Permanent Decisions on Temporary Emotions

I have been grappling with an urge to make permanent changes to my life on and off for a few months now.  But I haven't made any changes yet because I have been struggling to recognise if I really want to make them, or am I just reacting to a temporary emotion born from the struggles of the past few years finding resolution.

I have always lived by the creed, "never make a permanent decision when feeling a temporary emotion" since I learned this lesson some 16 plus years ago.   I wish I had made a different choice back then even though, things have turned out okay now. (which in it self is a lesson)  For a long time though, the decision I made back then had me spiraling into a world of pain, heartache and loss.  It is only when I get the chance to reflect now that I realise some of my greatest lessons were learned then.  I just failed to see them for what they were.

I don't know if I am alone in this thinking but we all know the saying "that we should learn to jump before we can learn to leap" but if you think about the actual process of leaping going backward, before we learn to jump we needed to learn to walk.  Before we walked we had to crawl.  But.... before we crawled, we simply lay on backs and watched the world go by (as limited as it was).  We didn't have any decisions to make, we didn't have to worry about food on a table or a roof over our heads.  We didn't have to worry if the person we share our life with is happy, are we pretty enough, are we old enough, are we too old, too pretty?  We just lay there and stared at what ever it was that our eyes manage to focus on.

Every decision I have made since I was old enough to make them, has brought me to a moment where I can make an educated decision to choose one path or the other, one direction or another, to speak out or to shut up.  What is interesting to me is that... it doesn't matter my decision to turn left or right, side step or walk straight ahead, because the decision I make will be the right one.  Sure there may be repercussions afterwards and some of them won't be pleasant to endure, but at the end of the day, everything will be exactly how it is supposed to be.

Some of us fear speaking out for injustice and would rather dwell in our own bubbles we call our world and not let anything penetrate it.  Some of us feel stifled by the bubble and can't wait to poke holes in it.  What is it that makes someone want to confront everything, shake the world from its foundations and set it spinning in another direction as opposed to the person who just wants to the world to stop to ensure there are no air pockets, ripples or anything touching us that can disturb the fragile skin of the bubble in which we dwell?

Does it really matter which direction I take now and which decision I make if I am feeling fragile? Is speaking out now, the wrong time for me to do so?  I am emotional and questioning whether everything in my life has a purpose to which my ethos is still aligned?  Do I really care that the world around me is turning to shit when for the first time in my life, it appears I have nothing to worry about.

I am lucky.  I am gifted.  I am complete.  I am whole. My life is perfect (definitely subjective of course).  Why then do I feel like I have to have something broken and this need to fix it?  Why is it that I can't seem to accept the first five sentences of this paragraph and that I am looking for something to break.  I have already fixed the problems which is why I am sitting here, lucky, gifted, complete and whole with a perfect life .  What is broken... nothing!  Why do I always feel the need to fix something.  It doesn't have to be me that is broken but it needs to be something. It feels like I am looking to deliberately break the perfect rhythm my life has become and the environment I am living.

So, because my head is all over the place and because I can't seem to decide what to do, I am going to plan for my future and try not to break today.  I will remind myself that I know that it is just a temporary passing phase that may be upsetting my equilibrium and that this, may not even have anything to do with me.  I am surrounded by people who are particularly unhappy at the moment due to events in their lives.  Am I just projecting their emotion and getting all caught up into something completely and totally unrelated?  I could make a change based on their projected emotions and totally wreck everything that is good in my life.

I guess this is why I live by the creed of never making a permanent decision when feeling a temporary emotion.  Advice to myself.... "Take a step back, breathe, look around you, within you and beyond you.  Lay on your back and breathe in the world for while, then try moving to your knees before you stand up.  Once that foundation is rock solid and unwavering, that is when you can start to jump or leap, if that is what you decide to do".

It's always good to change things up a little, but I just try to do it when my mind is in a good place, not a temporary bad one.

© Janeen Hayes June 2017

Moving Out, Moving In, Moving On

I have moved house numerous times over the past 30 years, but none of my moves have been as monumental or significant as this one.

One could say that the past 18 months have been quite a roller coaster ride from having lost my father, both of my in-laws and 2 beloved family pets.  During that time I don't know how many 20 hour days I lived from the time my alarm went off in the morning until I put my head on a pillow, or on the headrest of the recliner chair before I was punching the z's outs or sucking in the unit walls with my snoring.  Undoubtedly, only to wake up 4 hours later at the most (and if I was lucky), before I would be ready to start the day all over again.

The funny thing is, I would do it all over again if it just meant I could turn back the hands of time and get back to a place to call my own.   After inheriting a mortgage free home, it made sense to move out of my rental place and into Steve's family home, right!   The thought of moving out of my unit, the one place I had lived for the past 10 years was so daunting to me, that I procrastinated over and over again.  I would say to myself, "come on Janeen, get up and pack a box". I would say it frequently, "come on Janeen, get up and pack a box" but I never quite could, get up and pack a box.  Realising I was running out of time, I decided to pay someone to come in and pack up and relocate me because I had too much to do at the other end, the house I was moving into.

Procrastination...... it is a wonderful word for someone who is inherently lazy or someone who can't quite cope with the task they are supposed to be doing.  I am both I have come to realise.  It was because I didn't want to face the memories, I didn't want to make decisions on whether to keep a particular memento, I didn't want to acknowledge that I had grown up from the young girl who kept a set of coffee mugs she was given as a birthday present for her 21st.  A set of mugs mind you, that I have never used and actually don't like.  I didn't want to be the adult now who wrapped them up and put them in a box that says "good will".

I didn't want to pick up hair from my cat Mack that had inadvertently found it's way under the door and into the back a cupboard, I didn't want to be reminded that he wasn't with me anymore.  I certainly didn't want to have to pack up the past 10 years of my life, because although it was trying at times, it was definitely the most settled I have ever been in my adult life.  After living the life of a nomad, this unit, this little piece of my heaven in Eltham, was mine.  It had my name on it, I chose it, I moved in there.  This was the first place I could afford to live on my own without any help and the first place I didn't struggle to live from day to day.  I even managed to save money and live beyond next weeks pay cheque. This is the house, where I grew up.  But I was moving out.

Relocating into the new house is bittersweet.  With the most amazing peace on earth backyard where I can literally sit for hours as I listen to nature surround me, is a place that grounds me and makes me feel calm and at peace.  This is a good thing right?  Unfortunately, it is a little more complicated than that.  We are moving into Steve's old family home.  His memories are ingrained in each wall and splinter of the floor.  Everywhere I turn I am faced with a reminder of Steve's childhood.  It is comforting for Steve and he could, understandably, just move in and leave my stuff in storage because everything is so familiar for him.

I wish I wasn't emotionally intelligent, I wish I didn't acknowledge that packing up this house to make room for my stuff, would to him, feel like I was trying to remove his parents from the house.  I am sure, with every piece of linen, every item of clothing, every saucepan or dinner plate I am replacing with my own stuff, is stabbing his heart, just a little.  I know it is,  his tone when he talks to me at times sounds like it is filled with resentment.  But as bad as that may sound, I totally understand why and I totally take that punch on the chin because he's a boy, not even close to understanding what his emotions mean or how they may or may not affect, the people around him.

This punching bag however, isn't quite as strong as it used to be.  There is a bit of sand leaking from it's seams, not much, but enough to make the metophoric punches tear at the seams a little more.  The stumbling block I have, is that before I can make this place feel like my own, I have to make room, I have to clear the place out before I can do anything.  If a house hasn't been touched for many years and the occupants of the house were aging and ailing, there are quite a few surprises along the way that need attending to and in the meantime, all the boxes from my unit, all of my memories, all of my possessions are packed up in boxes, sitting on the verandah..... waiting for me to move in.

I am walking Steve through the mine field of change and reminding him along the way he isn't alone, reminding him that I love him and that I am trying to create "our place"  trying to make this little peace of heaven ours.  He has noticed the things I have kept that belonged to his Mum and Dad but has never mentioned the things that I haven't kept.  I think he may not realise I have thrown out some of my stuff because I preferred what was already here, so it isn't all about my moving his parents out. Some of me is moving out as well.

I have had melt downs, tantrums, thrown boxes, tape and pens.  I have sat outside and listened to the world instead of packing or unpacking a box.  I wailed like a new born child and shed tears in silence.  I have pushed against this change while embracing the new chapter in my life.  I have rebelled against the new stage but slipped into it like wearing a comfortable pair of shoes and I have wished for something different while quietly looking around thinking "this is home".

It has come to a time now, that moving on is the only option.  But who is it that actually needs to move on. How is it even possible to move on when one is still in the early stages of grieving for not just one person, but 3 people and two pets (which sometimes hurts more).  How do I enable someone else to move on when I feel like my feet are completely cemented in no mans land?  How do I move on if I can't even move around the place I am living in without my shins being abused or my toe stubbed.  How do I move on..... as many wise people have said to me over the past few days, one box at a time.  With each one box I move out, I can move one box in, and that, my friends, is how I am moving on.

© Janeen Hayes 2017

The Addled Insomniac

I should premise this post with saying that I have not been diagnosed with insomnia and I definitely don't mean to offend anyone who has been with my choosing to use the word to describe my sleeping habits.  However, I often find myself wide awake after an hour or so from when I go to bed each night, no matter the amount of time I have been awake before my head hits the pillow.

I have taken sleeping tablets that are supposed to afford me 4 hours sleep and wake up after 2, I have tried the remedies like hot milk, counting sheep, lying in bed and just resting (some would call it meditating), going for a walk or three to tire myself out, herbal remedies, acupuncture and hypnosis. Yet, I still I find myself each night, wide awake, tossing and turning, kicking the blankets off then pulling them back on again and eventually getting so frustrated that I get up and move myself the computer, then later to the recliner (or back to bed) where I usually fall asleep about an hour before my alarm gently wakes me at 5.30am.

I have things on my mind and happening around me sure, but I swear there is nothing that I can contribute to being so earth shattering that it would keep me awake.  I have a job that I don't mind at all really, but it isn't a brain strain.  It keeps me busy and I love that, but I can leave at the end of the day and not think about it until my alarms goes off in the morning.  I have all the things in my life that wouldn't usually cause concern to people, so it isn't that that keeps me awake.  I have people who need to be cared for but now, not to the point where I have to worry about them during the night, so it isn't that keeps me awake.  

It is in the early hours of the morning that I feel my mind is telling me a thousand things it wants to say, some of making sense and some of it are purely the ramblings of a tired and frustrated brain that isn't frustrated from not being able to sleep.  Mostly what I am saying is the same ole same ole and usually whatever comes out is deleted before it sees the light of day.  Sometimes, I find I am actually putting sentences together that I don't mind sharing with the world.  Sometimes I just think I am going bat shit crazy.

Usually when I am typing away at 2.30 in the morning, I have the gentle snores of both my man and my dog in the background, the whirring of the fan about my head (it's summer here) and the sounds of the night that I listen to.  I really love this time of night because even though the volume of the night can be loud sometimes, it is still the most peaceful time for me.  Is it weird to say that I feel regenerated by these early morning ramblings sometimes?  Even when I am not saying anything at all, I feel like by not saying it, I am saying something and that helps to clear my brain.

Later when I read over the thoughts I have written in the early hours of the morning, I am surprised that I sometimes make sense.  Other times, like the paragraph before this one, makes no sense at all.  Rather than delete the paragraph though, I am leaving here in this ramble about nothing, as an insight to what happens when I write things down in the early hours of the morning.

Since I started this blog though, things in my life have changed dramatically.  It surprises me the things we can endure as humans, that life comes and goes and goes on after another life has ended.  Strange that when a person passes, we still want to linger in their memory, keep them with us until we cry.  Why do we do that?

As I have no idea where this was leading or what I was trying to say, it has been after all, some seven or so weeks since I started it and therefore, I don't remember what it was that I was going to say.  So I am leaving it here, totally random both in words and thoughts.

Maybe soon, I will actually write something worth sharing.

© Janeen Hayes 2017