our new home

stepping into another new life

So here I am… living in Fiji again.  After well over a year of anxious anticipation, I find myself thrust suddenly into living the life I tried so hard to project into and imagine.  I find myself walking streets, driving roads, and hearing voices that are so familiar that they feel safe and comfortable.  And at the same time, despite the familiarity, everything feels totally different to the last time that I was here…I feel different. 

The last time I moved here I was lost, clutching at straws, hoping for an opportunity to find myself by taking radical action in the chaotic disintegration of my life.   This time I stood still, I thought, I weighed the possibilities… I was happy where I was and yet… I chose to step forward into a new endeavour.  While there were unknowns and fears of course, I stepped deliberately and thoughtfully forward from a place of balance and self awareness.  I stepped forward with a deep sense that I was stepping onto my life path.

Being here in Fiji this time feels, unexpectedly and yet unsurprisingly like I am finally, after a long time of being slightly out of kilter, at exactly the right place and right time in my life.  I am doing exactly the right thing… I know it in my bones. 

So yes, the job is going to be hugely challenging.  And yes, there will be times when I am terribly lonely.  And yes, there will be times when I realise what it is to truly be alone as a parent, no family, no supports, no networks, in a foreign country…  But at the same time as this, I know that this is what I need to be doing.  I want to face these challenges, and I actually trust completely that although it will be hard, I will be up to it. 

An iconic childhood moment!

It's moments like these indeed...

Tartle

On a random stroll through internet land I stumbled over a list of untranslatable words.... and I found a word that sums up one of the deep anxieties of my life.  After several years of sleep deprivation this condition has only been exacerbated.... my memory capacity is best described as mush.... and it is one of my greatest sources of nerves about my new adventure... 

At least this gave me a chuckle... damn that Scottish heritage!   

Perhaps I can start a TA (Tartle Anonymous) support group...

Tartle

Scottish – The act of hesitating while introducing someone because you’ve forgotten their name. (Altalang.com)
 (Thanks http://jlowsjunk.blogspot.com.au)

Turning 40

So last week I turned 40... in the midst of hustle and bustle and chaos... a milestone snuck on past.  I say this because I chose not to make a big fuss of it, not too much... a minimal "me" style gathering that started out as a few friends having breaky and turned into roughly 35 people taking over half a restaurant for the morning... but as I said, not too much of a fuss.  So it did sneak on past on the outside as it was subsumed in the surrounding craziness of life and toddlers and babies and moving countries and all that... On the inside I am vaguely aware, in the quieter moments, that a milestone has, and is, occurring. On the inside I think something significant is actually sifting.  Its not an epiphany... Its not a revelation or a grand event... but a subtle shift in the way I see myself and my life.  The best way I can describe it is as a coming together of themes... a settling of ideas into a comfortable place within.  Some of the things that have fitted together into the jigsaw of my "self" include the following...

My dear friend gave me a special present on my birthday.... it is a ring that spins and as it turns it reminds me of the words "what we think we become".... and as I turn 40 this sums up a profound mental shift... Its time to stop waiting for life to somehow miraculously show me who I can be... its time to just be it... and I will do this with my thoughts.  If I want to be a grown up, respected, successful, strong, capable, clear, motivated, self disciplined, confident...then it is time for me to start believing in myself and to see myself in those ways.  For too much of my life I have secretly believed that I was "play acting" being a grown up, and waited for the miracle to happen that would make me what I wanted to be.  At 40 its time to take responsibility, stop waiting and start being.

In the lead up to my 40th people kept asking me if I was having a big party... and I didn't want to.  I didn't want to drink and be silly... but I wanted something significant to mark the milestone.   After tossing the dilemma around in my head for a while I realised what I needed.  I didn't want to manufacture a way of marking the milestone, I didn't want to create an "event".... I wanted turning 40 to be marked by a way of living my life.  And so I realised - what better way to celebrate turning 40 than to live my dream?   I chose to celebrate my 40th year of life by believing in myself enough to move overseas and be the CEO of an NGO in a developing country.  This has been my dream for as long as I can remember.  This has been what my career and my life has been building up to.  So as I turn 40 I choose to believe in myself enough to have the courage to step forward into the future I have earned.   I choose to believe that I can do this, despite the voices in my head that loudly doubt I can... despite the fear that I will fail, that I will fall short of expectations, that I will prove to everyone that I am not really as good as people may think I am... despite the knowledge that it will be hard, lonely at times, scary, and challenging on so many levels... despite it all, I choose to live my 40th year achieving my life goal and living the life I have chosen.

As I turn 40 I watch the grey hairs multiplying on my head... and I choose to embrace them.  I choose to stop thinking that I am a little girl on the inside, in a grown up body.  I choose to bring my inside world to match my outside reality and realise that I am mature, capable, strong... I don't need looking after, I don't need guiding, I don't need parenting.... As I turn 40 I choose to step forth from my supports and stand alone and strong.

As I turn 40 I choose to believe that I have a right and a responsibility for my own person.  I choose to stop seeking to please others and give myself permission to set boundaries, be unapologetic about what is right for me, put my own needs and future as my priority and choose clarity over confusion.  I choose to move away from tying myself in knots to suit others and start allowing others to be responsible for their own feelings by being responsible to my own.  I choose to stop waiting for others to look after me and resenting them when they don't.  I choose to be true to myself because I am a good person - and its ok to be me!   I recognise that I am half way through my life span and I choose not to spend the later half of my life unsure of who I am and what I want because I am too focusing on everyone else.

As I turn 40 I refocus on my life goal of being Useful.  I choose to step away from a comfortable life at home because I want my life to be useful.  I want my life to have meant something in the world.  I choose to believe that in small ways I can make a difference in people's lives, and therefore in the collective state of the world, because I can make myself useful.  I choose not to prioritise the "happy passing of time" of a lifestyle of cafes, indulgences, fashion and fancy.  I choose to take the road less travelled, the harder path of being someone who does something in life.  I choose to take a step in creating a life that I will look back on with satisfaction.  I have periods of my life that are like this, sharply etched by meaningful experiences, and great grey patches in between where time just passed in a cloud of diversion.   I choose to climb the mountain trail to where the air is clear and the colours are bright.  I choose to live strongly.

So I stand at a cross roads, and I have chosen my way forward.... I know that I am walking this path...what matters now is how I walk it.  And I choose to walk it as a 40 year old.  And this makes me happy.