Calm down dear...

26th November

How time flies. Just over two years ago we arrived in Sydney and have since enjoyed a couple of different jobs and making numerous new friends along the way. I still struggle when summer comes round; Christmas isn’t far away, yet it’s 25 degrees outside. It’s also not long until my birthday and it feels like only yesterday that I was celebrating it with Mike, Laura and Catherine in York. Crazy how time flies.

It is my nephew’s second birthday soon and it is painful to think that we haven’t been there for his first two years. With his sisters Ava and Vivi I was there to help out when they were little and see them grow into little people. The cost of enjoying our life down under is missing out on those moments with my nephew and nieces, family and friends. That is our choice by being here, but don’t think it is an easy one to swallow. 

I’ve been enjoying my journey of self destruction lately, but am now focussing on a return to a normal life. It seems that I am unable to doing things like normal people. I am fine with that as I don’t wish to be completely normal, that would be boring! However I have discovered that I am a bit “all or nothing”. When I was doing PT back home I would either be working whenever I could or not much at all, consistency was not in my arsenal of skills. I was disorganised and had terrible time management/chatting issues. I am still working on the latter, but the others have improved. This is thanks to the efforts/nagging/love of Catherine and putting up with my highs and lows, the last being the worst for anyone to have to live through. There are days when I wish I was just normal; able to work consistently, have a normal mind, be able to control my extremes.

It is writing like this that helps in the above regard. By typing (the hand written stuff is too dark to share) I can tell everyone and nobody in particular how I feel. I don’t do well at talking about how I feel, unless someone else is in dire straits and it helps them by sharing. But give me a keyboard or a random note book and that page will feel the worst of my mind. Nobody gives you an instruction manual on your mind and body, you just have to figure out what works best for you. Some just bottle it up and finish off badly for it. Some turn to drink and drugs, even exercise to vent. There are also those that write, draw, paint or play music to relax. I seem to have done a little bit of everything lately, oops!

Sometimes you don’t need yoga, meditation or a life changing experience to see that you are going about things incorrectly. It helps to have someone close that knows you to be a mirror for your actions. Without that I’d probably succeed in self destructing.

So I am working on a return to the old version of me being relaxed, but with the new version of me being more organised. Out with stressing about work and money and in with spending time with friends. Good bye to excessive drinking, hello to saving for an amazing trip home next year. Let’s see if I can make this a habit I stick to. Consistency and normality here I come!