Curious Living — And Days Went By, Like Paper in the Wind...

I still miss you, poppy.

by jessica on April 11, 2011

It’s been months since I checked in here.

It wasn’t intentional. A few months ago, my poppy (my grandfather) passed away, and my priorities got all shifted around. I’ve never lost anyone close to me before, and two months on I’m still incredibly sad that I’ll never see him again. My grandparents have always been a huge part of my life and a natural extension of the relationships I share with my parents – and to see your grandfather laid out in his coffin before they take him away for the funeral ceremony is just devastating. The funeral was so sad.

I worry a lot about my nanna. She doesn’t drive, and I sometimes lay awake at night wondering what her world is like now, alone after 53 years with her husband.

When I saw his ashes, the heavy blue box that sits on the dresser in the bedroom they used to share, that’s the moment it hit me. The realisation that death comes for all of us. The impossible fact that a person – who was born, who lived, and loved and laughed and cried and everything else in between – could end up a box full of ash on a dresser in the bedroom.

My poppy taught me so many amazing things while he was here. The most important thing I think that he taught me was the value of kindness. He never had a bad word to say about anybody, and would always go out of his way to do anything for anyone. He just wanted to help.

He was on a downward spiral for 15 months before he died, and yet I never really grasped the possibility that he could die. He was over having dinner one night and it was just the two of us. He told me he thought that he was getting to the end, and I refused to listen. I told him he wasn’t allowed to die anytime soon, that he had to stick around and meet my kids. I think it broke his heart that he couldn’t. I know it has broken mine.

The very last time I spoke to him was the day before he died. He wasn’t well, but he wasn’t dying, either – he could walk and talk and laugh and breathe. It was a quick visit, because we were taking nanna out for dinner. If we had known what precious little time we had left with him, we would have stayed. I mean, the doctors were talking about sending him home the next day, and instead, he died.

As we were leaving that night, I got a tighter hug than normal and an “I love you.” When I looked at my poppy’s face before I turned to leave, he squeezed my hand, and his eyes were all shiny. Somehow, I think we both knew that this was our final goodbye. I turned to look at him as we made our way down the corridor. He was looking out of the window as the sun was setting, and something in my head said, this is it.

The next day, things had gotten much worse, and my poppy had to be put on major doses of painkillers to ease the pain of his kidneys failing. By the time I got to the hospital that afternoon, he had been given a prognosis of 2 weeks. In the end, it took more like 5 hours before he took his last breath.

It was so weird, but it felt like he was already starting to leave us. There he was, chock full of morphine, unconscious and barely alive struggling for each ragged breath. It is the strangest feeling, watching someone you love and basically waiting for them to pass away. Nobody wanted to leave in case they missed him, but it got pretty late and we all thought my nanna would probably like to spend some time by herself with her love of more than fifty years. We all took turns saying goodbye, promising to return the next day.

He died before we even reached the parking lot.

I’ve heard that when a person is at death’s door, they often wait until they are alone to pass. I don’t know if it’s because they stop breathing when they have no more external stimulus, or whether it really is their way of sparing their loved ones that final, awful moment.

I still haven’t managed to get past this, and I don’t know if I ever will. Mostly, because poppy was one of those people who, since the day I was born, has loved me unconditionally, done anything I ever needed, given the best hugs in the world, and entertained me for hours with stories of his early life.

And it still devastates me that everything we are and everything we will ever be will one day be reduced to a little heavy box that gets collected from the cemetary to sit on a dresser. I know thats not right, because it’s the memories that are left, the legacy of a family and the special bonds that were shared… but it still makes me want to sob every time I think about it.

I’ll be back, dear friends, once I wrap my head around this terrible loss.

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Sunday

by jessica on January 23, 2011

My sunday was humid, overcast and rather wonderful.

We went to a friends birthday breakfast on the beach in Fremantle, came home and hibernated for the rest of the day.

I burned my Island Mango Yankee candle while reading the new PC Cast book, Awakened, and laying in bed while my beloved cleaned out his spare room (yes, we have a spare room each. Hilarious, eh?)

We had delicious chicken and salad wraps for lunch.

I drank lots of tea which soothed my soul.

I complained a lot about how sore my entire body was from running twice last week… but really it was just covert bragging

I love sundays… feeling no need to do anything important… spending time on important things (like reading and eating and drinking tea)… just hanging around in our little house.

*Image from weheartit

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Goodbye, 2010; and hello, 2011

by jessica on January 5, 2011

A new year, for me, always brings the excitement of new possibilities.

Of turning dreams into goals , and discovering new things.

One more year’s worth of experience to draw on.

One more year of getting to know myself, of figuring out who I am (and boy did that happen in 2010).

Looking back, I can’t believe how incredibly naive my thinking was just one year ago. I didn’t stand up for myself, I let people walk all over me, and I honestly took way too much shit from people. If I had one word to describe this year, it would be challenging. In many ways, this was one of the best years of my life – I got married, travelled to Hawaii, Sydney and New Zealand, started an entirely new career, made lots of lovely little road trips, reconnected with my lifelong best friend L, and madly wrote my novel in the bit of spare time that I could muster. In other ways, it was also one of the worst – I have never been more stressed, emotional, crazy or sad than I was this year. There was one particular situation that weighed me down all of the time, something that shouldn’t have upset me as much as it did. I struggled so hard. I finally feel like I’m in a place of peace and acceptance regarding that unpleasant episode – but it took a lot out of me.

I looked back at the goals I set for myself at the beginning of 2010, and nothing really stood out. I think that, given how busy and challenging 2010 was, its no wonder I came up short on most of these.

get married in Hawaii – I did this! And it couldn’t have been better.
Finish my second novel – I didn’t do this. To be honest 2010 was pretty lean on the writing side – with wedding prep, then wedding and holiday, then starting a new job (an entirely new career, really) 2 weeks after we got back, left little time for me to feel creative. I did get a big chunk of it finished, and I’m so proud of how the overall story is shaping up. 2011 is going to be a year of reckoning – watch out, publishers! A manuscript from yours truly will be landing on your desk verrrrrrrry soon.
Get a publishing deal – as above
Start a third novel – I have plans for this, and I have kind of been working on other books that belong to this series as inspiration strikes. So I guess you could technically say that I started 5 novels this year
Write every single day, even if its only a paragraph – I didn’t keep track of this, but between blogging, writing fiction and journalling I’m pretty confident this happened most days.
Exercise three times a week – sometimes yes, sometimes no. I did step up my exercise regime in 2010 but it wasn’t consistent.

2010 in review

January

I turned 25 years old and celebrated at a funky Mexican restaurant with some close friends. That day, they found out they were having a little boy, and I was one of the first to find out. What a special bit of news! The next night, I had another celebration with family – and my best friend. I was so happy she was there, after a rough year we finally reconnected and it made my birthday so special. A few weeks later, we had our engagement party at Jed’s parents house.

February

I kind of forgot about the world around me as I did last-minute prep and plans for our wedding. I have no idea what I did this month apart from work, sleep, pack and freak out. Oh, thats right, we also ripped out all the old crappy paving and dead grass from the backyard and completely transformed it into a limestone paved oasis.

Before (when the grass was still alive):

After: You can see Marley and Lulu were pretty impressed with our handiwork

March

After more than seven years together, we made it official on the 16th and tied the knot in our favourite place on this earth – Maui.

April

At the start of the month, we left Hawaii and travelled to Sydney to spend a few days with my cousin, Rach, and her husband. They showed us lots of awesome little places to eat and drink that we never would have found on our own! We then flew to New Zealand to spend a week with Jed’s family at their gorgeous holiday house.

I watched my beloved fall through the sky!

While we were there, we lusted over this 46-acre piece of property in NZ and then realized it was just a leeetle bit out of our price range

May

Mid-month, I left my comfort zone and started work in a completely new industry. It was crazy. And at the end of the month, a couple of weeks early, our friends welcomed this little guy into the world.

June

I despaired over the winter weather that always turns me into a nasty piece of work.

We celebrated Jed turning 27, taking a roadtrip to Dunsborough. We had a yummy lunch at one of our favourite wineries, Laurance.

This was a tasty breakfast.

July

After all the excitement and stress of the first half of the year, I had a bit of a breakdown. Here I was, weeks into a brand new job, sobbing on the phone to my (incredibly supportive) boss, because I just could NOT function. I left work early one day and just cried and cried. At the time, it seemed like my world was being turned upside down and that I had made a massive mistake in switching jobs. And after a little while, and some great support, it became pretty obvious that I was just exhausted. I took some time off to regroup and just do nothing. And came through it OK.

August

I purchased my beloved Canon 400D digital SLR! One of the best purchases of the year, and she was a steal. I’m yet to name her, but I’ll let you know when I think of something that suits her.

I must have been in the mood to drop some serious cash this month, because I also surprised Jed with tickets to Europe for June this year! We’re going for his birthday.

September

We took a little road trip to see our friends get married in Busselton. It was one of the nicest weddings I’ve been to.

October

Towards the end of this month, I started questioning everything for the millionth time. I wasn’t happy, I was crying all the time, my hormones were insane, and I just didn’t know what was the matter. I thought it must be my new job – with the work-at-home schedule and Jed working away, I was by myself for far too many hours each week. And it was a disquieting feeling that crept up on me over the course of a few months – cue another meltdown. I guess another word to describe 2010 would be emotional

But the truth was, once I got really honest, I just wasn’t taking care of myself. Marriage, my diet, my physical health, my spirit. It’s something that needs to be a huge priority in 2011 – I want to avoid feeling depressed, anxious or lethargic and make the conscious decision to invest enough time and energy into being kind to myself.

I tried hot (bikram) yoga and loved it. It goes for 90 minutes each session, so I still haven’t decided whether I want to try and incorporate it into my weekly life as yet.

November

I launched my sparkly new blog design, thanks to Kyla Roma! And started really throwing myself into nightly writing sessions,

burning the midnight oil and getting that first novel draft out of my head and onto the screen.

December

I shopped madly for presents 5 days before christmas, and instead of beating mysef up for being disorganised like I normally would, I revelled in the fact that my method works just as well, and really got me into the christmas vibe! I still hand-made gifts – chocolate truffles this year – and chose thoughtful gifts for everyone on my list. Self acceptance in the making, here.

After Christmas, Jed and I had a long talk (one of those talks) and made a huge, life-changing decision – one that I’ll be sharing here very soon.

Whew, that was long. Are you still with me, lovelies? I’m not finished yet! So, like I said, there were a lot of wonderful, beautiful things that happened in my 2010.

I’m so thankful that it was like that.

In 2011, I am determined that the theme will be less challenging and more enjoyable. My word for 2011 is

Focus

I want to do so many things this year, and I really believe its going to be a year that makes a huge difference in how the rest of my life will unfold. Instead of letting the current pull me along, I want to choose which way I’m going to row.

2011 – six goals

Simplify life – by buying less, giving away more, and focusing less on material possessions. The clutter in life can be overwhelming, and I’ve really changed from a person who likes ‘stuff’ to a person who feels suffocated by possessions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to go totally minimalist (I love my things) but there is a lot of crap in my house and my life that just doesn’t belong.
Overhaul our diets – I have been doing soooo much research on this one, and have been slowly adding more organic, unprocessed and nutritious foods into our diet. This month (this week, actually!) I’ll be making the last changes to make it all come together. Also, the way I want to spend my time cooking – and what food I’m cooking – is going to change. I’m inspired by Aura’s food week post here and really want to try and cut my cooking sessions down to three times a week as well. We were given Jamie Oliver’s 30 minute meals cook book for christmas, and it has already changed my life in its awesomeness. Try the cypriot chicken – we have. Three times this week.
Overhaul our lifestyle – by spending more time together as a couple, talking more, and having more fun together. By taking more camping trips. By buying less and being more self-sufficient.
Overhaul my exercise routine – more specifically, create a routine that I can stick to.
Be more organised my way – meal plans? Yes. Buying christmas presents three months early? Nooo. Spring clean? Yes. Declutter? Yes.
Finish my novel – its almost there! I’ve extended the date to 28th February, because honestly, this month is busy! I’m sooooo close…
Maximise my weekends – there really IS enough time to do most things, but I definitely don’t always maximise my time.