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Published: January 29th 2007
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Merry (Belated) Christmas!
An oz version of chrissy fruitcake! Prologue Looking back at ones life it is possible, indeed common, to recollect personal history in terms of periods - life-periods - that are defined and marked by significant events, by distinct feelings and predominating thoughts. Since arriving in Oz over a month ago I have been waiting for an appropriate point to write this blog entry, as up until now this time has arisen after a certain life-period has elapsed. Conveniently, about once every 2 weeks, I have been able to relay said life-period with an ounce of retrospective clarity.
Certainly my time in Australia so far has been marked by some significant events and wonderful people:
Firstly, I went on a Surfari before Christmas for 5 days of surfing and camping in national parks and met some really cool and generous people. Then over Christmas I was welcomed into my cousin Becky’s mountainside home, spending time with her lovely young family, their dogs, guinea pigs, horses, calf, and Priya and Sienna’s ever-growing Littlest Pet Shop collections. On Christmas day the majority of the family came over for lunch, including Aunt Shirley and Uncle Clive, cousin Sam and his fiancé, and Bibi my nearly 91 yr old
Strike a Pose
This was down the coast from Byron Bay...a beautiful spot, but the waves were too dumpy and I only got up once, hence the need to pose. gran, and I was the strange relative - a relative stranger - oddly more tanned than the rest, who sat quietly getting sloshed. I’ve also had the pleasure of spending time with my great Aunt and Uncle, Dawn and Clive, who have the most understanding and loving relationship going on 60 odd years. As always it was great to hang out with Dan and Laura who were out from Bristol to see the Brits get humiliated at cricket, and to enjoy Melbourne’s coldest winter on record. And for the past few weeks I have been lucky enough to be staying in Manly with Ben (a friend of a friend I met in Sri Lanka), and now in Bondi with Emily (who I used to climb trees with in the park.)
However, despite my time being interspersed with the above, I currently remain immersed mid life-period and unable to nicely sum up my time so far or commentate with clarity because it remains largely unresolved. But as I know you have been holding your collective breath with anticipation and I can hear the choking from across the Atlantic, I have decided to write anyway. So, I present you with the
New Year's Eve
I have no idea what I was doing at 12 o'clock, although I suspect I was sat on the loo. unfortunate content of this blog:
I AM HAVING A MID LIFE-PERIOD CRISIS Some might say I have a propensity for crisis; indeed it has been known for people to describe me as a drama queen. I will let you be the judges of that. Here is a description of my current situation.
I’ve been in Sydney for nearly a month now, and all I seem to do is get up and spend hours on the internet searching for jobs and places to stay. I have become a cliché: Saddo Job-Seeker (Beach) Layabout. And, true to my role, I have been in this state for so long I’m now questioning my ability to break out of it. With nothing to ground me - the internship I prearranged has been delayed by months- things just seem to be in free fall around me, and I can’t tell if they’re falling apart, or falling into place. And it’s kinda scary. I don’t think I really appreciated how difficult a relocation of this kind would be and I miss my mummy.
With too much time on my hands I have ended up asking myself endless questions like, ‘Why am I
Me, Laz and Dan on Bondi Beach
Trying to get Laz and Dan some colour between their freckles. Hee hee. here?’ ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What is happiness?’ While most people in my position turn to Oprah, I have turned to Eckhart Tolle’s book,
The Power of Now, which ironically seems to be occupying a lot of my now time, and tells me that “thinking is a disease” and “time is an illusion”. I thought my tendency to (over) think was just my personality type, now I realise it is an affliction. But, luckily, as “problems don’t exist in the now” I guess it doesn’t matter.
The existential nature of this crisis, i.e. ‘Who am I: Do I even exist?’ is a result of two factors. Firstly, I feel like I’m occupying a no man’s land between being a backpacker and being a local; I’m not on a mission to get trashed each night and go fruit picking, neither do I know the local haunts or for that matter the locals. Secondly I have to explain ‘who I am’ to practically everyone I meet, repeating the same (vague) schpiele to everyone so that it doesn’t seem to mean anything anymore… I feel like I’ve been plucked from my history, which at the very least is disorientating, and at the
worst is like a serious case of amnesia. As the world seems to run so smoothly without my contribution it feels like, if I was removed from this situation, this place and time, no one would really notice:
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?
Shit, I am a tree. I am a free-falling tree.
To be continued...
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Suze
non-member comment
No way
Sorry jojo, but reading your blog on a drizzly february morning, having not had a lie in for twelve days, having just been paid and still having no money, I'm finding it difficult to evoke anything but resentment to your self-indulgent drivel. Frankly I think it's insensitive of you! 'Oh dear, I've got nothing to do but lie on a beautiful beach in Australia all day.' Gee, I feel for you hun. I really hope you read that in the way it was intended; I'm only teasing lovely. Seriously though Jo, when you come home I really think you'll regret all this existential angst that you are allowing to envelope your trip... You have a unique and exciting opportunity to make for yourself whatever you want. Stop looking for answers to silly questions that no one has ever found the answer to or ever will! You're dragging yourself down into this swirling funk of self doubt which is making it impossible for you to appreciate the important things going on around you - of course you'll be feeling lonely and lost but you have to harness the energy and opportunity in that and channel it into something productive, rather than letting it shrink you. Okay at the risk of sounding like a self help book, and a dodgy one at that, i'll quit the 'tuf luv' there. i just worry that you're not making the most of your trip! but you know i love you missus, and it's good to hear from you again. xxx