Sleepless Nights

Tag: living inside my own head

  • The key to success is failure

    The key to success is failure. It sounds weird and like I’m going at things backwards, but this is one thing I have learned that holds true through everything.

    I was reading Shae’s post about her epiphany and I was struck by how similar her thought processes were to mine. It’s easier to pretend that you don’t care about your blog, than to put it all out there and run the risk of failing. After all, failure is something that we hate and something to be avoided.Empty House

    But is it really?

    Every time I have done something, on this blog or in real life, that has failed, I’ve learned something. Sometimes it’s small things like how fast to whisk in oil so that my mayonnaise doesn’t split. Sometimes it’s when to keep my mouth shut to prevent my family hating me for twelve months because of something I wrote. Every step forward I make has been inspired by a string of failures.

    This blog is no different and in fact it is the thing I fail at the most. I’ve never expected myself to be the perfect mother, or the perfect homemaker, but I did expect myself to be the perfect blogger. To be able to comment back every time, to read everyone and to write beautiful words that will resonate with everyone, every single time.

    Blogging doesn’t work like that. Life doesn’t work like that.

    My blog is becoming more successful. Showcase Tasmania is doing well, my subscriber numbers are slowly climbing and my traffic is sitting at a level I am comfortable with.

    To get here, I’ve had to fail numerous times. For every five pitches I send, four businesses ignore me. For every contact I make and click with, there is someone who thinks I’m an idiot. For every blog post that does well on traffic, there are two that don’t.

    Funnily enough, I’ve found that it is the small failures that I learn the most from. Working out what I did wrong and how to not do it again, I learn what I should have done instead. Sure, it’s trial and error a lot of the time, but that is life, isn’t it?

    Amy blowing thistle resized

    Failure is scary. No one wants to fail. We all want to be successful, all of the time.

    However, I’m not sure that you can have success, if you didn’t build it on the back of failure.

    And the only thing I can see that all successful people have in common is: They refused to give up and stop trying.

  • Painkillers, headspace, broken joints and assorted other things that won’t make sense

    It was after I dropped Amy off at school that my hands started to hurt, badly. We were on the way to the supermarket and I’d already had to talk myself out of vomiting a few times this morning, so my head really wasn’t up to ignoring the pain in my hands.

    By the time I was 3/4 of the way through the supermarketing, I was unable to push the trolley and the pain was at the front and centre of most of my thoughts. Luckily, with the help of unlimited lollipops, Isaac was being practically angelic and just following along behind us, as Nathan pushed the trolley and lifted the heavy things, like milk and rice.

    (Side note: It takes three lollipops to get the supermarketing done without meltdowns or screaming. What I need now, is to find lollipops without artificial colours.)

    I held on, until I got to the chemist, knowing that I had scripts for regular tramadol (that doesn’t give me insomnia) and panadol oesto for the arthritis pain. Only, when I went to fill the script, I discovered that it was out of date and I was out of luck. Fun times, you guys, fun times.

    By the time we made it home, I wasn’t in the best frame of mind and Isaac deciding to have a meltdown over toothpaste wasn’t really something I wanted to deal with.

    I managed to take some slow release tramadol (that does give me insomnia) and now, two hours later, it has kicked in and while I’m still in pain, I’m rather stoned and I don’t care quite so much. It was a choice between stoned, or knocked out. Sometimes there are no good choices.

    This Winter has been really bad. I’m coming out of the other side of SAD, smack into depression and anxiety, but I think that if I can hold on until the weather warms up, I might be okay. My soul is screaming for long hot days spent laying in the sun, letting the warmth fix my joints for a little while.

    ***

    I was outside using the pitchfork to poke holes in the swampy patch in my back corner. I had a bag full of mint that needed to be planted and Isaac was helping me, by tipping out the roots and running away with them.

    Three holes in, the pitchfork handle snapped in my face, as the bottom (metal) end threw itself up into my forehead.

    “Mummy! It hit you in the head! MUMMY!”

    Funnily enough, I realised that.

    My forehead still hurts, but the cut is healing, at least.

    I can’t say that it’s helping either my mental or physical states to be beating myself up with a pitchfork, however.

    On the upside, with some help from Nathan, I got 20 currant cuttings planted out (not sure what types – Mum had forgotten) and a bag full of mint plants planted. And the raspberry canes survived being transplanted and are shooting up.

    Finally.

    ***

    It’s been dark inside my head lately. I keep putting one foot in front of the other and trusting to the fact that eventually, this will change. It might not get better, or easier, but I can count on it getting different at some point.

    Different is good.

    I’m discontent with my house, with my lack of garden, with a paddock full of nothing, that screams its nothingness at me every time I see it. With the clutter and the lack and the excess and everything. I am discontent.

    I need to work on getting things inside my head sorted, so that I can work on getting things outside of my head sorted.

    And until then, I’m going to keep dreaming of moving house and living somewhere that isn’t falling down, that has a garden to sit in and just be, and storage space and cupboards for everything. I hear that they exist, somewhere.

    Until then, I’m going to keep planting things and hoping that they grow and help sort my sanity out.

    ***

    I don’t think this post makes much sense. Sorry about that.

     

  • My brain is not a logical place to live inside

    My brain is not logical. Just because I can look at a situation and know that nothing terrible is going to go wrong (but how do you know?), doesn’t mean that I don’t start to panic, just a little, when plans change, or my expectation for events doesn’t work out quite how I’d imagined.

    I like to have things planned out inside my head before they happen. The unknown doesn’t sit well with me and I’m not the kind of person to decide to do something on a whim.

    All this is basically saying: I have pretty terrible anxiety and I probably should have gotten myself medicated two months ago, so that I could avoid the freakout that Blogopolis is causing me.

    Tomorrow, I leave home at some godawful hour of 4am, to go to the airport. Once I’m in Melbourne, I get to dump my bags, have breakfast and then make my way to the train station and the Bloggers Brunch. Lovely Norlin has offered to meet me at the train station and travel in with me, so that I’m not freaking out alone, because holy fuck, HOW DO YOU CATCH A TRAIN? WHAT DO I DO?

    Logically, I know it will be fine. Everything will go smoothly, I will panic on the inside and smile on the outside and I will try not to dislocate any major (or minor) joints in any fashion.

    Logic has nothing to do with panic attacks though and knowing that things will be fine does not stop my brain dragging me through all the worst case scenarios, just in case. Just in case of what? WHO KNOWS. Why do I have to have a plan in place in case I suddenly break an ankle? I DON’T KNOW. THIS MAKES NO SENSE TO ME EITHER.

    I’m pretty sure I’m going to run into Zombies. Or vampires. OR FAIRIES. MY BRAIN IS NOT BEING SENSIBLE.

    Saturday, I am also quietly freaking out about. I thought I was going to be fine and able to surround myself with people who know that I’m freaking out and are able to talk to me anyway, but no. Allocated seating.

    Again, logically, allocated seating is a great idea. We did it at AusBlogCon and it worked really well to get people meeting other people.

    So I GET where Nuffnang is coming from, with the allocated seating. But the fear of the unknown is killing me (WHO AM I SITTING WITH? WHY DOES THIS POST HAVE SO MUCH YELLING? I DON’T KNOOOOOW) and the worry of being stuck at a table in the very middle of a room with no way to leave if I need to throw up, well.

    If I get through this weekend without bleeding through my jeans (hello TMI), or throwing up on someone, or bursting into tears, I will count it a success.

    Actually fuck it. I don’t care if I cry.

    Just please, pray to whatever deity you care about and pray that I don’t bleed through anything or throw up. Or dislocate anything major.

    Holy fuck am I bendy right now.

    And panicking. I am panicking.

    BREATHE.

  • Jetsetting

    I realised today in the middle of my procrastination, that I am actually flying to Sydney tomorrow and not at some vague point in the future. This is when I started to think of all the things I needed to do before I leave, that I hadn’t done yet.

    Of course, all of this combined with trying to pack a suitcase (where on earth are my black pants? Someone? Anyone? You there, go look in my washing pile) and console a miserable toddler left me wanting to sit in a corner rocking.

    It’s all going to be fine though, I fly on the plane, I get off the plane, I get into a cab and make it to my hotel unscathed. Then I kill two hours with a friend, while I wait for Kellie and Louisa to arrive at the hotel and then we’ll be fine.

    It’s only a flying visit, a bit over 24 hours and then home again and back to reality.

    Of course, I’m not sure I’m going to want to come back to reality once I’ve stayed in one of these apartments. Honestly, the 1 bedroom apartment is bigger than half of my HOUSE. Colour me gobsmacked.

    I’m not entirely sure what I’ve done to warrant all of these invitations to things, but whatever it is, I’m not complaining.

    ***

    In other news, I mentioned on twitter and Facebook – I managed to secure full sponsorship to Blogopolis, care of Kellogg’s. I’m really looking forward to working with them and just wanted to thank them quickly here for sponsoring me, while giving you guys the heads up that I now have an agreement with Kellogg’s.