Disturbed

I am feeling very unsettled and emotional today.

Last night I dreamt of my own death. Well...I dreamt that I was dying (the impression I got was that I had been in a car accident and was terminal, but I was still mobile, so not sure what the actual injury was) and that I had chosen to be euthanised. In the dream I had been given the euthanasia drug and I was trying to get everything in order and write goodbye letters to my children, but my breathing was becoming laboured and I was struggling.

I woke up crying. I cried and cried and cried. I was afraid to fall back asleep. I was afraid I would not wake up again.

As I read this again I feel tears coming to my eyes. It has really upset me.

After the dream I wanted to get up and write those letters to my children, or just one big letter expressing just how much I love them and how great I think they are. I lay there and wondered how my friends would find out I had died, as I have different groups of friends who are not necessarily aware of each other. I wondered if I should leave my password to my computer somewhere, so that my msn and facebook and email files could be accessed.

This has really screwed with my already currently messed up head.

rollercoaster

have had some upbeat moments, but generally I am still on a downslope. Feeling negative about my body, feeling negative about my relationships with people, just generally sitting under a black cloud.

I know it will pass, it just sucks when it is around because it makes me very unmotivated and lazy.

:-(

not impressed

On a downer today, not a big one and I know it will pass.

Was slightly embarrassed by my mother yesterday. We had a family BBQ (which she organised knowing full well I had other plans that day). Anyway, she had invited my uncle and his kids along. My uncle runs a market stall in Sydney that focuses on organic and eco friendly products. My mother told me a week or so ago that she had spoken to my uncle about the Amigurumi I had been working on and that he was interested in seeing them and maybe putting them on his stall. So I made sure I had 5 ready and labeled and brought them with me to the BBQ. When I mentioned them to my uncle he looked a little confused. I asked him if mum had spoken to him about them and he said no and that it was not the kind of thing he would have on his stall as it is not in keeping with his other products. I was not bothered by this, but I was very annoyed with mum.

One of my brothers, the oldest, did not come to the BBQ. He does not talk to my uncle and at the moment he does not talk to one of the other bro's either. So he felt no guilt over not coming, it would have been unpleasant for him and he sees mum at least once a week anyway. When I spoke to him about it after the BBQ he told me mum had rung him that morning and used the line that he should come because it could be our last family BBQ. My bro just told her not to play that game with him. I have no idea how she took it because I managed to avoid having to have a big long discussion with her about why this bro had not come.

I get annoyed with her for manipulating people. For telling lies. For being a hypocrite. For bitching about everyone behind their backs. I spoke to my youngest bro about having to change my plans and he asked me why I came. I told him it was because it was important to mum and if I had not come she would have bitched about me behind my back about it.

This kind of behaviour irritates me. I would only put up with it from family, if friends behaved like this then they would not be friends for long.

sigh

omg, so much exercise!!

I have discovered I like exercise...well, as much as you can like something that makes you sore and sweaty lol. After Roller Derby I feel...awesome. Tired and sore, but awesome. I used to feel the same when I went for my early morning walk/run.

Played my first game of softball today. Did not have much of an idea of the rules, but was able to hit the ball and run. I spent the fielding part of the game as the catcher and actually liked it, except the leg pads chafed the back of my knees pretty badly, and the ball hit my thumb a couple of times and its all bruised. But for the most part I managed to catch the ball and my throwing was generally good. We lost by 7 runs, which I thought was a pretty good effort considering we only had 7 players and half of us had never played before.

I have been thinking about doing the Couch to 5K challenge. I am starting pole dance (lol, but I thought 'why not?') classes on Wednesdays, so I am wondering if maybe that is a bit much. At the moment my schedule is...

Monday - Karate (1 1/2 hrs, moderate to intense)
Tuesday - Beach Booty Camp with the Derby Girls (1 hr, intense)
Wednesday - Dance (1 hr, intense) and Softball training (1 hr, moderate)
Thursday - Free
Friday - Roller Derby (2 hrs, intense)
Saturday - Softball (1 1/2 hrs, moderate)
Sunday - Roller Derby (3 hrs, intense)

That is 11 hrs of training per week. In 6 weeks I have gone from nothing to this!!! And yet I look at it and think that yes, I could do the C25K challenge. Knowing my recovery time for the other activities I would do it on a Monday or Tuesday, Thurs, and Friday. hmmm, I think I will wait and see how I go with the dance classes, maybe what I do already is more than enough.

Weight loss - well, I put on 3 kgs while working for the gov....grrr, but 4 months of sitting on your butt will do that and I am lucky that is all I put on. Scales had not moved for weeks so I measured last week instead and again today and have lost 4cms overall in the last 5 days. So then I weighed again and had lost 1.5kgs, so I am pleased to finally see that needle shifting again. Aiming for a loss of 10kgs and if I keep up this level of training (and make a couple of changes to my diet) I am pretty confident I will get there. Christmas is 9 weeks away, so there is a good chance I will reach my goal by then.

Work is going fine, I have one more training session to go and then I have been offered 9.5 hrs per week. Happy about that. I have a job interview with a child care centre next week for a casual job, hoping I get it as it will tie in well with uni. If I get it I will work both jobs for a while, see whether I am happy with the hours, and then decide what to do next.

Life is good. I am content.

no worries...mate :-)

Well, the day before I was leaving for my besties I got a call from Baker's Delight asking me to come in for an interview the following week. Came back from my holiday on the Monday, had the interview on the Tuesday morning, got the call Tuesday afternoon asking me to start on Wednesday :-).

I have now done two trial shifts - 2 1/2 hrs on the Wednesday and 2 hrs today. My next shift is on Thursday and is 3 hrs. So far they seem happy with me. The work is casual and will be a max of 16hrs a week. I am actually finding that I quite like that idea. The pay is less than what I was on in my previous job, but it is enough to keep us above water and that is all I am looking for right now. Kind of makes me wish I had taken the casual library job when I first moved here, but I was not in the financial or mental position at the time to not have a permanent full-time job. Now I am over working full-time and have had quite a change in direction mentally, enough that being in a casual job really does not bother me. The work itself is not difficult, but it can get quite busy and that can make things challenging. Better than cleaning, that's for damn sure.

I liked being home for the kids this afternoon when they got home for school. I collected toddler from day care and took them all to the beach. A month ago I could not have done that and I love that I can (and the beach is free!). We had a lovely hour and a half down there before coming home to make hamburgers and cookies. It was a great afternoon.

I am loving Roller Derby. It challenges me physically and I really do love to be challenged :-) I have noticed improvement in my skating skills every time I have gone to training and it really gets me pumped up and keeps me keen to keep going. I am not at the level where I can participate in a Derby bout, but I think I will be by the new year.

I also love how passionate the Derby girls are about their sport. They love it and it really shows. I like these girls, they are feisty and fun and noisy. New friends!

I love having my boys home.

Hypocrisy

The Parramatta Eels lost BOO HOO!! They have not won a grand final since 1986 :-(

My birthday party was fun. Had a couple of my bro's and their mates over for drinks on the Saturday night. We'd had plans to go clubbing later, but my foot was still giving me a lot of grief so I said I wasn't going and they decided they wouldn't either. We decorated my house with disco balls and sparkly things hanging form the ceiling, and set up strobe lights and disco lights. It looked very cool.

We drank Pina Coladas and Mango and Strawberry Daiquiris. We also drank a bottle of vodka and some red wine. We played Guitar Hero and Sing Star and had a good giggle at how we sounded. All in all a good night.

Hypocrisy. My mother is terribly guilty of this act and it frustrates me to no end. I sit and listen to her tell me how she has lectured one of my brothers on how important it is to accept people the way they are, and how you should accept that people have bad days and won't always have a smile for you...all this while she complains about how my bro does this or that, or how he did not greet her with a smile on a particular day etc etc. It also brought to mind an incident from a few years ago when we worked together. She had a go at me because I had not turned up to work with a big smile on my face (this is before opening hours, so she was the only one bothered by it) and when I told her that there were some days I just did not feel like smiling, she told me to get over it. It is difficult to listen to her go on and on when she is guilty of the very things she lectures others about.

She is showing favouritism between my brothers and I am disgusted by it. She claims it is because the middle bro is being so difficult, but I actually think half of his attitude towards her stems from being hurt that she treats him differently to the youngest bro, who she treats like her little 'sweetie'. For example, the younger two boys have moved out of home. So my mum packs up sheets and towels and plates etc for the youngest, but complains when the other helps himself, which he does after he sees that mum has given the youngest some stuff. What does she really expect?

I believe I show no favouritism. Regardless of what they all say about each other, my bro's are my bro's and are all different. I like bits about them, and don't like bits about them. I don't care if my mum has an opinion about it, I think she tries to play us all off against each other and I ignore her manipulations. I try to be open-minded and accepting of their choices, their mistakes are theirs to make and learn from.

I was discussing my mother's behaviour towards my bro's with a friend last night. Her mother has behaved much the same towards her. I daresay if I had stayed home long enough my mother would have done it to me too. My mother's opinion is that she was kicked out of home with nothing and so why should she help the boys, and yet with her actions she helps the youngest but does little for the middle. I hope I never behave towards my kids the way she has behaved.

The older bro has defended me when mum has attacked my parenting skills. We have discussed it in the car and he has said to me that he can see that I love my kids, that my kids know this, and that I have a good relationship with them. He told me that he wishes mum had done even half of that with all of us. It has not been until recently that mum has even said 'I love you' to me...that is 30 odd years of me not hearing those words from my mother. Our relationship was terrible up until about 7 yrs ago, then we managed to find a common interest in patchwork and build from there.

Parents make mistakes, there is no question of that. We muddle through as best we can, hoping that our kids will turn out ok regardless. There is no manual for parenting, no true guidance except that which we have experienced ourselves coupled with a willingness to learn from what others have done, or not done, as the case may be.

I had a slight bike accident nearly a week ago, where I dropped my bike (it hit a slight kerb and stopped unexpectedly). I burnt the inside of my leg on my bike's exhaust and it is healing, but slowly.

this is the day after the accident

It kind of looks worse now, at day 5, because it is healing. All that pink area blistered up, then partly peeled away, and the open wound is red now. The bruises are fading, I think they came from the foot pegs hitting my leg. I am not going to post a newer photo because it grosses me out, and I don't want to do that to you :-P

Had a ball at Roller Derby recently, my skating skills are really improving.

I have had a few guys try to pick me up/ask for my number recently. It is very flattering, but I have refused, simply because I am not interested. Nice to know there is hope for me in the real world tho :-)

What a Year it Has Been

Well, I know that this blog has been going for more than a year, but it is a couple of days past a year that my X-H and I 'officially' went our separate ways, and it is a year since I met D, and it is a year since I began my journey of self-discovery.

And what a year it has been. A year of joy and laughter, of emotional and physical highs and lows. A year where I learnt things about myself that I had forgotten, and things that I never knew. A year in which I took time to smell the roses, then raced to beat the clock.

It has been an unforgettable time of my life, and in talking about it with others I have inspired one or two to begin their own journey.

I know that my journey of self-discovery has not ended, not by any means. Nor do I want it to end. Confronting myself has enabled me to become genuinely confident, more likely to put myself out there to try something or to meet someone new. That is not to say that I do not have my moments of hanging back and observing, but where is the fun in that?

I am glad to say that I still like myself. That I have made some interesting choices this year, but none that I really regret. That I feel more solid within myself. Even though there has been points where I felt like I would dissolve into nothingness, I have still come out the other side.

I will never, ever regret meeting D. I still believe he is my soul's other half, but I do not need him in my life as a partner. I do believe that a soul mate is a 'person' with whom you have a deep connection, regardless of whether they are male or female, or human for that matter. So I still love D, with all his faults. I do not mind that I love him, I do not mind that he is not my partner, I do not mind that he lives his life and I live mine. We are in touch and that is enough for me. I have come a long way mentally since I met him. I will forever treasure those few weeks in the beginning where anything was a possibility.

I am missing my children. X-H unexpectedly took them on holidays a week earlier (and therefore for a week longer) and I was not mentally ready to say goodbye. I have wandered aimlessly around the house a bit, but have also been quite productive too, simply to keep boredom and loneliness at bay. I have spoken to them on the phone, but it is their kisses and cuddles and neediness that I miss.

Took Teen to the optometrist before he went away and he now needs glasses. He is short-sighted like me, but only a little. Well, enough to have him squinting to read things. He also needs root canal work apparently, X-H took Teen to the dentist a couple of days after they went away, because Teen had a bad toothache, and the dentist announced that one of Teen's molars is screwed. The Dentist got Teen sorted out temporarily so I can deal with it when he gets home.

No work as yet, I have applied for 5 jobs. I am leaving applying for a cleaning job to the last minute as it is my last resort. I am going away to my best friends house on Thursday, for a week, so if I hear nothing between now and then I guess I will apply for a cleaning job when I get back. I just need to have a little bit more money coming in.

I am watching Melbourne Storm play Parramatta Eels (Rugby League). It is the only game I have watched all season, this is the grand final (WOO! go Parra!!!!). I have been 'following' Parramatta Eels since I was about 10 yrs old. A friend and I used to make friendship bands in the team colours and one day I just decided that the Gold and Blue of Parra was my favourite and so I have followed them since.