Dear Diary

It's coming up to that time of year, that time where I get to be just me for a few short days.

This time last year I was in Brisbane sharing dinner with a long term friend that I had just met in person for the first time. Seeing myself through their eyes has been one for the most significant points in my life. They have also become one of the few, if not only inner-circle relationship where the love was always unconditional, and judgement of my past and intention for future was non-existent.

I can never thank them enough for the past twelve months. I don't think they'll ever know the significance of our relationship and the depth of their influence in my life.
 

I really screwed up, not intentionally, but through old bad habits, too private to name here. So, we don't talk at the moment. I hope that will change with time doing it's healing thing. But my feelings about their value as a person and a friend are the same.
  

I can't tell you this Hon, so I'll tell the internet instead.
For just the love and acceptance you gave, but not excluding: your terrible Dad jokes, reddit addiction, bad taste in hair cuts and devotion to rockmelon, I will always love you my friend, for who you are. I miss you every single day. Stay Classy.

N.

I hate this time of year.

Sorry, but I do.
Why, at Christmas, does my family, immediate or extended think they can dictate my time? Why can I not want my kids to myself for a week before I don't see them for a fortnight, when they're not exhausted from a full school week...
Why, just because it's Christmas, am I selfish for not wanting to rush. For not wanting to watch happy families happen around us and feel bad for us because we are different?

Is it like grief? Where we expect the bereaved to feel better with gift baskets and flowers... A friend who lost her son was exhaustedly taken aback when a circle of her friends insisted she came out to lunch so they could 'treat' her and give her the knick knacks they had bought for her.

Do people think I'll top myself if I spend a Christmas on my own terms? Poor single person. Can't be left alone, let's put then in the middle of lots of families so they feel less alone.

Ok I've reached rant point.

I need a holiday, alone. Anyone want to come? ;)

Change?

Should you change for the one you love? Is changing some behaviour that hurts your chosen changing who you are? Or is it classed as changing how you operate?

I'm being told I am unreasonable for asking for change with regards to something that hurts me deeply and has a significant history of going very badly. It's not a minor thing.

So who changes? What if one refuses to even try to negotiate? Is it game over?

Stirring syrup.

I'm standing here stirring syrup because I don't know what else to do. I know I won't sleep. At least, I have syrup.

Martha, an acquaintance of mine, is sitting in a hospital waiting for news of her Husband, father to her tribe, her Chosen. He was in an accident. He may not wake up. He may not breathe on his own. He may never feel anything below his neck even if he does learn to breathe on his own.

I wonder about Martha. How does one wait to hear the fate of your Chosen. Do you pretend to read magazines? Do you check your phone for the trivial bullshit on Facebook?

Is she just staring at her hands?

I doubt I will sleep tonight. But in the very least, as I pray, as I try to keep hope, but feel my heart breaking... At least I have berry juice syrup to stir for my babies to pour on yoghurt in the morning.

FIFO vs Single Parents

I have so many friends in different situations.
And every single mother I know, I respect. Please note I am writing this from that Dangerous place, IME! In My Experience. I mean no disrespect to families that aren't hubby-wife-kids, this is just MY experience.

Girls, it's time to stop with the comparisons.

A Fly In Fly Out mother will never understand a single mother.

And single mother can't understand a FIFO mum's life unless she has lived it.

There's the mum with the hubby/partner who just are not interested in family.

And then... the perfect family, the one we all secretly envy, or perhaps not even so secretly. Hubby who is home, present and up to the challenge of equality in life space.

I have been both. I was the one who prepared for alone time for long periods and relied heavily on friends to help me cope... especially so in a foreign country with no family. You know what? Almost no one helped. Even when I practically begged and couldn't walk, heavily pregnant with baby#2 in a 3 storey house. It just didn't happen, except for those precious few who were genuine friends.

The first time hubby went away for an extended period, it rained FOR A MONTH STRAIGHT, no joke. It sucked. It hurt. I was lonely and exhausted.

You know though, both suck.
Both are exhausting.

Ok so FIFO mums aren't technically single, but they can feel like it. Even if they don't understand what true single parent hell is like, they still are having a crappy time. Let's not add to it by taking offence to single-parentesque comparisons. Ok?

You're not a tree

A friend wrote a little Ditty last week called "You're Not a Tree"
It essentially goes
If you don't like where you are, Get off your ass and change....
You can be wherever you want to be, because you're not a tree.

This link may or may not work for you!

You know when you get those moments where a simple (sometimes silly) statement like that blindsides you?

I'm not a tree. I have control over the floors. It's not the forest floor that I can't rake up the leaves around me.
If I'm unhappy with the clutter, then I need to get rid of it.
No excuses.
I am unhappy with my social life, so I should just ask one of my sitters and go out.
No excuses. 

I'm not a tree. I can move on and I can fix a lot of what is wrong with my life.
And so I shall.

Why do we do it to ourselves!

If you wrote down everything you're supposed to do on a regular basis, and all the things you're peripherally involved in, would the total list shock you?

I KNOW I am over-committed. Totally. That's pretty why I don't watch TV. But I LOVE everything I do. I'm not giving up my coffee team. I'm NOT giving up helping friends with small businesses. I'm NOT giving up my 'down' time of gaming. I can't give up housework, parenting and quality time with friends that need me.

I live in Chaos - Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome
So I'm taking my flylady baby steps, and maybe I'll discover I'm not over-committed, I'm just more resourceful than I thought when I'm organised and decluttered.