Teenage parenthood - The turning points in life

 Teenage parenthood - The turning points in life

Do you remember those pick a path books? My life often feels like one of those books. Where I was heading down a certain path but then something happens and before I know it I'm on a completely different path! Becoming a mum at 15 felt like one of those moments.

It was one of the many turning points in my life.

 I grew up in an alternative family and community in a place called Dondingalong. My parents had 100 acres of land and we lived in a tent and shed for a long time, while my dad built a house from trees on the property. Their goal was to live a self sustaining life on the land .. and somewhere in there they came up with a grand idea to turn their 4 kids into a band. Well at 14 rebellious me was so not going to be apart of helping create that dream. Which I have to admit I've regretted over the years.. as being a musician now looks so cool!

 However back then it did not look cool at all. While my brothers got busy practicing their instruments and creating bands I just wondered what on earth I was doing in this bizzare family and hoped that my real parents would find me soon. As surely I was adopted and this could not really be the truth of where I belonged!

To survive living with this family (who I now love very much 😉) required me to spend alot of time reading books! Books became a haven, as there I could hide, be safe and be free in other people's stories. I would dream about the day I would live in a normal house, with a normal family, doing normal things. I wanted to create my own story and dreams for my life.

At 14 my search to find love in boys increased  (yes, yes if I only I knew then this was always gaurenteed to fail!). Somewhere in me thought freedom and belonging would happen here. It seemed like a good, easy option to access being loved and to belong somewhere.

Everyone else at school looked so cool. They were great dancers, musicians, actors, they were beautiful, skinny and smart. They did performances and plays! I didn't feel like any of that. I would watch all the funky kids at school and feel like that would never be me.  So surely I could be good at boys, sex, drinking and taking drugs. Yes that I could definitely master!

And I was kind of good at it. I always had a boyfriend or three and there was always access to alcohol and drugs. I can gaurentee you though not many of my early sexual experiences were very loving. They were more like drunken degrading nights on a beach or someone's backyard, where I would wake up the next day not remembering alot and quite often be ignored by this guy!

Eventually my dream guy arrived though. I found the worst person I could find (tick) my parents would hate him (tick) he always had an ongoing supply of drugs (tick) he was older than me (tick) and he had already left school (tick). Wagging school became my new hobbie and spending days at the river with him stoned. I'd lie to my parents about where I was going on weekends, go camping with him, score drugs and have sex. It was a very self destructive but addictive path.

 Looking back I wonder what on earth I needed as that young girl. What could have lead me to a different path at this time. This relationship had become my main focus and this decision had long term consequences. My parents did everything they knew how to stop it. But the more they tried the more determination was ignited. It was dangerous and thrilling. My life felt pretty shit and rebelious me didn't care about alot.. especially not myself.

My parents eventually found out sex was a part of my life (super mad!) and my dad took me to the doctor to get the pill (ahhh humiliating!) The doctor gave me the pill and we waited for my period to come so I could start taking it.  Weeks went by waiting for that period...it never came.

The idea of being pregnant terrified me but I was always so certain that would never happen to me. Contraception wasn't a priority for me, as invincibility had become my very close friend and convinced me risks were worth taking! But...

I brought a pregnancy test from the chemist with my mum after school one day. We drove back to our house,  it was just my mum and I at home. I remember walking into the toilet, in our beautiful timber house my dad had built, with the pregnancy test packet, pee-ing on that stick and slowly watching that positive cross come up. I stared at it for a very long time. Fuck.

My mum was waiting for me in the kitchen and I showed her the test. We starred at eachother across the table (where not that long ago time- tables were the challenge!) And we cried and cried.

Eventually I rang my boyfriend to let him know. We quickly started talking about how we would build sandcastles at the beach with our baby and how we could do this. We created stories in our head of how this would all be ok  (Those sandcastle fantasies on the beach were so far from the reality that unfolded in my relationship with him).

At 15 with a positive pregnancy test in hand, huge adult decisions were now required.  I needed to make decisions that would effect the rest of my life. With no idea what I wanted to do with my life, who I was or what I loved, I had to face this. Whilst everyone at school was deciding which subjects to pick for year 11/12...  I was now deciding did I want to be a mum?

My life soon became flooded with family and friends passionate opinions about what I should do. Devastation hit and alot of peoples fears were stirred up. A decision needed to be made pretty quickly about whether to have an abortion or not. I retreated from all the chaos to the safety of my room to think a lot. The idea of an abortion was so overwhelming. It felt more overwhelming than having a baby.

After alot of thinking I walked into my parents room one night to tell them I was keeping the baby. I was so scared. I told them I wanted to try and that I would adopt the baby out if it got too hard. They agreed to help me as much as they could and supported my decision. However my mum was already starting to become unwell with Huntingtons Disease . So this support was always going to be limited. However determination soon kicked in that I could do this and my life quickly had a new focus.

Over the coming months my life became about attending doctors appointment and anti natal groups with women twice my age.. often alone...as my boyfriends lifestyle did not change so much.  He continued on his self destructive path as I prepared for my life of motherhood. I will never forget being 15 and looking at the women with their husbands in those classes..and thinking there is something REALLY wrong with me. But smart me was going to shake that off, keep attending and learn as much as I bloody could!

Honestly, at this stage in my life there was any part of me that was ready to become a mum. I had no real sense of my own identity, what I loved or who I was was. But I did know this baby needed love and I was going to do everything I could to take care of it. Which meant leaving my self destructive life behind. Being pregnant to someone who had serious drug addictions and mental illness was going to be very hard territory to navigate. But I would weave my way through it.

At school I told the principle that continuing school after year 10 wasn't possible due to becoming a mum. Shame became a huge part of my experience of telling people. Reactions were strong and feeling like a disappointment was big. I often felt like yelling at adults that this was never my dream, but I'm not sure I ever really had a dream, or that anyone had ever spoken to me about my dreams. But this was now my reality, so help me.

I improved my attendance at school, as getting that year 10 certificate now felt so important to my babies future. I finished school seven months pregnant, unable to fit any school uniforms and very glad to be getting out of that system and leaving behind the shame and exposure. Being pregnant felt very shameful and stigmatizing. I felt like a bad person, irresponsible and doomed to a life of misery. Determination was going to smash that negative stigma though and create the best possible life for my baby.

A caravan became my home for the next few months and my dad built me a shack on our property to live in. Creating my home in preparation for having a baby became my next task. I started thinking about how I would pay for the baby and what my future now looked like as a mum. My mum was starting to get mentally unwell with Huntingtons Disease, so we spent alot of time together during this time,  we took care of eachother and watched alot of Oprah whilst we waited for my birth.

I turned 16 in Dec 1994 and my baby was born in Feb 1995.

My birth was traumatic. After 24 hours of labour and thinking death was close by, a baby boy was born by cesarean. I thought being 15 and pregnant was hard. Being 16 and having my legs in stirrups while male doctors try pull a baby out (that was stuck in my pelvis!) was a whole other level of hard!

My new challenging path of learning how to breastfeed and care for a baby had been born. My 16 year old body felt like it suddenly belonged to everyone else.  The body that was once a developing, partying adolescent now had a whole new role.  There was always a pad to change, suppository to insert, stitches to check, and a baby to breastfeed! It was incredibly confronting and exhausting to suddenly have all these doctors and nurses in my life... And to now be responsible for keeping this little baby alive!

But I did.. and they eventually even let me go home with him.

 I'll never forget one of the midwives telling me as I left hospital that I had good "mother craft skills". I literally had no idea what that even meant. I remember thinking.. what craft did we exactly do??? But I knew it meant that I was going to be ok.

💜🌸 💜

When my son was 1 year old I studied an Associate Diploma in Youth Work. I then went to University and completed a Bachelor of Social Science. I was so happy to finish university at the same time as my friends from school . There was no way I was going to let being a mum stop me from having everything everyone else had.

After I finished my studies I got my first permanent job at a Family Support Service where I spent the next 10 years working with teenage parents and setting up antinatal and postnatal groups. There was something so important for me in using my experience to make life a little easier for other young pregnant women. I never wanted a teenage mum sitting in an antinatal group like I did at 15 feeling ashamed, isolated and that there was something wrong with them. I wanted them to feel connected, safe and have hope for themselves as a mum .. and I wanted to celebrate them, as young woman who's lives had now hit a turning point.

"let the beauty of who you are be what you do" Kahlil Gibran

Laugh at the shit!

OK so my brother wants a 500 word blog off.. And our topic is laughter.. Or joy.. we couldn't decide.. So here goes!

I need to laugh so much. I can only stay on the path of pain for so long before I need to laugh. Like really who can carry around all those rocks of grief, pain, betrayal, anger without just needing to eventually laugh that shit off!

If I look at my life it's pretty hilarious really. My family has this horrendous disease called Huntingtons Disease, that's been named the worst disease known to mankind. My ex-husband is married to my ex-best friend. I parent 4 kids on my own. I work my butt off keeping a family home functioning, which involves a lot of boring stuff like picking up dog shit.. for a dog that my kids insisted they NEEDED! Because you know I didn't already have enough peeps to look after! Life is so crazy sometimes that the only thing I can do is laugh!

I think my biggest laughing teacher was my mum. I'll never forget times during her years of sickness where she would fall on the floor, when she couldn't walk anymore and she would laugh and laugh at me trying to pick her up. Not funny.. But somehow absolutely hilarious! Or times I would be changing her toileting pads (yes really not funny at all!) but she would crack herself up laughing at the mess! I would be in horror, which she would then find even more hilarious. Life is so freaking messy sometimes. Literally.

My work colleagues always say they hear me laughing down the other end of the corridor at work. I love making my students laugh in class. We have such a fantastic time talking about really traumatic topics like child abuse, domestic violence, suicide.. Which are not funny topics at all!! But I will make sure we have a laugh every single class. Because it feels good to laugh. And we all deserve to feel good, even when life is hard.

What I find sooooo funny though is how humiliated my kids are by my loud public laughter, which then just makes me laugh even more. I absolutely hate shopping centers.. but they will often drag me there to get things they desperately "NEED" I find this the most torturous experience with all those lights, music, chaos, decisions.. so many shops! I grew up with trees..it is not natural for humans to go into this kind of environment!! It is so painful it makes me laugh. I need stress release! As the kids are deciding between shoes, hats, shirts, socks I just can't help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Which is then followed by long begging pleading sound  "muuuuuuuum!!" ...as they get as far away from me as possible. Which makes me laugh even more!

Life is so serious peeps. We HAVE to find stuff to laugh about. Let's laugh in the face of all the shit (literal shit at times)

The human race only has one really effective weapon and that is laughter" Mark Twain.

Grief...or sex ...

When I think about talking about grief.. A little voice in me says "don't talk about grief people will hate that! Talk about sex or something fun instead!"

But sorry folks grief wins today ... but don't worry we can get back to taking about sex another day😉

This piece of artwork by Celeste Roberge always stricks me as what grief can feel like in my body. It can be super hard living a joyful, free, vibrant life if my body is filled to the top with rocks of grief. It's heavy energy can weave its way into my heart making even the simplest of tasks feel like wading through a thick mud pool, which is not easy! (or very sexy!).

One thing I know for certain about grief though, after living with Huntingtons Disease and going through a divorce, is that it always moves. If I let it come in and stay for a little while, it will eventually move out (and probably go visit someone else!) If I fight it and try get rid of it.. It will fight harder to sit me down on my butt, to listen and demand to stay longer.

Talking about grief in our "happy" culture can be hard. Worry sometimes tells me that grief is going to make me very hard to be around, as it's going to be draining for other people. Which can make me pretty careful who I let into my world when grief is visiting. I probably tend to spend a lot of time alone, as it doesn't need to be told to get up or to think a certain way. It just needs to be held.. just for a little while. And whilst worry is telling me that people don't like grief. .. fear tells me I'm going to get stuck in it and never find my way out! Wow thanks team!

My relationship history with grief however tells me that none of that is true. I can actually create a safe community of grief angels who are willing to sit and talk about the hard stuff  .. and then there are counsellors...I can actually pay someone to listen to me! In this environment grief always moves out and joy will always find its way back in. I will never get stuck.

How long I let grief stay for in my body, can be tricky to work out. Perhaps its just like trying to work out how long we let any visitor stay for before we suggest they move on!  I know some days I just need to sit with it for a while and connect. But other days I need to push myself out of that mud and onto lighter ground. And I need to fight hard for life. 

I recently took down all the photos of my many relatives who have passed away. I used to have a little memory cabinet for their funeral notices. I put them away lovingly into a draw, to clear that energy. It's not that I don't love them and they are not in my heart, because they always will be. It just didn't feel helpful anymore to lay on my lounge looking at them reflecting on all these beautiful, important, influential people from my childhood who have died. I needed to turn my energy towards living my life. 

The very hard and complex thing about doing that, when living with Huntingtons Disease, is it feels like HD splashes grief everywhere. It can feel painted in my past, present and future. HD can create a picture of my future in my mind that looks incredibly daunting. Sometimes it can be hard to find a non-grief filled space!
Anticipatory grief about what lay ahead, can invite huge waves of grief to visit and use up huge amounts of energy.When I know some of what my families future may look like, with my 3 bothers being gene positive, grief can take a huge grip and tell me all the things I'm going to lose before I've even lost them. It can tell me I'm going to lose my entire family, everyone is going to die and I'm going to be alone. They are terrifying thoughts that I often just need to stop. It's a dark and gloomy road to get on and its not helpful for anyone. And yes reality is we are ALL going to die!

I was talking to my 17 year old son the other day about my survivors guilt post and grief. I am always incredibly struck by how wise kids and young people are... I was telling him how scary the future can look for my family... and he said.. "mum, is it guilt and grief.. Or is it love?"

Gosh.. so true and so smart. It is all love. No one who loves escapes grief. Which is every single one of us.

"Grief is love's souvenir. It's our proof that we once loved. Grief is the receipt we wave in the air that says to the world: Look! Love was once mine. I love well. Here is my proof that I paid the price" Glennon Doyle

So when the future drags me into dark and gloomy places, all I ever really have the power to do is come back to love.. and focus on this moment. Right in this moment I am writing this blog. Right in this moment the garbage is getting picked up. Right in this moment the birds are chirping. And right in this moment I am ok.

That's all any of us ever really have...love and this moment. Grief may be a part of the "moment"  at times.. And at other times it will move on. What seems to help my grief move on,  is when I can wade through the depths of the mud and find one small positive love action step I can take. Grief doesn't seem to be able to thrive so strongly in that heart space.

"some days are tidal waves with nothing more than a scrap to cling to, other days the calm seas allow you to gently tread water" https://www.littlethings.com/grieving-advice-old-man/


PS And I  promise you one day we will totally talk about sex 😉 

Marriage...and other possible happily ever afters

I'm 22 years old in this first photo and it's my wedding day. Who on earth gets married at 22 im not sure! But I did and I felt so grown up and wise. I already had 3 kids, so why not get married?

So before I start this story .. l want you to know that worry can caution me around telling this story, as it says it's not just my story, that there was someone else in this wedding picture. However there is a much bigger part of me that thinks that just because something finishes or changes (death, divorce etc) it doesnt mean life before that point didn't exist. Geez if I can't tell my story from before that point, then that may actually mean my history has been erased and I didn't exist. And stuff that.. That was alot of work!

So this is MY story.. that young woman in the photo is 22 year old me and she deserves to have her story told. We all do. We all have the right to tell our stories. We have the right to own them, share them and yell them from roof tops, if we please. We have the right to stand in our own truth and tell it exactly how it was for us. I tell this story with love for the very young person I was when I got married. This story isn't about "how bad were they!" because as Maya Angalou says "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better"

So.. worry can just sit back, relax and drink a long island tea!

So story two...

I always thought I knew what pain was.. But it wasn't until I seperated from my husband of 15 years that I think I truly experienced a heartbreak pain that shattered my entire world. It was a kind of pain that had me sobbing on the shower floor .. and all the way to work.. and all the way home again...for what felt like years!

I met my husband when I was 17 years old, we fell in love (or whatever it is that you do when your 17! ) he embraced parenting my 1 year old son with me and we set about building our lives together. At this point in my life I thought I would definitely have the Huntingtons Disease gene and I would die at 40. So we quickly got to work creating a very full life. As 40 is not very many years!

Over the years we had 3 more kids, brought land, built a house, planted hundreds of trees, I finished my University degree, we got married and it probably looked like we had the ideal life. And in many ways we did. We lived in a beautiful beachside village, we rotated our work rosters so one of us was always with our kids and we created a loving family home. I worked days, he worked nights and we worked incredibly hard to raise 4 little people together. We laughed, cried, pissed eachother off and we loved each other.

We were so committed to giving our kids everything we could. Due to our opposite work rosters one of us was always with them. We never needed to use day care, or ask for much help, as we always had it covered between us. Nights were often hard on my own with 4 kids, at one stage I had a new born baby, toddler, preschooler and 8 year old! But it all seemed very worth it. I would look forward for 2am to come around, when my husband would get home from work, as I would often be awake breastfeeding a baby or putting a toddler back to bed, and feeling pretty lonely. I would wait desperately every week for Fridays, which was the one day we always spent together, to connect and share our stories about the kids. We ran a great house and we were a great team! (and we were perhaps slightly overworked! )

After many years of building our life together we eventually decided it was the right time to do the gene testing for Huntingtons Disease (which is a whole other story I can tell you another day) After a grueling process we found out I didn't carry the HD gene. We cried for the future we now had to grow old together, which had never been apart of our story before. We celebrated deeply in our hearts for our 4 kids, who were now free from the risk of inheriting the gene and for the fact that they would never have to watch me get sick with this disease.

Slowly as the years went by, the day to day dishes piled up, work loads increased, and the usual disappointments and let downs of life and relationships set in...and things started to slip. Cracks started to form in our connection, questions about whether this was right crept in, and resentment and frustration found its way into my heart. I had a deep longing for a depth of connection and freedom to do the things I loved. This environment was greatly limiting for that part of me to grow, which caused an intense feeling of suffocation.

The vibrant and adventurous me was often screaming to break free.. but she just had to wait. We were on a different path for now. She would get out where she could but she knew this wasn't really her time. This was a time of sacrifice, hard work, adult responsibilities and commitment (no wonder she was screaming!)

I would calm her down and put everything I had into my family. I gave my heart and soul to making sure everyone was taken care of. I accepted the challenges that arose in this environment because that's what I thought we did in marriage!! We commit, sacrifice and work very very hard ....

Um.. no, no, no. So what happens next was never apart of the story I had planned or imagined for my marriage or family.. But this is the story that unfolded..

I will never forget the day my husband told me he was in love with and having an intimate relationship with one of my closest friends. My world stopped, spun, and a tsunami swebt through my life. It brought with it an intensity of pain that I had never before experienced in my life (and I'd had some shit!). I always described it to people like someone put my heart in a frying pan. It's seared with anger, rage, fear, abandonment and betrayal that completely took over my body. I didn't even know anger and pain like that existed. I'm a pretty calm person. But I really wasn't calm at all. I was devastated.

I did everything in my power to try and stop it. But it was too late. The tsunami had been through and there was no way to control it once it started, as hard as I tried. All I could do was watch the destruction, find protection and make sure I fed my kids and kept them safe. I felt like a lion mother who needed to protect her kids from the heart ache this was going to cause to them and their lives.

I really didn't even really know this stuff happened. And I really wasn't very well equipped for the immensity of it. I got married to someone I thought was beautifully stable, loving and very family focused. But in that moment all of that disappeared and my life changed dramatically. I had a whole new reality to deal with. One that was an absolute mess. I would look at my husband some days, in the midst of it all, and feel like I was looking and talking to an absolute stranger (and after that song by Goyte came out... Somebody that I used to know...I now know that feeling is normal and common ..thank you storytellers!)

My life with my husband was shattered. The loss of all the hopes, dreams and our future plans was devastating. I would do anything I could to get rid of the pain in my heart... drink alcohol, take pain killers, ask the Drs for valium, scream, smash things...

After 6 mths of backwards and forwards, as we made the very hard decisions of what to do with our marriage (which now felt more like a toxic war zone), I weighed about 45kg, I felt like I was going crazy and I made a very hard decision to move. I think this was the hardest decision I've ever made in my life. To pack up my life and kids, move away from our family, friends and my mum.. to start my life over. It was the only thing I felt I could do to save myself from being swamped by the ongoing waves of destruction. All I had the power to do was focus on what I could recreate, what I could rebuild and what actions I could take to be well enough to take care of my kids. I was determined to give them the best possible childhood I could, despite this.

As I packed up our lives, so many regrets would come flooding in around how we let our relationship get to the point where this could happen. What didn't we do? What could I have done better? But really.. We all do the very best we can. And those questions are good to learn from. But they can also destroy us. Because Im not sure there is ever an easy answer to the complexity of marriage and long term relationships. Reality is, sometimes people do shit.. And sometimes people leave.

The kids and I moved to a new city. We found a house, my kids started a new school, I got them into sport, dance, music and I started a new job. I slowly, slowly sorted out the practicalities of our new life.

I then started my intense search for anything that would help me ease the pain. As really alcohol was only going to get me so far! For a very long time all I could do was take one day at a time and get kids to school and go to work. My life was in survival mode. I gradually started to add other things. I would run, go to meditation/yoga classes, I attended some pretty interesting spiritual centres, saw many counsellors, doctors, naturopaths, massages therapists, I joined dance/movement groups and eventually new experiences and friendships started to grow, along side the grief. I would often look back on the life I once had and wonder what on earth happened and be in shock at where my life was now.

It was honestly an incredibly long, hard, slow journey of recovery from the very dark depths of grief and betrayal. It was so hard to comprehend that two people I loved would choose this. I'm sure we all have that little person in us that doesn't want to be "left" who wants to be seen and considered. To feel invisible to people I loved felt like torture. But sometimes.. like many sometimes .. things just don't go the way I'd like them to. And sometimes, no matter how many loving/kindness/forgiveness meditations I did, it just hurt and it was very, very hard to accept. It was the perfect environment for very intense anger and conflict to grow.

For a very long time every text message was a panic attack. Every argument was days of recovery. It's was absolute hell. There was so much wasted energy, so many times I was hooked, triggered and wasted my time protecting my story from someone else's version. But really.. It was all just crap. I eventually learnt that people are always going to say stuff that hurts. All I could do was protect myself from it and choose how to respond to it in ways that didn't hurt me.

So my next challenge was to find a way out of the ongoing conflict before it destroyed me. I needed to take control of my new life by finding my self-worth (as nothing will kill that better than this scenario!) and self-protection. As much as I wanted to be super woman and create something that would work for everyone (because I always love keeping everyone happy!) I discovered I really wasn't Nelson Mandela!

I can remember so many times wanting to be just like him and "love my enemy," and "talk to the enemy" (because you know I am so cool, calm.. And wise like him! ) I wanted to be all kind, loving, forgiving, peaceful and compassionate. But reality is my pain had other needs. It needed safety, gentle care and a space to heal. All the things I was trying to give outward I needed to turn inwards to myself. I needed to build a very strong boundary around my very broken heart. I eventually learnt to love myself enough to give myself that time and space to heal.

Boundaries saved my life. I set boundaries about what energy I would let flow into my world, what I was willing to do for others and what I would respond to. I had to protect myself from the very traumatic emotional triggers. Because really, I am worth more than a life of pain, conflict and anger. And my kids deserved a mum who had a clear loving energy.

So I stopped feeding the angry monsters and learnt to love myself enough to protect myself from it. I nurtured my pain until it eased. I probably still have some pretty deep scars.. but they are OK..and I survived. All of this relearning, rebuilding, recreating and restorying took me years. But I did it.

I embraced my new life and the freedom of divorce. When the man turned up on my door with my divorce papers to sign, I don't think he had ever heard someone so excited! Remember that little dynamic, adventurous me who was waiting patiently for her time.. She found her voice and yelled yes, yes, yes!!!! He looked rather shocked. I could have hugged him! The release from the suffocation of marriage has been a huge relief for my heart and soul. That part of me is so happy she is free. She high fives them daily. She reclaimed her life back and she now gets to sing, play, grow and dance every single day.

And when they got married...

She went travelling ...And she lived happily every after!

"Boundaries boundaries boundaries.. Don't leave home without them! " Jeff Brown

Little signs from the universe

So I walk into the library at work yesterday and this book is waiting for me (yes I'm sure it was put there on the display stand just for me! ) This my friends may just be my next 5 year goal!!! I will so get that gap year I never had (because you know I was kinda caught up having babies and caring for others)  What a freakin great book !!!

I did it. I told a story.

So I did it. I told a story. Well a few stories really. And guess what.. No one died...well my mum died .. But you know what I mean! No one died from my story telling and from me doing something risky! If anything my facebook page came alive with love


I know in my life anxiety and fear are always working hard to try and keep me super safe. So I have to work even harder at keeping them and their stories in perspective. I think anxiety is so in love with me sometimes that he just wants to keep me all to himself.. tell me horror stories.. And lock me up! Well that's not happening. Anxiety is another feeling that needs boundaries and a reality check! (and maybe a hug and reassurance on occasions)


So here are a few little gems I found out this week ...


1. You are all the most fabulous loving human beings in the world ..with the most beautiful, kind-hearted words


2. I found a very new deep appreciation for anyone who ever shares themselves publicly


Like seriously, a part of me was thinking, who on earth would do this! Put yourself out there for other people to "see you"?! Ahhhh no way I'm most definitely going back into hiding! But then I had this deep appreciation that every singer, artist, musician, painter, dancer, writer (story teller) business owner is doing this !! They courageously open their heart.. Share what they have... and I'm sure somewhere in there they hope it will be recieved with love. And maybe just maybe it will offer something beautiful to someone else's day. But even without that.. they do it anyway!
They actually CHOOSE to do it and share it. Which is pretty incredible really... when they could choose to just stay on their comfy lounge, eat ice cream and stay nice and safe. Which sounds pretty tempting.. But no no no.. boring world! And plus we wouldn't have anything to watch on Netflix as all the movie makers would be sitting on their lounges eating ice cream.. instead of writing stories! And honestly.. Can you imagine how much fun guilt, anxiety, fear and the inner critic would have at an ice-cream lounge party.. on their own! I can just see them jumping up and down, giving eachother a hi five yelling "yippee we did it!! We killed her!!! Woohoo!"


So... I very much have a new appreciation to all the artists out there, ignoring all those unhelpful voices, sharing their hearts with the world and making it a more beautiful and brighter place.
Sharing our authentic selves really does create life and love
I think these are my most favourite words in the whole world...


"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at least have the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat"
Theodore Roosevelt


PS I am also totally an advocate for ice cream eating lounge parties at very important times (vegan ice-cream these days!) There are times.. very, very important times.. Where icecream is essential to living a meaning-full life  - and to celebrate how lucky we all are to be alive

Mothering without my mum

Ok so I'll start with this story. As our mums are where we all start. I've tossed and turned about whether to post this story. Partly because I don't want to be... depressing, as I like being joyful! But given I've made a commitment to "post" .. Here it is! And if you hang in there with me I promise all my stories have an uplifting ending.. Mainly because I get to freakin write them! And that's how my heart and life works. I will always write my own story and I will write uplifting, meaningful endings.. always x

Mothering without my mum -

When I was 15 my mum was diagnosed with Huntingtons disease, a genetic neurological condition.. and in that same week I found out I was pregnant (joyful week at the Turnbull household in Dondingalong! ). I both became a mum and lost my mum that week in 1994. As much as my mum was still my "mum" our roles switched and I gradually over the years became her carer.

Becoming a carer as a teenager comes with a range of feelings from deep fear and sadness, to anger. I didn't really want to be her carer.. which then leads to guilt (yes more hideous fucking guilt) But seriously what kind of awful human doesn't want to care for a sick parent! But at 15 I didn't really want to.. I wanted to run far far away.. But I did it because I loved her. I stayed close and cared for my mum for the next 20 years as she deteriorated, whilst I birthed and raised my 4 children.

From the day of her diagnosis I have always felt like that bird in the book "Are you my mother?" where the bird falls out of the tree and goes on his venture to find his mum. He asks the dog, the cat, the tractor.. Are you my mother? You know the one! I have even made jokes over the years, in my feelings of desperation when my kids were little, that I might put an add in the paper to hire a mum!

I have always longed for that person my mum was "supposed" to be. I lost having someone at my kids births who could be fully there. I can remember not really wanting my mum to visit me in hospital, as I would be caring for a new born baby and then be overwhelmed with my mums loses, changes, chorea movements, the huge responsibility and her obvious difference, which as a young adult felt very hard. And then I would feel more guilt for being such an awful human for feeling that way! It was hugely conflicting.

All I wanted though was to have a "well" mum. A mum to teach me how to be a mum, to take care of me and share my kids with me, to tell me stories about when I was little and what she would have done in the same situation. The loss of that role, stories and memories is like a huge part of my life and my experience of motherhood vanished. It's kind of like being out this vast forest, without your mother elder guide!

My mum moved into a nursing home when she was 46 years old where she lived with people twice her age. For years I visited her every week, whilst I juggled and managed 4 little kids. I grieved so deeply for the mum I desperately needed. I would spoon feed her pureed food (which let me tell you in nursing homes is pretty awful!) and I would imagine the mum that would have come to my house to hang out.. and help me spoon feed my kids!

Ive tried over the years to fill this space in my life with other female role models, older woman, professionals, aunts, and other people's mums, which works a little.. But it often leaves me wondering more deeply what our relationship could have been. A photo, a story, a glimmer is always a little gem I stash away to help build my story of her, which helps me build my story of who I am as a woman.

There are also some very basic practical skills I unfortunately lost due to her becoming unwell in my teens. And these may seem very gendered and insignificant .. but when I have 4 kids, they are critical to our survival! I never learnt how to cook from someone. I've generally avoided it, as I have memories of my mum cooking, which seem so far out of my reach. I've never learnt how to wash clothes very well. I recently discovered more expensive washing powder helps  but if you ask my kids they tend to do it themselves, as it's safer and their clothes last longer! I've never been taken care of in a way that I imagine a mum takes care of a daughter when she is sick...making food, drinking tea, visiting and helping. Which can create a strong sense of independence and survival in me that I have to do life alone.

I often have a longing for that kind of motherly connection but then I also have a fierce protection around who is allowed into that sacred space of mothering me. I don't generally want anyone stepping into that role with me. Which can make receiving support hard, and it's something I'm still learning to do.

One of the hardest things to accept though has been my kids not having my mum as their grandmother. I see what other grandmothers do with their daughters and kids, and it looks like a pretty big deal! I wonder what that would have looked like for us? How our life have been different if she was here. What adventures or fights we all may have had. However my kids often tell me my mum taught them more than many grandmothers may. She taught them how to love someone who is sick, how to care for someone with a disability, how to get so much joy from ice-cream and she taught them about life and death...

What more could I ask for really... Other than someone to come wash some clothes, feed us and maybe take us to the zoo!
So I'll leave you with this.. I always love this quote.. As it's so true in so many areas of my life..

"What screws us up on life is the picture in our head of how it is supposed to be"

If I let go of the idea of what was meant to be and just allow what is .. This story is not depressing... It's incredibly sad, yes.. But it is filled with loads of life lessons and love which I would never have recieved from my mum in any other way. So in a way she will always still be mothering and teaching me

(PS However sometimes peeps, I honestly think her lessons are a bit hard core.. So if anyone would like to have a word to her. Please feel free!)