Tired in the best way possible

I’m tired…. But in a good way. Today was my second day of my new job as the team leader of my new team.

I was blessed enough to get offered a promotion before the new year after only six months with the company I work for. I was ready for a challenge I knew I was capable of taking on. I managed a team at my old job before going overseas and I know this is where I am destined to be career wise. Helping people develop and be the best that they can be is something I really am passionate about.

I walked into a job that requires cleaning up messes of the past and from day dot I was hit with the challenge head on. I am embracing it and am so glad I can finally use my skill set properly again.

I can see that with a more influential role I will thrive and be more satisfied with my life in general. For the last six months I have been in survival mode, just floating long and not needing to think or decide on much. This new gig is a complete contrast and what I do and say now matters, a lot.

Taking on a role that is this challenging is the best first real step to healing and getting my life back on track. The second step was getting closure with my ex that breaking up really was the best choice for both of us, I got that today.

I’m exhausted from the day but in the best way possible. Let’s see what the rest of the week brings.

Perspective

Perspective is a gift and with the fires roaring across our sunburnt country I have gained a lot of perspective.

Our nation has copped bush fires every summer since I’ve been alive, some years are worse than others but this event has by far hit every tip of the scale ever recorded. It is scary.

I am lucky to be in Sydney where the worst we get is the occasional couple of days of smoke and haze but sadly tens of thousands of other Australians are not so lucky. Every hour the news is reporting a new warning, a new evacuation plan and a new sad story of loss. At the same time the nation is looking for who is to blame, our government comes to mind first for a big chunk of Australians. There was a lot that could have been done earlier and the complete lack of addressing Climate Change, at least as a topic worth discussing when this is all over, has made many Aussie’s peeved off.

These are tragic times for Australians. Loved ones have been lost, homes have burnt down, our wildlife has copped wide spread species endangerment and I can’t help but think that I am just so lucky to not have to experience this first hand.

Our Australian firefighters and volunteers deserve the world for what they have given up and what they are still giving up to combat the situation. Donations from across the world is heart warming to see and hopefully finally the equipment that has been needed since November can be purchased and distributed swiftly.

I express my heart felt condolences to the families who have lost so much during this fire season. I truly hope things can be rebuilt for every person experiencing heart ache during this time.

Watching everything transpire from the safety of Sydney puts in to perspective everything I should be grateful for and I everything I should stop taking for granted. It’s hard not to feel guilty and silly for being so self absorbed.

Keeping this level of perspective is essential to staying grounded. I will do my best to maintain it.

Putting it back together

With Christmas and New Years behind us, I feel refreshed and ready to take on the year.

I have had time to myself as well as time with my housemates, my cousin and my friends and all in all I feel positive about life right now. It has been tough to endure the emotions that Christmas and New Years eve/day enduced but I feel somewhat detoxed after the depressive state. It gave me time to reflect, to write and to think.

I heard a quote last night that really resonated with me…. “sometimes things need to fall apart before they can be put back together”, this opened my mind and opened my heart. Life as I know it is not over, it’s only just begun.

Short post for today, but for the first time since Christmas a completely positive one.

To 2020.

Faith and “The Universe”

When I was 17 I became aware of a certain presence in my life that has directed my path and all that I have experienced. Some people call it fate, some call it God, I tend to use “the universe” when describing it which, in my mind tries to encompasses both concepts.

I grew up believing in God and I think I still do. I pray, mostly to ask for things to be better or for guidance to get through tough times. At times I express gratitude too but that all becomes weird when I ask myself if I am speaking to God or “the universe”, because if it is “the universe”, expressing gratitude or asking for things doesn’t make a lot of sense, the universe isn’t exactly a personified entity… but God can be.

Having faith is something I both love and struggle with because my faith is not profound enough to be all that gets me through like it does for some people I know, but it does help a fair bit when I’m struggling.

I am completely obsessed with watching documentaries about space and time because they give me a sense that there is so much more to existence and we are all just the tiniest of specs in the vastness that is our universe. It can make problems feel insignificant and it can allow happiness to come without guilt.

Up and until recently I was happy to put my life in the hands of the universe or God or fate but then I made a choice to leave and go and pursue my dream of living in Thailand which turned into me having to make so many more choices that I don’t regret but wonder if I should have made sooner.

Has relying on “the universe” actually hurt me in the long run? I really don’t want to believe it has because it has given me so much in the past 33 years of my life, but what now?

I do enjoy looking back on all the times my life has magically found a way to get back on track after turmoil. I’d be here forever if I were to list all those times so I will save it for another post.

For now I’ll just sit tight try and have faith and enjoy the rest of the Christmas break. Let’s see what happens from there.

The blessings of 2019

I have spent most of my writing so far spilling raw emotion and getting the heart ache I have been feeling on paper, this post however will be dedicated to what good came out of this year.

In January I achieved a dream I created for myself in 2017 of living on an Island in Thailand, waking up in a bungalow that I made my own with my own furnishings and having my feet in sand every single day.

To date this is the biggest life achievement outside of my career and nothing on earth can take away the joy it gave me when I achieved it.

I got to celebrate my birthday in my favourite place in the world, Railay with amazing people. Even though on that day I got stung by a hornet wasp, it was to date my favourite birthday.

I also got to do something I always wished I could do and it was to watch a litter of kittens grow up and be part of helping raise them in Railay.

In late March and April I travelled for the most part alone down the east coast of Australia and met a lot of really nice people who helped me feel good about myself. I had a lot of fun with them.

I visited Cairns, Mission beach, Townsville, Harvey Bay, Airlie Beach, Brisbane and Byron and conquered my ultimate fear of being alone.

The trip is something I will remember for the rest of my life and I hope one day I can do it again without the heavy heart.

When I finally did get back to Sydney I got a job at a local Telco company and within six months got promoted to the Call Centre Manager position. I have a lot of people to thank for the opportunity and I am so glad to have met the people I work with.

I dedicated a whole post the other day to my new home because that is one of the best things to have come out of this year. Living in a home like this is exactly what I needed to get back on my feet.

Oh and I got to be reunited with my incredibly unfriendly but lovable cat Kiff who the housemates adore.

I have established a stronger than ever bond with my family and my cousin Katrina since mum left us. And despite how it came about, it was the greatest gift I received this year.

I want to say “this year wasn’t so bad after all” but to be completely fair it was pretty bad. But even in the worst year of my life, I have been so blessed to have kept my head above water to see the beauty that this year produced.

Happy New Year all.

Not the last post of the year…

I wanted to put up a post about gratitude today. One about what this year has taught me and the positives that have come from this year (because there have been plenty) but in my current mood I need to talk about something else for a minute and hopefully a bit later I can get my thoughts together for a more positive version.

Today I had to mute my facebook memories notification because while I am able to look at the memories of my trip and almost smile despite everything that followed, what I can’t manage is seeing what my social life was like before I went on the life changing trip and realising that it will never quite be the same again.

The memories of new year’s eve for the last ten years popped up this morning and I remember each one so perfectly and how awesome they were. From the year we had a homeless BBQ in our backyard to the blue mountains party we had all together and created an epic play list from, to the 3 amazing back to back years we set up camp at the vantage point in Balmain.

Every new year’s has been incredible and as I sit here writing this I really want to try and make this one a good one too if I can just manage to get out of my head.

The reality is, this year I will not be with the familiar faces I would usually spend new year’s with for so many different reasons, such as distance, the break up and an unfortunate fight. This year I also carry a massive burden in my heart from all the crap I have had to swim through this year and I am exhausted. I just want this year to be over but I know the tick over of the new year is not going to mean a thing unless I actually do something to make my heart heal, once and for all.

I know forgiveness is the first step to moving on but the truth is I have tried to force my self to forgive and sadly because it wasn’t genuine, it didn’t stick. I hope this year I can find it in me to forgive and finally move on.

To forgive my ex for not seeing what was right in front of him, forgiving my friends for not living up to my expectations when I needed them the most and forgiving my mother for leaving me and not being there for the rest of my life.

This forgiveness needs to be genuine and not forged but I need to be able to do it soon so I can finally let go and move forward.

With that forgiveness I know I need to accompany it with apologies of my own and taking responsibility for the actions I took part in to put myself where I am.

Hopefully I figure it all out soon.

As the sun sets on this year I hope I find the opportunity to see the beauty of it all.

Til then.

In the moment

Balancing having ambitious goals at the same time as keeping high expectations at bay is the one thing I continue to struggle with.

One thing I have realised is most of my heart ache surrounding my breakup is not so much about missing him but it is the grief of loosing the future I so vividly imagined with him. I have been so hung up on the fact that I thought I was going to be married and have at least one child in the next two years and I really wanted to try and incorporate more travelling into that future life.

I miss what hadn’t even happened yet more than what I actually had and I cannot help being annoyed at my self for dreaming up this life and leaving my self vulnerable when it didn’t eventuate.

I have a similar sense of grief around loosing my mother. At least half of my heart ache is around what I will miss in the future and how it is never going to be the way I wanted it to be. If I do ever get married and have a child, she won’t be there…and there is nothing I can do about it.

So at what point do I stop setting goals and dreaming in order to avoid heart ache? It seems like I should stop doing both so that whatever comes next I don’t attach an expectation onto it. My new promotion, any new relationships or friendships I fall into, my new found bond with my family, I feel like I need to just ignore the urge to think about the future and live in the moment.

But what if I live in the moment and miss opportunities? What if not setting an expectation of what the future can hold for me lands me on my ass for lack of planning ahead?

How do I balance being happy and chasing dreams without leaving my self vulnerable?

Life is not a career. In a career you can take logical steps towards a goal. You can expect certain behaviours to create certain responses. Work is such a controlled environment where setting a goal can actually be achieved. But the rest of life is not like that… And I do not know what I am meant to do about it.

For now I am saving money where I can and that’s about as much life planning I have managed for the past 6 months. I don’t know where I’ll be in my life next month let alone this time next year. I just hope fate will guide the way for now while I figure out if/when I should take the reins again.

Home is where the heart is

When you are in a weird and vulnerable place in your life it’s good to have people who will take your mind off things. That’s what my housemates do.

Right now I live with seven girls and four boys. Four are from Italy, two from Canada, one from France, one from Finland, one from the UK, one from Spain and a temporary blow in from Switzerland. All in their twenties. They keep me young.

When I joined this house it was early June this year and the house was full of different people. I fell in love with two of them but then they left. Being in a transient home has its ups and downs but mostly ups. They are family, while they are here and some have become friends for life.

The two boys I grew close with, Michael and Nico were there when my mum died. They saw me at my worst, they were a sense of comfort when all I knew was pain and I didn’t even know them that well. Through my despair they both came through for me like I would never have expected. Two backpackers here for a good time dropped everything to join the real world with me just for a moment and it meant the world.

I’ve said a few times that the changes in my life have opened up a world of love and positivity that I would never have imagined given what I went through to get to this point in my life.

When I tell people I live in a backpacker house that has eleven plus people in it, most people don’t know what to think. Some think it’s silly, some are intrigued but most think it’s just a phase. To be fair it basically is one but it’s a beautiful phase and I wouldn’t give it up for the world.

Denial is easier…

Yesterday was Christmas day….

I couldn’t compose myself properly all day, every time I stopped thinking about the gravity of what was missing I snuck a glance at the display my sister had put up to pay respect to our mum, a photo and a video montage.

It has been just under four months since mum died of cancer and I thought I was at the “acceptance” stage of my grief. Yesterday, however, I unfortunately realised I’d slipped all the way back to the stage of denial.

My sisters are going to clean out mum’s room tomorrow and I have not been able to agree to help them with it. My dad has requested quite insistently that it gets done as soon as possible because he can not deal with everything looking as if nothing has happened.

I, on the other hand want to pretend like nothing has happened because it is easier that way. I like her room the way it is, it allows me to forget mum is gone, it gives me hope that she is coming back. But… I know she isn’t.

I managed the courage to ask my dad for more time, I told him I wasn’t ready but I knew what the answer was going to be. He needs to move on like we all do and clearing out mum’s stuff is the first step of helping him do that. I respect that, it hard to swallow but I do respect what he needs.

As I sat on mum’s bed for the last time looking at her room untouched, like the day she left it, I could not contain my emotions. This was it, she really isn’t coming back. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t breath, this just could not be real.

My emotions were compounded by the fact that I had not spent last Christmas with her or the year before either. Sadly whilst last Christmas’s absence was due to me being overseas, the one prior was due to me arguing with my dad and sister about something so insignificant that I cannot believe it made me miss the event my mum cherished the most.

If only I had known, if only I had accepted that she had cancer, if only I wasn’t so selfish. I would turn back time in a heart beat.

The truth is I never accepted that mum was sick. I told her straight out too, it was too hard for me to comprehend, so I just didn’t. In my head it was going to get better and mum was going to see me get married and help raise my kids just like she did with all my three sisters. It just wasn’t an option that she wasn’t going to do that. It wasn’t OK that she was not going to be there.

The denial cost me time and I would do anything in the world to get that time back.

For now I have to crawl my way out of the denial stage and hopefully skip over the anger and depression part… I have already been there and done that and they were horrible. Perhaps I escaped out of those stages by repressing it all and setting up camp back in denial. Denial is easier.

Despite the ongoing emotions, I am OK, I think. At least I know I will be.

Mum won’t be back but she is still in my heart and hopefully one day I will be able to smile when I think of her.

Getting back in the swing of it

Head above water.

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more.

I decided to start a new journal off the back of my travel journal which gave insight into what was mostly a positive and memorable experience.

Whilst I was genuine in the travel blog I did not pay much respect to my negative thoughts and experiences, at the time I just wanted to make sure it was full of good memories.

The reality is my relationship was breaking down during the trip and my mother was ill back home. I pretended neither was happening.

When I arrived back in Australia in April 2019 my partner Jake and I split up and I learned that my mother’s cancer was not going away.

This journal will open the floodgates of all of my raw and true emotions and the process in which I am taking to get back on my feet and keeping my head above water.

From my mind to your screen…

Off the back of my blog Bizness in Thailand (biznessinthailand.wordpress.com) comes a more raw journal of my experience of returning home, being vulnerable, breaking up with my long term partner and loosing my mother.

This is a thought piece about starting all over again in my 30’s and how I have kept my head above water.

I do not consider myself a good writer by any means but I do enjoy putting my thoughts on (digital) paper.

I wear my heart on my sleeve and writing is my form of therapy. My struggles are not uncommon and this may help anyone faced with starting over.

I hope you can get something out of my journey.