Last week I was told twice to “be open to the universe”. Usually, I am a little cynical and would scoff or be a little smartarsey but this was a little different. The first comment came at a very nice moment, when I am more open minded after about 5 drinks. It also came from a ridiculously gorgeous man, who is both externally and internally scrumptious. So I was really paying attention. Too much probably, when he suggested I really need to think about what I wanted from the universe all I had in my soggy brain was “Um, that’d be you. I want the universe to give me you..” I was not quite in the right frame of mind for long term universe planning..
The second time was only a week later when a new friend said that her aim for some positive change in her life was to be open to the universe and really focus on what she wanted from the universe. I was amazed, I said I thought I was being really open to the universe ‘cause I kept hearing about being open to the universe and usually if someone even started saying something like “be open to the universe” I’d be out of the conversation like a vodka fuelled rocket. Whereas here I was, actually giving a little consideration to the idea. And enjoying a nice flashback to last week’s universe moment..
What does it really mean? To know what you want? That’s a little tricky. After having what I thought I wanted then it all going fuck-arsed, I don’t even know where to start with that. Does it work if you tell the universe what you don’t want? “Hey Universe, I really don’t want to get into a fight with my principal tomorrow or get punched by a student or find a massive cockroach crawling up my leg in bed. I would rather not decide at 2am that what I really need is more tequila. I don’t want my knee to hurt when I go for a run. I don’t want to go onto the Lush website to order a couple of bars of vanilla/coffee soaps and end up spending $200. I don’t want it to be cold when I go back to visit Victoria. I don’t want to get bogged driving out to Tarntipi beach in the wet.” But do I draw the Universe’s negative attention to those things by focusing on them in some weird arse-up way? The last thing I want the Universe to think is that I’m just a big whinger..
Shit, what do I want Universe?
Well, yesterday I went to a palm/tarot reader for the first time ever to see if a stranger would have any ideas about what I wanted or might have lined up from the universe.. He was recommended by a friend and works at the Mindle/Parap market. It was pretty interesting, I tried to turn off the skeptical radar and listen. So all very good for me apparently. He said the Universe was totally on my side and that I had to have confidence in making change because it is important for me and that next year will be the start of a new, good life for me. I am intelligent (or maybe he said very intelligent) enough to make the most of these new opportunities coming. Some financial decision will be very worthwhile and made in partnership, I have apparently earned enough good Karma to stop worrying about it, I will have a long term partner, I will work most of my life, I will have (which he amended to “care for”) three kids and-what I was most relieved about- I will have a big change to where I work and live next year. He said I will be able to leave past disappointments behind finally and leave where I am, probably for overseas. This actually made me feel very relieved, I’m in the process of joining a teaching agency for OS teaching, but apparently it was the quiet, odd-accent inflected assurance of a stranger who I paid $30 that has really given me confidence to follow through with the idea that maybe this was the next best step for me. And my relief and excitement at this also tells me that this is what I want from the Universe, so I’ll send that up a bit.
He also said my health would be pretty good but I had to change something about my diet, my digestive tract was not good. I’d like to think it was gluten but hadn’t had any for ages so it was probably just that my digestive system was still drunk from the night before. Or maybe it was in trouble from all of the incredibly hot chilli I put on the Cambodian rice balls I’d had for breakfast. So hot it coulda made my digestive tract sweat and go on strike.
So look at me all new agey and initiating a bit of a chat with the Universe – via some pretty interesting people. I do plan to become pretty chummy with the Universe; buy it a couple of drinks, a bit of harmless flirting, maybe encourage intimate confidences that I can exploit, and generally suck up any opportunity I can take advantage of. Moving up to the Tiwi Islands community was a decision that a lot of people thought was crazy but it has been the most wonderful, life changing, humbling experience. I have felt one hundred percent alive every awesome and horrible moment. And all I can hope is that my new mate Universe has a few more of those up it’s sleeve for me. It would seem that is what I want. So my new, exciting friend, my arms and heart are wide open, bring it on.
Showing posts with label Post. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Post. Show all posts
Monday, November 7, 2011
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
On a train
So trying to breathe is a struggle. It brings tears and heart palpitations. I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to go back. In not wanting to go back I feel so bereft. The grief is sucked in with every breath like dust particles – choking, coating my throat and eyes and lungs.
All I have to do is go and pick up the ute to borrow for 2 days. The keys should be in the mailbox.
But.
I can picture the front of what was my home so clearly – the small fence where I’d stretch after running, the gravel I shoveled onto the driveway. The front yard where I read and slept and fucked and had drinks with friends. The side gate behind which my dogs bark at the posty and sit waiting impatiently for walks. They will be there. I will hear them sniffing and scratching and puffing and I don’t think I can open the gate or my world will implode and suck me into the world of Everything Fucked Up Big Time. There are dragonflies on the front of the house that the ex put up for me because I love them. The plants along the side that replaced the crazy overgrown bushes, the mailbox that let everything get wet. The bins in the corner – the recycling one was always fuller than the normal one due to grog bottles. The front door that I loved – I walked in and out of it to al the bits of my life and the sun shone hottest on it so even if it was cool everywhere else it would be warmer in that spot. Where my car sat in front of the front door – taking me anywhere.
So real and so gone. I love the island for all the weird and whacky ways it has. And I love it because it is so removed from that life. It’s easy there to not think about my old home and friends and work and life and hopes. Because what’s the use in thinking about it? It’s not avoidance it’s just not useful in the slightest. It’s sad and hurtful and pointless. It makes me feel hopeless. It makes me feel alone and lost.
I don’t want to go back.
All I have to do is go and pick up the ute to borrow for 2 days. The keys should be in the mailbox.
But.
I can picture the front of what was my home so clearly – the small fence where I’d stretch after running, the gravel I shoveled onto the driveway. The front yard where I read and slept and fucked and had drinks with friends. The side gate behind which my dogs bark at the posty and sit waiting impatiently for walks. They will be there. I will hear them sniffing and scratching and puffing and I don’t think I can open the gate or my world will implode and suck me into the world of Everything Fucked Up Big Time. There are dragonflies on the front of the house that the ex put up for me because I love them. The plants along the side that replaced the crazy overgrown bushes, the mailbox that let everything get wet. The bins in the corner – the recycling one was always fuller than the normal one due to grog bottles. The front door that I loved – I walked in and out of it to al the bits of my life and the sun shone hottest on it so even if it was cool everywhere else it would be warmer in that spot. Where my car sat in front of the front door – taking me anywhere.
So real and so gone. I love the island for all the weird and whacky ways it has. And I love it because it is so removed from that life. It’s easy there to not think about my old home and friends and work and life and hopes. Because what’s the use in thinking about it? It’s not avoidance it’s just not useful in the slightest. It’s sad and hurtful and pointless. It makes me feel hopeless. It makes me feel alone and lost.
I don’t want to go back.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Don’t say “Pumpkin”
There is a skill I don’t always have a strong grasp of. The ‘think and edit before you let words come out of your head and potentially stick your size 6 1/2 foot in your mouth” skill. Sometimes I feel like I have it sorted and in those moments I revel in a little rationality, a little patronising “I’m so grown up, calm and wise” moment. Other – more manic - times, there is just free-flow, a vomit of words and ideas pouring forth. Rabid in their intensity. The fella was kind enough to point out when this was happening the other day, I was talking about something (that was really interesting, insightful and entertaining, all at the same time) when I turned around and noticed not the gaze of admiration, respect, devotion and interest I was expecting but the eyes-wide-open, mouth agape, stunned bunny in the headlights confused look (which I may have seen once or twice before).
“What?”
“I just can’t believe how many words are coming out of your head. They just keep coming and coming and coming.”
Pause.
I was wishing there was a little more admiration and little less bunny in his reaction to my word-spew.
Then I decided – in the spirit of female partners world over, to ignore him and go back to what I was saying – in the off chance any of it might sink in.
Anyway…
It’s not that I don’t try, I have to practice this skill all the time in my job as a teacher. The “Don’t tell him he is an insensitive, ignorant pain in my ring” or “Don’t say for fuck’s sake” skill all day. But sometimes, in moments of distraction or tiredness, it switches off. And doesn’t warn me. You know like the empty petrol light in the car. That would be useful. And distraction and tiredness tends to be more prominent when teaching Special Education. They just wear me down to the bare, fragile, crumbly minimum. So many, many needs, all bunched together in little over-heated rooms feeding off each other’s needs like little, needy parasites that grow fatter with each;
“Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssss” I can’t find the ‘on’ switch for my computer!”
“Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssssssss I’ve lost all of my books”
“Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssss why does he (the autistic boy) get to sleep on his desk and I can’t?”
“Huh?”
There’s a chance that the only reason I got my Masters In Education – Special Education is not just because I made the mistake of choosing too many subjects in Special Ed but that it was an online course and therefore no one actually met me or, particularly, saw me in action in the classroom.
Because sometimes, my “think before you speak tank” hits empty.
Pre- special ed qualifications I taught a boy in mainstream English who quite clearly, was not your “run of the milll” year 9 student. Whatever that is. Instead of slapping his neighbour over the head with his diary or aiming spit-balls at the ceiling he was sitting up the front of the room (voluntarily) putting his hand up to ask for clarification (before I’d actually explained anything), rocking to an internal beat in his chair. One day, after explaining/directing/re-explaining the writing task I asked them to start their work. He preferred to start banging his head on the desk, like some kind of arse-about Metallica fan.
I wasn’t expecting that at all, and it actually gave me quite a fright. Apparently my natural reaction to a bit of a fright is to act defensively and aggressively. And yellingly.
“STOP! THAT! IMMEDIATELY!”
Insensitive, but it did shock him into stopping.
“I will NOT have that sort of behaviour in my class.“Do it again and you’ll get DETENTION!”
Insensitive, but he never did it again.
I taught the same kid again three years later and tried to be a little more sensitive with a little more experience it was quite clear he had Aspergers, although not diagnosed. In preparing for his exams, we were discussing the difficulties he had with anxiety and behaviour in exam situations.
“It’s useless. I’ve always been like this, I can’t change.”
I was packing up my stuff and not practicing the very useful skill of think before you open your big fat mouth.
“No you weren’t, you used to bang your head on the desk, remember? “
Awkward, awkward, fucking awkward- I’ve insulted the Asperger’s student –pause.
Then: “Oh yeah”.
“Well…you don’t do that any more, so you have changed..”
Phew.
Sometimes, I have to makes sure I do heaps of swearing at recess and lunchtime – away from the students - to make sure I’ve used up my swear-word quota for the day and one doesn’t sneeze out of my head when my defences are down in class.
(This actually seems to work).
It’s always hard at the beginning of the year with a new class of modified English and you have to pick and sort through the behavioural issues, health issues, learning difficulty issues and “I hate this fucking place” issues. Using all patience while trying to establish relationships, motivate, engage and support students who I haven’t taught for a while, if ever. Being patient enough to get them on side knowing we have a whole year ahead full of inane questions and absent punctuation.
At the end of a class two weeks into term 1 where positive reinforcement seemed to be working on a particularly Emo 15 year old, I thought I’d take the opportunity to tell him I had recognised and appreciated an improvement in his attitude and work efforts. At least that’s what I should’ve said, but after a full day ending with 100 minutes of modified English, our little meeting aimed at developing a solid working partnership went more like;
You know how you were a total pain last week in class?
Ahhh..
It made me want to stab you in the eye with my pen.
Oh.
But you’ve been heaps better today, so let’s keep going with that.
Um..
That night the fella said he hoped the kid had a sense of humour otherwise I’d be out of a job.
More recently, my skills (or lack of) in shut upping have been tested even more. At the beginning of the year I unfortunately decided to read the background notes on my students. Experience has shown that really, this is either a waste of time as the “information” says something really useful like;
“has a literacy difficulties” Ah! I know exactly how to attend to this young man’s specific, unique and individual needs!
Or something that will mess with your mind for the entire year like:
"has autism…generally subdued (to the point of sleeping on his desk for most of the lesson) however will react physically and aggressively to the word “pumpkin”.
“Pumpkin”. I am totally serious.
Now, forget that some of the students know this and would set him off like a rocket last year for a bit of light hearted fun. Now I know his trigger word. I know the word that will turn him from a sweet, sleepy Special Education behavioural dream into a pumpkin-hating ball of autistic adolescent fury.
So now, even after 100 minutes of all patience and energy being sapped into the void of Year 10 Modified English, I HAVE to remain on the ball. Alert. In control. I can’t afford to let my foot-in-mouth guard slip. I have to spend 400minutes a week for the whole year saying to myself:
Don’t say “pumpkin”.
“Pumpkin”, “ pumpkin”, don’t say “pumpkin”..
Because of course that would be a real danger in this class;
“Don’t forget the capital letters in your pumpkin.”
“Open your diaries to write in your pumpkin.”
“How is the main pumpkin in the novel feeling at this point?”
“Remember to log off your pumpkins.”
Fucking arsehole pumpkins.
Only 5 months to go.
“What?”
“I just can’t believe how many words are coming out of your head. They just keep coming and coming and coming.”
Pause.
I was wishing there was a little more admiration and little less bunny in his reaction to my word-spew.
Then I decided – in the spirit of female partners world over, to ignore him and go back to what I was saying – in the off chance any of it might sink in.
Anyway…
It’s not that I don’t try, I have to practice this skill all the time in my job as a teacher. The “Don’t tell him he is an insensitive, ignorant pain in my ring” or “Don’t say for fuck’s sake” skill all day. But sometimes, in moments of distraction or tiredness, it switches off. And doesn’t warn me. You know like the empty petrol light in the car. That would be useful. And distraction and tiredness tends to be more prominent when teaching Special Education. They just wear me down to the bare, fragile, crumbly minimum. So many, many needs, all bunched together in little over-heated rooms feeding off each other’s needs like little, needy parasites that grow fatter with each;
“Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssss” I can’t find the ‘on’ switch for my computer!”
“Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssssssss I’ve lost all of my books”
“Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssssssssssss why does he (the autistic boy) get to sleep on his desk and I can’t?”
“Huh?”
There’s a chance that the only reason I got my Masters In Education – Special Education is not just because I made the mistake of choosing too many subjects in Special Ed but that it was an online course and therefore no one actually met me or, particularly, saw me in action in the classroom.
Because sometimes, my “think before you speak tank” hits empty.
Pre- special ed qualifications I taught a boy in mainstream English who quite clearly, was not your “run of the milll” year 9 student. Whatever that is. Instead of slapping his neighbour over the head with his diary or aiming spit-balls at the ceiling he was sitting up the front of the room (voluntarily) putting his hand up to ask for clarification (before I’d actually explained anything), rocking to an internal beat in his chair. One day, after explaining/directing/re-explaining the writing task I asked them to start their work. He preferred to start banging his head on the desk, like some kind of arse-about Metallica fan.
I wasn’t expecting that at all, and it actually gave me quite a fright. Apparently my natural reaction to a bit of a fright is to act defensively and aggressively. And yellingly.
“STOP! THAT! IMMEDIATELY!”
Insensitive, but it did shock him into stopping.
“I will NOT have that sort of behaviour in my class.“Do it again and you’ll get DETENTION!”
Insensitive, but he never did it again.
I taught the same kid again three years later and tried to be a little more sensitive with a little more experience it was quite clear he had Aspergers, although not diagnosed. In preparing for his exams, we were discussing the difficulties he had with anxiety and behaviour in exam situations.
“It’s useless. I’ve always been like this, I can’t change.”
I was packing up my stuff and not practicing the very useful skill of think before you open your big fat mouth.
“No you weren’t, you used to bang your head on the desk, remember? “
Awkward, awkward, fucking awkward- I’ve insulted the Asperger’s student –pause.
Then: “Oh yeah”.
“Well…you don’t do that any more, so you have changed..”
Phew.
Sometimes, I have to makes sure I do heaps of swearing at recess and lunchtime – away from the students - to make sure I’ve used up my swear-word quota for the day and one doesn’t sneeze out of my head when my defences are down in class.
(This actually seems to work).
It’s always hard at the beginning of the year with a new class of modified English and you have to pick and sort through the behavioural issues, health issues, learning difficulty issues and “I hate this fucking place” issues. Using all patience while trying to establish relationships, motivate, engage and support students who I haven’t taught for a while, if ever. Being patient enough to get them on side knowing we have a whole year ahead full of inane questions and absent punctuation.
At the end of a class two weeks into term 1 where positive reinforcement seemed to be working on a particularly Emo 15 year old, I thought I’d take the opportunity to tell him I had recognised and appreciated an improvement in his attitude and work efforts. At least that’s what I should’ve said, but after a full day ending with 100 minutes of modified English, our little meeting aimed at developing a solid working partnership went more like;
You know how you were a total pain last week in class?
Ahhh..
It made me want to stab you in the eye with my pen.
Oh.
But you’ve been heaps better today, so let’s keep going with that.
Um..
That night the fella said he hoped the kid had a sense of humour otherwise I’d be out of a job.
More recently, my skills (or lack of) in shut upping have been tested even more. At the beginning of the year I unfortunately decided to read the background notes on my students. Experience has shown that really, this is either a waste of time as the “information” says something really useful like;
“has a literacy difficulties” Ah! I know exactly how to attend to this young man’s specific, unique and individual needs!
Or something that will mess with your mind for the entire year like:
"has autism…generally subdued (to the point of sleeping on his desk for most of the lesson) however will react physically and aggressively to the word “pumpkin”.
“Pumpkin”. I am totally serious.
Now, forget that some of the students know this and would set him off like a rocket last year for a bit of light hearted fun. Now I know his trigger word. I know the word that will turn him from a sweet, sleepy Special Education behavioural dream into a pumpkin-hating ball of autistic adolescent fury.
So now, even after 100 minutes of all patience and energy being sapped into the void of Year 10 Modified English, I HAVE to remain on the ball. Alert. In control. I can’t afford to let my foot-in-mouth guard slip. I have to spend 400minutes a week for the whole year saying to myself:
Don’t say “pumpkin”.
“Pumpkin”, “ pumpkin”, don’t say “pumpkin”..
Because of course that would be a real danger in this class;
“Don’t forget the capital letters in your pumpkin.”
“Open your diaries to write in your pumpkin.”
“How is the main pumpkin in the novel feeling at this point?”
“Remember to log off your pumpkins.”
Fucking arsehole pumpkins.
Only 5 months to go.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Regression
Initially the weekend away was hard. I had already been away for three days on yr 12 camp and was tired. Tired physically from a lack of sleep and tired emotionally from having sufficient self control for three days and two nights to not tell thirty five 17 and 18 year old boys…
• To stop being fucking morons and kick the footy away from the windows.
• To stop being fucking morons and stop shooting arrows from the archery sets at the kangaroos
• To stop being fucking morons and get the hell off each other
• To stop being fucking morons and not put mattresses on the roof of the cabins
• To stop being fucking morons and not smash golf balls at the kangaroos
• To stop being fucking morons and stop doing dorm raids
• To stop being fucking morons and daring each other to touch the electric fence.
• To stop being fucking morons and stop “Ray”ing.
So I was feeling pretty a little sorry for myself and finding it difficult to gain a sense of ‘this too shall pass”. The last thing I wanted to do was re-pack and take off again for another 2 days. But, of course, when our gang of people go away and stay in dorm-like accommodation, there is giggle-fitting to be had and sad moments are likely to be replaced by the following moments:
1. The boys will all go into a separate room with a TV and pretend they live on planet beerfooty, which is in a different solar system to ours.
Meanwhile:
2. The girls will begin playing the drinking game “begetables” which is never played properly or finished because we just like to say the names of vegetables with our lips over our teeth and laugh at each other looking like toothless geriatrics.
3. The girls get the giggle-fits over geriatric renditions of “Bok Choy Bok Choy” and “Alfafa Sprouts Alfafa Sprouts”
4. The girls will play 80’s music, sing and do interpretive (and sometimes liturgical) dance moves. I am the exceptions to this. I maintain that I hate 80’s music, regardless of how many times I’m told I love it.
5. The girls will write a list of words that have sexual innuendos (Can you believe we’ve done this more than once? Where do those lists end up?)
6. The girls have some kind of wine and vodka-fueled emotional regression and get the giggle fits over naughty words.
7. The girls might play some sort of game that involves cards or physical challenges or throwing things or knocking things over (such as Jenga – I fucking hate that game) and that also requires screaming, cheering, creative abuse and sometimes shoving.
8. The girls come up with the next dress up theme for the next gathering
9. The girls get the giggle-fits remembering previous dress up themed parties
10. The girls finally join the boys when the footy is over and the boys are momentarily confused by the high pitched noise and arguments and scattered conversation interspersed with singing.
11. The drinking reaches its climax – most of the boys and girls have the “shit I’ve got to pump as much into me before I go to bed because that seems like a very sensible idea at this stage of the evening and I love waking up at 4am needing to go to the toilet but being even more pissed than when I went to bed and not being able to get out of my sleeping bag” mentality.
12. The girls yell their conversation at each other because the alcohol has made them deaf.
13. The girls get the giggle-fits. For pretty much no reason or any reason.
14. The fun starts. What is it about brushing your teeth with friends that reawakens the 17 year-old in you? We had dorm rooms and a big, communal bathroom.
There were lots of teachers there. If we were telling ourselves off at 2am we would have had to yell at ourselves:
• Stop being fucking morons and trying to fart everyone out of the bathroom
• Stop being fucking morons and singing at the top of your voice (with a mouth full of toothpaste) to test out the bathroom acoustics
• Stop being fucking morons and keep out of other people’s rooms – especially those who went to bed 2 hours earlier
• Stop being fucking morons and get the hell off each other
• Stop being fucking morons and remember where your own room is
• Stop being fucking morons and avoid thinking the kitchen is a legitimate option for sleeping when you still can’t find your room (which you had to walk past to get to the kitchen.)
• Stop being fucking morons and doing bed raids to confuse the shit out of the drunk person who’s bed you’re hiding in (Deeva..)
• Stop being fucking morons and laughing so hard you spit water all over the floor
Thank god I decided to go away for the weekend with friends to relax and get over the stress of school camp.
• To stop being fucking morons and kick the footy away from the windows.
• To stop being fucking morons and stop shooting arrows from the archery sets at the kangaroos
• To stop being fucking morons and get the hell off each other
• To stop being fucking morons and not put mattresses on the roof of the cabins
• To stop being fucking morons and not smash golf balls at the kangaroos
• To stop being fucking morons and stop doing dorm raids
• To stop being fucking morons and daring each other to touch the electric fence.
• To stop being fucking morons and stop “Ray”ing.
So I was feeling pretty a little sorry for myself and finding it difficult to gain a sense of ‘this too shall pass”. The last thing I wanted to do was re-pack and take off again for another 2 days. But, of course, when our gang of people go away and stay in dorm-like accommodation, there is giggle-fitting to be had and sad moments are likely to be replaced by the following moments:
1. The boys will all go into a separate room with a TV and pretend they live on planet beerfooty, which is in a different solar system to ours.
Meanwhile:
2. The girls will begin playing the drinking game “begetables” which is never played properly or finished because we just like to say the names of vegetables with our lips over our teeth and laugh at each other looking like toothless geriatrics.
3. The girls get the giggle-fits over geriatric renditions of “Bok Choy Bok Choy” and “Alfafa Sprouts Alfafa Sprouts”
4. The girls will play 80’s music, sing and do interpretive (and sometimes liturgical) dance moves. I am the exceptions to this. I maintain that I hate 80’s music, regardless of how many times I’m told I love it.
5. The girls will write a list of words that have sexual innuendos (Can you believe we’ve done this more than once? Where do those lists end up?)
6. The girls have some kind of wine and vodka-fueled emotional regression and get the giggle fits over naughty words.
7. The girls might play some sort of game that involves cards or physical challenges or throwing things or knocking things over (such as Jenga – I fucking hate that game) and that also requires screaming, cheering, creative abuse and sometimes shoving.
8. The girls come up with the next dress up theme for the next gathering
9. The girls get the giggle-fits remembering previous dress up themed parties
10. The girls finally join the boys when the footy is over and the boys are momentarily confused by the high pitched noise and arguments and scattered conversation interspersed with singing.
11. The drinking reaches its climax – most of the boys and girls have the “shit I’ve got to pump as much into me before I go to bed because that seems like a very sensible idea at this stage of the evening and I love waking up at 4am needing to go to the toilet but being even more pissed than when I went to bed and not being able to get out of my sleeping bag” mentality.
12. The girls yell their conversation at each other because the alcohol has made them deaf.
13. The girls get the giggle-fits. For pretty much no reason or any reason.
14. The fun starts. What is it about brushing your teeth with friends that reawakens the 17 year-old in you? We had dorm rooms and a big, communal bathroom.
There were lots of teachers there. If we were telling ourselves off at 2am we would have had to yell at ourselves:
• Stop being fucking morons and trying to fart everyone out of the bathroom
• Stop being fucking morons and singing at the top of your voice (with a mouth full of toothpaste) to test out the bathroom acoustics
• Stop being fucking morons and keep out of other people’s rooms – especially those who went to bed 2 hours earlier
• Stop being fucking morons and get the hell off each other
• Stop being fucking morons and remember where your own room is
• Stop being fucking morons and avoid thinking the kitchen is a legitimate option for sleeping when you still can’t find your room (which you had to walk past to get to the kitchen.)
• Stop being fucking morons and doing bed raids to confuse the shit out of the drunk person who’s bed you’re hiding in (Deeva..)
• Stop being fucking morons and laughing so hard you spit water all over the floor
Thank god I decided to go away for the weekend with friends to relax and get over the stress of school camp.
Momentary
Tobias Wolff reminded me today (From his memoir This Boy’s Life) that one good – or fabulous – thing that comes with experience (age..) is that you know you won’t be stuck in a moment of pain forever. He reflects on not being able to see past a present moment as an adolescent and being consumed by it. That then, in youthful bliss and intensity, we believe a moment of joy, heartache, pain, anger, will be always, is the whole world, will hold us in its bubble of intensity forming a barrier to everything else. Older, we know “this too shall pass”. This is sometimes sad, our moments are always building to the end, like a nice, long-lasting orgasm that only exists in the first place to be at its end, to be finished, over, gone. We know this as we get older, we try to grasp the significant flashes of our lives and hold onto them, aware that they slip through and past so quickly.
But I have relief knowing this too shall pass. It has been a saving grace. Lightning stabs of ‘what will give my life meaning now?’ have been crippling the last few weeks. Crippling and pretty destructive. But tonight I was reminded of one of the reasons to always get out of bed – the chance that today I might get a fit of the giggles.
After a weekend away with some excellent friends, I was complaining at work of sore abs due to “giggle-fitting” all Friday and Saturday night. I was told by a friend at work that the reason I was suffering was due to the fact that I have a “low giggling threshold” that is, I can be reduced to giggle-fitting pretty easily. I took it as a compliment at the time – it wasn’t really meant as one, but we take what we can – and figured it just meant that I have a good sense of humour. But I’ve thought about it tonight and realised it’s not as simple as that. I do have a really good sense of humour, but more so, I have really, really good friends (and my hubby is included in this group, he is ridiculously funny, or at least, ridiculous) who make me really, really happy.
As always, out of the eye of the storm it is easier to be a bit more philosophical. There are times when I feel I can’t breathe because my bubble of pain is sucking all the oxygen out of the air, suffocating and paralyzing me all at once. But in the back of my air starved brain I do know that “this too shall pass”, that if I can hold my breath, close my eyes and just get though this moment, this minute will tick over, another moment will come. And hopefully it will involve one of my amazing friends giving me a giggle-fit, where I laugh so hard I break the bad bubble and suck oxygen so deep into my lungs that I get dizzy. This gives my life meaning at the moment, that I have these moments of joy with my friends, that with them I have laughed so hard I have smashed my head into my glass, fallen off my chair, cried, been rendered speechless (a difficult task..) and at one stage last weekend, curled up into a ball on the floor where my whole moment was one, all encompassing, wonderful giggle bubble.
But I have relief knowing this too shall pass. It has been a saving grace. Lightning stabs of ‘what will give my life meaning now?’ have been crippling the last few weeks. Crippling and pretty destructive. But tonight I was reminded of one of the reasons to always get out of bed – the chance that today I might get a fit of the giggles.
After a weekend away with some excellent friends, I was complaining at work of sore abs due to “giggle-fitting” all Friday and Saturday night. I was told by a friend at work that the reason I was suffering was due to the fact that I have a “low giggling threshold” that is, I can be reduced to giggle-fitting pretty easily. I took it as a compliment at the time – it wasn’t really meant as one, but we take what we can – and figured it just meant that I have a good sense of humour. But I’ve thought about it tonight and realised it’s not as simple as that. I do have a really good sense of humour, but more so, I have really, really good friends (and my hubby is included in this group, he is ridiculously funny, or at least, ridiculous) who make me really, really happy.
As always, out of the eye of the storm it is easier to be a bit more philosophical. There are times when I feel I can’t breathe because my bubble of pain is sucking all the oxygen out of the air, suffocating and paralyzing me all at once. But in the back of my air starved brain I do know that “this too shall pass”, that if I can hold my breath, close my eyes and just get though this moment, this minute will tick over, another moment will come. And hopefully it will involve one of my amazing friends giving me a giggle-fit, where I laugh so hard I break the bad bubble and suck oxygen so deep into my lungs that I get dizzy. This gives my life meaning at the moment, that I have these moments of joy with my friends, that with them I have laughed so hard I have smashed my head into my glass, fallen off my chair, cried, been rendered speechless (a difficult task..) and at one stage last weekend, curled up into a ball on the floor where my whole moment was one, all encompassing, wonderful giggle bubble.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Freedom
The freedom is making me giddy.
Having to make the decision to stop trying to have a family sucked balls, but there has been this slow, creeping slither of freedom sliding up my limbs and through my blood. It’s nice. Nice to plan a holiday , nice to have sex because you’re horny (or hungover) rather than because you have to, because it’s the right time in your cycle, nice to consider the possibility of adventure. To consider a bigger picture. All without the threatening clouds of doctors and pregnancy and miscarriage and operations governing and spoiling absolutely everything.
But sometimes the freedom feels like it’s blurring my edges, like without the restrictions of dates, drugs and tests and hope and pain and disappointment drawing lines around me, I’m dissolving. That all this possibility is a bit too big, a bit abstract and that I’ve lost some of myself. I guess that’s direction. In the process of having to design a new picture of me, a new future, new goals, I’m a bit foggy, unsubstantial until I can figure out what will draw a new outline, make me solid again. And I wonder how long that will take, and how much of a jelly fish I’ll be by the time this possibility becomes a little more tangible.
Having to make the decision to stop trying to have a family sucked balls, but there has been this slow, creeping slither of freedom sliding up my limbs and through my blood. It’s nice. Nice to plan a holiday , nice to have sex because you’re horny (or hungover) rather than because you have to, because it’s the right time in your cycle, nice to consider the possibility of adventure. To consider a bigger picture. All without the threatening clouds of doctors and pregnancy and miscarriage and operations governing and spoiling absolutely everything.
But sometimes the freedom feels like it’s blurring my edges, like without the restrictions of dates, drugs and tests and hope and pain and disappointment drawing lines around me, I’m dissolving. That all this possibility is a bit too big, a bit abstract and that I’ve lost some of myself. I guess that’s direction. In the process of having to design a new picture of me, a new future, new goals, I’m a bit foggy, unsubstantial until I can figure out what will draw a new outline, make me solid again. And I wonder how long that will take, and how much of a jelly fish I’ll be by the time this possibility becomes a little more tangible.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Hole where the hope was.
So after feeling a decent amount of relief, sanity, maturity, at the decision to stop trying – and failing, miserably - to have kids, I find myself teary and sad today. Again. Not so much for the loss of children I’ll never get to meet and love and know but for the absence of hope. Every time we tried, even though we tried to be as realistic, and pessimistic as possible – because sometimes is a horrible, heart-breaking monster, we still had hope. You just can’t help it. Brief – often clamped down on quickly - discussions about our possible future, possible names, possible gender, possible gene combo’s running around. And in deciding not to try again, we have made a deliberate choice to give up on hope. And giving up on hope is really fucking hard. As humans we seem to be programmed to continually hope and hope when all is burning to shit around us. That is our natural state. We’ve seen this, this resilience in people that means you can’t just give up, lie down and blissfully let it all be too much. We saw it in Thailand after the Tsunami, laughing telling their stories of running for their lives and the demolishment of everything they knew. It seemed crazy to us that they could survive and laugh about it, move on. But we do. So this choosing to move on from hope feels unnatural and has made the decision all the harder, hard enough to take 6 and 1/2 years, 9 miscarriages, thousands of dollars, 6 or so specialists, hundreds of tests, to make.
And not just the giving up on hope, but I realized today I actually have to figure out what to hope for next. And probably something more than enough money for a room with a few cats while senility takes my own name and everything about my life. Therefore, the plans for what next. Where next. How next. And the realization that comes with it: this what, where, how is not the same path we have had in mind for the past 8 years. It may not be the same path for us. It is very likely to be a totally different cross country experience for us. We’ve had the same goals – ish and the future of children and never ending debt and sacrifice has kept us moving forward together – ish. As much as you can be when you’re two very different people of the opposite gender. Now however, now it is a little different. Now our paths are about to divide significantly and we are both in agreeance that we are committed to each other and in pursuing our own next hopes. Mine O.S and his completing his PHD. It is a significant juncture. It is a difficult juncture. Which is why, when I thought things might be getting a little easier, requiring a little less “courage”, it seems it’s still time for tears.
And not just the giving up on hope, but I realized today I actually have to figure out what to hope for next. And probably something more than enough money for a room with a few cats while senility takes my own name and everything about my life. Therefore, the plans for what next. Where next. How next. And the realization that comes with it: this what, where, how is not the same path we have had in mind for the past 8 years. It may not be the same path for us. It is very likely to be a totally different cross country experience for us. We’ve had the same goals – ish and the future of children and never ending debt and sacrifice has kept us moving forward together – ish. As much as you can be when you’re two very different people of the opposite gender. Now however, now it is a little different. Now our paths are about to divide significantly and we are both in agreeance that we are committed to each other and in pursuing our own next hopes. Mine O.S and his completing his PHD. It is a significant juncture. It is a difficult juncture. Which is why, when I thought things might be getting a little easier, requiring a little less “courage”, it seems it’s still time for tears.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Searching for mojo.
So here’s the thing. I have just turned 38 and things have not quite worked out to plan. Not that I had really planned things up to this stage, but as women, we have a fair idea of what we’ll be up to at this point in our lives. We will be mums.
During yr 12 I had to plan my future. That was hard. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, what I didn’t want to do, I had no idea of what I was good at (Don’t we love the shitty of self esteem as a 17year old) or really, what I was even bad at - other than picking decent boyfriends and saying no to crappy sex. Not much to work with. But I did know I had to go to university. My cousin and I were the first generation of women to do this. It was up to us to set the feminist trails blazing, at the age of 17 and 18 we were to rock the academic world with our brilliance. We were to be career women. Then I was going to be a mum. That was the plan.
I had an image of myself as an independent, working woman who travelled the world and potentially managed to look pretty funky while living out of a pack. I had an image of myself as someone who worked and travelled, then at some point had children. I didn’t even really imagine myself as wife, but definitely as a mother. I think that for most women, at least my age, it was the same. But that hasn’t happened and although I’ve made an excellent, if occasionally erratic effort at being a wife, I’m not likely to be a mum. So now the question is;
What’s the fucking plan? I have to adjust the image I had of myself, the energetic woman walking the pram down to the clifftops to walk her bab/ies along the beach. The woman who sleeps little but is happy having a break from work to be at home with beautiful, demanding bubs. The woman who could talk to other women her age about breastfeeding, teething and sleep patterns. Who hung around with other women in mother’s groups and occasional coffee catch ups, living and breathing in a nice, nurturing, sleep-deprived world of women and babies. The woman with a bond to other women and her friends that their partners can’t totally share. The woman who has a priority in her life other than work and who has something to devote herself to other than work.
Because ultimately, work isn’t enough. I love it, I appreciate it, I enjoy it most of the time. But it’s not enough. It’s like biologically I’m programmed to need something else, and now that I can’t have it, I’m a bit at a loss. I have to re-design the image I have of myself and I’m not sure how to do that.. What to replace the slightly dishevelled, yawning woman reading stories to her kids, with.
And it annoys me a bit, surely as a woman who grew up in post-feminist times I should be able to think of something else I would like to do other than have kids. Surely, in 2010 I can have an identity that does not tie me to nappies and breast pumps. Surely I can find meaning and worth in something other than in reproducing some slightly dodgy genes. Except, so far, I can’t. I don’t know if this is the same for other women who have found their lives have turned out differently to what they expected. But I am surprised to find that fundamentally, my hopes and dreams haven’t been that much different from those of my grandmother, or the great grannies who came over from Ireland, making the lace for the baptism gowns that would be handed down through generations. Is it always that many women go through the motions a bit, just biding some pretty interesting time until they become, as predestined, mothers?
We were told we “could have it all”, but as many women have discovered, we don’t want it all. It is a recurring concern in our society at the moment that women don’t hold as many high powered-positions in the workforce as men, that we aren’t paid the same, we aren’t in corporate control. But that would seem to be, because for the most part – making some generalisations I know, but that is my world at the moment, women don’t want those positions as much as men. Their wants are the same, biological, emotional wants that they have always been for women. They were my wants.
During yr 12 I had to plan my future. That was hard. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, what I didn’t want to do, I had no idea of what I was good at (Don’t we love the shitty of self esteem as a 17year old) or really, what I was even bad at - other than picking decent boyfriends and saying no to crappy sex. Not much to work with. But I did know I had to go to university. My cousin and I were the first generation of women to do this. It was up to us to set the feminist trails blazing, at the age of 17 and 18 we were to rock the academic world with our brilliance. We were to be career women. Then I was going to be a mum. That was the plan.
I had an image of myself as an independent, working woman who travelled the world and potentially managed to look pretty funky while living out of a pack. I had an image of myself as someone who worked and travelled, then at some point had children. I didn’t even really imagine myself as wife, but definitely as a mother. I think that for most women, at least my age, it was the same. But that hasn’t happened and although I’ve made an excellent, if occasionally erratic effort at being a wife, I’m not likely to be a mum. So now the question is;
What’s the fucking plan? I have to adjust the image I had of myself, the energetic woman walking the pram down to the clifftops to walk her bab/ies along the beach. The woman who sleeps little but is happy having a break from work to be at home with beautiful, demanding bubs. The woman who could talk to other women her age about breastfeeding, teething and sleep patterns. Who hung around with other women in mother’s groups and occasional coffee catch ups, living and breathing in a nice, nurturing, sleep-deprived world of women and babies. The woman with a bond to other women and her friends that their partners can’t totally share. The woman who has a priority in her life other than work and who has something to devote herself to other than work.
Because ultimately, work isn’t enough. I love it, I appreciate it, I enjoy it most of the time. But it’s not enough. It’s like biologically I’m programmed to need something else, and now that I can’t have it, I’m a bit at a loss. I have to re-design the image I have of myself and I’m not sure how to do that.. What to replace the slightly dishevelled, yawning woman reading stories to her kids, with.
And it annoys me a bit, surely as a woman who grew up in post-feminist times I should be able to think of something else I would like to do other than have kids. Surely, in 2010 I can have an identity that does not tie me to nappies and breast pumps. Surely I can find meaning and worth in something other than in reproducing some slightly dodgy genes. Except, so far, I can’t. I don’t know if this is the same for other women who have found their lives have turned out differently to what they expected. But I am surprised to find that fundamentally, my hopes and dreams haven’t been that much different from those of my grandmother, or the great grannies who came over from Ireland, making the lace for the baptism gowns that would be handed down through generations. Is it always that many women go through the motions a bit, just biding some pretty interesting time until they become, as predestined, mothers?
We were told we “could have it all”, but as many women have discovered, we don’t want it all. It is a recurring concern in our society at the moment that women don’t hold as many high powered-positions in the workforce as men, that we aren’t paid the same, we aren’t in corporate control. But that would seem to be, because for the most part – making some generalisations I know, but that is my world at the moment, women don’t want those positions as much as men. Their wants are the same, biological, emotional wants that they have always been for women. They were my wants.
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