Sunday 31 December 2023

Writing ideas for 2023

  1. Some of my favourite things that I have sourced from an op shop and have received from friends. and would like to source from an op-shop.  
  2. How to budget across different phases and what I learnt about debt. 

Friday 24 November 2023

Injections and IVF

This morning I put two injections in myself, on the belly, by putting an icepack to numb the area and then pinching my belly. The first injection went okay, the second created a pin prick. This is, I think, the 7th day of injecting myself but the first where I had to inject twice. I think there might be 8 days, in all, of two injections. So, about 15 days of injections*, I think?

I started off scared of needles - not a phobia, just scared of them - I still turn my head during a blood test. So, what I am doing now, really impresses me. I marvel at what an incredible human I am, I am genuinely awed by that person becoming this person because she decided that this thing had to be done. Not to say that I am not relieved when the injection is done that I won't have to do this again for 24 hours. Not to say that I don't look at those injection and always chuckle at thought of how I had always imagined baby making - a lot more fun and moaning with satisfaction. But given where life has brought me, I am thrilled that I have an option of making my own baby without having to find a husband - I mean just think about that. Not finding a husband just means that - not finding a husband, it does not mean anything else. It doesn't mean that I won't have a family or a baby. And right there, I am so impressed with you, World. Like, can you believe it? Even novels and fiction hasn't caught up with you - you are so incredible! 

I am also less exhausted - after months and months of not exercising etc. so I could try and work more and get things done - because the work was important, the work was difficult, and my experience didn't go far enough, and there were no people in my team and because this was an OPPORTUNITY - Chicory got sick and I dropped the ball. And now, while I am doing things, I also realise I can't do things and they fall all over the place. And that is just how it is. 

*these are hormonal injections, and luckily for me, Papa is here and so eating well and generally feeling safe and hormonal side-effects aren't being experienced.

    


Tuesday 7 November 2023

Exhausted

It has been 13 months of living in the past 3 months and I am tired. I want to sleep. I want more space in my house. I think I know what I'll do*. I am a bit sick of Australia because I don't have a husband - why do I not have a husband?

C got so sick last week. The vets are great at taking care of the dog but horrible at communicating - basically told me that C, well you know. So, I called Papa and he came within 48 hours, he was here. How lucky am I!! But I really wish there was a husband who could have taken care of me. 

I am going to try for IVF with a sperm donor - the donor is a physio turned doctor, who with his wife, has had a baby with a donor egg. I like that story. I wish I had a husband like that - or that my kid would have a father like that. Maybe they would - once they turn 18 - but hopefully they'll have something better. 

Work has been --- unrelenting. I wish I never Sonya again in my life - didn't help that when I had 5 to 10 minutes to actually resolve things with her, Belinda jumped in. Fuck it and I hate it. Spoke to a psychologist today thru the Employee Assistance Program today. And it led me to do exercise today for about 15 minutes because I realised that in spite of work and Chicory, nothing is going to happen if I don't take care of myself.  So I turned on the Nike Training App and did some stretching and core exercises in front of the TV. Felt really good.    

I am suddenly thinking about the big things - birth and death, and doing things when the only option is to do them the hard way. I want to buy a house walking distance from the beach. I was already keeping myself awake at night worrying about buying a house and doing well at work... burying the thinking about IVF and single motherhood and children of single mums when C got sick. I love C so much that he is the one person I am not angry with. I am angry with Seema for keeping poison in her backyard on top of a table that Chicory ate half a box of and killed his liver. I am angry that I never got to go for a three day walk to think thru all the hard things but instead got plunged into even harder things. I am angry that I do not have a husband to buy a house with, and I don't have a husband to be there for me when my dog gets sick and I need support. 

I sometimes repeat to myself that I don't want to live - I think even when no one hears me my heart does. And I have been making it sick for the past ten years by repeating that to myself. Now, I think of my heart as a little girl I once was - and I tell her I love her, I love her just as much as I love Chicory. 

There are things I am not telling you about yet: how I started to clean this apartment up when c got sick and again that has stalled. Why? What is the story that I am telling myself? And how I have put an evil eye glass pendant on Chicory's neck because I am sick of people saying nice things about him and him getting more and more sick. And how the house that I can afford near the beach will be an area where most people are not young. I think that is not true, just something someone living in St. Kilda would say. And how my bedroom looks worse than it did when I was a teenager or pretty much at any stage of my life because it is TOO SMALL and changing furniture is too hard because of the billion steps!

I think once I get pregnant, I will move to SA and rent this apartment out. I am more than tired of feeling like all my hard work is going waste, which isn't true.  

*I want a 700sqm block walking distance from the beach. I want it in January. 

Wednesday 9 August 2023

New team nervousness*!

I'm in a new team, doing things I have never done before, working with people I have never worked with before. I'm really nervous. But I am also SO excited about finally being in new waters, doing new things. Becoming a new person!! I am literally feeling like I have just jumped into the deep end. Now lets start the doggy paddle!! 

I am channeling Alistair here, he wasn't great to begin with, still isn't in heaps of ways, but he is very good at not repeating mistakes. 

But in order to find myself things I can do:

  • focus on maintaining the momentum;
  • accept mistakes but learn fast. 
  • work hard towards becoming really good at what I do
  • have FUN
  • provide great value to those around me.  



*will expand on embracing my weaknesses soon, it is from Nike's head-coach Coach Bennet's podcast, and very relevant to what I am saying here!   

Monday 31 July 2023

Why is fun always so much work?

I need to write this today because I need to get all the other words out before I can put some good ones in. I need to write a document up and I am feeling nervous as heck because I don't know how I'll get there. Something that Sir Terry Pratchett says in his book: Slip of a keyboard - you can see the other side of the valley and you know you are here and everything in the middle is covered with mist but you know that there has to be a path between. To which I can only add - you can see the other side of the valley and it is all just vague shades of green and gray at the moment. 

I am a bit peeved about this that and the other. Antonia sending me off tangent to admin tasks when I really should be writing my paper. Eeks, I hate everything. 

I am going to start a supper club - 5 people for dinner, every three weeks?

I don't want to go to Melbourne... I am getting the opposite of itchy feet, I just want to stay at home!! Do my exercise, do my dancing and have my supper club!   

In other news. I am using Debbie Millman's ten year something something remarkable life thingy and answering the questions:

Where will you be living in 10 years?

I will not be living in Canberra, I will be either living in Europe near the sea or in Australia or somewhere near the sea. I will have a vege garden, and I will be able to breathe in the sea breeze. 

Who will you be living with?

I will be living with Chicory and my husband and children. And my mum and dad will be no more than five or ten minutes away. 

How will you be looking in ten years?

I would be looking at least 10 years younger than my age - because sun screen and exercise and hydration is all you need. 

How will you be earning money?

I will have a day job, but I will also be on a free-lance writers/speaking circuit. 

Sunday 30 July 2023

Changes


It's been a month that feels more like a year! 

  • started a new job on the 3rd
  • took holiday from 12th to 18th during which
    • Mum Papa left for Delhi on the 14th
    • I started researching buying a new house from the 15th
    • meeting with accountant, with Guy Allan who is now in real estate, with Anu about the mortgage. 
  • started Pilates class on Tuesdays
  • got a regular person in to help with the cleaning (and I am beyond grateful, even tho, I feel like I should be doing this myself and even tho don't know why I can't seem to be able to do this myself!! So much to talk about here.) 
  • work is more busy and more productive than it ever has been outside of being in Grace's team. Also there is a nervousness of reaching out to a slightly challenging goal that I have not done before but that I really think I'd be good at. So much to talk about here. I really hope I don't forget it before I get a chance. 
  • got a new referral for the fertility doctor, Dr. Mark Livingstone, who was Seema's doctor for Kaeshav. 
    • blood test 
    • covid vaccine
  • re-got my piercing, looking lovely. 
So much more to do:

  • Indicator report at work - that's today's task.
  • Empty out the storage!!
  • St. George effing credit card fee!!
  • Change credit card from Westpac to ING. 
  • Catch-up with Anu for preapproval for mortgage. 
Feeling so overwhelmed. I am not really writing this properly. 

Friday 23 June 2023

Change is in the air

I'm switching jobs in a week, and it has been really hard working from home for the last month. Hard not being able to bounce ideas of people at work... but going to work is difficult too. Primarily because you do need a rhythm at work and it is difficult to set one when you don't go in that often, and when you start worrying about getting sick again. 

To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, so many things I could have done but Covid got in my way... or maybe I don't need to paraphrase Joni Mitchell at all - so many things I could have done but life got in my way. I have looked at life from both sides now, from give and take and still somehow it's life's illusions I recall, I really don't know life at all. maybe she is talking about that life is neither as strong as all that or weak as all that. 

I left a note on my phone last night, it said: we live and walk in more world than just this one. And they talk to each other. And that world that I can feel but not see, there lie the answers I seek about love, and purpose and expression and connection. I was of course thinking about clairvoyants, Anita Moorjani, so many of my own experiences and how the fairy is summoned but not seen by Jonathan Strange in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell. 

I feel overwhelmed by things I want so very much in life, but can't seem to know what to do about it. On the otherhand there are two (or maybe even three) things I want dearly and I can do heaps about:

  1. work
  2. weight loss
  3. writing
The 'w' is a nice coincidence. 

Work wise, I just need to provide the handover. Weight-wise, I am working on a strength and running plan with Dave Halpin, an excellent EP, and I will run a marathon within the next twelve months. There is Canberra marathon in April next year and we'll work towards it. And maybe if I can the Braveheart 777 marathon in Canberra (that I expect will happen on 2nd July, to honour Pallavi). Other than that, I don't really need to tweak my diet, just my sleep. I'll work on that. maybe the mild dose of melatonin. Maybe start reading books at night. Writing is a bit of a big whoop right now. I don't know what to do about that. 

Another thing that I am glad I forgot because I have, for better or for worse, decided I can't do anything about it till Mummy and Papa both leave and thinking about it just makes it really bad for me. But I will de-clutter the house. 

Other than that, as I have said here before, I see my children in my future and I see their father. It will happen. Tho, how is as much a mystery to me as anyone else who has never given it any thought.