Tag Archives: acceptance

crisis

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We were discussing the mid life crisis thing yesterday. And the scary obsession with youth.  It is interesting how very few of us escape it. Whether it is that nagging feeling and fear of being anonymous. That slight irritation when only old men glance in your direction these days. Whether it’s the need for the ongoing botox and fillers to try and recapture what was. And the sadness at realising you can’t. Whether its that panic feeling in the middle of the night as you wonder is this it. Or that even more panicked feeling when you see your slightly saggier face looking back at you in the mirror as you wonder, is it too late for me? Is it over? Is it too late to follow my dream? Do I have a dream? Everyone in some way starts to wonder and question and too often regret. Sadly on a physical front earlier and earlier. I am surrounded by exquisite younger women who inject themselves with all sorts of things to try and make themselves look as beautiful as they once did. To me they are even more beautiful today. And all they are doing is losing the expression of themselves. I so understand the fear of ageing, especially it’s toll on our bodies. And on our sense of self worth. And the middle aged are generally ignored by all. So we can become slightly desperate.The middle aged. Shit, how funny is that. I am middle aged. Actually ten years older but the anonymity thing remains. I am filled with questions and wonder and sadness and yes regret but I genuinely find a little more acceptance of myself and a little more appreciation of my wisdom and a stronger sense of self. I love knowing that I have so much more to offer, because of my path, which has led me to here, lined and all. I love being me, saggy bits and all. I want all my friends just to realise how beautiful they are, how lucky they are, how lovely it is to be able to read the expression on their faces, to see them. And how much they have to offer that goes far beyond the physical. How just being them is enough. There is no crisis unless we make it one.

lucky

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My husband really must love me. I am completely and utterly impossible. Arrogant and self absorbed and really really lucky. Lucky because I have a partner who just gets me and really does accept me. Warts and all. I thought about this particularly this morning as I walked into the bathroom while B was showering to get something. I can’t remember what. Anyway, B loves to chat in the morning, especially when he’s in the shower and he has been sensitive to my feeling a bit off colour the last couple of days.  Sooooo, sweetie, he starts. I simply shake my head, without even looking at him. Fetch what I need to fetch and walk out. As if to say, no, not now. Don’t talk to me, don’t engage with me on any level. Not now. He simply carries on with his shower, not offended, not even bothering to comment, not even muttering, bitch under his tongue. Which if I were him I would have. As I walked away I actually thought, bitch, who do you think you are and burst out laughing. Tail between my legs I went back into the bathroom and asked B how the hell he put up with me. He just shrugged. It must be love.

moving forward

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This exploring oneself stuff is very uncomfortable, quite unsettling and very liberating. My focus has been on healing myself, and doing whatever it takes to do that. But its been mostly external. Surgery, medication, whatever it took.  An enforced slowing down, being still (ok, well a bit stiller), attempting to reduce my overachievement stress and focusing on all that is beautiful and here and now has helped me heal. But I have very neatly avoided dealing with the why. B knows how wonderfully I deal with things that make me uncomfortable. Not now. I’m too busy, too tired, too whatever. Ignorance can be bliss. Fear is not. I do believe an accelerated growth of cancer cells is triggered by something. I also do believe that with a depleted immune system due to excess stress, lack of exercise, an A type personality, control freakish tendencies, putting others first, a lack of focus on myself created a fabulous environment for the cancer to thrive. And then some. But still there is the why. The pull the rug from underneath me thing that set it off. Because I do believe it is conflict about something. Something that mattered the world to me.The point for me about exploring the why is not to dwell on it but to understand and release it all and move forward. So in the words of another I lovingly forgive and release all of the past. I choose to fill my life with joy. I love and approve of myself.

two hundred and nine

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11 August.  I’m not superstitious, well not really, but things do come in threes. And especially they say, catastrophes. I love that word, its wonderfully melodramatic. And it has been fairly catastrophic (in a thankfully mundane way but nonetheless) me losing our house and car keys (because I need to tell our mean landlord for the umpteenth time that I’ve lost keys and it seems it’s not a simple matter to replace them but mostly because I hate being in the wrong when it comes to officious difficult people), then smashing my iphone (for the third time, funny that). So today I am grateful B dropped the so very precious spare house key onto a deck, and with my luck, the damn thing fell between the wooden slats. I mean, really. Thankfully to be retrieved but with some effort. But still, I’m grateful because I have decided that is catastrophe number three. And so be it.

family

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It might be the yucky headachy low feeling I get after my zoladex implant thats making me feel a little sad today. But I don’t think it is. That just makes me grumpy.  The sadness I think is what I’ve felt amongst the immense joy at Jem’s performance as Alice this weekend. Sadness that our family wasn’t there. I suddenly felt so damn far away again. It’s moments like this that piss me off. Albeit momentarily, then acceptance and yes, sadness takes over. I’ve made peace with it, I understand our reality, I am grateful for so much of it, but shit, sometimes I just want to cry. For me, for B, for my girls, for our family. For all the moments we are all missing out on. Moments like these are never to be repeated, can never be captured and would have been lovely to share with those who we matter to. I am sorry that I didn’t make more of a fuss about it with my friends here, to be our surrogate family. I’m understanding more and more that that is what eases the pain. A little.

kate

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I am in awe of my daughter. Kate turned 15 today and I just so love the person she is and will continue to grow into. I can’t even be concerned that this might just come across as a mother bleating on about how fabulous her daughter is because that would make her feel good about herself. Because it genuinely isn’t that. Kate has so much to teach me. She just has an innate sense of self beyond her years, an innate sense of fairness, a kindness that is true, she is compassionate, she is incapable of untruths, she will never let anyone down, she is a friend to all, she forgives those who are unkind, she has no need for all to like her, she is who she is and will not compromise her ideals, her sense of fairness for anyone, even if it hurts her, she has a true grasp on her ego, she puts others before herself, she allows them to be who they are, she sees the good in all, she genuinely celebrates others success and talent without ever feeling what about me. My friends know how I worry a tad that she has no competitive edge, and she doesn’t. But that’s my stuff. She has no desire to prove she is better than anyone else, to prove she is good enough, because she is already so secure in who she is.  She is noble and kind and stylish, filled with grace and never-ending dignity. She is bright, she is cheeky, she is ambitious but not greedy, she talks back, she has a twinkle, a naughty and fabulous sense of humour, she has a wonderful ability to laugh out loud, she is argumentative and yes a tad disdainful and dismissive of her parents and her sister, but appropriately so, with a love for us that oozes out her pores. I am so proud and so in awe of my daughter. I hope one day I grow up to be just like her.

sprung

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I have a friend to thank for much sobbing today. I spent an extended morning with her kinesiologist/naturopath who made me truly acknowledge some things. To understand me a bit better. Well he helped me to start to access what I already knew. In my subconscious. My main motivation for going to see him was wanting to wean myself off these damn mood stabilisers, without harming my children or B. I am definitely off balance (in the gentle sense of the words, I am not off my rocker. yet) and needed help getting my balance back preferably without chemicals. In essence continuing the journey being here started which is giving me the chance, the ability to deal with the cause of my disease, not just to focus on the cure. For the incurable. Without any prompting he accessed words like disappearing, anonymous, alien, loss of mojo, abandonment, different, disempowered from me. It was quite unsettling. And a theme you would have come to be familiar with if you had been part of my oversharing.  But he knew nothing about me. Nothing. I have self effacingly spoken a lot about avoidance as a strategy, my coping mechanism to deal with change, which all manifests itself in my need to control. See Lianne, everything is ok. I’ve always convinced myself that knowing I did this, acknowledging it and laughing at it, meant it was not an issue.  But, someone’s not buying it. So, it seems it’s time to lift the lid on the I’m coping, I’m strong, I’m able melodrama. Shit.

chuckle

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I had a chuckle at myself today. It took all I had in me not to “client service” a meditation/discussion I went to. What is it with me and the need to make everyone at ease. There was an uncomfortable pause begging to be filled (by me) as we milled around waiting to be seated. And once seated. And thats when I chuckled. When I realised I didn’t have to. I didn’t need to make anyone feel anything. Why me. Old habits die hard. So we all sat there in uncomfortable silence until the buddhist nun gently led the discussion. It was uncomfortable, it wasn’t just me needing to fill silence. But I guess thats the point. Uncomfortable is ok. I am slowly getting that it is not up to me to try and make things better. My idea of better. I cannot control anything but my own response. I love that today it was a chuckle.

one hundred and sixty nine

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I am grateful for an exquisite last morning for Mel and her girls. And I’m grateful that not even an impossibly grumpy teenage daughter (only with me of course, but it’s not me, it has to be her, I mean I’m so calm and non reactive) could take away my joy at an early morning walk on the river. But I am especially grateful today for Mel’s visit because her calm demeanour always makes me realise how full on I am. And how accepting I have become of me.

seriously?

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I felt really awkward this morning at gym. An older (well, older than me) australian lady was going off in a very judgemental and actually quite aggressive way about muslims in particular (said in a hushed tone), but then it became about anyone being ‘allowed’ to live in Australia, and how they should live according to the australian ways and customs and save any beliefs pertinent to their culture for their homes. Including their language. Apparently a french couple were talking to their french child in earshot of her at a school outing, at which point she felt it her moral right to reprimand them for not speaking to their child in English, the spoken Australian language, if this is the country they have chosen to live in. In amongst the ignorant rant, there actually were some issues definitely worthy of debate in terms of multiculturalism, if it is truly possible, and how to integrate yet respectfully retain one’s own culture in a new country. But there was no nuance with this lady. She was extremely dismissive of immigrants generally. I felt awkward because I am an immigrant.  I assume because she was speaking so openly in front of me and attempting to include me in her conversation, that because I look similar to her and speak English, I’m ok. Seriously? I felt awkward because it just wasn’t the place to have this debate yet my silence and refusal to interact in the conversation in anyway may have implied acquiescence. I wish she was an isolated case. Why are people so fearful of difference. Not all people of different faiths or cultures are fundamentalist, extremists, and then, in my opinion, misguided and worthy of fear. Do some people honestly believe, really believe that if someone just looks different to them, speaks a different language to them, believes in a different god to them, or none at all, has less money than them, has more than them, they are not deserving of kindness. Of acceptance. They are not equal? Honestly. Do you?