Category: Ramblings

I regret to inform you that this is the truth. Irritation levels are at an all time high this week and not surprisingly the list of shit accompanying them is increasing.

The angrier I get, the more there is to be angry about. In my head it looks suspiciously like a whirlpool; slightly choppy water around the edges, nothing looks too bad and before you know it you’re sucked into a bottomless pit with no way out. Didn’t even see it coming.

Obviously it’s everyone else’s fault, I’m the victim here. Same procedure as last year, James.

Get your head out of your arse woman! You had a bad week. Yes, there was dumbassery beyond anything you could have imagined and no, the world hasn’t ended because of it. It’s a wee speed bump on life’s little highway. Shit happens. Get over it.

Today was another episode of ‘Had a crap week, missed my train home, caught the next one, got delayed, WHY GOD WHY?!’. One more shovel of crap added to the mountain I’m building myself. Give it another week or 2 and this thing will rival K2.

Why? Does this make me feel better? No, I feel like shit.

Does this solve the problem? No, I’m too irritated to think of a logical solution so the problems will remain unsolved until I pull my finger out and deal with it.

Does this make me, in any way, pleasant to be around? No. I’m the personification of a hornet’s nest that’s been kicked to Kingdom Come.

Will any of the things that have hacked me off and grated my carrot be responsible for the end of the world as we know it? No. They’re meaningless nothings in a cesspool of other insignificant nothings. There is no net damage to the planet because someone else’s mess needed cleaning up. No net damage AT ALL.

So what good is it doing sitting here silently getting my tits in a tangle? The weekend is the prize at the end of a rough week. Instead I’m wasting it sitting here drained of energy, eyes heavier than lead with an epic case of indigestion and my body hates me a LOT. There’s something hammering on my insides trying to get out.

For what?

This calls for a time-out and a very early night. Tomorrow is another day.

It is once again Groundhog Day. No, not the everyday one, the actual one. Over the past 5 years, there have been 3 blizzards on Groundhog Day, 2 of them ranking in the top 5 since records began.

This year there was another blizzard warning out but it missed us slightly and dumped a pile of white fluffy junk on Wisconsin. Sorry y’all!

Last year we got to work from home during what turned out to be the 5th worst blizzard since records began. Below is what I wrote that day and now more than ever, it holds true for me.

February 2, 2015

There are those who are truly blessed in life to know where the road will take them. For the rest of us, it’s a garbled map of nonsensical signs, detours and dead-ends. You might also hit a few significant potholes along the way.

For as long as I can remember the written word has been a haven, a hiding place from a world I never asked to be a part of. My punishment for misbehaving as a child was to have my books taken away. Before I could read unsupervised, I had a tape-recorder with cassettes and books to read along to. So my parents would take my tape recorder away because without it my books were a locked door I could not enter. It was worse than death. I’ve always loved books more than people.

As a teenager I dreamed of one day buying a used typewriter to get the words out of my head onto paper faster. Handwriting was too slow.

Words were my escape from what were seemingly insurmountable challenges and circumstances that eroded my will to live. Whether it was writing to music, writing dialogue with the voice in my head, or just writing to understand my thoughts, I have always found peace on the pages. It was as healing to my soul as my piano was.

Many people I’ve met have told me that I have a way with words and I’ve secretly been filing that away in my mind for decades, hoping that the way would make itself clear. To date, that has not been the case.

The yearning to follow the writer’s path has never gone away. If anything it’s intensified over time, the words doing all they can to get out of my head and onto paper. I’ve mostly ignored it and distracted myself with ‘living.’

Living. What a joke. Looking at the map I’ve used to get me to this juncture in life it has suddenly struck me that I’ve successfully made my way to Existence. Brilliant destination if you’re ever looking for the Black Hole of the world. Happiness is optional. In fact, happiness is unlikely, but hey, you could luck out and hit the lottery.

Creativity is not for the faint-hearted. If you had to picture someone who could make a living from their craft, what immediately springs to mind? Bohemian? Hippie? Poor struggling artist living on beans and toast in a cramped room? Maybe an unkempt appearance with a flair for ridiculous hats?

How about the person next to you on the train trading their dream to be a painter for a desk job that slowly sucks out their soul? The person selling their spirit incrementally, day by day in exchange for a wage that pays the bills rather than singing?

I am that person on the train. You’ll recognize me as the one dressed mostly in black with my head buried in a book, or headphones rammed into my skull to stop the world intruding on my thoughts.

The words are ganging up on me. It’s Do or Die time. They’re never going to go away, not until I let them out to do what they were made to do. To bring ideas, meaning and feeling into existence for others to see.

There is a saying, ‘When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.’ My teacher arrived today.

My best friend sent me a copy of the speech she is giving for her Toastmaster’s club. It was about conquering fear even when every fiber of your being is screaming NO. Well that hit home like a ton of bricks!

Fear has defined most of my life to this point. I won’t bore you with the details but I’ll just say it was epic. A part of that fear has been the fear of exposing my creativity to be judged by others. My writing has always been my own. My music was my own. I’ve never wanted fear to scare me away from them. So I’ve taken the safe, sterile road through life; the pot-holed highway to Existence. What a ride…

Along this little train wreck of a highway, there have been signs. You wouldn’t really expect anything less from Life’s Highway, would you? Little signs, huge honking billboard signs, bright shiny light signs. There were also signs that were covered in plastic because the off ramp ahead was closed for construction.

Now if you think about any highway on the planet, it’s almost certain that for every off-ramp, there’s a matching on-ramp on the other side. I mean, people need to turn around, right? You can’t necessarily do a U-turn in the middle of the road but the people at the place who built the roads gave you other options. It’s pretty much idiot-proof. Thank heavens SOMEONE planned ahead!

This would lead to the conclusion that for every sign you’ve missed there’s a place down the line where you can turn this bus around and head back the right way. Granted, there are different kinds of signs.

If you were driving out of Chicago and missed the turn off to Naperville, there’d be a few signs up ahead to still get you to Naperville. The further away you get from your intended destination the signs aren’t clearly marked anymore. They become new destinations, other towns, different names. But at no point does this mean that you cannot turn around and head back for Naperville. You just need to navigate through a few other places along the road home. It’s more of a challenge.

It’s not much different when you miss the turning to your creative calling. You can find your way back but it’s going to take some creative map reading or a satnav that isn’t possessed with the compulsion to only take left turns.

My friend’s speech brought home how many times I’ve chosen the safe option. Is that how I want my life to be defined and remembered? ‘She played it safe.’

I cannot say that would be an epitaph I’d be happy with.

We were blessed with a blizzard last night. Apparently the 5^th largest blizzard since records began. Oh, it’s also Groundhog Day. February 2, 2015. 4 years ago today we had the 3^rd largest blizzard since records began. Consistency, I like it!

Because of that little gift from the clouds above I worked from home today. After logging off, I went into my bedroom to see how the chunk of snow hanging off the roof was doing. At some point during the day icicles had formed from the melting snow. One of them was truly spectacular. It wasn’t just the straight up dangly icicle. It was flat at the top and curved down at an angle creating the beginning of a helix but bladed like a knife, catching the setting sun at the perfect angle.

I lay down on my bed and just stared at it for the longest time. For the first time in too many weeks my brain timed out and just observed. My body relaxed and I had nowhere to be. My laptop was off, my phone on silent, no distractions. I immortalized it in a photo. It seemed necessary. Lying there watching this sparkling icicle against a perfect blue sky. Once that pile of snow slides off the roof it will be gone. It will land on the bushes below and probably shatter. Its delicate structure wouldn’t survive the drop.

It will be buried under the snow until it melts into the ground below disappearing from view. No-one was outside today. I am probably the only person who saw it sparkling in the sun like diamond lace.

What if your gift, the creativity that you’re denying is like that icicle? It’s seen by no-one yet spectacular in its beauty. That icicle had no purpose, no reason to exist. It grew from the conditions around it to exist for a short time only to fade out of sight a few hours later. Maybe that is the transient nature of art. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so let them behold it.

If my writing or your art brings beauty and inspiration to one person, is that not worth it? That icicle brought me inspiration and serenity for one afternoon. Its entire existence was to bring me something so beautiful that I was compelled to detach myself from the world to watch it. That is all. There was nothing else it needed to do. Had it not existed, or had I not worked from home to see it life would have gone on. The only difference would have been that I wouldn’t have had that moment of contemplative solitude and would have gone on blissfully unaware of it. My life would be missing a bit of serenity and I wouldn’t even know it. How many snippets of bliss have we tragically missed along the way?

Creativity is a living thing. It needs to be expressed and set free. If you choose to imprison it within, it will eat you alive until your dying day. Do it because it makes you happy. Don’t shelve it because it’s not profitable. Not everyone can do what you do so realize that what you have is rare because of it. Yes there are people who are better but it doesn’t make it any less rare. There are millions of tanzanite stones in the world, yet they are considered rare because of their finite supply. They don’t all look identical and they aren’t all the same size. Why would your art need to fit a mold? It doesn’t and the sooner we all realize that the sooner fear won’t have a voice in this dialogue.

There will always be those who will give a negative review. That is unavoidable. It’s like wanting everyone to love mayonnaise. What matters are the ones who find inspiration and just plain joy in what you have to offer. THOSE are the ones you are called to serve. Those are the ones you were made to inspire. The negative reviewers have their happiness scheduled with someone else and that’s ok.

There’s no way of knowing when the hourglass is about to drop its last few grains. So maybe, just maybe, you need to whip out your map and make a U-turn. It’s time to head home. Don’t forget to find inspiration on the road back. It’s everywhere if you only look up once in a while

My life is stuck between 2 clichés at the moment; never put off until tomorrow what you can do today and nothing ventured, nothing gained. The irony of it all is that I know I need to cross the line that keeps me in my comfort zone yet I keep telling myself that there’s always tomorrow; that mythical day that never arrives.

I have often imagined my dream life and the person I would be in it. Yet, when faced with the choice of doing what it will take or doing what I normally do, I tell myself that it’s just ‘one last day of bad eating because I’ll fix it tomorrow.’ The only problem is tomorrow is about a decade overdue. It never came.

Do you put yourself out there and do what you’ve always wanted to do or stay on the hamster wheel? ‘I’ll write tomorrow.’ ‘I’ll start my photography on the weekend.’ ‘I’ll work on my craft at some point but right now I have to do this other thing.’ The list of creative excuses is endless. I’ve made them all.

The intention when I started this blog was to find my way home; no small project by any stretch of the imagination. Emigrating is not for the faint hearted. It’s not simply a case of picking a destination on the map and heading off to pastures new. Nothing stays the same when you emigrate.

To do this is going to take an indestructible willpower and the resources to get it done.

While most of us are stuck in a scarcity mentality there really is no need to be. We live in an infinite universe if we’re only willing to see it; instead we see lack because that’s what we’re focused on finding. The resources are there, the means to do this are all there. There’s a BUT here. The resources are there BUT they are outside of my comfort zone. If I want to fund this endeavor, this is going to mean finding alternative flows of income to supplement the one I already have. It might involve making money doing something I’ve always dreamed of doing yet never grew the balls to try in case I failed.

To win the prize I need to venture outside of my safe zone into the unknown. If you will not venture there you cannot expect to gain. At my core I know this to be a fundamental truth. This isn’t the first time tackling emigration. So why I can’t I remember what pushed me to succeed the last two times? What was the catalyst that propelled me out of the paddling pool into the ocean?

Instead I’m consciously putting off until tomorrow things I need to do now. Why do we do that? We know what we need to do, yet we resist. We want to change our situation yet we simultaneously fear changing. We want the situation to change while wanting ourselves to stay the same.

Wherever you go you take yourself with you. The scenery might look different but the view will be the same. Your view on the world will not change if you do not change. It really is that simple. Expecting your life to change when you hold the same limited view of it is a bit like expecting to see a different view out of your window just because you changed the glass.

Growth demands we venture out of what we know into what we don’t know in order to learn something new. Sure, it’s risky. Change always is but risk and fear are not synonymous and maybe that’s the clue.

I read a book at the beginning of the year, The Babylon Rite by Tom Knox. In a nutshell, I couldn’t put it down and read it in one sitting. If you’re squeamish, you might want to give it a miss.

What drew me to the book initially is that it started off set in Edinburgh and we all know I love all things Scottish! It starts off with a scene in Rosslyn Chapel and having recently been there, I could relate to the imagery described. My knowledge on the Templars is patchy at best but the topic fascinates me.

I’ll try not to give away any spoilers but I will say the theory presented, while fictional, is interesting nonetheless. The theory that there’s a link between all the ancient religions is set out in a way that is almost plausible. I read somewhere *wish I could remember where* that all the religions are depicted in the carvings at Rosslyn. There’s so much symbolism and imagery in the walls you could spend a significant chunk of time there and never decipher it all.

An interesting idea comes out of the book. The ancient civilizations used pictures, carvings and paintings to document their history. Since the discovery of these glyphs, carvings and pictures, people have been looking for the meaning behind them. It’s assumed that the depictions are metaphorical, maybe even a simplistic view of rituals and customs from a time we are desperate to understand. But what if….. What if what you see is what you get? What if the depictions aren’t symbolic at all but more along the lines of what a photograph would be? An actual representation of ritual and custom? While we’re trying to decipher the hidden meaning, what if the meaning was never meant to be hidden?

Maybe the best place to hide the truth is in plain sight because who’d look for it there?

To be clear, I’m not a scholar in archaeology or theology. I’ve never spent any time attempting to decipher hidden meaning in anything, it’s just never occurred to me to do so.

My interest in this idea is trying to find other places and ways where old wisdom was passed down in plain sight. The clichés we are sick of hearing, what if there’s a fundamental truth at the basis of it? Ancient civilizations had an immense knowledge of nature and the cosmos which seems almost impossible to explain when you look at what they had to work with. So how did they know and have they left clues to that knowledge hidden in plain sight?

There’s an order to the universe, that much cannot be denied. I can’t speak for anyone else but I want to find it for myself. I need order and logic in my life but most days life feels a lot like farting against thunder; pretty damn pointless.

Something as simple as please and thank-you being called the magic words. If you think about it, maybe they are because when you use them, they bring more into your life. Well, they do for me anyway. If someone doesn’t say please or thank-you, they get nothing further out of me. They come across as entitled and rude and I don’t do favours for those kinds of people. When people say please and thank-you, I go the extra mile for them because I know they appreciate it. Maybe that’s the magic in those words. Using them draws more people to want to help you and do things for you. Lack of them pushes supply away. A cliché with a ring of the truth to it.

How many others are out there? They came into being for a reason but overuse has dulled the meaning. It makes me wonder if there’s a cache of old wisdom waiting to be uncovered that’s veiled by the grime of overuse.

This isn’t going to be a quick discovery but I need to find order and meaning for myself. The world as it stands now is draining my will to live; people barking on about everything they’re entitled to for nothing; people being offended because it’s profitable and someone will always be made to pay. Common sense isn’t common anymore and the world is going to hell in a hand basket as a result.

Life was simpler then and that’s what I crave. Simplicity. Order. Harmony. Bliss.

It’s midnight and I’ve been pacing around my apartment unable to sleep. I’m so homesick I want to crawl into a hole and cry. The pull back to Scotland is so bad right now I can’t begin to describe the hollow feeling it leaves behind.

The song by Dougie MacLean ‘Caledonia’ pretty much sums it up right now:

Let me tell you that I love you and I think about you all the time
Caledonia you’re calling me and now I’m going home
But if I should become a stranger you know that it would make me more than sad
Caledonia’s been everything I’ve ever had

I have moved and I’ve kept on moving, proved the points that I needed proving
Lost the friends that I needed losing, found others on the way

Caledonia was the Roman name for the lands north of Britannia. Scotland. There have not been many times in my life when I’ve felt the certainty I feel right now; the certainty that my life is headed down a specific path and nothing is going to stop it. The HOW of it is still out of sight but the certainty is starting to spiral.

I rolled out of bed close to midday today and after making some coffee, I checked my e-mail and blow me over George if there wasn’t an e-mail from my ex. I’m not even sure if ex is the correct term for him as we only dated for a few months. Well, I dated him, he was in it for the sex.

Turns out his agenda hasn’t changed. After the prerequisite chitchat he came right out and asked for it. Just like that. Uh….. what? Haven’t heard from the guy in almost 2 years. Given that I walked away the first time, what in the name of Pluto’s pox-infested grandmother makes you think I’d consider the same arrangement again?

That just rammed another half dozen nails into the ‘oh-HELL-no’ coffin. Between his dumbass and the wind chill of -29C I’m just nailing shit into this coffin all over the place today.

I just found a recipe for hot chocolate with scotch. Man, if it wasn’t so late/early, I’d haul out my beaters to whip some cream and make it. Two birds with one stone, decent Scotch to chase the blues away and hot chocolate to take the cold away. Sadly I’m a considerate neighbour so the whipped cream will have to wait until the sun comes up in the morning.

Here’s the link to the recipe in case anyone is having a hot chocolate/scotch emergency:

http://www.thekitchn.com/a-recipe-for-hot-chocolate-and-whiskey-yes-please-hot-cocoa-kilbeggan-whiskey-the-10-minute-happy-ho-180132

Until then I’m going to go back to listening to Sad FM and hopefully fall asleep before I pace a groove into the carpet.

 

 

 

It’s a sunny Wednesday morning and I’m parked on my sofa with a cup of hot chocolate and mini marshmallows. It was a slightly rough start to the morning. My sleep was very broken last night and I woke up cranky and just a tad tired.

I messaged a friend who now lives in Texas; she moved away from Chicago a few months back. She’s a special kind of crazy. A few weeks after moving to Dallas she was in a motorcycle accident which ended with the police and bystanders lifting the car off her body because she wasn’t breathing and they couldn’t wait for the fire department. She lived because they did what they did in the face of a seemingly impossible task. The Dallas PD and those random strangers are why she’s alive today. Her hand was basically reattached and she was back out there doing her thing with a smile because she refuses to be stapled down.

She’s a few years older than me but looks 15 years younger because she makes taking care of herself a priority. She teaches yoga in her spare time, she eats right, she makes time for fun in her life. She lives her life in bright red while most of us plod along living in dull shades of grey. She’s travelled to random places alone; so what if she can’t speak the language; so what if there’s no-one to go with her; she goes anyway. Dog sledding? Why not!

She throws her heart at life, sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. Even when it doesn’t, she just does it again somewhere else and the cycle of Kara continues. Her life is full of exotic places and memories most of us are too chicken-shit to try. Yes, I know, not everyone can do that and not everyone wants to. This isn’t a judgement. My point is, are YOU doing what you want to be doing? Are YOU living a life that makes you happy? Are YOU filling your pages with memories or are you living like me? Safely hiding from life so you don’t get hurt, never fully living because you’d rather be safe? Safely surrounded by shades of grey because the colours might hurt?

Some areas of my life have been lived with crazy abandon but not many. There are the crazy memories of diving with Great White sharks in South Africa, going white water rafting in Canada, swimming in the cenotes in Mexico, zip-lining around an obstacle course in England, learning to scuba dive and climbing a Mayan pyramid in the jungles of Mexico. The best memories are of the things that scared me shitless. There’s something to be said about stepping out of my comfort zone, all the best stuff is on the other side of that line. I’ve been fortunate and I’m grateful.

While I don’t have the means to traipse halfway around the world on a mad adventure right now, there’s always room to make happier choices on smaller things.

Everyone should have a Kara in their lives. Someone to remind them to take risks and dare to live gloriously.

I knew a woman many years ago when I lived in South Africa. She was marvelous! An English woman in her 70’s with a boyfriend many years her junior. She wore crazy clothes and beautiful hats; she did yoga every day ‘because it makes you a lot more flexible for great sex my dear’; she travelled wherever the hell she wanted when it pleased her; she indulged in great foods and wines because life should never be boring. Sort of like a Bohemian with expensive taste in pleasure. She brought me back a pair of French lace stockings from one of her trips; the scandalous kind that end just above the knee. This was a woman who never let a damn thing get in her way. Over an afternoon cream tea one weekend she told me if she had to do it again, she’d come back as a courtesan.

Seeing women living large tends to offend quite a few people for some reason. Especially if that woman makes no apology for sucking the juice out of life. A woman who doesn’t care what others think of her is a terrifying creature. For many years I’ve said I would like to be like her when I get older. Well, I’m a decade older than I was the last time I saw her. I don’t know if she’s still alive. I hope so. Have I made a single inroad into living a large colourful life? I don’t think I have. I was called a Renaissance woman a few years back. It was the best compliment I’ve ever received.

I’ve limited myself in the interests of not getting hurt. Here I am, on my sofa, missing out on my life because it’s what I’ve chosen until now. Weeks, months and years have been wasted in an attempt to keep myself from the bumps in the road instead of learning to glide around them. I may never be the type of person who can join in the crowds and dance salsa with a stranger. I can be the type of person who prioritizes pleasures in other things; things that I enjoy doing.

The person I am inside and the reflection in the mirror don’t match. They haven’t for the longest time. I know who I am and it’s time to take her out of storage, regardless of whether it suits anyone else. There’s a possibility I’m going to be that crazy aunt at the dinner table who comes out with something randomly inappropriate at the oddest time. I pretty much do that anyway. Aim to be the bright splash of colour in a world of grey.

My plan to relocate to Scotland has ruffled a few feathers and I have one friend who categorically thinks it’s a dumb idea. Sorry mate, the road is calling and I must go. I hope one day you follow the road that calls to you and may the wind be at your back when you do. There are people who are born to live and die in one place; who need to be anchored with roots. I am not one of those people. The winds of change whisper and I go. I may be tired and resist the change, but I go anyway because the whispering will not stop until I do. It’s beyond a whisper now. It’s an outright scream in the void and I will go.

The one thing I know for sure is that this will be the last time. I have found the missing piece of the map home and it’s time to complete the journey. The HOW remains to be seen.

Between today and the HOW is the business of living. In the meantime, remember the timeless wisdom of Aunty Mame. ‘Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.’

Dish up a big plate and savour every morsel of it. Now is not the time to be mindful of your figure.

 

Scots are celebrating Hogmanay, the New Year’s Eve celebration that puts Christmas festivities to shame. It’s the only way to end one year and usher in the next one. Not having celebrated one in Scotland yet I envision something that pretty much lives up to the American mantra of GO BIG OR GO HOME!

As for the rest of us, it’s that day of the year again where we all sit around reflecting on what happened in the past year. For some of us that means sitting around completely depressed that once again, we failed to accomplish anything on our list of resolutions and there’s now ANOTHER 10 lbs added to the list of things to take care of in the New Year.

New Year’s Eve has traditionally been my Groundhog Day. Drowning my sorrows in a glass of wine so I wouldn’t have to admit to being a lazy cow with no motivation or discipline to see anything through.

I can’t honestly remember everything that was on my list of resolutions for 2015 though I’m fairly certain I didn’t accomplish many of them.

If I had to hazard a guess it would be the usual culprits:

Lose 20 lbs  – I lost the same 1 lb about 6 times if that counts for anything

Start yoga – Nope. Still haven’t done this.

Find a fulfilling job –  Instead I got a promotion so now I’m now doing MORE of the same work that drives me nuts.

Start WRITING! – well…….. I guess I technically might have done some of this though more for my own eyes instead of an audience.

Meet a guy – BAHAHAHAHA no. I didn’t do this either.

Find balance and order in my life – I did for about 2 weeks when I was in Scotland. Now that I know what this mystical goal looks like, I can work on getting it back.

It’s very easy to dwell on everything we haven’t done and pile on the self-loathing as punishment for yet another failed attempt at living the dream. This year I’m opting out of my Groundhog Day.

Sure, there’s a pile of things I didn’t do this year. I’m sure the list above isn’t an all-inclusive inventory of my failings for 2015 but there’s exactly nothing I can do to rewrite any of those days at the finish line. So I’m not going to get my knickers in a twist about it today.

What I am going to do is look at what I did do, albeit unexpectedly:

I found the place I’ve been homesick for since the beginning of time.

I finally had the surgery I’ve been fighting for over the past decade and I’m healing ahead of schedule. I’m eternally grateful for finding just the right doctor, she’s an angel! I finally have my body and sanity back. RIP shark week, it’s been real.

I caught up with old friends I haven’t seen in years and had an amazing time with them in Scotland. It was too short but I’ll be home soon so it’s all good. One of them was a school friend I haven’t seen since I left high school in 1994! We’ve Skyped every week for over a year but getting to be in the same place and catch up was incredible! If you’ve lost touch with old friends, look them up again. It’s a pile of good times just waiting to happen.

I got a promotion. Granted, it’s not the dream job I was looking for at the beginning of the year but it’s put me in a better position financially for a job I was already doing. That’s a plus.

I’ve ‘met’ some incredible people on Myfitnesspal (which is brilliant free site that I use in my quest to lose the stubborn 20 lbs – give it a go if you have poundage to shift). They’re an amazing bunch of nutters. One of them popped into Chicago for a long weekend and we got to meet up and had a great day. There’s definitely something to be said for virtual friends. Sure, there are crazies out there, you just need to find the crazies that fit for you. I’ve definitely found mine. We ‘chat’ daily and it’s like having coffee with the girls. We’re all headed in the same direction and that’s what matters.

I finally went to Madison County to take the photos I’ve been threatening to take since I got here 5 years ago. I opted out of my birthday this year and booked a spur of the moment trip to Iowa. I holed up in a one horse town in the middle of nowhere and went to see the covered bridges from the movie, The Bridges of Madison County. I hope it’s the beginning of a new annual tradition of going somewhere I’ve always wanted to go.

I took a solo trip abroad. I never thought I’d ever manage that in a million years. I’ve traveled alone numerous times but not taken an entire vacation solo. I might be crazy and a slight gypsy but deep down I’m a bit of a pansy. It turns out I can do stuff on my own without melting. I don’t have to have someone in my life to be able to live. While I did meet up with friends for a few days, the bulk of my trip to Scotland was solo.

I took a photography class. It’s been on my bucket list for years. There was a Groupon and I finally mustered up the courage to do it. There’s still a lot to learn and I love doing it.

I filed my citizenship papers. In a few short weeks I’ll finally have something other than my ball-and-chain South African passport. This will open up a pile of places to travel to without the fuss of needing a visa. Oh happy days!

My friends have hounded me to start a blog for ages so here I am. It’s the last day of 2015 and it is done. It never hurts to squeeze in one last goal at the finish line.

While I accomplished exactly nothing that I set out to do, I’ve done more of the things that actually matter to me. That’s what I’m taking with me from 2015.

It was a good vintage.

 

 

I’m four hundred miles from home in a strange hotel in a one horse town searching for Sanctuary. A combination of things has brought me here. The need to take care of myself. Escape from the drudgery of everyday life. The need for solitude. The pictures I’ve been meaning to take for the past 3 years but never made time for. The fact that I run every time something or someone gets close. Realizing I can’t be everything to everyone and I need to escape from trying. Things….

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Actually, maybe somewhere in the middle would make more sense. Lately music has been rearranging my compound in unexpected ways. It’s been a lot of years since I found my answers, or even my questions, in music. I remember writing out the lyrics to my favourite songs as a kid. I had a binder where I kept them all, alphabetically of course. Whenever I had a question for the universe at large, I would ask my question then randomly open up my folder and look for the answer in that song. Most times I found it. The times I couldn’t find it, I’d try again. I’d keep asking the question until the ‘random’ answer made sense. I no longer have that folder but I still have those pages, saved with my sheet music, safely tucked away in storage. I need to look through them again and revisit the songs that got me through some rough times. I’ve been looking for some of the older songs but I can’t find them.

Tugboat gives me songs. It’s like the soundtrack to my life and some days it’s almost haunting how closely the words fit. I’m not sure whether our lives just have the same soundtracks or if he somehow knows what’s broken and which song might fix it. Either way, it’s scary. One of those songs sent me over the edge on Wednesday on the train ride home. (Dear Agony by Breaking Benjamin if you really want to know.) I was rattled and when I got home Life just finished the job and sent me the rest of the way over the cliff. I haven’t cried like that in a long time. I cried until I couldn’t breathe. I got home and being a typical 21^st century human, caught up on my e-mails and social media. Stupid mistake.

There was a message from Jay: I need you to try and find me a Sputnik, I can’t find one. It’s for my rat. Oh btw, how are you babes?

………… what? Haven’t heard from you in how long but you need a Sputnik?!

I promptly deactivated my Facebook account. Bollox to everyone.

Earlier in the day I’d finally finished editing a friend’s book. It had taken a few months fitting it in around my normal job and it was heavy going. I e-mailed it to him. Got a response, I can’t open up with edits, could you resend? Ok. Resent. I still can’t access edits, could you try resaving and resending? Fine. Here you go. Maybe try saving it a different way, I can’t accept edits. HOW ABOUT I DON’T CARE?!

After that, have you had a chance to think about the marketing cover for the back page? No. No I haven’t.

So coming home to another message wanting something more from me without any regard to anything outside of their request just pushed me over the edge. I messaged my sister-in-law and opted out of my birthday this weekend. That went down like a lead balloon.

I’m sorry. Meltdowns don’t work on a schedule. They come when they come and I’ll refund the cost of whatever if it will keep the peace.

I’m not ready to add another year to my scorecard. I cannot face adding on ANOTHER year with the corresponding realization that I’m in the exact same place I was the last time I added on another year. I’m in the same job that murders my soul in instalments. I have done exactly NO work on any of my hobbies or interests in longer than I can remember. I have let my creativity fade into oblivion. I don’t write. I have taken almost no pictures this year. I still go home to an empty home because I can’t find the balls to throw my heart into the deep end on someone who is worth it. My body had headed off the reservation and I’m not entirely sure when it is expected back.

I stopped making myself a priority and instead prioritized a bunch of other meaningless stuff. For what?

I need to find Sanctuary. That place within that is untouchable, the haven where all is right with the world.

So on a whim I booked myself into a hotel in a place that has a population of 1600. 200 of them are currently in this hotel which blows my mind. That a hotel in a tiny one horse town can be filled to capacity is beyond comprehension but here I am. 5 hours from home sitting in a bed, alone.

I had the TV on for company until it dawned on me I was being an idiot. I didn’t drive for 5 hours to watch HGTV. I came here for solitude and answers. I came here to step outside of my comfort zone; to see a place I haven’t seen; to photograph bridges I’ve meant to see for years; to experience one horse town life for a weekend in the middle of nowhere; to figure out if these are things I actually want to do more often or if they are things that I have romanticized in my mind.

I need to take care of myself for a while and figure out what it is I had hoped to achieve at this point and what has eluded me until now.

My health and physical well-being need to move up the priority list. I’ve neglected both to my detriment for too long. That needs to change.

My sanity is hanging on by a thread. I’ve stretched myself too thin trying to be everything to everyone and I need to realize that isn’t realistic. It’s not up to me to make sure every person in orbit around my life is blissfully happy and satisfied. That is their responsibility. I will help where I can but I also need to start being a bit more selective about that too. Just because I CAN help, doesn’t mean I should. I can fix anything given enough time, a spreadsheet and the will to do it. Unless that thing is myself, in which case I’ll put that off for as long as humanly possible.

I’ve been making lists for about as long as I can remember. Things to do. Places to go. Things to try. On every single one of those lists: yoga. Learn another language. Play the guitar. Write a book.

Have I done any of those? No. Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. Why the hell not? No idea, couldn’t tell you though I’m finally ready to commit to an answer: I’m too chicken-shit to do it. I’m so hung up on the idea that I might fail that I don’t even try. I play it safe.

Safe. The sterile road through life. I’ve got the most detailed map of that road.

Let’s not ignore the Pandora’s Box of it all. Love. I want to love someone completely. It’s the only way I know how. I’m not a glass half full kinda gal when it comes to that. It’s boots and all into the deep end or not at all. There’s no gentle entry into that pool. Crawling into a hug at the end of a shitty day; being someone else’s hug when they need to offload; that deep sleep that only seems to come when I’m buried in someone’s chest and feel safe; taking care of someone because I love them and want to cherish them; having someone step up and bat my corner; someone to toss ideas and random conversation around with; someone to find pleasure with; Sanctuary.

Every time I have opened Pandora’s Box it’s gone tits up. Actually, no. There was carnage, yes. Total mayhem, yes. Happiness……..? Yes. I’ve never been one to choose the easy way. I’ve always gone the non-conventional route. Younger guy, older guy, WAY older married guy, soldier guy on deployment, widowed guy with kids and older. I kinda like that about myself actually. My complete unwillingness and inability to conform to what anyone else wants or expects.

So what is it that I’m looking for exactly?

I’m fairly certain my soul is a thousand years old. It sure as hell feels like it. Modern things confuse me. I can’t do crowds. I can’t do constant incessant noise and chaos. I get people’d out, often. I still have the old fashioned idea that men and women have separate identities. There is nothing hotter than a man being a man doing man things. Holding doors, opening cans, getting junk off the top shelf, being all masculine and protective, stepping up and taking care of shit and doing the heavy lifting. Seriously, it drives me wild on the inside. Men being masculine and doing what they are physically built to do……… dear god. Drool.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no pushover. I have opinions and I’ll stick to my guns. If a decision impacts me I’ll straight up be involved in making that decision. I have a job and I earn my own money. I’ll kill dinner if I have to and the chances of me being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen are somewhere around less than zero but when a guy steps up and takes care of that shit because he can, it’s almost poetic to watch. Nothing beats it. I still want to take care of my guy. *cue backlash here – whatever. This is my blog, my opinion.*

Men and women are equal in different ways, if that makes sense. For things to be equal doesn’t mean they have to be identical. A pound of feathers and a pound of lead are equal in weight yet nothing close to identical. Yet that’s what the world is becoming. Identical in every way and then people wonder why stuff doesn’t fit anymore. We’ve gone from having 2 shapes that complement each other to having 2 identical shapes that don’t fit and everyone is sitting around, scratching their heads pondering what the hell went wrong with the world.

 

I don’t know where I fit. I’m somewhere between the soft and fluffy. I want to be protected but I also have spikes for self-preservation. The spikes make it seem like I have it all under control when in fact they exist solely because I DON’T have it all under control. The end result is I don’t fit anywhere. I’m a weird shape and in a world of cookie-cut identical shapes, there isn’t a shape that fits me. Or there is….. I just don’t know where to find it.