To A Long Lost Friend

"A friend is for a reason, a season or a lifetime".  I have had many friends throughout my life and for some I do wonder what happened to them.  Here is a letter to someone who was a great friend to me when I was a uni student.

Dear Flis,

Sometimes I find myself wondering what happened to you.  I always felt bad about the last time we spoke.  Do you remember?  You were walking down the hill from the station and you saw me walking across the road to get into my car.  You walked over and said "Hello".  I smiled and made pleasantries, but I told you I desperately had to go.  You looked upset and walked off.  The thing was I really did have to go, I had a Dr's appointment and I couldn't be late.  Perhaps I should have told you that.  I never heard from you again, but I was in a bad place at the time and I didn't tell you because of all the bad places you had been.

I always enjoyed our friendship, you went out of your way to make me feel welcome and I was happy spending time with you.  We did a lot together and spent many Sunday evenings drinking coffee and talking for what felt like hours.  However I remember at some point things changed.  I'm unsure of the specifics, I didn't ask about the history, I just knew you were struggling.

You ended up in hospital.  I came to see you with Cathy and we arranged to go for a walk a few kilometres down the road.  On our walk we found a small antique shop and we walked in and looked around.  In there you purchased 3 little murrina glass hearts and you gave one to each of us and told us it was to remember the day.  To be honest that was a tough day for me, it was confronting and you wanted to talk about your treatment and that was difficult for me.  I wanted to help you but I felt so helpless.

Of course you did get better, you went back home and I often came to your granny flat where you would cook dinner and we would watch movies together.  Extremely kind and thoughtful you always were, I truly appreciated our friendship and I'm sorry we have lost touch.  Things took a turn for me and it was ugly.  I was afraid to upset you with my stuff as I thought you were still fragile.

I hope you are well, happy and content and that perhaps you have met a wonderful man who treats you with abundant kindness, the way you treated everyone.  I remember we talked often of our future husbands.  I met mine and he is everything I wanted and more, and I am now in the best place I have ever been.

Take Care

The Secret Club I Don't Belong To

Small gatherings at desks, phones being exchanged, oohing and ahhing, these are the members of the mother's club.  The secret club at work where I am the only one not a member.  It doesn't bother me that I don't belong, except for the 1% of the time when it does.  I know this sounds like I am about to pour my heart out with a long and painful infertility journey, but there is no story to tell.  It is simply a case that on those rare days it hurts because I feel like I am back at high school being the outsider sitting alone watching packs of girls in throngs of laughter.

It's not that they don't include me, they try, sometimes, but how can I relate?  There are two older women both of whom have recently become grandmothers and they share with the younger mothers the outfits they buy and the videos sent to them of the baby smiling or crawling or making funny noises.  No one shows me.  It's not deliberate, but they gravitate towards other mothers for validation.  I understand and I know I can't provide that.

I listen, I'm good at that.  Every day I listen to their stories about the children and I laugh, but I have nothing to add.  When talk turns to husbands I can hold the office like a grand master story teller, but with children I smile and nod.  I used to show a bit more interest but my total lack of understanding of all things children, baby and pregnancy made it hard.  It's another language, that I don't speak and everyday at some point they switch to their native tongue and I am left smiling.

Sometimes we go to the pub for lunch on Friday's.  One Friday sticks out in my mind.  The entire hour was spent sharing labour and birth stories.  I laughed, I cringed, but I didn't speak.  What could I say?  I left that lunch early, I wanted to be along for a few minutes and remind myself of all the clubs I do belong to.  Even though high school is far behind sometimes those painful memories creep up on me.  But it's ok now because I can hang out with members of the clubs I do belong to, and when I get home I can cuddle into my husband and my boys, my favourite club of them all.

Things I Don't Understand # 127

A printer is a beautiful piece of engineering.  The very clever people that design these machines design them so they fit 500 sheets of paper in the tray.  It is the most perfect fit you can find in an office.  And what a surprise.  The paper people actually package their paper into lovely 500 sheet reams.

So then why, when the printer beeps loudly altering you to the fact that she is in desperate need of paper, do people rip open a new ream and only insert part of that magical 500?  Someone who is eagerly waiting for the rest of their document has gone to the trouble to answer the beep, locate a ream of paper, and open it.  But the effort stops there because their hands only pull out a small sample of paper.  That person then opens the printer tray, dumps the paper in and aggressively shoves the tray back into the machine before pressing the button to resume printing.

I fail to see how putting all 500 sheets into the printer requires more effort than the effort already gone to.  Or is it a question of time?  How much more time will it take to insert 500 sheets of paper instead of say, 78?  I'm not going to conduct an experiment but I would say less than 10 seconds.  Actually less than 5 is probably more accurate.  I'm not sure if it's one person in our office who does this or a few.  Personally I strip the whole 500 out of the packet and carefully lay them in the tray, admiring the satisfaction of the perfect fit.  Is there anyone who can explain the need to break a perfect engineering process?

Bookworm

One of my favourite pastimes is to bury my head into a book. I love taking the opportunity to escape into another world where I can leave all my worries behind and immerse myself in the drama of another place, another time, fall in love with new people and be wary of new enemies.  I also sometimes like to delve into non-fiction works and increase my knowledge and learn new skills.  If I can gain one new thing from a non-fiction book and apply it to my life, then it was all worth it.

To be honest I think my love of reading began as soon as I was able to read.  As a child I was constantly found to have a book in my hand. I believe this passion as a child is what lead me to having a "highly creative imagination" as one teacher put it.  Unfortunately in my 20's my love of reading fell from my list of priorities as I was too busy with an exhausting social life.  But once that was out of my system and I met Hubby and started setting up house, I found myself reaching out for a book to pass away a rainy afternoon.

Now I often have 2 or 3 books going at once, and I squeeze in reading whenever I can, waiting for an appointment or in line, at lunch when the conversation gets a little too gossipy for me.  Given my love of books, I thought I might put a few up on my blog every now and then, when I read one that makes a real impact on me.  Those books are the ones that get to stay in my 'library' and aren't sent out to be recycled.  And yes most of the books I read are paperback and not electronic (although my Kindle books are increasing). Because curling up on the couch on a Sunday morning with my coffee and my boys, soaking up the sun and loosing myself into a book just isn't the same with my Ipad.  There is just a little more magic with my head in a (paper) book.

Thank You

Image by Stuart Rowe Photography

Two words that are music to my ears.  I say those words a lot and I hope they come back to me often.  But they don't.  I know it's not me.  It's just the way people are today.  Self-absorbed.  So focused on themselves there is no room for anyone else and certainly no room for some old-school manners.  People get what they want and move onto the next thing they want without a fleeting thought about the person in front of them.  The person that helped them, served them, worked hard and pushed through "expected timeframe's" for them.  The person that is left standing and wondering why it is so hard for you to acknowledge what they have done.  That person is me.

Some clients are so pushy, so demanding, so greedy.  We tell them up front the process, the timeframes, the steps that need to be taken, but they don't listen; they want what they want right now.  I could be aggressive and take a stand.  But I know which fights to fight and those to let go.  I will never win.  The client's only morph into their toddler self and argue and scream and kick and complain higher up the chain.  So I do what I can, I move things through as fast as possible.  I speak to people and jump queues and ta-dah, in the midst of their grumbling I give them what they want.

Silence.  Nothing.  I sit in my chair and cross it off my list, another one done and then I stare at an empty inbox and a silent phone.  Can't someone just acknowledge the effort I went to?  Why are you so rude to me, so demanding of me, so pushy and aggressive with me?  Why do you speak to me in a way I hope you would never speak to your loved ones, and then in that moment when the money lands in your bank account, can you not just be human?  All I want is for a moment for you to see the world is bigger than your existence in it.  There are so many people standing in front of you, who want you to look us in the eye.  Acknowledge our existence in this world and perhaps if you can spare just a moment longer, utter those two very special words, "Thank You".

Trapped

A client of mine recently passed away.  He had not been a client for very long.  Less than a year.  He was in an aged care facility.  In my work I have been to quite a few of these place.  They are all the same, as soon as I enter these facilities I feel claustrophobic.  I can sense it, that feeling of being trapped.  I tell the person at the front desk who I have come to see and am lead down a bright white corridor, or several, until I reach the right room.  There is always a picture frame next to the door, for a picture of the person inside or their name.  The turnover must be high if they aren't even going to bother putting your name on the door and instead hope someone puts a picture of you in a frame.  I knock and enter.  More white.  The resident lays on a single hospital bed looking at a TV connected to the wall.  There is a chair next to the bed and a little cabinet in the corner of the room for what is left of their personal belongings.  Some are fortunate to have an ensuite, which is usually a showerhead over a toilet.

There is always a window.  It doesn't open so there is no fresh air, and most of the time the view is of another wing of the building.  Most of the residents have pictures up, and it is always pictures of family; spouses, children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters, parents, nieces and nephews and sometimes even their pets.  I like to look at the pictures, see the resemblances and while I never say anything, I wonder if any of these people come to visit.  I remember one client who covered her whole wall with pictures of her niece and grandnephew.  It was all the family she had, but her niece without fail visited every second day.  This woman was the happiest one I had ever seen.

I conduct my business with the client, I smile, I want to appear happy, I want them to know everything is ok.  But on the inside I can feel my claustrophobia building and my eyes darting for the nearest exit.  I smile and leave and walk back out.  There is no nurse to show me the way and I usually take a wrong turn and stumble into an activity room or a lounge.  The residents are lined up watching TV or playing bingo.  No one talks, no one smiles, and the nurses scuttle about making no eye contact.  

The worst places are the ones that have the doors looked.  You need to go to the front desk and request to be let out.  In those moments I instinctively reach for my throat.  I worry the nurse will say "No" and I'm trapped in a building with no fresh air and no way out.  I couldn't live in a place where I was locked in and trapped.  For all the decorated websites about how wonderful and comfortable these places are, you are still trapped.  And while I understand how important that is for some of the residents there, that claustrophobia is palpable.

My client was only admitted 3 months ago.  On his first day he managed to escape his room and they found him trying to climb the fence to escape.  He wanted out. I wonder if in that moment he gave up because he must have had quite a bit of stamina to achieve that feat.  Yet 3 months later and he is gone.  He must have felt trapped.  Maybe they all do.  Maybe that is why the turnover on the rooms is so high, because when you are locked up and trapped, what is there left for you to do with your life.

Overcoming My Addiction

It started innocently enough.  I had recently become a bit of a royalist and was just a little bit obsessed with Princess Kate and her pregnancy with Prince George.  When I was stuck on hold or checking my email, I found myself wandering online and searching for the very latest news on all things Kate.  Once the news broke that she was in labour it only got worse.  I was checking news websites every quarter hour and in my searching I discovered Daily Mail.

As my eyes devoured the pictures of Kate and George (and William in a few of them) my eyes discovered The Sidebar.  It was packed with snippets of celeb gossip just begging me to click to open.  It was like a box of chocolates, I wanted them all but I didn't know where to start. This website was feeding into my innate female nature, you know that need to bond with other women and share stories, known today as gossip.  I kept going back for more, for those poorly written articles full of bad grammar and spelling mistakes accompanied by blurry, off centre photographs.  My celeb knowledge was growing exponentially as was my addiction.  I would get to work and the first things I would do was check out the latest on Daily Mail.  On weekends I would find myself pulling out my iPad and just popping on for a quick glance.

Over time this drug was not enough, I needed more to feed my growing addiction.  The best place for that of course is the workplace and it was so easy to just slide into the underground office grapevine.  I had moved my addiction from a computer screen to the bathrooms at work, the kitchen at work, the back corridor and hushed conversations at the break table.

This wasn't what I wanted.  It was not the kind of person I wanted to be and I didn't want a reputation for being that girl you cannot say anything to because she will tell everyone.  Gossip destroys everything in it's path.  I had to get myself out.  I had to cut my addiction cold turkey and that meant not only staying away from it at work, but cutting myself off from where it all began, Daily Mail.

Staying away was hard.  My addiction was now a built in habit.  I had to be fed my gossip, I had to know what was going on, I wanted to be told gossip and nod my head and say "I know, it was on Daily Mail, YESTERDAY".  Part of me enjoyed being in the know but I knew I had to stop.  

Even now, sometimes I catch myself wandering over.  Just a quick glance I tell myself.  And I start, but then I pull myself up and force myself to close the website.  My rational self knows it is all rubbish and adds nothing to me as a person.  In those moments I need to remind myself in order to improve myself and move myself forward I need to fill my head "with the good, clean, pure, powerful and positive." (Zig Ziglar).  And when I say that to myself, I close the website and go in search of it's antithesis, positive and uplifting content that grows me into a better person each day.