A letter to my sixteen-year-old-self

Dear Leanne,

First of all, I have to tell you: don’t worry about your weight.  All those moments of hating yourself because you think your thighs/bum/whatever is fat, are wasted moments.  I can tell you that this is not something you’re worrying about now.  Don’t waste your time fretting or comparing, you’re perfect and just enjoy it.  Oh, and those desperate sit-ups before you go to bed aren’t doing anything.  You’re not fooling anyone, least of all your stomach so stop doing it. 

Secondly, get rid of him. You know who I’m talking about.  He’s not right for you.  You know it, Mum knows it, hell I think even Ryan knows it and he’s only seven!  He’ll move on very quickly, trust me.  And yes, you’ll be broken-hearted and probably cry for weeks and weeks, but you’ll get over it and move on, and eventually be happier.  Spend more time with the girls and just enjoy being a teenager.

And still on the subject of boys: stay away from that butcher.  I repeat: Stay. Away. From. The Butcher.  He is no good.  You might think he’s cute, cause of his black hair and blue eyes (you have a thing for this combo as you get older), I can’t stress it any further.  And for God’s sake don’t move in with him.  If this is the only message you take away from this.  Please Leanne, I’m begging you.  Stay away….

Instead of doing Hospitality Management at university (which, can I tell you, you don’t finish), you need to do Communications.  Marketing, PR, anything along those lines.  You enjoy writing and believe it or not, you forget this as you get older and you stop writing for about 25 years.  Keep a folio of your work and don’t throw this away.

Learn to say no.  And more importantly learn how to say no.  You can’t please everybody and saying ‘yes’ to everybody only makes you miserable.  People will get over it.  Some people may not even notice!  You will feel empowered when you learn that you are actually in charge of your own destiny.

Get into running and riding.  You do eventually, but it would probably do you a service if you started now.  What you sometimes go through isn’t always PMS.  You will be diagnosed with depression in your 20’s.  Running helps.  Exercise of any description helps, but running is the best for you.  You’re not going mad.  The way you feel has a name.  Also, you can probably ease off on the Evening Primrose Oil because it ain’t doin’ jackshit ;)

When you’re about 26, you’ll receive an email from a guy.  An Architect.  He’ll ask you out for dinner.  Say yes.  Say yes, and hold onto him with both hands.  You won’t regret it.  This one is the one.  This one is the one Mum always told you about.  When she’d be cradling you in her arms after your most recent break-up, and she’d soothe you with words like “there’s someone out there for you Leanney, someone special, someone who will love you with everything they’ve got.  When it happens, you’ll know, you’ll just know”.  You don’t believe her when she tells you this, but it’s true.

I don’t know what else to tell you Leanne.  Start acting on your own instincts, especially when it comes to your relationships.  Learn how to say no.  Stick with the writing.  Stay strong, stay positive and have faith in your own inner voice.

I love you.  I don’t tell you often enough, but I do.

Beauty #failwhale

So there I sat.  Icing my top lip and thinkng “I don’t think I’ve ever had to do this before”.  Ice my top lip, that is.  You see the other day I went and had my eyebrows ‘threaded’.  I was a virgin threadee and was very pleasantly surprised with the result!  And all for the bargain price of $7.  The beautician twisted my rubber arm into getting my top lip done (brows and lip for $10?!) and again – pleasantly surprised with the result!

I’ve had my top lip done before, but I would have to say it was waaaay over a decade ago.  Long enough for me to forget that doing your lip actually makes a difference.  In fact, once she’d finished my eyebrows, the beautician looks at me and says “ok.  So now we do your lip?” and my hand flew to my face, “really? Do you think I need it?”.  Naturally, she said yes.  “It looks neater” she said.  She could’ve been saying “You are a hairy sasquatch and I am DYING to trim that mo” for all my self-confidence was feeling right then.  So I let her.  I mean, who wants to be a sasquatch?

Cut to the next day.  And I’m intermittently itching at my top lip.  First on the left.  Then on the right.  And later in the middle.  I stick my face into The Architect’s and demand “can you see anything on my top lip?”.  He peers.  Nope.  Nothing.  Knowing exactly what men’s eyesight can be like at the best of times (sorry, but it’s my blog and if I want to have a not-so-subtle dig, I will), I went off in search of the nearest mirror.  I turned on the light and looked in the mirror.  And there, running along my top lip like a spray of newbie mushrooms were teeny, tiny little bumps.  Instantly I was on the phone to the beautician, texting furiously.  She replied straight away and said that it was normal for virgin top lips (I’m para-phrasing) and it won’t happen next time (Yeah. Uh HUH).  She instructed me to use vitamin E cream or frequent icing.  Given the temperature was nudging 33 that day, I opted for icing.  Plus we were sans Vitamin E cream..

I realise this is miniscule when we’re talking about examples of beauty #failwhales.  It could’ve been worse.  Much, much worse.   Probably the biggest thing that has happened was when my hair got burnt from some hair straightening product and the whole front section of my fringe fell out.  But for some reason that didn’t really bother me too much, and I wasn’t at all pissed at the salon or the person who did it (I know you still feel bad Nic, but you don’t need to!).

Then there was the time a girl at Pure Indulgence (am I allowed to name and shame like this?) waxed my eyebrows, and she waxed the same spot about six times.  Each time she removed a layer of skin until I had a shiny, pink veneer of flesh just under my brows.  When it scabbed over, it just looked like I was rockin’ a solid maroon eye-shadow.   Actually.  Maybe that was bigger than the hair fall-out incident.

So how about you?  Have you had any beauty #failwhales?

Days like these...

I can’t lie.  There are times when I look longingly, wistfully back at the days before kids.  Those times usually find me standing in the middle of my two kids fighting, screaming or crying and the Architect and I hissing at each other, disagreeing every step of the way.   The tension is rising, the kitchen’s usually hot and I’m thinking:

“Nobody told me there’d be days like these”.

Him:  “Just give the toy to him”

Me: “She had it first and it’s not fair that he gets everything just because he’s louder!”

Repeat ad nauseum.

Freeze that shot.

That’s the exact moment I’m wishing them all away and I’m sitting beside a bubbling stream or something.  Actually, this is exactly where I picture myself:

When this photo was taken, it was a simpler time.  We were in Port Douglas with brother & sister-in-law and we only had one young child each.  Life was easier and we were still travelling relatively incident and stress-free.  When this photo was taken, I knew that I would always travel back to this place in my mind because it was just so beautiful and peaceful.

Fast forward three years later and a trip up to Far North Queensland seems like a world away and Mossman Gorge lives on only as a cover photo on my Facebook page.

The times have changed and our family has changed.  There’s more noise in the house, there’s more mess in the house and there’s more things to get done.  Whilst there’s more fighting, screaming and squealing, when it’s the opposite and there is total silence, it seems strange.  The old saying “careful what you wish for because you might get it” comes back to me.   Whenever the Polynesian Princess goes to stay with her grandparents the house feels empty.  It's too quiet.  Little Warrior wanders from room to room looking for big sister and I find myself counting the days until we’re back to full complement.  Crazy innit?

So there are definitely times when I am wishing I were back in the gorge, sitting cross-legged and ommmming myself to mindfulness and peace.  But then there are times when we’re cycling home from a fish & chip dinner at Southbank, with one child on each bike and looking at the sunset from the Go Between Bridge.   Everybody is happy and for a moment, everybody is quiet.  It is sheer bliss, and I think:

“Nobody told me there’d be days like these”.

Renovator's Delight

When I first met The Architect I had no desire to (a) buy a house; or (b) renovate a house.  Sometimes he would talk about his plans for the future and how he wanted to buy and renovate.  I would smile at the right places and once, when it was obviously my turn to talk I said “just so you know….I’m not interested in that stuff, I’d just be watching”.  I had to say it.  I’m lazy like that.  Plus I like to keep expectations very clear.

Twelve years later he has proven himself to be an extremely handy man.  He renovated our previous two-bedroom unit on his own (painting, tiling, wardrobes, kitchen, everything), and now he’s single-handedly renovating our three-bedroom house in Brisbane.  And I’ve been true to my word.   I have simply watched.

He’s so lovely that when he talks about renovations, he uses the term “we”.  We painted the outside of the house this Easter.  We built the deck.  We did the kitchen.  We did the kids rooms and so on and so forth.  I can’t and never do, sit by and let him bestow these accolades on me.  Whenever he says ‘we’, I interrupt with ‘you’.  But he continues as though I didn’t say anything. 

Early last year he stained the deck and painted the outside of the house.  He had just finished when I was sitting on the front steps, reading a magazine and drinking my afternoon cuppa.  He was idly walking around the front garden and said “what should we do next?”.  From memory I don’t even think I looked up.  Just kept flicking through my mag and said “a fence’d be nice”.  He disappeared under the house, re-emerged with a can of paint, and measuring tape and started mapping out the fence.  A week later we had a fence.

Before:

After:

He (with the help of his Dad and brother) stuck this whopping big deck on the back of our house.

Sans deck:

 With deck:

 And can I just show you where Polynesian Princess and I were while they were doing some of this?

Yes.  This is at Doyles, Watsons Bay.

In Sydney.  Ahem....

He also took our gaaawjus kitchen from its original state from this:

To this:

There was three layers of crap on this kitchen floor but it was totally worth breaking through it all.  And I helped that time.  I can't seem to locate the photographic evidence, but I did help.  (I DID!!).

So what's my contribution?  Ummm….I make a pretty mean BLT??  Open a mean bottle of lemonade?

And I do appreciate it.  I do.  Forget all the yelling, condescension, insults and whining.  Just forget all that!

I appreciate it.  Hand on my heart.  Thank-you honey.

I love you.

How do YOU break up with a friend?

So riddle me this peeps: what do you do when a friendship dies?  What if it's only died on your side?   Have you ever been able to sit down with the person and amicably end it?  Or are you like me.  Do you just stop responding to emails and very slowly cut them out of your life.  All the while praying to Buddha that they get the picture and the uncomfortable conversation never has to take place...

Not unlike parenting, I feel out of my depth here.  Friendships don’t come with a handbook and I have no idea how to handle situations such as these.  I would prefer to address the elephant in the room and say “hey, this just isn’t working out, and it hasn’t been for the past 30 years” or “your negativity is sucking the life out of me and I think it’s over”.  Or “I find your sense of humour offensive and it’s not fun listening to you poke fun at me, my husband or my kids”.  Negative ghostrider, the pattern is full.

The people-pleaser side of me would just say to retain the friendship and keep the peace.  And who knows?  Maybe one day they’ll ditch me!  But the people-pleaser side of me is what got me into this situation in the first place.

When I was younger (read: up until last year), I couldn’t say no to people.  I would accept a playdate or catch-up from {pretty much} anyone who asked.  I understand sometimes it takes guts for people to ask, and I had never felt comfortable saying no to someone’s face.  But something happened last year.  I’d had a gutful.  I’d had a gutful of toxic relationships, specifically friendships.   And I’d had a gutful of watching myself making the mistake over and over.   It wasn’t easy, but I did it.  There was a lot of soul-searching, a lot of tears and confusion, but I did it.  And I feel lighter, freer and definitely happier for it.  My first thought was “why the fuck didn’t I do this sooner?!”.

Nowadays I feel a lot more comfortable in my skin.  I have a definite “take it or leave it” attitude and I wish (I wish, I wish) that I had been like this back when I was in year eight.  If I had had this confidence back then, I think I would have lessened a lot of anxiety, I would have had more quality connections and I probably would have valued myself more.  The lesson I want to pass on to my little ones is that you don’t have to please everyone.  If someone’s sapping your mojo, get away from them.  And stay away.  And don’t feel bad about it.  It’s not your job to ensure people’s happiness.

It’s theirs.

Image: Kittikun Atsawintarangkul / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What's going to be your old-age sport?

My friends and I have had many conversations over the years about which sport we’ll have when we’re retired.  Okay, we never used the word “retired”, I think we actually just said “old”.  It was a fun thing to do when we ran out of things to talk about.  What will we do with our time when we’re living in a retirement village?  My sport of choice will be golf (already have my set - used them three times and most importantly, they’re powder blue).  One of my friends has chosen bowls.  Never, not once did we ever mention gliding.

This morning in the news was an article about an 80-year-old woman who is struggling for her life after crashing her glider near Banalla in Victoria (see details here).  The first thought I had after reading this article was “what an amazing woman!”.   My second thought was ‘I hope she’s okay’ and the third: ‘at least she was doing something she enjoyed’.  But seriously - gliding at 80!  To me that is inspirational.  I hope I’m still THAT active in 40 years’ time. 

I mean, I dive.  I have a diving ticket and The Architect and I have gone away diving together and had a ball (most memorable moment: night diving with sharks).  But that’s now.  Will we still be diving together well into our twilight years?  We also ride, bushwalk and I occasionally run.  He rides a motorbike, plays golf and loves going for walks.   This morning’s article has reassured me.  It tells me that life doesn’t end just because you’re getting older.

Our next door neighbour is very active around his house and constantly working, painting, cleaning.  Just the other day he jumped up on his deck balustrades to “HAAAA!” at the bush turkeys using his roof as a race-track.  He would be in his 70’s.  God, I think if I did that NOW, my back would be out for weeks.  My back is still twinging from Christmas Day when I got out of my chair FFS.

But there are no complaints from me.  An active life is what I want now, and if I can extend that for as long as possible, that will make me one happy chicky.

1 Jan 2012

Day one of the New Year and The Architect and I are lost.  Mooching around the house, occasionally saying “what do you want to do today?” before drifting into another room and forgetting the question.  If I were about ten years younger, this would have frustrated the hell out of me.  Directionless, even for one day, was enough to drive me insane.  So many wasted minutes.  They could have been used for shopping!  Or eating!  Or shopping!  Wait....   But this is not so anymore.

I fill almost every day up with activity, it’s a relief to have one day sans plans.  The house is quiet with the Little Warrior out for the count.  Polynesian Princess is eating her way through a bag of lollies at Mum's place (I'm guessing).  The street is quiet with our young neighbours either away or sleeping the sleep of the dead.   I don’t care either way.  Hand on my heart.

So this is my start to the year.  Quiet and innocuous.  Were you smart enough to organise something?

Think I'll have a cuppa...