Objects in the rearview mirror may be closer than they appear: first drafts from yesteryear and other skeletal remains

It’s funny what you discover cruising the back blocks of your blog; like this little post from back in July about heartache and change, ironically written just before I jumped ship and did my best impression of a drowning woman. It’s a serendipitous reminder of the warped nature of time that allows things to simultaneously get turned upside down and stay the same. Just today I sat in the kitchen of one of the few people outside of my family who knew me in my teens, munching on muffins and talking about the swirling moral compass, and the search for true North. I’d like to write more on that, but first, lets take a trip down memory lane to July 1st 2012:

Well, well, well….what to say when it’s not OK?

It’s been a big few months. Between the launch of thicker than water and the changing of careers, the moving house and the shifting sands of heartache, the four week infected tattoo and cancelled exotic writers jaunt, life has been pulling punches like a proverbial tent boxer. Just recently I’ve managed to emerge from the ring, wipe the blood from my face and stagger to the bar. Clutching my drink I retrace the outline of my flailing figure to acquatinces and accomplices; the responses are disturbingly similar;

“But you seem so well….”

Thats the problem, innit?

As the ship sinks around us, we’re all cocktails and brave faces; a row of canaries in coal mines, throats hoarse with sad songs. In the past eighteen months I’ve seen some of the best minds and bravest hearts I know slip out out of the social circle with their sorrows wrapped around them, wondering if anyone will notice they never said goodbye. Retreating to the privacy of bedrooms, self medicating with yoga or whiskey or HBO series, chanting mantras of abundance whilst scouring the house for half smoked cigarettes and waiting for an elusive spark to emerge from it’s indefinite hibernation.

Oh sure. We can all swap stories about the work we’ve been doing on ourselves; how we fritter our community sector wages on connecting to the source. I’m all for therapy; I know my way around a sand play pit better than most, but I do wonder why we so many of us pay someone to pick us up when we’re down.

Maybe it’s something about duration. It’s easy enough to gather a posse to help you blow off some steam or lock in a long distance friend for a no-holds-barred sob story Skype. Short sprints are fast to find an audience for, team members for marathons are harder to recruit. And the bigger they are, the harder they fall; most cataclysmic transformations tend to be protracted and gnarly affairs, and the food drops usually get sparser the deeper into the wilderness you go.

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That post was just two weeks before the boy who I was still madly in love with sat me down in a dry river with a toasted ham and cheese sandwich and told me in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want to see me anymore. I cried and bawled and outlined all the ways he’d let me down; a process that took the best part of six months to complete. Amidst it all I moved to Darwin, spoke at an international writers festival, completed a writing residency and had an ill fated fling with a man-child. I smiled and smiled though I felt like I was dying and was unable to count past the 5 stages of grief. I said things to myself I’m ashamed to repeat in public and did things in public I’m ashamed to admit to myself in private.

But I pulled through. At times only by dragging my belly along the bitumen while my friends dangled inspirational quotes like carrots in front of me, but I pulled through. Seven months later and my heart is still healing, but it’s stronger than it’s been in years. Yes, I did wander off into the wilderness, and yes, some people did drop off along the way and yes, there were times when I felt like a country song cliche, weeping into a gin and tonic in de-elasticised bathers beside an empty pool.

But I also discovered that I have amazing friends, who will never leave me hungering for love and that really all you need to get you through christmas is a kelpie and some home made dumplings. I’ve discovered how to know what I’ve learnt and learn what I know and that nothing is permanent (not even death).

And I know that the clouds MUST have lifted, because I can see the horizon again.

Thanks to everyone who sheltered me from the storms and reminded me to sing in the rain. I love you. 

xkl