18 years today.

I had a friend message me tonight and let me know she was thinking about Lily.

I welled up.  That all too familiar gigantic lump lodged in my throat and hasn’t shifted for the half hour since. And now I’m sitting down again, staring at this old blog page, like I did a whole eleven years ago. I haven't posted since the day Lily would have turned seven. Because there is no post after that. That is it. That is the rawest part of my life, and I can give nothing more. 

But here I am again. Because grief does not die with the last post. Or with the send off. Or with whatever you do every single day to keep going. 

I last wrote about Lily on the day she would have turned 7. Today she would have turned 18. 

I remember Every. Single. Moment of that damned day 11 years ago. I remember every conversation, every look, where I was standing, the moments of silence. The friends enjoying life at Bronte park, Bella looking up at me, the silent car rides, the talking to Rory in front of the mirror, the walking to the restaurant late in the night, the ordering  of the triple Drambuie shot. The opening of the laptop. 

And all my feelings of the day spilling out. 

Because people like me like to contain our feelings. Stoic Serb. But it always spills. It always spills. 

---

A few years ago, I shared that post again. On what would have been another birthday. Not all birthdays, not all anniversaries, feel the same. But that one felt the same. As does this one. I got a message in the middle of the night. I heard the beep beep and opened my phone. It was 4am.  ‘I just read your post. Thank you for sharing it. I needed to read it’. 

Someone who had suffered a greater loss than mine because there were more years for him in which to build memories. But he understood. He understood that grief is raw. It is human and it hurts. It hurts a lot. Even when you are stoic.

In the dead of night, we deal with our grief and our demons and our losses and our dreams for a better tomorrow. 

---

My friend - the same one that texted me tonight - also texted me when I was in a meeting a couple of years ago. I saw the notification, looked down at my phone, as I do far too often, and saw the message. I swallowed. I swallowed so damn hard. Anything to push that lump back down to the recesses of my memories where they normally sit.

I wrote back a thanks that I truly meant, and looked around the room. I needed to leave. But I stayed put. Stoic Serb.  I wondered how many of us live lives, fight demons, scratch at wounds while no-one is watching. They are there, but they aren’t. We don’t see them. But people around us are feeling and living through them. 

Some memories sear in your soul. That moment, strangely, is one of them. 

When I left the room I went for a walk and sat by myself. It was comforting that someone remembered. It's also wound-opening. I breathed and breathed and breathed. 

---

It’s all strange with Liljana.

Lessons, but not lessons. Experiences, but you don’t know what to do with them. They live in you, as I assume most trauma does. It’s a wound. But it’s alive. In your psyche, it’s alive. 

My son tells me I hold grudges. I do. I will forever remember the person I most resent of that time. I've never let it go. Maybe I should forgive them.  After this post, I might. 

---

I remember my friends rallying. Confused, shocked. I see their faces as I write this.  I see the Drambuie bottles, I see them turning up at the door, at the hospital, I see their patience and their quiet. I see my rage as one friend dared tell me Liljana was beautiful. ‘HOW THE HELL WOULD YOU KNOW?!’. 

I see my rage at neighbours, from the apartment underneath, who dared call to say they could hear my stomping in the night. ‘HOW THE HELL WOULD YOU KNOW?!’. 

Rage spills where the doors open. 

---

I was one of the first of my friends in Sydney to have children. A new life and death in a few short months is an impossible thing to comprehend whilst still believing the world is yours to take. We’d barely left the clubbing, the trekking in NZ, the parties, the baby shower. My friends rallied. And I wondered how many of their own mothers and fathers had wounds buried that were never spoken about. 

I thought about my own mum who had also lost a young baby. We are everywhere. 

I had one friend call me from work while Lily was in Intensive Care. One of his work mates had had a preemie. He said I might like to talk to her. I called her. She was so gracious, so wise, so giving of information.  Finally there was someone who had lived a similar experience. I was grateful. He told me later she got off the call and went to the bathroom and cried and cried. And, I expect, heaved all her grief in to the bathroom bowl. She gave me her story for comfort, but there is no comfort in grief. Even when you just teeter on the edge of it. 

---

I remember my boss at the time who had received an email from HR. ‘Di has been away a lot since the birth of her baby. Will she be taking that as annual leave?’.

The ferociousness of his reply is something I will never forget. Ever. ‘Don’t you ever ask me about her again. She can take all the time she wants. She’s worked here ten years. I never want to hear from you asking about her again’. 

I had returned to work soon after the birth. I travelled to and from the hospital with my breastmilk during the day, before heading back to the hospital in the evenings. All so I could have my maternity leave start when she got home. But she never got home. And deep within his own heart, he knew that was a possibility. Times have changed since then. He was ahead of his time. And I thank him. 

I remember the flowers that arrived from colleagues and friends at birth and the cards of condolences at her death. I will be eternally grateful for the celebration of life and the care and compassion in the after. 

---

I remember turning up at a birthday while Lily was still in hospital. I was wearing new jeans and a sass and bide top that had been gifted to me. I had lost weight. I was pumping milk through the nights and was barely remembering to eat. I wasn’t supposed to look anything other than a mess. But that night, even I knew I had something. I was a fierce lioness. Devoted. With purpose. Unflappable. And in the very clothes that would mark 2004 for me - as an aside that lives in my memory. ’Di, you look so fantastic!’ was repeated over and over and over again. Most hadn't seen me for a while. I clinked glasses, I smiled. Inside I wondered who was looking after Lily tonight. I wondered over and over again. ‘Who the hell is looking after Lily tonight?’. 

I walked in to the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror and a huge gush of fresh milk burst from my breast. I lifted my top, already saturated, and on and on  it gushed. Over the mirrors, the sink, the walls of the whole bathroom, wherever I turned, like a ferocious hose no longer contained. A creamy milk. Everywhere. Lily was in hospital but I was here with her. 

I was in shock but managed to wipe it down. My memory tells me there were numerous knocks at the door. It felt like such a long time. I dabbed at my top. I covered and uncovered the tell tale signs. How could I hide it. I couldn’t. I stuffed toilet paper down my bra to stop it from leaking further, picked up the untouched champagne glass, crossed my arms and went back inside. Rory, I need your jacket. He handed it to me. 

Two hours later, back at home, I pumped and pumped and pumped and pumped until there was neigh a drop of milk left in me. Only to wake four hours later to do it all again. 

---

I remember the donations to the neonatal ward in lieu of flowers that live on in life saving cribs today. I remember and I am grateful. 

I remember the funeral. I remember my anger at the priest for the catastrophy of the proposed readings. I remember Rory’s forever deserved and life-long friends from Woollongong and beyond, driving up for the day. The nurses and doctors arriving and me wondering who was looking after the new babies being born.  I remember execs from work walking in after an offsite, cut short so they could make it. Friends flying in from Melbourne. Friends that still hold me to this day. 

I also remember so much explosive pain that day. The personal pain. The shared pain.  I - we - remember it all. 

---

I rock as I write that. Bella does this rocking thing at the moment. I watch her all the time and wonder if it's a self-soothing thing. I'm rocking now as I write. And I know it is. 

---

I remember Lily’s wake. How do you deal with death but to celebrate life? Our friends understood. They stoicly stood by our sides for two whole months and they weren’t letting go now. Someone turned up, a friend of a friend. ‘This is weird, isn’t this supposed to be a wake for a baby’. I heard him, walked in to the bedroom and howled. Had I done my Lily a disservice by celebrating her? No I hadn’t. I know that as I write this. She, and her tenacious spirit were worth and will ALWAYS be worth celebrating. So, fuck you. But like the other person above, I think I finally forgive you. It's strange. This post is strange. 

There is a catharticness that is happening as I write and it's mixed with feelings I can only describe as suppressed. 

It’s strange. 

I have been a raging ball of fire the last month or so. Not always, but I have a hairline trigger that feels undeniably, whole heartedly justified in every single moment and every single rage and hurt I have felt… but in the dead of night I wonder to what end. Am I lashing out, am I pushing away hard because it is an easier pain to deal with than the one I have hidden away? I wonder what is bubbling. Where is its starting point?  

---

I started reading a book today ‘The Body Keeps the Score’. It was recommended by a friend dealing with his own trauma and personal journey. I’ve had it on my list and downloaded for the better part of 6 months or more. Is the fact that I finally opened it today another sign?

Do we all wait for the right moments to try and understand our grief and how it spills and spills and spills?  

It's not just me and my friend. It’s not the situations we deal with on the outside. The stories that we know. It’s all of us. It’s what we keep inside. It’s what we keep from others. We’re all hurting. At different times, in different ways. We’re all hurting. 

And we’re all doing our best to love hard, too. 

I know we are. 

---

Thank you, M, for your text tonight. I’ve been thinking about Lily all week. The last few days in particular have felt completely out of control. I wonder about my month and how much is related. I'm grateful for the release of bashing this out. 

You unlocked something deep. Something simmering. 

It’s the randomness of timing, too. 

Years pass and you move on. But your heart doesn't. The trauma doesn't. The anger at the universe is as ferocious as ever when you dig just a little. It simmers, simmers, simmers and then it bubbles over. We’re human volcanoes. And no-one knows when a quake will set it off. 

---

I know I’ve used 'ferocious' so many times today. It's telling. And it weaves itself in to everything.  

It has been my month. It has been me. It is in the way in which I protect Bella and the expectations I place on the boys. It is the standard to which I hold others accountable, how much I want people to care.  And it is an unfair expectation. It feels unfair because it's something I want mirrored. I so desperately want everything I feel mirrored. 

I'm sorry.  How do you ask someone else to mirror your pain. 

---

Bella turned 17 yesterday. 

‘Who’s birthday is it today, Bella?!’ 

‘It’s mine! And it was daddies yesterday. And it’s my sister’s tomorrow!’. 

It is, Bella.

Happy 18th birthday, Lily. Wherever you may be, you are still here. And always will be.  

28.01.22

Today, Liljana would have been seven.

Seven years ago today I gave birth to Liljana O’Connor. The only time I’ve managed to slip in the remotest inkling of Slavic heritage in to any of my children’s names.  The Gaelic side soon took over, stomped their feet and it was all I could do to keep the rest from being called niamff, ruadhri or shiovion. All lovely names but they look funny (and I still can't spell them).

She came out, pink and screaming, aims flailing about like she was about to feel pretty pissed about being being yanked out like that. Except that she wasn't yanked. Nor was she supposed to be screaming and pink.

She was born at 23 weeks 6 days. That one day makes a difference. The tipping point of revive-or-not on our Australian shores is generally regarded to be 24 weeks. I went in to labour at 23 weeks and 3 days. I tried my damndest to keep her in but my cervix was having none of it. So out she came. I remember it, totally. I remember it all, despite the shock.  


She was 550g and perfect in her form. The weight of a tub of butter, but I didn’t see that. All I saw was perfect eyes, a head of hair the Kardashians would be proud of, ten fingers and ten toes. She was angelic. It is not what many would expect. I had no preconceived ideas. But I know it is not what many would expect.

She sounded like she had a mighty fine set up lungs on her too. But truth was she didn’t. Lungs are the main reason our premmie babies struggle so much to stay alive…

-------------------

I went in to labour not many days before. We were camping.

I’m not a camper. I’m a wrap-myself-in-a-doona-in-a-comfy-bed kinda chick. But it was hubby’s birthday and he was keen.  At 12 weeks I'd climbed Uluru, at 22 weeks I’d completed the Milford trek in New Zealand. For someone with a  bun cooking I was looking and feeling pretty healthy. I refused to eat anything that hadn’t been washed and re-washed 32 times and I’d drunk one Breezer in 5 months. I was serious about doing all I could for the baby on the inside but on the outside, life carried on relatively normally.

And then I felt some pain. An inkling. My back was a little sore. I was at work and I was feeling  strange. Something was wrong. I called the hospital.  I went in. The midwife checked me over. She didn’t check my cervix. But all was fine. She was careful. She was thorough. But she didn’t check my cervix. The doctor came in to have a chat. Looks like all ok she said. But she didn’t check my cervix either.

That night I got everything ready for my trip and went to bed. I woke up with a cramp. Damn constipation I thought. It comes with the preggers. A few cramps overnight and I was proud that I managed to just ride them out. Damn Serbian stoicness.

We hit the camping ground that we were sharing with friends. I wondered off on my own a lot. Damn constipation I thought again. I spent too much time hunched over on a stool by myself.  I complained very very little. All part of being preggers right? Right through to the next day. The pain came and went. Right through til about midday when I walked in to the water and the pain subsided. Strange I thought. I called the hospital again. You should come in they said. My stoicness, my stubbornness nearly held me back. My stupid Balkan stubbornness. But the pain was still there - except for when I was in the water. I couldn’t spend the next 14 hours sitting in the sea. So we packed everything up and got to the car. I lay my head in my partners lap as someone else drove. The car clock was directly in my line of sight. 40 minutes in the car. 40 minutes of watching the clock as I felt that stabbing pain, on the dot, every 5 minutes. 


Wholly fuck I thought. I’m in fucking labour. I’m in fucking labour. I couldn’t talk.

------------------

Liljana spent 2 months in neo-natal intensive care.  I can’t put in to words what it’s like. I could try and say it's a mix of sterile metal, warm bodies and fairy dust. A magical place where magic things happen, and wonderful people come and go.  Where babies come and go. And sometimes babies die.

It is the place where Liljana was cared for, prodded, watched, nudged along, prodded again, held, nurtured, loved. Loved oh so very very much. I have no words to do justice to the compassion and commitment the nurses, the doctors, the other parents showed.

It was my haven. It was where I retreated to every day. Where Liljana and I got to hang with each other. Where I got to watch and hold her. As long as I washed my hands every 13 steps and almost always with the confines of a humidicrib between us. I could  spend the whole day there. The whole night there. It was all I wanted to do. Friends were caring, compassionate. But I didn’t want them. I was harsh towards many of them. I wanted my Liljana and I wanted her to grow and get better. She was strong as an Ox. She grew, boosted along by my breast milk which I was expressing around the clock. A regular little mechanical cow I was. Proudly I pumped and pumped and pumped. She was taking the steroids and I felt like I was on them. One foot in front of the other. Not flailing once.  She passed scans, tests. No brain bleeds. No apparent eye damage.  She overcame and came through a stef infection that was supposed to take her in hours. An infection that drew her grandparents from across the country to come and say goodbye. But she defied them and beat that stef infection off with pure tenacity. Balkan stubbornness. Her lungs , her weakest point, were being helped along with steroids.

Neo-natal intenstive care. Fairy dust was sprinkled all around her.

And then she died.

-----------------------

Liljana was defying the trend of bubs born at her gestation (such a horrible word) right from the moment they pulled her out.

They told me at the delivery that they would lay her on my chest, and if she was took any breaths, at all, they would let her drift away on my chest. The expectation was that she would lay on me for the few minutes that she was likely to survive on her own.

But she defied them. She screamed, she turned pink, she flailed her pretty little chicken arms. “We’re sorry Di, we really want to give her a chance, she is remarkable – let us try and help her”.  A combination of euphoria and panic all around me. For my part there was only euphoria. Help her, yes, yes! My baby. My baby was going to make it.

------------------------

Two months in and they were tossing up whether to perform a tiny little operation.  In her favour was that she had doubled in weight. Not in her favour was that she had taken a turn a few days before, where they had to revive her. No-one was sure why but she’d come through. We had said all along, if she was going to be kept alive for the sake of being kept alive we were against it. Support her own fight yes. But force it? No. If she was ready to go, she was ready to go. 

They decided to perform the operation. They had been waiting for her to double her weight and she had. We waited in the waiting room.

The doctor walked in. It had only been 10 minutes. His eyes were red raw, his chest heaved and his sadness was palpable. It engulfed us. He didn’t need to talk. We knew. We went in to the theatre and watched our Liljana leave us. She had passed away during the anaesthetic and they kept her artificially breathing til we got there. Reacted? Too weak? Who knows. Cyndi Laupers True Colours played on the radio. Rory picked up Liljana and let out an almighty scream. He held her and cried a primal cry like I have never heard him cry before ..or since.

You with the sad eyes

don't be discouraged

oh I realize

it's hard to take courage

in a world full of people

you can lose sight of it all

and the darkness inside you

can make you fell so small

But I see your true colors

shining through

I see your true colors

and that's why I love you

so don't be afraid to let them show

your true colors

true colors are beautiful

like a rainbow

Show me a smile then

don't be unhappy, can't remember

when I last saw you laughing

if this world makes you crazy

and you've taken all you can bear

you call me up

because you know I'll be there

I sat in the corner and howled and howled like the weak incapable person I was. My baby. My beautiful baby. My beautiful Liljana was gone.

Fuck you god, fuck you universe, fuck you air and earth and sand and all that makes us who we are only to rip us apart bit by bit.

But not those amazing nurses and doctors in intensive care. You cried with us. You did everything with us. For the care and love you showed my little girl. My god. I have no words. NO. WORDS. I will never, ever, forget you. And I will never forget that each of you came to her funeral. 

They might as well have shut down the hospital. 

 -------------------

They say when you have a baby born too early that your friends will shy away. Won’t know what to say, whether to congratulate you or not. This was not our experience. Our phone did not stop ringing, the flowers did not stop arriving, the love for us and for Liljana came wrapped up at the hospital ward from the moment she was born. From all but one person. Just one out of what felt like hundreds of remarkable and wonderful well wishers. I won’t forget any of you either. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Today I caught up with some friends at the park with Isabella  -  my spunky little girl who I went into labour with exactly ten months later. 12 months to the day after I went in to labour with Liljana. Isabella, who turned 6 yesterday.

Liljana would have been 7 today I said. And then I started to cry.  I rarely cry for Liljana these days.

I cried. And I cry. My little girl would have been seven.

 -------------------

Rory called me this morning. It’s Lily’s birthday today he says. I know I answer. He rarely mentions Lily either, except for when he has been drinking and he may let out that he thinks about her every day. Do you still do that I ask him. Every day he says. She will be my last thought before I die he says quietly. We don’t know what to say to each other. Each of us feels our pain on the inside.  If he was there with me, I would embrace him. He’s not there. I embrace my Isabella who smiles her magical smile up at me.

---------------------

How many children do you have people ask me. 3 I say out loud.

4, I say to myself.

But not today.  Today I will say it out loud. I have 4.

I have Liljana, Isabella, Cormac and Hamish.  They are all so very beautiful, amazing and wonderful.

Liljana isn’t here. But she is here with me. And with Rory. And with all those that remember her. And I know my dear beautiful friends that many of you do.

Today you would have been 7 Liljana. I miss you and I ache for you. I ache for you so very very much.

So very much.

Finding yourself back where you began..

I grew up in commission flats. High rise commission flats. I had my first crush there, experienced my first best friend there, my first punch up (I was at the receiving end - til my mum sent me back down stairs from the 6th floor to give as good as I got), my first familiarity with a pub spilling out with happy drunks at 9am.

I was happy.

We were surrounded by other migrant families, lots of - indigenous and white - park bench occupants, families with 9 kids (my best friend Linda came from one of these families - oh how I miss her), and family friends that were counted on across the multiple floors and buildings as parents worked double shifts in low income roles.

My family was one such family.

My dad was a tram conductor before supplementing his income with a taxi driving gig (which he went on to write off twice - yes that is exactly where my driving skills came from). My mum was a cleaner at St Vincents hospital nearby, from where she would often knick a couple of biscuit packets, tucked away in the square pockets of her crisp blue cleaning uniform - to treat us to when she got home. It was from there that she would ring me at 8am to make sure I was up and getting me and my brother ready for school. I was always still fast asleep. On the odd occasion she ran home in her tea break to make sure we were ok, before running back.

My dad just told me the other day that I would often be left at home alone by the time I was 3, with strict instructions on who I was to answer and not answer the door to - instructions I dutifully fulfilled as I stood on three layers of yellow pages and peeped through the peep hole. My now hubby was aghast when he heard this story, but you can't understand what you haven't had to experience.

I was happy.

They, unfortunately, were not so happy.

But they scraped and saved and by the time I was 12 they had managed to buy a house in the Nth West of Melbourne and the next stage of my life commenced. I found my high school love, although we only ever got as far as pashing behind the shelter sheds. I think my hair and shoulder pads got in the way of anything beyond that. I struggled to fit in but somehow I managed to do it, and eventually do it well.

They continued working in the same jobs (though my dad moved up to being a bus driver) and they bought another investment property within a year.

However, without the combined goals of scrimping, saving and their built up communities around them, the seams of their fairly unfortunate marriage (I doubt they ever truly loved each other, actually I know they didn't) fell apart and stage 3 of my life started.

From there many more stages came and went and much of it all I sit and reminisce about today. Especially today.

Fast forward to this week.

I landed back in Fitzroy, Melbourne to attend, quite possibly, the most generous 40th I've been to (I'd flown in from Sydney where I now live). Along with 20 0thers I was treated to a ridiculously divine three course meal, champagne and wine on tap, at a very very swanky restaurant 100 metres from the block of flats I'd grown up in. My girlfriend having the 40th was a flatmate I'd lived with in Bondi, in my very early 30's. A million lifestyles away from where I began.

I sipped the champagne right outside my block of flats. My block of flats. I was in wonderful company and was thoroughly enjoying myself but I couldn't sit still. I excused myself and wandered outside where I stood for what felt like an hour or more.

I breathed in the air, I looked for the monkey bars I'd spent many years swinging on, I saw myself as a 7 year old running down the fire escape and sat wondering if the elevators were still as crapfully slow and vandalised as they were back then.

I remembered the ladies that looked after me on the 17th and 7th floors, and remembered my crush from the 4th floor. I remember my one friend that had Enid Blyton books (my own library was stocked with a handful of Golden books) and that nurtured my love for magical stories. I wondered how long it must have taken me and my brother to walk alone to the local primary school. I remembered Mr Sullivan that always told me off for being late but that I loved with my whole 7 year old heart. I remembered by first call to a radio station - was I about 8? - asking them to play "What about me". I felt lost, happy, strange, wonderful, blissful.

I love where I grew up. I love where I ended up.

They're my childhood memories, and damn if they aren't as wonderful today as they were back then.

The only thing I miss, is not knowing where all my friends of those years are now. Linda, Kathy, Deborah, I still think of you often.

For all my friends today...how did I manage to continue to get so lucky?

Dovic xx

PS Has your road travelled moved in directions you least expected? Or always on course?

Pomodoro. Not just a tomato (Warning: this post may change your life)

I'm going to try and make this a quick post tonight - it's gonna have to be to prove a point I'm trying to make.

And what's that?

That there is a lot that can be done in 25 minutes.

Yes, yes, I can hear you ask - if that is so, why has there been so much time between blog posts? Could I not have whipped one up in 25 minutes? The answer is perhaps. Infact, I'm about to test that theory now.

Fact is I used to be a brilliant multi-tasker. I could be found holding drink, getting a phone number (oh, the days...) and planning out a work paper all at once. But those days are long gone - at least the ease with which I could balance it all in a single minute. My ability to multitask dissapeared with each placenta I lost. And yet my responsibilities grew and grew and grew...

So I read with interest when I went over to a blog I'm feeling a lot of love for at the moment. It belongs to Sarah Wilson (of Sunday Life) and she seems to write about a bunch of stuff that verges on tree hugging and generally makes me want to hug a tree - her stuff is all about steering towards a sweeter life.

I read with interest as I stumbled upon a time management technique she'd tried out.

She gives a thorough descrption, but it basically goes like this:

• Set up an online timer. Pomodoro is the recognised brand, but she pointed me towards Focus Booster which I have continued to use and love it ('tis easy - I even drag it around with me on the laptop).

• Timer runs for 25 min, tick tocking in the background the whole time (I have used it at work and don't recommend having it on high volume unless you're not afraid of security).
• Buzzer goes off at end of 25 min for a 5 min break.

• You stop what you're doing right then and there. You get up and do something else. Hop on twitter, call your best friend, make a cuppa. I like to take a walk. They're all ace. Basically, whatever tickles your fancy.
• At end of 5 min (and 5 min only - no dragging it out) you hop straight back on for your next 25 minute hit.
• You continue this for about 3 x 25min lots before taking a longer break.

Here's the thing. As a technique, it works a treat. If you've got a to-do or wish list as long as mine, or just want to churn out some writing or work, try it out. Ideally, the universe would hand me over an extra 3 hours a day to work/play/procrastinate away at my leisure (which is code for spend time online) but in the absence of such generosity I simply have to do more in less.

So is chunking in to 25 min lots now the answer? It most certainly helps. It's not a habit yet, but I'm trying. And it's working. And that's why I'm sharing.

Obviously I love comments (*batters eyelids*) but would genuinely love to know if you've ever done anything similar or plan to? Do you ordinarily get distracted or manage to stay on course?

Dovic xx

PS In the interests of true disclosure this post ended up taking two lots of 25 mins. But I had a nice yummy rice cracker with cream cheese inbetween. And now? Off to read a book....See. Lovely.

2010 and why the Jetsons have much to answer for

It's 2010 folks.

Isn't that a strange number when you see it looking out at you like that. It looks like the sort of year you would expect to be a Jetsons year - aka flying cars and saucers even.

More importantly, a year where gadgets prevailed, leaving many many hours to play happy joyful families without household conflict, knowing that the cooking, cleaning, shopping, light switching, clutter decluttering, fridge filling, billpaying, etc was all being miraculously taken care of by some happy joyful robot somewhere. And with hair piled high you could carry on balancing that happy joyful family with all the happy joyful interests you could dream of. I truly pictured this would happen one day. I may have been 7 at the time but those smiley Jetsons set me up for future feelings of failure.

Yes, there are many new gadgets. Some help undoubtedly - the washing machine will indeed wash clothes, but truth is I still have to fold them, all 73 pieces per day (this may not be the case in other families - you listening Rory?), and some don't seem to help at all - the internet, which sadly gives me joy also gives me absolute time wastage in almost equal parts.

I'm not whining about gadgets. I love them. What I'm really whining about is the fact that despite them, and partly due to them, life doesn't seem to have gotten easier.

Infact, I feel for the most part that I'm running on empty. I feel, for the most part, that I can only give 30-70% to anything at any one time. With more choices, more guilt, more gadgets, more social responsibilty, more helicopter parenting, more friends, more work, more interests, more access to technology, more memberships, more travelling partners etc, my head feels like it's going to explode and there is never enough of me to go around.

Hell, I can't even relax properly. I try hard, but living life in 2010 is a bigger beast than I have managed to comfortably chew on each day.

Is it me? Quite possibly. I seem to have come from the 'not happy unless I'm doing a double shift' mould. I do try and keep it in check but, frankly, life around these here blocks seems to beat to its own hectic drum regardless.

The parenting gig is one that I undoubtedly invest the most energy, juice and time into - without regret. I love kids and I especially love mine. If I could give even more, I would.

But life didn't start when I popped them out. Before they came along I was very happily doing, and enjoying 300 other interests. Having kids didn't change that. Having kids just took an 80% slice out of me, and shifted my perspective somewhat. Those other interests remained, hovering in the background, crowding out whatever white space there may have been there previously.

And that is where all the mental conflict starts. Your story may be slightly different, but 'same same' different no doubt.

I work. Passionately, even managing to think about it all of the time whilst only being paid for it a tiny percentage of the time.

I write. This actually translates to I often love to think about what I could be writing.

I am a partner. The 7 day challenge validated that there is plenty to be gotten from giving, but giving takes energy and my energy bank runs low. Always.

I am a friend. One where I am often cut a lot of slack. Thank God.

Conflict. Conflict.

What else crowds that white space? Probably a lot like you, I am a person with a gym membership, a lover of sleep, a person who loves to retreat, a wonna be cooker extraordinaire, blogger, twitterer, people lover, wonna be student, lover of good causes, someone with a unibrow that needs to be waxed (ok, maybe that's just me) and hair that needs to be coloured far too frequently, lover of books and all things news, and still much much more. None of this, and plenty more important stuff rarely gets much of a look in (except for, ahem, twitter and that's another post). The 'me' bit, from the brain to the unibrow and back down to my fingers, all of that gets pushed to the back of the line. But truly, it is everything that is pushed and shoved and nudged around just to try and make it fit in.

Conflict.

I know I'm not alone.

Infact, I need to know I'm not alone. Where do you sit? Have you mastered your own universe? Do you have family to help with the load (we don't)?

Or, like me, do you have a sliding scale of where you give and at the bottom of that scale is you. And scattered throughout is conflict.

Yep, please tell me - I'm not alone.

Dovic xx

Dry July and beyond

I have a headache kids. And sallow skin.

I don't always feel and look like this. Infact, a spray tan tends to work wonders, including knocking off a few kilo's in the swoop of a spray gun. But tis what lays beneath that matters, and what's been lying beneath has been mighty murky.

After what should have been a fantastic break in China in May, which in all other ways it was, I came back to Sydney with a thud. That would be a thud to the ground due to the excess weight I was now carrying in my belly, and the dull thudding occuring in my head.

After China? How? Why? Let me explain.

First stop, Cocktails. Next stop, Bailey's. Third stop, Bloody Mary's for brekky. You get the picture.

For six whole days (and just quietly, I think I may be talking about myself in the main here) we drank. And drank. Slowly but surely. Not enough to get pissed. Just perpetually merry.

But...there is a but...and here it comes.

A couple of girlfriends landed in China looking better than I had ever seen them. As it turns out they had both completed a 30 day challenge, that included amongst other wierd and wonderful things, refraining from drinking alcohol for 30 days straight. I was intrigued.

Could I get myself a piece of that magic they were exuding? I decided to contact the guru of said challenge, Chris Walker and find out.

After a nothing short of amazing meet up he...rejected me. I am led to believe for the loveliest of reasons, but I suspect tis because he suspected I needed to find my inner beauty in other ways. Like by stripping away bad habits one by one.

Infact, and without skipping a guru beat, he still encouraged me to go dry on alcohol and a few other goodies for a month. I walked away from that meet up feeling like I was floating on air. And did something I never do. I went to the supermarket and bought sunflower and other seeds I can't remember the names of, all manner of beans and colourful vegies, and lots and lots and lots of soda water.

With Balkan determination I set straight forth on my 30 days all by myself and didn't look back. No alcohol, no coffee, no diet coke, no meat.

The impact was immediate. I got a headache and craved a glass of wine. Yet I persevered, and by day 5 my partner was commenting on the whites of my eyes, and work colleagues on the fact I had cheek bones.

Losing weight and looking sparkier were not the only benefits. My back stopped aching, my mind was sharper and my wallet was heavier. All in all, I was feeling and looking hotter than I had looked for ages.

Of all the things I had cut out, it was the my first glass of wine I craved most and I counted down the days towards it one by one.

Infact, I was convinced that what the challenge had surely assured me of, was that I want alcohol in my life. I've never been a binge drinker (or even a big drinker), just an accidental semi regular drinker, so I set forth on my accidental semi regular drinking with gusto. I wonder now whether I was testing myself.

One week in I crashed. I felt like crap. Two weeks in and the spring had sprung out of my step and my sleeping had stopped being sound. Three weeks in and there is no denying the goodness (and godliness) had slipped out of my bod. And I have only one place to lay blame. It is squarely at the foot of that now empty bottle of drambuie on the benchtop.

So I'm quitting folks. Yep, you heard it here first (or maybe second if you're on my facebook - see you lot get all the news first). I am done with alcohol. If we catch up, I'll suggest it be over that other beverage befitting of our (that would be my) age, tea. Now don't snuff your nose, I'm not averse to you slipping in the odd shot of Baileys. And I so totally totally get that drinking a glass here and there is fun. I'm just talking about me, at home, and as a general rule.

Don't think I can do it? The guru made me realise I could. Infact, I'm already there. Besides, like the nutcase/clever cookie that I am, I just posted it publicly.

I think husbands (even the goodies that just like sharing a drink with you) and the craziness of kids, tis what drives many of us to that corner of the pantry for a little bit of magic. Nothing like that glass or two to help you get through a ball juggling day. And there is ofcourse nothing like a glass or two for social lubrication. But ditching it for a month at least can be fun (and kilo squashing).

I am sober, hear me roar (and snore - coz I know I'll be sleeping better).

What's your story when it comes to those lovely glass bottles? Are you friends or foes? I'd love to know....

Dovic xx

PS Tis dry july in a couple of days...if you feel inspired, you know where to find me (I will either be right here, or at the tea house).

naked faces

What did it take to draw me out of hibernation I hear you ask?

It was nakedness. Naked faces in all their lined glory.

I happen to love skin. I think it runs in the family. Caught my mum flipping through some People mags she bought when I was about 14.

Me: "Um, mum, why did you buy People magazine?"

Her: "Luk et doze bewdiful boobiz. I lovit tu luk et dem!"

Whilst I don't restrict my lovin to 'boobiz', I do find beauty in skin and the physical form- all the way from the tips of toes to crinkly eyes.

So here are my crinkly eyes just for you :)

The wonderfully clever Jodie over at mummymayhem came up with the idea that all us blogsters (I use that lightly in reference to, ahen, myself - since I've clearly been MIA) should ditch the makeup and glam piccies and put up a pic of our faces up close and personal, sans all that pruning. I rekon I could dig all the way to the south pole and be hard pressed to find a glam piccie.... but I love the idea of bearing our souls by baring our faces.

In the spirit of it being real, the first pic of me on my own was taken with my new smancy dancy camera (no bluring of that shiny forehead or missing that whopper pimple) 5 min ago. Post school/daycare drop off, pre any smidgen of self lovin, no hair wash, no nothin. Just me :).

BUT I couldn't make myself smile (that was wierd clicking the camera and trying to laugh..at um..nothing - no future in modeling for me) so I've added the other too. Coz this lovin our faces business ain't much glory 'less you can enjoy the wrinkles too, esp those grinning ones. And love em I do!

Dovic

xx