Bucket List 2013

Howdy people!

The year 2013 is fast approaching us, and so now is the time for taking stock of 2012 and what it brought us - for me it brought a few final life lessons, love and an amazing start to what I believe will be a watershed year.

I am very much looking forward to the adventure.

I have resurrected the blog to focus on a list I have started. One of those bucket list thingies. I already have one of them about to be ticked off even before the New Year hits, and I am super pumped. I will probably add to the list throughout the year, but the blog will keep me honest. I want to look back at the coming 12 months in a year's time and have most, if not all, of these items ticked.

1. Skydiving - I have already booked the dive with the mob that jumps over Wollongong beach. My New Year's Eve will be spent jumping out of a plane over the coast with my amazing boyfriend, who inspired me to get this one off my to do list even before we met. Sounds crazy? That's cos we are :)

2. Fall in love - check. One of the great things that happened to me in 2012 was meeting someone who seems to "get" me on every level.

3. Snorkelling at Clovelly - in the next 18 months I intend to make this eastern Sydney beach my backyard, but for the rest of the summer and as long as it remains hot, I shall be getting my snorkel on and getting adventurous underwater.

4. Take a photo a day  - to do this, I intend to buy a decent camera and learn how to use it - this has been something I have wanted to do for a long time. Time to get it done.

5. Learn how to play my guitar - again, it's just time.

6. Run the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk - I have walked this coastal walk many times in the last few years, but living here for the past few days has really inspired me. People here incorporate fitness into their daily routine. It's inspiring. I shall run it.

7. Do the Spit to Manly walk - I have done this once before when I was really unfit, and this time I'd like to smash it.

8. Visit the Sydney Aquarium at Darling Harbour, the Powerhouse Museum, The Sydney Observatory, NSW Art Gallery and the Sydney Museum at least once during the year.

9. Submit my book to my publishers - as NIKE says, "just do it".

10.  Meet my bestie every Wednesday at Coogee and do the stairs. Ouch. Just do it!

The following may take longer than the year will allow, given I will need time off. But here is my travel bucket list.

1. Dive with sharks in Western Australia

2. Swim with Dolphins at Monkey Mia

3. South pacific cruise

4. Cuba

5. Great Ocean Road trip

6. Cave diving in Tasmania

7. Snorkel the Great Barrier Reef

Love and stuff

I resurrected the blog so that I could give all you lovely people that have been following my journey for so many years a heads up, even though I've been dropping a few hints here and there, it's time to "go public". I have  met someone lovely, and it looks like they think I'm pretty lovely too. So we're seeing where this goes.

I will not be doing anything publicly like updating my Facebook relationship status, but I feel it's an important memo, given so many of you listened to my self doubt, questions about "when will it happen for me, if at all", and straight up whinging.

It happened quite quietly, unexpectedly (which so many of you promised it would be, goddammit I hate proving you right!), and it feels very right.

Theory

I have long been taught that when we waste our time with people who no longer serve our highest good, that we prevent those who are meant to be in our lives from coming in. I have long stopped wasting time with people who do not serve my highest good, so it can't be me holding up my destiny anymore.

So my "guy" who is out there, somewhere, who I have been waiting patiently for a very long time to meet, is wasting time with someone or someones who no longer serve his highest good.

This is obviously no good.

I need to send a message to him to stop wasting time with her/them/whoever. Deal with whatever you need to deal with, dude, and move on and meet me!

Second chances

I have just finished watching "Walk the Line", the story of Johnny Cash's life told from the point of view of his love affair with June Carter.

There is a strong theme of second chances and redemption of a life-long sinner. It occurs to me that Johnny Cash was one of those people who are deeply disturbed and yet are deeply loved by those who love them. He is almost oblivious to it. It seems he never feels worthy of love, and his lyrics often paint a portrait of a man tormented by the question "why me?" As in "why did I survive life, when my "better" brother Jack didn't". "Why does this angel of a woman love me in spite of my addictions and demons?" "Why am I so successful?"

I have known people like this. Heck, I'm one of them.

Is there ever really an answer?

Don't blog angry...

I wish I could take my own advice, but I'm never that smart. So I'm blogging angry.

I've had the day, nay the week, from hell. All through no fault of my own. Now this rant mainly revolves around things outside my control at work, but could apply to other situations. It occurs to me that I put up my hand to help others, I take on feedback where I fall short in my relationships, and adjust my own behaviour to take into account that feedback.

But as soon as I ask for even a little of that in return.... nothing.

Nada. Zip. Zero.

Sayonara, silly lady.

This rant is squarely directed at things not going so well at work. But, I am going to have another go at the Universe now. Just cos I am feeling angry and not all that "go-with-the-flow"-y.

The universe sucks sometimes. I just don't get it. When is it my turn, huh?

I really do choose to see the positive in my situation, I know I have it a hell of a lot easier than a lot of others (99% of the world's population, even). But seriously? I'm angry. That just explains it. I'm pissed off and angry and just so mad at the world that I could rip everything to pieces and start again as a Tibetan lama in the hillsides of Nepal.

Of course I'm not going to do that.

But days like today, it's oh so tempting...

Okay, I'm done now. Self-indulgence over.

Normal service resuming shortly.

Quick of thought, slow to feel, hasty to act

I have been trying to approach my final chapter in the last few weeks. It's a tough nut to crack. Maybe I should just get writing, as I did for all the other chapters and it will just flow. I am holding back and unsure why.

I thought I was already pretty self-aware, but during this whole writing process I have had the most amazing insights that have taken me further. The latest one is the absolute conviction that I am quick of thought but slow to feel. And that when my thoughts catch up with my feelings, I am hasty to act. Feelings are quite hard for me to identify, and it's only when I have been given a long time to reflect on some of the more intense ones that I even realise I have been feeling those things at all.

So when I feel attraction for someone, it dawns on me very very slowly. Even when my body has noticed it from the very start, and given me all the warning signs for me to take heed! It's like my body and my head are still doing this disconnect thing, and it is only when I have slowed my thoughts right down and allowed myself to notice things going on in my physical being that I begin to realise it's there, lurking beneath the surface.

Then when I notice I am feeling this way, my head immediately takes over and starts barking orders at me. Which then makes me hasty to act on what I have just realised I am feeling.

But, you see, I have created many problems in the past by acting this way, going from 0 to 100 in 5 seconds flat. So this time I think I will allow myself to feel the feelings a little while longer and enjoy the stirrings of attraction. Should they go somewhere, that would be rather nice. Should they not, I can accept that too.

Difficulties

I am having great difficulty at the moment with something that I really, really want to be good at. My approaches are simply not working, and I find myself getting tied in knots, mentally speaking.

I also made a big big boo-boo today. It was rather large. Fixed now, but I should really have known better.

This would be the point where I would start blaming myself, and beating myself up about how much of a failure I feel. It's tempting to go back down this thought process route. But I am not going to do that. This is the point I need to show myself some compassion. Just because I am not good at everything, doesn't mean I am a failure.

High achiever.

You wouldn't want to be one.

Houston, we have sanity

I was driving home this evening from a long work day. Normally I crank the tunes up to level 11, Spinal-Tap-style, but tonight something made me refrain from even turning the radio on.

I drove home in complete silence. Apart from the sound of my car, I just sat and drove home with just my thoughts. It was amazing. And very illuminating. The feeling of just moving along the same route I've taken for the last 8 months, with a difference, made me realise something.

I'm fine.

I'm not being cute. I have realised that I am absolutely fine.

After years of a lot of self-reflection, counselling, therapy, meditation, kinesiology, breathwork, life coaching, mentorship at various places of work, long fireside chats with some pretty amazing people in my life, as well as the normal coming and going of the various little challenges I've faced in that time, I feel about as balanced and at peace in myself as I can remember feeling.

I am at the end of the tunnel, in fact, I'm probably way out in the fields that line the edges of that tunnel. If I remember the start of my walk through it, I had absolutely no idea I could ever feel this way, serene and calm and unflappable. I had no idea I could sit in my car in silence and be at peace with the thoughts that floated to the surface. They were things like "this feels good" and "gosh, I have a nice life, when you really look at it" and "I wonder what's for dinner."

In fact, I've been fine for some time.

A letter to my future partner

A friend of mine once asked me to blog a letter to my 16 year old self. I thought a lot about that request, but the energy is just not there to give the task what it deserves. I am normally averse to dwelling too much in the past, a very very strange thing to say given I am in the process of writing my memoirs. But, as a rule, I don't like encouraging it. I am trying to cultivate and foster the habit of living in the "now", for that's where life takes place.

But, it has gotten me thinking about what I used to do a lot - think about and wonder where "the one" is. I spent a lot of time over the past half a decade or so wondering whether it would ever happen for me again. Enough to write a letter to my future partner.

So here goes.

********************************************************************************

It's wonderful to have finally met you. I feel like a gift has been given to me, something that I had once given up on, but worked really hard to believe I was worthy of.

I know that I will love you to the core of my being, because I have a lot of love to give, and I've been waiting for someone like you to be open to that love, care and affection.

I know you are a very special person, because only a very special person could have overcome my resistance to change, to allow me to yield my independence once more, and give myself to interdependence. As lonely as it's been sometimes, my ability to be myself completely and without reserve has been a hard-won struggle for me for a very long time, and I've encountered many false starts along the way that have made me pull my toes back out of the water again. For someone to inspire me to give my heart completely to them, to change my status from "single" to "in a relationship", you must be true, loyal and committed to a life with me. For that I am grateful.

I am grateful for the work you have put into developing a strong character, to be able to stand up for your ideas and opinions. I am grateful you have the ability to have swept me off my feet, to be able to clear away my doubts from the remnants of lovers past that have caught me in their webs and hurt me.

I have thought about you quite often. How you are living your life, what you might be doing or seeing. How your character might have been shaped. I admire the clarity of thoughts that you have, and your ability to debate with me about anything and everything. I love the way you are unafraid to disagree with me, or even to call me on my bullshit occasionally, for I know that occasionally I can be difficult. Something which you no doubt would realise after half an hour in my presence, with my incessant mental gymnastics, especially when I feel open and vulnerable emotionally, the way you make me feel.

I love your sense of humour, the way you can be both serious when needs be, but silly and playful all the other times when seriousness is not called for. It keeps me young and mentally agile to play verbal volleys with you and pit our wits against each other.

I am grateful for your affection and attention, for so many men believe this makes them seem weak and less of a man. For me, this is untrue. I love your ability to melt into me and allow me to melt into you, and our affection, touch and love could never be considered "too much" for each other.

I love your passion, not only for me, but for life. Sometimes I get morose and depressed. My anxieties and worries can get the better of me. I do not ask you to bear any responsibility to "make me better" as I have learned to do this for myself, but I also appreciate the way you can, with just a few positive words, turn a dark day around with a smile.

We all have a tendency to project our weaknesses onto those we love and blame them for the resulting "issues". I am so very grateful for your wisdom and insight in these situations. I don't expect us to never fight, for where's the growth in a life filled with peaceful avoidance of the truth? But I do appreciate that when we do fight, we are fair and never nasty. And that we can both navigate the truth of any situation to its ultimate solution. I love that you are committed to finding solutions with me, rather than simply pointing out the problems.

Finally, I am eternally grateful that I will be falling asleep next to you, and waking up with you, with our arms wrapped around each other, from now until the end of our days.

I feel very blessed to have met you, my best friend, my lover, my partner. I will do my very best to be the best version of myself with you, and I hope that my presence in your life has the same effect for you.

Natasha

Insight

I am now in my second quarter of my self-imposed "romance-sabbatical".

It's so very interesting to note the number of things I used to do for attention, good or bad. Without realising it, I actually was a lot more interested in how I was perceived in a 'dating' or 'availability' sense than I cared to admit, even when I was saying I was putting dating on hold, I'd never actually put it down altogether.

My motivations for doing things were not always about what I wanted, necessarily. And it took a lot of energy denying that, as well. I'll give an example. After my improv comedy graduation night, my meditation teacher commented at following sessions how I'd "now put myself out there more" and that it was a matter of time that I'd be noticed. This was in reference to my constant requests alluding to the fact that it hadn't "happened" yet for me, and how impatient I was getting with the self-improvement thing, and it not "working".

Yup.

A lot of my self-improvement was all about getting myself to a place of perceived "sanity" from the crap I had been through in previous years, and all about my trying to be "normal" again. And that normality would be vindicated once I found someone who was "normal" who wanted to be with me.

It's pretty twisted thinking, innit?

But that's life, and that's what I craved for such a long time, and that's just where I was in my *ahem* "journey".

It was all about meeting someone to partner up with.

I am not saying this is a bad thing. And I am not saying that's not what I want anymore, because it very much still is something I hope I get to do again. But my sabbatical has shown me just how much I was wrapped up in this way of thinking. That this goal, if not reached, was somehow defining me in a negative way.

I have really enjoyed the first 3 months of my romantic "time-out". I still hope to meet someone special. But it doesn't define me as much as it once did.