My father’s been slowly dying for almost a year now

Tags

nowhere else to write this, so here it is

He wears the ever-growing signs of physical deterioration around his being like an albatross whose neck has already been wrung. Twisted. Warped. And drooling uncontrollably.

He appears to watch passively from the sidelines as his independence slides out of his fingers; sometimes in great leaps and bounds but often, rather more slowly. Kind of like the difference between the way high and low tides mash waves into the shore.

At first he presented us with a freefall. A mass of tears, agony, uncontrollable bowels (for months!), and then… unconsciousness.ICU. Pneumonia. Mystery illnesses the best doctors in the state are yet to solve.

And then a slow and painful recovery, during which I finally and for the first time in my life, learned more about who my father really is and how he feels about me, than I’ve ever been privy to.

You could even say… I never knew my father til he was dying. And then hallucinating, unbeknownst to any of us. And in that place, where the veils also thin, it seems he really saw me, also.

He saw around me… fairies, he called them. He asked in his quiet and mumbly manner, Why is it that I see so many fairies around you? So many more than around anyone else?

That question should’ve floored me given our lack of conversation on such topics EVER before. But my dad was dying, I’d known that for months.

So I simply told him why. That as a light worker – someone who works with energy to help align and heal others – I work with these beings of light. Call ’em angels, fairies or anything you please.

Which led to a most unusual conversation, culminating in my dad asking me: How do you get to be a fairy?

Ha! I’d never thought to ask my guides such a thing, but here was a seventy year old man who’d never shown even the slightest interest in spiritual topics, asking me the sort of question I’d expect from my sweet young nieces.

After yet another crisis of unconsciousness where we were once again told of my dad’s imminent demise, they solved his months of hallucinations by changing up his meds (yet again). No, he hadn’t had hospital delirium since he woke up in the ICU, he was just tripping on publically funded, hospital prescribed meds.

BUT… oh, he remembered his hallucinations with amazing clarity even once he was clean. He remembered the fairies and told me that he’d miss seeing them.

And then he asked me even more questions about my spiritual interests, my work as a healer and all the rest.

When we were done he told me, We always knew you were different. We just didn’t know how, and we never knew how to connect with you. I feel like we’ve missed out on so much.

But we haven’t though, Dad. None of that matters because THIS conversation is happening right now. As opposed to never.

Is it weird? I mean, is it WEIRD to have gratitude for my father’s slow and unpleasant demise?

No matter. I am grateful. Because I’d never have known how much he loves me. How sensitive and spiritual that man truly is, had he not chosen to catch the slow, leaky boat out of this life.

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The last exhale (farewell Nan)

Tags

Can’t catch my breath, death, Enter your zip code here, farewell, funeral, Grief, No more a grandchild, no more grandparents, tea parties

Can’t catch my breath, the wheel is turning; my station on the totem pole changing before my eyes. Not for anything I’ve done, but rather a birthright.

I am now the next eldest generation. No more a grandchild, for all the grandparents are gone.

She passed this morning, my maternal grandmother. Before we had a chance to say goodbye since my Prick Uncle didn’t see fit to warn us sufficiently, even though he saw her on Saturday (bad family blood never really helps in the end).

We could’ve been there yesterday, had we known. But we didn’t.

Now I’m no longer a grandchild. Only one generation left older than me.

And I can’t catch my breath, no air in my lungs where I mean it to be. That last exhale where she finally slipped the last veil of this life, that’s where my lungs are at. Emptied in shock and not filling up again (not yet) no matter how many swigs of O2 I take.

My lungs are empty, like hers are, and I didn’t get to say goodbye before she was gone.

She wasn’t perfect but she was my Nan.

And, she was my grandfather’s keeper, with his suppressed PTSD and life-long alcohol-themed self-medication. A milliner, a marvellous baker of deliciousness (including homemade fig and apricot jam) and in her senior years, an adventurous solo traveller with her senior citizens group.

I learned to tie shoelaces in her lounge room, in my knitted slippers with their knitted laces. There were tea parties with proper English China and biscuits on matching side plates. She made for my sister and me, matching toy clowns with their spaghetti-like arms and legs, and embroidered faces.

Growing up, she was a wonderful Nan. She gave us love.

But she was also mean-hearted, jealous and bigoted. It was only later I learned of her involvement in the forced adoption of my half-brother and it’s something I’ve never been able to entirely reconcile.

A wonderful grandmother. A terrible mother.

A troubled soul whose own benign shop front faltered as dementia kept up its relentless advance. More, we saw the bitterness and meanness my mother always said was there.

Finally we understood how it was for my mother who, to her own credit, never poisoned us against her: we had a relationship with my Nan despite my mother’s own troubled connection.

It was that ever-growing meanness in the end which kept me away. That, and Prick Uncle moving her to the opposite side of town, closer to him, but nowhere I could get to easily or often without a car.

There’s no point in making myself feel bad about that now. She’s gone. But the Nan I knew has been gone for many years now, really.

Yet… that final goodbye. That chance to share love and connection and let her know we were there? Taken from us through a sibling feud older than I am.

Now, I’m a grandchild no more. I’ll see her again I guess, on the day we bury her. Cold and small, the essential spark gone from her flesh. I’ll be able to tell her then as I’m telling her now that despite her flaws, and her apparently shoddy parenting, she was a good grandma.

And in the end, she got her wish to go peacefully and in her sleep. She lived probably fifteen years longer than she really wanted to, but it was only the last five of that she wasn’t really there.

Farewell Nan. Complicated lady, bearing both spikes and sweetness. Farewell, woman who was cold-hearted enough to give up her first grandchild on behalf of her own daughter. Farewell, maker of Peach Melba and Christmas Plum Pudding (with silver pennies inside) and homemade brandy custard.

May you have a fortunate rebirth, Nan. With lessons and learnings that bring you awakenings and ever-closer to your Essence Nature.

~Svasti

xxx

Acceptance of the Big Ass Doozies

Tags

Acceptance, Big Ass Doozies, childless, Healthing, PTSD, self-acceptance

I was terrified of this year when I signed up for Nadine’s workshop back in January. Terrified. By the time the workshop was over, I was both relieved and umm… still terrified, actually.

Because what sort of crazy person willingly (I wasn’t that willing actually) takes on “Acceptance” as one of their words for empowering their year?

Apparently I do. And while I’ve had a fairly decent amount of success with the whole acceptance gig so far, it’s starting to get scary.

You see, there’s something magical about making a commitment to yourself based on a couple of words that deeply resonate with your inner being. When they’re the right words – when you’ve done enough self-inquiry and sat still long enough for the words to be heard – then it isn’t like just picking up one of those little polished stones at the local woo-woo shop with golden lettering that says something like “Faith” or “Hope”.

Of course, those might be the words you come up with via self-reflection, but what I’m trying to say is that it’s an entirely different process. Words that arise from self-reflection *are* a commitment, and your higher self seems to register them like some kind of action plan. And then it’s on for young and old.

Healing (my other word for this year)… that’s what I’ve been doing in spades. I feel like I’ve been concentrating very, very hard on my physical health for the last twelve months or so. And even more so since the start of this year.

It’s almost time for me to get more blood tests. Comprehensive ones. Hopefully all this hard work will show up in the results. I certainly feel a heck of a lot better, but it’ll be good to see the proof in a science-y way, too.

When it comes (self) Acceptance… well that’s another kind of healing, right? I’ve been working my ass off on that front, too. And actually, self-acceptance and physical healing are interconnected anyway. The more I work on my emotional/mental health, the more connections appear to the physical.

But there’s the easier things to learn to accept, and then there’s the Big Ass Doozies.

When I first started healing from PTSD, I learned you can clear away a LOT of the “chaff” – the easy to access stuff pretty quickly. There’s usually a heap of it. But those issues are generally symptoms of what’s really going on.

And so here I am – working through my stuff and yet holding back on one of those Big Ass Doozies, because there’s always been a little part of me that wants to imagine that somehow, I wouldn’t need to accept it because there’s the possibility it could change.

For many years, while healing from PTSD and depression I would cry at the drop of a hat. Couldn’t help it – my emotions were so raw and near the surface that it was all I could do most times to not be crying.

Nowadays though, there’s only one thing that really makes me sad in that same way:

I am childless.

I have just turned 40. Too many of my child-bearing years were swallowed by the aftermath of being assaulted, and even though I’m now mostly healed, I still haven’t been able to make the leap back into the dating world.

But I really, really want to be a mother.

I want to know what it’s like to have a child growing inside of me. To give birth and watch my child grow up. I’d be a great mum. However, time and opportunities for such a thing are running close to empty.

Adding insult to injury? The autoimmune disorder I developed as a result of all that trauma? It also plays havoc with fertility and causes miscarriage. So there’s that, too…

It seems that I’m surrounded by people having babies. It’s probably like when you buy a new car and suddenly notice all the people around you with the same type of car. Only in reverse. What I deeply, deeply want from the depth of my being… there’s a very good chance I won’t be getting it at all. Not in this lifetime.

And as genuinely happy as I am for my sister, friends and co-workers, and as much as I love my nieces and other people’s children… I am equally devastated by the circumstances that have led to this childless place. To the running out of time.

I struggle very much with being able to accept this. That this is probably how it’s gonna be. That given the laws of probability, it’s unlikely I’ll get to have kids.

So, sometimes I cry. I’m watching some show and there’s kids or families or someone who desperately wanted to be a mother finally gets her wish (the way it always happens in Hollywood, right?) and I find I can’t not cry.

Please do me a favour – don’t leave me any comments that talk about how “you never know” and “amazing things happen” and that “just because you’re 40 doesn’t mean it can’t happen for you”. Don’t tell me that I “just have to want it enough”, either.

I know these things. I know that sometimes for some people, they are true words. I also know that in other circumstances, they are not. And since my life has never resembled one of those Hollywood stories (whose life does, anyway?) where everything turns out alright in the end, I have to tell you it’s much easier for me to be realistic.

Only, because this is a Big Ass Doozie of a thing to accept… it’s pretty tricky to be okay with it.

I’ve done all the rationalising. I know that being childless doesn’t mean I’ve failed at life. I know plenty of women who haven’t had kids. I know kids can be a pain in the ass and that nappies and sleep deprivation suck. I know there’s plenty of other things I can do with my life. I know. I KNOW. Okay?

But it doesn’t change what I want. It doesn’t change the way it makes me feel to know my chances for getting what I want are slim to none. It doesn’t help me while I struggle to find some sort of acceptance for how things are.

Ideally, I’d love to have two kids. I don’t even care about gender. Just that they’d be healthy. Right now even if I met some amazing guy tomorrow, I’d be lucky to have even one.

I’m not looking for pity by writing this. I’m just sort of hoping that somehow, naming my desires and fears will help me put them in perspective. And just maybe… that’s a step towards truly being cool with being childless.

There’s a LOT more work to do on this yet…

~Svasti

Overwhelm 2012-style

Tags

blood test places, doctors, health food stores, Kinesiology, loaded bases, new year, overwhelm, specialists, Twister, yoga classes

A huge chunk of last year felt like one long relay lap between the doctors, specialists, blood test places, health food stores, yoga classes and my bed. There were a handful of bright lights in 2011 – my good friend getting married, starting a tradition of Sunday walks with said friend and new hubby, my third niece’s birth, and my trip to Bali. Teaching one yoga class a week was a steady constant and a blessing, and I’m forever grateful for my ongoing kinesiology sessions. But everything else felt VERY BLEH.

It was all about the descent into being Very Unwell and the subsequent healing work.

Basically, 2011 was exhausting and extremely tough. Just when I thought I’d finished all of my hardest work.

And, dear readers, over the last few days I’ve begun to notice with total clarity that I’ve not come into 2012 feeling all shiny-brand-new-bursting-with-energy-and-positivity.

You heard me. NOT.

Instead, what I’ve got right now is a case of overwhelm.

Life feels a bit like a game of Twister.

All the bases are loaded with hands and feet everywhere and WHERE ON EARTH is the next foot or hand going when the wheel is spun, once again? Will we topple over in a heap, or keep the precarious balance going a little longer? And just how do we get things untangled again?

You see? Overwhelm.

I’m pretty sure most of this hangs on the issue of:

My Health
(dun dun duhhhhnnnnn!)

Currently it can best be described as “hmmmm, okay-ish”.

Seems I’ve hit another wall in the healing process, which means that the early January 2012 version of Svasti is issued with less than a full tank of energy. And when it’s gone, there aint no more.

The only remedy is rest, calm and quiet. Eating right, sleeping a lot, doing yoga, getting acupuncture and/or kinesiology and praying like crazy for better health.

Yet… there’s been so much going on:

Finding a new job yet again and all the new job stress; dealing with the two apartments above mine being renovated for months and months on end (So. Noisy.); thinking I was going to be penniless again and then I wasn’t; organising my birthday trip to Bali (to relax, ironically!); coping with Christmas; and then looking after my mother.

On top of this, I haven’t gone back to see my expensive thyroid doctor for further tests and treatment because I didn’t have a job for a while. Now I’ve changed jobs, her offices are nowhere near where I work or live. Plus, I wasn’t entirely happy with some of her suggestions last time.

So… I’m a little bit at a loss as to what I should do next. I mean, I know I should go back to my GP and get another round of blood tests to see where things are at. But then I think I need to keep looking for the right specialist to further investigate the cause of my health problems (on top of my kinesiology sessions, of course).

And damnit, if I’m not totally anxious about getting my health back on track! I want it NOW.

Which is ridiculous. I’m also:

• Frustrated that I didn’t get to pay off all my debts by the end of 2011.
• Determined to get my debts paid off THIS year, but afraid that some other minor financial disaster will strike again. I really hope it doesn’t.
• Worried/hopeful about fitting in/coping with my new job okay. I don’t want to have to look for work again in a hurry!
• Really wanting to move to a cheaper place to live but at the same time, I’m loathe to do so.
• Wanting to write my books!
• Wanting to teach more yoga.
• Wanting more FUN and socialising in my life this year.
• Desperately missing my guru and wishing that it was possible for me to both pay off my debts this year AND travel to see him. But I really doubt it. And being debt free has to come first, so I can do all of this.
• Really, really, really wanting to date or have a guy in my life again. Really.
• Aware that I probably can’t really have all of these things, certainly not while my health is still all wonky.

So, this weekend I’m gonna do some goal setting using Kerry’s Alignment Kit.

I think its perfect timing, albeit a few days later than the first day of the new year.

But oh so necessary. So that I don’t burst.

~Svasti

This blog is an Elephant Journal-free zone

Tags

Bullying, cyber-harassment, cyber-stalking, Elephant Journal, harassment, Racism, sleazy, Waylon Lewis

Feel free to download this badge and display it on your own blog!

*steps up on soap box*

For more reasons than I can count, I’ve never been a fan of Elephant Journal or it’s so-called Editors.

Personally, I can’t understand why that site has a high readership (so they say) when for the most part, the quality of the articles is low. There are exceptions, but not too many.

On top of that, the site often objectifies women and uses sleazy headlines to create controversy and drive comments. Any time someone makes this criticism, the response is always “what do you mean?” or worse – some form of personal attack.

My first inkling that Elephant Journal even existed was when Waylon Lewis set me up in a ridiculous article designed to goad me into making comment. Oh, it wasn’t that harsh, but the intent was there. That resulted in my first ever guest post over on Linda’s blog: “I don’t know how old yoga is and neither do you” (part 1 and part 2).

Even then, I realised something was off in Elephant Journal-land and I didn’t want to play the game. So I didn’t post my reply on Waylon’s site – Linda and I did it our way instead.

Mostly, I simply ignore Elephant Journal. I don’t read it. It’s not in my RSS and I never go there unless someone I know asks me to look at a specific article (usually in disbelief/outrage at its contents).

So why am I writing this post?

It’s because Waylon’s latest bad behaviour caused a yogi named Chelsea to write this post:

Sometimes it is Not “All Good”: How Yoga Teaches Me to Speak My Truth

I urge you to read Chelsea’s post and the reader comments, and then make up your own mind.

Oh, and while Chelsea doesn’t link to it in her post, this is the follow up piece by Waylon that is nothing more than a nasty and unnecessary personal attack on her. (Web archive of the article is here).

This is far from the first and probably won’t be the last of Waylon’s very bad manners and poor behaviour. And in case you’re wondering, yes, there’s way more to this story than my initial contact and Chelsea’s story than I’m saying. But those aren’t my stories to tell.

Of course, there’s a lot of crap going on in this world and if we paid attention to it all we’d probably explode.

But sometimes you’ve gotta make a stand. Well, I do anyway. Once I saw a guy smacking his girlfriend around and I went over and intervened (not thinking of my own safety). It’s just how I’m wired.

Importantly: how will people get it through their thick skulls that certain actions and behaviours aren’t okay with others unless someone (or multiple someones) speaks up?

So this is me speaking up. In this particular instance, I didn’t feel like it was okay to passively sit by and not get involved.

Hence the “This blog is an Elephant Journal-free zone” badge I’ve just created and that will now be proudly displayed on the right hand side column of this blog for as long as I write it, linking back to this post.

I also invite anyone who also feels the same way to post it on your own blog.

More on this debacle from others:

• From Chelsea: Yoga for All People: An Open Letter to “W”
• From Linda: Enough’s enough
• From Nathan: Elephant Journal’s Got Issues

~ Svasti

P.S. Waylon if you’re reading this, feel free to make however many attacks you like against me. Publish derogatory blog posts, write rude and obnoxious things about me. I don’t care. You can’t touch me. I’m not changing my mind about you unless you show a significant turn-around in the way you behave and the way that Elephant Journal operates. Until then, this blog will always and forever be an Elephant Journal-free zone.

*jumps down from soap box and skips off into happier territory*

False walls and exit doors

Tags

Ayurveda, black thoughts, catch 22, Depression, eclipsed new moon, Health, injury, mayhem, PTSD, Sadness, sociopaths, surrendering, thyroid

This is a different post than the one I’d planned to share. But I’m having a hard time finding a point in a lot of my writing right now. I’m struggling. I know these feelings aren’t permanent but all of my darkest thoughts are out to play and I’ve gotta tell you folks, it’s mayhem in Svasti-land.

Tore a calf muscle earlier this week. As if my life doesn’t have enough crap in it, I was trying to run for the train and without obvious cause I could no longer walk properly. Just a twang inside my right leg and look Ma, I’m Hop-a-long Svasti In Considerably Unpleasant Pain.

Been working with an Ayurvedic practitioner in recent times to work on a more holistic approach to healing my thyroid. Ayurveda is Indian traditional medicine and it’s amazing and powerful. Apparently my due to the many imbalances in my body right now, it’s not surprising that there’s dryness in my soft tissues. Which means things like this can happen more easily.

Great. Frickin GREAT.

Friday brought the eclipsed new moon, which I felt very keenly. Its energy brought certain truths to light that I’ve been trying to ignore as best as I could: as much as I love working in the digital industry, the people I have to work with sometimes are just killing me.

People being assholes who are more interested in stroking their ego than they are in being professional, courteous, efficient and respectful. In corporate life, there are more people like this than not. I suspect half of them are sociopaths, while the others I think are just sad, lonely people who don’t know any better than to lash out at their work mates.

But it’s more than that. I’m in this catch 22 of needing the money I’m earning in order to reach my goal of being debt-free as quickly as I can. Not to mention that right now I have a lot of health-related expenses – doctors, meds, vitamins and herbs, alternative medicine consultations and now massages (for that cranky right calf of mine).

Essentially, I need to get out of this line of work but I can’t afford to just yet.

So add all of these things up – my health, a mystery injury and admitting the truth of my career situation to myself… and I’ve been feeling a little crappy this weekend.

Not that I haven’t tried to buck myself up.

Yesterday I got another massage ostensibly for my calf, but in truth my entire body aches. Not just from the strain of limping and hobbling my way through the week, but because I still carry my old shoulder injury and untold amounts of tension from PTSD.

As a yogi, I’m pretty darn bendy but regardless of that and no matter how much yoga I do, my body retains some powerful clenching abilities. So it hurts – something that should feel good and nourishing to my body, it bloody hurts.

Post-massage and before my haircut appointment (my first since the Great Hair Debacle which I haven’t written about here) I had a meal at a fabulous new cafe, only three weeks old. It has this eclectic menu including the Asian-style jook I ordered. It was great, but what really won me over was the super-large tea pot (above) that my lemongrass and ginger tea arrived in.

So I was doing what I could to make the weekend enjoyable despite my limp and those truthful truths yammering away. My new haircut made me feel so much better about looking in the mirror for the first time in ages. Which is good.

But it wasn’t enough. Black thoughts have been welling up. They smell suspiciously like depression and I’ve noticed too, how everything is a little less bright. Colours aren’t as vivid and even though I know the way out, I can’t stop myself from wandering in a little deeper. Not just yet.

Because these thoughts, they want to be heard. Even if they are the voice of depression and loss and therefore, rather unbalanced. They go a little something like this:

Life isn’t like a fairy tale. There are no prescribed, audience approved happily ever afters. Some people get lucky and others don’t. That’s just the way it is and it seems like I’m one of those people who isn’t gonna get lucky. My sister has three children now, three! My three best girlfriends are all happily married. One of them is pregnant with her second child, the other with her first and the third is in the process of trying to get pregnant. One of these women I’ve always thought of as a little sister and yet here she is, surpassing me while my own life STILL stands still. I desperately want to let other people in, to date, to have a boyfriend, but at the same time I aint letting anyone in anytime soon. I try and try and try to get past it all, to heal, to move on. But just when I think I’m getting somewhere… SURPRISE. Here, have a chronic health problem. Here, lose the ability to walk properly. And for good measure, let’s throw in a couple of egotistical assholes at my workplace, too.

Still, I can’t find a permanent job and what’s worse, I don’t even want one. Not anymore. Not this line of work and having to deal with people who are less than honest and truthful with themselves and other people. This isn’t who I am but right now I don’t have a choice, do I? EVERY TIME I think I’m closer to my goals, the goalposts move. There is no end. No hope for me. No magical shift where suddenly my health is sorted and my metabolism starts working again, I drop that extra weight and finish paying off my debts. That’s an ending from one of those stupid chick flicks I hate so much and it’s just not real.

What’s real is what’s here. I try my best. I do service work. I do what I can for others and I take pleasure in the little things whenever I can. I do. But I don’t know what it’d feel like to be free anymore. As much as I love my nieces, I really wish I’d never moved back to Melbourne. But here I am, and I’m doing what I can to leave although sometimes it feels like I never will. Not ever.

Even though the saying goes you’re never given more than you can handle, I’m utterly sick to death of being given more to handle again and again while nothing seems to change.

I truthfully don’t know what to do next. If this was a war, I’d be surrendering to the other side right about now…

~Svasti

Four more days…

Tags

aversion to technology, baby talk, blusters, booming voice, central casting, character sketch, Dinosaurs, hard-nosed reporter, heyday, leathery perma-brown flesh, newswoman, Pantomime, phlegm-ridden wheeze, Pinocchio, real life cartoon people, rhetorical world, salacious gossip, smoker’s cough, You Send It

She’s straight out of central casting (btw, I’ve always wanted to use that term in something I write), and her first name is Lou*. Second name: Craddock. It’s impossible to tell her age because of four things:

1. She smokes with abandon and as a result, has a dreadful smoker’s cough and reeks like a pub (in the days when you could actually smoke in pubs). She sounds like she’s about to lose a lung every time she emits that terrible, phlegm-ridden wheeze.
2. Her skin is tanned beyond reason and it’s not clear if the cause was too much sunbathing in the 1980’s, an addiction to tanning beds and/or self-tanning products. It doesn’t really matter – the result is leathery perma-brown flesh that probably makes her look older than she really is.
3. Her hair might’ve been blonde once, but nowadays it’s silvery white and the colour is possibly fake. Once again, hard to say without getting personal and believe me when I say you really don’t want to go there…
4. Physically she’s in pretty good shape for her age, wearing form-fitting skirts and dresses as her uniform. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in pants. She’s a Skirt. Y’know.

But actually, it’s her attitude is that really gives her away as someone whose heyday was most likely in the 70’s (placing her perhaps a few years younger than my parents). She’s always commenting on how handsome men are, and whether she thinks the women are dressed appropriately, and cattily noting if she thinks they’ve put on weight. External appearances seem to mean a great deal to her, and there’s a bizarrely sexist undertone to much of her conversation.

Of course, there’s also her aversion to technology, to the point that she traded in her work-issue Blackberry for some kind of Nokia – and none of the most recent models at that (which she rarely remembers to take with her). She’s not overly comfortable with computers, can barely read her emails, has trouble opening jpg files and isn’t interested in learning how to use You Send It, despite her need to regularly send and receive incredibly large files. She’d rather order around the team’s junior, even though he doesn’t report to her.

Lou is a newswoman from another era. You can just see the hard-nosed reporter she must’ve been back in the day, and yet here she is trying to work her old-style magic in this modern era while eschewing current technology with one of her many trademark blusters or pantomime-style grand gestures. And that’s all before 9:30 in the morning. Every. Single. Day.

Worst of all however, is her booming voice. She arrogantly writes off her loudness (the volume button seems to be stuck at loud, only getting LOUDER when she’s feeling extra feisty) as being “because her mother was deaf”, meaning that she grew up having to shout constantly. Of course, throughout the many years in which she no longer lived with her mother, apparently Lou never learnt enough self-awareness or control to tone it down. Not at all!

Also: Lou likes talking on the phone. A lot. And LOUDLY-LOUDLY-LOUDLY. This isn’t just restricted to work calls though – oh no! Those in her vicinity are bestowed with all kinds of stories they wish they’d never heard. Everything from salacious gossip about who’s having an affair with whom, to over-shares about the state of her dog’s #1’s and #2’s.

In detail. Loudly. Did I mention LOUDLY?

Then there’s the baby talk. The way she pronounces her own name on the phone when she calls someone: “Hi, it’s Woo Cwaddick”, just like my two year old niece who hasn’t quite got the hang of pronouncing all of her vowels. Except that Lou (or Woo), well she HAS learned to pronounce her vowels – several decades ago, in fact. It’s cringe-worthy at best and rage-inducing at worst.

Her giggle sounds like it belongs to Popeye on acid – deliriously nutty and on-purpose, and once again LOUD. And often. Really, really often. Then, there’s her creepy stare: as far as we can work out, she has a need to stare at someone while she’s on the phone. So not only is she booming away about something or other, but then she turns her head to look at you over the top of her glasses, bringing the volume DIRECTLY at you while you’re trying to work.

Hilariously, the response of the work mates who sit closest to Lou in that open plan office that houses the communications team is to stick their headphones on and drown her out with music. For some reason, listening to Nick Cave or The Pretenders or Lisa Gerrard blaring in your eardrums is infinitely better than her daily stage show.

But she hates it when others wear headphones, and tries to talk at them anyway. She sits there in her seat shouting their name a few times before giving up in disgust, seemingly never twigging that she’s the reason for so much headphone usage.

The LOUDNESS got so bad that the CEO even called her in for a chat. So now, whenever he’s around, she tries to keep it down. And boy, did she hate being told off! The CEO chat helped a little, but whenever he leaves it’s back to the normal (for her) volume.

Lou is like some kind of cartoon character come to life, Pinocchio-style. Quite frankly, I suspect she’s a little nuts. But she’s not alone – she’s but one of the many, real-life and ultra-colourful (I’m being polite here) people that populate the workplace I’ve just resigned from.

Yes, I wanted a little security and stability and so I took a job that I really wasn’t sure about taking at all. I’d mistakenly thought that taking a bit of a pay cut and working in local government would mean an easier job with less stress.

But the place is choc-full of people just like Lou, in their own special way. Then of course, there’s simply not enough people to do the work that’s required to bring everything up to scratch. And many of the people who do work there have been in the same role since dinosaurs and giant kangaroos roamed the land. They’re stuck in a rhetorical world with mind-sets that only function when there’s a policy to tell them what to do and how to act.

I know, this all sounds a bit harsh but I promise you I’m not exaggerating in the least!

I lasted four months and I gave it a good go. But seriously I found it impossible to function effectively in that sort of environment. It was more stressful and not less – more work to do with less people to do it. AND I’d taken a pay cut for this privilege!

So after many entreaties to the universe, a call came in two weeks ago from a recruiter I know. And yesterday I handed in my resignation. Luckily, I only had to give a week’s notice because my probation period wasn’t up yet (oh please, DON’T make me tell you about the weird situation with my reporting manager because that’s another whole barrel of crazy with it’s very own flavour!).

I’m taking Monday off as annual leave because a friend of mine is getting married on Sunday night… and so I only have four more working days to tolerate this inpatient hospital full of candidates for an involuntary hold, all of whom should be taking oodles and oodles of prozac or valium. It’d be a social service, I swear.

Four more days, four more days… yeah, that was my chant on Friday and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna keep a countdown chant going from Tuesday to Friday next week…

~Svasti

* Name has been changed to protect the completely loopy.

P.S. It’s not that I don’t have compassion for these people, because I do. It’s just that I refuse to lose my own marbles from continued exposure to this place, which I’m pretty sure is actually a wayward home for Those Who Can’t Get A Job Elsewhere. Most of them, that is. There are a tiny handful of people that still seem to have a grasp on reality. I hope for their sakes, they get out!

P.P.S. And it’s been an excellent training ground, really. For understanding just how many kinds of “reality” exist out there for people. THERE ARE LOTS.

And even then, some days just aren’t…

Tags

Bad day, cartwheels, Daniel Powter, drought, humidity, island continent, Keystone Cops Circus Extravaganza, natural disaster, personality disorders, Queensland floods, Rain, Sunshine State, super-Herculean effort, Warren Buffett, Yoga

Quite working out for you, right? What is that when the general prognosis is good and all omens indicate that things are looking up, and yet there’s tension? Blergh.

I mean, sure your job isn’t causing you to do cartwheels of joy and the folks there are just… well, imagine a solid 60% as the least productive and highly interruptive folks possible, an unusually high percentage of whom probably get by with a bunch of untreated personality disorders. And only 15% of the tools you need to do your job. That is, when you aren’t being interrupted by endless inanities and people who’ve never learnt to use Google to figure out how to spell a word or peruse an online thesaurus. But they’re all harmless enough, really.

Emergency Essence - excellent in case of emergencies...

Took this job because I thought it’d be a lower-stress option (ha!) than my previous attempts to integrate with the 9-5 and in doing so, went for a lower pay day than I’ve been accustomed to. It’s only money, right? That’s true, until you realise that it’s about the same amount of shit (or more) for less pay and daily admission to the Keystone Cops Circus Extravaganza.

So, it all feels like a struggle. And one that I pretty much do alone. No partner, not heaps of close friends nearby and just not enough encouragement or support. Sure, I get that it cuts both ways and I’m GLAD I’ve been strong enough to get even this far on my own. But it gets tiring, you know?

Fuck. So I have all these plans and goals and I’m working my ass off to make ’em happen. Lots of scheming and writing of lists on post-its, or in my iPhone or on this notebook I’ve been dying to use for ages but hadn’t really gotten around to yet…

This enormous idea I’m trying to manifest and wow, it’s that daunting view you get there at the base of the mountain: I’m going up there?! Yes. Yes, you are.

Mostly I’m on-course. Got the right equipment and some maps and stuff. And I KNOW you can’t stare too long at the apex – you gotta just get going and work on making it to your first marker. I get it.

Then the world goes mad again. Thousands of birds fall out of the sky simultaneously on different continents. Fires, blizzards and earthquakes ravage one hemisphere while in the land down-under our Sunshine State is desperately flood afflicted and there’s not enough money in my bank account to pay the rent, the bills, buy food and donate anywhere near enough cash to make a difference.

And there’s no sun. Well, maybe for a couple of days at a time but frack, it’s MEANT to be mid-Summer according to my calendar and the generally accepted concepts of time around here. Since 1st December, we’ve had two or three days of Summer-like weather in a row at most.

I am trying to keep my chin up, I promise. I do all the right things. I make a super-Herculean effort to eat well…

Last Saturday's breakfast

 

I keep my mind turned to all things yoga as much as possible. Yoga books, DVDs, practicing at home and in the studio, teaching, writing and talking about it. It’s pretty much the glue that keeps my world together.

But I’m still a long way from home, y’know? I know where I’m going, but will I survive the road trip?

And NOW the “m” on my keyboard is playing up. How many commonly used words include the letter “m” anyway? A lot, so I’m finding.

The reason I’m not at work today however isn’t because of my crappy keyboard, but instead because I woke up and it freakin’ looked like Winter out there – as if we don’t get enough of it in the middle of the year and for the month or two each side of it!!

Holidays – when you really aren’t digging the space, time and people where you spend forty hours a week staring at a screen – are painful. You have them, then their absence once done, is jarring.

Then there’s the unrelenting greyness and almost endless rains that are a cruel joke on a large island continent that’s limped along for years in drought. Farmers lovingly trying to encourage their crops to prosper and salvaging parched farm animals, often failing. Big strong farm folk breaking down and crying and you never knew they could before.

But now the weather has turned almost vengefully, having listened to thousands of entreaties over the years for moisture and only just gotten around to responding – all at once though, which isn’t exactly helpful. People and animals are being left homeless and/or dying. Crops are dying, too.

And the rest of the country weeps for Queensland. New South Wales and Victoria cop the fall-out from those floods – the rain never lets up. Even when it does, it’s only temporary and we’re now dealing with that sort of extreme humidity normally found only in tropical countries. Even here in almost-as-far-south-as-it-gets-Melbourne. Nothing stays dry, and my entire body is covered in sweat from even the most passive walk to the corner shop.

So when I woke up this morning and saw the skies, my inclination was to draw inwards. To stay out of the mad weather that’s been wreaking so much havoc. It’s a thing. Part of my winter’s malaise, perhaps? Or tuning into the environment and just for today, finding it hard to cope with pretty much everything.

And that’s not even considering all of the other natural and man-made disasters, wars and human rights abuses going on even as I sit here typing. I don’t have enough money to support them all, but I give what I can. Is money what they even need, though? Just money? How else can I help? Do these people need yoga or do they need food and shelter?

Clearly, yoga doesn’t solve all of the world’s problems. But the heart, mind and body openings are what everyone needs, and they’d go a long way towards just that. Imagine if everyone donated part of their income to people who have nothing? Imagine if all of the world’s super-rich were as generous and giving as people like Warren Buffett? If everyone felt empowered to join together and build a high school? Or if lending a hand in large and small ways to anyone, was not viewed with suspicion but gratitude and inspiring similar acts in kind?

If you’ve got a few spare dollars and you feel so inclined, please donate to Queensland’s Flood Relief fund. It doesn’t matter how much or how little, it’s all about participating in the act of giving to other human beings in need.

Because what you’re really giving is love. And we all need more of that.

~Svasti

Betrayal and brimming bagfuls of possibility – part 2

Tags

#reverb10, chirping crickets, cultural mythology, Declaration of Future Life Plans, fairy-tales, impatience, India, letting go, Nepal, possibility, Thailand, tumbleweeds, yoga teaching

[Read part 1]

Okay so here we are in part 2 and actually, there isn’t any more betrayal as such to speak of – but for the sake of consistency, the heading stays, okay? The neck is on the improve although not as swiftly as I’d like. So much impatience, one of my finer qualities!

Interestingly, this post works in well with the #reverb10 writing prompt for 5th December (and in Australia it is the evening of the 5th already):

Let go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

Ha! Actually, one of the overall themes of this blog could be “letting go”, couldn’t it? But here with my second brimming bagful of possibility, I’m getting a little more specific with “letting go” on a bit of an epic scale.

So, without further ado (and this is a long-ish one)…

Background to brimming bagful #2

I’ve had this one on the simmer for a while now and I’ve even shared these thoughts with a friend or two. But you’re still getting this pretty early on in my Public Declaration of Future Life Plans. I shall attempt not to ramble.

It’s all connected to thoughts I was having a few thousand ago, right before I read Nadine’s post – which is kinda related!

And here it is… gosh.

I moved back to Melbourne six years ago and in some ways it was the making of me. In others, it was a complete disaster albeit one with a happy ending. Okay, granted: not the sort of happy ending you find in the average Hollywood rom-com. But happy ending all the same.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might wonder how can I say I’ve been given a “happy ending” and mean it? Given I’m almost thirty-nine, I’m single and childless, pretty much broke, my career a minor disaster, my social life remarkable for the tumbleweeds and chirping crickets (except for fucking December). So how can I mean that? Really?

But I do, unreservedly so. Sure, if there was some other way I could’ve gotten to where I am now, I’d have taken it in a heartbeat. But that’s not what happened.

And what I mean by “where I am now” is as follows… I’m pretty sure that for the longest time I lived in some kind of romantic fantasy version of what I imagined life was like. Unintentionally, I wasn’t honest with myself about who I am – just not how I was raised I’m afraid. The kicker is that if I had been, then I probably never would’ve moved back to Melbourne in the first place.

But that’s not the path I took, and what this last five years has given me is an absolutely rock solid case of Waking-The-Fuck-Up – which  is super-rich in life nutrient type of information, and needs unpacking in every facet of one’s collective interpretations of life. Each and every one.

For many years now I’ve had this theory about the expectations of society as our modern-day “cultural myths and fairy-tales”. There’s a whole bunch of unspoken and yet clearly sign-posted directions life is “meant” to take in this white western world of ours. And every part of it marinates in those stories. Absolutely everything from the clothes we buy down to what we’re having for dinner or watching on TV.

According to our cultural mythology, life is meant to look like this: go to school, get educated, fall in love a few times, money is important, get married/a house/children and save a little nest egg for your retirement. Enjoy life, consume, consume, be a good person, get old and chill out til it’s time to depart. The End.

These stories are the foundations of our world and if you don’t tick most of the boxes while ambling along trying to work your shit out, then people look at you sideways. They wanna know what’s wrong with you. In fact, from the time we were adorable little munchkins we were told that people who don’t want these things, who aren’t doing what everyone else is doing in these very (so-called) fundamental ways… well, there’s something wrong with them.

Turns out of course, that I’m one of them. Except guess what? As far as I can tell, there isn’t actually anything wrong with me. Not that there’s anything wrong with anyone else, either.

It’s just that for every generalised version of life,  every expectation defined by how “most people” do it, there’s another way of thinking, existing, being and doing.

Really, I’ve given myself hell over the years for failing to have my life resemble at least one of our cultural fairy tales. Instead I was a no-good run-away, a high school drop out, a teenage stripper, an abortee and all before I’d even turned 21. Then, thinking there was nothing else to do, I left my family behind to live in another state where no-one knew me. For a do-over of sorts, I guess.

There, I reinvented myself a little and I even almost had that fantasy fairy-tale marriage. Somehow, I sorta landed on my feet when that didn’t work out: found a steady job, got some qualifications under my belt, indulged in my passion for dance as a semi-professional belly-dancer and found my spiritual teacher. I danced. I skied. I traveled. I started my love affair with yoga.

Still, I was chasing a fairy-tale, the one that’s about meeting the “man of my dreams”. Actually I was quite convinced that I’d be attending my 30th birthday party with him (cue the music), this amazing guy who was perfect for me and I for him. He’d look lovingly at me and… it never happened.

I’ve been freaked out half my life about that: not having what I saw others attaining, old friends and new. Even my own sister. Where was MY perfect life with a husband, children, a house and a few cats?

And then… disaster struck. Not only did I not have my perfect life, I didn’t even have a okay one. Not at all.

In terms of normal life, everything stopped. However, cultural mythology runs deep and even though I didn’t want men anywhere near me, I still craved a life partner. Someone who’d love me no matter what and if I’m deadly honest, at that point what I wanted was someone to rescue me from the total mess my life had become.

Sometimes though, you don’t learn the lessons you need most until you’ve been working your ass off for the longest time. Recovery from anything is always a process and 2010 has felt very much like the year in which I’ve finally begun to see myself clearly.

Brimming bagful #2

When do our thoughts coalesce into something that we recognise and own? When do we own up to ourselves about Important Things? What’s the tipping point for that lightbulb moment exactly?

I’m not sure. But in the last few months I’ve started asking myself things like this…

• What if my life just isn’t meant to include meeting the love of my life? I know some amazing older women who’ve never found that “right guy” and instead of being single and bitter, or settling for “good enough”, they channel their energy into other projects.
• What if I’m not meant to be living in this kind of society? The happiest I’ve ever felt in my life has been when I wasn’t surrounded by western convenience. What if I’m meant to be living somewhere in Asia teaching yoga to impoverished women and children?
• What if money and financial security isn’t my path either? While everyone else is busy acquiring property and saving money, I don’t ever seem to be able to pay off my debts. And not because I don’t try! So what if my ideas about what I should be aiming for are just wrong, and this is one of the reasons I haven’t been able to sort out my financial situation?
• What if… my life was meant to be something else? Somewhere else? I moved back to Melbourne out of a sense of family duty and that really hasn’t worked out… what if I admitted that my so-called plans for living in the western world are really more about trying to survive in an environment I don’t feel comfortable in?
• What if I’m just not meant to have kids? As much as that makes me sad, there’s plenty of children in this world to love and take care of. And perhaps that’s part of what I’m meant to be doing with my life anyway?
• How would I even know what else my life could be if I just keep on doing what I’ve been doing?

Good point, that last one!

For the longest time I’ve felt as though I’ve been trying to reconcile what I want and need to be doing with the party line on what I SHOULD be doing. It’d be so nice wouldn’t it, if I could neatly combine the two?

But what if it’s just not meant to be like that for me? Perhaps you don’t believe in any kind of fate, but I do. I feel it in my bones and my heart and if there’s no element whatsoever of fate in any of this thing we call life, I’d be ridiculously surprised.

So, what I’ve been letting go of this year is the remnants of cultural mythology that paints an outline of the life we’re supposed to grow into (or be considered a little odd if not). And I’ve been embracing my oddness, my otherness… because I feel like that’s the best way for me to be of service.

Letting go of all of these ideas frees up a crazy amount of energy and it’s given me a whole bunch of new things to think about. I mean, if living here in a major metropolitan city like Melbourne isn’t working for me, what will? What does work already?

And here’s what I know: yoga works for me. Teaching yoga is some kind of crazy blissful high. Teaching yoga makes me giggle like my baby nieces, exuberantly delighting in the special things that transpire in my classes.

Ah… so taking that a step further, I want more. More knowledge and experience. More study.

Which brings me to the possibilities. I have a plan you see, and I’m hoping the universe is listening in and will just get on board here! Can we have a little alignment of the stars behind my plan? Ooooh, that’d be awesome, thanks ever so much!

And this is it:

I figure if I work my ass off, I can finally pay off my debts in 2011 (the sad stories of my misadventures with money might just be another post some time!). Then, I figure I’ll need another 6-12 months to accumulate a bunch of cash, but not for doing anything “sensible” like saving to buy a house!

Nope, my theory is that I need to go travelling and studying for a while. What? Just because I’m getting close to 40 I should be settling down and “thinking of the future” (as my father likes to say)?

Ummm, I decline. I decline the fear mongering, and the “be like us and validate our life choices” inference of suggestions that anything else is crazy.

Instead, I wanna hit up India, Nepal, Cambodia and Thailand. Hang out with my Guru for a while. Study with other teachers. Immerse myself fully in everything yoga. Discover more people like me, those who don’t fit neatly into the recommended western life-style.

And then, who knows? I’d like to just teach yoga really, which probably means living on much less money than I currently earn. Thing is, the only reason I need to earn more money is to pay off my debts. I don’t give a stuff about owning “things” as such: there’s nary a flat screen TV at my place and I can’t tell you how badly I probably need new clothes (that I can never be bothered going to buy!).

Bottom line is I could care less about owning stuff. And maybe when I’m 80 I’ll have a different perspective and want to kick my nearly 39 year old ass for being so irresponsible. But right now, I’m gonna have to go with what feels right.

Forget New Year’s resolutions. This is my Grand-Bold-Stupid-Reckless-Awesome-Totally-Kicking-Life-Plan for the next few years. It makes me feel good. And alive and happy.

So… back to that idea of a happy ending. When’s anything really “the end”, anyway? But say I’d never taken that trip to hell and back? Say I’d married the guy I was engaged to in my 20’s, had kids and settled in Sydney. Would I still have been able to ask myself these same questions? Would I have even known what questions to ask?

And as hard as it’s been, I feel that I’m better off like this. Life in disarray and really learning to see what’s important for my own happiness…

~Svasti

Fucking December – or – where’s my hermit permit?

Tags

behind the curtain, Christmas, December, Depression, dithering, faceades, gently smiling smoke-screen, hermitage, kirtan, parties, PTSD, socialising, solitude, system overload freak out shut down, trickster-self, wandering sadhu

For the first time in way too many years my end-of-year dance card is in danger of collapsing under the weight of my social commitments.

Honestly it’s a first since… well, since I moved back to Melbourne towards the end of 2004.

Don’t get me wrong: I was never a social pariah exactly and once in the mood I enjoy a good party. Really. And December of 2004 included a decent heft of socialising. That was back when I had an actual boyfriend (the one I had before I dumped his ass and several months later met the guy who caused this blog to come into being). I mean, the ex-boyfriend had friends and we did stuff with them. Nothing too hectic, and not really about the heavy drinking – which has never been my scene anyway (well, not after I turned twenty-one anyways). It was nice.

The 2005 end-of-year social season began just a couple of months after I’d landed upside down and back-to-front on the mental un-wellness rollercoaster and into a rather noirish Tim Burton version of my life. Where nothing grows and the order of the day is pretty much hiding: your wounds, pain, trauma and desperately trying not to look too freaked out by anyone, no matter what.

Generally speaking, living in that world means doing less and staying the hell away from people. Of course, I’d go to the odd work event because I’d already decided work was a “safe zone” – one where I’d managed to stuff the nightmare my life had become into a densely compacted travel compartment: it came along for the ride as a stow-away. But mostly I’d keep my out of work socialising to zero.

In fact, there was even a year in there where I almost didn’t make it to the ol’ family Christmas lunch due to a whirlwind of indecisive dithering: I couldn’t figure out what to put in the salad, which was really about stalling for time so I didn’t have to be around people too soon erecting yet another gently smiling smoke-screen to fend off the worst of my inner demons.

See my wounds? No, please DON’T see my wounds because why should you be as horrified as I am numb and scared and pretty much completely fucked up?

And so going out in public meant not just the usual make-up, hair and wardrobe choices. It also meant the careful concealment of heart-rending anxiety, draping the curtains just so over the gaping chasm of my chest so no one would be the wiser. Because everyone knows that nobody’s allowed behind the curtain. Right, Mr Wizard?

Fast forward a few disassociated years of madness and despair…

Then there was 2009. It was a huge one for me. Not so much socially, although my diary was inked with a couple more “do’s” than usual… but it was pretty much the year I came back to life. The first time I felt real relief from the ongoing doom of depression stalking my every second.

I remember that lightness as something I noticed… hey, what’s this?? This extra energy, this impulse to leave the house for more than just buying food or going to work? This… delighting in nature, talking to cats and dogs on the street and taking photos of street art. This… feeling of spaciousness and lightness and… HOLY SHIVA, PERHAPS I’M FEELING BETTER!?!!

For months I waited and watched and hmmm, that did seem to be the case. Although this year hasn’t exactly been full of candid camera type happily-ever-after moments, there’s definitely been a slow-burning series of incremental improvements in my ability to handle the ups and downs. Give or take a few one step forwards, and two back.

And perhaps it’s just some kind of coincidence, but hey, whoah! Trying to keep track of December 2010’s comings and goings is proving eventful. Who is that girl impersonating a butterfly? Thank goodness for the blessed and painless synching of Google calendar with my iPhone!

Thing is, I think I’ve grown accustomed to my solitude. As desperately lonely as I’ve felt in my self-exiled world of personal torture – alone is safe. Easy. Comfortable. There’s no unexpected surprises. Well, not once the flashbacks stopped anyway! 😉

There’s a party tonight and while this wretched neck of mine still ain’t its usual frolicking self, I feel obligated to go out even though I’d rather invest a few more hours in slumber. Thing is, I still sort of want to go and I know I’ll have a good time. These are people I like. Yogis. There will even be kirtan and potluck dinner at someone’s home.

Yet the call of “take it easy – you’ve had a hard week” shoots rippling soundwaves of longing around and around… that old comfort of not being anywhere in particular. I hear it’s logic. I know what my night would be like. Safe. Fucking safe and going nowhere fast. And safe.

But. BUT. I feel like if I don’t go then I’m just kind of failing, you know?

Letting little excuses keep me home when I know I could just as easily hang out at someone else’s place, enjoy some music, giggles and hugs from people I know. People who might even become friends rather than mere acquaintances if I’d just leave the door open a little wider.

Because I’ve done this already more times than I can count. I’ve painfully deliberated and often deliberately missed going somewhere I was invited, kicking myself for my cowardice while feeling grateful I didn’t have to try and remember how it goes, all of this small talk business.

All of that fitting in and feeling comfortable and knowing how to be witty and thinking of stuff to talk about when really, I kinda prefer less talk. Maybe it’s all the meditation, or the self-imposed solitude? Dunno, but I’m really not that same chatty girl I used to be, the one who’d find almost anything to talk about in almost any circumstances.

The way I see it though, not going = encouraging how things have been. And I think I’ve had enough of that already, don’t you? I need to bust outta my somewhat hermetically sealed environs and loosen up a little, yeah?

However this is a bit of an ask, especially in fucking December. So a red flag’s been raised. Danger, Ms Svasti, danger! I feel that slippery bastard-trickster part of my nature spinning it’s wheels, just looking for an opportunity to wreak a little havoc.

Most nights right up until Christmas are booked out. There’s a few free ones left but I’m being cagey about those. And I’m sort of in denial about the state of December because there’s a good chance that trickster-self of mine will engage in the arcane art of sabotage, giving me a perfect out on at least half the invites I’ve accepted already.

Just call it some kind of system overload freak out shut down mode. I need my alone time, it seems. Time to regenerate surrounded by a fifty meter zone of peace. No talking. No noise. Thank you very much.

Which is just… hey if I’m going to be like that, I might as well take my place as a wandering sadhu already, yeah? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’d like to think I can find my feet again in the world of social interactions before I take up permanent residency in the hermitage. One day I’m pretty sure that’s gonna happen but hopefully not until I’ve spotted my first grey hair at least. Right?

~Svasti

P.S. Don’t worry, I’m going! Might be getting there a little late but I am dragging my sorry ass over there. Fucking December!