2011: A year in review of me by me and about me!

So it’s the end of another year. Eventually we’re all going to stop saying that you know.
Now that I have accomplished my duty of reminding us about our mortality, I can begin to reflect on 2011. By many accounts, this has been a year of serious change, and if I look back on where I was at this time last year, um, SOMEBODY GET THAT GIRL A DRINK, WOULD YOU. There is no way I could have predicted I’d be where I am today, even though I am exactly in the same (physical) place as I was a year ago today – the caravan in Future Husband’s parents’ yard in North Coast NSW.

Although the layers that I’ve managed to peel off are numerous and complicated and possibly rather boring, one persistent theme has emerged among them – all were untruths that I was living, and at the end of 2010, I was not being who I really am. Naturally, you can only do that for so long and it usually has to be in a Hollywood blockbuster, so the state I was living in was a highly unnatural one, much like Frosty the Snowman stuffing himself and spending his Christmas in Australia. STUFFED KANGAROOS WITH SANTA HATS WOULD BE MUCH MORE APPROPRIATE. And so, as was to be expected, I wanted to crawl right out of my body and turn into a dog. They have the best life. -sighs-

For all its turbulence and nauseous self-discovery, I am so grateful for 2011 I could make out with it. It has been an intense year of reflection, subsequent horror and necessary transformation. On the surface, that has led to profound change – and deep down, there has been so much growth you would think I would at least be taller after
all this.
A combination of personal, spiritual and professional development has led me to this moment in this caravan, where I am more sure of who I am, what I need to be doing and the kind of people I want around me than I have ever been before. A year ago today, Final Episode was dominating my life, and though I had no idea what it was then, there was something about the project that seemed to be stabbing me in the soul. But at that stage, I was determined to make Final Episode into the store I thought it should be – not the store I wanted it to be. And so I considered its luxury price tags and niche items, its leather and fur and everything in between, its reliance on relationships within the fashion industry and all it needed to grow in the direction it initially embarked on, and I packaged all that up and put it in a business plan to take to investors. And then at the same time, I was dreaming of dying a fast, painless death, maybe by getting in the way of a stray gunshot, or something.

Obviously, there was a lot more to my morbid stream of thought than Final Episode, but it played a staring role in all the lies I was telling myself about who I was. I could not make myself to be the kind of person who could run a company I didn’t fundamentally believe in, and it was only by letting go of the expectation of it that I could let it evolve into something I could work in – and on – and love. It now sells stuff by indie artists and designers, fair-trade and recycled goods only, at least 10% of all sales go to charity and the whole focus is on sustainability.

I had to break down the project I had built and reconstruct it into something that could house my conscience and my soul, and still be a working business. It took effort and hours and I am totally prepared to blame every ounce of fat on my body on Final Episode what with all the stress and the chocolate and the work and the butter, but I enjoy it now, and more importantly, I agree with it. It is a business that I want to expand, because I believe it should exist and that the fashion industry should be transformed. I don’t know if I’ll achieve that transformation with Final Episode, but at least its vision is out there in the world.

Up next, of course, was This Place, the evolution of which I have already outlined here. In the process of seeking my truth, I ended Side Street, Sydney because I had grown out of it and its editorial strategy, and for a while, I never wanted to do anything again ever, except maybe put a five dollar bill on a tree to see if it would grow. But there was a distinct sequence of events that made it impossible for me to not do This Place, and by golly did I try. I broke up with it like, three times, but the bastard kept asking me to take it back. It came up when I went searching for meaning, it came up when I was contemplating the kind of writer I wanted to be, and, crucially, it came up at times when I WAS NOT SPEAKING TO IT. It was like a small child, pulling at my hands, tugging at my hair, BEGGING ME TO PLAY WITH IT. It was so annoying.

But resistance is as big a slap in the face to your authenticity as is naïve credence, and although I didn’t know if I wanted to get into yet another big project MY GOODNESS WILL I EVER STOP, I did follow my instincts and I followed the signs and I listened to what the universe seemed to be telling me to do. Even when it said “Buy that brownie.” Hey, if you don’t listen, it’ll probably stop telling you things, and if wants me to eat that brownie, I HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO EAT THAT BROWNIE. It’s scientific.

So I eventually caved in and went okay This Place I will give birth to you, but please do not be a little asshole, please. And I followed my truth with countless things, including but not limited to my choice of friends (if they try to look like Barbie there is probably something very wrong with them.), my diet, the status of my relationship, my location and my whole value system. And I am so totally happy with all those elements in my life, like I have no bad feelings whatsoever about anything right now, and I may well have turned into a Carebear, apparently this is what they look like, that I have no doubt I am on the right path. It is impossible to be happy if you don’t follow your truth, and through this very self-indulgent blog post my goal is to urge you to do the same. The universe will be oh so nice to you if you pay attention to who you really are and where you are meant to be. It may even give you a candy cane.

This is a lifelong journey and by no means do I think I have everything or anything for that matter figured out yet, but I know I am becoming more of my authentic self, and she is so much nicer and happier than my false self, that cow. We cultivate presumably hundreds of layers from the time we are born to the fucked up adults we become, and we get fed such a Vegas-sized buffet of other people’s baggage, expectations and ideas that it’s easy to lose the people we are underneath all those self-destructive calories. I clearly do not have any easy answers for how to burn them off, lest I would be a multi billionaire, probably, so my practical advice here is pretty minimal (but apparently you should wear sunscreen). It took me a long time to figure out what I want, and really I’m just a ticking time bomb for losing the plot again, but the next time I do I think I’ll just start with asking myself who I really am – and then figuring out if that is going hand in hand with what I’m actually doing.

Gosh I can talk a lot. I’ll finish this by saying from my caravan to yours, I hope you had a very Merry Christmas, and that 2012 is beautiful and true for all of us.