Life, Love and the Everyday

When I was younger I was a day-dreamer, I could be doing school work or a menial task and suddenly find myself in my imagination. This was strongly discouraged, with people saying to me.  "Life isn't a dress rehearsal!" Or "This isn't a game!" "Snap out of it!"  It took me awhile to train my imagination not to barge in whenever it felt like it.  However, I have come to see life as a long-running sit-com. The story-line evolves around you. There are main characters, casual appearances and extras. As the story of you evolves so does your wardrobe and hair style. Theres a plot twist every season and a new perspective. Your cast-mates are your family and friends, theres a villian to your protagonist and during all this there is warmth, love, laughter, loss, grief and betrayal. And life goes on, the cycle repeats, lessons are learned and re-learned until we understand them.  Every season of our lives has a story, a cast and a perspective of h

There is something to be said about nature and what we can learn about ourselves. With the blessing of the sun and rain, out come the spiders one by one and two by two with the promise of spider-babies. I loathe spiders but I respect them, going with common sense that if I leave them alone, they will leave me alone. When I was teen I tried to watch Arachnids and screamed girlishly before hiding my face behind a big pillow. The funny thing is, I can sit through Eight-Legged Hairy Freaks because the spiders in that movie were hilarious - they made squeaky noises whenever they died! As for Aragog in Harry Potter...okay, I might have jumped a foot or two... When I was in my early twenties I kept have nightmares about a spider the size of a beach-ball using its stinger to paralyze and drain me. So my experiences with imaginary spiders have been, up until now - (with the exception of Eight-Legged Hairy Freaks) quite unpleasant! Recently the real spiders have sought the sanctuary of

Kasey Chambers is my favourite Australian singer. The first song I ever heard was "Am I Not Pretty Enough?" and that song really resonated with me throughout my teen years because I battled with body-image and self-consciousness. In my early twenties I changed my tune to "Rattlin' Bones" because for me that song was about paying my dues and facing my past. The Captain - feeling unworthy in the eyes of someone else, a song played off and on these past few years. We're All Gonna Die Someday is my all-time karaoke favourite and I cried the first time I heard Summer-Pillow. But my song of the year is The Quiet Life, Kasey Chambers wrote it with her ex-husband Shane Nicholson. It's a song about two people finding happiness in the wide open space of the country-side and contentment in the everyday with each other. It has beautiful lyrics and a soothing, sweet harmony. When I first listened to the song a few months ago, I found myself craving a more sim

Many years ago at the tender age of thirteen, I went on my first date and saw Big Fat Liar starring Frankie Muniz. I had such a big crush on him back in the day! Big Fat Liar is about this kid who tells tall-tales and writes a story called Big Fat Liar for summer school home-work and somehow the story ends up in the hands of a big-time producer with the grin of a shark who steals the story and turns it into a script for a movie and Frankie Muniz's character has to prove that he was the real writer. One of the lines I got from that movie is 'The truth is overrated.' At the time I thought there was nothing scarier than having your Mum and kid-sister sitting three rows back to chaperone. Sixteen years is a lot of time to contemplate on things that scare me more. There are lots of things that scare me. Real and imagined. But what scares me more these days is the truth. Sometimes what we believe is the truth, isn't the truth. The truth isn't overrated. It's

Funny fails are the most desired failure out of four categories. There are funny fails, accidental fails, awkward fails and fucked up beyond recognition failure. No one wants to be in the red with fucked up beyond recognition.  But shit happens, we're only human.  Like everyone I have made mistakes in my life and I've had to learn to look back with love and compassion. I can speak with confidence and clarity on this subject simply because I'm human and I have had a crash-course in the four categories of failure. What I have learnt from failure is that you need to go back to where you perceived that you failed so you can move on. Whether its a place, person or situation - go make your peace with it to get a new perspective on the outcome. You may not always get the closure you are hoping for but you can walk away knowing you did what you could to make amends. The first step you take to recover from failure is admitting it. The second step is don't try and h

The truth is that every time I think I know what I know, I learn something that I don't.  It's a scary thing, the truth. It's also liberating, exhilarating, and makes me think of exciting possibilities for the non-too-distant future. I am not perfect. I am the most flawed person I know. But what I specialise in is the truth, failure and persistence. With the truth, you have to acknowledge it, feel it and accept it - then allow it to guide you to where you need to be. I can tell you exactly where the truth has led me. It's a seven-foot wooden fence, there's been a couple of splinters but the good news is that there are solid beams to take my weight. I have climbed to the top of the fence and have glimpsed what lies beyond it. Opportunities that scare and thrill me at the same time. Now that I have reached the top of the hypothetical fence, I have had the pleasure of receiving three guides. The first one is Cautious - Cautious and I are good friends, we

Hand-prints are our personal identity, other than our souls. We have nineteen bones in our hands, all of them small like jig-saw pieces. A family friend once read my palms, she knew enough to tell me that there would be two big loves in my life. One I would have when I was young, the second when I was wiser and the second would be constant. (True). I would also have two children. (Yet to be determined.) And I would live long. Years ago, my Mum went on a spiritual odyssey and took us with her. Together we navigated Buddism, the New Age movement and reflected on our lives, how our choices had brought us to where we were.  What was the meaning of life and what the hell were we doing here? It was a colourful and erratic journey full of wonder and questions. Some questions our spiritual teachers could answer, others we had to dig deep in our hearts - the rest of the answers came with time, patience and prayer. But we did settle down in 2009 and turned back to God. Since then, our spi

The truth can be hard to accept sometimes, so we go on with what we are doing and pretend that it doesn't exist. But little by little, it comes out in ways that we could never see coming. Sometimes other people close to us can see the truth clear as day, even if we do not say a word. And when people see the truth we know we cannot hide it any longer. There are two choices. We own the truth and face what comes with it. The acceptance, the consequences, the grief and move on with dignity and possibilities. Or, we get scared and hold on fiercely to what we know, even if it's not the truth. Both choices require courage. The first requires strength and daring. The second choice requires more than what you think you can give. Both require sacrifice even as you weigh the cons and pros of each choice. Today, a truth caught up to me. It knocked me on my ass so I would look it in the face. Do I have courage, strength and daring? Or do I do what I do - knowing what I kn

I cannot remember a time when I have not had a love-hate relationship with food, mix that with low-level confidence and PCOS (Polycystic Ovaries Syndrome) and turning to junk food becomes a habit, a coping strategy and a justification. That has been my personal journey with my eating habits and life-style choices for the past 10 years. Polycystic Ovaries Syndrome affects one in ten women and it is pretty shitty. Hair-loss, hiritusim, mood-swings, depression, anxiety, brain fog, bloated stomach, inconsistent periods, tiredness and infertility. It has only been the past four years since going to my Personal Trainer that I started my journey back to health. I've come a long way since I started. The me four years ago ate crap, walked everywhere but couldn't budge the weight. The me three years ago did a 12 week challenge with no sugar or wheat, lost weight and did not have the discipline so I packed it all on. Two years ago I started to understand that being healthy is more t

Some days I'm happy to go out and see people. Other days I wrestle with my emotions, reasoning my fears with common-sense rather than justify them and stay at home where I'm content and comfortable with everything I already know. On days where my anxiety begs me to call up work and say I'm sick - I gently take it by the hand and say that we'll be ok. We might laugh or cry, but we'll be ok. I have learnt as a writer, we need to be around people and see the best and worst of being human - because if we just lock ourselves away from the world then we won't emphasise with our characters, adapt our views or cultivate and develop our work - and we won't grow as people. This is the pep-talk I am giving myself on this sunny Friday morning on my morning commute to work. And its working. So far. - Sarah x

LIFE There is a saying, 'No matter how you feel. Get up, dress up, show up and never give up'. And I do all that. To be honest though, some days I do it better than others. There are days when I want to just be safe with what I know, somewhere I am confident. And that's at home. Shortly after moving into our new house, I have realised that these days I crave something more of a simpler and quiet life without so much rush and bustle. I am good at hiding - but I have found that if I hide too well and too often, people won't come and find me and while that is good for when I'm smashing out a novel; it can get rather lonely.  So I have started to show my face, getting more comfortable with it - Instagram has been awesome and people have been so encouraging and supportive. Last week I got over my self-consciousness and posted a video of me painting a planter that I'm going to plant strawberries in. It took a couple of tries to get the right angle and the ri

LIFE Our second week in our new home has been uneventful...mostly. A. fell down in the city and chipped a front tooth. The circumstance had me thinking of the childhood rhyme Jack & Jill and I wonder if, when Jack fell down the hill whether his front teeth was the crown he broke... As for myself, I made the mistake of hand-washing our clothes in the laundry sink and hung it out to dry on the line. I forgot we left our clothes pegs at Fawlty Towers! The washing was hanging out there for three days until A. and *Harry found it all scattered on the lawn around the line! Whoops! LOVE The perks of living in a suburb where the buses go every 10-20 minutes means a longer sleep-in for yours truly. What's really cute is that A. and I walk to the bus stop together and this ritual makes me giddy. On Tuesday A. was off to the gym and he was wearing his Storm supporter gym shorts and in that moment I really wished God had Instagram too so I could send him an appreciation post wit

LIFE Everyday we learn something about our new home. It prefers traditional furniture but likes the sound of rap. On Saturday morning when A. walked to the nearby shops, about five houses down he found a lawn-sale. He and *Harry went and picked out a closet, a tv cabinet and a few other things. I went by myself a little later and selected some garden tools, an old fashioned rocking horse, a white wooden table and a collapsible work-bench. Yesterday our new goods were delivered by the previous owners and it took a couple of trips. I found myself down the street again and was invited to look through what was left. Instead I found myself listening to the stories of two sisters who had grown up happily in that house. I was transported back to the 50's when the house we are now living in was bush-land with children from the neighbourhood building forts and climbing trees until dinner-time on weekends and during school holidays. It was a magical childhood for both of them, until the

LIFE As far as moving goes, we had a good day on Saturday. There was a little bit of stress because we moved with a tradie ute that had no sides and a trailer. We knocked down six loads worth in three trips. Our removalists from AirTasker, a husband and wife team came with their beautiful three-year old girl and we did some drawing while her parents and A. worked out the best way to manoeuvre the furniture out of the unit. Once they moved the furniture downstairs they worked hard to angle and position everything just so within legal bounds on the ute and trailer. They pulled off a miracle, helped us move our furniture into the house and asked us where to put it before leaving for their next task.  To celebrate our new home, my family came and Dad ordered pizza. We were completely knackered but were so happy, eating pizzas and passing my baby cousin around in a circle and swapping stories. The only thing that was missing was *Cassandra's presence. Our new home is wonderful. I

LIFE New beginnings are hard work, for a short amount of time our lives evolve around them.  A. is working hard at his new job and I am packing up what remains of our time at Fawlty Towers. You don't realize how much you have and what you don't need until you are nominated by default to deal with chaos. My neighbor Jess heard my screeches of frustration and helped me sort through the CD's and DVD's with no cases and the life A. lived before me.  I kept all the sentimental things like photos of relatives and the things I knew he would want to keep, like the Deftones and Metallica. It was a bit of a daunting task - a relationship tester and I am a little nervous because my test result will be revealed at our new abode. Speaking of which, The Move is in three days. Yesterday I spoke with a nice lady called Amelia from the company who is responsible for connecting our electricity, gas and water. She put me through to this recorded message where the speaker was stride

Weeks before A. and I headed to Brunei Darusallem, Singapore and Malaysia this reality that we are about to step into feels like a dream. A really good dream. Our guest room and hall-way are stacked with sealed boxes and in five days, we will be saying goodbye to living at Fawlty Towers. As for the people of Fawlty Towers, I'm going to miss living in our little tight-knit community; what houses our community is a red brick throwback from the 80's with rusticating iron work and temperamental plumbing but it's familiar and in the four years we have lived here, it's been home. We moved in here in June 2013, it was the making of who I am today. I came here depressed, lonely and angry with how I had worked so hard for everything only to have it slip through my hands. But I was hopeful. I prayed to God everyday for guidance, for understanding and healing. And God helped me through that time, I remember reading a verse in the Bible about how God had knocked down a buildi

LIFE While I was reading "Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert. I was absolutely blown away by it, swept up in the magic, the wonder of creativity and the plain honesty. As I was reading it I realised that I had been making excuses for not being creative. My favourite excuse was that I do not have room in my humble two-bedroom unit - the day I finished reading the book I went and bought a set of twelve small tubes of paint and have dabbled a little bit. Magic came forth, colours blended and merged. What I learnt out of reading Big Magic was that I apologise way too much - sometimes when I know I have messed up and the rest of the time just out of habit. It's time to kick sorry in the balls. For a long time I believed that a successful writer was a famous one, for the past couple of years I have been starting and then abandoning projects because just when it starts to look good I ask myself 'Is it perfect?' or 'Will it get published?' and then I become

Guilt is like an unravelling ball of yarn. It's difficult to wind it back neatly, it follows you, trips you up when you least expect it, it gathers and knots together tightly. The only way to get rid of guilt is to cut it off. Guilt is something that has surfaced alot for me. One of those things was watching A. work two, sometimes three casual jobs and I felt like a failure even though I work part-time three days a week. Then I realised, after talking with *Victoria, *Cassandra and my neighbour Jess, that my contribution to our home was being able to provide stability, emotional support, cleaning, laundry and that shifted my perspective of me as a failure to being a provider and partner. I am still sifting through the guilt of other things. Like keeping a low-profile on the social scale this year, not following through with my 2017 Resolution of giving up soft-drink and while there is still time for me to be a size ten - it's a tight squeeze!  I know that as I chase t

Saturday: 27th of May The eight hour flight was uneventful and pleasant. I was sitting next to a nice, quiet Asian bloke who helped me find the ear-phone speaker, how to operate my small television and how to put the corded television remote back in its holder. I'm not exactly the most tech-savvy person... I spent the whole flight watching Victoria and somewhere in the middle I had a little kip. I arrived in Singapore at 3:10PM that afternoon. Nervous but excited, I disembarked the plane - and couldn't stop myself from muttering 'Holy shit!' when I saw the immigration lines. It was organised chaos; I spent about twenty minutes waiting in that line before heading through security check and then went to pick up my luggage. I went and stood at the first conveyor belt I saw for a good five minutes before I looked up at the sign and realised I was waiting at the wrong place. I moved to the next conveyor belt and found my suitcase. Then I was free. I headed out the doo

LIFE Last Thursday morning at 10:03AM, A. and I arrived back in Brisbane from ten days of travelling. We spent five days in Brunei Darussalam before jumping on a ferry for Labuan where we spent a night, then we got a plane to Sabah (shortest flight I have ever been on) where we spent two nights before going back to Labuan, spent another night there before heading back to Brunei Darussalam for one more night before waking up at 4:30AM on Wednesday to fly out to Singapore at 9:15AM. We spent twelve delightful hours in transit before hopping on a plane back home. If there is ever an apocalypse, Singapore Airport is the place to be! For the past five days A. and I have been adjusting ourselves to the cold climate that we have come back to after spending ten days in the tropics. The first couple of days were a bit 'meh' because the second we scanned our passports at immigration our overseas holiday had well and truly ended. I'll say this for A. and I, we travel well tog

When I was young, I foolishly believed that when I was an adult people would stop being mean to each other. This was before I started watching the news and reading the garbage that pops up on my Facebook newsfeed and sadly, people who I once considered friends turning out to be meanies. These days I sadly see and hear a lot of mean. People scheming, conspiring and just being plain witchy-bitchy. On the first day of my holiday, at the beginning of an Air concert - I was thinking about mean people and getting angry thinking about mean people - which was basically me giving them more power than they deserve. So for those of you out there who are feeling discouraged, surrounded by meanies or being talked about by meanies... My advice is to forget about them. Because by forgetting about them, they are nothing to you and you stop believing the bull-shit they say about you and everyone else.  A meanie who is forgotten by everyone has no power. Love yourself so much that when somebody

Last week I was up late and scrolling through YOUTUBE when I stumbled across two videos. One of them was Sarah Knight talking about not giving a f*** (that's a life-changing video, I have watched it four times) and Shauna Shapiro saying that what we practice grows stronger. Watching those videos created a chain of events. At a Professional Development workshop I read a book about Thich Nhat Hanh which made me think about meditation. Years ago when I first tried meditation, I absolutely hated it and didn't see the point in sitting down and thinking about nothing. Now that I am twenty-eight, meditation is something I really enjoy. Just sitting there, present in the moment and hearing the sound of my breath going through my nostrils and out of my mouth and hearing the beat of my heart. I am hoping that by practicing meditation that it will help me cope with the occasional on-sets of anxiety I have. Today was my day off and after going to my personal training session, doing

LIFE A chill is in the wind and the leaves are beginning to dot and fall. What I love about Autumn is its a time of reflection and de-cluttering. With a new season at the door, A. and I are preparing ourselves for a new chapter. After four years at our current abode, we are starting to look for a rental house where we can have barbeques and built-in wardrobes. Soon we'll be saying a fond farewell to our cosy two bedroom unit that has given us a sanctuary from the world. The people who come to live in our small community are beautiful souls who fell on rough times.  I told my neighbour Jess that our units remind me of The Cave of Adullum, where David ran to hide from Saul. At first it was just him, alone in a cave and cut off from everything he knew or was, depressed and angry with his circumstances. But he wasn't alone for long, men from different walks of life with stories of their own came to seek shelter in the cave of Adullum. Sons of rich fathers who had gambled aw

LIFE The weather in Brisbane is turning chillier which feels simply divine after the heat-wave that lasted all summer. It's cardigan and jumper season again and I can't seem to find the reindeer mistle-toe jumper I picked up at a Fashion Warriors event last year... At the moment my thoughts and intentions are centred around home - in three months A. and are moving out to somewhere new so I am using this time to do the in-depth cleaning that I was too lethargic to do in the summer. The Danish have something called Hygge in winter (pronounced hooga), it's basically when it's too cold to go anywhere so they stay close to home. I feel that I will be in hygge for the next nine months before my wedding - but hey, bring it on! I can't believe how fast this year is flying. LOVE This past week I haven't seen much of A. because he's on a contract, waking up at 5:00am and coming home at 6:00pm. He's experiencing profound work right now, taking calls from