THE PEOPLE YOU MEET...

I’m a firm believer that people come into your life for a reason.

They have a ‘gift’ for you; a life lesson, if you will, and you obtain this gift through your relationship with them.  Negative or positive; you get something out of everyone you meet.

Like, I have friends that you would think unlikely for me, but they have given me the gift of confidence within myself.

I also have friends that constantly test that confidence, and rattle my foundations.  This succeeds in only making me stronger.  I hope J

Sometimes though, you meet someone that just smacks you in the face with reality, and makes you realise that life ain’t as bad as you think.  There’s always someone out there to unintentionally pull your head out of your arse and make you harden the fuck up.

Such is the case of a lady that I’ve come to know over the past few months.  I won’t mention her name, or how I’ve come to know her, because I don’t want to embarrass her.  She doesn’t carry her life story like a placard above her head.  In fact, if you were to meet her, you would just think she’s the loveliest, happiest person around. 

That is the gift she got from one of her life lessons.

You see, we had occasion to really chat the other day, and me being the person I am, like to learn the stories of the people around me.  I think people’s histories are interesting; it’s their making.  Good or bad, it’s what’s moulded them into the people we know today.

So, my new friend has started a relationship with a new fella.  I had the chance to meet him, and he seemed like a nice bloke.

Anyway, she was telling me that she was taking it really slowly with this bloke, because several years ago, she’d come out of a very bad relationship.

‘What happened in that relationship that was so bad, if you don’t mind me asking?’ I enquired. 

‘Well,’ she sighed heavily.  ‘My partner was an abusive drunk.’

‘Oh no…’

‘Lee… he used to beat me on a regular basis.’

‘You’re fucken joking?’ 

I still don’t understand how men can beat women. And I shouoldn’t be sexist, because not all abusers are men. 

I just, honestly, don’t understand how anyone can hurt another person like that.  I can’t get my head around the notion that someone would have such a gross lack of respect for another human being, and that violence toward them is justified in their minds.  I just don’t get it.

‘No…’ she smiled.  ‘I wish I was.’

‘Were you with him for a long time?’

‘A very, very long time.’

‘Why?  Why did you stay?’

‘Well… I suppose it’s the old adage that I had nowhere else to go, and stupidly, I loved him.’

‘Fuck me, mate…’

She laughed.  ‘I know.  It was stupid…’

‘No… stupid’s not the right word.  I believe we attract what we need at that certain point in time, you know?  Maybe you attracted someone like this for a reason?  As air-fairy as it sounds, I believe we choose a path to travel, and attract people to travel with us, to help our soul grow.’

‘I understand what you’re saying.’

‘Maybe that was a part of your life lesson?  To learn that’s not how you want to be treated, and that you’re better than that?’

‘I would agree with that, because when I look back, I know that I’m better than that.  I’m a better person that he could ever be, and I didn’t deserve what he did to me, and he’s nothing but a dog.  I know now, that I deserve better.’

I smiled.  ‘What did he do to you?’

‘Well, he used to beat me.’ She explained.  ‘I’ve had eight broken ribs in total; a couple of the same ones twice; a fractured eye socket… a broken bone in my hand…bruises all over me where he  grabbed me…’

‘Holy shit mate…’ my heart just clenched for my new friend.  I couldn’t believe she was sitting there calmly telling me this… any physical evidence of her suffering long gone…

‘But that’s not the worst of it…’

‘It get’s worse?’ how could it possibly?

‘He pushed me down a flight of stairs once…’

‘Oh my God…’

‘When I was eight months pregnant… with twin boys…’

Oh my fucking God no.  No… surely not… surely not… my eyes started to well with tears…

‘It’s funny…’ she mused quietly… ‘That day, when he pushed me, there were two young men at the bottom of the stairs… I actually landed on one of them.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah.  He saw it happen.  He stepped up to grab me, and he caught me from behind, wrapped his arms around me, and fell backward with me, and I landed on top of him.  He cushioned my fall… he didn’t want me to hit the concrete…’

‘Oh my God…’  please don’t say what I think you’re going to say.

‘I knew I was in trouble.’ She shrugged.  ‘I… I started bleeding.  And you know what?  That young man never let me go… he just held on to me, his hands on my tummy like he could stop it all… and his friend called an ambulance and just held my hand.’

I was stupefied… and it took me a moment to realise that tears were rolling down my cheeks. 

She just smiled at me.  ‘Don’t cry love… I’ve dealt with it…’

‘It’s just horrible… horrible…’ I shook my head, holding her hand.

‘It was, I’ll admit, and awful, awful time in my life.’

‘What happened?’

‘Well, the two young men rode in the ambulance with me to the hospital.  My fucken dog of a partner just took off, like the coward he is.  He knew he’d gone too far this time, and took off.’

‘Fucken coward.’ I said through gritted teeth.

She nodded.  ‘Indeed he was.’

‘And your babies?’ please don’t…. please don’t…. but I’ve got to know, because I’ve never heard mention of any children…

She smiled proudly.  ‘I gave birth to my beautiful boys… I hugged and kissed them… then I buried them.’

I lost my shit.  Oh darlin…no…

‘The nurses let me hold them for a while, but I had to let them go.’

‘What were their names?’

‘Matthew and Nicolas.’  She smiled proudly.  ‘My beautiful boys.’ 

I lost my shit again.  Fuck me, why?  Why would someone do that to another human being? WHY?

I sat there with her, sooking like the bitch I am, and she just smiled at me.  ‘You know… that day changed my life…’

‘It fucken would…’

‘And you know, to this day, those two young men ring me on the 17^th of April every year.  Every year, to see how I’m going.’

‘You’re kidding?’

‘Nope.’  She smiled proudly again.  ‘Every year, and you know what?  Those two young men became coppers because of it.  It completely changed their lives too, and they’re now police officers.’

‘Oh wow… how long has it been?’

‘My boys would have been eighteen this year.’

FUCK! Eighteen!  They would have been men now!

‘I often think about it, and as funny as it sounds, I think that I’m glad they didn’t come into this world.’

‘Really?  Why?’

‘Well, what type of life would they have had with a father like that?  What would they have become seeing their only male influence treating women the way he did?  What would he have done to them?’

‘True.’ I mused.  She had a point.  ‘

‘I could have had eighteen years of having to deal with him.  Even if I plucked up the courage to leave, he would have still had a hold of my boys.’

‘That’s true.’

‘And because they’ve gone, I don’t have to.  I was able to walk away, and never see him again.  My children gave me that gift.’

And there it was.  The gift.  The gift of freedom; given to her by a couple of stillborn babies.  How tragic.

‘So, after that, you left him?’

‘Would you believe I took him back?’

‘What the fuck?’ I cried.

‘I know! I know!’ she laughed, holding up her hands in surrender.  ‘Everyone thought I was mad, and they were right.  I remember the local copper saying to me at the time, that when I was ready, come and see him.  Only when I was ready though.  He told me I was mad too.’

‘You were!’ I smiled.

She just laughed.  ‘I know, I remember walking into the Kilmore Police Station when I’d had enough, and I walked up to the counter, and said to the copper on duty that ‘I’m here to see-‘ and that’s as far as I got.  The side door behind the counter opened, and the copper I knew from years ago said ‘well it’s about time! Come through love, and let’s get this monster out of your life forever.’

‘Wow…’

‘So now I’m free.  I started my life again, and I’m happy.  I think of my boys all the time, and I enjoy my job and my friends.’

‘And you now know that you can never go back to that shit again.’

‘Indeed.  Now I know I’m better than that, and deserve much more.  It’s up to me to make myself happy now.  I can’t rely on anyone else to do it.  It’s all about me.’

After hearing my friend’s story, and as I said before; sometimes things just happen to slap you back to reality. 

We whinge and bitch about the most trivial of things at times, but there are people out there that are suffering much more than we are.

My heart broke for my friend, but she doesn’t need my sympathy.  She said ‘don’t shed any tears for me.  It’s in the past, and I’ve grown from it.’

However, as a person that can’t have children, my heart breaks because that was possibly her only chance to have babies, and she lost it because of the actions of a selfish, cruel man.

I asked her ‘was he ever charged for it, because to me, it’s fucken murder.’ But we were interrupted, and I never got the answer.  Considering she took him back. I’d say that he wasn’t.

The things we tolerate for love.

I tell you; after reading this blog, I want you to sit back and have a look at you life, and the partner you have in it.  If you partner is nothing like this arsehat, then you’re doin’ okay I reckon.

I know I am one lucky woman.

Peace out.

SWING, BATTA BATTA BATTA! SA-WING BATTA!!

Three strikes and you’re out!

That’s how it’s supposed to roll, isn’t it?

But how many of you knew about this little ‘escape clause’?  The loophole that allows our elite AFL footballers to get away with drug use?

I didn’t, and I’m really pissed about it.

Nothing infuriates me more than this stupid three strikes policy.

The AFL will explain that three ‘three strikes’ give players an opportunity to seek help, counselling or rehabilitation.  A change to clean up and start again.  It’s so the players know that their lives won’t be ruined, that their careers won’t be over; that they have a chance at redemption. 

After all, everyone fucks up once in a while, don’t they?

It also gives the players a chance to get away with it.  To abuse the system.  Isn’t that the Aussie way?  Test the boundaries and see what we can get away with?  Rort the system?  Take advantage?

So basically, this is how the loophole works.  If you, as a player, advise the AFL or the medical staff that you have used drugs at a point in time where you’ve been tested (basically, telling them when they test you that they will find drugs in your system), then no ‘strikes’ will be recorded against you.

No strikes.

So, instead of being firm and saying ‘three strikes and it’s over, baby’, the AFL are saying ‘do what the fuck you like, as long as you tell us.’

Fuck me.

I will be the first person to say that I really know fuck all about AFL footy.  I don’t understand the game anymore; there are too many rules now.  Players are pulled up for I don’t fucken know what, and the flow of the game seems lost to me.  The days of long bombs, speckies, biffo, quick conversions and flowing games are gone.  I watch footy now, and I seriously don’t know what the fuck is going on.

Charlie hates watching the footy with me, because I’m forever ‘What happened?’ ‘What was that for?’ ‘What did he do wrong there?’ ‘WTF?’  I’d be shitty at me too.

It’s all just about money, muscles, sponsorship, television rights, tattoos, WAG’s and players fucking up their knees all the time.

Now, the real beast, who’s been quietly working in the shadows, manipulating, controlling, destroying, is starting to come into the light, and he’s casting a mighty big shadow across the game.

After all of this Lance Armstrong drug confession bullshit of late, I wouldn’t at all be surprised to learn that some players are using performance enhancing drugs.  Some have suffered great injuries, and may turn to it to improve their fitness.  Some aren’t strong enough or fast enough, so they’re turning to some pharmaceutical assistance.

I understand that.  I don’t accept it; but I get it. 

What I don’t get, is their need to take illicit, recreational drugs.  This is a completely different evil.

I could bang on here about Ben Cousins, and how drugs hooked him in and fucked up his life, but it would appear that, so far, his life is going just fine.  He fucked himself up, cleaned himself up (apparently), got back in the game and finished his career.

He basically got away with it. 

The irony here, is not once did the AFL produce a positive drug test for him.  Not once.  He bought the game into disrepute.  That was his only crime, and he was demonised for it.

Ironic that a lot of players who fuck up behind the wheel of a car, or get into fights and brawls, or glass and bash their partners, or assault women, or try to murder people still seem to be running around the paddock…

The AFL has explained that the life of a player is a difficult one.  There are immense pressures on their shoulders, and sometimes life can be incredibly stressful for them.

So? 

That’s part of the deal, isn’t it?  If you reckon you can perform at that level, then you better deliver.  It’s not all glory and fame my friends; the weight of expectation is upon you.  That’s life in the spotlight, I’m afraid.

I can appreciate that sometimes these young kids’ sign up for deals, and no one knows if they can handle it until the ball starts bouncing (pardon the pun).  For some of them, the pressure gets to them, and they seek comfort in whatever way they can.

Their young, fit, good looking, famous, and playing in a glamorous game.  They’d be like a beacon to the underworld; the dirty dogs that peddle their wares to the unprepared.  The innocent.  The weak.

That’s what it is.  The stress of the game can produce a mental weakness that needs comforting.  Peer pressure, performance pressure, public pressure; it will all contribute to the decision that kid makes when he accepts that ‘little something’ to take the edge off.

That little something that hooks him in, and ruins his life.

This is where things can become quite tragic.  These are the kids I feel sorry for.  They get swallowed up and spat out by the AFL mill.  Just another name in The Record that eventually, we will forget.

However, it could also be a case of simply seeking a good time.  Young bucks on the prowl, wanting to max their fun, and getting on the gear without thinking they’d ever get caught.

The fame swells them; they start believing and living the hype, and they feel ten foot tall and bulletproof.  Invincible.  Untouchable.

But they’re not. 

A fox can only run for so long before the dogs catch him.  Though, if those dogs are the AFL, when they do catch you, they’ll give you a second chance at life.

So, the foxes are safe.  And always will be, because they can confess their sins and be cleansed.

Only to do it all over again.

So the AFL is having a massive Drug Summit this week to discuss these very loopholes in the policy; the loopholes that are letting these cunning foxes slip through.

Here’s a suggestion: zero tolerance.  No ‘confessions’ to cleanse the soul.  Two strikes; you’re gone.

After the first strike, get counselling, rehabilitation, and guidance; whatever the fuck you need to get clean and get off the gear.  Stop socializing with the people that bring you down.  Change your life, clean yourself up, and take seriously the gift that you’ve been given, and the opportunity granted.

If there’s a second strike, see ya later.  No more changes.  Gone.

Harsh?  Yep.  It is, and it needs to be. 

If players understood the severity of the punishment, maybe they would think twice before fucking up, because clearly, the policy in place is not working properly.  Not if players can confess and clear the slate.  Not if players think they can get away with it.  Not if the foxes can escape through the loophole.

Now, I’m not making light of a drug addiction here.  It’s serious, and I completely understand that.  It’s an all-consuming, soul destroying disease that takes you over.  Drugs are a numbing agent, designed to take you away from the life you have, and help you forget.

Issues around severe drug use can run very, very deep, and I sympathise with people that are lost to it.  I really do.

However, these boys are playing with fire, and they won’t win.  It’ll take them, which is why they need to be careful.  Which is why they need to see and understand, the consequences of their choices.

What may just start as a good time, just partying and living life, can turn into something much more sinister.  This is where the first strike comes in.  Sorts the players from the addicts.  Helps the AFL and the club involved determine which direction needs to be taken.

It’s the fork in the road; one way is a slap on the hand with a simple ‘pull your head in’; another is rehab, counselling, etc.; and another one just leads to darkness.

The first strike is a chance to start again.

Maybe I’m wrong? Maybe I’m coming at it from a completely incorrect angle?  By my own confessions, I’m pretty ignorant about the game.  However, one must wonder what needs to be done to clean up the sport.  Maybe it’s too complex?  Maybe it all just needs to be simple.

And clean.

I will be watching the results of this Drug Summit very, very closely, as I, like quite a few other supporters, want to see some serious action toward change.

Peace out.

TWO WHITE LINES

How fucken hard is it to park in between two white fucken lines?

Seriously?

The number of times I go to a friggin supermarket or shopping centre car park, and some numb-nut has parked either right on one of the white lines or over it, and you can’t get your car in there, I’ve lost count of!

Am I alone here?  How fucken hard can it be?

I can do it.

Charlie, who parks like a retard, can do it.

Iris can do it, and she’s old and has a disability sticker.  Wtf?

Why can’t everyone?  Jebus really!

The other evening, I was driving through the very cramped car park in front of the Romsey IGA, and every time I think ‘ooohhh… there’s one!’ I realise that some dick has parked over the line!

And you know what else I noticed?  They were all friggin 4wd’s. 

You know how much I dislike non-country people and their 4wd’s.  Half of Romsey are try-hard wankers that live there because they like to say ‘I live in the country’, and drive brand new, shiny 4wd’s that never see any off-road action.

Spankers.

Spankers that clearly can’t park their shiny, un-dirty 4wd’s.

Four car parks the other day!  Four!  That’s how many spankers had fucked up one of the most basic of driving skills.  Four!

I drive an i30, for fucks sake!  I couldn’t squeeze her into those spaces even if I tried! I mean, I have to allow about twenty foot on the drivers side so I can squeeze my fat arse out of the car as it is, but really!

I would so love to scrape the sides of their car with mine, just to piss them off, but apart from the fact that it would fuck my insurance up, recent events have shown that the poor old i30 cannot take a punch (the flying rubber incident).

So why risk it.

I don’t know how pissed off you get with dumbarse parking, but I get really, really pissy about it.

My fave piss off, apart from those fucken parents-with-prams spaces (don’t get me going on that), is when an able-bodied person takes a disabled space.  Fuck that shits me.

Years ago, I nearly had a punch on with a dude at a shopping centre in Tarneit, because he pulled his shiny, flashy, hotted up ute into a disabled space right near the door, climbed out and strutted into the centre.  Big wanker he was.

I naturally pointed out the error of his ways, but he didn’t care.  However, he did care when I told security, and he was very impolitely told to move his fucken car.

How selfish do you have to be to do that?

And how selfish do you have to be to take up two fucken car spaces in a car park?  I mean… there’s nothing wrong with having a second bite if you pull in crooked or too far over, is there?  Just fucken get it right and think of everyone else, you selfish pricks.

I wish I had a series of big stickers that I could stick on these wankers cars, right on their windscreen, in the middle of the line of vision, that said ‘I’m a dickhead who can’t park properly’, or ‘I’m a selfish twat that takes the car spaces of disabled people’, or ‘I’m a wanker that thinks that because I live in the country, I must have this ridiculously shiny 4wd that will never see a shred of dirty in it’s entire life in my possession’.

Fuckers.

Learn to park!

Peace out.

LIVIN' THE DREAM!

When Jade first told us she wanted to move to Queensland, the first thing that went through my head was ‘I’ve just wasted eight years of my life waiting for my chance, and it was all for nothing.’

Eight years waiting for ‘my time’.  I was devastated.  Shattered.

You see, I’ve wanted to be a chef for many years now. 

I actually really fell in love with cooking when Charlie, Jade and I moved in together.  Suddenly, I was required to provide good quality, nutritious food for the family.  I had to cook for a child, and I had no fucken idea how really.

Like, it would be fair to say that my cooking skills at that time were basic.  Nothing flash (still don’t do anything flash).  Just practical food, but I wanted to learn more.

So the Lifestyle Channel became my best friend.  I would watch any cooking show of any kind; anything to learn how to do this properly.

I devoured cook books and cooking magazines, and started a massive collection of recipes.  Anything from savoury to baking, I did it. 

And I loved it.

I decided, after a couple of years with Charlie, that I wanted to take my life in a different direction; into the world of cooking.

I wanted to become a chef.

It’s funny how your life can de-rail though.  When you set your eyes on a goal, particularly a life changing goal, the universe can present many obstacles.  What defines us though, is how we handle those obstacles.

Me: I don’t think I handled those obstacles so well.  I think; I know that I shoved everything I wanted aside to accommodate others.  I failed myself, and right when Jade announced her live-changing decisions, I realised that I’d let myself down.

Right when I was set to make the change, all those years ago, I became sick.  Everything just ran off the rails for the next six months, and then I found myself in the middle of a move from a residential block in the centre of Broadford, to one hundred and ten acres in Tooborac (which I’m sure translates to bum-fuck-nowhere).

We were back in debt again, I was recovering from illness, and my chance to re-educate myself and follow a cooking path was lost somehow.

In the following few years, life presented many challenges to us (mainly through Jade), and suddenly, four years had passed, and I was no closer to my dream.

And it started to eat me up inside.

Charlie and I discussed it, and he asked me to wait.  Wait until the house was paid off, so I can re-educate myself with no financial constraints.

Combined with the fact that Jade asked if she could go to Assumption College for high school, my dream was yet again pushed aside.

This was no ones fault by my own.   I allowed it to happen.  I cannot blame anyone else for this.

So, we made a massive financial commitment to Jade’s high school education, and thus my dream was lost.  Again.

I seemed to spend years pushing my wishes aside to accommodate everyone else, and all I received in return was stress and ill health.

So when Jade said she wanted out, I realised two things.  One: that I’d wasted years waiting for my turn, and two: that I too must stand up for what I wanted in my life; to live my dream.

You see, it was a dream for Jade to go and live with her mother.  Something she’d wanted to do for many years, and I fully understand that.  Thankfully, we were in a position where we trusted her, and although unhappy about it, let her go.  If this is the dream she wanted to follow, who were we to stop her?

So why couldn’t I do the same thing?  Why couldn’t I follow my dream?

For six months, it chewed me up inside.  Why can’t I have my turn? Why can’t I follow my dream?  Why does everyone else in this house get the chance, but me?  Why am I the one that misses out? Why I’m I feeling so sorry for myself?

As the first half of last year dragged on, I found myself getting more and more depressed.  I was so unhappy.  I was sliding back into a dark place that I didn’t want to go, all because I was feeling left out and sorry for myself. 

So many things were piling on top of me.  The stress of Jade leaving, the impact on Charlie, work, dreams, friends, guilt for feeling selfish… and I was getting to breaking point.

Then one day I realised what the problem was.  Like a fucken epiphany! A bolt out of the blue!

I was angry. 

I was resentful that I was being made wait for my dream, whilst everyone around me, including Charlie, was living theirs.

Charlie’s always wanted acreage and cattle, and he had it.  He was living his dreams, and he said so on many occasions.  It was like salt into the wound, not that he would’ve had a clue.

Now Jade was living hers, which was awesome, but I was miserable.

So I made the decision.  I was going to do it.  I was going to take a punt and change my life.  Fuck waiting until the house was paid off!  At the rate I was going with my fucken health, I’d be dead before then!

The one thing that cancer taught me, was that life is too short to live with regrets.  You can’t afford to wait.  Grab life by the balls, and give it a good squeeze J

So I sat down with Charlie-Albert, told him I wasn’t waiting and I was going to look into it further.  I’ve given up a lot for him; I’ve supported his dreams, raised his child and supported her dreams too.  It’s my turn now. Deal with it. 

A month later, I was sitting in the office of a career advisor at Go Tafe in Shepparton, asking her to help me map out what I had to do to get into a chef’s uniform.

And it’s funny.  Here I was, expecting to be dealing with some inflexible, militant organisation that simply hammered standards and rules down my throat.

Instead, I got a young woman who wanted nothing more than to help me ‘live my dream’.  I will never forget her exact words: ‘I want to help you realise your dream.  We can do this, Lee.  We will get you there.’

I nearly fucken cried when she said it; I couldn’t believe it.  As silly as it sounds, it felt like the first time that someone actually gave a shit.  No more pushing my wishes aside; it was time to roll.

It’s funny what you give up to make others happy.  How much of yourself you sacrifice, and I tell you this; I wouldn’t change any of it, because if I did, I wouldn’t appreciate what I have now.

What’s that saying: what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger?

I played my cards with this career move very close to my chest, because I didn’t want to be flippant about it, and I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up (including mine), only to have it fall apart for some stupid reason.

Not that I was going to willingly let that happen this time.  No; this time, the universe was going to roll my way.

Six months later, I find myself looking at a letter from Go Tafe in Seymour (my closest campus), confirming my enrolment and that I have to attend an information night on the 31^st of January.

I’m in.

It’s happening.

And I’m shit scared!

Someone once said to me that it’s no good setting goals for yourself if they don’t scare you just a little bit.  They must be realistic, achievable and scary.

This new direction in my life fills the brief perfectly. J

The hardest thing for me though, apart from Jade leaving, and the things that’s possibly bought me down the most this year, is work.

I’ve been with the company I’m working for, for thirteen years.  Thirteen years, and I’ve seen and done just about everything at that place.  I can go no higher, and I can meet no more challenges there.  It’s time.

Not that it’s a bad place to work; quite the opposite.  The boys are great to work for, but I need something…more.

It’s like the fucken planets are aligning or something, because things are starting to fall into place for me.

Jade not being here enables me the freedom to change hours of work to suit school, because I don’t have to worry about getting her to a bus stop every morning.  I have the freedom to come and go as I please, which will flow around school beautifully.

Financially, I’m ready.  I hope.  I still need to work whilst studying, and will need to find something else upon finishing my course, but I’m ready.

Mentally; I’m ready for the change.  It’s time to do something that I think will make me happy. 

Time for me to start living my dream.

Time for other people around me to start supporting what I want to do with my life, and start taking a back seat, as I have done for so many years.

As selfish as it sounds, it’s time to find my happy.

Wish me luck.

Peace out.