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.