Wednesday, November 26, 2008

She's a party girl, with a bad habit....

I am going to come right out and say that I've been loving Summer Heights High...and I've managed to get Richard hooked on it as well! Yay me. I love Ja'mie King and Mr G, they so remind me of myself sometimes, my inner monologue and how selfish I can be. They say the stuff that I think...and it's hilarious! I don't tend to think it as much anymore either, which is another yay.

I have been thinking a lot this week about who I am and my talents and what I want to do when I grow up! I have always been interested in the media, in words, and have been thinking that I'd like to do some sort of media or journalism course by correspondence at uni. I need little projects to keep myself interested when I'm at home with Alex, and I would get a job....but most of the jobs that I can get here are just the standard reception type stuff. I would really like to put myself out there and get qualified so I can do the job of my dreams. I have had a couple of goes at tertiary education and always dropped out because I've found it too challenging...but when I got into it, I really enjoyed it and felt stimulated. (ooher).

I feel sooo good about everything at the moment....I have been getting myself and the house more organised and that feels good too. I have been trying hard not to aim for too much perfection and get down on myself, just do what is right for today and what is achievable. My sister Jen has asked me to do a talk for her MOPS group for Christmas, and so I'm going to try and find a funny Christmas monologue. It's so exciting to be going back there sooooooooooo much happier and feeling more like me.

Yay! I am really looking forward to seeing my sister Angela as well, I have my fingers and toes crossed for her with job opportunities. She is just fabulous and I know that she is going to make a lucky church very happy. She's so bubbly and gorgeous and sweet.

Bring on Christmas, I say. Love to you all!!

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Songs that make you...

So while I'm up and posting....many months ago I posted a list of songs to be depressed to. I also had a couple of other lists of songs, but forgot to post them! Perhaps I was only interested in being depressed then! hehe.

Without any further adieu, here are my two other lists.

Ten Songs that make me feel Happy
1.Walking on Sunshine - Katrina and the Waves
2.Unbelievable - EMF
3.Xanadu - Olivia Newton-John (or any song from the Xanadu soundrack, man I love that
movie!)
4.Kiss from a Rose - Seal
5.Crazy in Love - Beyonce & Jay Z (I listened to this song over and over around the time
Richard and I started going out)
6.Sex Bomb - Tom Jones (or any song by Tommy J, he's just so FUN!)
7.Shout - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Soundtrack (or any song from the Soundtrack, I love this
movie a little more than Xanadu!)
8.Learn to Fly - Foo Fighters (was in the charts just before I went to the States for my best
friend Jen's wedding, I like the metaphors with flying and finding your way home)
9.Time after Time - Cyndi Lauper (our wedding song)
10.Time of My Life - Dirty Dancing soundtrack (I swore that one day I was going to fall in love
just like Baby)


Top Ten Breakup songs
1.Movin' on Up - M People
2.You Oughtta Know - Alanis Morrisette
3.You Look So Fine - Garbage (countless tears cried to this song, especially the line where she says "let's pretend, happy end....." http://www.6lyrics.com/music/garbage/lyrics/you_look_so_fine.aspx )
4.Bye Bye Bye - N'Sync
5.Boyfriend - Backstreet Boys ( Body Combat had a situp and pushup track to this song, I love it, it is soooo choice and cheesy. http://www.elyrics.net/read/b/backstreet-boys-lyrics/get-another-boyfriend-lyrics.html)
6.Break My Stride - Unique 2 (The funny bit about this song is that I only just realised that it says "I'm running and I won't touch ground"....I thought for years that it said "I'm running with a wholesome crowd". ha!)
7.Dreams - Fleetwood Mac http://www.asklyrics.com/display/Fleetwood_Mac/Dreams_Lyrics/25239.htm
8.You belong to me - JX (Such a stalkery song!!)
9.Break the Chain - Motiv-8 (When I moved to Canberra in 1996, I lived with two other girls...this song got played A LOT! http://eurokdj.free.fr/lyric/lyrics_text.php?artist=Motiv8&song=Break%20The%20Chain)
10.You were meant for me - Jewel (ugh, such a portrait of loneliness!!)

Friday, November 21, 2008

War and peace

Sometimes I look at the world that I live in and think it's so grossly unfair. Because of circumstance, my little family and I live in peace and comfort here in Shepparton. My husband has a safe, secure job that makes enough money for us to pay our bills. I have the freedom to go wherever I like and be friends with people from other races and cultures. We are all able to get free medical care and the facilities that my son plays on are clean, safe and readily available.

I guess what got me thinking was tonight Richard and I watched the movie "Iron Man", there was a bit about the atrocities that are happening in Afghanistan and surrounding areas in the name of peace....and the profiteering and warmongering that goes on to keep this violence perpetuated. It makes me so sad, because it is so easy to sit here in comfort and peace and close our ears and eyes to what is going on, to think that those people have nothing in common with you and I and to just not get involved.

But I am sitting here thinking, what separates me from a family in that area? The consequences of my birth, that is all. There may well be a 32 year old woman married to a 34 year old man, with a 2 year old son, who constantly fears for her life...she may be a widow, or the 2 year old may be an orphan. It just makes my heart bleed.....how undeserving I am of such freedom and mercy when so many people are suffering such injustices and pain. It makes me feel so helpless. I want to stop this war, I want to make the world a better place...but how do I do that?

I have so many choices and so much potential....and often times that doesn't even make me happy. I still see the glass half empty. I can still be a horrible person inside my head, even though I don't say it out loud (as much) anymore.

I was lining up to get a video and the guy who was serving was chatting with the man in front of me. Oh shut up,hurry up and serve me, I thought, as he chatted away and laughed. I mentally accused him of being fake....until I listened to what he was saying....he had been at school with one of the man's relatives and was asking after her parents. The father had died of cancer. "oh...that's terrible", said the cashier "my father passed away 11 years ago from that. Horrible stuff". And here I am accusing him of being fake! You never know the pain that is buried inside another human being....all of us are just trying to get along in life and you can just never judge a book by its cover. I felt awful after that! My anti social thoughts had this young man down as a shallow human being, when he has suffered as much as anyone has, with the death of a parent.

Pah. Sometimes I need an attitude readjustment. Specially when I do other people's thinking for them and accuse them of thinking the negative garbage that can fester in my mind. Most people aren't half as harsh as I accuse them of being. I really need to go to a meeting....it will clear my mind and I know when I tell that story, others around the table will nod and smile...having done the same thing themselves. That's the part I love about the meetings...the identification...the feeling that you're not alone in the fight to be a better person.

I guess I shouldn't totally ignore the part of God in all this.....I know that God has all the answers so I appeal to him to help me know what to do. Show me the right way and what to do to help. I can't look at Alex and how gorgeous and amazing he is and not believe in God. I know that he is out there.

I've changed my blog name. It was once "City chick in the country", but I changed it, because I was just lying in bed thinking that I'm not really that much of a city chick. Sure, I like the shopping and the cafes and stuff...but Shepparton has that too....I did enjoy living in Canberra, but I can't say that I am a true city chick. Sydney and Melbourne-ites laugh at Canberra anyway, and call it a large country town....so perhaps I am just a large country town chick. That sounds totally wrong, so I think that 'Becoming Deborah' is much more in line with the theme of this blog. I am going to share this site on facebook and cut some of the rambling drivel.

Night all! Deb xo

Monday, November 3, 2008

Looking back (in a good way)!

I've been tidying up a lot and going through boxes of papers and things that have been shoved into corners. It has made me realise how far I've come. I'm going to share a bit of it so you know where I was and how far I've come.

16 March07 - I love my husband but I hate him seeing me like this. In fact, I feel like saying to him and the rest of my family "Don't love me!", but I know I don't really want that.

24 April 07 - I am so afraid and so scared that I'll never be all right again. I feel really confused, like I'm stuck in a big black hole. Feel suicidal, like I just want to die....can I go home? I just feel like I want to pass out or die, I can't go on living like this.

18 May 07 - All I want is a good night's sleep, and to be able to sleep again. I miss sleep sooo much and I'm afraid I'll never sleep again. I can't believe that I will ever get better but I have to trust God. I would much rather be the one cheering other people up than the one going through this, wading through so much horrible anxiety and fear. Please God, release me from this horrible prison. Just a tiny little bit, just enough for me to go home and cope at home. I am so weak, Lord, please help me. Lord, this is hell on earth and I would really like to not feel like this for much longer.
A verse I love is Jeremiah 29:11 - For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future".

10 July 07.I feel unable to copeI feel scared that I'm going mad, feeling disconnected from everyone around me, I seem to be in a world of my own. I feel a sense of impending madness, s though I would fall over a high cliff at any moment, and this would signify my lost grip on reality.I can't enjoy anything about life anymore. All I think about is this illness and the feelings that I'm having. I keep thinking that I just want to be normal, why has this happened to me?
Psalm 13 is really good....David gives it to God in the first bit, I love it!


About May/June 08 I started to feel better. I started to be able to go out in public with Alex or by myself and not worry. Things have just kept on getting better. I still have troubles managing my emotions and not being neurotic and paranoid.....I still think I'm a whale and ugly as hell sometimes...but not all the time. I only cut myself and overdosed when I had PND on top of my borderline.... I know it is horrible but a friend of mine said that depression is sometimes not the absence of God, but God tapping you on the shoulder to say that something is horribly wrong and needs to change.

And do you know what? I know that I'm stronger for having gone through this. I feel like I know I can get through stuff. I am woman, hear me roooooooooooooar! :)

Saturday, November 1, 2008

What a great night!

Well, tonight Richard, Alex and I attended a function at the Casablanca restaurant to celebrate a mock wedding of one of the STAG(Shepparton Theatre Arts Group) girls...I was a little bit nervous as we worked out that this is the first time that Richard and I have ever been out on a Saturday night, with Shepparton people. We've had friends and relatives from Finley come down and stay, and had dinner with them...but an honest to goodness Shepparton night out, we have not had.

Richard and Alex were both a bit knackered, as they got up at 8am, but being the sluggard that I am, I had stayed in bed til 10.30!! We had a fabulous day, Richard and Alex fixed things, I went to a 12 step meeting, then we went to Ardmona Kid'stown.....then home for a swim, the first of the year for all of us together. It was gorgeous. Richard had a lay down and Alex and I played, looking at the photo albums. He is so adorable. He loved looking at Richard's pictures from the days when he used to ride dirtbikes. he kept pointing at them, saying "motor!", "bike", and "hat"!....Hat was for the helmets...he says "hat" in the cutest way. Ohhhh I simply adore my son. Even when he wakes up at 11am crying. Poor little man.

Anyhoo - the night out was fun, everyone there was very lovely and chatty...I got to know the guy who is playing my husband a little better, and turns out that he knows Richard's boss! I guess I am realising that Shep is a fairly small place and the longer we are here the more we'll get to know people.

I also saw a little girl who was in Kindermusik last week, and said hello. It is so nice to go somewhere and recognise people. It is so weird being unfamiliar with stuff here. I came home bouncing off the walls and said to Richard "I just LOVE living in Shepparton!!". He said "yeah....it's ok." hehe. Richard misses Finley and his family...and I miss them too...but Shep is just that little bit bigger and more "me".

Yay! :)