Breaking up

Confession time. I am determined to be as honest as I can be about this experience. Maybe someone out there will take some comfort from my words. In any case, it might help me on this very bumpy ride.

Things I am scared about:

- Being on my own again.
- Not having anyone to hug.
- Being lonely.
- Feeling unlovable (ie. my emotional messiness).
- Living with people who turn out to be nightmares.
- Not feeling comfortable in my new home - wherever it may be.
- Not knowing where my life is going.
- Not having my family nearby for support.
- Falling apart.
- Having to go home in a state of failure rather than of.. triumph? No. Glory? No. Success? Well, in a sense. That will have to do. A small scale success, as in: I survived London on my own and made a small life here for a while.

Things I am OK about:

- Getting more time to do things I want to do for myself. Or perhaps I should say, being pushed into doing more things I want to do by this experience.
- Spending some time looking inwards and finding out what makes me happy/contented/at peace.
- House-hunting. I haven't come across any real weirdos yet - just slightly too small, slightly too dark, or slightly too noisy rooms, but the people have generally been nice (which is reassuring).
- That the struggling has taken a back seat (for now).

Things I am happy about:

Ummmm...that it's Summer?

Flat hunting between tears

Lordy, lordy, lord. My oh my, I forgot what a stressful business it is being on your own after 4 years of unhealthy co-dependency. Oh wait, I have never been in quite this situation before. Mamma mia.

Sometimes I imagine a particular yoga teacher's voice in my head, telling me in her beautiful, elongated, soothing voice: "breathe innnnto the heart chakra and oooout through the belly chakra". And vice versa.

I am not sure if I even believe in chakras, but at this point, whatever helps me get through this, y'know?

Also, I have lost my appetite, pretty much completely. This has never ever happened before. I find it bewildering and disturbing. If there was one thing I thought I could count on in this world - besides the love and concern of my parents - it was that my passion for food in general and chocolate in particular would never wane.

* * * *

I went to a quiz night last week - a colleague is raising funds for Oxfam (hi Bix!). One of the questions in the Literature round was: "Name the book which begins with the words, "Call me Ishmael". I knew immediately that it was Moby Dick.

I do love reading, but I never got around to Moby Dick.

Also, I have a pretty bad memory for books/history/geography. Unless, that is, it happens to have been referenced in a comic, a format for which I seem to have total recall.

The struggle

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousnes.

Give me your hand.


~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~


(Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)

These words are comforting me as my world tumbles in.

Melbourne dreamer

On being female and 30

So, I turned thirty earlier this year. The media here is pretty much hysterical about "women in their thirties" (insert concerned but judgemental frown). Men won't date them - they're too desperate! In a panic about their shrivelling ovaries! Realising they can't have it all! Throwing themselves into work/the gym/binge-drinking!!

Personally, I am not that happy with the way things have turned out for me - but that's nobody's business or concern but my own. Society has changed massively since my parent's lifetime. The future seems uncertain but most certainly grim. Our society is in thrall of excessive consumerism and the pursuit of wealth, at the expense of individual and communal wellbeing. I do feel that, in this instance, ignorance would have been bliss (had I settled down in my mid-twenties, bought the house, had the kids, and stayed cocooned in the miniature inwards-looking world of the family).

Then again, maybe not. I have always been an obsessive worrier, since about the age of 4. Every childhood picture of me - every holiday snap, every school photo, every family portrait - shows a skinny little blond kid with crooked teeth, looking worried.

In fact, I looked pretty much like this girl:



Remember her?

Some days I wish I could turn my back on romance altogether and harden my heart, be that strong, independent girl I used to feel like sometimes, striding through the city Amazon-like (it matches my physique, anyway).

Brain, I am ordering you to override heart! Did you hear me, Brain? That's an ORDER!

* * *

Useless brain.