Rebuilt to Last

Today Simon and I made the time to stack our firewood

I appreciate these small moments

And what they mean for building the bigger picture

I think we’ll be ok

We’ve come through the worst

We were using the wheelbarrow I bought two weeks ago from Bunnings when Simon noticed a split in the bottom. Already.

Things are not made to last the stand of time.

Several weeks ago I was talking to a friend and he told me a story about his grandfather’s axe which he now has. Sure the handle cracked when it was his fathers and his father replaced that. And later he himself replaced the head. But it remains to him his grandfather’s axe. It may have been replaced in all respects of his physically but damn, an axe at least 40 years old is one that has lasted in so many respects. Like the relationship I refuse to discard. I think it is meant to last, not just some rubble I refuse to let go of

This ephemeral-ity has become something I’m deeply afraid of

It’s no longer just a wheelbarrow

A mobile phone

A relationship

A person living in a government-run support home who will be sold off to the highest bidder

It happens so often in many things because people do not know how to harness the power they have to choose

In my rebuilding this time

I do not want to be temporary

Ephemeral

Expendible

I want to build myself from a stronger skeleton

Into a thicker skin

I don’t want to just return here

When things get too much

I want to escape the ruins

I don’t want to remain a ghost here

I have the opportunity to create anything I want. To start again, but choose what I will use from my past. I want to use this

I want this discipline

I want something that will last

I hope

https://myspace.com/quietchildtheband/music/song/discipline-26272196-26073381

Unchain Utopia

Last night I was doing some reading for the politics unit I’m studying. The topic was ideologies and the concept of Objective Truth came up. It made me think a lot of my own reality and the way in which I see myself.

The filth

Failure

The one who will never be right

Especially now I am giving in…

I need to be small

If I’m not, then how can I ever be who I want to be?

How can I know this is not true? People say different and that because more of them see differently that I am more likely to be wrong because I only see this… I guess what I’m seeing would be classed as a limited ideology. One where the Ones- the Nazis, Liberal, Cool Kids- see their viewpoint as the truth and the views of all others as ideologies. Can I sit comfortably inside this dictatorship?

It goes against everything I believe

But to live; to accept love; to build myself

To be… goes against the earliest lessons I absorbed- taught deliberately or not.

Do I have to give it all away?

A-Rex… his ideologies and charismatic whispers

Can I take what I need and keep walking?

Or will that lead me back to this same point?

Am I myself conducting a War on Terror within myself- one reality overthrowing another without any idea of what is better?

I saw one of the ladies I worked with last year. It hurts to hear and see that she has gone backwards… I should take this as an understanding of what others see as they look at me

But I want to be stronger. I just don’t know exactly which which direction to take to escape this endless loop. I hope I can find the path. I have found paths before. Perhaps this will be the right one this time?

We Get To Choose

I was talking to a friend last night

She’s right

It is hard; frustrating; exhausting; draining; soul destroying to live like this

To have to rebuild ourselves from the ground up

Today it hit me. Not right away, but in the end the gift is

We get to choose

Sometimes (before I remind myself that I work with some of the most BAD ARSE people in the whole world who overcome more challenges than I could ever dream just getting out of bed) it feels unfair.

I guess it never is, but I remember feeling my legs sway like this each day

Literally last year as the world nearly disappeared so many times getting to my feet. How cautious I was

How lucky I was never to be “caught out”

I guess that’s always what brings me back. The thought of not being able to take care of my own needs

I remember being a child, and older struggling to learn things everyone else seemed to know already. Perhaps they didn’t, but it seemed like I was always running to catch up. It never seemed to work though

I think I’m starting to realise it doesn’t always matter though

When the race we run is not the same. I think outside the square, but not because it is because it is a square. Because that is where my heart and passions lie. I don’t want to be contained

I want to be more than that

I feel I couldn’t be me and with, or without A-Rex that’s what I want to be

Free

Building and Rebuilding

I’ve been running more than a little low on fumes lately. Today was to be a day off. Before I agreed to work a short morning shift work were desperate enough to agree to my demands on (I told them I could only work until 11:30). I woke to a window of frosted condensation in the bedroom.

Too soft to boot the dog out

I sat freezing in my car and nothing seemed to melt the ice

I ate my breakfast as I spooned Weetbix and stewed apple into one of my guys in the work kitchen. I feel like I’ve reached a level of exhaustion where my patience with life and things in general is actually where it should be. I am not infinite. I am honest and often rough as guts, but so often people don’t see it because by nature I cannot scream or rant.

Instead I joke

Take my colouring in and reading in to keep my guys company

Joke obscenely

And stop to talk to charity workers.

I feel this intense need to recognise other’s humanity when mine feels so low. I stopped to talk to a charity worker today. I was on the way to lunch with a friend which should make me happy (and it would have without the involvement of food). I’d tried to walk past without looking… a lot of people do this with charity workers, but for survival I often have to do this with everyone if anxiety is bad. I can only take so much…

Anyway the guy I stopped to talk to happened to have started life in the slums of South Africa. He spoke of “charity hand-outs” and spoke from the heart about the need to teach people skills to make and grow their own food and lives. I told him I agreed with this from my vantage-point as a support worker and that having worked up from a brain injury I knew the value of learning things and teaching others. It’s what I do in my work. As I was walking to meet a friend for lunch as ore-arranged I walked by a charity worker. I was feeling panicked, but did in the end stop to talk. He grew up in the slums of South Africa before moving to New Zealand and studying in USA. A change of stars to say the least

He had two children left for sponsorship and against regulation gave me an organisation leaflet so I could remember the organisation name. I love how small interactions like this can boost my faith in humanity and myself.

http://fox8.com/2015/05/18/5-year-old-boy-insists-mom-help-homeless-man-buy-him-meal/

I still struggled choosing lunch and went with a safe option. I felt terrified but blessed that my friend had bought a birthday gift. And surprised but thankful that in it she realised my love of the little things more than many people who have known me a lifetime. We even went for cake and coffee and her empathy in hearing my story and sharing hers melted what was left of the bitter pill I woke up with.

I moved my car and went back to the charity worker. I knew I always would. He still had one child left to sponsor. He said when I first spoke to him that the two he had at this time were not as “pretty”. I told him I remembered always being last picked and my choice still would have had nothing to do with beauty. Beauty is everywhere. I see it more in the “hope-less” than anywhere else. That is why I do what I do. I will probably never see that man again but from this South African born phoenix I find I am renewed too.

I want a chance to do this right, I said. I have never written to the child I have sponsored in Zimbabwe. I hate that. It goes against everything I ever wanted from when I first wanted to sponsor a child (as a child myself).

I want to help in a way that gives hope, builds skills… doesn’t just give something that continues to need to be given. I want to write to this child; and to have the courage to write to the child I have sponsored for a few years.

I have fallen down. And will continue to fall down, in so many, many aspects of my life. But I hope I will always get back up. It is not in me to withdraw 😉

Pass It On

Many days I finish grateful, just for having gotten through. I wasn’t going to be working today. I got a call yesterday, realising how desperate they were for the shift when I was able to negotiate to finish at 11:30 instead of 1:00.

I woke to frosted condensation on the inside of my window

Deliverance of a Dancing Bear: Unleashed

Something made me think of the book “The Deliverance of The Dancing Bears, by Elizabeth Stanley today. I guess a lot of things right now relate to that process of dreaming and actual freedom; cages and kindness.

I was in town today posting a letter when I saw one of the people I work with periodically. She was with a support worker from another organisation. Generally speaking this gal cuts a pretty noticeable path in the community. She wears arm splints and moves with a very deliberate gait. Every time I see her she hugs me by laying her head on my shoulder. However, it wasn’t any of these things that made me notice her today. What made me look, and left me smiling many hours later was the walk of the support worker as they walked together. How even and in-sync she kept it; how she copied this unusual stride. I watched them long after they passed me and thought

How “normal” this looked; how much more this small gesture included my gal in the world around her. It reminded me of an article I saw last year with a video showing children and adults playing a game mimicking facial expressions and how the adults changed their approach when the person had a disability but the child was still able to recognise and mimic the face perfectly AROUND the different features of the people they saw. They still saw a smile; saw a person pulling their eyes up in the corner. This wasn’t about making fun. It saw how we as adults often lose this power to include.

http://themighty.com/2015/01/silly-game-reveals-how-differently-adults-and-kids-view-people-with-disabilities/

I often see this with my friends when it comes to my phobias and fears; my panics deciding on a meal at a cafe or changing a plan when the potential (but unlikely to be negative) effects seem disastrous.

I FEEL wrong; but with the gentle guidance and normalising of my friends I am gaining the confidence to make my own choices valid to me.

I still dream of a life beyond this cage and this chain which makes me dance. I still wish for more than momentary relief as I am left alone… for now

But it is the thought of this total emancipation that keeps me going. I can no longer believe that some kind stranger will take the chain and lead me away to freedom, but perhaps in time the chain will rust and I will break free

There are many of us

Who long to break free in some way. People who are patient when I stutter; or stumble give me courage to keep trying. Maybe years have gone by that I could have been free, but when I am I will have earned it

Gratitude and Guilt

It’s been a strange day. A mix of many things.

It’s been nice, but I think I’m glad it’s done. Like many days I am exhausted with having lived.

I am happy that

I slept and woke up. At my time

I went to the markets and ate the sweet dutch pancakes a colleague gave me from his stall

I drank tea and ate prawn crackers with friends

I gave myself permission to skip my supplement drink. Just for tonight to have that choice. Just for tonight it is not rebellion against myself

People called and sent me messages. Gave me things

I have hidden myself away

Felt so fragile I have not been able to be what I feel I should for everyone

I feel blessed. Not in a heavenly way

It’s something funnier; clumsier; entirely more random

And for that it is worth infinitely more because human have less in themselves to give away than heaven.

I am trying to feel ok with what I’ve received. I cannot feel entirely right with it, but I know I will keep doing what I can for people. For that I think I can make it up.

A friend mentioned too that they had read my journey and found my words “heart-rendering”

I feel so much guilt and shame for that. My life is just that

Life

If I didn’t live it through

I wouldn’t be alive

I fight because I don’t know how to do anything else

There’s no art in that

I don’t know quite how to approach this person again. I don’t want to be pitied. I’ve done as much wrong as anyone. Maybe more

I let things happen. Became this. I can change that and that is what I am doing. I don’t want pity. I just want to be seen like you

Or anyone

Just a person

Doing the best I can

The Metre

It’s inevitable

No matter how much you say it doesn’t matter

Or that you will just relax

Birthdays bring retrospect

You wonder what kind of mark you have made

Whether it’s really enough to make a difference

if it truly matters if you haven’t

I know that I am thirty today. But I relised when joking with colleagues over one of my guys being sixty tomorrow too (she is the biggest  and best birthday hijacker I know. Every birthday is HERS) that I will be thirty tomorrow too- and every day until July 26th next year.

Then I’ll be thirty-one. And even then, there will still be time and space to make a difference.

I don’t want world records

Grand finales

Epitaphs

Reqiums

I’m quite happy with my little pieces and I know I have done something for and quite frankly the last couple of years have taught me that however much I do have it can still be taken away. Like the muffins I made which were so thoughtlessly (and needlessly) consumed (in there entirety) by my cat, Truffles.

I can be happy one moment until something blows it all away. I know that I will forget this many times (I always do) but I am trying harder to be present. Just here and now.

I’ll forget of course. And like some ephemeral artwork (I still remember the creations of Any Goldworthy I studied at school and the sense of panic I felt that they would melt and crumble away) I will be back where I began.

 

but it never takes that long to build back up again. It will still be over, like some concert or holiday. It will end, but there will be something else

There always is

Bridge From Terabithia

My mother would be horrified I know if I ever admitted to her I haven’t read the book Bridge to Terabithia. I guess it was one of those books I was told I “had to read” because “it [was] wonderful” and that “I should read it” yada yada yada et al.

Not that I’m a total rebel… maybe just a little… but this put me off reading it totally. There are many other books I’ve read in this time. Many of them have been wonderful, but I’ve never gone back to this one.

Tonight I was babysitting a friends kids and stumbled across the movie. I’d brought the wrong textbook to read for my course so I was kind of looking for some level of distraction and decided to watch it. It’d been a long day.

I began early after a night of little sleep

I had to rush to keep up with breakfast

Then panicked over lunch. And whether the door was locked. And if it would rain

Then if it would rain tomorrow

I managed to hide this somehow. As usual. For me this has been more of a life raft than a rock so far as survival strategies go

Emotions are not safe I learned. Not where others can see them. They will take them and hurt you

We had a new staff member on and while I am usually guarded there was something about her that made me feel very at ease.

We chatted a lot through out the day and I felt able to be myself in a way I feel I haven’t been in so long… she is older but shares my passion for people with disabilities and has overcome some pretty heavy obstacles. I feel at peace that there is another staff I know I can trust working with my favourite peeps.

For a long time I have felt trapped away in a land I couldn’t get back from

Even if I could reach the other side

I feared I would not be able to make them understand me and so I burrowed further into my pain

I guess I always knew deep down I’d have to come out one way or another. I could never stand to see others hurt

And certainly not for me. It left little choice

And so I started to come back slowly from my fantasy. I am becoming more myself but the fear of that still remains. Little things remind me though.

There was a boy who came to our class at school who, like Leslie in Bridge to Terabithia struggled to make friends. He’d been in foster care. No wonder. I watched from a distance as I often did. I remember meeting him in town with his foster parents and talking to them maybe a few times. They seemed nice, but I guess the real difference showed in him as he opened. Maybe too much had happened for him to be full of sunshine. Even later, but I saw him change and years later when Facebook became a Thing I added him as a friend. He has a family now, but what brought him back to me was a post about the death of his foster mother. I admire often the dry humour in his posts but I saw deep and genuine pain as he wrote about her death.I admire him, even if we only really pass occasionally online.

Things like that remind me that if they came back so can I. I don’t know what I’ll find. I know what I’d like, but like the boy from my school class things have not been easy for me. But I don’t think I could change that. Not even want to

I know- the movie was good, but I really should read the book. Of my own choice I think I will

Butterflies and Hurricanes

Life has passed through in a blur these past few weeks. Work, sleep, eat, appointment, sleep, try to keep up with uni, repeat. I guess it shouldn’t be much of a surprise I’m exhausted and even less so that anxiety has become such a constant cloud, shadowing my life

People often talk of the butterfly effect and the avalanche that can be brought about by the smallest of changes.

As I attempt to find a way through this mass of memories, thoughts and fears I know this is true and even if it were just one small change I was making it might affect other parts of my life. Unfortunately the changes have been huge

Things are better with Simon but still uncertain

I’m back studying after having to pull out of my course next semester

My birthday is coming up

I’m still waiting for the Prozac to kick in

I’m working a lot…

and these are nothing compared with the trepidation I feel as I eat and try to undo this mind-beast which has grown inside me over the years

It’s like the Red Shoes I dreamed of as a child from the fairytale (I don’t think Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz came until later). It started out an innocent dance, but as I gave over more of myself A-Rex became a part of me. And like those shoes caused so much pain as I danced away blindly

Considering how evil those shoes were I am surprised I loved them so, but at the age of five I loved the work of Vincent van Gogh, watched Rudolph Nureyev and remember being vaguely aware he was dying of AIDS and dreamed of my own pair of red shoes… of course they found me

Ironically

As innocent as this dance became the damage it is causing is such that I need to find a way to tear these metaphorical shoes from me and I am terrified. In many ways like the girl in the story I’d sooner dance on in pain until my feet took me to my death, but it is not in me to give in and so I fight

Unsurprisingly there are still days of bad weather. Recovery to me is such a fragile thing. I am not in fact trying to recover, just to live

I want to win, but sometimes even just the effort to do more than stand exhausts me. Today the changes were small, but enough. I joined a friend for a spontaneous coffee; I took a printer I had to a local school to donate (as I don’t need it and have often benefited myself from small things people have done for me); I slept; I had jam on my English muffin again. Small wonders, but enough. I am still exhausted and uncertain, but I think the day off yesterday. And the hot chocolate this morning. And so many of those small beings gave me strength. Enough to keep trying.

The butterfly incidentally (or maybe not so much) is also the symbol of Australia’s main eating disorder support organisation. Maybe one butterfly alone cannot move a mountain, but with more and the cumulative effect of their flapping perhaps change is possible. Perhaps even after all these years. Perhaps for me

Perhaps