Running on empty.

I have been saying something for quite a while now. It's something that I say in reaction to people who talk about regrets or when people mutter things like 'oh I wish I could', or, 'I'd love to, but...'.
It often stops people in their tracks and most say 'oh Carly, don't say that', but I mean it, I live it, I stand by it and I will tell it again.
So to anyone that needs to hear it, I say this... that I could die tomorrow and I'd be happy, that I have done all I can already.
The thing is I really am done and all the rest is extra. Marvellous, great, possibly and probably painful extra, but yeah, superfluous.
I started early. I began living when I could and I was allowed to do that at the breakneck speed that has always been in my nature. I have lived on the edge, of cliffs, knives, on the edge of my seat and at the ends of the earth and I have jumped into things, a lot of things, usually with eyes closed.
I have done dumb stuff that gave me my backbone and I have done clever things, that became so only when hindsight hit. I have hurt, been hurt, fought been found and then instantly got myself lost. I have sung from up high, danced with the low life and scuttled between rocks in a turning tide.
Days have hounded me and hunted me and I have grabbed them and wrung their necks and then given them the kiss of life.
And what I say to you now is that yeah, I could die tomorrow with the knowledge that I have not done easy, that I have not done calm or mediocre or beige. I have not done things right but I did not do things wrong. You don't need to be completed by doing the things that fill you up. Get emptied out and then take a look and say, look there's my heart and there is my soul and nothing else was needed.

Weird...

I live in a triangle. It's not normal I know, but then that is normal for me. It is completely unpractical and tall people visit only once. But it is whimsical and weird and that counts for a lot in my world.
I live with three points of enclosure rather than four, my home is a crashed star, where only one fifth is visible. It's a pyramid without the hefty overtones, an alpine chalet without the snow.
And I'll let you in on a secret; a weird imagining that nods at a quirk that is possibly quirkier than most. I like to imagine that actually, my house is just the roof of a normal abode. That under the ground the four walls of a grand family home remain.
I can picture the family that live there, their routines, arguments, laughter and annoyance at the strange sounds that come from their roof. They are house proud and right wing and they watch the news every night.
And this is where my imaginings get really skewed. This family of ground dwellers, these subterranean John Key voters that live under my feet actually believe every word that TV 3 tells them. Weird. Odder than strange. Down right peculiar. Who would of thought.
Unbelievable really.

And she's back...

Two years since my last post and yeah, I could go down the 'a lot has happened' route...but I won't, because, well the tedium of that would probably make this my first in ages post but then my last pretty quick. Life is relentless, it forges on and up, sometimes down, spiralling, spinning, nose diving, flat lining and then flapping the fuck out to get back up. It's tough, it's great and it is what it is. Life goes on, gets on and greets a new day, an old sun and an even older moon. We can't stop it, even if we want to.
We have made time, we have made days and we have made our bed which we must lie in. I often think about how bloody wonderful it would be to press pause on that big button, the one that flashes life, on and off like an old Christmas light. A pause to think, a time to step off, to bloody stop the perpetual movement forward, onwards, upwards and beyond what was yesterday and last year and last decade.
 I'm tired, I am often scared, often confused and forever angry at the axis that spins us away from what was and what is and what could of been. But thank goodness I am also full of this life. This life that yes, bloody grinds me down, but it pulls me too. Like when you see a tide turn on a west coast beach and it rushes towards you with surprising velocity. It knows gravity and it knows the elemental force of what it is supposed to do and it just does.
So, yes, I'm still here...doing... being done in daily, but doing the thing that I do, to not only get through, but to survive and strive and drive this life as best I can. Because what else can I do?

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

I met an amazing person today. She has felt the fear, the kind of raw fear that goes beyond and beneath, with the words terminal and cancer pushing down, the pain of 40 operations and seven years of scars, she felt the fear and now she is damn well doing everything anyway.
She is in remission, she has dyed her hair pink and she is catching up on things in a huge way, giddy with the life that she can now live without the fear, without the weight and without the 'C' word.
She taught me a whole heap in the hour that I spent with her, she made me see that the rest of us; the fearless, painless lucky percentage have it all wrong. We who have nothing to fear, nothing really to cry over, despair with or anger towards are so bloody scared that we have forgotten about living, forgotten about life.
She said she felt like a child, she felt free, happy, battered but not beaten, robbed of years but hell bent on getting them back.
We have those years, we have this precious time right here, right in front of us. She will not complain, she will not let things pass her by and neither should we; because for us to do so would be another knock down for the fierce girl with the fiery wild hair.

Not quite at mid life, or am I? crisis.

It's a wishy washy sort of an age this just shy of 40 stage. Am I middle aged yet? Do I fall into the cougar category? Do 20 somethings pity me? And what exactly is the appropriate skirt length?
It's all so bloody difficult. Half the time I am invisible and the rest of the time I stand out like a not quite cool enough to be here road cone.  I don't fit into a clearly outlined, tick this box, socio demographic and I can spin a yarn about when I was a kid things were a lot different but at the same time cringe at mid life crisis sufferers. Too old to be cool and too young to knit.
Age has taught me many things and one is to be blatantly honest at all times so I do admit that technology has taken me over, I gave up keeping up sometime ago. I no longer understand high street fashion and I only just figured out what a hash tag is....I think.
 I am in limbo, not ready to say no to a party, but kinda too wrinkly to go clubbing. Too young to say "by jingos" but too old to say "wassup?".
Oh, it is all so hard. But do I have a cup of tea or a red bull? A sit down or do yoga? And do I really have to go through an internal monologue on dressing my age every morning?
Two years ago I was relevant and two years from now I'll be fabulous, but can someone please put a label on exactly what I am now?

A literary hot water bottle.

My poor little random blog has been completely neglected, pushed aside, booted out the door on a cold night and thoroughly unloved of late.So, well, I thought I would warm it up with some words with no particular purpose, theme, angle, or point. For one reason, I don't actually have anything of note to say, not even anything to rant about. My brain is trailing along, kicking at stones and stomping through leaves but not really arriving anywhere, so this string of words dripping away like a leaky tap is the sum of it all. A muddily puddle of random. Another reason is….aren't words lovely just as they are (insert question mark here as you will know if you have been around my blogs before that my poor old and over-used question mark died sometime ago).

A right royal twat.

Someone made a comment the other day that initially got my back up and put me on the defensive  it then it got me thinking and now I am at the rant stage. So hold onto your hats.
We were talking about my new job and the hours I'm doing blah blah blah blah and the man I was conversing with proceeded to tell me how tired my husband looks since I started this job and he really hoped I was still looking after my family.
I very ferociously told him, with eyes ablaze that yes, that was a given. I stopped myself there but well, now I will start where I left off and tell you what I could have said if hindsight had have kicked in a tad faster.
Firstly, let me tell you that I have had quite a few similar comments and it appalls and amazes me to think that people in 2014 think that the job of looking after a family lies solely on the Mum's shoulders. I work about 30 hours a week my husband works at least 60 and has done forever. The expectations that society puts on him is to earn money and perhaps play sport with the kids and teach them about boy things. The expectation put on me is to raise the kids, feed everyone with my husbands hard earned cash and clean, tidy and wash clothes till my little heart sings.
Well, the thing is that in my house my husband is a way better cook than me, enjoys ironing and knows where the vacuum cleaner is, we share the load and I earn my share of the income. The kids love hanging out with their Dad, he teaches them their letters and numbers and something really important as well, that life is limitless and gender is irrelevant.
What really matters is not if Mum chooses to stay home or go to work it's that the kids are getting what they need,that they know they are loved and that everyone is on an equal footing.
So here's what I really should have said to the man with the mind of a Neanderthal. My husband may look exhausted but that is not because my family is being neglected it's because life is exhausting. I too am knackered, tired of people like you who think people like me should stay home and never have a deeper thought than what to cook for dinner or have an opinion. An opinion such as this, that you Sir are an idiot and a right royal twat.