i kinda have the mean reds....

and not about everything in my life (obviously, coz you know there are a few areas that are going fabulously well)...it's really all about work (and not what i do exactly, but where i do it)...i feel like i'm in a sort of holding pattern/trap and i don't really like it...so much so i woke up having had a tidal wave dream lastnight - and that is NEVER a good sign...

maybe that's why i keep saying i wish i could win the lotto - not so i could give up work altogether but really so that i can do the sort of work i want to - and i can hear you asking well why aren't i doing that now, well coupla reasons: financial (this is usually most people's reasons for not doing what they want to) and qualifications...

see right now i am not qualified to do what i want - altho it's only about 6 mths away, so technically (even tho i doubt i'll be financially able to walk away from corporate life by then) i could start doing it then, but i have made a decision to do further study (to enhance the qualification and as i am LOVING what i am learning and the people i get to study with, not to mention some of the fabulous educators i get to learn from)...which means that i won't be finished my Masters until probably mid to late 2010...

which sounds like a long time when written down, but really, it's only 2 years away and since i have spent almost 100% of my working life to date (which has been 17 years) doing a job i a) didn't really like and b) would not choose if i had my time over again (despite the many fabulous things it has allowed me to do - for which i am grateful) doing something i am not passionate about, so now i have found my passion, my calling as it were, i wanna be doing it now! right now...

sooo i guess the mean reds is probably gonna continue for a while and i am gonna try and work on being positive and staying true to my ultimate goal - i am sure that so many people fall off their path during these times coz it seems easier to get off the path, but now that i know what i want to do i'm absolutely NOT gonna fall off the path...

so universe if you are listening - please give me the patience to continue on the path i have chosen for myself, give me the resilience to get through these times of malaise and give me the ability to still count my blessings, as they are many :-)

why can't we win

the lotto? seriously, why can't we? i had to go back to work today after a week off (yep, only a week and even that made it REALLY hard) and i spent most of the day, when i wasn't actually doing what they pay me to do, wondering just how many more days i really do have to turn up and tolerate the ride they call 'corporate life'...

seriously? why do some people take everything so fucking seriously? why do they react like someone died, when something that by tomorrow will be less than inconsequential (actually, to me it was inconsequential today, but herein lies one of my problems with corporate life and the facade one needs to wear in order to survive...)

so ben's alarm went off at 6 am (and no, not for me obviously - i NEVER get up at 6am) i put in my ear plugs, pulled the doona back over my head and attempted to get a wee bit more sleep until i knew my alarm would go off around 7am and even as i dragged my self out of bed to make tea (yep, you read it correctly - today i had to make my own tea...altho i will tell you, that i was offered a cuppa at 6am, but declined in favour of more sleep) and head to the shower, i was starting to think about how i could make some quick money so i could turn my back on it all...

i wonder if this is the effect that all holidays have? on everybody? or is it just me? am i just an ungrateful cow who should be happy with her lot in life, even if that 'lot' includes putting myself onto the corporate prostitution treadmill every day for the forseeable future (read: until the mortgage is no more)? or is there something else going on?

see since i met ben other things, actually mainly work, have kinda lost their shine...and i can sort of understand that...see i waited a LONG time to meet someone like him and i kinda thought it might never happen, so imagine my surprise when my 'mr perfect for me' turns up...

but i think it's more than that...see ben, like me, wants to help people - i'm training to be a therapist and he too, is going to undertake study in a 'helping profession' so maybe just maybe, having met someone who shares my passion for people and helping them, is making the corporate treadmill appear dull, and frankly unappealing???

and it gets me wondering about what i might be feeling if ben hadn't come along (and that is NOT something i really want to contemplate!) and wondering if my level of discontent would be as it is today? or whether it might have taken a bit longer for the polish to have come off my 'new career' - see that's the funny thing - it's not even like i've been doing the job i'm doing now for my entire working life! it's only been six months, and it's what i asked for so i guess me questioning what's going on is a public admission of my feelings of guilt - and not because i don't think i'm doing a good job (i am, but i know i could be doing better) and not because i don't enjoy it whilst i'm there (i do, altho there are elements of frustration that are starting to creep into a key working relationship that i had kinda hoped would continue in it's honeymoon phase - who was i kidding?) - it's just that now not only do i know what i want to be when i grow up, find myself 3/4 of the way thru a course that would technically allow me to hang out a shingle and start 'counselling', but now i am with someone who not only understands this but is really supportive...

sooo even though i sound ungrateful and dissatisfied, i'm really not - i guess i just feel that i've waited so long to get this far - i just want to get there a little quicker!

but as you know i kinda like to end things on a more positive note so here it is: i am grateful for having had a week off, for having had a wonderful holiday (our first) with ben, for a gloriously sunny few days at the coast (see photo from our beach holiday….later removed to protect my identity!) where i stand right now - something happened today that made me remember just how fortunate i am...

nite

xox

don't really have anything of note

to write about, but that's never stopped me before right??? but there is something that's buggin me, so maybe i'll go with that...

remember a while back i blogged about a certain former friends blog and her mention of something that sent me into a spin??? well, even if you didn't read it, it's not really that relevant for this little gripe...

see when we were friends, i told her about gratitude and how i'd started doing a gratitude journal (a concept that came out of the positive psychology movement and something i heard martin seligman talk about at a conference here in sydney a coupla years back) and even on the worst days i could ALWAYS find something to be grateful for - but what i noticed, looking back over the journal, was typically the entries were about people, relationships etc...

so this person (this former friend) now starts blogging about the fact that one of her friends has not only told her about the gratitude journal but now she is doing it...as if it wasn't me that gave her the idea - and i don't know why it bugs me so much - perhaps it's coz she hurt my feelings, perhaps it's coz she betrayed me and made my professional life hell for a time - who knows - in gestalt terms, maybe it's unfinished business?? maybe it is?? maybe it isn't - maybe i'm just crazy...see i do have a hard time letting go of stuff - i always have...

it's not the only thing i seem to be finding hard to let go of - had a dream lastnight which kinda unsettled me - see, someone i dated a LONG time ago was in it, and i don't know why...disturbing...

therapist is gonna be busy next time i see her

nite
xox

ok ok i'm back...

been away for a few days! ben and i had our first official 'mini break' together...went to durras north for a few days of sun (yep despite the weather forecast of showers and cloud it was blue skies and sun the whole 3 days we were there) and relaxation - it was good! actually it was better than good - it was one of those breaks where we did what we wanted when we wanted and it was fabulously relaxing...

durras is a beautiful part of the world - nsw south coast for those readers who don't know where it is - and it was nice to have time to just sit and literally, watch the world go by and listen to the waves crash in, over and over and over again...

and sadly, today is the last official day of my week of leave and i'm really starting to think seriously about just how soon i can leave corporate life - guess as we get older we start to realise what's important to us (and don't get me wrong, it hasn't taken me this long - you've heard me talk about this before) and what isn't: and the 'strings' that go with corporate life are starting to appear too costly...

and here, of course, i am NOT talking about money but about the things one compromises or gives up in order to continue to earn the sort of money that just isn't available (well, maybe it is, but I don't know about it) by doing something that is a) fulfilling, b) meaningful and c) contributes something to the world - for the greater good, as it were...

i guess when it's all said and done, the things that bring us the most joy are not bought (well, unless of course you include an $8.95 pack of UNO cards that can provide HOURS of entertainment and laughter)...

as it sit here typing this i am reminded of a time about 10 years ago, not long before my 30th birthday (a birthday i approached with fear , trepidation and frankly, sadness), when i felt that nothing in my life brought me happiness...and i think about how my life is now and the differences that allow me to feel hopeful for the future and happy to be alive...and i'm not talking in terms of material stuff, altho i would be lying if i said my financial situation had not improved in that time...knowing who i am, what i stand for and what's important to me, knowing what i want to be when i grow up, being able to appreciate things for what they are, and for what they are not, for being able to freely express gratitude for all of the good things in my life even when things don't always seem to work out the way i would like them to, for knowing that everything happens for a reason even if i can't see it at the time, and for having found the path i want to be on...these are the things that have made me happy :-)

one more day...

and then i get to have a week off, which also includes a trip to the coast with ben and 9 consecutive sleep ins....and man am i looking forward to a break! even though it's only been 8 months since i had a big break (that one was 5 weeks) and it's only 4 months since i had 10 days off at xmas, i'm exhausted...

guess that has a lot to do with almost every area of my life and the changes that they have witnessed in the last 6 months! and this is a little weird, but usually as december comes to and end and we approach not only the dreaded 'new years eve' but a new calendar year (which for me also includes my birthday) i start to get a little agitated - not to mention in previous years i have also had to live through another christmas where i seem to be the only person without a partner...

soooo ordinarily that time of year is not the best for me and i get into something of a reflective and 'blue' mood, which can last anywhere from a day to a number of weeks...but the good news is that 2008 was ENTIRELY different...and yes i'd been single for another year, and yes i still had to attend a new years eve thing (and it was bad...) and yes i had a birthday, but for some reason i had a really good feeling that maybe just maybe this year (ie 2008) was going to be different...i had a feeling that it was going to be 'my year'...

guess i was right! see i made a huge career change in november last year which continues to go really well and i find work a much more fulfilling and enjoyable part of my life than i have done probably in my entire working life - i actually feel as though i am finally heading in the right direction, whereas previously i felt as though i was 'achieving' for everybody else despite it not really being what i wanted for myself - my study continues to go really well and i found out that they will accept me into the Masters programme, and i met ben...

sooo whilst everything is great, there has been an enormous amount of change - and whilst change is good, sometimes it has the effect of upsetting our carefully balanced apple-cart, and in my case, a routine that i had become very comfortable with - and don't get me wrong, i am not SO routine that i can't or don't deal with change, but i guess i had gotten into a groove that seemed to be working for me...

so perhaps, now that two major parts of my life have changed DRAMATICALLY and the other remains stable coupled with me not forseeing any other changes in coming months, things will settle down a bit and i might start expending my energy on just 'being' rather than adapting to all the change...

and universe might i say this: thank you for helping me be patient enough to remain hopeful that things would go my way even when there were times when it absolutely looked like they wouldn't! the changes are welcome, and i hope, here to stay...

the events of friday

and my subsequent post about my 'disappointment' gave me lots to think about over the weekend...

sooo guess i wanted to start with a public apology (since even though i didn't do a public name & blame, it probably felt like that to someone....someone very special to me)...so i'm sorry!

it's really interesting to me that the essay i am writing at the moment and the study i'm doing seem so pertinent and scarily relevant to what i am experiencing in my own life - as if the universe has aligned in some way to help me learn this lesson (hopefully i will finally get it this time) by not only providing an 'experience' but also by providing the 'support and information' i need to work it out! thank you - i'll do my best to learn it and move on...

relationships are a funny thing - they are absolutely the source of much joy and happiness (well my relationship with ben is), and they bring with them a mirror that we are just sometimes not ready to look into...i guess the last 2 months has been one of the happiest 2 month periods of my life and more recently is starting to be a mirror - no doubt that what i see in the mirror is what i'm meant to see right now, and no doubt, there are lessons in the 'seeing' that i absolutely need to learn, but must it be so hard? must it remind me of a whole lot of crap that with ben is absolutely NOT relevant?

well, guess i answered my own question whilst contemplating this over the weekend: yes it must be hard - the expression no pain, no gain comes to mind! and yes it must bring up shit i think isn't relevant - coz it isn't relevant, but sometimes it feels as though it is, and it's my job right now to challenge all that old stuff and decide if i want to stick with it....seems easy right? well, it's really not

see when you've spent 39 years creating a belief (and reality is there are way more than just one!) which in turn lends itself to certain behaviours, it's not that easy to just switch it off and start behaving in a different way, no matter how much you want to! and man how i have wished it was....what i have learned though is that by trying to understand where the belief stems from, and looking at it somewhat objectively given my circumstances now, i can (theoretically) make an informed decision about whether i want to hang onto it, or create a new belief, with a whole lot of different behaviours...

sooo pretty cool really, except that last friday i chose not to do that and ended up behaving in a way i was totally embarrassed about and worse still, caused someone else to be upset :-(

so the last few days (which explains my silence) has been a time of contemplation and review, and there are some beliefs that i think i am ready to ditch...what surprises me is that i have done a lot of work in therapy about the sort of person i want to be and how i want to behave and what sort of relationship i would like to find myself in, but doing it theoretically and in the safety of the counselling room are a WHOLE lot different from trying it out in one's real life! guess it's true what some of the great theorists in psychology say: in isolation we are nothing and that until someone holds a mirror up for us, we don't really know who we are...

so ben, to you: thank you for being you, for understanding and caring, for being in my life and for holding up that mirror for me xox

disappointed and

feeling that i can't say that i am, or more that i can't go into it in detail (at least not here - and there is the only downside to date about writing a blog that others can see)...and wondering how i can go from feeling really good and happy one minute to 'not' the next minute???

oh well, maybe it's just that i've had a big week emotionally and even though i woke up this morning feeling great and thinking that the worst of it was over, perhaps it isn't...perhaps it's not really about what's going on now, but something else, some unresolved thing from my past and what's going on now is a reminder of a time gone by? perhaps i was just in denial this morning when i said i was good? or perhaps i'm just bored after a whole day of study?

who knows! what i do know is i feel disappointed, i don't feel like i can really talk about it (mainly coz i don't really understand what is going on for me and my attempts at trying to explain it will not do it justice and probably come out all wrong - at worse misinterpreted) and it doesn't feel good...

i have an avatar....

you like her? kinda cool huh? and sooooo a generation y thing to do - as i'm typing this i wonder how it is i managed to succumb to wanting one, but truth is, i have wanted one the entire time i've been writing a blog and had NO idea how to create one! so ben and i typed 'create your own avatar' into google, found a cool website, and voila! her name is the one thing you may not like about her! see ben and i joke around sometimes and he calls me princess cupcake

and i can now see you rolling your eyes around, or puking! it's one of those names i know is gonna come in real handy if i ever take on a night job..... but of course, to my surprise that name is taken (how is that possible? us being so original and all.....) so i figure that we'll go for princess cupcake 10 which is my favourite number - no no no not coz i think i'm a perfect ten, actually i do, but because it's the date of my birthday and that's taken too! so i get to thinking that the only other number i would consider is 69 (the year i was born) but seriously if princess cupcake isn't porn star/prostitute like enough 'princess cupcake 69' is just OTT, even for me...soooo we ended up with ben's cupcake!

sooooo you get to choose a body, skin colour, eye colour, shape of face, eyebrows, adornments (i did have a tattoo but it was going to cost too much money!), clothes and shoes you are wearing, earrings, lipstick, makeup etc - it's just way too cool!!! and i can even change her (my) clothes for the occasion - you gotta love that! so even when i'm having a bad hair day ben's cupcake can be having a good hair day - gotta love that!

sooooo you've seen her - she's sitting to the right of this (and all) posts - what do you think?

the la mer is worth it

and i defy anyone to tell me otherwise...

so nearly 10 years ago a friend (who has kinda drifted out of my life now) introduced me to 'la mer', actually in those days i gave it the respect it was due (even though i didn't know it then) and called it 'creme de la mer', which you probably have worked out means cream of the sea...

soooo anyway, 10 years or so ago this friend told me about this cream that was taking the US by storm and she dragged me along to DJ's (the only place that sells it in Aust - and you wonder why i know their phone number by heart!) and got me a sample (a tiny little pot they reckoned would last for 5 days and make my skin look AMAZING...) as i had told her in no uncertain terms that i would NOT be paying $365 for some bloody moisturiser...oh how wrong i was!

i guess she didn't bank on just how addictive my personality is, and it didn't take 5 days for me to get this addiction started, no sirree, more like 3 days! what i noticed in my skin was the most amazing change - not only did it look fresh, plump and kindadewy (is that actually a word??)...but the oiliness i had battled for years seemed to be improving? who would have figured that putting really thick cream on your skin would make it less oily...

so of course, like all girls who are single and earn far too much money, i thought 'fuck it $365 isn't too much for moisturiser' and promptly bought a jar...but like all addictions it's a slippery slope, or is it?

so next thing you know i'm scouring women's magazines for the 'free vouchers' they occcasionally put in them for sample size la mer pots! after that it gets worse - this friends husband (who at the time was travelling to the US a lot) works out that it's WAY cheaper to buy it in the US...so i find myself calling him each time he goes to buy me some other product in the rapidly expanding range!

then i find myself becoming like a la mer salesperson! i can't stop telling people how wonderful it is when they tell me how good my skin looks and i consider a career change - yep, really good move to go from being a head of finance for some department in a bank to selling face cream - really onto something there! not...

anyway, it is now neary 10 years since i started using la mer! i think i use almost 50% of the products in the range (the most expensive 50%...). i think (and i try to be objective but seriously, who can be totally objective about themselves?) that i look somewhere in the region of 5 - 8 years younger than i actually am (and i don't credit this all to la mer - lots of water, lots of sleep and great genes also play their part in this little story)...which considering i was born the year buzz and neil did their 'moon walk' would make me 40 (oh fuck i've said it out loud) next year...and yet i'm strangely calm about that (obviously i'm calm about turning 40 - that's coz i don't look anywhere near 40...)

so imagine my delight when i am talking to my mother tonight and she has been talking to someone from saturday's party (the formal 60th ben and i went to in canberra) and the woman asks my mum if there might be grandchildren soon - my mum says she already has two and the woman then goes on to say were they mine - my mum tells this woman that not only have ben and i only just met (ie that grandchildren are not imminent) but that i am 39! the woman apparently says 'no way, i thought she was in her 20's'...

so this post is for all my friends who think that $300 is too much to spend on eye cream...you were wrong!

the stamp of approval...

soooo saturday is the big day! the day i finally get to meet ben's parents...now he's told me a stack about his mum and i had a feeling late last week that i was going to really like her...

so in preparation for our 'cuppa' with her on our way to canberra saturday, i bake a cake! figure it would be rude to turn up empty handed...

so, i get there a little earlier than planned, ring the doorbell, and she comes to the door...i hadn't really created a mental image of her from what ben had told me...the first thing i noticed though was her smile - she has a lovely warm smile! i instantly felt welcome, despite my nerves...

she takes me through to the kitchen (turns out ben is still in the shower - guess that's my fault for turning up early!), i give her the cake (which is still warm) and we chat...

i can't remember everything we talked about as the whole thing was a bit surreal - you know how things are when you've run them through in your head like a movie a million times before they actually happen so when they are actually happening for real it feels a little weird - but i do remember this:

we were talking about ben, she was telling me that she thought he got his intellect from herself and his father, and his sensitivity from his grandfather (her father) twentyfold...i smiled and said i thought he had a big heart, she told me i did too...then she thanked me and told me that she'd never seen him so happy...then she kinda cried, came round (we were talking over the kitchen bench) we hugged, she apologised for crying, i told her not to...

sooo i guess you could say i got the stamp of approval from his mum which given everything he's told me about her, how wonderful she is and how much he loves her, is pretty special...

what's really special though is this: that both ben and her see me for who i really am and that makes me realise sometimes that the journey isn't always easy but there are moments that come along every now and again that make it ALL worthwhile :-)

it's been five days since i posted...

which is not like me but there has been a STACK of stuff going on...

so i was sick, and i guess i say was in a hopeful kind of way - i'm still not 100% and find myself now trying to wean myself off the nurofen (which i was taking like they were smarties) in the hope that the headache (and/or whatever is causing it) will take care of itself...suffice it to say, it's not working exactly but i am slowly starting to feel better

then there's the fact that the weekend was a big one! not in terms of late nights, lots of alcohol, no nothing like that! more like it was the weekend that ben and i decided to introduce each other to the respective 'parents'....good thing is it went well and all the anxiety that had been building up turned out (as i knew it would) to be for no good reason! i'm relieved! this is someone i really really like and taking him home was as big a step as i've taken for well over a decade...am now pleased to say that my mother is no longer in denial - not only did she introduce ben as 'my boyfriend' on saturday night but she said it on the phone tonight when telling me about a conversation she had with another lady who was there...

the other really cool thing that happened (and you already think i'm insane or sport obsessed, or both) is that the blues posted their 3rd win for the season (they've won 3 and lost 4) which doesn't sound that great really, but since they only managed 3 wins in the entire 2007 season, it's looking kinda good! juddy was fabulous and it's great to see nicko back in some sorta pre injury form - go blues!

work is completely out of control - being out of the office for 4 consecutive days is not exactly the way to have a good monday - if there is such a thing, which i'm sure there is not! i got to work to find 9 voicemails (which is good, except that late thursday afternoon when i logged in there were 19...) and in excess of 150 emails...can you hear me groaning out loud? so it was a very very very busy day which given the news i got from ben around lunchtime was probably a good thing :-(

spoke to one of my dearest friends today as she had been silent for over a week...turns out she and her husband had a big fight last week and she toughed it out on her own...thinking of you babe (as always) and want to let you know that even though i know sometimes we wanna work through things on our own, i am ALWAYS here for you :-)

thinking of another of my good friends who i haven't spoken to in ages and made a mental note to call her now that pesach (passover) is over - i didn't even know it was coming up so i guess i felt bad about that as normally i wouldn't let it pass by (no pun intended) without calling/seeing her :-(

so now i'm left wondering if since i met ben i have become one of those bad friends that nobody ever hears from or whether in fact everyone is just really busy right now??? i hope it's the latter...