That annual "New Year New Me Post"

On New Year’s Eve I was hiding under my covers scrolling through Twitter mourning the loss of so many famous icons and generally feeling sorry for myself. I was at a loss to think of a New Year’s Resolution other than get my binging issues under control (I had eaten more guilt laden chocolates in the proceeding 24hrs than I had eaten all year!)

As I scrolled I discovered that it was the milestone 20^th Birthday of a girl that I follow, she shares my name and sense of humor and I was overcome by emotion when I realised that she had reached her goal. She could do anything. Katie first inspired me when I heard her courageous story on the pod cast “Mental Illness Happy Hour” with Paul Gilmartin in which they discuss a blog post in which she wrote a letter to her sixteen year old self – here is the link – I am an avid listener and it was the first episode in years to make me cry big ugly tears, for the first time in my life I was able to feel compassion for my own 16yr old self, all I had been through and all I was yet to experience.

Katie had promised herself back then, in the hardest moment of her life that she would let herself live to twenty, she found admirable inner strength and has taken charge of her mental health and has now successfully hit her milestone and will continue to hit many more. I am so proud of her and it inspired me to also give myself the chance to live.

 So 2017. I don’t particularly like the number combination and I have decided I simply don’t want it imprinted on my gravestone. I am acknowledging the fact that I must responsibly own my decision not to take medication anymore and I owe it to myself and also my family to really, genuinely try and take control of my own mental health.

I have decided that this year suicide is off the table, it is just not an option. I am going to choose to let myself live! I am going to enjoy the little things, I WILL STOP self-sabotaging, I will force myself to get up and participate and I will do things that I never believed I could.

I will spend more time with the family

I will get fix my poor garden!

(Work in progress)

 2017 bucket list:

• Write every week or more often 
• Climb Mt Kosciuszko 
• Continue to exercise daily, building up my running time
• Listen to music daily
• Spend time in nature at least 3 times per week
• Get on top of my garden and make it beautiful again
• Finally run in the “mothers day classic’ fun run
• Have photo books printed
• Spend more time with the family
• ·        Eat quality foods that will nourish my body

Let the games begin. HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!

You can also follow the podcast @mentalpod and Katie @rosearium on Twitter

On Top Of The World! (well, Australia)

It is the summer holidays here in Australia and the kids are hot, sweaty and bored. So hubby and I decided to do what anyone else in this situation would do and drive 4 hours away from our comfortable couch and go on a 6 hour 20km hike up to the top of the tallest mountain in Australia and then drive home again, all in one day! 

So after wails of “My iPod’s flat, are we there yet?” from the back seat, we finally drove into the Kosciuszko National park around lunchtime and found ourselves amidst a very large group of hardcore cyclists. These lycra clad exercise junkies had ridden up 30 odd kilometres of hilly terrain just to reach the BEGINNING of the walking track that led to the summit of Mt Kosciuszko. Once they arrived many of these cyclists, who were clearly not yet content with their energy expense for the day, felt that they would then RUN up to the summit and back. Bah, Fit People!  

   

We paused for a picnic lunch on the rocks before embarking on our journey, sadly calling it a “quest to the top of Australia” did not fill the children with much extra enthusiasm once they thought about how far 18km actually was in relative terms, but spurring them on with promises of chocolate muffins at the top, we took a quick group photo for the cycle warriors and set off on our adventure.

We noticed the distinct lack of trees the higher we climbed, not a single speck of ground was visible but for the walking track, with mosses, shrubs and large rocks completely covering the landscape. 

The wildflowers were diverse and stunningly beautiful. Part of me immediately began planning a rock garden project to replicate this at home.

There were abundant mountain streams and little springs where we could refill our drink bottles with crystal clear, pure icy water. Despite it being a perfect sunny day in the middle of summer and over 30degrees Celsius, patches of ice and snow still covered areas of the mountains and the light, cool breeze was refreshing and invigorating. 

We peered over the low level concrete bridges along the wide gravel pathway where fingerling brown trout were darting between the rocks in the streams, chasing and fighting over the more uncoordinated dragon fly’s as they landed briefly on the water surface. The children quickly made a game of slapping the giant March Fly’s on each other’s backs and throwing them down to the fish.

 

Many different walks of life made the same epic climb the day we were there, there were the ultra-fit cyclists of course all dolled up in their lycra bike shorts and backpack water sippy things, there were the experienced hikers with their khaki cargo shorts, cotton shirts and huge backpacks containing compasses, snake bite kits and rations for several days in case Hollywood movie style bad weather was to suddenly to set in. 

We saw the overseas tourists with their selfie sticks and layers of clothing excitedly chattering in foreign languages while filming each other conquering this national landmark. Older people made their way up too, slowly but surely in their long sleeved shirts and broad brimmed hats with plenty of stops for photographs and luke warm thermos coffee. 

 

There were quite a few families much like us, Mum, Dad and the kids. Shorts, T-shirts and the smell of SPF 50+. Complaints of “My legs are broooookkkennn!” “how much further?” and “I’m hungry!!” flowed from the children while the parents forced smiles, ignoring their own burning muscles and pangs of regret by trying to be encouraging “Wow we are nearly there! When we get to the top we can have something to eat, look at the snow!”

Despite the different worlds we came from, as we stood at the top of that mountain and looked at the most incredible view of this beautiful country that I have ever seen, there were shared smiles and an unspoken comradery between all of us that day, we had made it!

The walk from the summit back to the car may have nearly killed my two youngest children aged 7 & 10 and they have vowed never, ever to do it again but they achieved a sense of accomplishment and pride in themselves that day and even admitted that it was actually a fantastic experience. Particularly fantastic in retrospect while we were finally sitting down at Mc Donalds on the way home looking at the photos of the stunning landscapes and eating Big Macs and Sundaes without the usual guilt.

Awful, awful photo but the only proof I have!

While we are still nursing our aching calf muscles several days later and it turns out I might not be as fit as I thought I was, our little Mt Kosciuszko adventure was a big tick off my bucket list and a wonderful experience that I am really happy I got to have and will never forget.

Once upon a time

Time. They say it heals all wounds and they say it flies, yet wounds will continue to heal so very slowly as life flashes past with lightning speed. Another year has passed, yet another year that I thought I would never experience but I blinked and there it went. And I am still here.

I am still here to stare meaninglessly out my study window wondering what I would have missed if I had of successfully ended my life back in 2015. What would be different now, would my family still be living in our rusty old farm house overlooking a flooded dam surrounded by gum trees and squawking sulphur crested cockatoos? Or would my death have seen them move back into the city, closer to schools and support networks surrounded by busyness and distractions to keep them from wondering what could have been.

The reality of the last 18 months is nothing eventful has happened, no major events. Nothing much has happened that I would have missed out on if I was not here. I still haven’t been able to honestly utter the words “I am glad I am alive to see that”. There have been many things that were enjoyable, fun even but nothing I feel I couldn’t have lived without. 

My biggest accomplishment over that time has been writing my memoir, which will probably remain unpublished and yet gave me an inner strength I never knew I had. My story has been told, and if it is read one day that will be a bonus. 

Rain is trickling down my window and I glance at the photos I have pegged to string running the length of my tiny study wall. Photos of happy times, of weddings and Christmas’s and babies and pets. Pictures depicting fun and laughter, hope and promise – moments captured in time that remind me there are good days too.

Photos are so often dishonest portraits of a life lived, posed for and propped. After all we seldom photograph the bad times, who wants to re live the sorrow or the fear? These darker times are left to fade in our memories, some experiences fading faster than others.

I become very photo happy when I am manic, evidenced by my hard drives full of images of trees, rocks and tiny mushrooms. I try to endlessly capture the intense beauty seeping from the sheer complexity of everything around me in hope I will revisit these images with the same enthusiasm when the world around me once more fades to shades of grey.  

My children had their last day of school for the year today, they will return in February as grade 3, 6,8 and 9 students. They have grown so fast. I look up at my photo wall and I am drawn to an image of me aged 17 holding my newborn son, I look so young – I suppose I was. I had already experienced so much ‘growing up’ at that age that becoming a ‘teenage mother’ was just another inevitable step in my path of manic consequence. 

 I remember looking at him feeling this overwhelming sense of responsibility. I was responsible for the well-being of a real live all be it tiny human, it wasn’t a goldfish – there were serious consequences if I forgot to feed it or clean it or heaven forbid accidently kill it. This was real. Judgements flew around me, many from total strangers “babies having babies!” disgusted looks and shaking heads. 

Depression followed naturally, but it was no stranger to me so I got through it again, time passed, highs flew, lows lingered, marriage, babies, illness, experiences filtered through the in betweens, all these compartments bonding together and creating a wholeness, a story, my story.

Like it or not our stories are made up of time, how much ‘life’ we fit into the time we have, the manic desire for more and the depressives desire for less. 

But the hands of the clock will continue to move with every minute long after our time has passed, we can just hope that as those hands tick forward our stories will be told by others as memories and lessons, passed on through the generations of that fleeting moment we spent here, once upon a time.