blog

The Homelessness Diaries, pt 1

“Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop”

I wish I could take that advice, but you’ll just have to forgive me for jumping in at the middle. At some point I will tell you my tale of woe, but for now, I just want to introduce myself.

Hello, I’m a statistic. I’m 47, I have no job, no home, and am really just trying to figure out where my next meal is coming from, and how I can escape this mountain of debt piling up and threatening to bury me under an avalanche of late fees and hardship forms.

I also have four cats, who live temporarily in a little room in the suburbs, and are thankfully pretty happy and healthy. I had a fifth cat, a cranky 13 year old tabby, but he was never going to be happy crammed into the room with all the others, so he sadly had to go to foster care until I can find him a more permanent home.

I go to see my cats every day, and give them as much cuddles and food as I can afford, and tell them this will all be over soon and I will find us a home again. Sometimes I sleep there in the little single bed there, and they all pile on. And even though I wake up with a bad back and twisted up like a pretzel, I am so grateful I still get to do that.

This actually isn’t the first time I’ve been homeless, but I’m a lot older than the last time (when I was 33). I’m more tired, more disabled, more ill than before. And I’m sad and angry that everything I spent the last 14 years building has vanished like it was nothing.

I wouldn’t be in this position if I had work. But unfortunately the same resume that’s served me well over the years has become an anathema to the AI bots that now sift through all hopeful job applications, selecting only the “right” ones. I haven’t learned how to hack the system yet, and to be honest if my fate is being decided by AI then we have bigger problems at hand.

Of the hundreds of jobs I’ve applied for this year, if I do get a response it’s usually a form rejection email. If I get a rare interview, I’m told I’m “overqualified” or “not the right fit”. The last place I interviewed at (who, ironically, are set up to provide services to older women who are struggling) said I didn’t answer their questions in “the right way”.

My mental health is suffering with every rejection, so I have stopped looking for work right now. Thankfully I am on government benefits but they don’t stretch far. Hence the debt I racked up while I was moving out of my last property (under duress – which is a story for another day!), which has started to accrue late fees and attract nasty phone calls and I am drowning.

Anyway, I’m sure I will unpack all of this as we go. I slept over with my cats last night, and today I have had some Devon and crackers and cheese and an apple that I had in the fridge there. I stopped in at the TAFE library to work on and submit an assignment, but will go now to the place I’m staying at this week as I have some food in the fridge there – a burger I saved from an event on Saturday night, and a bit of salad.

Really, my life has become all about food, and I hate it. Where can I go to get a meal? What food vans are operating today and where? Where’s the nearest food pantry? What groceries can I buy with $5? How long will this food last without access to a fridge? Who can I hang out with who will feed me? And every fortnight after I get paid I like to treat myself, but that’s turning into an accounting exercise as well and I can’t even enjoy McDonald’s without feeling guilty.

I’m a bit worried about the long-term affects of all this instability and food insecurity. But c’est la vie I suppose. I just need to keep going, try to keep a pragmatic outlook, and hope for the best.

blog: “as above so below”

“As above, so below” – a symbiotic relationship of supplication, faith, and manifestation.

We send things to “the above” through prayer, ritual, and petition. We send out our energy and our dreams into the universe, up to the heavens, out to the listening ears of the fae. And the Universe responds to our requests by manifesting them on the physical plane. So mote it be.

We often engage in acts of symbolism in “the below” to prove to the Universe our commitment and our faith. We light a candle and watch until the flame flickers out. We burn a stick of incense and immerse ourselves in its scent. We pray for love, and buy a box of chocolates or bouquet of flowers. We pray for money and buy a lotto ticket. Small acts of symbolism to seal the deal.

Everything is a symbol. Everything has a deeper meaning. And we spiral down into meaning until nothing is real and everything is real all at once. This is the beauty of nihilism. When everything matters equally, then nothing matters at all. And when nothing matters, then everything matters equally.

It’s a cycle that creates a blank canvas for us to play in, to define our own meanings, morals and values. There’s a structure in the chaos, and chaos in the structure.

All is well.

All is as it should be.

Blessed be.

Xx

blog: a few of my favourite things

I finally got around to sorting out all my filing and going through my desk “stuff”, including a box of random things I’ve amassed over the years.

One of those things turned out to be a small stationery pad where I’d written a letter of the alphabet on each page, then listed some favourite items under each letter. Now, I do remember writing this, but full disclosure – it was about 20 years ago and I was high at the time. 😃

But since 90% of these things still apply, I thought I should document my ‘favourite things’ for posterity:

A – angels, anarchy, art, accessories, altars

B – butterflies, buttered bread, boots, bubble tea

C – cats, candles, Christmas, cheese, catalogues, crumpets, crayons, chaos, costumes, corsets

D – dragonflies, dancing, dreaming, Demonia shoes, dice

E – eBay, exploring

F – fairies, face masks, fire, fairy tales, free stuff, fireworks

G – gerberas, glitter, gaffa tape

H – hair dye, horror movies, handbags, hotels

I – ice cream, imagination

J – jelly beans, jam, jazz, juice

K – knee sox, kissing

L – love letters, lists, laminating stuff

M – margaritas, magick, muffins, My Little Pony

N – notebooks, Nightmare Before Christmas

O – octopuses

P – poetry, popcorn, parties, pancakes, pillows, pyjamas, the colour pink

Q – quizzes, q-tips

R – reality TV, reward points, rain, recipe books, ranting

S – sushi, sticky stuff, snocones, stickers, sporks, straws

T – travelling, Thursdays, thunderstorms, Tim Burton, tattoos

U – unicorns, umbrellas

V – vampires, vampy lipstick

W – wishing, windchimes

X – *blank*

Y – *blank*

Z – *blank*

… I probably passed out before I finished. 😃

blog: poetry is a discomfort zone

Poetry is a weird art medium. Especially for me these days. I’m plagued with questions…. should I aim for the controversial, political, slam-worthy, stuff of viral media? Can I just write simple ditties about love, and nature, and God, or does it all have to be clever and have deeper meaning? Do I have to keep churning pieces out, or is it okay to write one or two truly inspired poems a year? Should I take my old stuff and mine it for gems, or build a big bonfire in my backyard and burn it all? (I’m in favour of burning it, personally!)

And in my experience it’s not an art form that garners a lot of validation, to be honest. The people who like poetry – the poets, the music makers and the dreamers of the dreams – we get it. But the rest of the world doesn’t seem to know what to do with it. Write a song or a novel, and people applaud. Write a poem, and you get crickets.

I think it comes down to a matter of how we handle vulnerability and self-exposure. Take classic art forms for example – drawing, painting, sculpting, etc. The artist creates a piece of art derived from a real life object or concept using the materials of their choice. Some art can be political and provide a social commentary, and other art is just nice to look at. The thing about this type of art, is that its meaning or message is often subjective and dependent upon its beholder. The artist’s own intent can be overt or hidden in layers of messaging if they choose. And for people who just like art for arts’ sake, or the average punter who knows nothing about art, they can at least appreciate it at that surface level.

But poetry… poetry doesn’t hide. Ever. It can’t, because by its very nature poets are literally describing what is in their brain. They aren’t pulling any punches. They are telling you how they see the world, in no uncertain terms. Yes, there are metaphors and poems can ramp the romanticism and melodrama up to 11, but ultimately the author is telling you exactly how they feel about their subject… what they hate, what they love, what they fear, what they desire.

And so the non-initiated audience gets uncomfortable. They feel like they are peeking into something they shouldn’t, seeing behind the veil, reading someone’s diary. They may not understand how to engage with poetry; they may be unqualified to comment on the form and rhyming schemes and all the technical things that make that poem great, which leaves them only the content to parse… and since a lot of poetry is raw emotion on a plate, that makes them uncomfortable.

I’ve noticed this, when I post pictures of something I’ve made or a costume I’ve sewn, e.g. something visual, the engagement is substantial. Lots of likes and heart reacts, some comments and questions. But if I drop a new poem, I don’t get the same result. Don’t get me wrong – this isn’t me begging for likes. I’m too old to care about popularity contests anymore. I would still write, even if it was only for myself. But it’s interesting to see more visual forms of art receiving immediate validation, while a poem that would take just a minute or two to read gets awkwardly ignored.

Sometimes I just want to say – “Hey, it’s okay. I get it. I shared something super personal here in this poem. But I shared it because I wanted to.” Because that’s what it comes down to. You’re not peeking into my diary – I’m opening up the book for you. Nothing gets put out in the world without my consent. I have agency over my level of exposure and vulnerability. And if I write about hard things, or share my feelings, it’s because I CHOOSE to do that.

It’s okay if you’re not a ‘fan’ of poetry. It’s okay if you don’t like what I write, or the way I wrote it. It’s okay if you think I’m an absolute unpolished amateur hack. I’m not writing for your validation. But I am hoping for your appreciation.

Ultimately I’m just a kid running to their parents with a hastily scribbled crayon drawing, hoping it’ll get put on the fridge. I guess in a way this website is my fridge… I stick my poems here, and maybe one day someone will read through it all and actually get me, because ultimately all I really want is to feel seen.

blog: the teeth of madness

I have a bad tooth. I used to have more, but over the last decade I’ve worked to have them filled, pulled, etc. and now there’s just one last tooth giving me trouble. It has a cavity that goes almost to the root. I had it filled between jobs in 2019 by a dentist who gave me a choice – fill, root canal, extraction. I was warned then that the filling would be ‘temporary’ and only likely to last 6 months. Well, part of that filling has come out, and the back half of the tooth has cracked and is extremely wobbly, but 6 years later it’s still hanging in there.

If you ask me why I haven’t had it pulled (root canal is just a no bueno in my book), I would cite the reason the dentist gave me… that because this tooth is next to one that was extracted a few years ago, it would leave a two-tooth gap between my back molar and the next tooth, which could affect the structural integrity of that molar (unless I invest in some implants for several thousand a pop). I’ve also justified not having it pulled due to work responsibilities and important events I’m working on; I know from experience extractions put me out of commission for days. Lately the excuse has been that I just don’t have the money.

But the real reason is… I just don’t like change. I hang on to old shit, put up with adverse situations, deal with (read: ignore) ill health conditions and broken teeth, far longer than I need to. Even when I know removing those things from my life or removing myself from those situations would make my life infinitely better, I still hang on.

And if I had to play armchair psychologist, I would say some of this might stem from the fact that my life has always been transient. Even before I was kicked out of home at 17, my family relocated a lot. In the first 13 years of my life I had lived in at least 8 different places across two different countries. And a lot more after I left home; in the last twenty years alone I’ve lived in 20 different places, some for only weeks at a time. I’ve definitely fallen into the “no fixed address” category a few times. And very few of the places felt like ‘home’, felt like places I could set down my load and relax my guard for a bit.

When you don’t have any real sense of permanence in life, especially when that is tied with low income and borderline poverty, you can fall into a line of thinking like “as long as I’m breathing and have a place to lay my head at night, let’s not rock the boat.” When you’re on Struggle Street for any significant length of time (like your whole life), you just try to fly under the radar and get from one day to the next. Any change to your existence – good and bad – threatens that status quo. And you’ve learned that even the good stuff doesn’t last, so you don’t want to risk putting too many eggs in that basket anyway.

To give another example, I am drowning in my current location. I’ve lived here for four years, and while I have a good relationship with my landlord, there are also certain infringements upon my privacy and my property that I’ve had to put up with. I have neighbours that blare their music at nightclub volumes at ALL hours of the day, sometimes up to 3 or 4 am. I have neighbours that get into wild domestics, sometimes involving physical fighting in the street and the cops getting called. On top of that I only have only 2 or 3 friends left in the area that I see on a regular basis, if by regularly you mean once every couple of months.

I’ve kept justifying staying here because the rent is cheap as dirt even for the ghetto area I live in, and the cats have plenty of room to run around. But my mental health is suffering so much because of this isolation and disturbance of privacy and peace of mind. There’s another area of Sydney I am contemplating moving to, where I would have at least a dozen friends I would see regularly. Where I would have access to a few spiritual communities. Where I would be closer to vet care for my animals, closer to the city for commuting and socialising. Yes the rent out there is more expensive – well over double what I pay here. But assuming I could find a housemate, I could make it work. I just need to save for the move.

And yet I hesitate to do this Good Thing for myself. And I don’t know why. It’s as mad as not having my bad tooth pulled. I just need to learn how to prioritise WELLBEING over SURVIVAL, but I don’t know where to begin.

blog: breakthrough and new beginnings

I don’t often experience “breakthroughs”. I’m more of a slow and steady, parse the information, ruminate on all the options kinda gal. But I guess ‘breakthrough’ is the closest word I can use to describe where my head is at right now.

Two weeks ago, I marched in the Sydney Mardi Gras Parade for the first time. It was actually my first time even attending the parade since 2000. I’ve always been queer and I’ve never felt the need to label my queerness. The crowds, the hullabaloo, the spectacle, the Pride-with-a-capital-P aspects of queerness weren’t really for me. But I’ve been intentionally exploring my place in the ‘alphabet soup’ of LGBTQ+IA for a few years now, and since I had no other commitments I decided this was the year I would do all things Mardi Gras.

It was important to me to join a float that spoke to my intersectionality, so I chose Aspect, an autism support group (whose theme this year was literally ‘Intersectionality’ by the way). Because my health has been somewhat in decline the last 5-6 years, and having never marched before, I was worried about the physical demands of the parade. Everyone I spoke to said something different, from the “Oh it’s really quick, like a light jog, I don’t think you’ll be able to do it, why don’t you hire a mobility scooter?” crowd, to the “It’s a quick walk but there’s lots of stops and starts and chances to catch your breath, you’ll be fine.”

And you know what? I was. In fact, I felt more than fine, I felt AMAZING. Seeing the crowds lined up to cheer the marchers on was so empowering, and I felt especially proud when I walked past the disability and accessible viewing space and saw two awesome individuals I’d met and shared a train into the city with. The walk was easy, I was dancing the whole time. Afterwards I went off to a metal gig and though I was dressed in 80’s gear (the sub-theme of Aspect’s float), nobody cared and they even complimented me on my outfit. Then I spent the rest of the night hanging out with some friends feeling completely relaxed, completely myself, and importantly, feeling good about who my whole self is. I even connected with someone unexpected, in a really open and honest way, no games or bullshit, which is always such a blessing.

It made me realise there’s a lot I’ve been missing out on in life, because I’ve thought it too hard or that I didn’t deserve it. It made me angry at myself and my entire perspective has shifted since that weekend, for the better. I immediately put myself on a sensible diet plan, and have already lost 2 kg. I’ve organised some fitness training, which I’m nervous about but will try my best to stick to. I haven’t even needed my cane at all during this whole time. I’ve finally got my house in order. There are some negative things in my life right now that I’m dealing with. But overall I’m feeling like the good outweighs the bad.

Best of all, I feel the creative juices flowing for the first time in years, and decided to revamp this blog site (that I hadn’t touched in ten years, d’oh). I’ve spent the last couple of weeks trawling through old livejournal accounts, google drives, multiple emails and FB pages and profiles to find the majority of the poetry I’ve written since 1998 (prior to that it’s in a notebook somewhere and I was an angsty child and no one needs to read that stuff, haha). I’m so close to re-launching this site, and questioning myself hard. What is my motivation here? How do I want people to engage with my art? What if this is all just angsty depressive love poetry word vomit and I’m not as good as I think I am?

It’s easy to run back. It’s easy to say, “You know what? At least I tried… ” and disappear again into my cave. It’s easy to tell myself that nobody wants to read my style of writing anymore, that my health problems are too much of an obstacle to experiencing human connection, that people will ultimately just betray and hurt and reject anyway so why bother. It would be easy to go back to my victim mindset and cry about my loneliness and feel sorry for myself. But… I don’t want to. I WANT to put myself out there again. I WANT to see if there’s still a place in the world for my art. I WANT to see if there’s someone out there who can love me.

They say ‘The heart wants what the heart wants‘ – and I can’t tell my heart to be quiet anymore.

blog: let’s talk about pumpkin baby

Let’s talk about pumpkin for a minute. Well, not pumpkin, but you’ll get the point. Hopefully. 

I’m ambivalent about pumpkin. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I dislike it, but I’m never going to have it in my fridge without good reason. But I’ve had partners who love the stuff, so I’ve learned a few ways to cook it. I make a killer maple-glazed roast pumpkin, for instance, which tastes even better turned into a soup.

While I get a bit of enjoyment from eating pumpkin when I’ve prepared it in certain ways, I’m mostly just happy to see the people I’m cooking for feeling satisfied because of my food. Sometimes I just make it because it’s been a while and I have someone asking me to make my pumpkin soup again.

But every now and then I’ll actually get a craving for pumpkin out of the blue. Sometimes if I see pumpkin and feta risotto on a restaurant menu or spot a pumpkin scone at a café, I’ll think, “Ah yeah, I could really go for one of those!” So occasionally I indulge, and then I’m good for ages. 

And if you don’t understand anything of this, you haven’t been paying attention. 😁

blog: could you be loved

I know how to love with every fibre of my being. I know how to nurture and build. I know how to be loyal. I know how to be the one that hustles to keep the ship afloat. I know how to forgive indiscretions big and small. I know how to hang on with tenacity until what I’ve manifested for the relationship comes true, or it all goes up in flames. There are no half measures with me.

But it’s not about that. It’s about wanting it to be my turn for once. It’s about wanting to experience something real and meaningful again before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

I want to be loved fiercely. I want to take someone’s breath away. I want someone to think I’m so amazing that they wonder how they got so lucky. I don’t want or need perfection, I just need commitment. I need to feel like someone out there thinks I’m worth taking a risk for. I need to know I matter. That I’m seen.

But even as I envision the way I want someone to feel for me, I know I’m not worthy of it… maybe at one stage I was, but now I’m just old and broken with nothing of value to exchange for being made the central object of another person’s desire. And so I just give up, content to sink back in a numbness that only serves to make me more numb, more disconnected from this weary, fucked up life.

…

You create these fantasies in your head that you are worthy of love
That someone somewhere could look at you, really see
And right away say, “Yes there! That one’s The One!”

You capture every look, every gesture, every humankindness shown
And pin it like butterflies with its ephemeral wings under glass
You think these will keep you warm when the bitter winds of loneliness moan.

blog: cvnt

I want to talk for a minute about the word “cunt”. And sorry, yes, this will be a sweary post.

It’s a paradoxical word, at the same time acting as both what is arguably the most offensive swear word and as a word that is quintessentially and nostalgically Australian. “He’s a sick cunt!” is one of the highest compliments you can pay someone in some circles of Straya, and it works well as a placeholder – “that cunt of a thing” – or as a reminder to someone acting a bit dickish to “don’t be a cunt”. Women use it to describe their sex in a “take the power back” kind of way. Couples engaged in sex acts might consensually use the word in their play.

And that’s all fine. I’ve become somewhat desensitised to all of those uses, and then some. I’ve dropped a few C-bombs myself. But let me make one thing perfectly clear: if you are a man and you call a woman a cunt out of anger or because you are all up in your feels, THAT IS NOT OK. Not ever! That act of gender-based violence is a HUGE red flag to what else you might be capable of saying or doing in the heat of the moment.

If a man ever calls me a cunt and actually means it as an insult, he’s dead to me. If a man calls another woman a cunt in my hearing, rest assured he is going to cop an earful. If a man calls another woman a cunt while speaking to me, I am immediately done. There is no excuse for it.

Even without looking too deeply into all the misogynistic connotations of taking a beautiful and natural part of a woman’s body, the part that brings us pleasure and helps to create life, and turning it into something to be treated as dirty, shameful and something to be ridiculed and hated…

Even just looking at it in its simplest terms, men use that word to subjugate and instil fear in women, to put us beneath them, to reduce us to our genitals and oppress us. They use it when lashing out because we didn’t give them what they wanted or respond in a way they wanted us to. It’s a ‘little boy having a tantrum’ word, but we all know how destructive little boys can be when they are challenged with big feelings.

If you still don’t understand what I’m saying, take this as an invitation to do some reflection on the power of words in the arena of gender-based violence. And maybe, for some of you, an invitation to do better.

blog: life is but a dream

I have very vivid dreams; a lot of the time my dreams are like movies in my head where I’m not represented in them at all, and there’s no deeper meaning. I can tell the ‘mouthfeel’ of these dreams are different. I watch fictional characters react to situations and I wake up thinking ‘damn that would make a great story’. I’ve even tried to write those stories, but there’s never enough meat to flesh them out.

Other times my dreams have very overt references to my life. The kinds of dreams you wake up from and know exactly what they mean, why those themes would have been on your mind, and what (if anything) you’re supposed to take from them.

Then there are others with meanings that are older, deeper, harder to pick apart. Recurring themes that keep popping up in my head; my brain’s way of communicating the issues I struggle with chronically.

One recurring theme I have is around houses and possessions left behind. For example:

  • I will dream I left behind an apartment in the States with a lot of stuff in it (I actually did leave things behind when I moved, and have no idea what happened to it all or even what exactly I left behind), or I dream I am in the US trying to locate or gain access to the apartment I had when I was there last.
  • I enter a building where I used to rent a room and suddenly can’t remember if I got all my stuff when I left, but can’t find which room I used to have so I can check. Or I’ll remember that I DID leave stuff behind, and gain access to the room, but the room will be empty.
  • I’m at my parents’ house which has a granny flat or large garage where my stuff is stored. Sometimes there’s urgency because they’re moving / have moved out of the house. If I go in the granny flat/garage, it’s either too dark to see what’s in all the boxes, or I can see it but it’s all so jumbled up that my mind can’t really process the actual things in the room.
  • I’m renting a new house, when suddenly I realise I still have a lot of stuff at the old house that never got moved across. Or I have access to an old house that I used to rent, and I go there but it’s empty and everything’s different.
  • I’m renting an old house that is literally falling down around me (ceiling caving in, walls with huge cracks in them, water damage and flooding, etc). This is slightly different in that there’s no element of owning material things, but I still include it in my ‘house’ dreams.

In most of these dreams there’s a sense of things that have been left behind but not a clear sense of what those things actually are, so no real way to tell if I’ve lost something valuable or not. And it all revolves around housing, and usually family. Houses in dreams often represent your ‘self’ or how you view yourself, so to me these dreams are about how unresolved issues from my past impact my current sense of self or areas where elements of my past are holding me back.

A therapist would have a field day with me, haha. 😛

blog: diary of a depression

– TW: Depression

1. (Sunset)
As I sit here on my front porch, looking at the sunset-pink sky, I count my wins from the day. I count them methodically, robotically, not expecting much. I count them to keep from feeling like a failure. I count them to keep the shadows at bay. I count them one by one, taking deep breaths in as I name my triumphs –

… I am surprised at how many I find.

2. (Chores)
I’m feeling a little better this week. I’ve vacuumed the floor. I’ve cleaned out my fridge. There was expired food in there from months back, highly perishable stuff – it’s a wonder I haven’t died of salmonella or botulism. I didn’t know yoghurt could turn that colour.

It was not pretty.
But it’s done.

3. (Social Media)
I feel better now that I’ve isolated myself, cut out a lot of the superficial interactions so prevalent on social media. Doom scrolling, karma farming, etc. People who only know how to contribute by tearing something down. People who are only listening for their turn to speak. The online world is full of thirsty bitches, yet the constant flood of content paradoxically leaves us parched.

4. (Meme Culture)
Unfortunately a boycott of social media also cuts me off from potential new connections. It cuts me off from friends. I don’t mean to offend anyone, or imply that their feelings towards me and our friendships are shallow, or that our interactions are superficial.

But when a meme post gets 32 likes, and a cry for help none, you have to wonder…

5. (Friendship)
I think about those people who, if you were to ask if I thought we were friends, I’d say – yes, sure, of course, I’ve known them forever…

When I realise I haven’t physically seen a lot of those people for a couple of years, in some cases maybe even close to a decade, it raises questions around whether or not I’m just sentimental, clingy and delusional. Am I holding on to something that isn’t even there anymore?

6. (Stigma)
The stigma of mental health is still all too real. We’re supposed to use euphemisms, say things like, “I’m not feeling very well”, “I’m struggling a little lately”, “I’ve been having some intrusive thoughts”. We’re supposed to keep a brave face at work, around family, in public. We wear our masks like armour, until they become our actual faces.

7. (Executive Dysfunction)
We’re not supposed to admit how hard it is just get out of bed some mornings. That it’s been four days since we last showered, or that despite having a fridge full of food, our daily intake has been a donut and some cheese crackers because that’s all we had the strength to muster.

8. (Grace and Woe)
I was born on a Tuesday, but I was born a day early. Because Tuesday’s child is full of grace, but Wednesday’s child is full of woe, and my earliest memories are forged from chaos and destruction.

9. (Weekends Are The Hardest)
It’s only the start of the week, and I don’t know what this one will hold for me. I don’t really make plans anymore, I’m too hard on myself when things don’t happen the way I hoped they would… I don’t reach out to anyone, I’ve tried but everyone is always so busy with their own things and then I just end up feeling like a bother or an obligation. I don’t mind being alone… I’ve always been alone.

I might take myself on a date.

10. (Hold On)
Hope is a powerhouse word; so much strength resides on those four letters. I hope I can get a handle on work this week. I hope my household stays healthy. I hope people will be kind to me. I hope I will be kind to myself. I hope I can hold on to hope, and put some wins on the board.

Hold on… please hold on to Hope.

blog: stop telling me that it’s easy

People often say things when giving advice – “It’s easy”, “If I can do it, you can do it”, “You just need to try harder”, “You’ll get it next time”, “If you wanted it badly enough, you would find a way”. I get that they mean well. But sometimes people just CAN’T do things, or at least, can’t do them as easily. Everyone’s ability levels are different. We know that. Why does our attempt at support not reflect that?

If you tell someone that the thing they’re struggling with is ‘easy’, if you say there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be able to do it, then by that logic if they continue to struggle, you are saying THEY are the problem. There’s a good chance they’ll internalise that and feel like a failure, especially if it comes from someone whose advice they trust.

A better form of verbal encouragement would look like, “I’ve done something similar in the past, can I share some tips I learned along the way?” Or, “I’m sorry you’re struggling, what part are you finding most difficult and how can I help with that?” It’s okay to acknowledge someone’s shortcomings, if they themselves are acknowledging it and seeking help. It’s way more honest and authentic and builds more trust than some empty platitude.

Another radical idea would be to offer practical support instead of advice, but we’ve wandered so very far from the concept of ‘it takes a village’ and now it’s every man for himself. Nobody wants to ‘feed a man a fish’ because we’ve been taught that letting people work things out for themselves is more beneficial in the long run. But the reality is that some people won’t have a long run, if they can’t overcome some of the hurdles at the start of the race.

Words are important. The language we use matters. It can be be hard to train ourselves out of using phrases and auto responses we’ve used and heard others use our whole lives. But to truly empower someone you have to meet them where they’re at, and let them know that you’ve got their back win or lose. That’s what really counts.

Change is hard. Growth as a person can be uncomfortable. But finding better ways to support each other is worth it.