An unexpected compliment

I received a surprising compliment from my dear friend and fellow blogger, Kate Swaffer, this week. She very kindly awarded me a "Very Inspiring Blogger" Award. Thank you, Kate! Kate discusses a wide variety of topics, with a special focus on her experiences as a person with younger onset dementia.  

This award comes with rules of acceptance that I will address in a separate post .

Kate's blog has grown into an online community for people living with dementia, either because they have the disease or someone they love does. Her writing evokes different things on different days; it is delightful, confronting, honest, brave and inspiring. Having known Kate for almost 10 years now, it does not surprise me that she has so cleverly found a way to create much a positive and dynamic space that people are drawn to. 

I'm so grateful for this award but I'm not entirely certain I'm deserving. I created this blog because I love to write. After I finished my Bachelor of Arts I was afraid that, with my studies moving toward sciences, I wouldn't have a space to challenge myself to continue to improve the quality of my writing. 

What I have enjoyed most about writing this blog thus far has been sharing. As human beings I think we are all far more alike than different. We all have our doubts, worries, struggles, challenges and weaknesses. I think we can all be a great resource to one another when we share and make ourselves available rather than soldier on alone in times of trouble. 

Blogging has also become a useful tool in my quest to become a more self-aware person. Writing in a self-created public forum has helped me to get a whole lot better at being honest. Writing about yourself can be a bit like looking at your personality in the mirror or under a microscope. Looking at my thoughts, published on the screen, helps me evaluate them. Is what I'm thinking realistic? Am I being too harsh? Am I not being harsh enough? Are there other points of view I need to consider?

What has surprised me most is that practicing this thought evaluation process through writing has helped me change my mentality day to day. Positivity and honesty can be learned and practiced. It is not just a matter of "shutting out negativity" (whatever that pop-psychology phrase actually means), for me it is about choosing to think in a different way, practicing it and surround myself with influences that make it easier.

I think my blog is inherently a self-indulgent exercise. I do it because I want to and because I like to. I find it cathartic, relaxing, challenging and fun. I like to think that sharing my thoughts might entertain, amuse, be thought provoking and make people feel less isolated. 

"Inspiring" is a word that gets bandied around the place these days. The world seems to be becoming a more hyperbolic place by the second. It is lovely to think that my writing might inspire people, but this little blog is hardly providing a social network of support like Kate's does or working toward a great and noble cause. 

I just like writing. And for now, that's reason enough. 

Twenty two!

Yesterday was my birthday and it was lovely. Twenty two used to be one of those not particularly  significant birthdays, until Taylor Swift wrote this song...

Now, according to Miss Swift, being 22 entitles you to do all sorts of things that I've never had much interest in doing, like eating breakfast in the middle of the night.

The significance of the number 22 aside, I had a really lovely birthday. It started well on the Saturday night when some close family friends came around for dinner and stayed until late. On Sunday, "the day", Patsy arrived from Adelaide for the occasion. She was in good spirits despite a few delays and has been great the whole time she has been here. 

After picking up Patsy it was lunch time and that was when the biggest surprise of the day appeared. My buddy Leesa called around and brought with her one of the most fantastic gifts I've received, Patrick.

Leesa is the best kind of friend there is and it takes someone really special to build you a bear that incorporates your birthday and your favourite football team in something so perfectly cute and cuddly. Patrick Brebner Griffin is a limited edition St Patrick's Day mint green Build-a-Bear, dressed in his very handsome Carlton uniform. He's fantastic. 

After Leesa's visit, Patsy, Mum and I went down to the golf shop. Patsy loves that the golf bug has infiltrated the Brebner Griffin household, so she loved the idea of buying me some golf clothing for my birthday. It must have been St Patrick's Day birthday luck, because everything I tried on fitted and I got to chose which things I liked rather than having to reluctantly go with whatever I could squish myself into. We have got to know the guys down at the golf shop pretty well and they managed to find an incredible number of discounts to give us, which was fantastic and very generous. 

We had an early dinner down at the Middle Brighton Baths. It is a beautiful spot down there, but it must have changed hands since we were last there because the food, whilst edible, was somewhat underwhelming. It was so nice to have all my living grandparents in one place and seeming to enjoy each other's company. There were ten of us all together including Kate's boyfriend Tom and uncle Andrew. 

I received so many wonderful presents. I am so lucky that every year on March 17th I am the recipient of many thoughtful, valuable and lovely gifts. This year I was struck more than usual by how truly lucky I am. Getting nice things is great, but what felt different about this birthday is that I think I am the happiest I've ever been. 

The greatest gift that my friends and family give me is their unconditional love and support. Without that gift there is no way I would be where I am right now and there is no way my future would look so bright. No person is an island and it has taken me a while to learn how to accept and appreciate love and support. I think my favourite tennis player, Rafael Nadal, is right, no one achieves anything worth doing alone. I continue to be a flawed human being and my life has its moments of difficulty but day to day, I feel calm.

Material things can be lovely and I love all the presents I received, but it is what I'm given every day by the people that love me that really makes me lucky. That is why I am trying to develop a practice of being thankful.

Here we go again

I am halfway through my first week of first year for the... third time. The week itself has been fine so far, just the usual fun trying to find rooms, lecture theatres, where to park and where to hang out on a packed campus between classes. Now that this is my third time in the ring of first year uni, that part of it isn't all that daunting. I guess that is the beauty of experience, whilst things being new and unfamiliar isn't all that fun, I know that it is normal and that it won't last long.

Something I didn't anticipate about this week is how much anxiety it has brought about. The straight from school first years are a lot more fussed about not having the text book in the first week and being 10 minutes late because they couldn't find the tutorial room. 

These past few days the reality of my educational choice has come home to roost. I AM A FIRST YEAR AGAIN; I am right back to the start and I will spending 3 or 4 more years doing undergraduate study. 

My brain has been running at a million miles per hour trying to plan the rest of my life.  I am worried that I should be thinking about moving out of home; not because I want to or because my parents want me out of the house, but because I feel like at my age I should. I have started panicking that I'm going to be "old" by the time I finish this course and afraid that if I want to do postgraduate study after that then I will be ancient by the time I actually start my career.

Then I'm afraid that if I were to actually meet someone who'd want to reproduce with me and if I want to reproduce with them, my career would only just be starting by the time I might want to do that. 

Then I worry that if I'm not even going to be "ahead of the game" enough to live a basic, normal life in the right order, then what hope do I have of achieving the bigger, crazy dreams I have for myself?!

My brain is going at Usain Bolt pace down the slippery slope of my imaginary future and it is freaking me out. All this anxiety has brought home to me how much I do compare myself at other people and measure myself against societal expectations. In sociology, my Arts major, they had a term for that thing most of us feel we have to live up to: they call it the "social clock". It is a similar idea to the "biological clock" that apparently women of a certain age can hear ticking when they want to get pregnant. The "social clock" is that thing that makes us feel like we ought to do certain things at certain times in our lives; the right age to learn to drive, move out of home, get married, get a job, etcetera. 

From my studies in sociology and my reflective nature, I like to think of myself as someone who doesn't base how they feel on the views of other people. The home truth of this particular panic moment is that I do compare myself to others constantly and base much of how I feel about myself on how I measure up in this comparison. Naturally, in this comparison, I only put myself up against others who I view as being ahead of me.

I'm not that far out of step with the social clock, but it is ticking really loudly in my head. From talking some of my friends about this stuff I know I'm not alone. I think when you are young, everything in life seems like a race. 

So much about youth is about "firsts". It starts in infancy when parents compare when their children first learn not talk and walk. In primary school it becomes about first days at school, first competitive sporting matches and first homework assignments. Through late primary school and high school it only intensifies and the first become more obvious and awkward, firsts to do with puberty and sex as well as sport, music and study. 

Growing up and during school, just about everything is a race. The milestones are specific and the timeline is rigidly outlined, whether it be the school year level system, musical instrument grades or sporting team age groups. Since leaving school, the path to take in life appears to be far less rigid. However, the further I get from school, the wider the variety of choices get, the more I realise that I do feel this huge pressure to make my life fit a very rigid idea. 

I had a chat a great chat with my Mum about this stuff and she was great. She told me all the right things and reminded me that I'll probably spend a huge chunk of my life working, paying my own bills and worrying about giant grown up pressures of life. I don't need to rush my education and I need to remember that at 5 days shy of 22, to most people, I am still young. 

I'm trying really hard to train my brain not to think this way. Whilst a level of organisation and planning is good, I don't need to have my whole life sorted right now. I am so lucky and thankful to have parents who are happy to support me and seem to like having me around. Even writing this I worry that I shouldn't rely on my parents just because they are happy for me to.

I need to calm down. I need to be grateful for what I have. I need to spend more time trusting my own judgement and actually living my life, rather than being regularly struck down by panic. 

Thanks for reading my rant and to quote Ellen Degeneres, be kind to yourselves.

It rains a lot in Queensland in February

The most fun part of my trip to the Gold Coast was certainly not the trip home. My friends and I got to the airport 3 hours before our flight because there was a little whoopsy regarding our checkout time. We had to vacate our accommodation at 10am; our flight wasn't until 2pm but we didn't know what 8 people with luggage could do with themselves for a few hours during a day of torrential rain pour on the Gold Coast. It seemed the logical thing to do would be to just get to the airport early and kill the time there. 

Little did we know that our flight would be delayed by 2 hours thanks to the atrocious weather. In the end we were lucky to be flying the day we were booked to be. The airport was packed with young families and people waiting to collect loved ones but for most of the 5 hours we were waiting, no planes were landing or taking off. At one point there wasn't a single plane at the airport. As increasingly planes were being diverted to Brisbane and cancelled all together, we were very relieved to get out of the Gold Coast.

We arrived home to Melbourne at about 7.45pm to the warmest, driest weather we'd had all week. 

Whilst it pissed down with rain for most of the time we were in the Gold Coast, it was a great week. Thankfully, unlike all the surrounding areas, the Gold Coast did not flash flood whilst we were there. I really needed a break and it was interesting to go to a place that I would not ordinarily have chosen to go to. I overcame my fear of water slides, until last week I had avoided them since I was about 7 when I got stuck face down on one and was afraid I would drown. 

Despite my initial fear, I absolutely loved Wet N Wild. It was a really wet and stormy day when we went which turned out the be a great thing because it kept the crowds away. I just about chickened out of the very first water slide, but after I got through that and was a little underwhelmed by it I went berserk and had at least one turn on everything. That day was a real highlight for me. 

I wasn't able to have quite as an eventful trip as I would have liked. After a few busy days I became very fatigued and had to take a couple of rest days. Whilst this was disappointing, I was very thankful that I didn't have to stay home all together to have surgery earlier. That being said, I still went to 2 theme parks, went out to a somewhat nasty Gold Coast nightclub, went running 3 times during the week and eat way too much Nutella! I also got introduced to my new favourite TV show thanks to the one and only Kate Hardy, Misfits, and had the kind of bus to the airport sing-a-long to Kate's ipod that has to be good for the soul (and probably not the ears of the driver).

Going out at night in the Gold Coast is something I can tick off life's "to do" list but it is not something I need to repeat. It was "ladies night" the night we went, so girls got in for free and drank for free until midnight. That, along with having a much needed dance with some great friends, was the good part. However, there are many images burned into my retinas from that nightclub that simply will not budge from my memory. Most involved strangers dancing so "dirtily" that they absolutely needed to "get a room" and a stockily built woman who needed to have purchased a dress didn't creep up to her waist when she danced, completely exposing her very small undergarment...

At the nasty GC nightclub (at least girls got to drink for free before midnight!) 

The house we stayed in was fantastic, except for a bit of flooding in one of the bedrooms. Having 10 people who have not known each other for all that long living under the same room for a week did have its challenges, but overall was it was successful. You learn a lot about other people and yourself when you live together, that's for sure. 

Given that I am not continuing with paramedics, I was so glad to have the chance to spent lots of time with the great friends I made in the course.