photo credit: State Library of Victoria Collections

I read a twitter post the other day that had been ringing true for me for a long time.  When we were kids, we thought the adults knew what they were doing.  As adults though, we find that we actually have no idea either, and we are just pretending that we do.

We give the air of confidence that everything will be all right.  When the floods came last year I told me kids everything would be fine (it was but that’s not the point here).  In my head I was plotting the escape route to the roof, packing escape bags and raising everything up above one metre just in case, thinking the whole time, what the hell am I going to do?

Every week is a constant financial struggle, and it’s only getting worse with petrol and power going up all the time.  I saw an ad on the TV for solar power and it said 34,000 people couldn’t pay their power bills last quarter.  I was one of them. I might just make it before it gets cut off (again). The whole thing feels like a huge conspiracy but that’s another post for the theorists.

And I don’t know what I’m going to do. I have long given up the idea of having anything left to save.  I keep telling the kids it’ll be fine, not knowing how the hell it will be, but as the adult it’s my job to look calm and in control even though inside I am anything but.

I was listening to Fleetwood Mac last night and one of the lines that is resonating with me this morning is “if it all comes down to you” and I’m thinking, well it is, and now is the time that I have to prove that I really am a grown up, and not playing dress up.

I can hear Seth Godin’s voice in my head saying something profound like if it all comes down to you, what will you do? Will you step up and make your mark? or something like that and my only answer at the moment is, I haven’t laid down and not got up, and that’s about the best I can manage at the moment.  It’s not an easy road as a single parent, working to only just keep the roof over our heads and going further into debt by doing so.

For now, I can only keep pretending that everything will be all right, tuck my kids in telling them so, and lay awake at night and wonder how it will be.

Carry on.

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This week I came perilously close to closing down my presence on the internet. I was going to erase all of my entries on this site, let the domain expire, close off twitter and never participate again.

Then as I usually do when I reach a BIG decision, I took a step back and breathed a little to wait and see if I still felt the same way a week later.  Today, obviously as I’m writing this, I do feel differently. Here is another post.

When I began my persona online as ‘strictly’ and the site ‘strictlyanything’ my goal was to own one word on the internet. I wanted to own ‘strictly’.  That was my one and only goal.  This has waxed and waned over the years, sometimes I’ve ranked a lot, sometimes not at all.  Twitter is all strictly for me as I get a LOT of spam for strictly this or strictly that, to newcomers who don’t know of my existence and just assume that @strictly this or that will of course land where it should, but it doesn’t, it lands on my timeline. I’ve given up correcting people because it would take hours of my day.

However it does show me that my original premise, to own one word, is actually gaining traction, in an abstract sense to me at least.  SOOO many people are strictly this or that. Because I couldn’t decide what my strictly was, I went for strictly anything so I could focus on whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, which is my personality down to a tee.

Anyway on examination of my motives, I noticed that it was what someone had said to me that drove me to give up completely. I heard their attitude, nearly believed them, and then didn’t, because eventually I want to just own one word on the internet. It could prove a totally pointless exercise, but having an aim in life, pointless or otherwise, is the only thing that keeps me getting up and moving forward, no matter how futile at times, not matter how excruciating.

It’s a little goal that may never come off, but the attempted attainment of it, keeps me going ever forward, when I have many reasons to just lie down and give up.

Carry on.

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Yesterday was National Burn Kathy day.  Today is National Not So Fast day.  It is really discouraging to find the truth, that you knew was there, because you’ve been shown it before, rise up again to show its face to you, with undeniable force.

Today I accept that truth and decide no more.

Today I move forward to whatever else the world has to offer me, but yesterday I was shown, that where I am, is NOT where I’m supposed to be.

By the way, the Suicide Book, in all of its raw text, is half way done, and will be available within two weeks on itunes, ipad and amazon kindle.

Carry on.

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photo credit: Martin Lopatka

Today I am not well.  My body is yelling at me to rest.  My legs are aching as if they’ve been punched by a tribe of angry pygmies. It is the familiar ache of chronic fatigue/fibromyalgia that is creeping its way back at the end of an exhausting year.

2011 sucked – for everyone.  It started badly and got worse.  Most everyone I know lost something or someone in all the natural disasters that occurred.  Businesses went broke, we all went further into debt just to buy petrol and groceries whose prices soared throughout the year. We worked harder than usual because there was more to do in the same amount of time.

I spent 12 hours a day away from my family and home to make a living that doesn’t meet the ends and now my body, having tasted the rest I have given it for the past two weeks on holidays, is yelling at me to stay down, don’t get up – but like Rocky, I have no choice.  I have to get up, I have three kids (almost 2 as one has left school this year) to house and feed and support – failure is not an option.

But as my legs ache, and my hopelessness grows about the prospect of returning to those 12 hour days of work and travel in two more weeks, I do not know, cannot fathom, how I am going to do it.

Carry on.

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photo credit: A. Strakey

Yesterday I noticed this tweet in my stream “macleanbrendan Brendan Maclean :Thinking of Matt Golinski. It’s a wonder the body does not simply shut down after such a dreadful event, how could life possibly go on.”

and responded with this “ @macleanbrendan the body does shut down, well the brain at least for a little while, absolute tragedy agreed. ”

On reflecting overnight I feel it needs a little more attention.

You can get the whole backstory of Matt Golinski here and the tragic housefire that has changed his life forever.

Brendan asked whether the body just couldn’t shut down in times like these. And it does but not in the way you might think.

When we come across such stories we first look outwardly at the person who is suffering and feel empathy for their loss and wonder how they could possibly cope.  This wonder leads us to look inwardly, on how we would cope and if we could at all.  The body ‘shutting down’ is an easy out for this type of pain.  We can’t imagine surviving it.

But you walk around in acute anguish until one day it is bearable to hear what someone is saying to you.  You have been “present” but not “here”.  Your mind has locked down what it can’t hear and is replaying in full colour the tragedy that has occurred.  There is no escape from it. It is burned on your retina like a sunspot as you close your eyes, it is all you see.  It is all that is in your dreams as you replay it over and over, trying to reconcile what has happened. It is irreconcilable but your  brain continues to try to ‘sort and file it’,  until one day, it surrenders.

The fog lifts, the pain is bearable, but your emotions are non existent.  You may smile, but you don’t feel joy.  You may feel sorrow for someone else, but you can’t weep.  Something may be of interest, but there is no passion.

And then, there is.  The time this takes may be years, decades, months or weeks.  But it is never instant. No consoling words will make this process faster, no magic cure in Kubler Ross.  Only time.

Carry on.

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photo credit: ryPix

There comes a time in every child’s life that they realise Santa is not ‘real’.  That the gifts left in the santa sack are actually done so by parents or guardians and not the ‘real santa’.  This is an often heartbreaking discovery and if you take a moment, you will remember the time or situation or state of revelation when you discovered that Santa was a myth.

For all of us it is different and for all of our upbringings, there is also a different belief in what Santa is, whether he exists or not, the history or the commercialism that is adopted within our own family folktales of xmas.

Before I became a parent I was steadfast in my conviction that we would not believe in Santa in our family – that the heartbreak of discovery would be something my children would be ‘saved’ from.  But when I had children, I too was sucked into the void that is Santa as the osmosis of society permeated my children’s belief system and I had to carry on the myth – knowing that one day they would suffer the pain of discovery.

This year, my youngest child told me that he knew that Santa wasn’t real and he knew it was me.  And I, like all parents who have fostered a falsehood continued with the lies involuntarily and said, “well in our house, if you don’t believe he doesn’t come”.  And so the santa sacks were laid out and santa came and will continue to do so until all my kids are 3o, a promise I barely remember making at some time after a drunken xmas lunch when speaking with my eldest children, who continue to marvel and adore their youngest sibling’s naive joy that santa had brought him gifts.

So what is my advice on the santa myth?  Whatever works for you I guess.  Of all our plans for parenthood, in practicality, none of it actually works and deep down as parents, no matter what we read or believe to be true, we are flying by the seat of our pants in a rapidly changing world where rules and black and white are all blurred into grey, and trying not to scar our children forever – but we will – whether it is with love or deep dark agendas – all will be revealed.  We have to continue to hope that we are going OK and that everything will end up as it should.

Merry xmas, happy holidays, enjoy your family time, and for all the widows out there – we rock and we did it again!

Carry on

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photo credit: rodtuk

FOCUS – Follow One Course Until Successful.

I keep coming across this acronym and it was frying my brain.  How can I pick one course?  I have lots of things that I want to accomplish.  Work and my Masters, Family and successful children, Blogging not sure what the goal there is, and of course Writing – two books screaming for attention.  So which course?  All are equally important to me.

So I decided to follow one course within each category and hope for the best.  So for me that means, made the decision on what subjects/masters I will complete – no more second guessing myself JFDI (just frickin do it).  Family – against all odds, this seems to be on track aside from my eldest having a meltdown because she doesn’t know what to do with her life – more on that in another post next week. Blogging – well here I am and have decided to concentrate on this and one other only for now and see how that goes. Writing – making time to finish one book really well and then moving onto the next.

When I read it back, sounds like a lot. But time is short and there is much to do.

Carry on.

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photo credit: greghamm15

This week I attended a graduation ceremony for the year 12 class of 2011.  It was an emotional event.  What brought me the most reaction was this however – out of 224 graduating students, only 3 had chosen a future that needed university – a doctor, a midwife and a teacher.  The rest of the graduates wanted to work full time (majority) or finish/start apprenticeships or go to TAFE (technical diploma/certificate) colleges.

It made me think about the future that these students believe is possible for themselves.  There is no drive, determination or clarity.  Most are happy to work and see what happens, see where it leads, find what they want.  This attitude is so different to that of ten years ago, where university was everything, law, medicine, commerce were the most privileged and sought after places.

I believe we have educated the class of 2011 extremely well.  They understand that the pursuit of law is futile, that commerce and economics are forces that will not be changed by the individual and that medicine, while honorable, is set up in a system that cannot cope with the sick.

They are aware that social justice is an enigma, the world is shattered and on the brink of self destruction.  We have over educated them into knowing that anything than a twelve month commitment to anything is fraught with danger.  The world is changing so rapidly that a degree they begin now, can be obsolete by the time they finish – so why bother?

At first disturbing, but on reflection, quite enlightened.  I wish the class of 2011 all the very best of luck, they will need it.  Their finest skills – education, ability to adapt, and to think critically.  Well done to their teachers.

Carry on.

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photo credit: StefSOFT

I have important work to do.  I have to write a 2500 word essay on the resistance/reaction dichotomy in organisational change to pass my masters, and then I have to write some more chapters in my book.

I also have to pay a few bills, do a budget, make a plan for the future and generally be a hard working, tax paying, conscientious citizen of the world.

Instead I find myself with much more important work to do – Facebook work. I have to grow my crops, collect my rent and collapse coloured squares to oblivion.

It is time consuming yet gloriously distracting mundane work that is not going to amount to anything except the complete incompleteness of my tasks and goals.

And yet I find it hard to stop myself.  Again I look to myself for the scared of success post I wrote a couple of weeks ago now, and wonder, well know, that it is just another excuse.  Another waiting game I am playing with myself.  But it made me think about all my neighbours in these games, all my competitors I try to beat in the weekly challenges, what is it that they are hiding from, stalling to complete.

And then I thought even deeper about the very darkest times I have turned to my facebook indulgences, just to keep me going, literally, for five more minutes, until life becomes bearable again.  Small useless goals that give me a reason at times to get up, to see if my crops are ready, my dishes cooked, what gifts can I send, but more importantly what did I get.

I know these times.  I thought it was probably just me, a pathetic internet user in the dark in the middle of the night, making virtual towns with virtual people with pretty virtual clothes and virtual friends, because life at 2.30am can be lonely but your virtual friends are always there.

So I thought for a long time today about the epidemic of loneliness that is rampant on Facebook – for all its millions of users, it is still New Years Eves in Times Square, hundreds of thousands of people all hoping that next year will be better and that someone will love them.

Carry on.

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photo credit: futureshape

Suicide is one of the greyest areas of statistical reporting.  Often findings on autopsy or by coroner will read death by misadventure, an open finding, asphyxiation, blood loss.

It is time for us to call a spade a spade.  It does not save the family any more pain by having suicide written on the death certificate or autopsy report.  Suicide is paid by most insurance companies after a waiting period of 12 months.  There is no need to hide this anymore.

In effect what it does do, is hide an epidemic in rhetoric and grey language.  We cannot plan for services without accurate reported numbers of actual deaths by suicide.  We need clear language and clearer statistics to make any real inroads into this issue.  It’s not enough to have anecdotal evidence, even though in the right forum this can be influential and relevant.

When people crunch numbers for health services (that would be me) we look at reported cases, services available, cost to provide service versus the need for service and the cost benefit to the community.  From a realistic economic point of view it’s cheaper not to bother.  But thankfully we are human (for this decade at least) and can’t let our brothers and sisters die due to mental illness.  At least that is what I used to think and desperately try to believe but the evidence speaks differently.

As I’ve spoken about before, I will mention here again.  We simply CANNOT allow suicidal and manically depressed patients to leave hospital with a script and an appointment for review on their own reconnaissance to take their medication and feel better in six weeks time.  The statistics are grey, think died by misadventure in front of a train after they ‘fell’ from a bridge etc., but evident nonetheless.  People don’t make it.  They turn to a system for help and find emptiness.  They wait months for appointments.  And find emptiness.  It is far cheaper and much more Darwinian of the community, to let these people die.

I urge the government to urgently review statistical reporting of suicides so that services can be planned and for those who we are still able to help, find something to hold onto rather than emptiness.  Cancer diagnoses are not put on medication for six weeks and hope the problem goes away on medication and neither should mental health or depressive illnesses.  These diseases are all time bombs, but cancer has better press.

Carry on.

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