Toe tapping and hair ripping.

For the past few weeks I have felt like I have been standing in the longest line in the world, waiting to get in to one of many attractions, really I'll take any attraction, I am pretty easy to satisfy, but the line just seems to go on and on, and when the point comes where I really feel like I have reached the end, like the line could not possibly go on any longer, I'm confronted by a bend and another five hundred, million miles. And I'm travelling on foot. And I have no water. And I'm hungry. And I really have to pee. And I'm carrying a sumo wrestler. You catch my drift.

So each day, minute, second, I find myself staring at my inbox, willing it to beep with SOMETHING OTHER THAN A PRESS RELEASE, and every time I receive another deal email from Flight Centre I start mumbling the lyrics from “I'm leaving, on a jet plane” and rocking gently back and forth. Back. And forth.

I suppose they call it an “exercise in patience” because really the only way to get through it is by running to the point where you collapse and, preferably, enter a coma until your inbox beeps. I don't even know what patience means, it's so abstract and obscure right now, and I'd really like it to hurry the hell up and tell me.
I'm impatient about life and I'm impatience about impatience. I want it to leave. On a jet plane.

It's like I'm teetering on the brink of what's next, but what form that takes is completely up in the air and bound to be the worst surprise ever, for the sheer fact that it's going to be a surprise. Stupid word. I hate surprises. Husband and I open our Christmas presents the week before Christmas we hate surprises that much, and don't even ask me to wait to find out the sex of my future baby, that would be like the longest line IN THE WORLD.

And the thing is, I hate this feeling more. This anxiety, this stress, this optimistic insanity that drives me to write down everything I am waiting on in a list just so I can stare at it creepily in the hopes that I can will it to go away. But it doesn't go away. It doesn't ever go away.
“The lines! The lines!” - Eric Cartman

My life is going to be full of lines, and though I feel like now is maybe going slightly overboard (seriously. THE LIST IS ONE WHOLE PAGE LONG.), I need to learn what patience is.

I read somewhere about how the last 15% of any endeavour is by far the most challenging, and if you want to know why then you can go ahead and interview me. You have worked so hard and for so long that all you want to is launch it and then proceed to drink heavily. And my hunger for that beginning is so huge right now I pretty much have no choice but to go and buy myself an entire pie to make me feel better.

But in the course of all my restless craving I know I am not enjoying today because I want tomorrow to come, which is so contrary to the Dalai Lama I may as well just move to China. If I don't appreciate this moment I'm going to miss it, and god knows tomorrow will have worries of its own, and I'll be waiting for them to be over, too. I mean I hear that our future children will turn into teenagers someday, which is so not going to be cool.

So I'm trying to yank myself out of my cranky wah-wah-what-the-fuck-is-taking-so-long-behaviour and realise that just because my inbox doesn't beep right this very minute doesn't mean that I'm going to be resigned to a life of daytime TV. I'm trying to feel my feet on the ground, breathe in the air and rejoice in the fact that I am alive, right now, and everything is good and exciting.

If it doesn't beep tomorrow though, you can probably find me rocking back and forth in an insane asylum.

self portrait.

For the love of Delta

I have a confession to make. It is one that I am not sure my teenage self, whose presence I am acutely aware of when I find myself (to my present day horror) buying a gossip magazine, will approve of me saying out loud. But I feel I must.

My new guilty obsession is The Voice.

Why is it guilty, you ask? Because my teenage self is a bit of a cow and thinks pop music is an abomination. And as much as I do try to like the music and stuff a sock in my teenage self's mouth, I somehow cannot force it to happen. I don't know if I like the music, by which I mean I have never heard the music before and therefore the whole competition kind of stresses me out, but I don't actually watch it for the music. I watch it for the reactions after each song. They are SO lovely.

And I'm pretty sure that aside from the fact that most people are not as snobby as I am and therefore probably love every Billboard 100 song that's covered on the show, the reason why it is as big a hit as it is is because it's as lovely as it is. There's not an ounce of malice, and unlike other singing competitions, we don't have to watch hearts get broken right before our very eyes. Sure, the people are bloody talented, but we all know that talent doesn't always warrant decent behaviour from a pack of judges, or from a pack of wolves for that matter. They will eat even opera singers if they're hungry, those pigs.

And so watching the sheer joy during and after each performance is enough to keep me coming back for more and more and more: the judges and audience dancing, the look of pride on each judge's face, the expression of each individual soul through the art of music (which I REALLY want to like), the exaltation from each singer after they finish. It's like they all JUST got off their favourite ride at Disneyland and had an ice cream sundae waiting for them at the exit.

The thing is though, while I get all gushy and teary-eyed and embarrassing during The Voice, a lot of people get the exact opposite, or for some insane reason attempt to slam all those gooey emotions down with their self-loathing negativity that comes disguised as “opinion worth expressing”. They criticise literally every aspect of the show, and most of all Delta Goodrem, the gorgeous, authentic, soulful judge who from the outside in can very well seem to embody perfection. Naturally, this makes people angry. !.

I don't get it. What's not to love? She is genuine, successful, talented, oh so pretty, and wears her soul like a sweater. She clearly cares about her team, she CRIES IN PUBLIC, though hers is not my style she understands music very well and much more than I do, she always gives each singer such beautiful feedback, and she survived cancer a few years ago, so she's got the depth that comes with matters of life and death. I think perhaps I should ask her if she'd like to be my best friend.

The answer is obvious. Since she isn't exactly going around killing anyone, this hatred all seems to stem from the very popular Tall Poppy Syndrome, which you can pick up at the corner of jealousy and “let's bring them down!” for a mere baseless insult.

At the risk of having tomatoes thrown at my head, I feel the need to point out that Tall Poppy Syndrome is a huge hit in Australia. Whereas in my homeland of America we revere the success stories and want to rub their feet before bed, here people are more likely to find a flaw that doesn't exist and then proceed to slam them on Twitter. It's cowardly, and it doesn't get anyone anywhere.

Though Delta is clearly a blessed specimen, I'm pretty sure she is human, because the existence of aliens from another planet hasn't been proven yet. So regardless of her talent or her fame, she is bound to be affected by all the blatant negativity thrown at her. And I'm affected, too. It's disappointing.

Again with the tomatoes, but I would go so far as to say that the reason why many of my fellow Americans achieve such prolific success on the world stage is because we look up to our idols. We know they have gotten to where they are today for a reason, so we want to learn from them. Sure, this reverence can be taken too far at times, and so can our serving size, but when the choice is between that and jealous hatred, I think the former is far more effective when it comes to our own personal success.

We can beg as much as we want for talent and creative genius, but I think respecting those who have it is going to put us in a much better position for achieving it. If we were to get down to the real reasons why we express obstructive criticism towards anyone, doing anything, we would probably find that the persons who we're really pointing the gun at is ourselves. We haven't gotten that far, but they have.  Instead of looking into why, we dig a grave and unconsciously throw our ambition in there before we toss them in.

It's easy and indulgent to hate, but the real gift comes in appreciating and loving. Seeing as our perception of our outer world is a mirror for our inner, we only really have to gain.

So, The Voice. I will continue to watch it and drop my jaw at Delta and think about how incredible it is when our soul and our talent and our leaders all come together. And then I'll stuff a sock into my teenage self's mouth, along with those of all the haters.

Thumbs up Delta! THUMBS UP!

An Eager Evening

Breaking away from yesterday
Its waves that rippled, then faded away
More sightings, less sound
Memories of lost and found

Anxious awakenings
Hasty for the takings
They slip from grip
A loose stumble, a manic trip

Thoughts slow and tire
Frustration beckons, an endless fire
Grinding time
Don't hassle, it whines

Lights and action
Stop for time, to gather traction
Meanwhile, the wait
Loses meaning, loses faith

Ravenous cravings
Call upon the savings
To slow and steady
Then you'll be ready

That what's its for
It makes you know more
The eternal morning
Always comes without warning

Shifting and tossing and turning and transforming

"I will prepare, and someday my chance will come." - Abraham Lincoln

It can be hard to keep track of life sometimes, what with the working and the living and the sleeping and the playing with baby animals that takes place. What did I do yesterday? You mean what did I do yesterminute! And I'm not sure I can remember even that far back.

But! There are experiences. Experiences that jolt you from the past to the present and then forever remain with you – they become a part of you. Mark you. Sometimes, define you.

I am lucky to have had many such experiences, most of which have left me a little more psychotic than before. But now, I can officially declare something that has – dare I say it – left me a little SANER than before. And only sane people use caps lock to describe just how sane they are.

This week, I graduated from the School for Social Entrepreneurs, a place that not only helped me develop my project, but also transformed me in so many ways that transcend my professional life. I suppose it helped me merge that side of me with the other side – the one that stores my deepest values, beliefs and everything I know to be sacred. And when you can bring that into what you do – I truly believe you can change the world.

But I suppose that is what draws people to the school – within the deepest, truest vessel of everyone who attends, there is a sheer, unyielding confidence that every footprint matters, that every thought transcends them, that every act can turn their dream for a better world into something real and tangible. And I spent the past nine months working shoulder to shoulder with 17 of these people.

Being around that kind of company can't help but inspire existence and humanity in even the most ardent sceptics. When you look around you and see injustice, they see it, too. When you decide to do something about it instead of sit back and watch it with a bag of chips, they are doing something, too. When you sacrifice everything comfortable to achieve a cause that is greater than you, they are sacrificing, too. And when you're doing this kind of work, there is no greater comfort than knowing that other people know what it's like to feel that exaltation, that struggle, that joy, that frustration. You are officially no longer a lone martyr for a cause. Other people are as idealistic and optimistic and crazy as you.

I had found out about the school long before I found myself there, but it wasn't until a friend was hosting an event with them that I realised, goddamit universe, now? The time to go there is now? Can't you let me take a nap first? This idea for This Place is Yours had been conceived of a year and a half prior, but then, as you well and truly know, I completely lost it and I didn't want to do anything ever again ever, except maybe nap. But this idea! This idea was like a stalker. It kept haunting me in my sleep and watching me in the shower and leaving me love letters convincing me that it knew me in a past life. I tried to suffocate it slowly with a pillow, but by then, it was well and truly alive. Kind of like an unplanned pregnancy.

So I went to this event and then something came over me and I verbally assaulted the whole SSE staff with hello! My name is Seema! And I have an idea! And it needs to be born! And you need to accept me! For the next term! It starts in 2 weeks? And the students are already all set? Well so what! I need to be one of them! Also, I'll take that sandwich! Vegetarian please!

Somehow, miraculously, they did not call the cops, and instead they ACTUALLY LET ME APPLY. I know, right. Totally did not know what they were in for. And I don't know, I must have convinced them that if they did not let me in I would invade their dreams, because they let me in. And in 2 weeks I began a course that was always in my destiny.

Who was I when I started? Well, I didn't even know what This Place is Yours WAS. I believe I referenced “telling stories from the margins of society” which yes it is going to do but I did not know the heart of it; the part about mental health, the part about needing the project for my own mental health. It wasn't until the first few days into the course when I started talking about it that I realised what it was, all along. And then I got up and I did a project pitch and I spoke about mental health in front of a room full of people I did not know. Or rather, my LACK of mental health.
And then I panicked.

In her second TED talk, Brene Brown talks about the shame in voicing her vulnerability, and that is exactly what I experienced. Shame and mortification and the conviction that these people would never like me because they now knew that voices in my head sometimes told me mean things and sometimes even made me get really drunk. Damn voices.

I had written about depression, yes, but I had never spoken of it, and that was an entirely different experience. People knowing I'm insane in person is quite different than over the internet, where people are invisible and come with funny looking avatars.
Looking back, I can see that at the time, I was very much trying to come to terms and process the mental unravelling that had taken place. It was 4 short months after I broke the spell of depression, and I was left to deal with the property damage it had left in its wake. I knew I needed to work in it, and I knew I had found my calling, even then – but I had to take my time in getting ready for it.

SSE helped me get ready for the life ahead of me, dive into it and then embrace it. In what ended up being some of the most challenging and beautifully life-changing nine months of my life, the experience dug up everything hidden within me and brought it to the surface, leading me to a truer version of myself than I ever even knew existed. It taught me how to start and operate a not-for-profit, how to take care of myself in the process, and how to live passionately without reservation for all that I was giving up. It forced me to self reflect and change into the person my purpose needed me to be, but only after I yelled at it in my diary for being so gosh darn mean. It provided me with tons of inspiration, guidance, and encouragement. In this line of work, what you need and lack the most is belief, and SSE gives it to you from beyond and from within. Most importantly, the experience taught me how to be a leader, what it takes to succeed as a leader and the proof that changing the world is possible. It led me to understand that having a calling makes you one of the lucky ones, and nothing can beat that. In the end, it brought me home - to a place where I was definitely born, but somehow lost along the way.

Nine months ago, I knew what I wanted to do, but I had no idea how, or if, or even, truly, why. Not consciously, anyway. SSE set my head into motion and my heart into gear, but what it really revealed was my soul.

But by far the greatest gift the experience has given me is faith, and faith spreads, you know. It started with faith in my project, and then transcended to faith in myself, and then transcended to faith in life. And then it gave me the very best kind of faith – faith in other people. And SSE was meant to happen during the time in my life when faith in other people was the thing I needed most.

So in whatever I achieve in the future, and can I just say that will be many things as I am very confident and wide eyed and bushy tailed, SSE will be held largely responsible. There is no such thing as professional success without the personal kind, and it was in this rare meeting of minds that I was given the formula for both.

The staff at SSE and the 17 fellows who travelled with me through this journey will always be part of my character, and to be so enormously grateful for so many people and such an experience is way better than napping, let me assure you.
And talking about depression? Why, I don't even need a bottle of wine with it anymore.

"Here’s to the crazy ones. The rebels. The troublemakers. The ones who see things differently. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." - Steve Jobs 
(spoken by the very wonderful Kevin Bathman when he was introducing me. Of course it needed to have crazy in it.)

Between the past & the future

This week, Final Episode was put to sleep. It was also my last day at SSE, which I have been attending since August to launch This Place is Yours. The universe clearly likes to play foosball with me when I'm not even looking, as the significance of both those momentous things happening within one day of the other feels a little like being tossed from one emotion to another. Happy! No, sad! No, relief! No, grief! No, stop it little plastic men, you don't know anything!

This time feels like the beginning of something magical, like I'm about to land in a place I've always wanted to go, a place where I am meant to go. So much has happened in the past few weeks I feel a little nauseous just thinking about it, and I feel enormously blessed that all these beautiful opportunities have started to dance with me; tango here, salsa there, drunken Friday night jiggle everywhere. In fact, I may start wearing a party hat just for the hell of it, and when people stare at me I'll just inform them that it's it's my birthday. That way it won't be weird.

This is also the start of the largest thing I have ever done, even larger than the amount of junk food I have been consuming ever since the wedding, which can I just say is very large. And so a few weeks ago I made the decision to stop Final Episode, because I only have so much time and so much energy and by golly I don't want to spend it packing up boxes. And this week, I acted on that decision. It needed a few-thousand dollar upgrade which I could not afford, and really, I couldn't sell it. There are so many reasons – namely, I don't think anyone would be able to respect the vision I had for it, and I don't want to put another shitty online store that glorifies waste and consumption and the fashion industry I know and detest into the world. But at the end of the day, it simply had too much of me in it.

And now I feel a little like that part of me has died.

And truth be told, that part of me has: the naïve little girl who had no idea the lie she was living was not invincible. And you know, I give her a bad rap, but she had some good qualities. She was young, and she wanted to believe she could live happily on the surface. And, well, ignorance is bliss, isn't it?

So there's this letting go of her, yes, but it's also the letting go of a dream that faded. It's an admission that I didn't get it right that time, that I had the capacity to start something that I had no passion for, that I went through with it even though it didn't feel right. And I guess the fact that I could exert so much creative energy into something that I didn't love kind of... freaks me out. A little.

I've spent a lot of time trying to process what the hell happened during that time in my life, and I suppose Final Episode was my last thread to that existence. It is well and truly gone now, and I'm no longer doing the splits between the person I was and the person I am. Which I guess is kind of like the death of a distant relative who you don't understand but you still love, because you're blood. Needless to say, that girl will always be a part of me.

When part of you dies, you feel exactly the same stages of grief as with any other death of someone who has made you who you are. When I was trying to keep Final Episode going, that part of me was clinging on for dear life, trying desperately to survive in this new world I am creating. But this new world could never fully form while that part of me was still around, and I had to let her go.

I'll never use the word failure because I believe Final Episode was all part of the universe's grand plan for me – I had to learn a lesson, I had to radically shift, and the only way I could do that was to fall as hard as I did. It played a pivotal role in the evolution of me.

So in a lot of ways, Final Episode was a beautiful, deeply dark part of my journey, and I am grateful for it. And one day I do believe it will be resurrected to provide a source of income for This Place is Yours, but only under someone who I can boss around to do exactly as I say. For now, though, it's simply a dream that has faded.

At the same time, the dream that is coming from the depths of my true self is starting to become real. I can touch it, I can hear it, and it's so close I can smell it. And it is so tremendously powerful to finally mix my passion in with my purpose and to create something that I fundamentally believe will transform lives, I feel like it is sweeping me under my feet. SSE has helped sculpt me and transform me into who I am destined to be, and saying farewell to that journey is in many ways the final stop before this next stage in my life, whatever form it takes.

Though both these endings happening at the same time is a teensy weensy bit annoying, like MAYBE the universe could be a little easier on me and at least bake me cookies or something, I know all things happen for a reason, and this moment is loaded with so much meaning that I kind of want to wrap it up and send it to all non-believers as a kind of “See? Life will take you exactly where you should be, but it sure is going to fuck with you first!”

I'm ready, I'm excited, I'm a little scared, and I know it will be wonderful.

But for now, I'm just going to take a moment to pause, breathe, and let myself say goodbye. 

The Final Episode office: the early days. You just can't see the part where I wanted to kill myself.

RIP.

Forever is Ours (yes I named our wedding and yes I name everything.)

Life is wrought with disappointments and failed expectations, so at some point, you stop believing in the very notion of perfection. And that's healthy, right? I mean, it's not like you're going to go to bed one night and wake up with the ideal life. All it takes is a quick look in the mirror at 6am followed by the discovery of a splotch of pee on the toilet bowl to figure that one out.

So when it came to my wedding day, I really didn't expect much. I was excited, sure, but everyone gets excited when they're the star of their own party. And unlike that one time in 4th grade, my friends were actually coming to this one.

Around January, I thought, shit, I'm having a wedding in March, I better start planning, this isn't going to plan itself, how bloody unfair. First up: invites. We came up with the idea to write the details all over those cheesy photos that are found in the picture frames you buy at two dollar shops and send them out inside the photo frames themselves, an idea which, contrary to assumption, did not end up cheaper at all. I then found my perfect Halston dress at an online shop (70% off, no less!) and my perfect Diane Von Furstenberg wedges (grass proof) at another online shop, because apparently I believe in supporting every online store that I do not in fact own. We found Bobby's outfit in one swift trip to Sydney, and I found my earrings in between meetings. We grabbed Bobby's ring from the same antique shop where we found my engagement ring, because even though it didn't work for people decades before us, by golly, we don't care!

After our short trip down to where we were getting married, Mystery Bay, in February, I realised with some discomfort that I still had work to do, because our guests would actually have to eat and sniff vanilla-scented candles otherwise gosh darn it IT WOULD NOT BE A REAL WEDDING. I then proceeded to go on a DIY rampage, which I would really like to say was a pain in the ass because I feel like that fits my persona a little better, but I cannot deny it; I had an absolute ball. And anyone who thinks that driving an hour and a half to find duck egg blue bins at a place called Go Lo isn't fun clearly has something very wrong with them.

Once I scoured all the variety stores within a 200 km radius, made the essential trip to Ikea (where some new sheets may have been ACCIDENTALLY thrown into the cart) and found the world's best florist (my brief was rustic, boho, native, awesome, here's a bunch of photos, I like everything!), I then got the music together, placed an order with my mother to bring over some Reece's Pieces Peanut Butter Cups, had a facial and got my toenails painted. And I'm not going to claim it wasn't the tiniest bit stressful to get to the farm and realise that I had to decorate the place on my own, but I had the world's best friends to help me, so I ordered them around while I went and had a massage. Just as things should be.

My best friend from America had arrived the week before, and then my parents, and then another best friend from Chile, and then I got to the farm where I got to see EVERYONE, so for a split second it was just a teeny bit overwhelming, like oh my god people I love overload!, but I got over that after a shower and three glasses of wine. And this was the night before the wedding but that whole no drinking rule had nothing on me.

The next morning I woke up to a gloriously sunny day and thought, oh what do you know, I'm getting married today, and we worked and made the place look awesome and then I went and had my massage and told the masseuse to shut up and not talk to me. I then started to get ready, which also involved bossing people to get me wine and iron Puppy Dog's tuxedo collar, because I wanted my friends to feel important. I got a little flustered for a second, but it was nothing that some Rescue Remedy and talking in strange voices couldn't fix, and again with the wine, which tastes as great at 2pm as it does at normal drinking hours. Once my hair and makeup were done and I was officially Pretty, Husband came in and we had a few minutes of “yay we look awesome” before we walked down the aisle to Angus and Julia Stone's Mango Tree and I started to cry. And I never stopped.

Our ceremony was pretty, and we had a few haha moments in there, like haha-remember-how-drunk-we-were-when-we-met? and do you promise to love Husband even though he cannot cook, HAHA-I-WILL-TRY. Our celebrant made us each write “ten things I love about” the other and hearing them for the first time felt a little like roses look, and this was followed closely by a reading that my beautiful friend wrote all by herself which made me realise that maybe I ONLY like people who can write. We signed our official “You Are Now Grown Ups” papers to Mazzy Star's Fade into You and then we got giggly and said thank you to everyone and gave them hugs and accepted all their adoration. We later realised that Puppy Dog also played a large part in the ceremony, walking out right before our big debut and rolling on the grass next to us during the signing and running circles around all of us as we were announced Husband & Wife. I think he was happy.

We then went on a photo-taking rampage, where I thought for sure my smile would become permanent, and then sat and ate dinner, which was shortly followed by me yelling at my dad for putting his cigar out in my plate. Then the speeches were on and I kept on crying and I told everyone how awesome they were (sob) and how much I loved them (tear) and then we danced to Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and then we danced some more and then we cut the cake and then there was a cake fight (insert frowny face here) and then I got wasted because I am not exactly vying for the “Elegant Bride of the Year” prize and then we had loads of deep and meaningfuls and then we passed out in bed without consummating our marriage.

It was perfect.

It's kind of crazy to look back on now – I mean, did that really happen? Surely I am not a movie star. Surely. It feels like a dream, and more so as it gets further and further away and the minute-by-minute playback fades into blurry scenes of spectacular reveries. And when I look back on it and wonder what I was thinking during the time, I know that I wasn't actually thinking anything – I was living right in the centre of each moment, fully present for it all, wholly involved in and enjoying the entire experience, from start to finish. And maybe it was partly because we were so relaxed in the lead up to it and partly because we didn't place any expectations on it, but I think it was all in all the combination of people, place and love that turned the day into the magical moment in time that it was.

Since I had used up all the serotonin that exists in my brain, I naturally thought I was dying a few days afterward. But now when I look at that day, relive those memories and latch on to the love, I immediately feel a little more comfortable with life, in the kind of way that you do when a friend starts to become a best friend. Though it sounds really dramatic and I am SO NOT DRAMATIC HAVE YOU MET ME (I'm also not sarcastic at all.), I suppose I have more faith in it, less fear of it, and almost can't wait to discover it. It's just what happens when your favourite people in the whole world converge and throw their happiness and love at your happiness and love – you realise what's possible. And all of a sudden all that magic that gets lost in the every day becomes real again, and this time, you're not too distracted to pay attention.

I suppose high emotions tie people together, which explains a lot about teenage girls when you think about it, and for me it's always been the bottom end of the spectrum that has strengthened my relationships. But this was the first time when joy played its part in that, and I guess when you are struck with such a profound feeling of it around your very best friends, it's hard to imagine, but you start to like them even more. Sure, part of it is their commitment to you and the realisation of how very much you mean to them, but it's even more than that... it's the sheer fact that you shared something that was so special, so sacred and so beautiful at the same time, in the same place, for the same reason. It's knowing that each of you were part of this recipe for perfection, and it's something you want to recreate over and over, for the rest of your life. And knowing that you actually CAN – well. It makes it that much easier to get up in the morning, look in the mirror, examine the toilet bowl, and think about how ideal your life is.

This Way

Sometimes I can feel all the pain in the world
And sometimes, I want to
I can bottle it up and break it against the cold
Or I can bottle it up and save it inside my soul

The glass that shatters spills across the floor
Full of broken hearts, and open sores
The pieces land and cut me with precision
Making it less about the blood, and more about the tension

The darkness is bliss
When it comes across like this
With puddles of fear
Instead of all those tears

Night brings its weapons
Every minute, of every second
Warping time in its loose paradise
Weaving scars with men and mice

It's a strange condition
To achieve this mission
Harbouring pounds
To be kept safe and sound

But still I inhale
If merely so I can tell this tale
Intense yet fleeting
It's all about the healing

This Reverie

Belief is possibly the most challenging notion out there. It requires you to base everything you do on something that you can't actually see in front of you. It defies science, it is beyond reality, it requires an element of superstition. And yet, without it, I am convinced we would be nothing.

Belief is wonder, ambition, magic, and in many cases, an antidote for sadness. What we choose to believe in is irrelevant – simply holding in our hearts that something exists out there that has not yet been realised in our lives is often enough to keep us going. Whether this is a belief in god, in our children's happiness, or in the simple idea that we will be okay, no matter what we go through, we need belief to survive, otherwise we can never so much as think about the future. As wonderful as it would be if we were programmed like animals and only lived in the moment, unfortunately, the present for many of us is loaded with the past and the future. Belief allows us to hold on under the weight of both of those.

Years ago, when I was taking a philosophy of religion class under my charming atheist professor, I argued in an essay about how the mere fact that we could consider god meant that it could exist. I don't think I knew exactly what I was trying to prove at the time, but my argument sure was backed up by credible references that knew what they were talking about far more than I ever did.

It would be years before I came across the idea of creative manifestation, and years still before I actually began to practice it. And I can't describe why, but something in me knows it's true.

And so I choose to believe. In love, in life, in magic, but most importantly, in myself. I believe that even though I have gotten it wrong before, I will soon get it right. I believe that even though my fears would like to convince me otherwise, that I will not only survive, but I will better than survive – I will actually enjoy it. I believe that even though right now it's a struggle, success will one day be mine. I believe that the challenges are all here to teach us something, that the signs are all around us and that if we believe with all our hearts, then one day what we believe in will be real.

“You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.” - John Lennon

p.s. Did you know the Big Bang hasn't actually been proven?

Love & Marriage

This coming Saturday, Puppy Dog will be our illegitimate bastard son no more.

It will be 7 years to the date that I met Future Husband, and since 7 is either a lucky number or a really creepy movie, we figured it'd be a good day to get married.

It's almost surreal that this day is finally here, and weddings are such a mixture of emotions that I don't really know what to feel, either. So every time I think about the day I tend to just get really teary and play Coast FM in my head.

I never really wanted to have a wedding, and I blame this on hair style magazines alone. It just always seemed like such a contrived spectacle in the name of “love”, much like Valentines Day and stalking, and I couldn't see what the point was. If you love someone, surely giving each other a promise ring and posing for a yearbook photo together is enough?

But then I lost my mind (or so the story goes) and I experienced something more than any stalker could give me. I'm not even entirely sure true love can exist without a struggle to test its strength, and boy, did my mind give ours one. It also gave me a pack of wolves dancing to “La Bamba”. *sniggers*

The scales tipped over, and it became kind of like, let's get married! Er, let's have a wedding! Okay then. Except in between that last exclamation mark and okay was a hell of a lot of umming and ahhing and fantasising about eloping. It all just seemed to much simpler in Vegas.

Eventually, I succumbed to a real wedding, which was originally just going to be one big party with a bit of legal documents thrown in there for good measure, though I figured even those could be filled out at a courtroom on the way down. At about this point Future Husband got annoyed with me. I know, what? I didn't think it was possible to get annoyed with me.

He alluded to the fact that my resistance must have been coming from somewhere, and just like that my psychoanalytical tendencies sat down at a bar with a bottle of tequila. There was so much to it – yes, the social and cultural implications of a “wedding”, but also my own personal ones. People are starving, am I allowed to be this frivolous? All my friends live so far away, do they love me enough to come? Relationships with people are complicated, will I get in trouble over who I choose to invite? This is a big step, am I ready to leave the past behind? Wedding hair is so ugly, can mine possibly look okay?

When I picked it apart, I discovered that it was okay to give myself allowances. I was allowed to do whatever the hell I wanted, because I was only going to do this once and gosh darn it, flowers are pretty! I was scared, yes, that perhaps our love wasn't all that important to people, that perhaps love itself wasn't all that important to people, but guess what? Love is so much cooler than hipsters, and everybody knows it. And I'm pretty cool too, and so is Future Husband, and gosh, EVERYBODY knows that, so I allowed myself to be all arrogant and Disney character-like. I had been trying to resist being a girl for so long, for being someone that “society” had influenced, for being someone who, for just a moment, could escape martyrdom and live in the first world, and I had to allow myself to give up that resistance, too. I mean, I did always find Sleeping Beauty pretty.

But the idea of the past and what the future meant proved to be the greatest challenge, and whether I would allow myself to celebrate a life free of the constraints that had been placed upon it up until now. Marriage is the next step in existence itself – hell, it's a milestone – and I don't know, I guess I wasn't sure if I wanted to reach it. With all the freedom from the past comes a loss, as well – youth ends, two become one, and the whole world turns into a Spice Girls song.

A few bottles of Jose later, I finally realised that you can only really become who you're meant to be by letting go of who you thought you were, and in my case, this led to getting a bouquet and buying baby blue decorations. There doesn't have to be a struggle of past and present if you let it be a coming together of the two, and I suppose that does mean that you have to let go a little – but only of what you no longer need. And what can be more liberating than that? Certainly not prison.

And so as I gradually warmed to this social norm and accepted that being a girl would not kill me or more babies in Africa, we twisted the tradition to make it our own – Future Husband and I are walking down the aisle together, our vows take the piss out of traditional ceremonies, the food is vegetarian and I am SO not throwing my bouquet seeing as I know how good it's going to look in my bedroom after. That's the beauty about weddings; they can fully represent you, what you value and what you're not willing to part with – be that flowers or your self. And they can also encourage you to drop the resistance and embrace the parts about society that you actually kind of like, celebrations of love sans Hallmark or stalkers included.

So I guess this is the last week of my life as a Miss, and even though Future Husband and I have been together for about as long as it takes to get to Saturn, give or take a few months, there is a lot of meaning in that. It's the next chapter, and that means a new part in this story begins. I don't know what it's going to bring, but I know how it's going to start – on a farm down the south coast with wine, flowers, a really amazing outfit, AWESOME hair, dancing up a storm, good music, good food and bloody good conversation with the very beautiful people and Puppy Dog in my life. And with a beginning like this, I'm pretty sure this story belongs in the romance genre.
Well, romantic comedy, most likely.

I actually wasn't going to get flowers, I was that crazy, but this florist convinced me. And now I want her to decorate my life.

When the master agrees with you.

Do you know what's annoying? People.

Not ALL people - I mean, people who dress up as Bugs Bunny characters could NEVER be annoying - but definitely people who are keen to criticise good work. Or who criticise any work, for that matter. So what if you don't like it? Some people don't like chocolate. The world is indeed a very strange place.

You can see nasty criticism everywhere - on YouTube videos of people singing, on articles about entrepreneurs, and, most recently on Invisible Children, my disgust towards which I mentioned before. Thankfully, I'm not the only one, and I was starting to worry for a second there. But I will always remain true to what I believe, even when the movement against it is larger than me, and in this instance, every moral fibre in my being hasn't been able to understand the spite directed towards something that wants to make the world a better place. It's no wonder the we're in the state we're in - where non-profits are subject to the same vilification as Kim Kardashian (who also, by the way, doesn't deserve it). And yes I am able to provide sunshine and rainbows to all those who need them.

Maybe (possibly) we should consider moving towards a human condition that is more supportive than it currently is? Maybe we should invoke some empathy and consider what other people might feel when we press "publish"? Maybe (god forbid) our opinions aren't facts? And maybe nothing is perfect, but we should be forgiven for trying?

Nicholas D. Kristof of The New York Times is the writer that inspired me to become a journalist, but then of course I went to work for News Limited and that dream turned to shit. Now The New York Times and Time are the only things I actually read, so my faith has well and truly been restored - it just requires ignoring everything else. Anyway, his article on this matter is pretty much my opinion X someone far more experienced and credible than me, so let's just pretend I wrote it.

Notable mentions:

When a warlord continues to kill and torture across a swath of Congo and Central African Republic, that’s not a white man’s burden. It’s a human burden.

To me, it feels repugnant to suggest that compassion should stop at a national boundary or color line. A common humanity binds us all, whatever the color of our skin — or passport.

and

The bottom line is: A young man devotes nine years of his life to fight murder, rape and mutilation, he produces a video that goes viral and galvanizes mostly young Americans to show concern for needy villagers abroad — and he’s vilified?

I don’t know if this initiative will make a difference. But if I were a Congolese villager, I would welcome these uncertain efforts over the sneering scorn of do-nothing armchair cynics.