The Beginning of The End

Don't waste your time fighting the line

State your course and you'll understand

- Jay-Z

Tomorrow is a big day for me. Tomorrow everything changes. Though, of course, it already has. Tomorrow is my birthday. Tomorrow is the first day of the end of my 20's. Tomorrow is also the last day of my scholarship. And of course, tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life.

I remember last year I was really anxious about turning 28 and what this year would hold in store for me. I knew it was going to be a challenging year, and whether it was obvious or not, this time last year I was really freaking out about how I was going to manage. But looking back at the past year... it kind of blows my mind how much I've changed, how much I've grown, how much I've learnt about myself.

Not too long ago my flatmate and I were reflecting on our lives and how different (read: better) our late 20's have been from our early 20's. Thinking about how 28 has been for me, I had mixed feelings about the year. But as my flatmate said, "I think you'll look back on this year as a time when some really positive changes started to happen in your life."

And it's true! For starters, I've lost 20kg in the past year. I ran my first 5km race, and now I'm training for a 10km race. I finished my data collection, completely lost interest in my PhD, then fell utterly in love with it again and now want to build my future career on the research I am doing now. I've healed my relationships with my parents a lot, and I've gotten to reconnect with my siblings as adults, which is nothing short of awesome! My professional skills are starting to be recognized in the form of gainful employment and mentoring...

It hasn't all been fun times and kicking ass though. I had a very stupid fight with a friend, and while we've reconciled now, I regret that I became the kind of person who would let that happen. One of the things I've realized over the past year is that friendship is something I value very dearly. I get along well with most people, but it's rare to find someone who I can truly call a friend. And while there are some people back in Canada who I feel like I've gotten closer with this past year, I've felt a lot of disconnect with my friends here in Melbourne. And given that I live in Melbourne, that is hardly an ideal situation! Then there are the incredible grey areas... Breaking up with Lady Cop, twice, is hardly my idea of a good time. But then, a lot of good has come out of it. A lot of good, and a lot of change, and according to a psychic we went to, change is always a good thing.

I started this blog with a lyric from my current favourite hip-hop song, Blue Magic. The reason this song resonates so much with me right now is that, like so much of Jay-Z's music, it's about coming out of tough times on top. Jay-Z is an absolute inspiration to me. This is a man who came from a situation where nobody expected him to amount to anything, but he always knew better. His intellect, his insight into the way the world works, and the way he so simply yet cleverly lays it out, it's pure beauty to me. This is a man who has been, and who I am sure continues to be, under estimated. A lot of people who get under estimated get this attitude like they've got something to prove to the world, but not Jay-Z. He knows what he is capable of, he knows how good he is, and he knows the world is never really going to get it. But instead of trying to make the world sit up and take notice, he just goes about living his life, doing his thing, absolutely on his own terms, whether the world notices or not. I find that absolutely admirable. Especially because as he's always known his own worth, he's always managed to have control over his career.

Which brings me back to the lyric I opened with. We all come into the world in a particular context: in a particular moment in history, in a particular socioeconomic status, in a particular family, in a particular part of the world. We can't change those things; we've got to play the cards that we're dealt. How we play them though, is up to us. There's no point trying to fight the things that are outside of our control. We are much better off to accept whatever circumstances we are in and focus on how we're going to work with whatever we've got to make the best of the situation we're in.

I've been thinking a lot as my birthday has approached about what my circumstances are, and what I can do about it. And this is the thing: when Lady Cop and I were together, I was fighting the line; I wasn't focusing on myself and my own abilities, and while I thought I was maneuvering myself onto a better course by relying on someone else, I was actually making things a lot more difficult for myself. What inspires me about Jay-Z is how clearly he manages to stay on his course, even with other people in his life. I mean, Beyonce is a mega-superstar with her own career and life goals and all of that. She is an amazing woman and an amazing catch, and I know a lot of people would think that if she snaps her fingers, he'd better come a-running. But no! It's not like that at all. He knows that she's incredible, but he also knows he's awesome personified too. Being with her doesn't change his course. He's still going to do what's right for him.

I want to be the kind of person that can say "You're awesome, I want to be with you, but this is my life and I am living it this way, whether you're in it or not." This is the biggest lesson I have learnt over the past year, and it's been a hard lesson to learn. Compromise is important in relationships, sure, but it is different from going off course with your own life.

So I'm not fighting the line; I've stated my course, and I understand.

What does that mean for my 29th year? Finishing my PhD is my number one priority. But I have to be realistic: my candidature expires in 6 months, and especially given that I now have to engage in paid work to survive and that I want my PhD to launch my future career, I need more than 6 months to finish. So I have decided to extend my candidature by 6 months, which means taking out student loans and paying tuition. I will submit my thesis before my 30th birthday!!! And while I do still want to continue losing weight, right now I am happy with my body. I like my fitness regime; it's not as hardcore as previous ones, but it's enough to continue improving my fitness and toning my body without having to be obsessive about what I eat, while having the flexibility to allow my PhD to take priority. Having a social life is vital to my well-being, so I am actively making new friends and reconnecting with old ones. For reasons that unfortunately stopped being relevant too late to change anything, my flatmate is moving out and someone new will be coming in (tbd, don't want to jinx it, not talking about it until it's in the past).

Tomorrow is a fresh start. From here on in, I'm running the show.

Everything I Am

People talkin' shit but when the shit hit the fan

Everything I'm not made me everything I am

- Kanye West

For the past 2 years I've been spending most Thursday nights involved with this self development course called Human Relations for Everyday Living. It has been an immensely positive thing for me and has transformed a lot of my relationships for the better. In the course we learn about our defense mechanisms and how to let go of them and engage with ourselves and others in more nurturing, positive, healthy ways. Sometimes the things we talk about can feel really theoretical, and while I have been able to see all sorts of subtle changes in myself and how I related to other people, I've wondered if these skills will hold up when they're really tested; as if my day-to-day life isn't a real test! This past week has felt like a real test though. And, when the course starts up again this week, I'll be happy to report that I passed with flying colours.

It's been a kind of strange and wonderful couple of weeks. A lot's happened, and I'm not going to go into all the details of what, but I will say it's involved family dramas, old friends, uni landmarks and the emergence of a new lady in my life. And in everything that has happened, I have seen myself behaving completely differently from how I have in the past. Better, more mature, more self-aware, more reflexive, and more considerate of those I'm interacting with.

I feel like at some point I stepped outside myself and started to observe myself, and the observer-me is acting rationally, whereas I often react emotionally (and oh! the drama that can ensue!) Observer-me has learnt a lot of valuable things about myself the past couple of weeks. It's like I've flicked a switch or something. When it comes to personal development, I'm of the opinion that you've got to make a decision to change. And you have to make that decision over and over and over again every time the temptation of old habits comes calling. Eventually, the old habit fades and a new one is formed. I feel like my decision not to be an emotional idiot, a decision that has been well over 2 years in the active making, is really shifting from something I have to struggle with to something that I just am doing.

I've mentioned in this blog before that my life was characterised by my unhappiness for a long time. It really does seem that after 28 years of emotionally struggling, I've reached a point where it doesn't have to be difficult anymore. I've made a lot of changes to my life since moving to Melbourne; changes which have allowed me to get some much needed distance from my past and the people in it, some much needed perspective on my past and the people in it, and some much needed boundaries around my past and the people in it. This hasn't been easy to do, and those boundaries still need a lot of reinforcing. Sometimes the bullshit from the past finds its way back into my life and I'm left feeling anxious and boxed in. But I have a choice now. I don't have to let it get to me anymore.

These days, my life is good. I'm not angry at the world anymore. I feel completely free to live my life exactly how I want to live it, and that is exactly what I am doing. I feel strong and independent and secure in myself. Whatever people think of me and the choices I've made doesn't matter anymore. Because I know who I am, and I know what I am capable of. And most importantly, I know I'm not going to be the incredibly unhappy person I was ever again.

He ATE his own children

It was my birthday on Tuesday. I am now an apparently astonishing 28 years old (astonishing to my parents, that is, I'm pretty well aware of my own existence). There are some interesting facts about turning 28 that I've only recently found out. First, it takes 7 years for every cell in your body to regenerate, so I am now a completely physically different person from when I was 21, and 2 different people from when I was 14. Second, it takes 28 years for Saturn to orbit the earth. Apparently this Saturn business is a sign of upheaval; one of my friends advised me that in Roman mythology Saturn ate his own children, so, you can imagine I'm not exactly feeling enthusiastic about my situation here. 27 was chaotic enough thankyouverymuch!

I'm hoping Saturn got all it's child-eating rage out on me already, you know, like over the past 28 years. Hmm, maybe Saturn's been chasing me around eating his kids for the past 28 years and now that he's come full circle and all the kids are ate up he doesn't have any reason to ride my ass. A girl can hope!

For a long time I saw birthdays more as a time to duck for cover than a time to celebrate. But since striking it out on my own in a new hemisphere I've been choosing to celebrate instead of hide. The past 2 years I've organised something, and while that's been fun, I wasn't up for it this year. I was hemming and hawing about what to do for my birthday when the solution came to me: an invitation to a 30th birthday party the weekend before my birthday, and Orlando (a monthly queer night at a nearby pub) the weekend after.

The 30th birthday involved a theme: create a matching outfit. So when I read that I right away thought of those horrible matching track suits (the ones in my imagination were pink velour and I nearly barfed) and I knew I was in for a good time. I'm not a fan of, in fact I am avidly against, the matching suit set look so I really had no idea what to wear. Then it dawned on me: POLKA DOTS! I have an amazing polka dot dress, and, in the course of moving office I rediscovered my polka dot shoes (which are, by far, the most amazing polka dot shoes to ever exist), and I was sorted! I rummaged through my stacks of accessories and pulled out everything spotted until I had the perfect polka dot look.

Since 30 is a pretty big deal, I didn't want to show up for the party empty handed. But being a poor student, splashing out on a present wasn't exactly in the budget. And then I had a moment of creative genius: Smarties cookies!

These cookies were doubly ingenious (in my mind anyways) because they are polka dot cookies, and because the party was for one of the admin staff at my campus, who has to put up with all us smart arse academics all day. Smarties...Smart Arses...get it?

The party was heaps of fun. It was a house party out in Northcote, which I was pleasantly surprised to discover is actually not insanely far from Brunswick. I won't go into the details, but, I ended up drinking half a bottle of rum, showing everyone my underwear (which, thank god, had polka dots), dancing, playing the piano terribly, and sitting out by the fire well past the wee hours of the morning and nearly into the regular hours of the morning. I got home around 5am, picked up a really nasty cough, and nearly died from the brightness of the sun when I crawled out of my bedroom-pit the next morning.

I've spent most of the past week with a nasty cold from this party, but I have no regrets. And I was hardly going to let a little thing like possibly needing medical attention stop me from going out on Friday night again! And again, I have no regrets, Orlando was a hoot! It was one of those nights that was either going to really suck, or be really awesome. It was really awesome. Well, for me. I didn't run into exes or crazy stalker ladies, though I did make a woman in the toilet intensely uncomfortable... Ah, good times, good times.

Maybe Saturn is done harassing me after all. Maybe it's time to just sit back and enjoy the sunshine.