nearly 2 years since i wrote....

why do people write blogs? why did i write a blog?

when i look back over that brief time where i wrote almost daily i can see it was such a time of change for me. everything was so clear even though i was changing so much, so quickly and on many levels. and i wanted to connect with people. to share my story, whatever that story was.

that story has continued. some of the changes have propelled me in what i suppose could be called a "forward" or positive" direction. and others? have been slow to come but worth the wait.

2 years ago i got up every day and tried to make sense of how my life had become a pit of trying to forgive and let go. mercifully it was a pit filled with light and alot of hope. but a pit nonetheless and one i was secretly desperate to get out of. as quickly as i could. i could never have known where that willingness to look inside myself and towards the light would take me.

i have walked a quiet path. i have taken the time to breath and let go. i have lived quietly and unremarkably and i have found peace.

today i have a small but ever growing and wonderfully rewarding photography business.

i have dreams and plans and am on the way to an interesting future work wise. my family and friends are still the same people (and a few more) and those relationships are stronger than ever.

writing again tonight has reminded me of why i wrote a blog in the first place. and given me a small flame of inspiration to start it up again.

writing is a funnelling of thoughts into a line, a direction, and then if I'm lucky, a story.. and blogging is an invitation to share in that story, that anyone can accept or decline without ever having to acknowledge the decision they made if they don't want to. its the perfect silent connection.

so here i am. blogging. i cant say what direction it'll be going because honestly? I'm not sure.

but when i write its always about channelling an intense driving force i have had since my first memories.. I'm always, in every moment and action, hoping to find the similarities, hoping to have that moment where you and i see we are the same. to find some kind of connection. its all about the connection. let the journey continue ...

actually...i dont know....

day 26 **what is the best thing you have going for you right now**

"i know"...i wonder how many times Ive said that in my life... "i know"

or more to the point, i wonder how many times I've said it hoping it would act as a loud and clear "STOP" to anyone offering me whatever unsolicited opinion/experience/advice they were about to give me. wether or not i actually knew..........................

for much of my life I've been afraid to not know. afraid to be vulnerable. afraid of looking bad, of making mistakes. and so to cover that most stifling of human characteristics, pride, i have given the emotional equivalent of a massive and very firm physical block..   "i know"..   it is the essence of contempt prior to investigation, that which blocks any chance of me adding something new to my experiences...

but being stuck in that place, albeit unwittingly for most of it, has cost me dearly. and through much surrender borne of pain and separation, I have begun to see that i don't know very much. at all. and much of what i do know is not very useful and is taking up space.

for so long I've had to rely on myself. or so i thought. I've never been much good at asking for help. especially with things i think i should already know. but who wrote the book on what i should know at 42. and could somebody please tell me where i can get a copy of it !!!

the best thing i have going for me right now is that i am teachable. and for someone who needs to be taught that's a good place to be in...

I surrender...

day 25 **have you ever thought about giving up on life and if so when and why?**

i want to say no. i want to say that i possess such an unerring lust for life that nothing and no one has ever ever caused me to lose my inherent will to live. but the truth is, that has not been my experience.

why is it embarrassing to admit that i have given up on life at times. why is there such pressure to be seamlessly carefree and happy. why is it considered weak to, at times, be weak.


i have bounced back. but never before i have hit the bottom.

i used to think that there would be one almighty rock bottom to hit in my life, and i waited and waited to hit that harder than all the rest low. but it seems to me now that each experience of loss or sadness or grief has it own deepest point.

the loss of a parent, the incomparable engulfing disappointment of heartbreak, the seemingly bottomless well of sadness when a little furry baby looks in your eyes for the last time. and the list is longer and theres more to come. and each experience has its own start. its own ebb and flow. and thankfully its own end. before the bounce back. and in some of those moments, more than once and less than a handful of times, i have felt such deep despair at ever healing that for a moment i have given up. i have, more than once looked to the heavens and become still.. with no fight left ...


and i have been shown grace.

each time i have given up i have been shown grace...



its been a while since i last gave up. but i am human. deeply flawed and with such immense potential to burn everything i know in a universal instant, that i simply live here now and trust that grace is watching over me and will carry me when i throw myself down once again. as i will, in my attempt to shed my spiritual maladies..

what to do..........

day 24 **the reason you believe you're still alive today**

i don't really know why I'm alive.

i could take a guess but that's all it would be, & I always keep in mind i might be wrong about everything. absolutely everything.

but what would my guess look like....

maybe I'm still alive because i haven't learnt all the lessons i need to learn yet. this is possibly my least favourite of all guesses. because i don't like to feel as though I'm in a big spiritual school, complete with tests, judgements, passes and rigorous and consistent resitting of those tests that i am deemed to have "failed".

or maybe I'm alive to help someone else. do we all go there?  what is that deep desire to help someone else all about? for me its been the realisation through experience that helping someone else is the only way to be truly selfless. and in that moment of selflessness theres a release that the human spirit  craves. you can get it from adrenalin, you can get it from creativity but in selflessness there exists something else. a connection. a feeling of everything being exactly as its meant to be. so maybe that's why I'm here. to help.

but at the top of my guess list, keeping in mind that i could be totally wrong, i believe im still alive because i got lucky. more than once, more than twice. i don't think theres a reason I'm still here as such. but i do believe that while I'm here its my responsibility to learn and grow and change. life is a gift.

i believe that, simply because i am human, i need to be humbled. that i need to learn to connect, to love, to be loved. that i have much to give and much yet to be taken away. i believe in the human experience and that it is not to be dismissed or controlled.

i don't really know why I'm here. i don't ask myself that question anymore. today i ask myself what I'm going to do with it.......

Short break in proceedings……

As u all know I'm in Hawaii. I thought i would blog while i was here but it seems the allure of shopping, eating, swimming and pumpkin spice lattes has gotten the better of my creativity. Or on a more honest level, these distractions have gotten the better of my routine :)

So I will be back… but not today… more likely when I'm home. At my PC. So i can write as I like to write. Relaxed, pensively and with chucky obscuring the screen..

Big love. Back in 7 days

Xxxx

theres still time.....

day 23 **something you wish you had done in your life**

i guess theres a few opportunities I've had that i didn't take up. i couldve had a child. i couldve stayed living in America. i couldve stayed living in the UK. i couldve kept modelling when i was twenty. i couldve been married by now. i couldve stayed at uni; both times i started !!

but at the time, when those chances were there, i chose to walk a different path. and I'm happy about that today. I'm living the life i have chosen, not a life directed by circumstances

and the truth is i might still have and/or raise a child. i might end up living in the states or the UK. maybe if i get a veneer make over and learn how to walk like a lady again i could do some middle age modelling :-) i could start uni again someday. i don't know whats in store for me. but i know i feel a level of contentment and at times excitement about the unknown.

i have no regrets. i have sad memories and character lines in my soul. but i have no regrets. and life is full of do-overs.

is it a good thing or a bad thing?..........

day 22  **something you wish you hadnt done in your life**

im hesitant to name anything as something i wish i hadnt done. what if that one thing changed the next thing i did. and the next and the next. til there were enough next things to qualify it as a course.

what if the course of my life had changed. where would i be now? somewhere "better" perhaps? maybe. or somwhere "worse"?

ive never known if an action im taking is a good thing or a bad thing in that moment. i dont have enough of the future answers in my hot little hand to know if my life is going in the right direction. i have done some things in my life that seemed to blow up in my face hard core. that seemed to create more distress and hurt and fear than anything ive ever known. and in that moment had you aked me my judgement of that i wouldve told you; "how could i have been so stupid. if i had my time again i would never do that!!!" and yet in hindsight those actions have taken me down new roads.

new roads of discovery about who i am, how i got to be this way and what i can do to discard some of that old stuff. make some space for the universe to redecorate my inner world which once was so dark and sad.

today my life is brilliant. its bright and happy and i am free. what a journey to get here. and if i could go back and do it all again i would have to do it the same. because if i didnt i might not end up here. and right now there is nowhere ide rather be. and that is a gift that i am incredibly grateful for.

in for life........

day 21 **your best friend is in a car accident and the two of you got into fight an hour before. what do you do**

i have to start by saying i have never had an actual "fight" with either of my two closest friends. i met them both 6 months apart when we were all working for the same company almost ten years ago now. and those two relationships  have stood the test of time but more importantly they have prevailed through all three of us going through major life changes many times.

both my BFFs (i swore i wouldn't use that term but there..its done!!) are now with their life partners and have kids (some of them human, some of them of the furry variety). we have all struggled through various relationship issues and done it together and shared those experiences. we have supported and encouraged each other through career changes, living location changes, family issues, financially difficult and financially fun times, health problems, and so much more. we have had thousands and thousands of coffees..we have walked a million steps through shopping centres and said countless times "oh i def think you should get that"  

there has been death. of relationships, people, pets, jobs. there has been sadness at moving away from each other. and there has been much happiness at births and additions and successes. and through all of that as i look back at those two relationships i dont remember one angry word between us. because i am blessed to have friends who are responsible for themselves and have amazing boundaries so that we are able to connect without taking away from each other leaving the other scared and in need of protection, which seems to me to be the basis for any battleground. we take care of ourselves first and in that are able to be together and take care of each other

but if in the future there was to be an argument for some reason i would do whatever was needed. i committed to these relationships a long time ago and i am in them for life. so we would work through whatever the issue was but in that moment of crisis the argument would be put aside and i would go to my friend. and i would stay. day and night. until there was no need for me to do that anymore....and i know that they would both do that for me without a second thought.

stop looking inside the bottle......

day 20 **your views on alcohol**

when i was growing up i watched someone i loved dearly die slowly and over many years, due to alcohol. she was a beautiful, smart, vivacious woman with a fantastic sense of humour. she had been a national sports woman, a mother, a wife, a sister, a friend. she had the most beautiful voice when she spoke with her thick danish accent. her hazel eyes were sweet and shy. she was just over five foot tall in a family where the rest of us were around six foot. she was incredible.

until she drank...........................

then she was unable to be a wife, a mother or anything else she had signed up for in life. her voice became loud and frightening and her small frame became powerful and violent. that violence was understandably fuelled by a haunting start in her own life. she would live out her need to fight back and  be stronger and faster than the enemy this time. except there was no enemy and her battle was in vain. and super destructive to all that she had created.

then one night, at fifty one, when i was eighteen, she died. she just died. her body gave up. all that alcohol had taken its toll and her body would not regenerate itself for one more round.

so what part does alcohol play in this?

i should hate alcohol.

but i don't.




because every single day i see people drinking socially with impunity. for a social glow. for fun. because they can. and i don't ever begrudge a single soul their chance to unwind, slow down, get a little too chatty..or a little too flirty..or whatever it is that happens when they take a drink.

my view on alcohol is that it is innocuous. that clearly there are problems with some peoples reactions to alcohol but that that is the actual problem. each persons specific reaction. theres no denying that we as a society, in Australia anyway, have massive alcohol related issues. but the problem is not inside the bottle. its inside the person.

if i drink and i have an adverse reaction then the problem is inside me. what happens after that has been identified is a whole 'nother blog

just clueless enough.....

day 19 **what do you think of religion? or what do you think of politics**

i don't have any strong views on either. because when i do i find myself becoming righteous or annoyed and having opinions about issues that invariably, and through choice, i know very little about.

i have not studied in depth any religious or political books, texts, or any other forms of literature. i have read some, but have not studied.

i choose not a member of any church, religious society or political party.

to be completely honest i really don't  know much about politics. i  know enough to get me by and the more the heat is on a politician, the more i know about them at that time. but as soon as the heat is off and they are out of the limelight, they are out of my mind.

and the other? i am blessed to have deep faith and trust that there is a power out there that is far greater than any human power..and that's all i need to know..religion is for those who don't want to go to hell, and spirituality is for those of us who been there and don't want to go back..