A Good Life...

Mum and I in Devonport, 2019

24th December 2019: As I went to sleep last night there were dreams waiting to unroll themselves behind my eyes. They were like multicolored carpets of smoke and cloud that turned into 3D designs, swirling, shades of blue, green and pink. I have concluded that I may have been eating too much cheese lately. With great cheese comes many great visions.

Although I have been pondering some of the 'big things' that have happened in 2019 such as 

Tosca Puss dying

Rob at the Omaha Wharf, 2019

Falling in love with Rob

The Christchurch Mosque Attacks

Managing pain issues from an old injury

Improving my teaching skills (adult literacy)

Being evicted by my landlord so that he could hike up the rent

Moving to a completely different area

The death of a friend I'd fallen out of touch with (Garreth Knight)

Seeing a huge stingray (more than a metre and a half across)

Getting older ....

It's the ghosts that have come up of late, the memories of friendships past, of people who played a big part in my life if only for a brief time. It might be because I have 'abandonment issues', or because I value loyalty, or maybe I read too many fairytales as a child, but I do believe in the transforming power of acceptance and love. Obviously this means applying it to myself first - and that's the work of an entire lifetime - not a ten day course or one great book by Eckhart Tolle.

The harder part of self-acceptance and self-love is knowing when to draw boundaries. I'm still working out how that feels, what it looks like in 'real life'.

I've known amazing people who have boundaries like loose elastic when it came to danger and douche-bags, then suddenly firm and unyielding when you'd least expect it. If the world is a mirror, then it's time to reflect on what is working and what isn't. We are caught up in a reflection from time to time, a shard of broken mirror from the past. Sometimes we get caught or cut on someone else's old pain and then they inflict it on us. These things can come back and haunt us. At the end of the year we might ponder on the pain and the pleasure we have experienced, and perhaps have a good old cry as we allow ourselves our humanity.

I am so thankful for the love I have in my life, for the kindness and passion in my romantic relationship and the loyalty and honesty of my few close friends. Rob and I saw some magnificent sting rays a few weeks ago at Leigh Harbour, they were like angels of the sea. 

Thank you to those who continue to love and live despite all the challenges of this strange existence, and farewell to those we have lost along the way. 

Here's to good books (currently reading 'Vagina' by Naomi Wolf), music that never fails (Bowie), great coffee, kissing (and everything else) Rob, looking at birds, swimming in the sea, lying in the sun, spending time with mum and other friends, wearing comfortable pants and eating high quality- ice-cream. Life can be a bitch, but sometimes she howls at the moon and runs in fabulous circles.

Candice x

South Korea, 2010, with Garreth.