And What Have You Done?

I started out this year full of fire and fierce hopes, but like all years it's been a mixed bag.

Today, the novel stands at 51,867 words. That's not bad. It's more than double my previous total words written on a project. It's not finished, but it's more than half finished, so I think I'm content with my efforts given how difficult some parts of this year have been.

I've been on a mild SSRI anti-anxiety medication since shortly after my last post, and it has helped immensely with the panic and fight-or-flight responses I was having to my workload. I'm still not sure whether the not coping was due to a chemical imbalance, or whether the chemical imbalance was caused by the workload being absurd, but either way I'm coping a bit better.

The high points of this year included my brother-in-law's lovely wedding, seeing the house where my mother grew up in Nottingham, travelling around the UK a bit, celebrating our first wedding anniversary (I did a video but it's too long to post here, and I don't suppose you lot want to sit for 14 minutes looking at wedding and honeymoon pictures really!), Munchkin starting Year 1, finding the heritage-listed gravestones of my ancestors, spending an enchanted week with the SCA at Raglan Castle in Wales, and losing around a stone through Weight Watchers. 

Aha! Oho!

Australia Day is not quite the same in England.

Making friends at his uncle's wedding.

7 Magdala Road, Nottingham: my mother's childhood home.

Surprise awesome park stop in Yorkshire.

 

Robin Hood's Bay.

Bridge Farm in Almeley, Herefordshire. My great-great-grandfather, Arthur William Dew, was living here in 1871 aged 2.

In the ongoing storage fight in Munchkin's tiny bedroom, I sewed a bookshelf.

Theme park day.

Raglan Castle, Wales

Caution: Archery

Sightseeing in Chichester.

Boarding the plane in Dubai en route to Perth.

A park in Glen Forrest, Perth. My father and I sat on the play equipment, drank coffee and talked.

The graves of my direct ancestors and their relatives, Ashurst, Kent.

Apropos.

6:15am, 25/12/2013

It's been mild so far, but the frost will come.

The low point of the year was, of course, losing my grandmother Jean. Here's some photos of her, just because.

Aged 4, growing up in Liverpool.

Aged 19.

With my grandfather Paul, and their children: (back) Mark, Penny, Nicola; (front) Jonquil, David, Erica, Leonora.

Mum, me, Jean, about 2001.

My first university graduation, 2003.

Family Gathering in 2009.

 It's been a year of big events, lots of weddings and lots of driving - from Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the north east to Southampton on the south coast, west to Shropshire and Herefordshire and out to Raglan, and down in the south east to Kent... I've covered a lot of ground this year, and enjoyed it. There's been new babies (though alas still not one of my own yet) and a few people have left us. Certainly a memorable year.

I haven't got a lot of big goals for 2014. Keep writing the book until it is done, then edit it and start on something new. Keep losing weight, until I hit my goal. Try to get a masters application accepted and funded to start next October, on a Heritage theme. Cope at school. Write another Christmas play. Take more photographs. Go for more walks. See more of this amazing country. Make more garb. Sleep properly. Wear interesting clothes. Have some fun. Blog regularly?

Happy new year, everyone!

Realisations

I've noticed a big shift in my thought processes this week. A few things have become very clear, and I've been feeling very comfortable and satisfied with the new information.

I'm not quite ready to share what's in my thoughts, but suffice to say that I'm feeling refreshed and energised and free. I'm starting to feel the shape of things to come, and I love it.

:)

And sometimes things end.

It's bewildering that one can live, ignoring the bad stuff and highlighting the good stuff, while the fun dwindles and the fights increase, until one day, with barely a sputtering spark, the whole thing is just over and done with.

It's odd that once it's out there in black and white, the pressure is off and respect can return.

It's amazing that you can cry, grief rising up from the bottom of your heart, while feeling relief so intense it's almost joy.

It's strange that you can miss someone when they're right there next to you.

It's breathtaking to find out how many friends you have and how much they care.

It's marvellous to feel free and alive again.

It's surreal to learn that hugs are inside you.

It's a blessing to know oneself.

Here's to adventure.

Four Years

I was answering a message board post just now, and looked up the date of my first blog post. Weirdly enough, it was today, four years ago. Bizarre!

I absolutely boggle when I think of how much  has happened in the last four years. In September 2006 I was working as a project assistant in the gap year between quitting archaeology and starting my teaching degree. I was sharing a house with a best friend who is no longer my friend at all. I was still living through the three year recovery from my first genuinely abusive relationship, and had no idea that a line-up of three quite awful relationships were on the menu for the following three years.

Three years ago I'd finished my final teaching prac and was struggling with the resultant feeling that I couldn't teach at all. I was living with my parents and wondering what the future held and where I would go next. I was also experiencing high school reunions for the first time.

Two years ago I was just days away from ending a disaster relationship, and had no idea that the grief that was still to come would plunge me into the incredible journey of self-discovery that has lead me to where I am now. The me of September 2008 had so much still to come.

This time last year I was again on the road to recovery after another horror relationship and my first (and hopefully last) experience of physical assault. I was still stumbling around in a daze in many ways, but had also made significant progress, and had taken the wild and life-changing step of joining the SCA, a decision that has shaped my life ever since.

Four dramatic, turbulent, soul-searing, growing, knowing years.

I wonder what the next four will hold?

Still here ... honestly ...

I can't really apologise for failing to blog lately. I haven't even been trying. Putting words to my life right now just gives me flaily panicky feelings most of the time.

So here's some things that have been happening . . .

I leave for the UK in 3 weeks tomorrow. All the paperwork is done and I'm almost half packed (or something like that ...). Right now there is a lot of chaos around and bits and pieces of things I need to get done, which isn't really very much fun. I'm not having second thoughts exactly, but I'm finding myself frequently almost paralysed with fear that this will go horribly wrong.  My chief fear is running out of money. Logically I know that I will have work, and it is going to be steady work, and if the teaching work is not quite enough I can waitress or something too, but I'm terrified of being alone in a strange city with no money. Silly terror since I will plan to avoid exactly that and will know well in advance if that is a likely outcome, but still. I am so scared it hurts.

I just need to breathe. I know it'll be ok. I'll make it ok.

*

I got 82% on my first assignment for the year. It was a theology assignment so that's quite impressive - my first essay in a new discipline! When the tutor starts the comments with the words "your essay's only weakness...", you know you've done okay. I'm still enjoying both the theology and the literature units, and still thinking about doing higher level study in both of them. I just can't make up my mind which order to do them in! Master of Ministry first, or literature PhD? Hmm. Oh well, I won't finish the BA until mid-2013 so I have a while to decide.

*

I'm struggling a little at the moment with the feeling that I've managed to get my 20s and 30s arse-backwards. I spent the whole of my 20s chasing the dream of settling down and having a family, and failing at it miserably. Now I'm about to enter my 30s and getting to the age where time for that is ticking away rapidly, and yet I've suddenly discovered the joy of being free and untethered, and I want to get out there and have random relationships and new experiences and not aim to be tied down at all for a good while yet. And through that I risk running out of time to have a family.

There's nothing I can do about it except trust that it will work out okay (and remember that the women in my family have had healthy pregnancies well into their 40s so I shouldn't fear running out of time all that much), but I can't help the feeling of wanting to stamp my feet and shriek that it's not fair. It's like I'm trying to cram everything that my 20s should have been into the last few precious months before I hit my 30s, and I'm getting so confused about what I want and where I want it. I think, overall, that the London move will make this easier not harder - new people and places and contexts in which I can safely explore my real, full identity without the weight of peoples' presuppositions and past knowledge. I am determined not to hide anything about myself amongst my new friends in London. I've spent so much time concealing so much of me in Perth that I'm now hemmed in to the outer identity I've woven. There's a few people who get the full version of Christine (hi, Hilary) but not many. I want everyone to know the whole Christine from now on, and it's easier to begin that with a clean slate in a new city. I hope.

*

I'm currently enjoying a ... thing ... with a guy, which is very sane and comfortable and enjoyable and undemanding and affectionate and lovely. We both know it's going nowhere because I'm leaving the country, but it's enough for right now. How ironic that the "thing" that is ostensibly not a relationship is the healthiest relationship I've ever had. What was that phrase again? Oh yeah, "arse-backwards". That's the one. *headdesk*

*

My grandfather is in hospital with "multiple infections", after having been hospitalised for pneumonia and sent home again. He is quite ill and very uncomfortable. A small part of my brain is in full-scale freak-out over this, but the rest of my brain can't deal and has just shut the door and said kindly but firmly that we'll deal with that if and when we have to, and not before. I'm feeling a lot of guilt about this - afraid that it's an unnatural Aspie reaction that people would find cold and heartless - but it's the only way I can cope at the moment. I have so many things on my "oh hey there potential meltdown" list that the only way I'm surviving is by refusing to acknowledge them. I'm pretty sure there'll be an episode of rather cathartic stormy weeping when I hit a calm spot, but I'll deal with that later too.

*

I am trying to sell my car. I've never sold a car before. I don't really want to sell this one. Bah.

*

I have reached the point where I need to rehome my beautiful wonderful cat, Jemima. This is another thing I know I'll cry about when I finally let go, but I can't let go just yet. If you're in the Perth area and want a cat, consider giving Jemima a home. She is a darling. This is where she is right now . . . I was lying on the bed under a brown blanket doing uni readings, and she lay down next to me pressed right up against my body. When I got up and went back to the computer, she made a nest out of the blanket and curled up in it. D'awwww.

*

This song by Kelly Clarkson is where I am at right now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLUmlyuXonk

*

I think I've pretty much covered everything. Welcome to my life right now. It is complicated!

Now that I've got all of this out of my system I'm hopeful that I'll be back to regular blogging. I've been frozen in silence for a while, but I've broken through, so now there may be a flood ...

30 by 30

The week before last,  I found that I was having problems at work after lunch - I was very dozy and out of it.

So I tried a widely-recommended solution - not eating carbs at lunch, just protein / dairy and vegetables. Not only did it work - I feel refreshed after lunch, not sleepy - but I'm also feeling better all-round. A few days later I tried taking almost all of the carbs out of my dinner as well, loading up on salad instead. And . . . bingo. Feeling much healthier. I'm a little hungry some of the time, but I'm learning to ignore that.

And as a side effect - without even trying - I'm currently losing 200g a day. The numbers on the scales are going down like stair steps. Wonderful!

So I have started a commitment today. I'll stick to this light menu (along with my existing commitment to avoiding all preservatives, artificial colours and flavours, and most refined sugar and refined wheat) until I've lost 30kg. And I intend to lose that 30kg before I turn 30 in December. It's more than 46 weeks until my birthday; more than enough time, even with the fact that this weightloss will slow as I get closer to my goal, and even accounting for some plateauing around the move to London, which will no doubt disrupt whatever exercise routine I've developed before then!

I'm aiming high first up - I want to lose the first 15kg before I leave, 15.5 weeks from now. I will settle for 10, but I'd prefer 15! If all I have to do is keep up this eating plan and gradually increase my exercise, it should be an attainable goal.

So that's my commitment. I'll update the amount lost here from time to time.

*

I'm now successfully enrolled in three units for this semester: Intro to Literature, Thinking Theology, and The Life and Times of Ancient Israel. I'm excited :)

I've learned that to be ordained I'd have to follow up this BA Theol with a Master of Ministry, which is two years full time. So I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. This BA will take me until 2013, so I'll just enjoy it until then.

Decisions and Thoughts

It's exactly 4 months today until I leave for London.

I am SO ready to go. There are lots of people and things I'll miss, but the closer the date gets, the more I'm looking forward to the freedom of it. I need to get away from the too-familiar patterns of life. I need to get away from people who constrain me with assumptions and expectations that I should not have to meet. I need to get away from the constant scrutiny and questioning and everything.

In case it's not obvious, I'm feeling a little harassed at the moment! I love my family dearly but sometimes I feel like everything I do is under the microscope, and I'm tired of being constantly cross-examined and/or bullied about choices that are no one's business except mine. I am desperately looking forward to a fresh start and a nice solid distance between me and the people who think they know me.

I will miss them horribly, of course. But it will also be exhilarating.

I took a slightly scary step today and altered my units so I'm double-majoring in Literature and Theology. I wasn't going to do it, because it would interfere with my creative writing minor; but I realised that I couldn't get that minor without doing several internal units, and that's going to be impossible if I'm still in London, or if I'm back in Perth, may or may not be impossible, as I have no idea what I'll be doing! I can do the Lit & Theol double major entirely externally, so I've picked my probable units and worked out a schedule of study. I've decided to push myself this semester while I'm not working full-time, and do three units. Then I'll drop back to two for two semesters before jumping up to 3 again. At that rate I'll finish halfway through 2013.

The Theology major is a source of major (heh) confusion. Part of the reason I decided to go ahead and do it is that I have absolutely no idea why I'm so drawn to it. I just don't know what it is about having a degree in theology that is so irresistible, but it's drawing me towards it and I can't say no. It's absolutely bizarre. I've wanted things, many times; I want the lit degree, for example. But the theology degree wants me. I've never experienced anything like it. I'm so confused. It's not something I've planned or expected or anticipated, but it feels like exactly the right choice.

(I wanted to insert a macro in here with an In Soviet Russia, Degree Gets You caption, but I couldn't find a picture that I liked, so you'll just have to take it as read.)

There's a word in my mind, and writing it or saying it out loud is almost beyond me at the moment, but I can't chase it away. Ordination. There. Ha. Wrote it.

It worries me because it would be so hard to get people to understand why I was doing it. I'm a naturally religious girl in an apathetically agnostic family. How does that even happen? I'm becoming more and more comfortable with the fact that faith is an integral part of my personality, and I'm learning to talk about it without embarrassment. But such a public display of commitment to that faith? Some of my family might never speak to me again. I know that for a fact. Other friends and family might drift away, or never feel comfortable around me again. I would expect to pay an extremely high social price for making that commitment.

And yet, I'm not the slightest bit afraid of it. Just intrigued.

And THAT is scary. I'm scared of my lack of fear. Huh.

... Yes, I did say I was confused.

This is part of the reason why I just need to be away. I can't see or hear what I want to do over the shouting of social expectations. I'm craving the solitude of being a very long way away, so that I can hear myself think and work out where I'm going with this.

In some ways, the 8th of May is the end of the forseeable future for me. I have absolutely no idea what will happen on the other side of it. But I have no doubt it will be exciting and fascinating.

*

In other news, my ebook reader finally arrived today, and I've loaded it up with the complete Sherlock Holmes. Oh, the joys of reading :) *sings*

Happy New . . . Flickr?

Happy New Year!

I made a Flickr account today for the purposes of sharing my more artistic photos. I enjoy photography as a casual hobby and occasionally take really nice shots. I hope you'll browse it and tell me what you think!

My NYE and NYD were lovely laid-back days spent with some great friends. We wrote, photographed, blew bubbles, swam, watched movies, ate junk food, and talked and talked and talked. An auspicious start to the new year.

I can't believe it's 2010. The year I really get started on my second BA. The year I move to London. The year I turn 30. The year I experience a winter Christmas. So many things to come!

I also plan for it to be the year when I am emotionally well for 365 days straight . . . the first of many. Wish me luck!

Christmas and so on

I've had a very nice Christmas. On Christmas Eve, Dad, Dad's girlfriend, my brother, my brother's fiancee and I gathered at Dad's, and we got Chinese takeaway and made a festive meal of it. We all sat around chatting until late, when I had to leave for midnight mass. I was rostered on at the cathedral, so no escaping it!

Midnight mass was fun - all four acolytes had the giggles and we kept teasing each other or making eye contact and grinning about things. It was a very delightful experience.

I wasn't in bed until 2:30am, so I was pretty tired when my alarm went off. I dragged myself back to the cathedral for a "big moment" - I was rostered on as Gospel Subdeacon, standing in front of the nave altar beside the celebrant, assisting with the major parts of the service. Scary, as I've only done it once before! This is how I looked:

There was a TV camera there, but the news I managed to tape only showed a few seconds of the footage. I was in it, but was facing the altar with my back to the camera, so you could only see my robes and ponytail! Pretty cool nonetheless.

After church I had lunch with Dad, his girlfriend and my Grandma. It was low-key as Grandma has COPD and poor hearing, so we can't be too boisterous around her. It was a pleasant meal, but I was glad to run away to my room for a while afterwards for some no-people time.

In the late afternoon I trekked up to Mum's for dinner. We opened presents then sat down to a fantastic traditional turkey meal, which Mum has down to a fine art. Afterwards we sat around chatting, reminiscing and joking for hours.

On Boxing Day I slept until midday, trying to catch up on some sleep. In the afternoon we (Dad, his girlfriend, me) went to Grandma's for afternoon tea, where we met my aunt, her girlfriend, and my 24-year-old female cousin whom I haven't seen for ages. We had a lovely time chatting about family and nibbling delicacies.

I'm determined to go nowhere and do nothing today, apart from sit at the computer, practise my French & German, and maybe write something. I'm tired, but it's been a good Christmas, and I'm sure I'll have lots of fond memories of it when I'm freezing my butt off in London this time next year!

*

I'm currently in the process of choosing my units for next semester. At this point I've decided to take Introduction to Literature and Thinking Theology (basically Theology 101). The degree keeps morphing in my head, but right now I'm majoring in Literature and minoring in Creative Writing and Theology. Part of my mind keeps pondering that it's not too late by any means to switch to a BTheol rather than a BA, but I don't think I'm ready for that yet. So I'll minor in it, see how I feel about it. I'll go ahead with my plan to do this degree and get a PhD in Lit, then see whether BTheol still appeals. It's the next logical step in this faith journey, and has been calling me softly for some time, but I'm not at that point yet. If that's where I'm going, I'll get there eventually!