is ok.

Thank you.


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