Its All In The Perspective

Its funny how things effect you differently after you've become a parent. Things that might have just slipped under your radar when yoiu're child free just seem to get at your more once your own children are in the picture. Case in point : Mick sends me a text today telling me that a young man who was king hit by a stranger in Sydney on the weekend has had died in hospital, and " that shit hits home " with him now - I mean, what if that happened to our Flynn? It snot like either of us were unfeeling bastards before we had children, but a story like that might have illicited some sympathy when initially seen on the tv, and be forgotten about by the next day. But now that we have a son of our own stories like that dig in deeper, hang on a bit longer, and when the outcome isnt so good it hits home that one day that could be our child. Its upsetting.

I've been feeling the same way about the child molestation "scandal " hitting the Catholic church in the past week or so. In the past of course i was upset for children who had fallen victim to paedophiles, and angry that justice just never seems to be served. Now that i have my own children ( or at leasti will have very shortly ) i'm not just upset and angry, but find myself full of vengeful rage when reading these stories. I like to think myself a calm, rational personal, not especially prone to violence - but i swear to you if ANYONE ever touches one of my children inappropriately i will hunt that person down and castrate them my bloody self. All my humanity would go straight out the window and the ferocious MamaBear would come out in defence of my children and their dignity.

Even things as small as the way young girls seem to be dressing and acting these days ( gawd, i sound like i'm 80 yrs old! ) evokes more of opinion that it would previously have had. I already feel a strong urge to protect my unborn daughter from all the bullshit of the world - from the bullies, from the societal pressures to " fit in ", from the nasty boys who might break her heart. I couldnt see the harm in some things before that i can most definately see now, from a mothers perspective.

Kind of makes me want to go and hug my parents and say " thank you " for rasing me the way that they did.....

30 Days of Music - Days 5 + 6

So...because yesterday was Polly Dolly day and by the time i finished putting together my set i was completely blogged out... i didnt do yesterdays " 30 Days of Music " prompt. So excuse me while i mash two days together and catch up a little, ok?
Day 5 - What song do you listen to when your sad?

The first song that came to mind for this one was Johnny Cash's version of " Hurt " ( originally by Nine Inch Nails ). And if i'm not sad enough before i even start to listent to this son, i end up in tears anyway because the combining of the pounding piano and the emotion in Johnnys voice just bring me undone. A brilliant cover by an absolutely brilliant and legendary artist....

Day 6 - What song do you listen to when your angry?

When i'm angry ( or upset/angry...whatever ) i like to either lock myself away in my room or go out for a drive and pump something loud, rockin' and vaguely metal-ish - which, since high school, has quite often been something by Linkin Park. " Hybrid Theory " was one of my favourite albums in Year 12 and i've enjoyed their stuff ever since ( even though some of the new stuff is a bit more tame than the older songs ). So i could have picked maybe 90% of the Linkin Park back catalogue to fit this category but i decided to go with " No More Sorrow " off their " Minutes To Midnight " album. Please enjoy.

Wishful Thinking

I wish i was finding it easier to get past this.
I wish random little things didnt turn my mind to you.
I wish i didnt have to see your car driving around town, or worry about bumping into you somewhere.
I wish i'd never met you.
I wish, in my heart of hearts, that i really believed that.
I wish you hadnt made me feel so bitter. I want to be a better person than that.
I wish you hadnt lied, and kept up that lie, leading me on.
I wish you could see that thats exactly what you did, instead of denying it, and then giving me no chance of showing you evidence of the fact.
And i wish i hadnt found those photos. I simultaneously love and hate the way photos can call up memories. Memories i wish i didnt have.

I was cleaning out the bottom of Flynns wardrobe on Friday which, despite being his cupboard, is actually the storage spot for all of my old bills, correspondences and paperwork. There was plenty of crap in there that just went straight into the re-cycling bin but amongst it all i found a folder of photos of me and my ex-best friend. I wish i hadnt found them. For those of you who are new around here or those of you who missed it - my "best friend " dumped me late last year, saying she just didnt want to be friends with me anymore. There are, of course, more elaborate details to it than that ( me sending her a text announcing my pregnancy, her not speaking to me for a month or so and then saying i shouldnt be having a baby, "forgiving " each other, then me being ignored after she fell pregnant and gave birth to her own child and me expressing my disappointment and anger about it here on my blog... you know, just to name a few )but basically, in the end, it came down to the fact she didnt want to be friends with me anymore because, apparently, i'd changed. Not knowing how, or when, this change had come about she said she didnt really want to talk about it, but that the first time she noticed the so-called change and was annoyed by my behaviour was late 2008.

Stumped, i mulled things over. I pondered what i'd done, when i'd done it; i cried myself to sleep some nights and i cried in the shower most mornings for weeks on end; i talked things over, to myself, trying to figure things out. And then, after all that, i re-read through 2 years worth of emails.... and thats when i realised. She lied to me. Despite my angry and ill-thought-out blog post which was pretty much the beginning of the end ( and which i regret ), despite how angry she was at me for it and despite how many insults she threw at me, horrible characteristics she attributed to me.... SHE LIED. She lied to me for over a year and, in doing so, manipulated my feelings. She made me feel like the lowest being on the face of the earth for something as simple as a text message....BUT SHE LIED. She lead me on, and i have proof. I found it, with the photos. A copy of an email ( in regards to some advice i asked her for ), dated 25th March 2009, which ends in the following paragraph:
P.S. At the end of all this, I love that you value my opinion so much, but it IS your life and only you know how you feel so only you will know what's right. Either way I will be there for you no matter what happens. Mwah Mwah


LIAR. She said that, 5 months after i supposedly changed and offended her with my behaviour. 5 months after she realised she didnt really like me anymore. Why would she say that, if she didnt mean it? Why would she then still email me, the same old friendly chat, but deliberately go out of her way NOT to see me when she came home for the weekend? Why would she then, after " the text " and supposed forgivness, play happy friends with the rest of our peers but ignore me? Because she's a liar. And she lead me on, and manipulated me into thinking we were still close, and just waited til all that negligence and ignorance did my head in, and i made a mistake, so she could end the friendship but still be the " good guy ".

And, to be quite frank - thats not fucking fair.

The Seven Stages

I dont know if its common knowledge or not, but apparently there are 7 stages of grieving for a human being.
1. Shock and denial
2. Pain and guilt
3. Anger and frusturation
4. Depression and reflection
5. The " upward " turn
6. Reconstruction
7. Acceptance

Strangely, after the "break up " with my best friend, i find myself going through these stages. No-one has died, yet i still feel grief for a relationship lost. Is that weird? And do you know where i think i'm up to?
3. Anger and Frusturation - Frustration gives way to anger, and you may lash out and lay unwarranted blame for the death on someone else . This is a time for the release of bottled up emotion. Yes, after all these years of being meek and mild, of being the kind of person who dislikes confrontation, who can find the good in most people, i've finally arrived at "angry ". I'm not exactly wanting to " lay unwarranted blame " because as far as i'm concerned it takes two to tango ( so they say ). I am at the stage where i have confronted the accusations thrown at me and come to accept that even if i dont understand where they have come from, i do understand that they are real to her, and i have accepted responsibility for that. However, i have also looked back on the past few years of relationship and have had the clarity to see all those little things i missed, those signs that i was on the outer....and i feel stupid. I feel like i've been lead on and played for a fool, and that makes me both sad and angry. Sad that i missed them all and i could have saved myself this heartache, if only i werent so trusting; and angry that i could have been treated that way by someone who once, supposedly, loved me.And angry, too, that she can't or wont "own " how she's made me feel.
And yes, its time for the release of bottled up emotion. But i wont do that here, and i wont do it to her face ( partly because i dont want to cause any more trouble, and partly because i have no line of communication with her anymore ). No, i do it in the shower, like all good women. In the shower i'm free to talk under the sound of the water, to whisper all those words i'd like to say, to let out the feelings that have been dragging me down the last few weeks, and to cry and cry and cry, and let the water wash away any evidence of my tears.
In the shower i can be naked, physically and emotionally, and i can let.It.Out. I just wonder how much longer til i reach the seventh stage and i can let it all go....

Uncle Steve the Big Red Alligator and introducing the Doormat Branch

So heres the thing - i dont sleep too well. Most nights, i wake up four or five times, i toss, i turn, and by the time the alarm goes off i am back to being tired again. Its that whole " I'm so tired of waking up tired " thing for me. The other thing is, the more tired i am and the more restless my sleep, the weirder my dreams. And i'm talking weird. Crazy. Like, wake up in the morning and go " What the forking beejesus was that supposed to mean ?!? " crazy. Let me elaborate:

For those of you who are either new here, didnt already know or who may have forgotten, i was once an au pair in the United States. Instead of having to explain what au pair actually means - i was a nanny ( to three very wonderful boys... but i digress ). Anyhoo, so last night i dreamt that i was a nanny again, but it wasnt for the same family. Some members of this family were white, but the parents and one child were dark skinned ( i'd be politically correct and say African-American or Aboriginal, but truth be told i dont know where this dream was taking place ). Weirder still was that the youngest child in said family was my neice, Hannah. And there i was, nanny to this family, brand new into the job and off we go to visit their Uncle Steve. But Uncle Steve was no ordinary man-uncle - no, Uncle Steve was a big, red, alligator. And by big, i mean HUGE. You remember Clifford the Big Red Dog ? Well Uncle Steve was the alligator equivalent of Clifford. He was a monstrous, red, reptile and he lived in a huge pond. With a lid. Like a coffin lid. On a pond. Uncle Steve could also speak - in English suprisingly ( in a dream like this you would have thought it would have been some obscure Russian dialect or something ) - and he was really sweet. The kids and the family got in the pond and swam with him. I sat on the edge and gave Hannah a marshmallow from my handbag. There were other kids playing nearby the pond and when one of them fell in and started crying, i pulled him out and gave him a marshmallow too. Just as Hannah starting yelling out " Amma! Amma ! " - the name of a Finnish exchange i knew in high school - i woke up.
Seriously - can anybody else say what the ?!? Perhaps the combination of bad sleep and brain altering medication is pysching me out....

But enough with dreams, and on to reality. Yes, we all have to wake up sometimes, and that kind of sort of, happened today. My colleagues and I all came to the conclusion that we are the Doormat Branch. That is, we are the branch of our company that everyone else takes advantage of and, frankly, we're sick of being walked all over. But what are we to do? Find new jobs? Conduct a walk off and picket outside the store? Fire off an aggressive email to management ? Or just take a cup of cement and harden the fuck up ? Our branch has been understaffed by at least two people for almost a month straight now. We have been coping the best we can, some of us even taking on roles and duties that do not come under our job description. One of my workmates came in to work sick as a dog, dying of the lurgy, ill to the point where she had lost her voice and couldnt talk, because she was the only person to fill that role that day. And we soldiered on. Sure, some of the paperwork got backed up, but when you're short staffed and ( some of you ) are on deaths door step, that cant exactly be helped. Management, however, thinks it can. No " Thanks guys, you're really doing well down there ", no " Job well done in a hard situation ", no " Can we send someone down to help you guys? ". No, only an email from our area supervisor querying why some paperwork had not been put on and questioning our priorities and understanding of our job. Even though she was aware of the no staff and the dying of the lurgy bit. Are you freaking kidding me ? We spent a good half hour following the arrival of managements email bitching about how unappreciated we are. Whenever someone else at another branch is sick or needs holiday coverage who do they get to go ? Someone from our branch. One of us goes away, say for a week long tutorial, and we dont ask for a ring-in, we just buck up and get on with it. Management even sent one us away to another branch for six months ( which is why WE are now short staffed ) to begin a job looking after some agencies and when a new agency opened, one that my workmate had been working on for months, did he get to go to the opening? Nope. Some other douche from some other branch who had little to nothing to do with it went. What a crock of crap.

Perhaps i should get my good buddy Uncle Steve the Big Red Alligator to rock up to management and tell them how we really feel.....

How bout you go screw yourself ?

This post is basically a bit of a gripe.... i just dont get why people have to be rude. And by rude i mean disrespectful and arrogant. For lack of a better, more refined term, it really pisses me off.
It really, really annoys me when its in a professional environment. I work in retail ( basically ) but i'm not talking about clients or customers ( or can refer to my old blog for a relevant post on that subject ). No, i'm talking about other people who i had assumed to be professionals. Evidently i was wrong.
See, i had sent a pair of spectacles back to a manufacturer for warranty. I wont delve into the full story, but basically a customer had come to me to have lenses fitted into a frame she had bought elsewhere - on holidays, in an outlet whose name she couldnt recall - and it broke whilst in my shop awaiting fitting. The brekage was clearly a warranty problem and although it wasnt my original stock, i owe to my customer to get her a new one. So i ring this company and explain the situation, how it was not bought from me and the customer could not return to the original place of purchase A) because it was in another state and B) because she couldnt remember the name of the shop. Long story short, they sent me a new frame and i sent the old broken one back for credit.
Now, i get a call on Tuesday from one the sales girls at this company telling me i wouldnt get credit on this frame, despite what i had explained on the phone first time around. I say to her that i'm a little busy but i would like to speak to someone about the situation - can i call them back? Yep, fine , no worries. Now this phone call was at 4:30pm, and my store closes at 5pm.
Wednesday morning i get a very kurt letter in the mail from this companies director, saying not only will i not be getting credit, but i " had no right nor authority " to undertake any warranty jobs on behalf of my customer. WTF ? If your frame breaks through no fault of the customer, you legally have to replace it.
Anyhoo, the letter did it for me. Not only was it kurt and vaguely rude, but it said that i needed written authority to undertake warranty repairs if i was not an authorised stockist of their frames. So i ring back, like i said i would and who do i get to speak to ? The managing director. You would think that someone of such high standing in a company would have some manners towards people who are potential customers but no.... rude, arrogant, prick. Basically, this guy ( i'm not going to use the word gentleman ) refused to listen to anything i had to say and tried to shout me down. If there is one thing i can not stand, its condescension - i am not stupid, i am not deaf, and i am not yours to trample on just because i am a woman. DO NOT TALK DOWN TO ME.

It will only serve tomake me angry, have me hang up in your ear and rubbish your company to everyone i can think of. None of which you really want.