Back to School!

Hello my lovely reader,
I must apologise for my absence these last few weeks, I have been busily preparing for (and freaking out about) going back to university again!
On Tuesday I left work in the afternoon and made the trek across town to my university campus for my first lecture. I must admit that this first lecture scared me a little, okay, a lot. Coming from a science background I feel that I face a huge learning curve with this graduate degree in writing, editing and publishing. I am afraid of this curve, that it could possibly throw me off like a motorcycle racer who leans to close to the corner and gets torn from the bike. It is important to acknowledge this fear, to give it a name and look it in the eye. Once I know what the fear is exactly, what it's spidery arms are reaching towards and how far it has spread, I can begin the work of counteracting the fear on my terms.
So I am afraid of a curve in my learning. It is a good curve but the fear inside me is that I am not up to the task. To counter this I need to remind myself that I have already been to university (albeit in a different context) but I know that I am capable of the work expected at these institutions (Amy: 1; Fear: 0).
I am also excited by this learning and that battles fear in a big way because that excitement feeds motivation, which in turn nourishes hard work (Amy: 2; Fear: 0).
But the final point in my trio of battling points against fear is that I have love and support from the people around me, and fear is all by itself!
Final Score. Amy: 3. Fear: 0.

When I headed off to my second lecture yesterday I was understandably apprehensive, but I walked out of the room inspired.

Part of the beautiful campus at UQ.

As part of our assessment we have to write a response to each week's lecture. These responses can include poetry, so of course I made up a little nonsense poem about the inspiration and hope I always feel when I walk out of the first week of lectures, the dreams that are inspired by the possibilities of where this course could lead me. I hope you enjoy.

“First Lecture Dreams” by Amy Chatwin

Last night in those starry dreamless hours

I surrendered myself to those highest powers

The dreams called forth by a first lecture’s hope

This is what I remembered through the haze as I awoke

I dreamt of typewriters and coffee stained pages

Submissions from hipsters and new fashioned sages

Whisked away to a world where offbeat is god

But corduroy and activism is not my scene so the dream moved on

Now I’m in a high rise, Prada suited and coiffed

Shiny windows, harbour views, a Blackberry always going off

Rushing in heels, call to my assistant to “Get Ms. Wintour on the phone!!”

This slickness doesn’t suit, oh Morpheus please find my publishing home!

Then I’m landing in soft pages and a pot of tea brewed

Crumbs, galleys from a new Nigella (post-its galore!) across my desk are strewn

Laughter from the kitchen – celebration of a new ‘cook-blook’ to come

Morpheus you found it – the perfect ingredients – hard work, food and fun

A place where ‘yummy’ is a defining criteria

Proofs with recipes crowding their interiors

Yoho and a bottle of essence of rum

A job baked from this batter seems just the right (write) one!

Before I can taste this ambrosia delight

The dawn starts calling an end to the night

My alarm calls to alert a new day and end this sweet sleep

Lecture notes, assignments yet to do, remind me

It’s only first week!

Today I am not okay, and that is okay

Some years ago I found myself in a dark place. I was lost, I had wandered off the path and had no idea which way to turn to find my way back.

I had no map, my compass was shattered and worst of all, I did not call for help.

My voice was muted, a pitchy broken croak.

I did not want to ask for help. In my mind it was not okay to be not okay.

So I stood in the woods alone with the clouds of my own making, my own mind, gathering overhead.

I waited, I wallowed, I laid down in the dark and cried frozen tears.

I let someone else rescue me, let others decipher that I was not okay.

I was passive in my recovery for a long time.

My own steps towards the sun came later, when I grew stronger.

I learned to avoid the darkness, to light my own torch when midnight threatened.

Eventually I knew the truth, that the light came from inside me. I was my own torch.

I was the candle. I was the bushel. Some days I was both.

I controlled how brightly I shone on the world.

Most importantly I discovered how to be authentic to myself. 

What to do on days when I was not okay.

That it was okay to ask for help.

That it is okay to be not okay.

So today, when I am blind sided by something in my life, when rain is threatening and my torch flickers in the wind I don't abandon myself like I did in the woods that day.

I look for the stars through the clouds. I hold that torch in the lee of the wind and protect it with all my heart.

I call for help.

Because today I am not okay, and that is okay.

Tomorrow will be better.

Saying a Final Goodbye to Yesterday

Today I ended a relationship. I picked up her stuff and threw her out the front door.

Took her photos and her torture equipment and walked to the rubbish bin, placed it all inside and slammed the lid, sealing it from the sunlight of this beautiful Sunday.

No longer would this evidence linger in a corner of my sunshine coloured room, gathering dust and festering like a scar from the past that never quite grew over.

It has been a long time coming and there is still some healing to do but for the most part she is now only a bad memory and a lesson that has been lived and learned.

The break up has been a long and arduous process. With each day I worked at removing her from my life; one twisted tentacle, one poisonous root reaching from my past to my present, at a time.

Her sneers and constant jeers, the chanting of her unworthy canticle; I learned to drown these out with songs I sang about myself and how beautiful my life is and all the blessings I can count in everyday.

Sometimes she still turns up the volume, slips into my top forty. I have learned to change the channel.

She took photos, cruel pictures of a twisted soul that loved to pinch itself and exclaim over how ugly and dark everything was, every wrinkle, every wart, every stretch mark like a pleasurable wound to be opened up over and over again with the sick satisfaction of self inflicted pain.

I deserved this, she told me. I deserved to suffer. I deserved to live in the dark because I had no control, because I carried extra when others had enough control to go without, because I couldn't stop when others could, because I was an expert at hiding all I took.

She showed false cheer and lured me back into her arms with the promise that if I listened to her, if I loved her enough, if I let her lead my life, that she would make me worthy one day. She played her Pied Piper tune and conjured images in the smoke of the days of my life she burnt; one day my life would look like theirs, if I said no to myself enough, if I hated myself enough,  if I punished myself enough.

But it would never be enough.

Slowly, I emerged from her darkness.

I saw that her love wasn't love at all. If she really loved me she wouldn't tell me that I was ugly and unworthy of anyone's love but hers. She wouldn't keep me in the dark and cover me with her kisses of shame.

She wouldn't pet my hair in the dark of night, whispering dark fairy tales of the monsters that people like me became if they wandered off the path she lay at my feet.

She wouldn't wave future happiness in my face while making everyday a misery.

So I started packing her bags for her, practicing my break up speech in my head. I started squirreling away strength and starting a new life that she couldn't see, couldn't destroy.

A year and a half ago I knew it was over.  I spent more than a year saying goodbye.

Today I finally threw her out.

She will not be missed.

She is my past.  I am my now. I am my tomorrow.

And the sunshine has never looked brighter.

No Room Here for Fear

For a long time I was part of the resistance.

In fact, I think that I could have possibly been the leader of the resistance.

The resistance to change that is.

I would put up roadblocks whenever I sensed the slightest disruption to my current lifestyle, even if I knew that the change was for the better, that it could bring growth and opportunity and happiness; I would dig in my heels until I either had to submit to the change and admit that I was wrong, or miss out on the chance to grow altogether and never know what might have been. 

I will never know what I missed out on during those early resistant years of my life, really the first twenty two and a half years of my existence.

But I was lucky enough that something happened and made me realise that what I was resisting was not the change. 

It was the fear of what was next. 

The fear of what I would become when I accepted the change. 

I was afraid of being better, or more, or closer to what I really wanted in my life.

In staying the same I knew what to expect, I knew who I was, where I was and I didn't have to risk disappointment because every outcome had been pretested.

I was leaving too much room for fear and it was crowding out happiness.

When I realised that I was wasting space in my life on being afraid I knew that a major spring cleaning was in order.

There was no room for fear in the life I wanted to lead.

So I listened to the fear, and then like an unwelcome houseguest I told it to pack its bags and leave.

Now.

I watched fear's back retreat into the distance of a past where I felt stifled, stagnant.

Then I let happiness in. Her sunshine filled the rooms of my life and left room for others too.

Joy came and stayed.

Adventure led me far and wide, my travel mate at home and abroad. Without fear I could truly experience and grow and learn from each adventure, whether the end was happy or sad or in between.

Then love. Love came waltzing in and thank goodness my life and heart are elastic waist banded because Love was the happiest, most joyful adventure I had found to date and it swelled the girth of my life no end.

It's not to say that some fear is not healthy, fear is a useful warning system that can help us avoid disaster. But we shouldn't be afraid of our own lives. There shouldn't be room for fear in the everyday.

Because fear crowds out happiness, joy, adventure, love.

Here, in my present, in this life that I own there is no room for fear.

Sorry fear, my life is full of happiness, joy, adventure and Love there is simply isn't space for you.

No room here for fear.