Archive by Author

Can you answer this question honestly?

17 May

IMG_0419

I have a question. I know it’s none of my business but I really want to know. It’s not an easy question to answer. Normally when someone asks you this question your instinct is to lie. Sometimes it catches you off guard.

Sometimes you drive yourself crazy asking it of yourself.

To me it is THE question. It’s the only one that matters. Achievements, accomplishments, money, family, friends and possessions aside…none of it matters when it comes to this.

Okay, here it is…

Are you happy?

I know, annoying right? Are you happy. Is anyone happy? What does it mean to be happy? Is happiness even a goal? Is being in a constant state of happiness achievable?

To me, happiness is not a state of being. Happiness is a feeling. It comes and goes, like sadness and anger. So to ask someone if they are happy is a false choice. Happy vs unhappy. I don’t believe either of these is possible as a constant.

I’ve annoyed you by asking the question so I’ll show how I deal with it. I’ll ask myself and you’ll understand why I think it’s a silly question to ask.

Am I happy?

No.

Happy isn’t how I’d describe myself. Satisfied? Yes. Fulfilled? Yes. Happy? No.

Happiness comes and goes. I have moments of happiness. It comes and goes. I’ve felt happy several times today and then I’ve felt sad, frustrated, tired, overwhelmed, cranky, lonely…

I go through so many feelings more than once each day. This is normal.

I am happy with individual things. I’m happy with work but I’m not happy with how cold it is on the bus each morning. I’m happy with my family but I’m not happy with their behaviour at bedtime. I’m happy with my marriage but I’m not happy with how my husband hardly helps out around the home. I’m happy with my home but I’m not happy that we are only renting. I’m happy with how I look but I’m not happy that it seems to be deteriorating at a rate of knots as I approach forty. I’m happy with my health but I’m not happy that it takes me three weeks to recover from exercise-induced-injuries.

So, are you happy?

Or, may I ask, are you satisfied?

We are all a work-in-progress. We are a work-in-progress until we take our last breath. One of the motivating forces for life is the search for happiness. It’s the search, the process, the seeking, the consideration and the hope that makes life worth living and when those moments of happiness come it’s great, when they go we can look forward to the next.

Next question, the last one, I promise.

What do you think it will take to make you happy? We all have something.

To be fair, I’ll go first.

I will be happy when we own our own home again. It’s my current motivation for everything and once we have that home I’ll have another happiness goal that I’ll focus on.

So, what is your happiness goal? I really hope it isn’t a weight goal because trust me, you’ll never be completely satisfied with that. Instead of a specific goal I prefer a weight window – a five kilo window of weight in which you are happy to hover.

Is it a career goal? Have you ever really tried to get the career of your dreams. It’s never too late. I’ve met and interviewed EVERYONE. Trust me when I say anyone can be anything and you can STILL achieve your secret dream.

Is your happiness goal financial. Come up with a plan. Financial goals are great, especially when you can see exactly how to get there and be confident in your process.

Do you want to get married or have kids? I have seen people jump through some incredible hoops to achieve these. Nothing should stand in your way. Never give up. Never.

It’s Friday night. The weekend looms. Tomorrow is ultra-busy and I won’t be happy as we race around cramming it all in. On days like tomorrow when the kids have more activities than I do in a week, I consider myself a facilitator of happiness. I facilitate my children’s happiness. At night once it’s all done I’ll be happy that the day went well. Then that feeling will go and be replaced with fatigue or another fleeting feeling.

I have a project for you. This weekend think about your happiness goals. What are they? Don’t be afraid. Say them, at least to yourself. Write them down even. Because they are worth it. They are achievable. And you too can be the happiest you can be.

Then, when someone asks you, “Are you happy?” you can say, “I’m as happy as I can be, thanks. And you?”

La Dolce Vita,
Jo Abi

Why is it so hard for me to be an organised mother?

4 May

My nook

I’ve always wanted to be the kind of mother who had a school bag nook. I’d carefully and lovingly design the nook in the perfect position in our home. At the start of each day I’d pack my children’s bags and they’d retrieve them from their designated hook on their way out the door. When they arrived home they’d hang them back up without me having to remind them because I’m super organised and so are they. Our family runs like a well-oiled machine.

Instead our bags are piled on a chair that is always so full we can never actually sit on it. I dig through the artwork, notes and toys to find the bags to pack them and then yell at the kids as soon as we arrive home to put their bags on the chair. Sometimes they listen.

The pile of school bags on the chair often collapses and only in the middle of the night to create maximum terror and panic.

I came across an amazing website called The Organised Housewife and her most recent post was all about how she’d craft the perfect nook for her family. I want to be just like her!

My style of parenting is complete chaos, despite the best of intentions. We’ll have a good day here and there, a good week but something will happen and chaos reigns. Sickness, extreme fatigue, forgetting to buy ham, a washing machine that is on the blink…

This month is has been moving house.

I can’t quite describe the challenge of viewing houses with three reluctant children who you have warned in the car on the way to behave so the agent doesn’t put a giant red cross across our application with a note saying, “Nightmare children.” We viewed several houses but each had a non-negotiable issue like no air conditioning, a giant tree in the backyard that had killed all the grass and created a mud pit, too small, too far from school…

Then, I found our new house or should I say, our new house found us.

I viewed a house near where we are now and it turns out it’s owned by a friend who approved us immediately. And, it has a school back nook!

Six retro hooks hang in the kitchen near where we have put our fridge. It is the PERFECT place for school bags. This house has been waiting for me.

I’m a more organised housewife in this house by default because they hooks are pre-existing but just like this amazing house that is cleverly designed for maximum living pleasure, I too plan to create a schedule that works, take the vitamins necessary to complete said schedule and make the most of life with a nook.

The nook is a metaphor for the kind of mother I’ve always wanted to be. The nook symbolises a mother who doesn’t forget birthday parties, who uses proper name tags on items, who attends P & F meetings, who uses sticker charts to moderate her well-dressed and clean children.

The nook has raised the bar and I plan to meet it.

A new era of motherhood has arrived. My children aged 9, 5 and 3 can look forward to a functioning home with no yelling, no last minute drying of the school shirts on heaters the morning of, plenty of ham and red apples in the fridge and set chores which they will complete without complaint because the organisation is infectious.

Supermarkets are evil

3 Apr

banner-buttersoft

It all started innocently enough.
I’ve just returned to the workforce full-time after a long absence during which I grew three people in my stomach from scratch). It’s been amazing. It’s a dream position, I’m enjoying every second and even the bus ride to and from work is fun.

I have to be honest. Some things have fallen by the wayside. Granted I’m only two weeks in and it will take some time to adjust but I really need to keep on top of my laundry, do the ironing instead of shifting the pile of unironed clothes onto different chairs in my lounge room and I my son has been getting lunch orders at school three times a week instead of one.

Anyway, today I left work before everyone else to race to school and pick up my son, niece and nephew. My husband called me repeatedly. He was wondering what time I’d be home just in case we’d see each other before he left for work at 3. I’d arrive home at ten past 3. Oh well, see you whenever.

My son has art class on Wednesdays at 4.30, just enough time to head home, tidy up and get dinner started before leaving again to drop him off. I haven’t grocery shopped all week. Since starting work I’ve been efficient and organised and shopping online but after the long weekend all delivery windows were full. I had to grocery shop in person and since we’d now run out of Butter Soft it was critical that I shopped this afternoon. I had exactly an hour to get it done before picking Philip up from school.

I headed to my local shops, took my little kids to the toilet, bought them a snack (a donut for one and a sushi roll for the other) and into the supermarket we went. I raced through the aisles and filled my trolley with an efficiency I didn’t know I was capable of. We needed soft rolls, bayonet light globes, kitty litter and Butter Soft.

The cold food aisle was the last before I could head to the check out. The trolley was very full and I had just enough room for our precious Butter Soft (we looooove our Butter Soft). My son ran ahead. He knows exactly where it is and it’s his job to get it.

It was all gone.

A wave of fury engulfed me. This was the second time I’d tried to buy Butter Soft in two weeks. Last time we had a bit left but now we were totally out. My husband took rolls to work, my son ate Vitaweats with butter and vegemite every day, I was still eating hot cross buns for breakfast. No other butter will do.

My heart started to beat loudly. I felt the meltdown coming on. I tried to push it down. I reminded myself that I had chocolate bullets in the trolley and if I could just get myself to the car and throw a few back I might feel better about the fact that the one thing I absolutely had to buy today was sold the frig out. How is it that supermarkets manage to run out of the items we most like to buy? Isn’t it their job to make sure they have plenty of stock? Do they have some in the back room and they’re hiding it from me? It’s now 5pm and I’m tired and hungry and cold and I don’t have the time or energy to go to another shopping centre.

I pushed the overflowing trolley to the nearest checkout and started unpacking. I unpacked in a way that aimed to punish the cashier for the fact the Butter Soft was all gone. Instead of carefully putting all the bread together, the cold foods, the heavy bottles, I placed them haphazardly. That’ll fuck ‘em. Try and pack properly amidst the chaos. If only you’d had Butter Soft, my day would have been perfect. Every day has to be PERFECT.

Sensing my mood the cashier didn’t bother to greet me. I finished unpacking and started loading bags into the trolley.

“Is there a reason you’re always out of Butter Soft,” I asked.

“Ah, I don’t know. We’re out?”

“Yes, and there was none last week either. Just unsalted.”

“I can let our manager know,” she said helpfully.

“Won’t do me much good in the morning will it?”

“We normally restock every night.”

“I’ve just started working and this is when I can grocery shop. Are you going to be out of the things I need every Wednesday? There wasn’t any Butter Soft, you’re out of Yoplait Strawberry Yoghurt again and you’ve sold out of Nice biscuits. How is that possible?”

“Um, I’m not sure,” she mumbled.

I stopped talking. I handed over my Fly Buys card, let the Eftpos machine beep a few times before removing my card and then walked to the card feeling defeated. I’d have to come back to the shops again. We really needed Butter Soft. We don’t like any other spread. Our lives revolve around Butter Soft, Moccona Indulgence, full-fat strawberry yoghurt and Nice biscuits.

Some things are just INFURIATING. I feel like they deliberately run out of popular items to force us to come back more than once in a week. It’s a conspiracy. We’re being duped.

I’ve just placed a small grocery order online and it include 6 containers of Butter Soft, 4 packets of Nice biscuits and the bayonet light globes I forgot. God help me if I get an ‘out of stock’ email. I’m telling you know. I can handle work, the kids, uni, coming up with an interesting outfit EVERY day but don’t mess with my food. That’s what will tip me over the edge, that and having to grocery shop more than once a week.

Is it time to start losing sleep over North Korea?

2 Apr

North Korea pic

North Korea is making me nervous.

I know there is conflict all over the world and there’s the threat of heightened conflict all the time but in my mummy-brain it goes something like this – North Korea declares war on South Korea and Japan, the U.S. and its allies step in to defend South Korea and Japan, we are a U.S. ally so our troops who were just about home from Afghanistan are sent out again and then some, every country that has a grievance with the U.S. backs North Korea (the middle east, Russia, China) and the rest of us become targets. World War III begins and every book and movie I have every watched about war time – sitting back smugly because there’s no way leaders are stupid enough to fight like that again – starts to come true. What’s to become of my children?

I am terrified.

North Korea said on Saturday it was entering a “state of war” with South Korea after coming under international sanctions for its nuclear test. North Korea has been threatening to attack the South and U.S. military bases since the beginning of March because it’s this time every year that the North and South carry out routine military drills and have done since the end of the Korean War 60 years ago.

It’s thought that few North Koreans believe their country will risk starting a full-out war, particularly because they are so powerfully outnumbered by America’s powerful military and a successful missile strike on a U.S. target would be suicide. But somehow I don’t think leader Kim Jong Un applies much logic to his decisions.

The two Koreas have been in a technical state of war because their 1950-53 conflict ended under an armistice and not a peace treaty, although Pyongyang said earlier in March that as far as they are concerned the truce is no longer valid.

North Korea has issued two photos to media that appear to show plans for striking the U.S. mainland and rallies are being organised in support of this move. North Korean soldiers are putting on a show that they are gearing up for battle, shrouding their jeeps and vans with camouflage netting, painting signs saying “Death to the U.S. Imperialists” and urging people to fight with “arms, not words”.

Most believe it’s all for show. North Korea is trying to force Washington back to the negotiating table to pressure the new president in Seoul, Park Geun-hye to change policy on North Korea. In July it will be 60 years since the end of the Korean War and in that time South Korea has grown from a poor nation to the world’s 15th largest economy while North Korea is left struggling and has a per capital income on par with sub-Sahara Africa.

North Korea’s national airline, Air Koryo, is adding flights to its spring line up and is preparing to host scores of expected tourists to Pyongyang. I for one would be reconsidering North Korea as a holiday destination. I hear the South is lovely, but I might stay away from there too for now.

 

Working 9-5…sort of

19 Mar

WG

I haven’t worked traditional work hours…ever. Every job I’ve had has been early in the morning, late at night or weekends only – the joys of radio.

On Monday I start my first ‘proper’ job and I’m SO EXCITED. I get to wake up, get the kids ready for school, drop them off at school, go to work and be grown up and productive and then pick my children up.

It’s all happened quite fast. A week ago my year was going to be one way and now it’s going to be another. As soon as I found out this job was a possibility I started quizzing every working mother I’ve come across asking them how they make it work. I asked school mums, mums at children’s activities, at the grocery store, within my family…

The bottom line is, if you want to work when you have kids, organisation is the key. You don’t have the luxury of sleeping in or of falling behind on anything. This means you have a lot of prep to do the night before including washing the kids, ironing their clothes and yours, packing bags, making sure the shopping is done, charging your phone…

Two days a week isn’t quite enough to make the most of your job but three days is manageable. But once you get to four or five days a week you need a cleaner, you’ll have a pile of laundry and one form of childcare isn’t enough.

My sister gave me excellent advice. She said take one day at a time. There’s no way you can organise the entire week because shit happens – children become sick, things go wrong. Take one day at a time and you won’t stuff up or feel overwhelmed.

And give yourself time to adjust. Of course I’m going to feel guilty that first day. Of course I’m going to feel a little uncomfortable driving so far away from their schools. Those first few weeks will be a struggle but I have to give it a proper go because I’ll get used to it. I’ll get used to it and they’ll get used to it.

Finally, make sure you have back up in case you run late or get stuck in traffic. Have at least two other people who could in a pinch pick up your kids.

And breathe, enjoy. You’ve earned this opportunity and you deserve to work. Because kids grow up. Before I know it they won’t want to kiss me goodbye or hold my hand in public. They will need me differently, less hands on. I know it’s a while until that happens but knowing I have a career that matters to me, waiting for me makes me feel better. I want my children to see me working, I want them to be happy and well-cared for.

I want this new phase of my life to work, pun intended.

La Dolce Vita,

Jo Abi

A very bridal lunch

13 Mar

Edamame

Yesterday I watched a pending bride eat a bowl of edamame for lunch. You know those soy beans that are ultra healthy and rich in protein? They are often steamed or tossed in something flavorsome and are basically God’s gift to dieters everywhere?

I once read a survey saying that women are the skinniest they’ll ever be on their wedding day. I was 20 weeks pregnant (woops) so this wasn’t the case for me but when I attend the weddings of friends I can see that this is often true. We are princess for the day, celebrities amongst our families and friends and THE PHOTOS LAST A LIFETIME!

I was pregnant at my wedding at very overweight at my sister’s wedding so unfortunately I have too much photographic evidence of myself looking a little…sub-par.

I could have used a lot more edamame in those days, that’s for sure.

Anxiety about weight is an interesting phenomenon. We are always thinking about our weight, trying not to think about our weight, discussing our weight, watching skinny celebrities pretend they eat everything and don’t diet. It’s out of control. It needs to shift. It needs to be about health, not weight.

I recently started at the gym. I also cut out sugar. For breakfast I ate Greek yoghurt with fruit and nuts, my mid-morning snack was a cheese stick and some almonds, then I’d have a Lite ‘n Easy bowl meal for lunch, my afternoon snack was either a Lite ‘n Easy soup (pumpkin and chicken are my favourites) or I’d have some eggs and dinner was a Lite ‘n Easy meal or heaps of salads and vegetables.

Then, after the kids went to bed I’d have a cup of tea I’d have two blocks of Lindt 70%.

I put on two kilos.

I know, my body shape is changing and I have put on muscle but I couldn’t help but feel a little bummed out. But then I remembered how AWESOME I’ve been feeling. I’ve been so full of energy, I’ve felt light, my clothes fit better. I feel, fabulous.

I’m 37. It’s time for me to stop being hung up on the numbers on the scale. Every time I freak out about my weight my sister tells me to stop thinking about it, to stop weighing myself, to let it go, to make good choices. She overcame her own food issues and stays slim and healthy without dieting these days so I listen to her carefully.

I know I can get there.

I have another friend who used to have food issues. She threw her scales away. There might be something in this.

How we look and feel is more important. Would I like to weight 55? Yes. But I want to feel well more than I want to see that number on a scale. I am busy, I have three children who need all my time and energy and I am healthy most of the time.

Health, not weight. Let’s change the conversation.

La Dolce Vita

Jo Abi

They’re baaaaack! (the 5 kilos return again)

1 Mar

DSC_0003

This was going to be the year I stopped worrying about my weight. My children are all in some form of childcare (school for one and two days of pre-school for the other two), I rejoined the gym, my freezer is FULL of all my favourite Lite ‘n Easy meals and I’m 37…old enough to know better.

But it’s happened again. I’ve regained those pesky 5 kilos back and my goal weight is a blurry memory. How on earth did I let this happen again?

I KNOW how to lose weight (I’ve done it a million times before). Since losing a stack of weight in my early twenties, outside of pregnancy I’ve never been anywhere near it again. It’s just that 5 kilos is enough to send me from weighing somewhere in the 50s (normally 57 or 58 kilos) to the early 60s. It’s not the weight itself. It’s what it represents – the ability to regain weight, loss on control, potential for future fatness, a reminder that I’ll never stop thinking and worrying about my weight.

I just want a life FREE of weight issues. I know, naive, very naive. It’s only a small percentage of people who have this luxury. The fact is that most people who weigh a healthy weight think about health and food intake. But I day dream that they are not as obsesses as I am. Because I’m always falling off the wagon.

Funnily enough it’s when I’m happy that the 5 kilos creep back on. I’m on a weight loss ad, I’m happy, I have a great job, yum Tim Tams…I feel like finally I can relax. Only to realise that I will never be able to relax. Eating well will never come naturally for me.

Joining the gym has actually made it worse. Ravenous hunger strikes me every day in the late afternoon and early evening. My usual calorie intake just isn’t cutting it. It feels desperate and primal.

I need to increase my calorie intake (gasp) or change what I am eating. No more sweet treats for me in the afternoon. Every single meal and snack I eat HAS to contain protein so I feel full for longer, or I’ll blow up like a balloon. And I don’t want to give up the gym. I feel fit and fab. I feel toned. I feel young!

For the past couple of days I have concentrated on selecting breakfasts with eggs and cereal. Did you know milk contains heaps of protein and can be just as filling?

Instead of my sweet treats in the afternoon I’ve been having a Lite n Easy soup instead. They are really filling and so low in calories. The pumpkin soup has less calories than my coffee!

So, that’s the new plan of attack (I’m always tweaking). I’ll let you know how I go.

I just think that if I could lose 5 kilos all my problems would be solved. Am I too focused on the numbers on the scale because in all honesty, since joining the gym almost a month ago my clothes are fitting better. I’m weighing more on the scale but my clothes aren’t as tight. My arms look amazing. My skin is even clearer.

I know, I know, I’ve just answered my own question. It must be that muscle vs fat thing. But still…

I think I’m always fighting the ‘fat girl’ within. She’s always there tapping me on the shoulder reminding me not to lose control, not to forget what it was like to be her.

I can’t even have Tim Tams in the house and I will never be able to understand how some freaks of nature can stop at one. I’ll keep them out of the house for now, snug in their ‘specials’ display at my local supermarket, taunting me.

La Dolce Vita,

Jo Abi

How the hell did we lose one school shoe?

1 Mar

 

Shoe

This weekend I undertook an unscheduled Spring-clean of our house, searching for a lost school shoe. And this isn’t any old school shoe either.

 

I was totally sucked into the commercials for school shoes before the school year began. I was convinced that if I bought my son affordable shoes he would end up with freakishly deformed feet…so I sprung for the expensive ones.

 

Now one is lost. WHERE IS IT?????

 

You see, my son’s foot is growing. During this crucial time it is important that the soles of his feet are properly cushioned, maintaining the arch and allowing him room to grow. I had visions of him limping around in a cheap pair, of a team of doctors shaking their heads at me as they tried to rebuild his shattered feet.

 

I have searched EVERYWHERE. Is the selective capitalisation communicating my FRUSTRATION? The shoe is lying in my house somewhere along with my sister’s phone (which we lost three years ago) and a set of keys (which I think might have ended up in the bin). When we move house we’ll find all these items along with around twenty high-bounce balls, my engagement ring (!) and at least fifty random socks.

 

Maybe the mice/rats/possums I hear building a village in my roof have taken these items? They live in the shoe or use it as a toilet, the socks are their sleeping bags, the keys are decorative and the phone…well they have family too. My engagement ring probably makes a lovely necklace for one of them or a door knocker?

 

Meantime the very expensive shoe is still missing and my house looks amazing. I even found $50 wedged between the wall and our computer desk. All the clothes and toys have been sorted (soon to be unsorted I’m sure) as have the cupboards and all the spaces under beds and chairs. How did we accumulate so many old copies of the Financial Review? We also have a strange amount of Glad Wrap, an unopened nose hair trimmer and multiple rolls of dusty Christmas wrapping paper. But no relatively new little boy’s expensive school shoe.

 

Convinced it will turn up eventually I found my nearest shoe warehouse and bought a much more affordable pair. They look pretty good. In fact they look so good that I might get them again next year (as long as his feet aren’t mangled and twisted as a result of the cheaper pair).

 

If we do manage to lose a shoe again, hopefully the remaining shoes make a pair. As if but here’s hoping.

Should we pay our children for chores?

1 Mar

BlogpicMonday

My son and I sat down for a serious discussion a few weeks back. He wanted to start getting a weekly allowance. I happily agreed but explained that he’d have to do jobs around the house to earn his allowance. I rattled off a few ideas and he excitedly agreed and was a busy little bee that afternoon.

Now, a few weeks later, the novelty has worn off and I am faced with a tough choice – should I keep giving him his allowance and spend countless minutes nagging him to do his chores or should I simply withhold his allowance because they haven’t been done?

I never wanted to be a parent who was too tough on her children but to me, his relationship with money is forming and I am in a unique position to teach him to value money, even the random 5c pieces he sometimes finds on the floor.

I had no awareness of money when I was young. We didn’t have any apparently but I didn’t notice. We were never offered an allowance and the chores we did around the house were done for nothing. If we didn’t do them or did them incorrectly we were punished, usually with a hard slap on the legs.

I eventually decided to stop paying him his allowance but I decided not to make it a punishment. I calmly explained that he hadn’t helped out around the house so he wouldn’t be getting it this week but as soon as he started to help out again I would pay him his allowance. I left him to digest the news and with no nagging required he quietly tidying his room and picked up the papers that had fallen out of our recycle bin.

But this also brings up the point. Should I be paying him to help out around the house or, as a member of our household, should he just start contributing like the rest of us? It’s a tough one. Because at the end of the day I do want him to start learning that we all have to work for our money and if he wants his $5 a week for the canteen or to save up for games, he has to put in the effort.

And the worst thing is I won’t know if I’ve successfully taught him to have a realistic and healthy relationship with money until he’s grown. Will he get an after school job or will he take money out of my purse when I’m not looking? But then again, we’ve all done that, haven’t we?

Why do I need everyone to like me?

1 Mar

IMG_1670

It really bothers me when people don’t like me. I know it’s impossible that everyone will think I’m an okay person but when someone expresses distain for me for years for no apparent reason, I have to admit, it bothers the hell out of me.

This particular person is on the fringes of one of my places of employment and about once a year he sticks a knife in and gives it a couple of twists. I can’t remember ever having kicked his dog or eaten his special biscuits but I must have. I can’t think of what else I might have done.

Not all mothers get along either. Sure our kids go to the same school and we might wave and say hello when we see each other at the shops but it’s pretty obvious who would love to see you drop dead. Grown ups can be petty too.

I just wish I didn’t get so upset when I’m reminded of those who think I’m a twat. It really leaves me feeling ill and wondering why, wondering what I might have done and worst of all, I put a lot of mental energy into trying to fix it. Talk about trying to fixing the unfixable.

I shouldn’t care what everyone thinks about me. Most people do like me. Why does one person’s stink-eye affect me so badly? And why do I try and win their affection? Why do I care?

Arg! It’s so annoying. Now I know why they don’t like me, because I’m annoying myself with my constant need to be liked!

And you know what else? It annoys me that people who don’t like me can’t hide it well and at least pretend to be nice. Am I not worth the effort? Does their hatred of me cancel out all social graces? Hate me sure, wish me bad luck, chuckle when I trip over but don’t be rude about it.

I used to hang out with some extended family and friends after getting back in touch with a beloved cousin. She and I got along famously and we included each other in all special events from then on. I loved attending her family functions and it was so great to see the rest of the family too.

One day at her house I had just put my baby to sleep in a pram in her lounge room when I went to walk outside and ran smack bang into the clear glass sliding door. Easily done, right? I didn’t even see it. I was sleep deprived due to the new baby and I have to say, it hurt like hell. I was surrounded by concerned relatives immediately and sat down, completely dazed. I was so embarrassed too.

I left the room to check the baby, still holding my nose and when I came back into the kitchen I saw one of my family members nastily informing another family member what had happened to me and then they laughed like evil witches.

I was mortified.

I thought they liked me. There they were, delighting in my misfortune. Do they not have souls?

My beloved cousin was in the room and when her husband came into the room she whispered to him what had happened and he was horrified and filled with concern for me. At least they cared.

But still, it stung to have someone revel in my misfortune and it took every ounce of my strength to stay at the party instead of leave. I’m ashamed to say I made up excuses not to attend their parties for a good year. I had three little children and was stressed and tired. I just didn’t have the strength to deal with a couple of bitches stirring their cauldron.

So, some people don’t like me. Big deal. I suppose it’s not so much that people don’t like me but these particular people are ones I care about. I really like them. I respect them, their work and their efforts and when I think highly of someone, I want them to think highly of me too.

My son asked me why he hadn’t been invited to many birthday parties this year and I gave him a vague answer, reminding him of the ones that he had been invited to. Then I explained that not everyone is going to want to be your friend, so treasure those who are your real friends.

“How do I know if someone is my real friend,” he asked.

“When you hurt yourself instead of laughing they help you and when you are alone they come and sit with you.”

He knew exactly who these people were and named them. I know who mine are too.

Someone once told me that a few years after high school I’d be able to count my close friends on one hand. I thought they were being ridiculous. I had heaps of friends. But my real friends showed themselves pretty quickly when I suffered through long work hours and forgot to call, when I made mistakes and had my apologies accepted and when I reached milestones I had them acknowledged.

Those friends are like family. They are real friends.

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,404 other followers