WHAT SHE MEANS TO ME
(I included this picture of Kait and myself because it's one of my favourites)
After what was quite a long hiatus from my blog I am back and ready to share.
Now it hasn't been easy coming back. Not because I don't have anything to write, but more because I have so much to write. What makes it even more intimidating is the subject of this chapter. It's been so difficult finding the all the words in my head, even the un-said one's, and bringing them to fruition to put here. So..where do I start?
I guess the answer to that is around November 1999. I was in my first year of university and hating every second of it. During my free hours I would hang out in the IT labs and tinker with the internet. That's where I found a site that was dedicated to that wonderfully camp classic television series called Xena: Warrior Princess. Now don't laugh, because a lot of you out there I also met at this site. But there was one person I just bonded with immediately.
I never found it particularly hard to make friends, nor did I normally associate with people too much younger than myself but she was wiser than her years and our friendship formed easily. Actually, looking back at the posts it was practically immediate. Of course, I formed friendships with others, as did she, but it's pretty safe to say that my frienship with Kait was stronger than most and it wasn't long before we started sharing everything about ourselves with each other.
Roughly a year later my Best Friend Harley (and I put all that in capitals because it's a title I believe deserves it) died tragically in a car accident and life as I knew it pratically stopped. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I could barely breathe, and when I did sleep I had nightmares of seeing her in the hospital connected to the machines that were keeping her alive. I remember everything so clearly, better than I can remember yesterday. And I also remember the moment of my heart break when I felt her slip away. I was not at the hopistal at this time, I was in a car driven by my ex's father desperately trying to get there. I don't think I've ever been so connected to Harley as in that exact moment. The car was zooming along the freeway, the radio was off and my ex and his father were making small talk as I stared out the window watching the other cars headlight's and letting my eyes lose focus. My ex took his hand and wiped the tear that rolled down my face and told me not to jump the gun, that it may not be that bad... but I just knew.... "She's gone." I said to him.... And by the time I arrived friends and family were already being councelled on saying goodbye. To me though, it was too late, I had missed my chance. Sure, she was there in the emergency room, but she wasn't there there and I couldn't bring myself to even touch her. I was too afraid of what might happen.. it's all so stupid now.
When it was all over and the time came to tell Kait I found that I couldn't find the words. I'm not one hundred percent sure of my thinking at the time but I remember talking to Zeph (Chronicles of an Exhausted Mom) about how I was going to break such horrible news to her. I was afraid she wouldn't know how to deal with someone else's grief and become distant like a lot of the people I went to school with did. Kind words and sentiments mean a lot, but it's the people who stick by you no matter what is thrown at you that means the most, even if nothing is said.
I have to honestly say that I do not believe in suicide, but during that stage of my life, I truly wanted to die. What was the point in being here if everything you cared for so deeply was taken away from you? I had such an identity crisis, I didn't know who I was anymore. My whole life up until that point was shared with Harley. She was as much a part of me as oxygen is, and when she was taken from me I felt like I only had one lung and every single day that I woke up was another day that she didn't. Even though I was not in the accident, I suffered survivor's guilt and I didn't think I deserved to be breathing even half the air she couldn't.
Since then, I have learned that the only way to heal a broken heart, was to wrap it in a massive metaphorical hug and not let go until that break no longer threatens to tear wider. I cannot understand or explain to you why Kait made the decision to offer me this, but the fact that she did it so unselfishly and so unconditionally is the only reason I believe I am here today. I most likely would have died right along with Harley if it hadn't have been for Kait. We spent countless hours talking about Harley, who she was and what she meant to me and even more amazing is the fact that Kait and Harley had never met.
I don't like to talk about this very often because it's still a very painful topic, nor is bearing my soul on the internet something I'm accusomted to, but to understand this is to know what Kait means to me. She is my saviour, my guiding light, my gravity.. she is my sister. I never had a blood sister but Kait is just that to me. She's my little sister, I couldn't live without her and it kills me when things happen in her life that I cannot control or protect her from or offer her that same hug she gave me so many years ago.
A life long dream of mine was to travel to America and this came true in 2003 when I finally met the person I felt I had known all my life. Have you ever had a friend you were so close to you felt that you should have been blood? That the bond you share might carry on into the next life or is continuing on from a previous one? You would not believe how close we are to sisters, we sure do fight like siblings. So when the time came for me to go home again I couldn't handle saying goodbye. It felt so wrong to be leaving and I tried to hide my emotions because I was afraid that it would have been too hard to say goodbye to someone I loved so dearly. Now I wish I hadn't have hid them and just cried at the airport right along with her. Instead I waited until I was on the plane and out of sight to let it go.
She's probably not going to like this post very much. She wanted me to talk about her proud collection of flip flops (thongs for us Aussies)...24 is it? Or how she loves to watch Gilmore Girls and re-runs of Friends. How she loves chocolate, hates broccoli and adores Chic-fil-a and wants about a zillion kids, a husband and a house right now thank you. But I thought it more pressing to express what I have above and even now I am not happy with what I have written. I told her I'd do her justice in this posting but I still don't feel I have.
She has been through so much in her time on this earth and at such a young age still (yes I am old). She is wiser and more mature than anyone else I know, sometimes to her own undoing I think. She's more serious than she needs to be, she's fiercly loyal and she's passionate beyond belief. She's the most amazing person I am honoured to know and I hope one day I can return even the smallest piece of what she did, and still continues to do for me. She is my sister, and I love her more than anything. I hope I have done her the justice I promised in this post, and I hope you too, see what the people you are close to really mean to you.
AUSTRALIA DAY 2006
"What does Australia Day mean to me?" I asked myself this year when contemplating what to do with my day off as my alarm rang out. Should I sleep in? Should I have a barbie? Should I go to the Australia Day concert in the city? Should I attend one of the various Citizenship ceremonies around the area? Or should I do nothing?
I lay in bed for a while asking all these questions to my half asleep brain when suddenly a light turned on and I had it. Although, the light turned out not to be an idea so much as my brother switching on the light to my bedroom to harrass me for a ride to his girlfriend's place. But I had decided, I was going to get out of the house.
Australia Day is not like any other national pride day in the world. It is unique in the sense that there is no one way to celebrate it. Anything goes. But it is similar in that it is the one day of the year where Australians really do show their pride for their country and fellow citizens. Normally, Australians are not outwardly patriotic when sport is not involved. Get us caught up in any conversation with a foreigner about any sport however, even if we don't actually follow it in everyday life, and you can be sure to have one hell of a passionate exchange on your hands.
So as I dressed and readied my kit for the day, I decided that I would head to my local celebrations along the waterfront and watch as my town, and my country, celebrated it's being.
As I wandered around the town it slowly occured to me how much I take for granted. I lead a priviledged life, living on the water, with a great job, great friends, the freedom to do what I please, when I please and I realised how much I was going to miss it all when I left for my trip. I had experienced a similar feeling when I returned home from the states after so many years of wanting to get out of my small town, but that soon fades and the mundane kicks in again making you wonder why you ever came back.
I arrived on the foreshore with this on my mind, thinking it was going to be another wash out event and my mind was quickly changed. I have never seen so much national pride centralised in one place before, come to think of it, I have never actually been to an Australia Day celebration before this. The amount of flags that dotted the crowd was astounding and I had to stop counting the amount of kids that had air brushed Aussie flag tattoos on their faces because there were just too many to keep up with. Every face I did see had a different story though. Stories of treacherous journeys through violent seas to reach safety and a new start, of generations of stolen lives reconciling with the now or of outback farmers fighting the elements to have a decent crop they can pay their bills with. And then there was my own. Born and raised in the town I was finding so boring and so unfamiliar.
So much of the time photographers are concentrating on seeing others. They are observers in the environment they are recording and ususally remain on the outside, behind the lense. It wasn't until that I was thinking about how diverse my country is that I realised I am a part of it all. I wasn't just an observer, I was a participant, celebrating Australia Day in my own way. It was at this point that I saw in those faces a face so familiar I was immediately bonded with every single person at that celebration.. my own. And suddenly, my town did not seem so unfamiliar or boring to me anymore.
It only took that moment of thinking about being somewhere else that I suddenly understood that you can never really know a place unless you live in it and get active in the community, but I also realised that you can never truly appreciate a place until you leave it, return, and see it through changed eyes. In my short moment of deliberation, looking through the lense at the lives I was capturing, it occured to me that I was no observer, I was here, celebrating my life, my country, my people, I am Australian. This was my town. As this washed over me so did my emotions and I had to stop and clean the eyepiece of my camera, when I looked back up I saw the smiling faces of not a bunch of strangers turning up for a free barbie, but my extended family. This, I thought to myself, is what Australia Day means to me.
THE YEAR OF THE DOG
Well Chinese New Year is well under way by now and what better way to join in the celebrations than to attend the Chinese New Year Parade for the year of the Dog in Sydney? Starting at 11am on sunday and continuing on from George Street into China Town the Parade had a massive turn out. Amongst the crowd could be heard a very diverse collection of accents including Japanese, American, Canadian, Swedish, German and British to name a few. Some highlights of the Parade were definatley the traditional dancers and the many paper dragons slinking their way through the crowd and everywhere was the flying of the Aussie and Chinese flags as well as a few promoting the Beijing 2008 games.
It was such a vibrant atmosphere and smiles were abundant (apart from the horrible mother cramping herself next to us, complaining that the parade hadn't started exactly at 11am like they advertised) as the parade marched by. It was so great to see an event promoting a different culture within our own, and it was refreshing to see smiles and the throwing of candy to kids instead of hate faces and the throwing of beer bottles at the Muslims. A truly mulitcultural event for a multicultural city, and one with so much acceptance instead of hatred. If only everything in Sydney was like this, hopefully the tourists who attended didn't only have the so called "race riots" on their minds and this time, Aussies can be proud of the headlines in the news.
MY MOTHER THE BLONDE
I was just over at my good friend Zeph's site (Chronicles of an Exhausted Mom) reading about how her son is mad on closing anything that may be open, and I was reminded of a story my Mum likes to relate every now and then (although I'm not sure why).
The story goes something like this...
When I was about 17 months old my Mum became pregnant with my brother. Every day she used to hang the freshly washed laundry on the clothes line in the back yard, which she accessed from the back door of our house and every day I would sit in the kitchen and watch her stride out the door with the clothes basket. Now, my mother used to leave the keys to the house INSIDE... because, why would she need them? So out she'd be, pegging the sheets to the line when all of a sudden she would hear the slam of a door. Out would pop her head from under the sheet and low and behold, the back door would be shut and she would be locked out.
Obviously, thinking she couldn't reply on a 17 month old baby to open the door back up for her she would head around to the kitchen window, jimmy it open and slip her 5'2" frame back inside with no problem. But as my brother grew.... so did her tiny frame. This wasn't a problem for quite a while however and eventually she realised that every time she would hang the washing the door would mysteriously slam shut locking her out of the house. Innocent wind blowing incident? No such luck, apparently my deviant baby mind found it the most amusing thing to watch my mother try and clamber back in the tiny kitchen window as her belly grew to an enormous bulge. She tells me I used to wait until she was actually pegging the washing out until I would close the door and roll on the floor laughing as she struggled with the window.
"But Mum" I say to her now "If I did this everytime you went out there... WHY wouldn't you learn to take the keys with you??"
"I didn't think you would keep DOING it to me!!" she'd say pathetically, at which point everyone would laugh and she would sulkingly say "shut up...."
In the end... she became WAY too big to fit through the window and she would have to go and bother the strapping young man next door to do it... which, as it turns out... made the whole thing that much more amusing to me.
A BRUSH WITH PRINCE CHARMING
When the ball that is commonly know as the 9 to 5er ended thisevening, I stepped into my big steel train carriage and started to make my way home before the pumpkin showed.
I was so engrossed in my Women in the Wild book, reading about a woman with a special bond with seagulls that I hadn't noticed Cute Guys #1 and 2 looking my way.
I smiled within myself and pretended to still be engrossed in my seagul story, occaisionally exchanging smiles with the Cute Guy #1 as though I had only just noticed. The train came into my stop 40 minutes later and my flashy pink heels were beginning to pinch so I was glad to be getting off. Cute Guys #1 and 2 were also getting off and allowed me to exit the carriage first... so.... out I stepped and up the stairs I started, trying to keep some grace about me as I trudged up in my uncomfortable heels. I was doing okay until halfway up I didn't put my foot all the way onto the step, causing my heel to catch on the edge and me to lurch forward and up another few steps, leaving my pink slip-on behind. The crowd of people reacted un-noticingly and kept filing up the stairs and when I turned around to try and retreive my heel, there was Cute Guy #1 already picking it up. I tried to hide the huge grin and my embarressment as I thanked him but then Cute Guy #2 joked how Cute Guy #1 was so much like Prince Charming to which Cute Guy #1 shot back with "Yeah and if this shoe was glass she'd be coming home with
ME instead of you!!" as he placed my pink heel carefully back on my foot. At that point my embarressment waived and I was able to laugh along with them... AND even crack back to them.... "That's true, but I think your wife may have a problem with that."
Yes... I had noticed the wedding ring back on the train during the smile exchange.... so it was such a shame to have to suffer that prince Charming was married already. :)
