I have no idea who the person who said this is or was. Feel free to educate me. But wow lately I have realised there is nothing truer than this statement.
I have found myself embracing what I can learn from my past. There have been many years where I felt bitter, disappointed, upset by things that had happened. Wondering why they happened. Annoyed at myself for decisions that I had made.
I would wake up at an hour where people should only be asleep and go over these things in my head. Over and over, the thoughts would overwhelm me until I finally feel asleep again…most probably a few minutes before the alarm went off.
Through this journey I have found myself letting go of the past. I still have a long way to go but I have been looking at it through a different lens. It is so easy to get wrapped up in our own version of what happened, another persons role. But we rarely stop to consider a different version of the past. I look at my childhood and lately have attempted to view it from the perspective of my parents, or my sister.
I had a conversation recently with my younger sister about the day she found out she was pregnant with her first, she was 23 if I remember correctly.
I remember the day clearly. She told me she thought she was pregnant and asked me what I thought she should do. I said buy a test and find out so off we went to the local shopping mall. She took the test in the toilets, found out she was pregnant and we then went at sat in our local coffee shop for an hour figuring out how to tell Mum without her hitting the roof.
I thought that I had done a good job of being excited for her, as we had been trying for a couple of years and had had two miscarriages. I was excited for her and for our family. Long story short, she told Mum and yes she hit the roof. To her credit she came down within a few hours and proved herself to be a wonderful grandmother with patience we certainly didn’t see when we were young.
My sisters perspective on the day is very different. She was terrified of not being pregnant but of my reaction, as I was the one married and trying for children. She thought I would be upset and disappointed, she was correct I obviously had those emotions but it was not with her just the situation. Our lens were different as they should have been.
There is so much to be understood and learned from the past but it certainly isn’t worth dwelling on or regretting. Take the learning that you can and move forward with life.
I have never been a cleaner. Don’t get me wrong our house is tidy and cleanish but definitely not sparkling.
Well lately it is!
It seems the simpler I make life and the more I delve into my future freedom journey the cleaner my house gets. It probably helps that I am drinking less or nothing at all and so I have replaced some of the hours spent drinking with cleaning but this has never been the case in the past.
It’s a weird energy that seems to have come about and I now cannot tolerate the mess or dirt and I feel a satisfaction out of making it look nice. The odd thing is I see dirt in places that I didn’t see it before, however I am sure it was there.
I have always led a minimalistic life. Lots of things and mess have always increased my anxiety and I learned at a fairly young age that the less things you owned the less mess that could be made. Although I do feel my daughter defies this logic. She could make nothing messy I swear. Anyway I have always loved throwing things away in fact in the past I have been known to throw something out rather than clean it. Don’t judge me!
I am now questioning whether there is a relationship between the clarity that I am finding as I progress through this journey and my want to keep things nice. I am aware of the financial benefits of looking after things as they are obviously going to last longer.
That being said, I am now separating my whites from my darks and soaking items so that they come up cleaner. I cannot put this change down to education as I already knew that I should do these things I just was either too lazy or figured I didn’t have time.
I think the deeper change is that I have learned that I want our home to be a place where we want to be. A place where we feel content and our brains can rest and re-cooperate. A place that we want to go home to everyday. A place my children want to return to. A place free of the hair from three big Rotties, haha.
I know I always wanted this but I didn’t think that cleaning and organising had that much of an impact on it. I have learned that the reality is if home is a disorganised mess then so is the atmosphere in that home. We need calm and organised and things to be nice so that we all feel that way too.
I have an inkling about what is happening but I want to delve a bit further into this journey and develop a bit more confidence before going further into it.
When I began this journey at the beginning of the year I didn’t know what it would bring. I just knew that I wanted to explore what freedom looked like for us in the future. I felt we were stuck and that the coming years looked all very same same. They still look all very same same.
The only think I knew was that I wanted to educate myself, read books, question my ideals and challenge what I thought my normal life would look like. Haha What a fantasy normal life is. It does not exist.
What I didn’t realise is how deeply it would make me delve into pockets of the past that I hadn’t really thought mattered in my life. I have found myself questioning past decisions, not in a regretful way but wondering what I was thinking at the time. On reflection many times I was just surviving and that is where the decision came from. But that is a discussion for another day.
I have found myself questioning relationships and friendships, whether I have played my role to the best of my ability. Looking at friendships that are no longer and thinking about the why.
The fact is you go through so many phases in life and at various times your friendship groups evolve. We have friends that have been supportive throughout the years and then there are friends were realised after a while were not really friends to begin with. They bought a type of toxicity to our lives that we didn’t feel we needed and therefore we moved on or it petered out. Who knows maybe we did the same for them.
What I have realised lately is that the people you surround yourself with on the daily matter deeply. The positive support of friends and family is needed and affects your mental health on many levels. I read an article the other day that said many mental health issues all come down to who a person surrounds themself with.
I see this in my children. My son has very strong friendships with a circle of boys that support each other and build each other up. Yes they talk absolute shit about how high there moto jumps were as teenage boys do but the nitty gritty is at the end of racing they raise the others up. A fist pump here, a congrats on a win and an apology when they make a mistake that affects someone else race too. My son can’t play rugby due to a heart defect but you will often find him on a Saturday morning at the rugby field supporting these same boys. They are confident in their communication ability, and even when they are twats to each other it seems to be put down to a bad day.
My daughter on the other hand has a group of girls that can be toxic. Possibly just teenage girls in general but I don’t remember being as mean as they all seem to be. They seem to be friends one day and not the next and they fall out over the most minor of things. I see her question her place in her friend group daily. My suggestion to her to question whether they are actually friends in the first place didn’t go down well and I am sure she plays her role in the dynamics of the group. But it certainly affects how she feels about herself.
We have what I feel are a fairly solid and supportive group of friends at the moment, interestingly made up of many of my sons friends parents. We spend a lot of time with these people and generally feel as though they lift us up. Hopefully this continues for many years to come.
I have looked back many times this year over my relationship with my parents and siblings. The way I feel about them seems to stem mostly from events that happened in my late teens and 20’s. Once I became a parent it seemed less important to dwell on small things and I just wanted my children to have as many supportive people in their lives as they could.
My relationship with my mother has always been tumultuous. There were times where we got a long well but mostly we didn’t like each other very much. This stemmed from my teenage years where I was often yelled at, didn’t feel heard and I felt constantly belittled and un important. Disagreements often were nasty and the core issues never faced. I have recently come to realise that my teenage years coincided with my Mum losing her Mum and her and my Dad divorcing. Neither of these things could have been easy for her and perhaps her reactions were just a sign of her mental health at the time.
Not an excuse but when I deal with my own teens I can see how easy it would be for the frustrations of life to boil over. This realisation of late has had a huge impact on how I deal with my teens and my relationship with them has improved. The realisation that we are their sounding board and safe place and that my stress in life should not impact our relationship or my reactions.
My relationship with my father was an interesting one. He was an alcoholic and rather dysfunctional in life. He was very kind and worked hard but when all was said and done he had nothing. I moved in with him when I was 17 and I remember going to a party one night and missing the last train home. No biggy, I just crashed at a friends place and caught the midday train home the following day. I wandered up the drive at about 2pm and he said, “oh I thought you were in bed asleep”. Even as a 17 year old this shocked me, he hadn’t even checked to see if I had arrived home. I can’t settle at night until I know my children are safe either in their own bed or at a friends. Even though he was like this I still idolised him. I thought he was the most amazing man on earth. It wasn’t until my late teens that I realised he wasn’t everything I had him dreamed up to be in my mind. Looking back I am glad that through my childhood I was oblivious to his shortcomings.
I look at my daughters relationship with my husband. They are very close and she loves him to bits. He is her rock her sounding board and over the years I have found myself occasionally jealous of the relationship they have. Personality wise they are very similar though and so this makes sense,He has his rare moments but generally speaking he is the man that she has probably built him up to be in her mind.
My reflections have led me to realise that it is so important to be supportive and encouraging of those around us. To give everything we can to a relationship. I often feel as though I don’t give enough of my time, whether it is to listen or to do something kind. So that is my relationship journey moving forward. Not everyone will reciprocate but I can’t control another persons role in our friendship or relationship the only one I can own is mine.
What was I thinking when I decided to stop drinking on a Friday…The one day of the week that I have almost always had a drink. I definitely can’t say that it was an easy weekend.
I have had weird cravings for things that I have never wanted before. I bought myself a can of ‘V’. I haven’t had an energy drink in probably 20 years but felt I really wanted it. The first mouthful was nice but then I struggled my way through the rest of the can. I won’t be buying that again.
It got me thinking about my alcohol drinking. The first glass is always lovely but after that I just keep drinking it because it is open and I have no self control.
My sleep has been terrible, although a sick dog really added to that. So I can’t really assume that that is the fault of not drinking, They say you sleep better when you don’t drink so I am hoping that my sleep will improve over the week.
I need to find some things to occupy myself in the evenings. I have about three books I have started and not finished so I will begin there. But I will happily take on suggestions- No crafts please.
We own a collision repair business…so you crash your car we fix it. I kind of landed in it when the business started to grow. I left my job as a teacher and came to work with my husband and I am now the admin person. It’s been this way for 10 years now.
Surprisingly we get along really well 99% of the time and the 1% is usually caused by outside influences. Working together is fine although I would love at the end of the day to ask, “How was your day?” and not already know the answer. It would be great to add to the list of things we get to discuss.
The problem lies in the fact that neither of us really like the job. I am not a lover of cars and never have been. There is also the fact that the customer that comes to you has crashed their car or someone else has and therefore they are in a slightly heightened state of emotion over it already. Insurance companies take their time. Parts take forever to get to NZ if they are overseas and I am generally the bearer of shit news for the customer. Which I cop it for. I get that! But the reality is…I didn’t crash the car. I am the one trying to help get it fixed.
There are very few decent staff available in our industry and therefore this limits the amount of work you can get through and creates a world of problems in itself. When you have shit staff you have a hard time getting rid of them and when you have great staff you feel constantly pressured to keep them happy.
So where does this leave me. Sadly I have bills to pay and I feel kind of stuck so I guess the only way forward is an exit plan? It needs to be fairly solid as it’s not like one of us is walking away from a job we both are…. What would you do?
It is birthday week. Miss 12 is turning 13. The house will officially be full of teens. We make a big deal of birthdays in our house. It is a privilege to get older as so many don’t. So the day is yours to choose how you want to celebrate within reason. If you have school then you are still going plus I think it’s great to see your friends.
So what are we doing to celebrate. She has selected dinner at a local pub with family. Simple and easy.
I’d like to say it ends there but no she wants a party and since we haven’t done a party for a few years we gave in. Ten girls and a scavenger hunt around the local district, oh and she wants it to be a surprise for her too so I need to plan the whole thing. Just Yay!
So here I am at working writing out clues with little activities in between. I’m really delving into the part of my brain that was a teacher many years ago and reminding myself that, “I have got this!”
Hubby asks what I am doing and as I remind him a look rolls over his face, he is working this Saturday. For crying out loud, how do I get myself into these situations? Well 10 girls and me in my 7 seater is just not going to work( Not to mention the two rear seats are unusable as the puppies have eaten through the seatbelts).
A mayday call to my Mum has been made and she is now going to drive the three hours to help me out of the pickle I am in.
Am I going to be able to pull this off? Who knows but there will definitely be the reward of wine at the end of it all.
This book spoke to me! I am currently reading it again after getting to the end on Friday. It basically told the story of what I want to achieve. Having a why as to where you are heading on your journey is so important. Sometimes I feel as though my goals are just not even realistic and so to read about others achieving it really helped me focus on yes. This is achievable. It won’t look like their journey did as the cost of living in NZ is completely different from where they were. It will be our journey.
My husband has worked every weekend for the last three and juggled kids sports in between so he can try and be there. This morning he said, “I don’t want to go to work today”. I could hear in his voice how much he meant it and I thought this is why we are on this journey. He very rarely complains about having to work and is the hardest worker I know by far. I am so proud of everything he has built up with our business and how hard he has worked to get us here but we can’t continue to work at the pace we are doing something that we really don’t like doing.
This is my why. This is what keeps me focused. It’s what keeps me saying “No” when the kids are nagging for takeaways or treats. Don’t worry they aren’t completely deprived. They get plenty of treats…takeaways not so much.
When you have a strong why then it makes staying the course so much easier. Especially on those days when you question whether it’s all worth it.
When I started this journey I had no idea where it was heading and therefore decided to learn as much as I possibly could. Read everything I could find. Take the information that spoke to me and discard what didn’t. The journey is slowly becoming clearer. At the beginning I knew there would be a financial aspect to it but I didn’t realise it would .be the glue that allows the freedom to all come together.
When I started this journey I had no Idea where it would take me or how quickly my thinking would escalate and dart all over the place.
There were so many aspects of change that I felt needed to undergo that I really didn’t know what to expect and nor where it would head. I think that is what I am loving about the journey.
I actually don’t know what is ahead of me. All I know is that I am chasing some version of freedom, yet to be determined or evolving and that each day I want to be a better version of myself.
At this stage I feel as though I am mostly achieving this with slips ups along the way. I think the difference is I am not aiming for perfection I am aiming for progress and I am really not concerned about the tiny blips I am just learning from them and continuing to plough forwards.
I think the greatest aspect of freedom I have found so far is the concept of being at peace with myself. Not overthinking, beating myself up, feeling as though I am never good enough.
Yes I still walked into a knee high washing pile in the laundry this morning and I had kids that couldn’t find this and that…probably because they were yet to be washed but it’s only washing. And truth be said there are 3 other people in our house capable of doing it.
In the past I would feel like a failure because I wasn’t running the house the way I felt it should be run but if I am honest they were the expectations I put on myself. So I am finding this new way of kinder thinking towards myself to be much better for my mental health and in many ways very freeing.
