| It took me ages to work out how to sign in. Ages to remember which email account the password reset instruction went to. There was much clicking of "forgot my password" links, and one instance of raising a customer service request with hotmail that I have now realised is entirely unnecessary. But still. I worked it out eventually, and here I am.
It was three years ago today that we left Oz-tralia to see what was on the other side of the world. It seems like just yesterday and forever ago all at the same time. Was it a good idea? I'm still deciding that. I have job opportunities I wouldn't have had at home, have met excellent people, done much travelling... but there's that small and insistent voice that says I have, somehow, made the Wrong Choice. I wonder if I will ever shake that voice. It doesn't seem to matter what choices get made, it's always there, whispering away... wrong, wrong, wrong. Left behind my friends and family, left behind the life I had... wrong, wrong, wrong. But before I left, it said the same thing. Living in this ongoing life where nothing changes... wrong, wrong, wrong. Didn't travel when I left Uni, didn't do as I planned, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Screw you, voice. You're freaking wrong, and your opinion is useless.
What am I going to do, make every choice and decision based on the fear of regretting something in the future? All will be well. The friends that are worth having will still love me when I go back. I have met new people, made new friends, all of whom are important and valuable and good to me. I'm only even hearing that voice because I spoke to the Amazon on the phone today, and despite the fact that it was good to talk to her, the realisation that she has her own family, her own children, her own husband, her own life that does not require ME is painful. Even though I know she values me, even though I know she misses me, some selfish and stupid part of me wanted, arrogantly, to be... I don't know, needed, maybe? When I was first sick - almost 15 years ago now, has it really been that long? - she came to see me in hospital. I remember her sitting beside me and saying, if there was anything she could do - if I needed a kidney - she'd give it to me, if she could do anything to make me better... and I haven't reminded her of that since she's been sick, but I can't help but think - just as well I didn't need a kidney, reckon you needed both of yours in the end. Maybe this is the thing, this is what feels unfair - that she could offer to do ANYTHING for me, and I can't offer it to her. Not really. She has family to take care of her, and I'm so many many miles away. I can't even offer to be tested for a bone marrow transplant - between my own medical problems and the whole being-on-the-other-side-of-the-world thing AND the extraordinarily slim chance that we'd be a good enough match, there's absolutely no point. This is a weird thing - apparently, even though the transplant procedures now use stem cells rather than actual bone marrow, you still have to be matched. Probably because they're adult stem cells. I don't know, and the realisation that I don't know reminds me that the clinical part of my life is falling further and further behind me. I feel like I woke up, and suddenly discovered that I was All Grown Up. My friends have kiddies, and have changed careers, and have sold their starter homes & moved to their bigger family-friendly houses. We are All Grown Up - except I still live in a little practical cost-effective house with my cats and am contemplating learning to hang-glide and my major career achievement is writing a nifty little macro that no-one's used yet. I feel like I lost my 20s to dodgy health, and am only now doing and feeling the things that everyone else did and felt 10 years ago. And I am reminding myself that I made Good Choices for Good Reasons, and I will continue making Good Choices for Good Reasons, and everything will turn out alright in the end. I am not wrong, wrong, wrong. If I had stayed in Adelaide I would be frustrated by crappy jobs and hot weather and not having travelled, I would be pulled through the wringer by my Friends Around the Corner and their crazy divorce, I would not have met many excellent internet people, I would not have visited Norway or Poland or France and I would still feel far from the Amazon and unable to help.
And I would be a long way from a decent hang-gliding school.
So take that, stupid voice. I will defeat you with optimistic interpretation of the facts, the calm & logical consideration of issues, and getting more sleep. Tomorrow will be a better day in which I will not feel hopeless and old before my time. Hey, want to know something weird? Today I taught two people to thread and use a sewing machine. Of all the things I would never have expected myself to do, "teach sewing skills" comes in as only slightly more likely than "accidentally make contact with intelligent alien life". But that's what I'm like. I do stuff. Stuff I would never expect me to do. Because my life has MANY FREAKING POSSIBILITIES and any whispers to the contrary shall be diligently ignored as an artifact of insufficient sleep, medications & variable health, and possible lingering effects of brain injury. So there. |
I think you are a grown up; grown ups make different choices and have different lives. And the grown ups with kiddies and practical houses may very well be wishing they could learn to hang glide, and judge that they aren't real grown ups without the freedom to hang glide if they want to. I hope your current feelings of frustration dissipate quickly.