Sound and vision

I need perspective, I can't trust my eyes
                  'Perspective' Peter Gabriel

Got a new toy yesterday and I am mahoosively excited!

Yes, after months of to-ing and fro-ing about it, Sandy has bought a graphics tablet and promptly gave herself huge eye ache transforming an old pic of snow and ice on the front gate into something a bit more artsy and brooding...

All right so I'm probably the artist currently known as not an artist, but I see this as evidence that along with the design course, new avenues are opening up ready for me to walk down and that is a very, very good thing. I'm big on saying keep putting one foot in front of the other and new vistas will open up but at times wish I could either walk a bit faster or the vistas weren't quite so hidden in friggin' mist.  You would think that the older I get, the easier being patient would be. Unfortunately it just makes me look at my watch more and mutter 'can we bloody get on with this now?'

You've heard me bitch plenty about not being where I'd like to be at this stage of my life and you'll be thanking the non-existent deity that this blog is not going to be bitchfest version 193.6.29...kind of like iTunes updates, but less prone to fucking up your entire music collection. Noooo, this blog is about hope and where you find it...which is usually not where or when you expect.

I'm a bit of an authority on this, having found the kindest man in the world on the other side of the world and the other side of me thinking I would ever find anyone, evverrrr. I used to work for Dutch cafe owners who told me there is a Dutch saying about relationships which translates as 'there's never a pot so odd you can't find a lid to fit it'. I would have told you a few years back that the Dutch obviously talk out of their arse. As it turns out, they don't and I was wrong. I couldn't see that I was wrong at the time. I could only see a very odd, lonely pot.

I've been thinking a lot about perspective and not only because I've been doing weird design exercises involving masking tape and hand tracing all week.  Part of this whole blogging malarkey is me trying to find answers to my own questions, which are endless, apparently. I think I've pretty much plumbed the 'normal' ways of sorting yourself out, whatever the hell 'normal' means.  But if I am an odd pot, and by this stage I have to hold my hands up to that one and, as hypno-dude keeps telling me, embrace my uniqueness, why did I think I would sort myself out with normal anyway?

The thing is, you can't always believe what you see. My eyesight is shit, so definitely don't believe what I see.  I have Aboriginal heritage and a black mother and  but look pure Skippy (Aussie for white Anglo). I'm Sandy, daughter of Norm and Noela. I'm also Patricia, daughter of (freaky coincidence) Sandra and John. Basically I am my own parallel universe.  There are fragments of life you can't knit together, no matter how hard you try. But is that necessarily a bad thing?

It can be a bad thing if you like everything neat and ordered and explainable...which part of me does.  Part of me would adore being Sandy, uncomplicated boring person, mainly because I think if I was I would have had less headspace trauma and heartache.  But then I wouldn't be the fascinating person writing this blog today, har har. I think I've come around to the fact I am where I am in life because I'm meant to see things differently. The self help freaks say this is the universe guiding you along paths that make you grow. I call it an almighty pain in the arse, but at least one that makes me a multifaceted, compassionate human being. Hopefully.

You can see Sandy the Anglo or Patricia the Murri, they are one and the same. In the same way you can see hurdles, burdens, issues and problems and think 'fuck this I am over it' (which I can say is true because I have done it many, many times) or you can see the same things and ask what you need to learn...which I am doing more often although still swearing about it. It's all perspective in the end. You can believe what you want to believe and act or not act accordingly.

I want to continue to open my mind and see what comes out of it other than the occasional bitchfest. I'm not saying there will never be another bitchfest. There may be one in an hour but while I'm willing to grow there is hope for better. And where there is hope there is possibility and where there's possibility there's opportunity and success. That's all the perspective you need, with or without masking tape.

Square pegs and round holes

If nobody loves you, and you're feeling like dust on an empty shelf
Just remember, you can love yourself
                      'Love Yourself' Keb'Mo

See, I haven't even started writing this blog yet really and I'm already questioning myself over whether I'm going to sound wanky. This must be some sort of sign that what I'm about to say is interesting and important. Or that I am wanky.  The fact I'm writing a blog about my life'/struggles/mental gymnastics is kind of wanky anyway, isn't it? Or at the very least, self indulgent. The ultimate word selfie! I'll be taking photos of myself and putting them on Facebook next. Oh, hang on...

Sometimes I really wish I was one of those people who thought enough of what they had to say and contribute to society that they never apologise for saying or contributing.  Admittedly a lot of those people are massive pains in the arse who overall have nothing to say or contribute that's going to do anyone any good whatsoever. But what if they say something awesome one day? What if we tell them to bloody well shut up and we miss it and it could have changed the world? I'm going through a headcloud ME phase at the moment and can't think of an example of such a person, but I know they exist. They do. Really.

All of this is leading up to what I want to actually say today (eventually) which is that my whole life I have spent waaaay, waaaay too much effort trying to fit in when what I really should have said was this is me, like it or fuck off. To myself as much as anyone. I am the ultimate questioner of self but have never really asked the most important question: why do I think it's always me who has to change?

Years and years ago I was on a plane from Melbourne to Brisbane reading an article in the inflight magazine about a famous Australian actress and getting irate and wanting to punch her because she said something along the lines of being too expansive for the world she found herself in as a teenager and having to 'halve herself and halve herself again' to fit in.  The fact I am recalling this the better part of a decade later is probably enough evidence that I was getting angry not because, as I thought at the time, she was an uppity cow who needed a good slap.  It was because Sandy is a halver.  I am actually cringing as I type this. Annoyingly, it's not so much because of the thought of being a halver and therefore compromising myself. It's because of the thought of sounding like an uppity cow who needs a good slap.

And if I am an uppity cow who needs a good slap...what the hell does that matter really?? Seriously. I get bollocked by people anyway.  What's the difference if I believe in myself or don't believe in myself or am me or not me if I still get bollocked anyway?  May as well be true to myself, blue hair and all.

What's brought this all this on, well as I mentioned in an earlier blog, I am now a design student (oo er) and now find myself sharing my creative side with an actual arts community.  I don't regard myself so much as an artist as a good ideas person who wants to find creative ways of expressing them.  There are however seriously arty people doing this course. And that is great, but why does that lead me to the thought 'fark, another place where I'm a square peg in a round hole'?

I am cringing again now because not only I am I now exposed as a halver, I'm one of those people who just wants to fit in. But I don't. But I do. But I don't. But I do. Aaaaagggghhhh!!!!!

Actually, I don't want to fit in.  I want to be invisible. I blame my real father.  I didn't realise until I met him obviously, but suddenly whole facets of my personality made sense when we were sitting on his balcony in the middle of an enormous block of land and he told me he had bought acreage so he could avoid people.  They scared the shit out of him. They scare the shit out of me too. Unfortunately I don't have acreage and do have regardless of blind terror of humanity an absolute passion for all the good interesting stuff in the world and sharing it and contributing to it.  You see my dilemma. I want to hide but I can't. Bugger.

I don't really see myself as a square peg in a round hole either.  I'm more octagonal and instead of running around trying to find square holes or force myself into round holes I should get off my arse and carve myself out a nice octagonal hole to fit in. Not half an octagon either. A whole one.

Haters gonna hate, but hopefully, one day, the hater that gonna hate me won't be me. Hypno-dude told me a while back that I need to unleash my individuality and I told him the world probably isn't ready for it yet. It probably isn't.  I'm probably not entirely ready to not halve myself either, honestly. But I need to. So best get on to it.

War! What is it good for?

I've spent too many years at war with myself
The doctor has told me it's no good for my health
To search for perfection is all very well
But to look for heaven is to live here in hell
                        'Consider Me Gone' Sting

Forgive me bloggies for I have sinned, it is several weeks since my last confession. It's just as well I gave the Catholic thing up when I was about 11 or I would be up to my arse in Hail Marys right now and that I can assure you is a place I don't want to be. Apologies to my Catholic friends for whom Mary is a comfort.  I don't have anything against her personally, I just don't see the point in asking her to do stuff for me, particularly when I'm capable of getting off my own arse and doing it myself.

The truth of the matter is that I have been living and debating too much in my own head to get the thoughts out in a blog, and that's pretty much another place I don't want to be.  I'm not saying it has been a bad few weeks, there's been plenty going on and plenty to be proud of. Plenty to be fucking annoyed at too, but hey ho that's life innit? But along with being overall pretty happy at how life is panning out, I have been more or less at war with me and my own perception of where I should and could be, if I just tried harder. Because that would solve everything, wouldn't it? Apparently.

I don't really do self-acceptance that well and by that I mean I despise what I see as my own weaknesses and this, if I think too much about it, can lead me to despise me...add that one to the list of places I don't want to be, along with Mary and in my head and North Korea and places where they don't sell Vegemite or at least allow you to carry it in your hand baggage.  I'm quite tolerant of other people's weaknesses, some would say empathetic and forgiving.  Haven't quite got the hang of doing the same for me. But then I'm not worth it, am I? I am, I know I am, plenty of people whose opinions I trust say that I am. I am. But I'm not. But I am. Maybe.

You start to see where the war theme is coming from. Tomorrow, when I'm not feeling so crapped off with myself, I will change my mind but today I reckon I should change my name to Afghanistan because it's a good name for a region where internal conflict never seems to bloody well cease. They could call me Stan for short, or Afghan when I was wearing a fluffy coat. Or Bloody Idiot for wanting to change my name to Afghanistan because I can't sort my own shit out. Aaaaaggghhhhhhh!!

Right, let's talk positives for a minute. In the last month, I have increased my fitness through loads of walking, my diet has improved nutrition-wise, I've started studying design and it's interesting and engaging. No idea where it's taking me currently, but it's expanding my mind. I no longer have the stress of the Home Office hounding me out of the country. Husband and dog love me and the cat tolerates me as long as I feed her promptly. Well, to be fair, she probably loves me but it's hard to tell with cats. Or is that just Cara?

Negatives: probably as a result of increased activity the ME has been biting pretty hard and it's fucking me right off. I'm constantly having to duck and weave around symptoms to get things done at the moment.  I missed being in Australia to celebrate my best friend's milestone birthday and was crushed about that and massively homesick as a byproduct. Eased off to just homesick now. Would really, really like to go back to Aus for a visit but not sure when we can afford it.

And the negative which is probably fucking me off the most, not because it's worse or more important than any of the above (because it's not) is despite training for a walking half marathon and eating good food and watching portion sizes my weight is up and down like a friggin' yo-yo. Still. Have been losing and gaining the same three or four pounds for ages. To be fair my weight has been pretty stable for a long time and that's progress for me but not the progress I really want. Pah!!

Is it just that my weight seems to be the barometer for my life? My mood and optimism are up and down at the moment. Scales are reflecting it. Not so hard to understand really, but, sorry I have to shout this because I am really bloody frustrated with myself right now I AM FUCKING SMARTER THAN THIS, WHY HAVE I NOT GOT PAST MY OWN FUCKING DEMONS BY NOW???!!!!!!!

That's it, that's why it's pissing me off so much.  There, in numbers, is the proof that despite years of effort and work and tears and anger, I still really don't have my shit together. That's what's getting on my tits really. I would really like to think that at some point all my efforts at trying to improve my headspace and my life would result in someday not having the headspace or life issues that brought me here in the first place.  I'm probably all the more frustrated because I do believe it can happen. I believe in the power of people to massively change their lives. I even still believe it can happen for me.

But if I am putting effort into change, working on it, believing in it...why is it taking so fekkin' long??? Faaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrkkkkkkk!!!!

This is where the self help gurus talk about living in the moment and acceptance and self love and shit like that. Well all right, it's not shit but I'm really glandy and sore and tired today so they can say it but probably better if they phone me rather than turn up at my door because they might get punched. Put that in your mantra and smoke it!

Last weekend I had one of those illuminating but disturbing moments when you realise how far you have to go. People who have read my earlier posts would acknowledge that while I can be regarded as a tad unhinged I have at least been putting a fair effort in trying to improve myself and my life. Thought I was doing all right too.  And I am really, but I think it finally hit me on the weekend how low my sense of self worth really is. Call me dumb, but it shocked me. At the intellectual level, I acknowledge my own value, brilliance, individuality and all the other shit self help gurus go on about. At the soul level...I still have some serious work to do. Hence all the sooky la-la above.

I sometimes wonder whether the ME was the universe's seemingly crap gift that stripped everything away so I could see where I really was and start again. Grinding fatigue has this way of taking everything back to the bare bones.  Maybe I needed the current dip to take stock and see where the next battle is. Or being tired and sore is making me delirious and talk bollocks, I'm not sure which.

Either way...war sucks and I am over it. I'm a pacifist at heart. Just need to remember that losing one battle or even four or five or 182 doesn't mean losing the war. No excuses, no surrender!!!!

Work with me

I've been afraid of changing, because I
Built my life around you
But time makes you bolder, even children get older
And I'm getting older too
             'Landslide' Fleetwood Mac

Remember how I said in my last blog that if the shit hit the fan it was all right because shit isn't shit in the end? Well bugger me, I am a prophet because that's exactly what happened. Long story and I am over talking about it and it's time to talk about something else now. But the shit did indeed hit the fan courtesy of the Home Office, resulting in a cross country dash to Liverpool and me getting my permanent residency visa.  Stress!!!!! Relief!!!!!!!

Time to do and think and be other stuff now for which I am very bloody grateful and I am sure you are too. There's only so long you can be a moaning minnie about one particular subject before everyone wants to shove your head in a bucket of water and even you think it's a good idea to leave it there.

In the midst of the shit hitting the fan, other than deportation I was thinking a lot about the whole concept of 'bodymind'...that idea of the body and mind being an integrated whole and therefore needing to be treated as one. I should point out that for a lot of reasons I have spent a lifetime and a lot of time and energy trying to keep my body and mind separate. Hard going as even if you don't buy the integrated theory one is pretty much stuck with the other innit? Hmmmm.

I think all you need to grasp the concept of bodymind is to observe the effect of extreme stress on the body, which is what I was doing the day after I found out the Home Office was returning my permanent visa application a week before I was due to become an illegal immigrant. Well, observing the effects of stress on the body and trying not to fall over or throw up, because I had an absolute killer migraine. Why did I have a migraine (a body thing)? Because I had stress (a mind thing). If the body and the mind were separate, would I have had stress but no migraine or migraine but no stress? Hmmmmm.....

Extending that idea...does the way you think about yourself and respond to the world, not just stress, have a direct effect on your body? Louise Hay talks a lot about this stuff.  I'm not sure I'm down with her list of emotional conditions and the directly corresponding list of illnesses resulting from it because frankly I don't know if, for example, not being able to forgive your mother for burning your birthday cake when you were 12 can correspond to ONE thing that can go wrong with your body.  We are much more complex creatures than that. If it was that simple we'd all be perfect specimens of mental and physical health, wouldn't we? Or am I just overcomplicating things? Wouldn't be the first time haha.

But, but, can't get away from the basic concept that the way you think ultimately determines what you are. If you don't think you can improve your life or you physical or mental health, you probably won't.  You only need a crumb of belief to get started, but if you don't have the crumb, don't look for it or choose not to eat it, won't your mind and your body respond in kind and just give up?

In one of those 'confirming your thinking' kismet moments I happened to be reading an old Grazia in the bath this morning (as you do) and they had an article about emotional cellulite, i.e. you may have dumpy thighs because of your inability to let go and forgive yourself.  No wonder my thighs are massive!!

All right so you probably shouldn't take the word of women's magazines on complex physiological and psychological issues but do they have a point? If I can get migraine, more hardcore ME symptoms and neck ache through stress, why not incredibly chunky legs?  Is the size of my arse a reflection of my lifetime of self loathing and doubt?

I hold my hands up to spending waaaay too much of my life trying to get rid of symptoms rather than address the disease, or dis-ease as the self help gurus call it. Given that I have spent a fair bit of my life in chronic pain, overweight and trying to overcome a past best described as challenging, that is a lot of symptoms and a lot of life and there are some things you can't take pills for, because frankly there are no drugs that good.

There are plenty of times I would have quite happily climbed out of both my body and my mind and gone in search of a better place to live and no that's not a veiled suicide reference. There have been a few occasions where death looked pretty good but I'm too bloody minded to give in basically. I'm only just now getting to the stage where I'm comfortable enough with myself to think my own mind and body are actually OK places to be, even if some fresh paint and repairs are required. Climbing out of your own body and mind is not an option obviously so as the renovation experts say, don't move, improve.

Need to think more about this stuff and what it means for me, the weight, ME and general physical and mental wellbeing.  Also call a meeting and convince my body and mind they are actually on the same team.  If I can't work with me, who can?

Sleepwalking

I tell myself I won't do it again, but I know I will be
Lying in my bed my thoughts racing
Like they always have been
                'Wide Awake' The Twang

I am awake. Well, that's probably self-evident, although for all you know I could have the ability to sleep type. I don't, which is fortunate. I manage to contain my mentalist rants OK when I'm awake, but gord knows what would come out of me in an uninhibited sleep state given a keyboard under the covers.  Note to self: leave the laptop downstairs!

I am awake in the middle of the night again and it's safe to say after a couple of weeks or three or four years of this I am over it.  I'm still not sure how somebody with ME can regularly have sleepless nights.  I am however sure the combination is frying my brain. You can imply an apology for lack of bloggage lately and potential upcoming massive rants from that.

While not gracing blogland for the last week and a half I have been busy trying to sort various bits of my life out while the most important bit, whether I get my permanent residency or not, hangs around in the corners like a bitter smirking relative pointing out everything that can go wrong.  The relative does have a point.  I can work my arse off trying to get signed up with the Open University and getting a stall for a Christmas craft market and thinking about part time jobs, but what's the point if I'm not going to be here? That's a lot of pointing for one paragraph and of course I am going to be here but, but, until I get the barely polite letter from the Home Office saying oh all bloody right, here's your permanent residency, how do I really know? I could be having endless debates with the Open University about my residency status for nothing. That would blow, particularly as I would lose the opportunity to strangle one of their staff. That's a whole other story probably best not told while I'm trying to convince the Home Office I don't have violent criminal tendencies.

This whole process has led to an uncomfortable discovery about myself.  I like to think of myself as this easy going, let life take you on an adventure and go with the flow kind of person.  As it turns out, I'm actually a rabid control freak.  You can tell me that handing my and the kindest man in the world's fates over to an unfeeling, uncaring bureaucracy and having no power over the outcome and feeling a tad stressed by that is a normal reaction and you're probably right but it's that feeling of loss of control over my own destiny that's doing my head in right now.

It will be all right and even if it won't be all right it will be all right because I may be a chronically fatigued insomniac with no brain right now and I don't know how the universe works really but I do know that one way or the other, sometimes with shit hitting the fan and sometimes without, that things work out for the best sooner or later. Warning, I'm about to go Zen master on your arse but some things are just true whether you want them to be or not. If you keep working towards better, shit still happens but in the end it all comes good, even if it's not the good you planned for or expected.  That much I've worked out. How not to get stressed during the 'shit happening' part I'm still working on, but I'm sure I'll get there one day.

How not to be a control freak in the face of uncertainty is another thing I need to work on but if I've just acknowledged that life is self-sorting if you let it be why do I feel the need to control everything?? Pain aversion, obviously.  Pain can be avoided, certainly, but only if you avoid everything else that makes life rich and varied and awesome.  And I want to live, dammit!! I don't want to hide in a nice safe infinitely boring corner. Best learn to take the bad with the good, knowing you can't have one without the other in any sort of life worth having. Yin and yang, woman, yin and yang!!

So life goes on, courses get signed up for, business ventures get pursued, and somehow in the middle of all this I have *looks around furtively* managed to get my eating back under control...six days and counting yeeeaaaahhh!!  I've made a decision, I'm not thinking about having lost five stone already. I'm approaching it like I've just started.  It's new and shiny and fresh and I'm not complaining about having lost so much but still having so far to go. I just have some weight to lose and every day I wake up and say right I'm eating well today and not thinking about having to do the same tomorrow, or the next day, or in two months. This particular mountain will be climbed, conquered, and danced like a loony on. It's happening.  That is all.

Self hypno has also been awesome and while the Sandy who wants instant results might be peeved slightly with what might be termed concrete progress, particularly in the weight loss arena, the holistic bodymind Sandy is bouncing and not only because of the size of my arse. It's evolution rather than revolution right now with the occasional smashing of mind walls. Can't complain at all about that. Beats devolution and despair hands down and I sense the wall smashing is leading up to something big. Could be delusion on my part but I'm still working for better and better will come one way or the other.

Life goes on. And really, it's all good.




                      

The rules

Actually I don't really want to call this post 'the rules', because I don't really like rules.  But I have this collection of principles by which I live (or try to) and, inspired by Gibbs from one of my all time fav series NCIS, it might be time to get them all in one place. I could go all hippy-dippy and call them life philosophies or learned wisdom. I could, but I think you know why I won't.

As with the famous Mr Gibbs I should probably point out that I don't live by these all the time. They're not aspirational as such, but occasionally one has problems picking oneself off one's arse to live by them.  What can I say, I continue to try!

So here it is, Sandyology in a nutshell. Or case, I'm not sure which.

1. Why be half-arsed when you can use your whole arse?
2. Life is too short for one hair colour.
3. Only listen to the opinions of people you respect.
4. Dr Martens ARE appropriate for all occasions, especially now they have ones with high heels.
5. Self esteem comes from yourself. That's why it's called self esteem. Don't be looking for it elsewhere cos it's a waste of time.
6. Would a fashion designer wear a shirt with YOUR name on it? Think about it.
7. Never give up or chicken out. You don't know what good stuff you'll miss out on if you do.
8. Strength doesn't come from physical capacity, it comes from an indomitable will. (That might be Gandhi's idea).
9. Work for better, live for now.
10. How about putting all the energy you use hating yourself into something constructive?
11. Justin Bieber. Just don't.
12. You aren't always wrong or always right.
13. Nobody makes you feel bad about yourself.  You allow them to. Deal with it.
14. When you take a chance, sometimes good things happens and sometimes bad things happen. If you take no chances, nothing happens.
15. Even the bad things can come good in the end if you let them.
16. Western democracy would be a good idea. Yeah, I nicked that from Gandhi as well.
17. Not everybody loves Raymond.
18. Gratitude for the things you have makes you happy and less of a whiny pain in the arse to those around you. Win-win.
19. Self-help gurus do have a point, even if you occasionally want to strangle them.
20. As Gibbs says...sometimes, you're wrong.

The return of the fat white Aussie

'Here am I, floating in my tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do'
                                   'Space Oddity' David Bowie

Just checked the date of my last blog and seen that it was two weeks ago. Eeeee where does the time go!!

Since last going bloggy on your arse Sandy has written, collated, quadruple checked and lodged a permanent visa application and applied to study design with the Open University. You could say the second is a sign of faith in the first coming good.  The cynics will say it's putting the cart before the horse. I say if the horse is stubborn enough to push the cart and the RSPCA doesn't mind who's to say which should come first? Not me but then I am now in the odd position of not really knowing what hemisphere I'll be living in by Christmas so I'm bound to be a bit addled.

Realistically I don't think the Home Office will knock me back but it's the not knowing which has done my head in while writing, collating, checking and lodging.  A major flaw in my personality has emerged over the last couple of weeks. Well, it hasn't emerged because I always knew it was there but it's risen up in front of me, slapped me around a bit and told me to get a grip over the last fortnight.  I freeze in the face of uncertainty. Yep, the very moment when Sandy needs to get her shit together before it hits the fan, she wants to hide under the duvet, cover her ears and go 'lalalalalala' in the hope it all goes away and of course it doesn't, does it. Something else to work on. Hurrah!!

Anyhoo!! The application is in and now all I have to do is wait. That and try and keep the kindest man in the world, who isn't coping too well with all this, from deep despair or alternatively trying to start some kind of anti-Home Office revolution that will either land him in jail or wind up getting us both deported. Can't complain really as it shows he loves me and wants me to stick around.  Makes all the bullshit worthwhile, innit.

Since the application went in on Friday, along with mute terror at not knowing the outcome, I've felt a huge burden lift. I've done everything I can do and it's out of my hands now.  Time to get on with other stuff and live, dammit!!

Sandy is back!!!!!!

Not quite the return of the thin white duke, more the return of the fat white Aussie but I'm back and ready to push on with the self help malarkey and expanding my mind and my life and shrinking my arse.  OK so technically given my Australian Aboriginal heritage I'm not really white but let's not split hairs. It's the back part that counts.

Went to see hypno-dude last Saturday and we talked about me applying to the Open University to study design and he asked what my dream job would be afterwards.  I've been pondering that one since. Actually I've been pondering that probably since I was five and somebody first asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  One day, when I grow up, I might actually work out what that is.

Some people have a passion in life and make it their career and that's it, they're sorted. I am not one of those people.  I've had 'good' jobs and some of them even interested me but I can't say there's one overarching thing that I've wanted to do or be.  The thought of doing the same thing for the rest of my life actually kind of scares the shit out of me.  Am I flighty?? Or am I just too multi-talented to restrict myself to one field, har har. Pardon me while I spew, I just sounded like one of the Gen Y know it alls I so despise but you get my meaning.

Writing has always been an undercurrent that has carried me along in terms of interest and career and occasionally I have even made money out of it but stuffed if I know how you make it your life's work. Well, people do obviously, but I don't think there's a full time career to be had in massive rants about life and politics and trying to get your own shit together that doesn't also involve international infamy and a substance abuse problem.

What I need is a multi-faceted creative career that will allow me to write, create, design, rant and wear my Dr Martens to work.  It's a beautiful dream.  What that actually means is I probably need about three different jobs and a therapist on tap so I don't have a breakdown. Again.

The tension in me at the moment is that the artist who wants to be known as Sandy says just do the course and let your future evolve.  The hard-arsed pragmatist Sandy says you're 45 years old, you dipshit, how long do you want to evolve before you do something useful? Then there's money. The artist says money will work itself out. The hard-arsed pragmatist sings 'money, it's a hit, so don't give me that do-goody-good bullshit' along with Pink Floyd even though Pink Floyd are bollocks. Yeah, I said it. The kindest man in the world may be lodging divorce papers later.  That would solve the which hemisphere to live in question nicely.

I don't know what the answer is but can I at least have fun working it out? When I don't want to tear my own hair out at my grasshopper mind, that is.  Is that possible? Must be. I would say first thing is to not take myself or my life too seriously and I've got that down. I'm Aussie, for godzakes. Taking the piss out of ourselves is the core of our cultural heritage.

I might be floating along in an indeterminate residency status haze right now but there's plenty to be getting on with and sorting out and in the end all we have is today.  So with all the what is my destiny palava, must not forget that the foundation of whatever tomorrow we have is what we do today. Plan for tomorrow, live for now, or something.  Ask the question, work towards the answer, enjoy the journey. And celebrate the grasshopper mind.  At least life's never boring.

Identity crises

'Love's not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind'
                'Walk On' U2

My apologies for the break in transmission, but it's been a weird and busy and weird week.  On the upside, I now know more about British history than a lot of Britishers.  Yep, the Life In The UK test has been studied for and done and smashed.  I now have the all important pass letter to go with my permanent visa application. First hurdle cleared whooo!!!!

I have been hugely appreciative this week of the number of people who've offered their support with the whole visa process malarkey despite probably being utterly sick about me ranting about the stupidity of it all on Facebook for the last few weeks.  I have great friends and largely lovely acquaintances, and for that I am truly grateful. It hasn't always been that way. It is a sad fact of life that if you think you are shit and act like you are shit you attract people who treat you like shit, making you feel more like shit and act more like shit.  Many of the airy-fairies who believe in the law of attraction do my head in, however, there are some principles you can't deny.  As you think in your heart, so you are.  That's Biblical, yet somehow still true.  I'm a recovering Catholic, which accounts for some of my whackjobness, but some Biblical stuff actually makes sense.  Nothing's entirely good or entirely bad, not even the Bible. Yin and yang and all that...

I like to think that the many fabulous people who are more or less in my life are there because I am more accepting of my own fabulousness these days. Of course, they could just be really nice and want to support a whackjob. Either way, as they say in my country...love youse all!

Apart from making me grateful for the people in my life, this visa application malarkey is having a few other effects on me I wasn't expecting.  Applying for a UK visa has increased my focus on the UK, as you'd expect, but in the same breath I'm also looking back to where I came from and feeling a certain amount of grief...not really helped by the people saying that I'm a Pom now, or a Brit, depending on which hemisphere they come from. It's a joke, of course. I know it's a joke. It doesn't feel like one, though. I'm not a full on Shazza (proper Aussie 'sheila'), but I am not and cannot be a Brit. No offence to the Britishers.  I like you a lot, but I can't be you.

By the same token, after getting on for three years in the UK, I can feel some of my Aussie roots getting pulled up. Sandy is evolving in many ways at the moment. This particular evolution is probably inevitable, but it's not thrilling me right now. All the lovely messages from home this week wishing me good luck but at the same time saying don't forget us and we wish you'd come back have taken the breath from me at times.  I made a crack earlier in the week about wouldn't it be easier if the Border Agency made Peter Andre go back to Australia and let me stay here in his place, wouldn't that be a win-win, and had a few people say well no, it's a lose-lose because then we'd have Peter Andre back and you won't be here.

What can I say about that that won't leave me in tears?

Anyway, I'm properly stuffed now because I have good friends in the UK too and if the kindest man in the world and I do go back to Australia I'm going to bloody miss them too, aren't I?

I think where I find myself now is that point where you've moved forward and onward to such a radical degree that you can't go back. And by that I don't mean I can't go back to Australia, I mean I can't go back there the same.  And that doesn't have to be a bad thing, does it? I'm working on moving forward and not going back in a lot of other areas and I'm happy and positive about that.

This particular path forward.....aaaaggghhh. But I'm here for love and it's given me not only that but a chance to remake myself.  In order to remake myself, parts have to change or be replaced. For parts to be changed or replaced, some pain and sacrifice must happen.  The pain is definitely happening at the moment.  The benefits will come. I'm sure of that much.

Exercise songs they don't put on running compilations 1

Well, after a day of studying the Life In The UK handbook and fretting about permanent residency applications I was well pissed off with the world but went out for an attitude adjusting walk and listened to some of my favourite attitude adjusting songs...this be one of them. I am hugely influenced by music and song lyrics, which you may have gathered by me quoting song lyrics on every post.  Like everything in life, got to listen out for the lesson and act on it.  Unless you're listening to Justin Bieber songs, in which case, just friggin' stop.

I like to use my walking time to work through things in my head and occasionally blast them out with an appropriate tune. Am now feeling better about things after listening to this and remembering in everything you have a choice...in my case, to stop being a bloody sooky-la-la.  I've got over bigger hurdles than anything the UK Border Agency can throw at me. Just got to be patient and work through it all. What a font of wisdom I am when I'm not chucking a mental or hiding under the duvet shit scared of my own shadow! There's hope for me yet!

Anyway, here is today's attitude adjusting song. You can choose whatever you want to be and you can choose your attitude. Best remember it when chucking a mental or hiding under the duvet. Enjoy.

Foreigner affairs

God save the Queen
The fascist regime
That made you a moron
               'God Save The Queen' The Sex Pistols

I had a job interview yesterday and I didn't come home feeling like an absolute fuckwit!! Regardless of the outcome...success!!

Spent the morning self-hypnoing for calm confidence and also clear speaking, as I am a speed talker at the best of times but go Formula 1 under stress and a few people here have enough problems with my accent as it is.  I don't have a hugely broad Australian accent by Australian standards, but the drawl does appear to overcome some delicate souls.  God knows how they would cope with me and some of my friends at home rabbiting on in full sheila flight after a few drinks, their eardrums would probably explode!

Anyway, was nervous but under control nervous and I didn't get any 'what the hell did you just say' looks and they said nice things about my skills and experience.  All good, it might not translate into an actual job, but I feel positive about the whole thing and like I could do it again without acute terror or the use of prescription drugs. Happy!

For my next trick I will now spend the next week stuffing my brains full of fascinating facts about British history and lifestyle for the Life In The UK test I'm taking next Friday.  For those of you that don't know, the Life In The UK test is for foreigners to prove that they know more about British history and lifestyle than British citizens, thereby proving said foreigners barely worthy of having their feet on British soil.  The UK Border Agency doesn't quite put it that way on their website, I'm not sure why.

Yes, after two years of wafting along on my settlement visa, it is time for me to apply for permanent UK residency and it's safe to say I'm freaking out a bit but nowhere near as much as I will be in three weeks when the application goes in and I'm sitting around waiting for the Border Agency to decide my future for me.  What happens if they tell me to bugger off? The kindest man in the world reckons if worst comes to worst and my application is refused he's packing up everything here and moving back to Australia with me and never looking back but life is rarely that simple and my life certainly bloody isn't.

Self hypno required to calm the hell down I think.  I am definitely still scarred by the experience of applying for my settlement visa two years ago, which was wall to wall stress compounded by the fact that once the application goes in nobody tells you anything until you get your passport back weeks or months later with a visa stuck in it. Oh, and that they have your future in your hands, and that if you leave out any part of the application or any evidence whatsoever, they refuse your application and you have to apply again and cough up ANOTHER seven hundred quid. Aaaaaagggghhhhhhh!!!!

This is part of the reason I get so irate with the BNP and the EDL and all these other fucktards who go on and on about immigrants and how easy it is for bloody foreigners to come here and become a citizen and suck Britain dry, apparently. Really, well come over my place and help me fill out the fekkin' fifty page form and collate a ream of evidence and study for the Life In The UK test and drive me fifty miles to fekkin' Leeds to do the test and find me seven hundred quid to pay for the application and then after I put the application in, come around and provide comforting words while I rock catatonically in the corner for weeks waiting for the outcome which will determine which fekkin' hemisphere I live in. If you're going to be racist and isolationist, at least get your bloody facts straight!!

This whole being an immigrant in waiting thing is beyond weird and is made weirder by the conversations I have with people who ask if I'm Australian and tell me they have relatives in Sydney or Adelaide and isn't it wonderful that I came here to live with my husband, and then proceed to tell me that immigrants are ruining Britain and they should stop more people coming in. What the actual fuck?!  Am I not a foreigner because I'm white and speak English?!!

Must find a way of getting through the next few weeks without mega-stressing, having a minor breakdown or going into full on rant mode (no, the above wasn't full on rant mode - scary innit haha).  In the end, all you can do is your best with what you've got and after that let the cards fall where they may, because they will anyway.  I don't know how I got to this stage in life still assuming that I can control everything, especially given the grand vista of weird shit I've been through.  Or maybe I'd just really, really like to think I could. Anyway, not gonna happen, so deal with it woman!

When I was little, my mum had a mug which read 'Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved'. I still have that mug, but obviously haven't drunk out of it enough because the lesson still hasn't sunk in.  Doesn't mean you have to stop working or caring or trying, but letting things unfold rather than trying to force an outcome makes life a bloody sight easier.

I keep saying it, you never know what good stuff is around the corner. Best not get into a car smash just before the corner because you got impatient and had to control everything.  Remind me I said all this when I'm rocking catatonically in the corner in a few weeks' time.

Eeeeeeekk!!!

Scary monsters and super creeps
Keep me running, running scared
             'Scary Monsters' David Bowie

What evil bastard invented Kit Kat Chunkies anyway, and why are they so cheap when they appear to be made from pure crack coated in chocolate? I don't know but I do know that I'm a bit stressed and I made the mistake of going into Iceland on an innocent quest for crumpets and came out with crumpets and said chocolate coated crack. The crumpets are in the kitchen.  As for the Kit Kat Chunkies, only the wrappers remain. Thank the non-existent deity they didn't have the packs of seven in...

So after not looking at my phone all day yesterday (a common event when I'm home) I check it out late last night and there's a voicemail from the place I applied for a job at a couple of weeks back in my conquering scary shit quest. I phoned them back this morning. They want me to come for an interview. How the hell did that happen?!

If you are smart and all my readers are you have probably worked out the Kit Kat-job interview connection and so have I. Didn't stop me eating them, unfortunately. I did self hypno before calling about the interview to try and install some Zen calm.  It says something about my level of confidence that I needed to self hypno just to call and confirm that they actually wanted me to come for an interview and when. Hey ho, that why I'm on this wonderous self help journey innit! I may be a whackjob and currently a nervous wreck but at least I'm working on better and better is definitely happening.  I'm just not sure it will happen enough by two o'clock on Thursday when I have this interview.

I had to go trawling former employer's websites for examples of my work this morning and I am at least encouraged that I was able to do it and download what I needed without breaking into a rash. Yay for progress! As I've said previously, my departure from my last job was a tad fraught and when I say a tad I mean a fuckload.  It's done and gone now and I've just proven there are other opportunities out there, haven't I? So we move on, preferably without looking over our shoulders and screaming.

I'm reasonably smart and talented and innovative and therefore am employable by somebody somewhere, right? Right. So even if this one doesn't come off, it doesn't matter. Right? Right.

Over the years I have had loads of conversations with the kindest man in the world about the basically fucked Western concept of personal worth, i.e. your worth is in what you do, what you own, what you earn, what you produce.  Here's a novel concept: how about your worth being the fact you are human and alive and able to contribute positively to other people's lives in ways that don't involve money or prestige? You could say that's the rantings of someone who hasn't worked for four years and you could be right. But I could be right too. Think about it.

I don't want a job to prove that I'm worth something, yet somehow it's so easy to fall back into that trap of if I stuff this interview up that somehow makes me a lesser human being.  All it makes me really is somebody who didn't get a job, which in this economic climate makes me one of millions.  Need to remember that if I stuff it up.  I'm only saying if, not when.  I may just pull it off. There's going to be some serious self hypno for confidence done in the next couple of days, but I may just pull it off.

Walking training for Miles for Macmillan is going great with an hour to an hour and a half's walking being done nearly every day and I'm starting to feel really good for it, fitter and tighter. Have done enough this week to burn off the Kit Kat Chunkies so some mercy does remain in the universe.

I got so wrapped up in my slapping myself out of wallowing on the weekend that I forgot to mention a most bizarre event that happened Saturday morning i.e. I didn't eat coffee cake.  Not only did I not eat coffee cake, or want coffee cake, I saw the coffee cake in front of me and didn't think about it much one way or the other.  People who have a sane relationship with food aren't going to understand but for Sandy this is huge. The eating disordered or troubled person sees coffee cake and either thinks I'm going to have this but I shouldn't then eats it and feels like shit, or they have a massive internal fight to reject the cake, don't eat it and still feel like shit. It is an eternal battle.

On Saturday I just looked at the cake, thought nah and walked away.  What kind of strange magic is that? I didn't even want to punch the kindest man in the world when he bought a slice and ate it in front of me. What the hell?!

I may have eaten the Kit Kat crack today, but overall dealing with food is definitely getting easier, less fraught and less likely to make me feel like the hugest fattest failure to walk the earth. The self help malarkey is definitely kicking in.  Life gets that bit better day by day, even when the scary shit (first job interview in five years) crops up. And for that I am grateful.

Mad dogs and Australians

So you found a hard won friend
To hold your hand and hold your head
A new renaissance to defend
Hold on to dreams tonight
                     'Renaissance Man'  Midnight Oil

Today I have smashed an hour and a half walk!! Well not so much smashed it as slapped it around with tired but relentless fists of fury. But I walked an hour and a half and in 'searing heat' apparently.  I don't wish to titter at the peoples of my new country of residence but the British always amuse me when the temperature somehow manages to get over twenty degrees. I can't help it, I'm a child of the subtropics.  Hot to me is summer in my hometown, where it's over 30 degrees and 95% humidity for weeks on end. That said, it was absolutely delightful to be out in the actual sun and warm from something other than thermal underwear and household appliances.  Ahhhh, bliss.

What's different today from yesterday, when whiny was my middle name instead of Joyce?  I'm still tired and sore, but the sooky-la-la attitude is gone again for the moment and for that I am bloody grateful.  In the end, if you can't change it, don't sook about it. There is no point. I could sit here and bitch and whinge all day about ME and permanent ankle injuries and the general unfairness of life. Doesn't take any of those things away, does it?  What it does take is what valuable energy I have left along with my motivation and frankly I can't afford to lose either. I've got too much to do and life's too short and precious to sit around in a heap wailing about things you can't change. Note: this does not mean I'll never bitch and whinge again, but hopefully less and less time will get wasted on it.  That's the goal anyway. Feel free to remind me the next time I bitch and whinge.

After my big sook of yesterday I decided less whining and more action was required and I went for a walk.  It's a small thing, but it was a statement of intent.  If I'm going to be tired and sore, then I may as well be tired and sore having done something constructive, right? Right.  It can sometimes be a delicate balancing act with ME and occasionally I have pushed myself too hard and paid the price for it. I would, however, rather have that happen than never push myself and spend my life wrapped in cotton wool, doing nothing and going nowhere.  Again, life's too short.

The kindest man in the world, who is losing his sight to retinopathy, has the same attitude these days with his eyes. If he spends too much time focusing or in bright light, he winds up with severe headaches and visual disturbances and by severe I mean laid up in darkened rooms with a blockout eyemask on. But again, what's the alternative? Nurse his eyes and not read about or see the amazing stuff in the world? We snorkelled the Great Barrier Reef last year.  He had bad eye pain out of it, but now he also has a lifetime of awesome memories.  Some things are worth the pain of pursuing.

I just need to keep telling myself if I keep working and pushing and trying to grow, eventually I'll be the person I want to be, no matter how freakin' tired and sore I get along the way. Somehow, through all the years of letting myself and other people crush the belief out of me, I still think it's possible.  There's a reason for that.  The pain won't go to waste. I don't know if I really believe in destiny but I do believe in hope and what is possible to achieve if you can last the distance. I've come this far. No point wading through this much shit to give up and miss out on what could be because I'd rather have a sook.

So...healthy eating continues, walking continues, self hypno continues, the renaissance continues. Sandy is evolving.  Watch this space.

Meh, or something

WARNING: today's blog may contain sooky-la-la overtones for which I will repent later.  Can't help it, I feel massively uninspired today.  I will however attempt during the writing of this blog to give myself a good slapping about until I see some sense.  The fact I want to attempt the slapping means there is some sunshine underneath my somewhat low mood.  Just need to get the shovel out and scrape all the shit off it first.

Today I am sore and tired and pissed off because I weighed myself this morning and have lost a sum total of ...nothing. Hoo-fucking-ray. Don't wish to dwell on this too much as it will be counterproductive.  I've actually had a really good week and a half of eating well and exercising and feeding the mind with positive weight loss vibes and I don't know whether it's delusion or the exercise but I do feel thinner.  But the numbers haven't shifted and that's all that counts, apparently,  It's not, but I'm not successfully convincing myself of that right now.  Normal service will resume shortly, I'm sure.

ME still kicking in various degrees meaning I am glandy and sore and have been doing a fair bit of walking from which today I am also sore.  No pain, no gain, or something, she said through gritted teeth...

Right, that's my wallow, I have had my sook now and this is where I am today but it doesn't have to be where I am tomorrow or next week or next year. So let's move on, shall we?

Got my pack today for the Miles for Macmillan walk I'm doing in September. Will be walking eight miles (that's nearly 13km for the Aussies) which is about four more than I can do comfortably right now so have some serious training to do to pull this one off.  Earlier this year I had the slightly mental idea to do the Edinburgh Moonwalk, which is a walking marathon, and did actually enter the thing but got derailed with a knee injury and wound up not being able to do it. Realistically it was probably biting off more than I could chew, injury or not, but that's the way I roll. All or nothing!!! Rrraaaarrrh!!!

I figure that eight miles is enough of a challenge to feel like I've achieved something, but not so outrageous that I'll wind up stuffing it up.  So the best of both worlds, hopefully.  In my 'fight smarter not harder' mindset of late I've been looking at walking poles this morning in an attempt to help me along a bit.  Apart from being a bit of a whackjob with ME, I also have some orthopaedic/balance issues due to having my ankle fused after a really bad break in my early 20s.  Some people break bones, Sandy shatters an ankle joint and breaks the leg bone an inch above the base, requiring pins and three operations...the third one to rebreak and fuse the joint because it set badly and was fucking agonisingly painful. Told you I was all or nothing!

I can walk all right these days but get quite wobbly when I start getting tired, which is how I did my knee in earlier this year. I figure the walking pole will add some balance allowing me to go a bit faster and further in a safer fashion. It might make me look like a bit of a nong waking around nicely paved footpaths but it's not like I've never looked like a nong before, so pfffftttt.  Nong is Aussie for idiot, by the way. I'm now an international expert in looking like a nong, no no problems there.

So low mood and pain aside there's still goals and aspirations and plans and the will to make it all happen in Sandy and that's not such a bad place to be, is it? No, it's not.  Right. Deep breath and keep moving.

LATE AFTERNOON UPDATE: have now been for a 3.3 mile walk. In your face, sooky-la-la attitude!!!!

Weighty issues

You want to be free?
Then don't speak like a slave to me
               'No Speak No Slave' The Black Crowes

I don't want to say it too loud in case I jinx it, but I am *looks around furtively and whispers* back on the Weight Watchers path of righteousness. I've been on track for a whole week now.  I won't say success just yet. This is where hypno-dude goes butch on my arse and tells me to remember I am awesome, or something and I go hmmm. Man, I'm going to get in trouble for that when I see him next.  The kindest man in the world isn't going to be too thrilled either.

I am awesome! I've lost five stone and kept it off for over a year while battling many and varied demons and chronic illness and my own body, which even last year when I was a saintly Weight Watcher didn't shed a gram for about six months. Massive plateau or head games or both? Not sure but either way it is bloody demoralisng. Because losing five stone isn't enough, apparently. Well obviously it isn't enough, I still have another five stone to lose but it isn't enough in so many other ways.  I may have lost five stone but all the world sees is a woman who is still fat. You can't be a success until you have lost every last gram and sworn to eat lettuce for eternity as penance for inflicting your heftiness on yourself and the world. That's what all the magazines say and they must be right.

The magazines are of course bullshit and the way women are presented in the media is bullshit and the fact I still consider myself a failure after losing five stone is also bullshit. I am an intelligent woman, for fuck's sake, but unfortunately being intelligent doesn't necessarily give you the wherewithal to deflect the masses of bullshit out there about women and the way they 'should' be.  Even the Weight Watchers magazine contributes to this - the cover girls (never blokes) have almost invariably never lost more than a couple of stone.  They give most of their airplay to the 'normal' fatties while the freaky fatties who have lost eight and ten stone get relegated to the back pages. You have to despair when even Weight Watchers is fattist.

Neo-feminist ranting aside, I suspect the months of fruitless saintliness, which led me to go a bit deeper than what was going in my gob and ultimately to hypno-dude, was one of those gifts from the universe wrapped in a big pile of shite because here I am now ok not thinner but dwelling in a much brighter and calmer headspace. There is more being resolved in my life now than the inability to look good in jeans.  This is a good thing.  But I'm still fat. But it's a good thing. But I'm still fat. It's a good thing!!! What would I prefer, fat and well adjusted or thin and unhinged? Probably best to ask me later but I am more than willing to accept what's gone on between my ears my whole life has more impact on my weight than what's gone in my gob.

Eventually I would like to not only be thin but well adjusted enough not to be thinking about food my whole bloody life and I do believe it's possible.  Hypno-dude isn't a massive fan of Weight Watchers but the reason I chose it above the other eight billion weight loss plans on offer is that it seemed to be the one most likely to allow me to learn to deal with food in a normal way.  You can just eat normal things but in a portion controlled way, not eat freaky diet food or drink nuclear fission shakes or inject kelp and mung beans three times a day. It must have taught me something because I'm still five stone down despite not dieting at all really for the last few months. I'll give myself a 'success!!' on that one.

In the meantime I'm just happy to be eating normal food in a relatively normal way again, not inhaling Vegemite sandwiches for stress relief.and feeling like shite. If this self help malarkey achieves nothing more than that it's worth it. I'm aiming for more, of course, but it's a good start.

Hard question time and I asked a friend of mine this a while ago so I can't not ask it of myself.  How do I learn to love me, even if I don't lose any more weight? What if five stone is it? That's a Sandy hypothetical, not Sandy throwing in the towel.  I'm not giving up, just asking the question.  Am I still a worthwhile human being, even if I never lose another ounce?  Obviously the answer is yes.

So let's start treating oneself like and thinking like a worthwhile human being, shall we? All right then. Let's move on.

Giddy up!

Makes me that much stronger
Makes me work a little bit harder
Makes me that much wiser
Thanks for making me a fighter
              'Fighter' Christina Aguilera

I have only one word to say today and that word is 'wheeeeeeeeeee'. Is wheeeeeeeee a word? Never mind, it is in my book and that's what counts. Have I suddenly become Gen Y or younger and completely uncaring about what constitutes proper English? No. All the same...wheeeeeeeeeeee!

Today Sandy is very tired and massively dizzy.  Hello ME my old friend, you've come to mess me up again!

I fear the last week has caught up with me. Actually I don't fear it. I have gone through most of the gamut of emotions over the last few years since I was first diagnosed and fear has certainly featured quite a bit, along with despair, sorrow, rage and general pissed offness.  Hmmm, another made up word.  Never mind, it's a sign of creativity apparently. Like clomnintigginess.  That may not actually mean anything, but it's creative and that's what counts, apparently. Get me, I'm an artist!

I am also a raving loony today for which I can only apologise but never fear I am a relatively happy one. Or I think I am, I'm too tired and giddy to be sure. Anyway, I don't fear the last week has caught up with me. It's just caught up with me. And it's all right.

It hasn't completely stopped the despair, sorrow, rage and pissed offness but these days I am less likely to fight these kind of days the way I used to. This is partly because trying to fight them got me nowhere except in the shit with my former employers and eventually pensioned off....a process which made me realise trying to fight it actually made it worse.  It turned a bad day into a bad week, a bad month, a bad year and ill health retirement. Post the pensioning off bad days can still quite easily be turned into bad weeks. There's a lesson there. Fighting is not always the way to beat something.

Am I saying don't fight or learn to fight smart? I'm too fucked up today to be sure but there is wisdom to be shared here and I'm sure I'll find it eventually. Patience everyone!

I am both annoyed and attracted by the Buddhist philosophy of accepting suffering rather than fighting it in the hope it enlightens you or at least stops you from wanting to beat the shit out of something. Annoyed because it goes against my and the Western world in general's philosophy that the harder you fight, the more likely you are to win. Attracted because experience has taught me that willy-nilly fighting not only doesn't always work, it takes a lot out of you, making you less able to fight the next battle. And there's always another friggin' battle, trust me.

I've got it now, I'm trying to say fight smart, is what I'm trying to say. Adjust what you mean by fight. Today I am fighting the ME by sleeping in, resting, taking it easy in the knowledge that what that means is I might feel better tomorrow or the next day, as opposed to next week or 2017. Health by stealth!

In accepting where I am today and not beating myself up because of what I can't do, a better tomorrow is a possibility rather than a dream. It gives me a chance to fight harder as well as smarter another day. It means I'm not a pissweak failure but a work in progress.

And better a work in progress than tired, cranky, pissed off and despairing.

Wheeeeeeeeee!!

Ghost busting

Swallow all your tears my love, put on your new face
You can never win or lose if you don't run the race
                'Love My Way' Psychedelic Furs

Am not long back from a 70 minute walk. Go me! Actually, it's my fourth walk since Monday. Go me quadrupled!

I was walking quite a bit earlier in the year but wound up with a knee injury and then there was the month of massive flu, so it's been a while since I hit the road.  Pretty happy that I've been able to maintain most of that fitness even though I haven't been able to exercise for the last couple of months.  It's absolutely streets ahead of where I was a couple of years ago. Success!!

I did hit the wall ME wise yesterday after a big week of poorly husband and poorly cat and job applications and mind blowing self esteem concepts but in one of those kismet moments it's resulted in another breakthrough and it was all because I refused to give in to sooky Sandy and decided to self-hypno myself out of a self beating uppage dip instead.  I do find it a lot harder to stay positive when the ME is kicking. I bloody hate being tired and then I wind up in a 'how long am I going to have to put up with this shit' spiral and before you know it I am despairing of everything and hating myself with a passion and then hating myself more for allowing myself to drop into the spiral in the first place. You can see why I need to harden the hell up.

Chronic illness is a bitch and there's no getting away from it but all I can say is don't let it rob you of a second more of life than you have to. Actually that's not all I can say. I would also look for the gifts in it.  That's not the rantings of a nutter, that's the observation of somebody who has learned a lot about what matters in life from being chronically ill...in my case, most importantly, the amount of energy you waste with thoughts and beliefs and habits and people who are basically bullshit.  I don't think I would have learned that if I hadn't had nearly all the energy sucked out of me by ME and realised the bullshit was taking what little I had left. Would have preferred to learn it by reading a nice book, but hey ho, whatever works!

Anyway, was shattered most of yesterday and by the evening was letting Sandy-bashing slip past my lips (sorry, hypno-dude) and sliding down a bit into the spiral of wallowing sookiness.  This is where I start to think I may have actually learned something over the last few weeks because I wound up saying 'fuck this' and forced myself to sit down and self hypno. Success again!!

That wasn't the breakthough though...

While I was self hypnoing, my thoughts drifted off to a dear friend of mine, the bass man, who died four years ago. It's a long, long story but let's just say while I loved him, the last couple of years of his life in particular ripped us both to shreds and since he's died I have been haunted by what was done and said, what should have been done and said and how I should have done better, apparently. Because I'm always supposed to do better, aren't I? Apparently.

Grief is another bitch and it can really mess with your head and where the bass man is concerned the mess has been pretty fucking messy.  I honestly believe that most people do and act the best they can with what's put in front of them in life, but particularly when associated parties are no longer around it's easy to suck up the guilt and the blame...even if the guilt and blame are basically figments of your own tortured imagination.

Last night, in the middle of my self hypno, my thoughts drifted off to the bass man and something in me just broke and I said enough. Enough of carrying around real and perceived blame. Enough of the guilt for things that I shouldn't feel guilty about and can never, ever go back and change. And I let it all go.

I'll never forget him and I don't want to forget him but I can't carry the can for our mutual failings any more. It's too much. It's too much and I don't deserve the shit I have given myself dragging the can around for the last four years.

Game over.

I woke up this morning feeling like a ton of bricks had been taken from my shoulders and I swear looking in the mirror it's taken a couple of years off me too. That second bit could be the paranoid about ageing Sandy having a major delusion but either way, I'll take both.  I'm just happy that I seem to have finally reached a point where I can let this particular part of the past go.  I hope the bass man is happy too, wherever he is.

Sporting chance

When you feel the heat the world is at your feet
No-one can hold you down if you really want it
                   'The Cup of Life' Ricky Martin

I bloody did it!! I applied for a job without having a panic attack!!!

Got up yesterday morning, got on the lappie and bashed out the application by lunch while being only slightly distracted by ABC Grandstand Digital's coverage of State of Origin!! Well OK, I could have turned it off I know. But I couldn't. But I could have. But I couldn't. It's my cultural heritage! Not going to happen!

Anyway, could not have been further inspired in my attempts to move upwards and onwards than by listening to my beloved Queensland side slaughter New South Wales.  Ah, my boys did me proud!

OK I realise that a large number of you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about. State of Origin is an annual three-match rugby league competition between Queensland and New South Wales and is probably the most intensely fought rugby league competition in the world. The. World. I'm not just saying that because I like rugby league and support Queensland. It is sheer power and fury. It is freaking awesome.

This victory was particularly sweet because the current Queensland side had been branded by the opposition as old, fat and past it.  As somebody who has frequently felt old, fat and past it, I can't help but take encouragement from my boys proving everyone wrong. Especially Johnathan Thurston, who pulled himself off a drip in hospital to play and blitzed the entire match. Legend!

Even if you're not into sport, that sort of character and tenacity can't be faulted.  Picking yourself up off your arse and keeping going despite everything? Winning even when everyone is screaming at you that there's no way? Isn't that exactly what I'm trying to achieve with this self help malarkey?

Isn't that what we all want deep down, really? Unless you're one of those sooky whingy princesses that expect everything handed to them on a platter and I don't think there's many of them reading this blog. Although they probably should.

When you are backed into a corner and by you I mean we, you have two choices: sit in the corner and cry, or fight your way out of it.  There have been plenty of times I have chosen the sitting and crying option. I freely admit it. Hello, my name is Sandy and I have been a sooky la-la more times than I care to count. But today I pledge to you, myself, and the Queensland State of Origin side that I will continue to find ways to fight and win.

It's only a job application, but it's a big step forward for me in terms of confidence and getting my life back. And I bloody did it. Happy. That is all.

Now what's next?

You say you want a revolution

Sometimes we gotta go
Where nobody knows your name
Leave all the things we knew
And learn how to start again
             'I Go Hard, I Go Home' The Presets

Well, today didn't go quite as planned. Not in a bad way, just after my pledge yesterday about finding and conquering a scary thing and finding not one but two scary things, I had slightly different things in mind than having a massive wardrobe clearout and hauling off two huge bags of good but not really Sandy clothes to the local Age UK shop. Is this me trying to avoid the scary things, or simply another part of the self help clearing of the decks? I'll go with the second. Works for me haha.

The scary things chosen for the testing of my confidence mettle is applying for two jobs I found online yesterday. The fact I am typing that without cringing, palpitations or wanting to eat my bodyweight in chocolate digestives is, believe it or not, progress. I am obviously a fuckup but you've already worked that out by now. I have had jobs and a couple of them were quite creative and responsible, but it's been a while and let's just say my last job ended car crash fashion in 2009. Ah, 2009, the year of living dangerously. I didn't get sacked or thrown out in disgrace or arrested for fraud, but the ME was bloody awful and employers take a dim view of people who arrive late, leave early and have to nap in the loo to get through a morning's work, even in the civil service.

They pensioned me off in the end so you could say that was that and the ME is better now if not gone and let's move on, shall we? Except now, when I'm feeling half human half the time and would really like a job for the extra cash and intellectual stimulation and social interaction and all the good things that come with jobs, 2009 still haunts me like a bitter vindicative relative.  There have been times when even looking at online job sites has been enough to give me panic attacks.

Combine that with moving to the other side of the world where I'm not that sure really how the job market works and you begin to understand that this whole job search malarkey is a big, big deal for me. It says something for how far I've come in the last few weeks that I'm writing about it and not sitting in the corner rocking. Success!!

Of course, I have to still actually apply for these jobs but I'm feeling pretty good about it right now. I can't vouch I'll be the same should I manage to get an interview, but one step at a time.

The clearing out of the clothes today kind of took me by surprise but it's more progress.  Fat women and their clothes have a love-hate relationship and by that I mean there are plenty of things that you only wear because nothing else will fit over your arse. You don't like the clothes and going by the way you look in them, they're not too keen on you either. It's easier now that I've lost five stone, but I have made a resolution. I'm never wearing or buying any item of clothing that will just do ever again. Hence the culling of the just dos today.

While I was having my massive clearout, I was listening to an interview with Boy George on 6 Music and in one of those kismet kinds of moments he talked a fair bit about clothes and style. About finding your own groove and letting it evolve with you.  I'm pretty big on this whole thing of evolving as a person and expressing it in how you live, including how you dress. Who wants to do or be the same their whole bloody lives? Apart from my whole family and most of the people I went to school with, that is. Why would you want to restrict yourself that way?

I've only just managed to convince the kindest man in the world that David Bowie isn't an opportunist who changes his image for fame, he's an artist and the different personas are part of the artistry. I'm not Bowie by any stretch, but I kind of aspire to evolve my style and my life in a similar way.

Of course, moving to the other side of the world has brought this all into sharper focus for me. It scares the crap out of me at times, but by the same token I'm very conscious that not many people get the opportunity to leave everything behind and completely remake themselves. It's a gift I don't want to waste, which is another reason for the self help malarkey.  I've let enough pass me by through fear and self loathing. Enough already. Just bloody enough.

I don't know who Sandy will be this time next year or next decade, but for once, I'm looking forward to finding out.

Seeing is believing

'You take what you get, you get what you please
It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees'
                       'US Forces' Midnight Oil

Feeling quite bouncy this morning and no that's not a fat comment.  I did a reasonably late night self hypno session last night which was focused on this new mind blowing concept of feeling at ease with myself and also eating like a thin person. Woke up this morning feeling epic! Have had my thin person breakfast and nuclear strength coffee and I'm ready to rock!

Later this week I have to provide a mid week report to hypno-dude with not only what I've done but evidence of progress. I am to provide concrete examples of how I am improving in the whole confidence-building stakes. I'm feeling too epic to say 'eeeeeek' but it does bring into focus a niggling thought in the back of my head from last week that it's all very well floating along on this fairy floss cloud of self help satisfaction, but the actual goal is to change my life...i.e. go out and do stuff I wouldn't or couldn't have done pre the self-help malarkey.

I think I've made progress, the kindest man in the world thinks I've made progress, hypno-dude thinks I've made progress and we are all intelligent, observant human beings so I'll take that. Admittedly the kindest man in the world is utterly biased where I'm concerned and that may affect his judgement to a degree. He just thinks I'm wonderful all the time, which is of course a crock of shit. He's upstairs asleep in the moment but I sense his lovely blue eyes getting that hint of steel as he pounces on my perceived self beating uppage. Nobody is wonderful all the time, not even me haha but it's nice there's somebody around who will argue to the death that I am.

So what is progress? Need to think about this one as the less shitting on myself from a great height part is good and feeling better about myself and my ability to change my life is also good. I am however the queen of pragmatism and as such I want to see practical outcomes of all these head games.  Weight loss is obviously one.  Not being terrified to get out and apply for a job is another.  I have a few business ideas I'm working on but need a bit of supplementary income while I'm sorting those out and honestly, I need the social interaction as well. I think I've mentioned before if I spend too much time at home, even productively occupied, the agoraphobia starts kicking in and that's not a road I want to go back down.

Confidence to keep chipping away at the business ideas is another one as I do tend to have a mental spasm occasionally and not work on stuff because I convince myself I and the ideas are shite.  They aren't shite and neither am I but every now and then I get that rabbit in the headlights feeling and freeze and nothing gets done.  You can see why I need this self help malarkey. I'll get there one day I'm sure.

There's plenty to be cracking on with there. Need to pick a couple of things I'm shit scared of and do them I reckon. I'm starting to feel the eeeeeek welling up underneath the epic.  The eeeeeek can go do one!! No surrender!!!

Missions for today: pick scary thing to conquer and think about how to conquer it.  Self hypno to power conquering of scary thing. Continue to have mind blown by concept of feeling at ease with myself. Seriously, it's been a revelation. I can feel at ease with myself?? Really??? No wonder I feel epic...

The days of judgment

'Still so young to travel so far
Old enough to know who you are
Wise enough to carry the scars without any blame'
                         'Distant Sun'  Crowded House

Saw hypno-dude yesterday and am feeling quite a bit better about my ability to crack on with this whole self-help malarkey...which is good, as I was absolutely flogged and desperately searching for pins to stick myself with to stay awake on the train trip down to his. It would have been a bugger to have gone in that state and come back thinking well now I am not only flogged but despairing of myself as well. It wouldn't have been the first time I've been both flogged and despairing of myself, but it's not a state I recommend lingering in.

We talked a fair bit about confidence and Thailand and bullying and Dr Martens and vodka and being at ease with yourself.  The first five I can discuss with some authority, even if I only really have a grip on Dr Martens and vodka, but this idea of being at ease with yourself is something I haven't really considered before. That you can just be comfortable being you in any social circumstance. Comfortable being yourself? What sort of strange magic is that?

I want to be me, have worked hard on being me, been militant about my right to be me, and occasionally have even been happy to be me.  At ease with me? Nevvvvveeeerrrrr. Well maybe not never, but I can't think of any examples of times where I have been, so nevvvvvvereerrrr is probably right. I'm always agitating in my head about wanting to be better and do better and while I don't think that has to necessarily have to be a bad thing (because why else would you move on in life) it's rooted in a feeling of not being enough...for me or anybody else.

This is where the hippy dippy pan pipe CD playing incense burning positive affirmation chanting freaks come in and pat my hand and say it's because I was adopted and had issues with my adoptive family, there there dear, here's a tissue.  Thanks for the sympathy, but fuck off. We are the masters of our own destiny, our own self esteem, our own levels of ease with ourselves. The fact I was adopted or that my adoptive family was a bit psychotic and never really understood where I was coming from may be regrettable but it was me who chose to believe that made me not enough.  Nobody held a gun to my head and said now shit on yourself or else.

I've talked before about having this veneer of confidence over the nervous shambles that is the actual Sandy and you could say it works in social situations for the most part.  When we went to Manchester the Yorkshire rose and I discussed confidence and not having it and trying to get it and she said if I hadn't told her, she would never have regarded me as somebody with confidence issues. The veneer kind of works and it might help me wing life, but I'm bloody sick of flapping. At ease with myself? Wow. Just wow.

We all get so sucked in to what other people think though, don't we? I seem to have had a few discussions about bullying and general prejudice this week. Hypno-dude told me yesterday about how he got beaten up regularly in high school. I got tormented for being fat and having sight problems. My best friend in high school got shit because he was gay. The kindest man in the world got bullied for liking the Beatles and having acne and recently got branded a pervert for telling somebody she had nice eyes.  A friend of mine in Glasgow, one of the strongest, most fabulous women I know, took up running at 20 stone and is now 14 stone and has people laughing at her in the street for daring to be a fat runner. People get judged on their background, their size, their skin colour, their sexual preference, their clothes, their hairdos, their accents.  At this point I would just like to say to everyone who's out there thinking somebody else is weird because of how they look or where they're from or what gender they shag or what they choose or don't choose: will you please just calm the fuck down and live and let live?

I don't understand this gang mentality where everyone has to dress the same and speak the same and do the same to be accepted and where everyone who doesn't conform is viewed as a threat to be smacked down. We live in an age where we are supposedly above prejudice and value individuality. Pig's fucking arse. Do the gang members really think they're superior, or are they so insecure in themselves they need to pull down anybody that threatens their idea of normal?

More to the point: why do we, the so-called freaks, allow ourselves to get sucked into somebody else's narrow minded bullshit ideas of how we should live? And by we I mean me. Yeah, me, Miss You Are Responsible For Your Own Actions And Reactions, the one who needs to learn in middle age how to be at ease with herself because she allowed herself to think that everybody else was right and she was wrong.

Why does anybody read this blog, I am obviously a whackjob. But at least I'm an evolving whackjob. Suck that, judges of normal.

Lost in translation

'I said to the man 'do you speak my language?'
And he just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich'
                      'Down Under' Men At Work'

Sandy is relatively back on deck after what could reasonably be described as a godawful week of fatigue.  May be over the flu though, she said, wishing she believed in any kind of god so she could ask the flu gods for mercy.  Fatigue levels not really helped by trips to Liverpool on Monday and an overnight trip to Leeds and Manchester yesterday and today. Hey ho, would have been buggered anyway. Might as well get out and live!

Food becomes more of an issue when the ME is kicking and it's not just a comfort thing. Sometimes it's literally an attempt to stay awake. Need to work out why I feel I have to stay awake when the option is there not to be.  Displaced sense of social propriety? Guilt? Sheer bloody stubbornness? I tend to suspect A, B and C with a distinct leaning towards C.  Regardless, in terms of food control, it ain't good and considering I've been barely able to move for a month with this currently lovely flu/ME cocktail I've gone from feeling like a beached whale to feeling like a beached whale in calf. Bloody awesome.

Self-hypno has also gone a bit belly up (pardon the pun) i.e. it hasn't happened since Sunday.  Well, I did have a crack at it last night, but I fell asleep in the process. I see hypno-dude tomorrow so hopefully he'll slap some sense back into me. Literally or figuratively, I don't mind. Will deffo do a session tonight.  My motto for this year has been fall down seven times, get up eight. I'm getting back up.  No surrender!!

On the upside I have managed to skirt around emails from not one but two companies that sell Australian foods here in the UK and by food I mean mainly crap.  Because all homesick Australians need to stuff themselves stupid with Australian lollies and chips, apparently. That's sweets and crisps to my UK readers. Nothing says Australia like a bag of banana-shaped lollies that taste slightly of banana but mainly of nuclear fission.  I'm sure they tasted better when I was younger and that's probably why they should carry a warning saying 'may contribute to your arse becoming massive in the mid to long term'. Probably wouldn't have taken any notice of that when I was six, though.

I have not, touch wood, been unbearably, gutwrenchingly homesick since I've lived here but I have definitely had my moments and that's where insanity like 'I need to buy some Black & Gold musk sticks, Arnott's Mint Slice, Fruit Tingles, Jatz crackers and Twisties so I can feel closer to home' starts to kick in. What the actual fuck? Maybe if I made all the empty packets into a raft they might get me over the English Channel, but they're not going to get me to another hemisphere.  Food is not a plane ticket. If it was I would have gone around the world first class 300 times by now.

You're probably gathering I'm a bit frustrated with my own weaknesses at the moment and you would be right. Fortunately this time around, despite being both exhausted and homesick, I only filled up the online shopping cart with crap. I didn't actually buy anything. Success with relatively minor levels of annoyance!

There's a fairly logical sequence of events going on here, really. I'm been crook for a month. (Crook is Aussie for sick.) ME is kicking because I've been crook for a month. So am crook and tired and when I'm crook and tired I feel vulnerable and the first thing you want when you're vulnerable is comfort and something familiar and when you're 10,000 miles from home, sometimes the familiar can be very, very thin on the ground.

I need to dig my heels in and harden up on this one because the ME is not going away just yet and Australia's not getting any closer. Although I did watch something on the BBC last weekend which reckoned the whole continent is moving north and will eventually crash into Asia.  That should save me a shitload of money in airfares to Thailand should I ever move back home.

Twisties and Fruit Tingles might taste of home, but they're not home. They can't do what I want them to, because nothing can. I am an expat. No amount of shite food from anywhere is going to give me what I really want, which is that sense of being with people who get what you're about and what you're on about. Who won't give you blank looks when you go on about pointing the bone, bushwhacking and secret women's business. None of those are sexual innuendos, by the way.  I wouldn't have to tell an Aussie that. Sometimes it's a relief to talk to somebody who just gets it.

I don't think all is lost, though. Last night in Manchester me and my friend the Yorkshire rose were at the MEN...two women who met a couple of years back after spending their lives on opposite sides of the world, yet were as one while both belting out 'It's A Sin' along with the Pet Shop Boys. You really don't need Fruit Tingles to feel part of something. You just need some kindred spirits.

Things to ponder 6