A Year Later

Dave and I having a conversation in the kitchen this evening, fuelled by wine and beer, about this current moment. A year on... whats happened and what hasn't.

I'm writing again... after a 6 month break. It may not last but I found myself writing this blog in the shower and at the dinner table and on the ride home today...so here it is.

I am a different person. I am stronger and more vulnerable at the same time.
For the first time in my life I am an adult. I mean that in the saddest, least teenage fantasy, beige tax accountant kind of way.
At 35, nearly 36, I have for the first time in my life experienced a year of life, when I alone am responsible for my own happiness without the comforting, soft landing of Mum.

I am not sure I am qualified for this. I am different to who I thought I was. Better? maybe. Worse? sure, sometimes.

I am a fitter, healthier, weirder, sadder, more aware, less oblivious, more honest, less childish, more average, darker person. It has been the hardest year, which has, in turn, made me able to do and with stand harder things.

I dont believe she is with us, or watching over us. I am sorry, I just don't feel it. I wish with all my being that she was an ethereal being following my every move and guiding me from afar, but thats not true. The closest thing I can see is that she is in me, my memories and my actions because she taught me. But if the Disney version of Ghost Mum existed, with her harp and her halo and her wings, sitting on her fluffy cloud watching me and the girls and Dave and Dad, I think she would be proud of the fact that even though it is different and it has sucked and we miss her terribly, we have lived. We have moved forward inch by inch and we will continue to.

Is 2017 that balm that we need to sooth the ragged edges left by 2016? Nah, I doubt it, but if I can write another blog in a years time, it means I have at least got my fingers, my brain and my Mac, so we will be ok....

Poke... yep still hurts

When you find a bruise on your body, do you poke it? Do you continue to poke it every 10 - 15 minutes throughout the day just to see wether it still hurts?

Yeah, me too. Like some weird sadist and masochist rolled into one.

Carrying the grief over Mums death, like a bruise.

I know its there and every so often it gets poked to see how raw it is.  Poke... yep still hurts.

I found some video of mum dancing on Facebook. My brain wanted to know weather I was strong enough to with stand this punch to the bruise, my heart wanted to hear her laugh. I am strong enough. I will continue to be strong enough.

Poke... yep still hurts.

For all those perhaps going through something similar... its now a bruise... thats progress. Take heart.

A bit of my history

When I was about One Year old, I suffered burns from a hot cup of coffee. It was one of those unpredictable and unforeseeable accidents in life.

We were visiting friends, The coffee was too hot for the adult to drink, they had carefully placed the cup on the kitchen bench and pushed it back for it to not be in reach. I climbed up the kitchen draws and pulled it down over my head.

In a funny coincidence, my Mum had just read an article in The Readers Digest (As you do) on how to treat burns, so instead of covering me in butter (as was practiced at the time), she rushed me to the shower and peeled off all the clothes and burnt skin. The end result was a skin graft from my thigh to my underarm and my neck. I have no facial scarring and no ill affects thanks to her actions. I don't remember the event or any of the aftermath at all.

As a family, we had recently immigrated from Zimbabwe, and were only just settling into a new life in Perth. I was in Princess Margaret Hospital for months. Everyday, for more than two months, Mum would have to drop my brother to school and then catch two buses from Booragoon (where we rented at the time) to PMH and then back again. Mum didn't speak a lot of English and could't drive and didn't know Perth well at all.

After my Kids were born, I remember asking her about this time. She said it was hard, that she missed me when she couldn't see me, that it made her sad. However she also told me that the hospital offered her counselling to deal with any guilt or depression... "Thank you but no, I'm not depressed and I'm not guilty, I didn't burn my daughter and don't feel like it was my fault. " She told the Nurse at the time. My Mum was so strong and absolutely right. I can imagine, now, as a Mum, dealing with Mothers guilt etc how easy it would have been to fall into the cycle of guilt and depression but Mum didn't even consider it. She did the job that was at hand. Mum didn't often complain about the trials and tribulations that were delt her, she just got on with living.

Shout Out to the Fellas

A shout out to the fellas on International Womans Day,

No I am not a doormat and no I haven't missed the point.

I read something the other day about Men and Woman and it resonated with me. 

I am paraphrasing but it went something like:

The quest for Woman to do everything a Man can is not only driving us nuts but eroding our uniqueness. We shouldn't be striving to do everything a man can, but to do everything a man can't.
 
A lot of the people I blog to are female, a lot of you have male significant others.

Sometimes they give you the shits, sometimes you give them the shits and sometimes you are a united front against others who give you both the shits (read kids)

I live with a bicycle in our bedroom, golf clubs and buggy in our living room, tools in the laundry, electronics in the fruit bowl and our most recent fight was about grain waves (yes the chips).

Dave has to live with me randomly throwing things out, messy cupboards, lots of books and candles and that cooking is not my forte.

I also get to live with a great dad, a funny guy, a strong man and a caring person.

I wouldn't have anyone else. We are a good case for the "opposites attract" rule. We stretch each other, we move each other from our "normal" into "new" on a regular basis just because we think differently.
 
Together, we are both our best and the result is more than 100%.

The crazy... It's the best part

We have been back almost 3 months. I have had my world turned upside down.

I am currently watering the roses out the front of my house, no bra, no pants and a nice glass of red in hand.
Every 10 minutes or so the 72 bus goes pass, I toast them with my glass :-).

We try to go to the beach once a week. The kids aren't enrolled into any after school activities. It is so nice to just chill at home, with time to cook, time to do homework and relax. We are eating better as a family and are no where near as rushed.

I am trying to retain the magic. As much as possible, the whimsical, the beautiful. I light the nice smelly candles all the time. I put the fairy lights on in our bedroom, I am writing and creating. I haven't done this for years. The spark inside me for beauty and quirky and thoughtfulness has been ignited.

For the first time , in a long time, I am being led by my heart. Dave will come home and find me baking, sitting out the back watching the sun set, crocheting my blanket or hugging my wookie. I'm crazy and not even trying to hide it.

I now have time to look in op shops, to find something that makes me happy.
I like colour.

For the first time in 5 years we had friends over for a meal. We made the best of our awkward little house and entertained.

If I feel like talking, I talk. Feel like writing, I write. Feel like standing around the front yard in my knickers, I do it. I am drinking more than I used too, but I am allowing myself some grace in this department. Yay ... Wine.

I feel free. Sometimes at a loss, but certainly free. My time is mine, it is rich with opportunity as well as grief. "Cheers people on the bus, I'm in my underwear and I couldn't give a shit!"

Why your Bucket list should become your Fuck it list.

I have always had a bit of an issue with goal setting. I hated the idea of planning out my days and weeks for years at a time in order to reach certain goals even life (fun) goals, not just career goals.

I understand the concept, I also understand that it is formula for success that works. I get that.
What I have a problem with is the single mindedness of it. That while you are tirelessly striving towards the goal ahead, what opportunities in the left - field have you missed? The best things I have ever done in my life have actually come as the result of little or no planning and had a momentum of there own. I love the fact that these great things then led to the next unexpected great thing.

There is NO WAY I could have planned out the last ten years on paper, even the idea of it. I would never, ever have had the mental forethought to see what I have done or where I have been or what I have had to do. My true capabilities lie in the unknown and untested. I like the idea that in a years time, I'm not sure what I'll be doing.

Ah, but are you thinking, this is why you aren't rich Caroline? This is why you don't have a career?

Possibly, but I love the list of things I have done, failures and success's. I love the diversity of my experience. It won't make me rich, but then again, who knows.

Currently I am enjoying being able to completely enjoy my free time. In my previous incarnation as a real estate agent, I could never feel completely at ease. I always felt "on" or like I should be doing more. It is the sort of industry that if you aren't a million dollar success story, you are failure, with little to no in-between.

I realise a "bucket list" is not necessarily career or goal oriented. It can be about life experiences, what I am trying to explain is that the best life experiences just happen and you can't plan for it or wish for it because you have no idea what it is yet. I believe the saying about being careful what you wish for, because what you think you want versus what you actually get can be very different things.

Let life lead you a little. The more you have to force the situation and bend life to fit with your detailed goal list, the more life will fight back. Have you ever been trying very hard to get somewhere or do something and everything in life is just against you? Stop, stop trying, say fuck it. Something else will happen, I promise and it will be what life was trying to get you to see, over in left field and it might just be the best thing that you ever do.

I am a freezer, what are you?

I'm probably not the one you want standing next to you in an emergency. I'm just telling you, my friends, just so your standards are suitably low if we ever get into trouble.

I am a freezer. I know this because the couple of times where I have felt in serious danger, one time in a close call on the road and a few times where I have had random scary people approach me on the street, adrenaline locks my knees solid and my arms to my side.

I have never been in a situation of life or death, or where my kids are in that kind of danger. I am really, really thankful for this, but it means I have no idea of what I would do (other than freeze into a standing coma.... so helpful).

I know a  special lady. This amazing person knows , that if she needs to, she can whoop complete arse. She has recounted a couple of experiences she has had. She once witnessed a person be hit by a car, and without hesitation, helped and protected the injured person until help arrived. Another time, a bag snatcher, attempted to steal her hand bag, with her left hand she clocked him one in jaw, so hard he nearly bit off his own tongue... and she kept her bag! She also won an altercation between her and a group of youths who were intimidating people in the city. Grown men looked on, scared , while she taught them a lesson.
How cool is it to have that knowledge, that in an emergency, you can whack on your cape and all of a sudden you are a superhero.

Obviously I hope that none of us need to know how we react in danger. I want you all safe and sound. But there is a part of me that wishes I was a super hero, not a freezer.

We are screwed... Don't fight it, Embrace it

I am sitting on the bus, grappling with a stupid bout of Mothers guilt. As has become routine, I now drop the girls near school and I walk to my bus stop, leaving them to fend off the dangerous and evil of the world for a full 20 metres before they enter school grounds. Shock horror, how could I be so cruel. To add insult to injury, they also were in charge of placing their own canteen orders today, which was met with "But MUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMM, I don't know how to spell sushi???". That's OK, worse comes to worse they might end up with a meal beginning with "S".... so you know, Winning! 
So, while I am having day mares of my children sitting at the school gates crying because I left them without the correct spelling of their gourmet Japanese canteen lunch, I get a phone call.


"I just need to vent, seriously just let me get this out and then I'll be OK"

followed by

"F*n kids! seriously, how frigging hard is it???? I swear to god, I am ready to...."

Now I won't go into the details, we have ALL been there. What ever threat follows the "I swear to god, I'm ready to....." doesn't read well in print, and you're my friends, I don't want anyone arrested. 

No matter what age your kids are, or what type of parent you think you are or what type of kids you think you have, you're screwed anyway. Seriously, we are all screwed. Now is the time to accept that and go about your day. I mean this in the nicest possible way, let me explain.

When your baby is tiny and shiny and new, you know you know nothing. You make a few mistakes, you stupidly listen to some woman in your Mothers group who claimed to have had a pain free natural birth while sipping herbal tea in a spa bath and that her daughter smelled like Patchouli after coming out of her Vag and that parenting is soooooooo easy...., so you feel like a failure.

Move forward a few years and you've got screaming toddlers, who have just spent 45 minutes having a tantrum because you cut the sandwich into triangles, instead of squares and used the blue plate!! Or they wake you up four times a night because their blankets have moved and their sock came off. While you sit and cry and pick weetbix out of your cleavage, you wonder "what the hell am I doing ???"

Move forward a few more years, they are at school, they are learning! Yay, they can express their emotions and you can almost have a rational conversation. Then you over hear them having a conversation about another child or worse hear some children having a conversation about your child. "Is my child a bitch??? It sure sounds like it? Where are the manners and the sharing that we spent 4 years drumming into them?" or "Is my child making friends?, are they being bullied? why are they socially awkward??? Oh no Ive raised a cat lady..." 
Like I said screwed....

You can't win, you have to try though, that's our job. To be the bad guy, to be the boring one, to be the soother, the dictator, the lover, the fighter and ultimately in a lot of cases, the loser. They will fail, they will probably be a bitch at some point, they will probably be bullied, they will still have tantrums, but as adults they will call it stress, but they will have their Mums and one day.... long into the future, they will thank you for it, and then ask you to babysit the grand kids.





To my friend who was having a hard day.... don't fight it, there is always wine xxx

Same, same but different.

I have never questioned my decisions and myself more than in the last three weeks.
Everything I do or think of doing is scrutinised tortuously by my brain in an attempt to work out if i'm ok or if i'm, at least, understanding why I may not be ok.

Under normal circumstances the core belief that I subconsciously carry in my gut is i'm ok, things are good and all is ok. It might not be in the moment, but the foundations of my life are good.

Let me just clarify, I have a wonderful Father, who is also dealing with his own grief of losing a wife of 36 years, an amazing Husband, who loved my mother like his own, Two children, who are strong and a joy to be around but are also dealing, in their own way, with the loss of their beloved VoVo and Friends with their own lives, children and challenges who have volunteered their time or their ears to help me. I am not alone, I am not even unusual. Every face that passes through my work or that I see on the bus has been or will be floored by grief at some point in their lives. Do they handle things like I do? Do they want to share their thoughts and memories or do they retreat to deal in complete privacy?

I get sad at night, i'll sneak away from the action of the household and lie down. I have a chewbacca wookie teddy bear, that Dave and the girls gave me for my birthday in December. Mum was already in hospital and really sick. I have been hugging this thing every night, for about two months. This isn't healthy, I don't think, but it helps.

I didn't want to write this blog yesterday or last night, I am struggling a little to do it now. I can't get the flow, I am tired, I don't want to seem like I am trying to make my grief the spotlight. But I think this is good for me. I am a sharer and never have I written like this in my life. I have a slew of journals that have one entry on the shiny first page and were never touched again.

In a conversation with Dad yesterday, I said "The experience of Mum passing and the memories I have are now more like a ball or a sphere, in the first few days, the ball was shoved up right in front of my eyes, it was the colour red and it was all I could see, so the ball seemed as big as the world, now its a bit further away, I can hold the ball in my hand at arms length and turn it a little, look at different angles, sometimes, without my heart exploding in my chest". 
I think that is a healthy progression, but is it too soon?

But, life goes on, right? The clocks don't stop, the cracks I feel in my own heart aren't showing on the pavement outside. There is nothing new here. 
From now on, its same, same but different. 

Last Words

No, not my last words, you don't get away that easily!

This is something I have wanted to write about for a little while, I think once I do, I will feel better, mainly because I am so scared of forgetting.

I have been looking back through all of my holiday posts on Facebook to get inspiration for writing about the big trip. In doing so I have re read almost all of my Mums comments. Her support, her love, her pride in us and her enthusiasm in our adventure are evident through the whole thing. Mum commented on nearly every photo I posted (close to 300) even while really ill in hospital.A few people have asked me if I regret going on our grand trip, now that Mum has passed away, the short answer is "Hell NO!". Mum lived that trip with us. Every post I made was with the knowledge that she was drinking it all in on the other side of the world."Thank God you went, look at how happy you all are!", Mum would say.

When we got back, and I did get to spend some precious time with Mum, she said some thing, that I hope, will stay with me forever. 

Once Mum had decided to stop treatment and have some peace, she was moved from ICU to a quiet room with a view to the Perth hills. You have never seen anyone so happy to finally see the sky and trees. She was settled and content and I was leaving for the evening. I stroked her forehead, gave her kiss and said "Bye Mum", she looked at me and said "I never forgot a moment with those eyes" and that she loved me. I cry now when I think about it, because even though I knew she was dying, it hadn't registered properly yet for me, but it obviously had already for Mum. It wasn't her last words to me but they make my heart sing and swoop all at the same time.
I promise Mum, that I am trying to not forget a moment with you either xx