Ahhh! a big calming exhalation of air after that last post. It’s weird to think that I even wrote it now…. maybe I am pregnant and it was a big rush of hormones or something?;) So, I have thought about things and hubby has thought about things and we have concluded that we are ready and are now trying. Phew! It is actually a huge relief. No more horrible ardour dampening contraceptives, no more feeling like my life is on hold, no more looking at other people’s facebook baby photos and feeling that all familiar twinge of jealousy. I actually don’t feel scared or anxious, just a little bit excited. We could get pregnant at any time now… and sex for its actual purpose is damn sexy!
I’ll keep you all posted!
little h.
hello world.
well, today i am in a shocker of a mood. Things have happened that are very confusing, potentially exciting and possibly a bad idea….my father in law has been staying with us and the baby issue came up. As you guys would know babies have been on my agenda for about 6 months now with the main thing point of contention being the economic argument. Well, interestingly my father-in-law said that he thought we should just do it… we are committed, married, happy and that really there isn’t any good time… he also spoke with his wife in the UK and she said it was a good idea. Then I went to see my neighbour and he asked when we were going to start trying…. in 24 hours I literally had three people say to “just do it”. So, for the first ever time we had unprotected sex.
So, it has only happened once. The chances that I am pregnant are microscopic. Then again, I could potentially have a microscopic little bunch of cells in there turning into a little baby. The main issue now is the fact that we have done this, which to me is the crossing of a threshold, and what happens next.
You know I really wonder if I am just intellectualising the whole thing way too much. After we had had sex my hubby acted like nothing had happened, but something had happened as far as I was concerned. We had potentially changed my body and our lives. in one sense to me it was the same set of feelings I had when I lost my virginity, a sense of uncertainty about my place in the world and what the results of my actions would be.
It is hard for me to just be cool about the baby thing because more than anyone else it will impact my life. It’s my body and my career that will be affected - I know this sounds negative and it really isn’t meant to be. I just want to treat it as a big deal - after all I am creating another life here!
When we actually had sex, I felt okay about it afterwards which was a surprise for me because we had intended to wait until I was settled in another job, either with paid maternity leave or at least with the capacity for me to save up money during the pregnancy so that I could take time off when the baby arrived. I tend to alternate between being overly cautious and impatient, but I don’t think that the issue here is me just being impatient to get a move on with the kid thing…. having said this I do need to be very careful because my life is pretty much stationary at the moment and I really feel like I am in this state of torpor. I know that I want something to happen, I want to feel like I am living again and a functioning part of the human race. the whole thing is just desperately confusing and it just gives me a tremendous headache.
The other distressing aspect about it is my hubby’s reaction. I wanted to talk about the whole thing and figure out what happens next, but he seems very reluctant. He is stressed with his job and having his dad here, and I understand that, but I need to know what happens next because I feel like I am in a limbo… is this the threshold or isn’t it? I guess what I am saying is I can’t deal with the ambiguity because it affects me in tons of ways…. like the fact that I can’t drink alcohol right now because there is a chance that i might be pregnant - and what about coffee, soft cheeses etc….what happens in a month when I do/do not get my period? what happens next time we have sex?
So I am trying to wrap my head around the whole concept. I want a baby so bad but I also want my baby to have a better life than I did. I would like my baby to grow up and have the things it needs and not feel deprived. Part of me wants someone to take the whole choice out of my hands and just have someone else decide… maybe I should just stop thinking about it, throw away the contraceptives and just leave it in the hands of fate, but what if it goes wrong….
ahhh. I need help here… any comments greatly appreciated.
little h
A quick post because it is late in the evening and I am trying to live some semblance of a normal life with normal hours (and generally failing miserably!) Its funny how comments spurn me to write, I guess I start to think about regular readers and how annoying it must be to log on and find nothing new. I think one must balance between writing quality and writing frequently, but this is proving a bit of a challenge.
It is almost two months now since the big firing, and life has taken an around-bout in that I am in almost the same situation as I was in at Christmas last year. I guess the fact that I seem to be living in a state of deja vu has got me thinking about what the last twelve months has meant to me and what I think I have achieved and how I have grown.
I look back at my little life in the country town that I left in October last year and I realise that I really was in a sweet position. I was settled, I could have saved money, my living expenses were low, and I had a circle of friends. The problem was though, I saw what my life could have been and I couldn’t hack the mundanity. I couldn’t think of how I would be able to make anything great of my life without moving to the bright lights.
I think that country towns are easy places to stay in because, like a fuzzy, warm blanket they are comfortable. You get into a routine and limited options mean that you quickly establish patterns that you can relax into and maintain indefinitely. If these patterns are healthy for you, physically and psycholgically, then this is a good thing, but sometimes they aren’t and I think this was my dilemma. In a sense I had outgrown the town, I was weary of the sameness and was desperate for change, a big life shake up.
Moving to the city to me was a promise of excitement. I was excited by the idea of being in a place that buzzed with energy, where you could buy coffee at 2pm in the morning and where you could meld into the crowd. I wanted variety, variety of shops, of food, of entertainment choices and work, I wanted to be one of those polished city women with the corporate suit, heels and frosted blonde hair clicking down the street and I reckoned with a bit of hard work and gumption I could achieve this.
I have to say though that my perception of both of these places in hindsight were incorrect. A place is what you make it. You can’t be a passive passenger in your environment if you want to be happy. Country town or city you can make your life great, but the crux of that statement is that it has to be YOU who does it. Life doesn’t come knocking - you need to find it - take advantage of opportunities and if you can’t get what you need to make you happy, just keep working on a way to get it.
Moving to the city has been the hardest thing that I have done in my life. I have faced more challenges in the last 12 months than I have probably faced in my entire life beforehand. I have faced injury and death of loved ones, lost two jobs in incredibly adverse situations, gained a father, lost a mother, been rich, been poor, come around to the idea of having children and started to build a career in an industry that has itself come as a surprise. I have lost touch with friends, reestablished connections with old friends and made new friends. I have achieved some of the most amazing things in my life so far and have learnt so much about myself and how I relate to th world. My life has been a roller coaster, with dips and rises, shrieks of joy and screams of terror. I guess the thing that most sums this past twelve months up is the fact that - I HAVE LIVED.
Would I go back to what I had before I moved? I would be lying if I said that there haven’t been times when I didn’t consider it. I have wanted to give up and run crying into the arms of a country town that could have nuzzled me, mother like, against its comforting bosom, but if I had given up and gone back (and yes, I would perceive it that way) then I would not have the wisdom that I have now, which is more valuable than anything else. I said to a friend on a recent trip back to the town (another tale) that I cannot go back to the country unless I have made it in the city. If I went back and things weren’t perfect here before hand, I would feel like a dog with its tail between its legs. I am not discounting the fact that I might go back — I am surprised by the intensity of emotions I feel for that little town — but it will be in years, not months.
I think next blog I will talk about how I think I have changed, and I want to throw the opportunity open for people to give me a topic that they want me to discuss. If anyone out there wants my views on something, let me know. It will give me some more fodder to work with and might open up some interesting dialogue!
Sleep tight bloglets!
Love, h
So I am sitting here holding this envelope from my nana (yes, nana of the undies fame) and the letter is just really pissing me off. I haven’t opened said letter, but even the address is inflammatory, labelled neatly “little h surname” with an underline on the little h. So, why does this get to me?
It frustrates me because I know that nana has been sucked into my mother’s games. You see, dear reader, my family doesn’t think that I am capable of independent thought - they think that everytime I disobey them, or in this case, get angry and pull away, that there is some other evil mastermind behind it. The usual target is my hubby, who actually for many years told me that it WAS necessary to have a relationship with my family. It is yet another saga of their “bold and the beautiful” lives and my hubby, as the tall dark newcomer is automatically cast as the antagonist. You see why I am just not interested anymore.
I am sorry that nana has to deal with collateral damage in that I have not phoned her in an incredibly long time. I write her letters letting her know how my life is and what is going on (albeit edited) but I feel I can’t communicate with her in any other way because a) I know that she will pass on information to my mother, b) because I can’t trust her not to put my mother on the phone without my consent and c) I can’t trust her not to let my mum listen into the phone call. You may think that I am being paranoid here, but any ammunition will be used and my nana really has no idea. I don’t actually think that anyone does.
My mother lives with a man who abuses her in every possible way, verbally, physically, emotionally, financially and I would suspect sexually. I know because I have grown up watching it happen. She is antagonistic and goads him into escalating conflicts, I know that this is not an excuse, but it is a self destructing behaviour that I worry will one day get her into a situation where she may be hospitalised or even die. The frustrating aspect of my mother is that she will openly say that she has traded love for a life full of material fulfilment - she has travelled to every continent, has a huge house, beautiful furniture, brand new cars and a pool - she has everything that she could possibly desire, but the negative aspect of that is she is living with a man that she doesn’t love, and who, in my opinion is a real risk to her safety.
I have tried to help her and have encouraged her to get assistance and reassured her that should she divorce, she will be able to survive, and yet she still stays with him. The level of emotional manipulation that goes on in that realtionship is chilling - I recall a number of occasions in which my step father put family pets in life threatening situations just for the emotional reaction it generated - some of those pets actually died. Anything that my mother loves or cherishes is at risk, from material items such as sentimental jewellery, to family heirlooms. He gets angry and he will just hurt, with accuracy and malice.
I really do wonder if there is something psychologically wrong with him that he behaves in this manner. When they first met, he was generous, showering her with gifts and playing perfect surrogate dad to me and my sister. They seemed very much in love and mum was happy, she had had a bad divorce and he was helping her to recover. apart from keeping an anally retentively clean home, there was nothing untowards. He encouraged all of us to get close to him and we did so willingly. We were positive that we were going to have a fresh start.
It was not until a couple of years later that crack started to show. It was very clear that he liked his own way. He was a fierce disciplinarian and would beat his children with a plastic rolling pin when they did things which now seem minor transgressions to me. Mum and him would fight and he would change, almost shut down, alternating between being almost manically irrationally furious and eerily cold and disconnected. I learnt to fear the eery cold disconnection more than anything because that was when he was trully malicious. We just adjusted to the name calling, the mind games, the manipulations and tried to stay out of harms way as much as possible, A couple of years later it escalated to actual physical violence, with mum being given a black eye on my 16th birthday. I still remember coming home 2 days after (mum, my sister and I left to my nana’s empty house) and still seeing the remnants of my half eaten birthday dinner on the table. A nice touch, an extra knife in the heart of all of us, particularly me who has always been strong on symbolism and sensitive… and this is an edited version of events, on account of the fact that I don’t want you all to feel too sorry for me.
My mum and step father’s relationship from that point has beejn characterised thus - mum is fine so long as my step father is completely in control. Eventually my mum, who is confrontational and rebellious by nature, will stuff up… she will talk back, refuse to do something or will do something else that gets his ire up. She then has two choices, she can give in, in which case the repercussions are mild, or as she is more often likely to do, she will react in an antagonistic fashion and will be the recipient of days apon days of arguments. She did try to leave once and he ODed… though the attempt seemed half hearted. It is as if the two of them need each other, that they are pieces of a horrific puzzle of drama and pain.
The other thing which is an interesting aspect of their relationship is the microcosm in which they operate. I have every suspicion that my step father infact likes the fact that I am no longer in my mother’s life, in the same sense that my mother has gradually lessened his interactions with his family and friends. They see noone apart from my nana. They have no aquiantences, they exist solely and utterly for each other. Since I have decided not to see my mother, my step father has sent inflammatory messages to my phone, which are I believe geared at making me so furious that I stay away. I have ignored them.. these messages going back to my original paragraph are about my husband who he states is “a control freak, and someone that we call “the gatekeeper”…. funny that, he has just described himself. But my mother and my nana are so caught up in their delusions that they will believe it, and any other lies that my stepfather can and will manufacture. It truly is a living nightmare if, like me, you just want a simple life.
But enough of depressing parent talk. Suffice to say I am not getting involved. My plan is to remain as positive as ever in correspondence to nana and just stay the hell away from the whole thing. If you are a new reader and you think that that is heartless, you should go back and read my past blogs and you will get a bit of perspective on why this is my technique of choice.
My most recent news is that I have pulled myself out of the slump in two ways - 1) I have cut my hair off…. yes, it is now like a boy, and 2) I have some volunteer work. I will talk about both of these. First, the hair….
You know when you are suffering PMS (come on, admit it) and you do something crazy and irrational? well I recently was suffering from the affliction. My hubby was having a work party with some pretty important people there and I had maybe a centremetre of regrowth. So, I did what any crazy girl in a PMS induced fugue would do and i went to the shops and got the first dark blonde hair dye I could get my hands on, thinking that I should save money and that this would be a good way to fix things up. Well, my hair, dear reader, went khaki. It was dead, it was gross and it needed major reconstructive surgery, so $200 later I have a short pixie cut which is a more normal shade of dark blonde which I am trying to love…. but I think it will be a love hate relationship.God damn, split second decisions! Gotta love them.
The second exciting aspect is that I am working in Oxford Street… yes,THE oxford street, known for attracting some of sydney’s loudest and proudest. The stores are amazing - though I won’t be posting any pictures because I would be freaked out to even step inside a place called “The Fetish Palace” for fear I’d be ambushed by some long coat wearing sadist with a perchance for small elven cropped blondes. I am doing volunteer work in the craziest workplace I have ever seen, it’s a house with desks, computer cables, cords and paraphernalia everywhere, staffed by fellow young volunteers most of which are paralegals completing their practical legal training. We do a bit of everything, and the workplace is stocked with 2 minute noodles and bananas to keep us frm starving (povo law grads have to eat!)… best of all, I set my own deadlines and there is no pressure because I am not getting paid…. I work part time and leave at about 4.00, but it gets me out of the house and functioning in a routine. I feel like I have spring cleaned my life….
A long post…. I am getting writer’s cramp. I will write more about my crazy oxford street adventures in my next post! Stay tuned!
Love, little h
I just realised that I was once again going to start with the line… I should be doing X and then I realised that writing this blog is just as noble and worthwhile a task as anything else I might be doing - in this case probably stacking the dishwasher, so I am not going to feel bad about things today. I promised a blog that would be a bit more upbeat and I guess any hardcore readers would probably remember my initial humorous blogs… funny how the blog started off as more of a characture of my life and evolved into something more of a self analysis… I guess though that it is better that my readers see me as a whole person, albeit a cyber one, who is human and falliable, who loves and hates and has temper tantrums at times, rather than as someone who is one dimensional.
So at the moment the plan is routine. I PLAN to get up early, I PLAN to finish the previously mentioned feature wall, I PLAN to get a job, I PLAN to exercise more…. aghh, it even sounds exhausting! I almost did most of these things today. I got up at 8am, which is better than my usual 12 noon. Unfortunately i was woken by the sound of my cat projectile vomiting down the hall way…. so got up, cleaned up, then felt so thoroughly wretched I went back to bed…. till twelve! Doh! but I wasn’t to be disheartened, at 12 I got up had a shower and got dressed… gold star for little h. The house was clean from yesterday’s frantic efforts ( 5 hours of non stop cleaning!) for a dinner party and things were good. I could sit on the couch…. I had a table to eat at & I had both a spoon and a bowl - gotta love the small things. The next thing would be to do something actually productive. I take weekends off from job seeking - this is because I am trying to be like working people… this small delusion is keeping me sane! I decided to go and buy “smart casual attire” for a dinner that I am freaking out about. You see, my hubby is a law lecturer. He hangs out with academics and talks about policies and regulatory controls. He he has also done degrees in both psychology and philosophy. Hell, he could run the planet. anyway, this dinner is at his boss’ house and I am a bracket (bracket is the term I use for significant unknown others). There will be Judges and Magistrates, and all kinds of very smart and very scary people. I will have to small talk.To make small talk you need a life. I don’t know how far I can stretch “hey, you know my cat projectile vomited all over the hall way yesterday and cat bikkies don’t digest! Isn’t that amazing! Little cross shapes and everything!”… these people could be potential employers, it is like a job interview, only it’s like a blind job interview, and did I mention that my hubby’s boss knows Justice Kirby? who just happens to be my idol and the reason why I even got through law! horror! horror!
so, as i will be the significant baby of the group I wanted something aging (please don’t hate me for saying that!) smart but not too try hard smart, and something that would go with the somewhat mishmashed collection of shoes I have - tons of high heels, sneakers, thongs and ugh boots. I left the house at around 3ish…. it being a sunday today, most shops shut at 4.30… now I am a good shopper, but I am not a “powershopper”. I came back empty handed and proceeded to eat half a block of turkish delight chocolate, which then made me think about my $35 a week gym membership that I never use. It has gotten so bad that my gym sent me a letter saying “hey, we hope you are okay, cause we haven’t seen you for a few months….and it was personally signed!” I should remind you that the gym is across the street and i can see spandex clad bottoms on exercise bikes from my bedroom window. No reasons for not going! bad little h!
So I ate the rest of the chocolate in true PMT girl form, had a cup of tea to procrastinate, stumbled around finding things i needed to take… towel, drink bottle, gym pants, socks…. that took about an hour. Then more tea, then dragged myself over. I had a personal trainer session some time ago and has been given this sheet of paper with all these numbers… apparently the numbers equal the weights I am able to lift, the repetitions and the settings of the various torture device looking machines that they have. They even have scary names like the “tricep curl”…. yeah, the rack more like it! So after looking like a complete girl, glaring at any guy who came within 15 paces of me and even looked like he was going to help and harrasing the front desk person about 5 times in regards to the secret codes written on my sheet I emerged with that post exercise euphoria and a much better understanding of how Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt manage 6 kids (the bliss of magazines on the treadmill!) unfortunately I then went home and ate ice cream… but i ate it with a sense of virtue.
So I guess i have achieved stuff today…. but i still feel like I need to work harder at sorting my life and my head out…. and I still have no smart casual clothes… that will have to wait until tomorrow.
So, I am sitting here staring at a wall I have just painted… it’s a feature wall, and I went with a colour called “morrocan kiss”. It’s like a dark red brown colour. I am trying hard not to whig out because the wall is part of the house that I rent from my hubby’s parents, that’s to say, I don’t own the house. They may hate the moroccan kiss…. I may have stuffed up big time, but i really felt like I needed to do something to make this house livable and mine, and so now I own a wall.
my life at the moment is in a rut. I don’t feel happy. I don’t know if this is something that I should be worried about yet. I am going through the motions but things just don’t seem to make me happy for very long. I might watch something good or go am have a great session at the gym, and i’ll feel happy then, but it just doesn’t last. I can think of reasons why I am not happy…. i don’t have a job, I am not sure if my next job will be any better than the last and I feel bad that I am estranged from half my family. My plans for going overseas and my plans for a baby have been sidelined and I am still wrangling with my ex-boss about my final pay. I have just become so much more fearful, fearful about talking with people on the phone, fearful of interacting with people. I feel like less of a person because I don’t feel useful, like I am doing something with my life, and yet I have this apathy that means that I really don’t want to do anything at all.
I am applying for law jobs. There are not that many, and i am mostly cold calling. Again I am faced with the fact that law firms want more experience than I have…. they want 1 year or 2 years, and I only have 10 months PAE. I am trying to do 2 applications a day, which is tough. I am trying to meet up with people and network, network, network, but I don’t even know if I want to stay in the profession, because, as I said, I am horribly scared that the next job won’t be better.
It is an inherent part of my personality that I hate doing things more than once. I often get impatient over things like a store being shut or someone not being avaliable to speak to when I call. To me, I feel like the past 12 months has been a continuation of this - I get partway towards a career, and then I lose it and have to start again. I don’t worry about the work itself, that is fine, stressful, but managable, but my problem is actually having to work with a new set of people… this is what freaks me out, and this leads me to some interesting observations about how i relate to people (well, at least interesting to me).
I am often scared of people. I am scared of what they think of me, I am scared of what they might say about me, and scared of what they might do to me. Having been conditioned to see violence as a natural consequence of anger and disagreement I feel like any negative interaction might potentially lead to me being hurt, physically or emotionally. I look at people who actively invite conflict and I feel like they are playing russian roulette - to me, these people are stupid, because they are risking their lives. I have to say that there have honestly been times in my life where I have feared for my loved ones lives in violent situations, and I don’t know how anyone could ever deliberately goad someone who may be capable of hurting them. To me this is self destructive.
So, this causes a dilemma when I am confronted with conflict. Normally I avoid it, but sometimes I am faced with one of those people who likes to fight. I have trained myself to accept intellectual argument as okay, words won’t hurt me, but when I sense that someone is a bully or that they are bigger or stronger than me, then my first reaction is that flight or fight response, minus the fight. I just desperately, desperately want to leave and escape, run if I have to.
I do hate to be this way, but growing up, it seemed like the only way to avoid violence. My mother is an antagonistic person and this lead to her being injured - black eyes, fractured ribs etc. I have never learnt how to gauge a person or how to trust people, the first time my hubby even raised his voice I was a mess and even now it has taken me many years to learn that him being angry at me is okay… imagine how that would make him feel! I guess I have learnt a “bag of tricks” to avoid conflict. I try to be nice, I am conciliatory, I try to make people feel like they relate to me, I bring myself down to people’s levels when i feel that there is some sort of division, e.g I have higher level skills. Unfortunately this often means that these people feel equal to me, and take advantage of this, which doesn’t work for me because I am not, for all my left wing rantings such an egalitarian person - I do think that the fact that someone has worked hard to achieve something should earn them more respect and I am big on hirachies. So it is weird that I do things that make me feel unhappy, like putting myself down to avoid conflict — I guess because the conflict is worse to me than the put down.
I often thought that I had good self esteem, and in some areas of my life I do. I think i am an attractive person, for instance. I think I am a good partner, I take pride in aspects of my personality, but when i see myself doing things like putting myself down to appease others and then being upset about it, I wonder how high my self esteem actually is. If I saw someone else doing that, I would think it was stupid, and yet I do it myself. I guess people might think “well, she is a lawyer, she is successful, she has so much, so she should be proud of herself”… but to me, often achievements don’t really feel like they have much substance… I always need to do something else, be better. I used to do it for my mum, but now that I am not in contact with her, I don’t know what or who I do it for. My dad has actually said to me that he is proud of me no matter what I do, and yet I still feel like I need to impress someone. Maybe I am trying to prove myself to the whole world?
I hide my insercurities in looking like I am important. I dress nicely, make sure I look well groomed and immaculate. I wear clothes with brand names. I get chic haircuts. I try to accumilate notches on my belt of things that make me good — living in a good area, having a great job, being an accomplished cook, being a great wife. I am always trying to make people think I am better than I feel that I am because then they won’t attack me, because I won’t look like the victim I often feel like. All of this exhausts me, but I feel like I need to do it, and actually panic if I can’t. I would wear damp clothes from the drier rather than wear something that was shabby to meet someone. That is how I am… I don’t like it, and I want to change it, but so far I have only started to even analyse the problem and I really don’t know the next step.
little h.
Mmm, I had decided not to write about religion for a while because it is one of those super controversial topics that are guaranteed to get people all fired up. Funnily enough I would much rather write about mental illness than broach this topic, but it is a part of my life and I promised that I would be honest about myself in this blog and so I think it is worth putting in my two cents worth on the issue.
To tell you the truth I am of two minds about people who have religion ( and I mean any religion, catholicism, Islam, Judaism etc) One part of me is really envious - I feel like a little kid who wasn’t invited to a birthday party peering over the fence at all the other kids eating fairy bread and playing party games and feeling so damn included. As a child who grew up spending most of their life feeling excluded from everything this is a pretty horrible thing. The second feeling I generally get is, and I theorise that this may actually be my own defence mechanism to feeling “left out” is to feel smug in the fact that I don’t need a pre ordained way of living my life because I can think for myself and behave morally without a “guidebook” as it were…. this is much the same as my “I can build Ikea furniture without the manual philosophy” and probably about as successful.
So, you can see I am in a conumdrum… I am a doubting thomas. I want to believe in something bigger than myself and yet I remain sceptical that there is anything bigger than myself (is that an ego or what!)… I trust in things like gravity, and yet I can’t get around to the idea of a divine being who created us all. Everyday I wonder at the miracle of creation and the complexity of life and yet I just can’t bring myself around to the idea that one entity is responsible for it.
As a child I was for a time brought up Salvation Army. We said Grace with meals, prayed before going to bed and went to sunday school (a few times… I didn’t last long). At that time, I really did believe in God, but that was because I was told to believe in God. God was like Santa Claus, he was something that parents told you to believe in and you did. My prayers to God were always a desperate plea to not let anyone in my family pass away, and I would run through the list of everyone I knew…. I felt that if I missed a person then God would take them…. mine was a somewhat disturbed impression of a God that required you to be forever diligent…. I don’t ever remember praying for help or guidance.
As I got older, i became cynical. Things happened in my life that I couldn’t believe that a loving God would allow. I put God away with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus and just got on with life, determined that only I could influence its direction and that I could only rely on myself. Having said this, I have always felt drawn to churches…. throughout this time when I was alone I would often go to a church (always when noone was there) and just sit there. Waiting. I waited for a miracle…. I wanted Virgin Marys to cry, I wanted a vision, I wanted something to say “Yes, you should have faith”. But nothing seemed to happen. I would leave feeling calmer, lighter and more centred, but still doubtful. Again I am ashamed that the total self centred nature of this paragraph…. it feels so concieted to ask for a personal miracle, but I really felt like I needed this.
It is interesting in this blog that I am writing everything in past tense “i needed…” Recently I thought about religion and came to a couple of conclusions. Firstly, I realised that I did not like religious communities… I had been burnt by them before and had been exposed to some highly hypocritical people who made me completly disillusioned about any sort of interaction with other religious people. I guess people can join Churches for a number of reasons and sometimes unfortunately they are not to do with a love of God or whoever else. The second reason is that I don’t believe that faith needs to be public. I think that a relationship with God ( and I say God here for convenience, coming from an anglo western culture) is private and personal. It’s like how every child has their own relationship with their parents. Taking that analogy further, it’s like when it’s your parent’s birthday and you and your siblings all get together and make a card and you think that you would have done a much more meaningful one on your own, because how you feel about your parent is different to how your siblings feel… I don’t want to settle on a generic “I love you” I want to relate on my own terms and in my own way.
Some time ago I realised that whenever I was distressed or upset, there was always that part inside me that gave me strength and calmed me down. I had laughingly referred to my “inner counsellor” to my hubby, who had thought that it was cute to think that I had a mini support person in my head telling me that it was all alright because I had personified it in that way (no, I don’t have multiple personalities!) One day, I was on a bus, musing about this “inner sensibility or inner clarity” when it hit me that this might be God as other people describe. Perhaps God is this sense of calm in the midst of chaos, this sense of strength in the time of fear and weakness…. perhaps I do have a unique relationship with a something that makes me greater than what I am when I need it…and this was a very comforting thought.
So, maybe I have always had a relationship with God, but that it was subtle. Maybe God has given me little miracles, but I haven’t been watching. My life could have been alot worse and maybe that is my miracle, that it wasn’t? Perhaps also the things that have happened in my life are for a purpose that I am now only just realising… giving me empathy to help others and courage in the face of adversity. My God doesn’t really dictate what I do, per say, but I can chose right or wrong, and that choice is purely mine. God gives me the ability to know that, but the free will to choose to do the wrong thing, and yet there is redemption if I do a wrong thing, because I can always right the wrong. That little voice inside me tells me how to do that, and there is always a new day and a new chance.
So, that is my faith. It is not conventional, but it gives me great comfort. I can have long rambling inner conversations with my God on a bus or in bed at night and I can find answers and that is all that I need. I still like the churches, but only for the fact that they are created out of great love and for the stillness that they provide. There is beauty in ritual, but I think that we do rituals because human beings are ritualistic by nature…. God would be on such a higher plane than us that I don’t know if music or beautiful things mean anything to Them… we do them for ourselves and for other people around us to feel like we are all united by our love of God, but as I said for me faith is private and therefore all ritual is unnecessary.
Maybe you will think that this is all ranting nothingness, but as someone who has gone from having no sense of the spiritual to having a faith of sorts, it might strike home for some of you.
Little h
Well, time for another installation of the saga that is my life…. this time, I’m writing more or less out of sheer boredom because I am unemployed. Readers note, you are probably going to hear alot about the unemployed bit, because as much as I enjoy the sleep ins, the lack of dark circles under my eyes and the now regularised heartbeat, I really miss doing something… I feel under financial house arrest and its only week 3 (one week of which was a holiday!)…. I have a plan at the moment, I pretend that I am working on weekdays, except that my job is to find a job. I search employment websites, check my emails for potential offers, write cover letters and various versions of my CV aimed at the specific job I am going for… I even have my suit already dry cleaned… I’m ready and willing to launch myself at any unsuspecting job that comes my way…. you know that Elmer Fudd line “I’m huntin’ wrabbits”, well, I’m hunting a firm…but it doesn’t really seem like hunting season at the moment!
I have noted that my little ol’ blog has been visited by 75 people in the past month - this is courtesy of the lovely “slim stat” option on this blog site… I like the idea of 75 strangers reading and potentially liking my blog, and I hope that people stay reading it. Funnily what started out as a blog for myself has sort of become my confessional to a world of unknown people and giving a bit of myself has proved very cathartic…. perhaps I should turn to religion??
So at the moment I am, as I said, getting up late, drinking too many cups of tea, leaving clothes all around the house, being slack with cooking dinner and keeping the cat company. The cat appears to be quite content with this arrangement, whereas my hubby is probably a bit exasperated by the fact that I have all day at home and yet i still don’t get around to dinner until 10pm…. the thing is, I don’t feel quite right, I’m still a bit vunerable, a bit hurt, and a bit confused. I also realise that I am going a little nuts with the lack of structure… after working to achieve billable hours, I am now left with vast periods of unbillable free time to do what I want to do… whatever that might be.
Isn’t it weird that when we have time we don’t use it? For months I had stared longingly at a to do list on my kitchen wall, cursing everytime I added another task to it because I knew that I would have to literally take three weeks off to get it all done. Now I have all the time in the world and all I want to do is watch crappy daytime television and eat chocolates. It is like my brain has ceased functioning, it’s in a state of torpor or something, waiting to be activated? Maybe it is just so low on batteries it’s gone into shutdown mode in which case I might be better just to leave it alone?
I know what the solution is…. get out, get a routine, keep myself busy, but at the same time, this naughty child part of myself stamps it’s foot and sulks at the idea. But blogging seems to help and fills the time…. expect much more writings! — little h.
Recently a family member of mine passed away. It’s funny how we use the term “passed away” it’s so PC and so very unlike the actuality of the event most of the time. I would say that an old person who dies in their sleep peacefully “passes away” but a person who dies in pain, like in an accident “dies”. I have just realised that it is a contextual thing for me…. so I guess I would have to rephrase my first sentence to read a family member of mine died.
Death is something I have run away from for a long time. I really haven’t really been exposed to it, which I guess is both a good and a bad thing. My only memory of the death of a person was my grandfather when I was 9, and he very much “passed away”. One day he was there and then the next he wasn’t. I was thought to be too little to go to the funeral and so in my mind there never really was any sense of completeness about his life. Poppy just went away and didn’t come back. Even my pets all died conveniently out of sight, I heard that they had died in various awful ways, but I was never confronted with either impending death or death itself, until recently.
Sitting in a hospital room I watched someone that I love lose that precious essence we call life and it was terrifying. I guess the thing that was most horrific was the physical changes, at first she just seemed to look younger and more vunerable, but by the end she looked gravely ill and very different to what she looked like before her illness (cancer). It is hard to not imagine her that way, and I have spent time looking at past photos so that I can remember her as she was before. It was very hard too to not feel like I could connect with her….she was sedated and I believe in a great deal of pain. Selfishly I wanted to be able to speak to her like I had before, and have her understand and comprehend everything I wanted to say… I became almost desperate to tell her how much I loved her, and admired her, how wonderful she was and how she shouldn’t be scared, but how can you tell someone not to be scared of dying? I have no experience in it, and if it were me I would be scared on account of the fact that it is something that you do alone, and that noone can come with you.
So, I don’t know if she heard all of what I had to say. On the first trip (there were two) I left, in tears, because I wasn’t sure if she even knew that I was speaking to her. I guess in one sense the fact that I didn’t know how aware she was meant that I was very open with my emotions, because firstly, I was so upset, and secondly, I wasn’t sure if she was even awake enough to know that I was upset. It is interesting how when you feel that there is nothing that you can say you resort to the basest of human interactions - touch…. I just wanted to hold her hand and stroke her hair, make her feel comforted and let her know there was someone there.
The second time, I was more prepared. I tried hard not to cry, but did anyway. She was more awake, and appeared to understand a bit more…. I had felt compelled to go back another time because I hadn’t felt any sense of completion before. Again, I felt desperate to say what I needed to say to her. I talked to her about mundane, ordinary things, a recent trip, the fact that the streets smelt like wisteria, her garden…. I wonder if maybe she had moved beyond all of these things, what was she thinking about during that time? was she on a higher plane than all of that? Some of the things she said during that time stuck with me, one particular sentence “how do you know when you are ready to go?” were both heartwrenching and reassuring. I knew that she wanted to go, but at the same time, I didn’t want to lose her, because I didn’t know what life would be like without her. You get so used to a presence, a person, even if you don’t see them all the time. I wanted to be able to go to her place and for things to be the way that they always had been, with her making a cup of tea and us chatting for hours. There was so much that she hadn’t told me yet about her life, and now I won’t get the opportunity to ever find out.
On that last visit, I knew that she wanted to go. She begged us to let her go. I pray that she was not holding on for us, because that would break my heart… I couldn’t tell her that she could go, because I coudn’t bring myself to say it, but I didn’t want her to be in pain any longer than she had to be, especially not on account of me. I had always been undecided about euthanasia in situations of terminal illness, but I have to say that my experience has made me realise that death can be prolonged and painful. People know when they want to go, and is it heartwrenching to not be able to help them to have a dignified passing away. I still haven’t decided whether I would want to have a living power of attorney that allowed my loved ones to let me pass away if there was no chance that I would recover, but the issue is definitely on my mind….
When she died, I felt so sad, but also so relieved that her ordeal was finally over. She had thought about her funeral and how she had wanted to be remembered and I will try to celebrate her life and remember her kindness, compassion and words of wisdom. She was the most gracious, gentle lady, who had a great inner strength and achieved the most wonderful things in her life. She was loved and will always be loved. I don’t know what happens when we die or pass away, but I hope that if there is something at the end of our lives that I will see her again.
I guess what I would say to people who are in the situation I was in to take comfort from family and spend time with your loved one. Cherish the time that you have and tell them what you want or need to say. Love them and let them know that you are there and when the end comes, take comfort in their love for you and celebrate their lives rather than dwell on their death, which is really such a miniscule part of their existence.
happier post next time…. little h x
so, i should be at the gym… I should be applying for jobs, I should be booking my hairdressing appointment and I am doing none of these things. Funny how even though I am now unemployed I still feel like I should be “doing”.
So people who were not privy to my hate rant about losing my job ( i am sorry, but there were potential issues of defamation there and that was the last thing I need!) I will fill you in minus the ranting, raving and tears - basically I worked my guts out, I was fired in a horrible humiliating way for not being good enough at what I do (which I vermently oppose) and was basically told that law was not the profession for me and that I should do something else… oh, and that I was naive. So this got me thinking, especially the naive part… I don’t think that I am naive, but I do try to see the good in people. Which got me thinking about my first 12 months in the legal profession and what I thought about it so far.
You might be surprised to know that the legal profession has no union. It has the Law Society but principals (bosses) of firms actually are members so it is weak as an organisation to maintain worker standards. Non-lawyers would have guessed from television shows like “Law and Order” and “Boston Legal” that the general idea about the legal profession is that it is hard core - long hours, excessive workloads and ethical dilemmas. In my experience I would say that this is a pretty accurate depiction… the profession IS about long hours, huge workloads and tons of pressure. What is not brought out in television is the poor conditions that most lawyers work under and the bullying that occurs, and I think, as someone who has had bullying and sexual harrasment issues in 50% of my jobs so far that this really needs to be raised and addressed.
I went to a seminar recently called “myths and realities of the Legal Profession”. I went with a friend of mine (a lawyer) and was looking forward to some animated debate and some discussion about such issues. The seminar was aimed at those thinking of heading into the profession or those that had not been in it that long, there was a psychiatrist and some speakers which I had hoped would draw out these issues and encourage discussions about the problems in the profession and strategies to address them, or at least strategies for individuals to tackle them personally. The seminar was good - informative and entertaining, but I really think it just touched the surface, nothing was said. The strongest accusations (rightly aimed, I think) at the legal profession came from a non-lawyer who said that she had been sexually harrased and victimised and basically told people that they have to deal with it themselves. The psychiatrist stepped cautiously around the issue of depression in lawyers (saying that “people in professions are patricularly prone to depressive illnesses”) and refusing to state that bad workplaces are actually a cause of these problems. I was horrified when the psychiatrist was stating that depressed colleagues find it difficult to maintain work standards and a person from the audience (one presumes a student wanting to be a lawyer or a lawyer -My god!) actually had the balls to say ” why should a firm have the responsiblity for keeping someone who has depression and is a dead weight” … why indeed? Perhapes because the workplace got them into that state in the first place?!!??
For most people work is not fun. It is something we do to live, to pay the bills. We watch the clock and dream about what we are going to do on the weekend and basically live for friday afternoon knock off time. If you have a job that you you enjoy, then you are lucky. But there is a problem when work becomes more than that - when it isn’t something that you just do, but actually something which causes you anxiety - where you feel upset about going to work and you start to get physically ill because of work related pressures - and this is what bullying does.
It is my view that the legal profession, by not offering support and assistance to sufferers actually condones bullying. Jobs are scarce when lawyers first start out and people are willing to do whatever they can to get a position, even if this means regularly being belittled, denigrated, harrassed and victimised. I have had a number of principals tell me of how badly they were treated, of the pressures they faced and yet I see these same people doing the same thing to their own employees. It is almost as if victimisation is a right of passage into the profession, a badge of honour that practitioners wear and then inflict on others - after all, I was treated like this.
The culture of a profession evolves with time. There has been many, many years of actions and inaction that has resulted in the legal profession we see today. The road to the situation that we are currently in is paved with the bodies of the fallen - colleagues that burnt out, left the profession disillusioned, became chronically depressed or alcoholic or even committed suicide. People may say that as lawyers we should be able to defend ourselves and stand up for our rights for fair pay, reasonable hours, fair treatment, maternity provisions but in actual fact this not the reality. Our bullies are just as aware of the law as we are, and worse still they have the power to simply fire us. we have done unfair dismissal cases for others and know the cost and the effort involved - we know the futility of the law in these situations, and also are acutely aware that the legal profession is a small place - raising waves is not the way to get another job….and this is why all of the practitioners at the conference said nothing.
Lawyers need lawyers looking out for them. They need a sense of community separate to the law society which can advise them of reasonable standards that they can expect as members of the legal profession… I also reckon that this should apply to all employees in the legal profession - paralegals, legal secretaries etc. We need to be able to have a force that can stand up for us when we need it so that employers finally have to be accountable for their practices and this bullying epidemic can be stamped out. Lawyers also need to be braver - they need to forget about the competition between themselves and their colleagues and actually think about the actions they are perpetuating through their apathy - it is all fine and well when a colleague is being harrassed and we can breathe a sigh of relief that it is not us, but at some time it will be us and we will wish that there had been someone who had stood at our side and said “no, this is not right, and it has to stop”.
Competition is, in my view, the biggest issue a lawyer faces today. We are under pressure to perform the best, work the hardest, work the longest, get the most hours in. We constantly compete with our peers and are desperately, desperately afraid to show weakness. Heaven forbid that a recently admitted solicitor asks a colleague a question as to procedure - they will be laughed at. So we suffer alone, pushing ourselves to the brink and fighting to stop from falling over the edge, but it is a very slippery slope and alot fall to the wayside. That’s when the colleagues, like vultures sweep in to finish you off -there is always someone to fill the hole.
When I think about the first person who decided to do their work experience for free to work at Gadens or wherever, or the first person who decided to stay back to do a 10 hour day, I am furious because these actions were the start. The legal profession in its current state is best suited to people without families or friends for that matter because you do not have time for it… heaven forbid children. it is a profession that should be staffed with chain smoking loner yuppies who can stay back and can have their entire lives absorbed by the beast which is law at present.
So, if I ran the legal profession what would I do?
well, firstly we need a workers union to protect our interests. People can work excessive hours and can play the martyr if they want, but we need to know what is reasonable and what is not reasonable, expecially in regards to pay, overtime, etc.
Secondly and much more difficult, there needs to be an attitude shift - and i think that the union would help with this. We need to make employers realise that people are not expendable commodies, but rather are valuable resources which need to be treated well to operate at maximum capacity. this is just logical thinking as it means less illness related sick days and better overall performance.
Thirdly, greater emphasis needs to be placed on the principals set out in the The Law Society of New South Wales Professional Conduct And Practice Rules Legal Profession Act 1987 in relation to treating fellow practitioners with respect: I quote:
| Statement of Principles for Rules 25-31A |
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| In all of their dealings with other practitioners, practitioners should act with honesty, fairness and courtesy, and adhere faithfully to their undertakings, in order to transact lawfully and competently the business which they undertake for their clients in a manner that is consistent with the public interest. |
| I think that this does not go far enough… there need to be something in relation to the sense of fraternity that should exist between practitioners - perhaps it should be altered to read something like this:
That in all their dealings with other practitioners, practitioners should bear in mind the relationship of fraternity which exists between colleagues of this profession and should at all times act with honesty, fairness etc…. This is of course awkward but gives an idea…. |