i can hear the fireworks for new years

in the background...and for the first year in a long time i have someone special to spend nye with...not even like we're doing anything exciting - well not by other people's standards! but we are quite content with an evening at home together...

i made a lovely dinner: marinated lamb cutlets (garlic and olive oil) with salad (roast sweet potato, fetta, pine nuts and leaves) followed by pavlova topped with whipped cream and berries...

a cup of tea when it gets a bit cooler and most likely neither of us will even see midnight...

it's been a LONG time since i've had a nye i have enjoyed (bar the odd unplanned one which turned out ok) so it's not only nice to have benny to share this one with, but also fabulous that he is even less enthused than i am about fighting with a gazillion drunken people to find a spot so we can see fireworks - no doubt they will be good, but if you add up all the fireworks i've seen during my lifetime (i'm nearing 40 remember, and lived in the UK where bonfire night, aka guy fawkes night) then seriously, how different can this year's display be?

anyway, that's kinda irrelevant! 2008 brought many many wonderful things into my life, some planned and some not - methinks that my unusually positive attitude may have helped so i will end 2008 in the same way i started (with one major difference - my wonderful ben)...

wishing all of my loved ones a wonderful evening, a great 2009 and many many more years of health, happiness and friendship xox

'fucking retire already...

and give someone else the bat'...

this was ben's response to the SMH article this morning suggesting that matthew hayden has decided to continue in his spot as opening batsman...

have to tell you, i agree with ben! don't get me wrong, hayden has been one of australia's most solid openers for many years, but in the last few series his form has been questionable...and by questionable i mean well below his best...

a part of me wonders why people choose to go on past their best? maybe he can't see a life for himself outside of cricket? maybe he doesn't think there's anyone better than him to open the batting right now (altho arguably that's not his decision), maybe he thinks that his previous form will return?

who really knows what's going thru his head? difficult decision for him no doubt...but for someone who has contributed so much to the game, is he comfortable with letting people remember his current form? coz seriously, people rarely remember the good times when the not so good times are the last they see...

peter roebuck - are you there? what do you have to say about all of this?

addiction...

kind of an apt title for what i'm gonna write about tonight...

see i'm addicted right now to james frey's latest book : bright shiny morning...

ironically (or otherwise) james frey came to fame on oprah having gotten over a number of addictions and written a book about it (which to my surprise, she promoted as part of her book club) - the book in question, which i loved by the way, was called a million little pieces...

it's one man's amazing (if not at times, slightly unbelievable) story about his journey with addiction and how he came to get clean! heart felt, real, gritty, inspiring, in parts so sad it made you cry no matter where you were reading it...

anyway, so the one i'm reading now is his third book (there was a sequel to a million little pieces called my friend leonard) and his first novel! it's his usual style - minimal punctuation but good, can't put it down good, so good i chose it over trashy mags whilst having a pedicure done, so good i am tempted to read late into the night tonight and call in sick tomorrow...

but i won't!

anyway, it's good, read it!

reflecting on the year that was...

only five more sleeps and then it's xmas, which means only 21 more sleeps until my birthday, and of course in between all that, the start of a new year.....can you believe it? this year has gone SO amazingly fast...

guess there's probably a few reasons for that! one is that i was determined to do things a little differently this year - i'm not really one for new years resolutions (i never understand why people have to wait for an external event to decide on making change in their lives...) and this is probably evidenced by the fact that almost every significant change i instigate in my life is NEVER in the first few weeks of January...this is probably largely due to the inevitable mean reds that often descend upon me at this time - a time of reflection and usually disappointment! not so 2008, this one started a whole lot differently, and what a difference it has made!

2008 has indeed, on the whole, been a fabulous year!

i am now only 2 modules and 140 hours supervised work away from qualifiying as a counsellor! which is not amazing to anyone who knows me well and knows my passion for helping others....but is a long way from the path i found myself on (note use of words found myself, rather than chosen!) only 18 months ago...

i have plans to become accredited as an exec coach, so that i can combine counselling and coaching when i start my own business...

i have sorted out the financial side of my life such that if i choose, i can give up fulltime corporate work on 19 dec 09 (which is now less than a year away)...

i have 2 of my own web domains and plenty of ideas for the business...i've even done a business plan and worked out how many coaching clients i would need in order to give up corporate work for good...

i have spent much more of this year 'being' rather than 'doing' and you know what? it pays off..

and last but by no means least, i am enjoying a wonderful relationship with ben - the sort of relationship i used to tell my own therapist about and thought might never happen - i had all but forgotten the joy of having a supportive and caring partner - of finding solace in being part of a 'couple', in having someone to come home to every day, in having someone to go to sleep with every night and to wake up with every morning...the simple things in life really are the best...

sooooo as 2008 draws to a close and 2009 begins, my hope will be that i take whatever i have learned this year with me, and discard the stuff that just doesn't matter anymore so that 2009 (the year of my 40th birthday) will be my best year yet...

wishing you and yours a very merry xmas...

unsure where to start...

there's nothing particularly noteworthy to report this week other than our new tv! and my high distinction...

so i'll start with the new tv! ben and i have been looking around at tv's casually (ie not in a remotely serious way) for some months - we kinda settled on the samsung series 6 lcd - anything bigger than 42inches but we weren't ready to shell out $3,500 or something like that....

so imagine my surprise when catch of the day (i've already blogged about this current addiction) has the one we are looking for, but slightly bigger (ie 46 inches) and much cheaper than jb hifi as their 'catch' - $1,800 no less which is almost a 50% savings....

so could i help myself?

of course i bloody couldn't! so now we have a ridiculously big tv which in fact, is too big for the tv unit...

guess there'll be a new tv unit next!

also, and MUCH more importantly, i got a high distinction for my first assignment in this module...quite a surprise really as i had been sick and handed it in nearly 3 weeks late (with permission) and ended up pulling it together in a lot less time than i would usually spend...

in other news, i only have 6 more work days to go before xmas! and how relieved am i, altho my 'customer' does seem to have taken his head out of his arse of late and is now behaving in a way much more akin to being a human being....wonder if it will last?

i have mixed feelings about xmas but not gonna go into that here...

and it seems there are very few people (and by people, i mean cupcake manufacturers) who are working in early january...

which ordinarily i couldn't give a toss about but since i want cupcakes for my birthday party, this is now becoming an issue!!!

sooooo if you know any good cupcake manufacturers who will be working in early jan, then pls let me know!

relationships are

all about give and take (or so they say), about having ups and downs, and apparently about never having to say you're sorry!

well i'm not sure i believe that! give and take - well, my view is, if it's the right person then it won't feel much like a compromise (as i think that's what give and take means in this context)....never saying you're sorry, even when you should be and have done something wrong, is just plain taking someone for granted!

loving someone is about accepting them for who they are, about appreciating their differences, about recognising they will do things in a way you might not, about being there for them when they are having a bad day, and knowing they will be there for you when you are having a bad day...

and then there are the ups and downs - the ups are good - problem is if you always have them (which we mostly do) then the downs are downright awful...and no matter how many you have (and thankfully i can count on just 2 fingers the downs that ben and i have had in 9 lovely months together) they always feel awful...

heart breakingly, soul destroyingly, scarily awful...guess they wouldn't be so awful if you didn't love someone with every fibre of your being, so if the only way to avoid them is to not love, then it's not worth it!

being in love, being loved and loving someone are well worth the occasional pothole in the road we call life...

i love you ben parkes!

i am tired..

really really tired

- tired of things in my body going wrong

- tired of having to work with people who are capable of neither empathy or integrity

- tired of carrying round a whole lot of my mother's fears, and this isn't her fault necessarily, i'm just tired of having her voice in my head when i would be much better off listening to my own - why won't it go away - i thought i'd done enough therapy...apparently not

- tired of feeling like when i need people they just aren't there

- tired of being disappointed so often

- tired of worrying about what other people think, and even though it's only a tiny tiny part of me, when i'm tired and run down, it seems to become more important to me

- tired of being sad about the childhood i didn't have

- tired of regetting things i say coz i'm not very assertive (despite what people think)

- tired of people thinking i'm strong and resilient coz i'm actually just as human as the next person

- tired of beating myself up for every little imperfection

- tired of trying to please everyone - i just can't

i'm just really really tired and when i really needed someone to talk to last week, the one person who always tells me to call in a crisis hasn't even returned my call...i guess it's possible she didn't get my message but i feel really let down, really abandoned and the voices in my head are going into overdrive, and usually i would know what to do to stop them, but i don't seem to have any reserves left and i'm feeling scared..

i'm not sure how much more i can take and i'm not really sure what to do about it

i'm so tired i think i could sleep forever...

the means reds....

is the only way i can describe my general mood....

and nothing in particular is wrong...mmm let me think about that! actually it's bullshit - my health is still a cause of concern for me and no doubt i'll be back at the doctors/specialists if not before xmas then very shortly afterwards...

the news i got the other week is now 2 weeks old and yet it seems i have not fully accepted it yet - and it's not like it was devastating but i'm still coming to terms with what it all means...

add that to some family (not even my own) drama earlier in the week and working with a guy i neither like nor respect (he's the only one - i like pretty much everyone else i work with) and it's really not a good recipe...

so i'm just plodding along! hoping that something will eventually help me to snap out of it - and it's not like i'm in a bad mood - i'm actually just a little sad and vulnerable...

if i lived in new york i know what i'd do! but i don't which is a good thing really as a) it's winter in nyc and b) i love sydney...so i'm just gonna keep plodding on doing the occasional bit of retail therapy (did some today - red shoes, red bag, navy blue jacket...) and indulge myself with chocolate or tim tams (regularly!) and hope that xmas (and my 2 weeks off) will help alleviate my malaise....

epiphany...

i had one this morning, whilst telling ben about one of my very abstract dreams...

i'm studying counselling (most of you will know this already) and in all trainee counsellors curriculum is a significant chunk of psychodynamic therapy (or freudian analysis). and you might be wondering why? well even though there is much criticism these days of freud's theories and in some instances his techniques, he is undoubtedly the father of therapy as we know it (so those of you that have benefited from therapy ultimately have him to thank!)...

one of the techniques that psychotherapists use is 'free association'...you may or may not know that a significant component of the therapeutic work in a psychodynamic relationship is based on the dreams of the client and more specifically where the client themselves free associates about the dream they had...free associating meaning simply that the client talks about the dream and what they think it means and anything else that comes to mind - it's reasonably unstructured and usually not driven by the therapist (ie no questions etc)...

well until this morning i had understood and grasped the concept in a purely theoretical text book sense - then this morning, as i'm telling benny my dream and trying to think about what it might mean given what's going on in my life right now - it hit me! this is the value of free association

see it's easy to tell someone your dream and have them try and 'analyse' it for you - but they aren't inside your head, they aren't seeing the world the way you do, they aren't reacting to the things in your life the way you do, so no matter how much of your life you choose to share with them, they simply aren't you!

and maybe just maybe this free association, this analysing your own dreams is the key to moving the unconscious into the conscious...

you know what? i think mr freud was onto something...