~living this beautiful messy life~
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Without further ado, I’m going to do the “Take Stock” thing.
Here’s what’s going on with me right now…
Making: a bit of a tidier ‘nest’ for our daughter who is due to give birth in less than 36hrs.
Cooking: not much at all just yet, but it will be our ‘turn’ in the coming days.
Drinking: coffee always, and finally back to having the occasional tea.
Reading: 30,000 bottles of wine… Continue reading “stocktake [jun19]”
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Its been a wild ride for the last few weeks, and a ride that I’m still in the midst of, and I’ve gotta say – that some of it I’m not lovin’ so much!!
I’d been starting to ‘spiral’ a bit after I last posted, but then a series of events happened that just swamped me totally, and I felt like that wild ride was taking me crashing back down through the floor…
Firstly, whilst I was seeing some small advances with our joint counselling sessions, I was feeling like the majority of any getting-ahead was happening mostly only in the sessions, and wasn’t transferring to our real-world everyday Life.
And I was feeling a bit ‘played’, by that.
Then, the State that we live in which has been suffering from the most gut-wrenching droughts, where stock had been routinely starving to death, and Farmers were walking away from their Lands in despair – was suddenly engulfed in never-before-seen ammounts of water from weeks of torrential rains, then the resulting total devastation of flash-flooding.
The majority of the stock that Farmers had been able to hand-feed and keep alive – were washed away and drowned, and the Farmers have been left with mass piles of stinking rotting carcasses to try and bury / dispose of.
Some of our family members were in the path of that flooding, with our eldest daughter having to evacuate and her home being inundated with mud and water over a metre deep – which destroyed almost all of their belongings, including precious photo albums.
And then…
And then a friends husband tragically died in a freak accident, leaving her and her two small children shell-shocked and (obviously!) devastated.
The crazy circumstance of his death, his young age, the ‘unfairness’ of it all, sent my already wobbly emotions right over the edge!
I knew it was time for a solo check-in with my counsellor, and she thankfully managed to fit me in on fairly short notice.
I think I spent most of that hour sobbing.
But there were a few things that floated to the surface for me, that I recognised were of importance to me and needed to be ‘dealt with’, in some way…
The first was about the old adage of the days being long, but Life being short – and this one hits me more and more in the face, as each day, week, month, year passes.
We have one short, important, glorious, fucked-up, amazing, beautiful Life, which is gone before you can barely blink – and in some cases, is over with before it’s even properly begun.
This also becomes even more obvious on a daily basis, when you have a life-limiting illness…
The second thing was – that I have the right to make certain (reasonable) demands of people and to have and impose boundaries around how I am treated, and that it’s ok to not put up with being treated in a way that I find less-than-acceptable or inappropriate.
That evening, My Love and I had a big talk.
Wellllll – in all honesty, I did the majority of the talking – in amongst a pile of sobbing, sniffling and tears!
I laid out how I was feeling, as best I could, and explained in brief what I felt I needed.
Two nights later, my Love initiated a conversation.
It was a conversation of plans and intentions – and I’ve heard it a number of times before, but I am willing once again to see if this time around the intention will ’stick’, or if it will just fade away as it has before…
At only about 10 days in, we had our next joint counselling session.
I was in the midsts of telling our counsellor a very broad overview of what had been going on, and was explaining that although we were only 10 days in from the conversation that had been initiated by My Love, that I was feeling hopeful, and more trusting and respectful toward My Love, when our counsellor asked if she could know what the conversation had actually been about.
My Love said “no – not at the moment”, and it felt (to me) like that was right about the moment that the session came to a stand-still.
Our counsellor – bless her heart – tried to move it along, but everything after that was just superficial chit-chat.
At the close of the session, she reminded us that we needed to revisit our conversations and to keep having them, even though it would be hard work and uncomfortable for us both.
We agreed.
That was just over 2 weeks ago.
I’ve sent My Love an email about our session – but I’ve had no response.
And there have been no further conversations…
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It’s different being away from home and being in someone elses home.
It’s a cross between a mini vacation and at times not quite knowing what to do with myself – then realising that I don’t actually have to BE doing anything with myself!
The downside though is – that apart from missing my Love – is that she is back there doing all the final moving of the bits and pieces that are still at the house in town, and I feel really shit about her having to do that without me helping – however minimal that is some days…
It’s also very weird for me to be so far away from home by myself – it’s just not something i DO!
My brother and sister in law actually live about a half hour out of town, so any time you want anything its a fairly mammoth effort to go to the store.
Which is something that I really like – but having been out of the habit of that pre-thinking, being that we now live so close to town, you get out of the habit of thinking of and getting everything you need or want, in one trip!
I didn’t go into the aged care home today to see Tony (my Mamas husband), as my sister was going to take him to church to see some of his mates, and church really isn’t my type of thing to be doing on a beautiful sunny Sunday morning, so I figured it was best if she just headed in on her own.
I ended up going into town as I wanted to get my brother and his wife a very belated housewarming present, that would be (hopefully) something that they would find was useful – and something I personally use about 5 times a week.
So off I went to ‘the big smoke’ and quickly found what I was looking for – which was an “Instant Pot”.
Well, it’s not actually the instant pot brand – but it does all the same things.
You can sauté, slow-cook, pressure cook, do rice, pasta and baking all in these little magicians – and we just love ours so much that we actually have two at home! lol
Right now – I am sitting on the verandah, home alone – overlooking miles of uncluttered farmland and the only sound other than the birds, is a neighbours generator, thunking away rhythmically in the distance…
Its pretty nice I gotta say!
Looking over the paddocks.
The full blood moon rising.
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Well the poor counsellor probably needed a bex and a lie-down after she had finished her first hour with me the other day!
It was pretty much like shaking up a coke bottle then flipping off the lid.
A whole damn lot of built-up stuff just came spewing forth filling up every spare space in the room.
The counsellor was a lovely lady and despite me having a panic attack on the way to the appointment – as I wasn’t sure I was in the right building or even in the right waiting room and I was almost late, which always riles me up no end – but once I was settled in on the little couch in her office, I quickly felt comfortable with her, and didn’t feel wary, judged or too vulnerable to be able to feel like I couldn’t speak freely.
All good signs.
Session #1 was pretty much a brief overview of birth to now, and as she said, she could see why I was feeling a little overwhelmed right now – and I think was a little surprised that I hadn’t got to the point of overwhelm long before now!
It was sort of funny watching her try and work out our family dynamics, and even funnier knowing that thus far, she only has the dynamics of my birth family, and my marriage and kids – we haven’t managed to get into any of the nitty gritty yet – like how my best friend is actually My Loves ex-husband! lol
That conversation should be extra entertaining :)))
Following the appointment I had to go back to work, which I had been unsure about prior to the appointment whether I was going to be able to do or not; as I figured that it was going to be an emotionally draining event, and I unsure of how I would feel after it.
Although I was incredibly drained, I felt mentally ok enough with going back to work, so I did – which ended up being fine, as I was incredibly busy for the rest of the day and therefore didn’t have time to dwell or think too much on what my morning had been like…
Needless to say probably, but I was emotionally exhausted by evening, but still managed to get more done when I got home from work than I had managed in the last couple of weeks.
I decided to take the next day off work, as not only was I still processing, but I had to fly out the day after as I was flying to Brisbane, hiring a car and then driving 2hrs north to meet up with family who didn’t know I was coming – and I wanted to get everything sorted at the Farm for while I was away, do some grocery shopping so that my Love didn’t starve to death, and get my bag packed.
I had only planned for carryon baggage, which limits me to 7kg, and with my laptop and charger already coming in at 2kg, that doesn’t leave a whole lot of wiggle room for everything else that needed including!
The amazing thing was though – that the day following my first session, I actually felt the best that I have felt since before I went to New Zealand.
So here I am now at my brother and sister-in-laws place, with a pile of family members; and we have spent the day firstly with my sister and I going and seeing my mothers husband at the aged care home – which was supremely taxing – and then she and I going to their house where we met up with the brothers, and dealing with the cleaning and just generally airing the place out ready for the real estate agent to come through and meet with us on Monday about listing the house for sale.
Its been a really tiring day and the introvert in me is squirming rather a big bit at having all these people around me 24/7 – and of course being away from my Love and being in a strange bed I am not sleeping terribly well – but it is nice to be surrounded by cuddly rellies that I don’t get to see very often – but I’ll still be super-glad to be back with my darling!
Oh – and the next appointment with my counsellor is the day after I get back – so that probably going to end up being perfect timing…
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A year ago today my heart shattered into a million little pieces…
As is usual for anyone when grieving, I felt like I would never be free of the feeling of total and utter devastation that I was going through.
A year ago, I was heartbroken and a chunk had been ripped from my soul – I felt like a mangled piece of road-kill. Continue reading “a year ago”
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I feel like I have a million irons in the fire right now – and I’m going to need to be super-diligent of how I schedule my Life and time over the next couple of weeks, otherwise I know that I am going to seriously deplete my already low energy reserves, and end up being a gibbering, anxiety-ridden mess – who cant get anything accomplished! Continue reading “irons in the fire”
This morning started in the way no Mothers ever want it to.
A missed call on my phone before 7am, and a voice message.
Checked the voice message, and it was someone I didn’t know, telling us that our second youngest son had been in a motorbike accident.
He had been on his motorbike on the way to work, and had been hit by a car.
We live a 1 hour drive then a 5hr flight, or a 24 hour solid drive, away from where he lives.
Our stomachs lurched.
It was his boss Wayne whom had called us, and on calling him back, we found out that Wayne had seen him put into the ambulance approximately a half-hour earlier, and had briefly spoken to him prior to the ambulance heading off to the local hospital, which he gave us the name of.
At least we knew our son had been alert when he was carried off – alert enough to give the guy his Mummas phone number at least.
Good sign – hopefully…
We then rang Hospital A, where they had taken him – only to find out that he hadn’t turned up there(!!) and they suggested that he might be at Hospital B if his injuries were substantial or required immediate surgery. 😐
While this was happening, my Love was on the other phone, calling our youngest daughter who is a Doctor in an adjacent City to where our son lives and works; to see if she knew anything or could find out anything.
We then rang Hospital B, and thankfully he was there.
All they could tell us was that he had literally just arrived, and was being seen to by the doctor at that very moment, and that they wouldn’t be able to update us for at least a half-hour, possibly more.
Wayne then rang us again, in a bit of a panic as he had gone to Hospital A, and had found out that they had taken our son to the more acute care hospital further away, due to some concern that he was exhibiting signs of internal bleeding – and he wanted to let us know that he was now on the way to Hospital B.
Bless his heart!
The next few hours were pretty scary.
One feels sooo helpless when you’re far away from your babies, and you know things aren’t right with them – and theres not a damn thing you can do!
Finally we got to speak to him very briefly, and although he was groggy, and tearful (in shock!) he was in quite good spirits, but a fair bit of pain.
He had just had scans done, was awaiting results, and was being given more pain medication.
The day wore on, and we only received sketchy updates, until finally around 5pm, when we heard that he was well enough that they were going to let him go home.
Such incredible relief!!!
We spoke to him again briefly after he got home last night, and he was very sore and still very shaken – as was to be expected – and was on his way to bed.
But he had got to hold his daughter, and we know that that alone is enough to give him the strength to bounce back to full health, quickly.
We feel so very blessed and fortunate to have had the day turn out so well.
It could have gone so very very differently…
Today, we could be mourning the loss of one of our children, but instead we are feeling so very thankful and grateful that things turned out as they did!
Don’t forget to tell your kids how much you love them, and how proud you are of them – you never know when you might not get the chance to do it ever again…
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Its been a couple of weeks since my last update – and a lot has been happening about the place…
The Wedding has come and gone – and yes – of course, is was beautiful, wonderful, emotional – and our youngest daughter and her husband are currently off Continue reading “busy-ness”
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I had always imagined that this was always going to be a really special year.
Grandma & Grumpa would be 90, Uncle John 60, me 50, You 30, Rian 25 and Tom 21.
Amazing landmarks for our Family, worthy of awesome celebration.
But that wasn’t to be….
I had 15 years with you, and I’ve now had to have 15 without you.
I’m sure many – maybe including you – would say that that’s been my choice, but it hasn’t been…
We both know that.
Whilst our lives may have gone in very different directions, and you’ve chosen that you don’t wish me to have any part of yours; which I’ve respected – but I can’t begin to explain the depths of sadness within me, not having you in my Life brings – and there isn’t a week, a day, that goes past, when you aren’t in my thoughts – both waking and sleeping.
One day – if you have your own children – I can only hope that you never have to make a decision that you believe is in the best interests for your child, that they disagree with…
I do however, hope that you can understand (but never have to experience), if you become a parent – what desperate agonising torture it has been, to not be allowed to go to your graduation; to have no involvement in – or even get to talk to you – on your 18th or 21st; and every other day, plus Christmas and birthdays etc.
To not ever get a reply to any attempts at communication.
But most of all – to not be able to tell you how very much I Love You, and how very proud I am for you, of the man you have worked so hard to become.
I hope you have a wonderful birthday Sweetheart, and that you get to share it with people who love you.
I’m sure your Lady will spoil you silly – and that’s a good thing :))
I love you Josh and will continue to, well beyond this Life, and the next – please never forget that…
Happy Birthday my Love.
Mumma xxx
Our only grandson – via our eldest daughter – is three today!
It doesn’t feel like three years ago, that my Wife and I sat in the waiting room at the Hospital, sitting on the edge of our seat, waiting, waiting, waiting…
We were both exhausted with nervous tension, willing Kayd to get his stubborn little butt out of his mummys tummy – and to give her some rest – before the real-life hard work really began in earnest!
We both cried huge tears of relief, when he finally made his appearance, and we knew that he and our ‘little girl’ were both safe and healthy.
He’s a gorgeous boy, (nope, I’m not at all biased!!) and I love him to pieces!
And our Daughter is doing a pretty fine job too!! 😉 <3
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