I’ve resolved, from this point on, to do a lot more writing. I’d like to finally make something of it, maybe earn some money doing it. I’m thinking about going back to uni to do a creative writing course. Wherever it goes from here, I’d just like to do more. It makes me happy, I’m fairly okay at it, and it’s the one talent I have that really makes me feel like I have a creative or imaginative bone in my body.
Point is, the easiest and cheapest avenue for me to start is to blog more often.
It’s been over a year since I last posted an entry. Over a YEAR. That’s terrible. Considering how much effort Tim put into designing this, and how much I guilted him about not finishing it, it got sort of forgotten pretty quickly. Well, not forgotten, snubbed.
Anyway, let’s see if we can recap this year.
Chronologically, the first important thing that happened after we returned from our extended visit to Sydney was Rosie. You’ve probably all met Rosie by now, she’s just recently had her first birthday, which means we’ve had her for over a year. That maths doesn’t sound like it works, but it does.
Anyway, you’ve probably all met her, but without being in my head, you can never understand what she means to me. It’s a LOT, fyi.
I’ve wanted a dog for as long as I can remember. My brother and I were both obsessed with the idea. We used to pass this gorgeous lab named Molly on the way to school everyday, and we would have what we called “Daily Dog Counts”, complete with themesong. Having a dog was one of the most important things to me as a child. As I grew and learned about things like money and boys and self-image, the desire became less important but always there, like a cavity in your tooth waiting to be filled, it’s important to you and it’ll happen one day, but right now I don’t have the money or the time.
Well, don’t get me wrong, I had the money and the time. Or at least, my parents had the money. You’d think with children this obsessed with the idea of owning a dog our parents would have relented at some point over the 2 decades I lived with them. Not MY Dad. He was impressively stubborn. Granted for the first 11 years we were living in a second storey unit, but once we moved out to the ‘burbs, there was all the room in the world.
The point is, once we’d finally moved out, and Tim and I had the freedom to adopt a beautiful baby puppy, I had a good 23 years of obsession and pining under my belt.
Then came the big day, we went out on a blistering summer’s day, and picked the most gorgeous little she-pup of the batch. We had originally settled on one of her sisters, but just before we left this little one came up to me and mewed a little and nibbled my finger, and I was in love. I was in LOVE. I held her in my arms and she slept on my lap all the way home. She was beautiful, and perfect, and I loved her completely.
Now, a year on, she’s still just as beautiful. She’s a lot bigger now, and a lot more, um, playful. She can get excited some times and she’ll jump on you with her big claws. But when she cuddles up to me on the couch, puts her little head on my lap and looks at you with her enormous brown eyes, falls asleep and starts snoring her little puppy snores, all the little annoyances are worth it. She loves me. And I love her. She’ll never understand how much, her little puppy brain couldn’t comprehend it. She is so perfect, to me.
So when I say the next most important thing that happened this year is that Tim and I got engaged, don’t think that I belittle Tim. I love Tim more than anything in the world, and I would die for him. But getting engaged is really just formalising something that’s already been in place for several years. Tim and I are married already, in everything but name. I have wanted Rosie since before I knew what boys or marriage were.
Though, by the way, Tim and I got engaged! We’re getting married! We are planning our wedding. I have chosen a wedding dress. We are getting MARRIED.
Getting married is a funny business. It’s full of paradoxes. It’s one of the most important days in your life, and so much planning goes into it, and yet, just about everyone in the Western world will get married at least once. I know, I know, the percentage is decreasing and all that, but it’s still very, VERY common. When you hear someone you don’t know that well say “Oh, I’m getting married that weekend” you don’t run up to them and scream and congratulate them, and yet if you did they probably wouldn’t feel it was out of place, because that’s exactly how they feel.
And it’s meant to be a celebration of two people right? Coming together? Or at most two families joining. And yet so much emphasis is put on the parents, what they want, if they’re happy with everything. Of course, the final decision will always come down to you, but if you don’t take into account what they want, there will be hell to pay.
In so many ways, people will take you more seriously if you are married. “Look at me, I’m an adult now because I spent thousands of dollars on a big white dress and a function venue.” I suppose it shows you’re able to commit to something, and are able to organise a largescale event, but I don’t like the idea that getting married is something you put on your resume. As I said, Tim and I are already married in every way that counts, but this is sort of how we say to the world “We’re ready to be taken seriously as a couple now, he’s no longer just a long term boyfriend and he’s committed to me and won’t dump me for the next blonde that comes along.” Now we can get things like joint bank accounts! And couples health insurance! I’m aware that things are changing now, that you can get these things even if you are in a de facto relationship, but there’s always that feeling like, “Hmm, what if we get a joint bank account and then break up next week?”
Obviously there’s the religious aspect. I am a woman of faith, and I’m happy to proclaim that to anyone who asks. We will be getting married in an Anglican church because that is what I have always wanted, to be married before God. And yet, some of you might point out the inconsistency that I am currently “living in sin”. When Tim and I moved in together, I realised that I would be committing a sin. However, the God I believe in, I think would not hold against us that we had not formalised our union through man’s institutions. Admittedly I was in a situation where I had nowhere else to live, but I have to believe that our committment and love counted for something. The God I believe in is made of love, forgiveness and understanding, and assigning man-made rules to Him just seems ridiculous. “You must give 10% of your wage in tithe or you’ll go to hell.”
Whoops, I didn’t mean to go on about this for so long. But yep, marriage, huh! It’s pretty weird. And yet another of those paradoxes is that I can SEE that it’s a little weird and a little dumb, and yet I am totally excited for it, and I absolutely cannot wait for our wedding day. Weird, huh?
Next on the itemised list of things that happened this year is my health! My health happens every year, it’s true, but this year saw record highs and lows, and eventually a stability that I’m very proud of.
At the beginning of the year, through till probably about August or September, I was a mess. My blood sugars were high all the time, I never slept a full night, I was putting on weight, I was getting more and more depressed, and everything was getting EVEN WORSE.
At one point, soon after Tim popped the question, I was feeling so good, I thought I was cured. Hey, I still wasn’t sleeping well and all that, but I was happy, so I’m better, right?
WRONG.
I stopped seeing my psychologist, thinking I was allllll better. This was a mistake. And it meant that when something happened, something that I regret ever happening, I had no-one to talk to. I guess it might be obvious to some of you in the know what happened, through my thinly veiled illusions. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame anyone or anything, and I can look back and understand that is was all a complete misunderstanding, started by me. But the point of all this was that when I fell, I fell hard. Again, this isn’t something I’m blaming on anyone, it would’ve happened eventually one way or the other. But the inevitable conclusion was that my facade of happiness came crumbling down and I started to think things and do things that I had never done before. I was at the lowest point in my life thus far.
As my previous psychologist had left, I started seeing a new one. I have so much to thank her for. She is an amazing person. And I continued seeing a sleep specialist. It was through him that I was hypnotised. I came into it with a fair amount of skepticism. Sure, hypnotism can make you act like a chicken, right, but not make me feel better.
I couldn’t have been further from the truth. Hypnotism actually CAN’T make you act like a chicken. True story. And it was instrumental in making me feel better. Hypnotism doesn’t switch you off and let someone reprogramme you. I remember being completely concious the whole time, but I don’t remember anything that was said, because hypnotism puts you in a state where you just don’t CARE. My concious brain didn’t care what he was saying, because he was speaking to my unconcious. To some of you this will sound like voodoo or witchcraft, but the unconcious is very real and a much larger part of your life than you realise.
Since then, I’ve become a different person. Ask Tim! I just see things in completely different ways now, where I used to fly off the handle at a percieved insult, fear or something similar, I can now act like a rational person a much larger percentage of the time! I’m not manically happpy all the time, but if anything that proves its success even more. If I was grinning like a madman all the time, I’d know it was something that was, uh, not real. I’m losing my train of thought here. But suffice to say, I am better. My insomnia is cured. My sleeping is still not optimum but its getting better, and I can see the options. I lost a pile of weight, but then I put it back on again, but I’m gonna lose it before the wedding, just you wait! And most importantly, my depression is, I would say, completely gone. I can get down sometimes, but so can everyone. I can see the world in a much more positive and above all, realistic light.
The final major event of 2010 was moving out. When we came back to Perth in December 2009 Tim’s Mum told us that they were thinking about letting us move into Tim’s Nanna’s place for low rent, because she was in a nursing home. We waited patiently and brought it up only occasionally, knowing that this was a sensitive subject for Tim’s Mum. Her Mother, after all, is dying. Come October, after 10 or 11 months of waiting patiently, Tim’s Mum announces that they are selling the house, and seems to have forgotten that we ever talked about letting us live there. Again, we keep quiet, we don’t want to cause a fuss, this is the house they grew up in and selling it must be a painful decision.
Having now got some closure on the whole matter, we decide it’s time to start looking elsewhere. We find some really nice houses to look into and finally settle on a house in Rockingham. Right across from the beach. Low rent. Beautiful, beautiful area. House was a little naff, but we could live with it for the price and the area. So we put in our application, our fee, which consists of most of our money, and begin the hours journey back home. There were some complications and we ended up going back and forth that day, for a total of about 3 hours of driving, but we get it all sorted, and we’re looking like the best candidates, and we’re pretty sure we’re going to get it.
We tell Tim’s parents about this. Tim’s Dad seemed enthusiastic, while Tim’s Mum seems a little reticent. But she doesn’t say anything, and we leave to meet our friends for coffee. While waiting for them to arrive, half an hour later, Tim’s Mum SMSes him and tells him it’s totally cool to move in to Nanna’s house, whatevs, no problems man.
I… what?
WHAT?
We just..
Couldn’t you..
ARGH.
So we moved in. It’s pretty great! Low rent, great area, all the perks of the other place, with less beach and more indies. And a piano!
Tim’s Nanna sadly passed away on the 5th of December, 2010. It was a blessing by the end, as while her decline was very swift, her passing was slow and painful. Tim and I were with her only half an hour or so before she died, and said our goodbyes. The first time I met Nanna was in this house. She was a beautiful lady. I loved her very much, and she welcomed me into her family with kisses and excitement. I think of her very often in this house. Tim thinks she would be happy that we lived here, particularly during the wedding period. I like to think so as well. I wish I’d had more opportunity to know her.
Well, I’ll leave it there, this is getting quite long! Lots of other things happened, Sarah came over for my birthday, Mum came over for Christmas, lots of fun exciting things. But those were the major milestones.
Thanks for reading this far! Hopefully there’ll be more updates more often now!
I am super excited about the impending writings! Your writing is excellent and I know you can improve even more if you just keep at it. You gotta follow those dreams!
I loved reading this and I’m glad you’ve come so far this year. I love you very much.
Hey lady,
your blog (rant) was awesome. I can always hear the way I’m sure you’d be saying it if we were sitting and chatting face to face. I can’t wait to come see you again and I hope Liz comes with me. I think you are totally awesome and I reckon you can do anything you set your mind to. I look forward to seeing more posts! Steve thinks you should come back to Sydney already so we can hang out more and that he misses you both….don’t worry, I’ll drag his butt to Perth so he can see how awesome it is and maybe when we’re old we can retire there!
Love you a bunch!
Also…gots me a blogspot…it’s lame but who knows what I might make of it 🙂
Hey hun!
It’s great to hear you are feeling so much better. I’ve had a bit of a journey this year too -> http://patmore.net.au/blog/2010/09/well-this-is-a-change-im-gluten-intolerant/
It’s also wonderful to hear you’re starting up uni again this year. All the best with it!
Btw, it looks like I’m on break during your wedding, but can you email more details so James & I can see what we can do to be there? I’m guessing the date’s the same?
All the best, wonderful to have you back in the blog-o-sphere!