How do YOU say no?

The overwhelm is here again.
It visits too often. Unwelcome, unyielding. Buffeting and rough on the mind.
I wish it away but wishing never quite does it.
I know that there is too much on, too much on my plate. I know this.
But what I don't know is how to take it down a notch and let everything in my head calm down.
My to-do list has reached magnificent proportions and it is both my friend and my mortal enemy.

The big thing I do know is that I am not very good at saying "no". I am a capable gal and I have lots of skills. I am someone that others look to, to help, to lead, to be involved.
So why can't I say no sometimes and keep my commitments at manageable levels?

Do you have any suggestions for me? How do you manage it?
I suspect it might have something to do with this.....(as seen on a recent visit to Abbotsford Convent).

Help please.

Treasuring the moment

We had one of those cosy days here today. It's very cold and the day was just right for me and the boys to snuggle and watch ABC for Kids on the couch in between the Batsman's therapy sessions. We ate toasted cheese sandwiches, yoghurt, grapes and ANZAC biscuits. While we munched, I watched them.  I watched them in that misty, sentimental way that comes when I slow down enough to recognise it. Love, love, love my boys.

This was one of those moments. A moment to treasure.

Next year the Batsman will go to school. Our routine, our lunchtimes together will shift significantly. It will be the Bowler and me having lunch some days. And on the days the Bowler heads to kinder or child care, it will be just me.

I know this change is going to take some adjustment. Like the plan ahead girl I am, I'm preparing myself early.

But for now, on this cold day that is bringing us closer to winter with each raindrop, all I am doing is treasuring the moment.

Image via We Heart It

To sir with love on Daffodil Day

He was thirty seven years old when he died.
Cancer claimed him quickly.
He had six months from diagnosis to death.
Lightning speed to live out the last days of your life.

He was my teacher at high school. He taught maths mainly.
He had a sense of the goofy about him. His enthusiasm was infectious.
An easy laugh and a keen sense of humour made him popular school wide.
Kids loved to learn from him and he instilled respect as readily as he taught calculus.

It was coaching volleyball that he really came into his own.
Throughout my high school days, he was coach and volleyball mentor.
He wasn't a gifted volleyball player himself. In fact his regular awkwardness afforded many a team giggle.
But my oh my he could coach. Motivate, teach, push, direct, inspire.

With school days over, we continued to play volleyball together.
The team was a mixed bunch of ex-students, teachers and housemates.
Success was varied but we had the time of our lives playing each week.
The game regularly followed up by a parma and pot at the local pub afterwards.

His cancer diagnosis was devastating to many.
Fit, strong, non-smoker. It made no sense.
There is no reason in the cancer and young person combination.
None.

I spent many hours with him in the last weeks of his life.
Thin, weak, barely able to eat a lemonade icypole.
His attitude remained defiant to the end.
One of the hardest things was watching his ageing parents shrink with the knowledge that they were going to outlive their beloved son.

There were hundreds at his funeral.
Tears and roses.
They played "To Sir with Love".
Students in school uniform formed a guard of honour.

The words that have stayed with me since that day are worth sharing here, penned by another of his mourning friends:

The pain is over.
A muscular frame.
One so fit, fluid and full  of sun.
Bent, angular, tormented.
Sparkling glances that warmed and wooed.
A wide eyed knowing spare.
Pleading yet defiant.
Incomprehensible courage.
I shall carry the message of our friendship into the future.
Our laughter shall ring in the ears of the next children.

Garry, beautiful Garry.
Know that you are loved and remembered nineteen years on.
Your battle inspired and touched so many.
Proudly donating to the Daffodil Day appeal in your honour today

All over the place

I have been all over the place today.
Highs and lows.
I've got a bit of a cold and feel a bit ordinary. It was hard to get moving and get the boys ready for the day. Low.
I still went to the gym and did my class. High.
The Batsman had a great day at kinder. High.
My dad is in hospital having a blood transfusion. Worried. Low.
I made a snap decision and booked myself a ticket to Nuffnang Blogopolis 2011 . High.
In the middle of the day I had an anxiety attack that made me realise I need to get some more help. Low.
The Bowler was spectacularly affectionate all day. High.
The Bowler ate very little from the five food groups today owing to a snotty nose. Low.
I read this post and this one. Moved, inspired. High and low.
The Batsman and I shared a warm deep bubble bath and some songs. He's beautiful that kid. High.

I'm wishing for a smoother day of sailing tomorrow.
Wish for me too please.

On thoughts provoked and drowning

So many wonderful posts have been written about the inaugural Aussie Bloggers Conference. You can read them here. It was an extraordinary weekend, it really was. There have been summaries, succinct and to the point, there have been blow by blow accounts, rambling and weaving, and there have been snapshots, posts that have captured a single (often hilarious or moving) moment in time. All these posts record, for all eternity, the Aussie Bloggers Conference in all its glory, for those like me who were there and those who were not.


I wanted to be among those early posts. I really did. But the demands of a Batsman very anxious upon my return, the daily slog of his early intervention program, a kinder committee meeting, a deluge of other stuff and nonsense all rolled up in a hangover just didn’t allow it to happen. More on that later.


The weekend provoked a lot of thinking for me and I remain in a neurological tussle to process and make sense of it all. Here’s the shorthand version of what it has made me think about.


• I met amazing women. Such a privilege to meet those I have long admired, read, cried and laughed with. And there was this guy, who I think is beautiful and funny.
• People are their blogs. Authentic, raw, gutsy, funny, moving.
• Why am I blogging? What it’s all for?
• What will I do about reviews and sponsored posts and the $ generally?
• Social media – tweet tweet
• Privacy – mine, my kids’, protecting all of us
• Do I really want my mum to read my blog?
• Keeping it real. Content is queen.
• Blogging as community. Extraordinary community.


Like I said, it was an extraordinary gathering. Thanks to the organisers who made it so.


So, it has taken me till now to blog about the conference. There’s a whole lot of reasons and I know I don’t need to make excuses, tell you why, justify my bloggy timetabling and all that but I think, through my insomnia last night I have got to some real stuff. I want to share it.


I haven’t blogged about the conference till now because in all truth, it made me a little bit sad, about me, about who I used to be, not so long ago.


Once upon a time, maybe a year or so ago, I would have been more confident, less anxious and fearful, more willing to let it all hang out, less worried about whether others would like me, more able to bounce around and introduce myself to people, more able to be in the centre of the action, less, way less, self conscious. It’s not so now and the conference weekend allowed me to see all that.


Truth is, once the adrenalin of the weekend faded a bit, what was there was sadness. Isolation. Fear. Overwhelm. Anxiety. All of it. Can’t really write that on a feedback sheet can you?


The last eighteen months has been tough, there’s no denying it. The Bowler’s birth and sleep depriving ways, confronting the Batsman’s diagnosis with autism and the craziness that has brought to our family life has all taken a toll. While I probably look to lots of people to be managing it all and coping with the rollercoaster ride, in reality it’s a struggle. It’s fucking hard in fact. And I am pretty damn good at saying to myself, “hey Suz, look at what that person is going through, you are ok, you’re lucky, get on with it”. I don’t let it in because that means loosening that very tight grip I have on it all. The old me, the one who was a little more carefree and a lot more fun; she has been hanging so tightly that she’s at least in part, disappeared from view.


But today, on the third day in a row of waking up feeling sad, teary and overwhelmed, I said to the Captain “I feel like I’m drowning”. Drowning in stuff that needs to be done, drowning in the pressure I feel to do all that I can for Batsman as he struggles through “autism town” and drowning under the weight of my own expectations of myself.


I walked on the treadmill at the gym this morning, with tears welling while Pat Benatar sang in my IPod about it being a cold world when you keep it all to yourself. Gawd, doesn’t that sound like a soapie episode? Does anyone cry while they are in the middle of a gym workout? Probably someone who is depressed and anxious and struggling does. And did I mention how utterly exhausted I am? All the way through my bones.


So here I am. I am putting it out there with all of you. The weekend was amazing and I am so grateful to have met so many gorgeous people. But it wasn’t all sunshine and roses for me. I want to be real about this and it’s so bloody scary to do that.


But I don’t want to drown.