It started one day on RnR- She said to me what is wrong babe? Nothing I said, I was being a bit of a downer that day, I wasn’t being 100% honest but if I let it out I felt like I was being silly and it wasn’t worth bringing up. I’ll come back to this soon, but first I thought I should write about a few things that often get me thinking, things that sometimes wind me up, things that get me down and how I’ve recently been re-energized by some things that have happened to me at work. Most of you know me by now, I’m Kieran, one of Debs loyal male FIFO wife blog followers, and lucky for me she lets me write things. So here we go…some thoughts from me.
Fitting back in: This is something I continually struggle with, I’m away for 3 weeks, have a beautiful wife, a nearly 6yr old daughter and 2yr old son, you see they have this structure for 3 weeks out of 4 and then I come home and throw it all out of whack, I try and squeeze so much in on my week at home that quite often we are having dinner late, it may only be 30 mins later than “normal” but it’s late, that pushes the bath time out, the bed time story gets later, the choosing of pyjamas (because my kids can’t seem to wear the same pj’s 2 nights in a row for some reason), and I don’t think that half an hour makes too much of a difference…but whoa, the next morning it slaps me in the face and boots me up the arse, the kids are dragging their feet, I forgot to make their lunches and now im rushing and yelling at Azra to brush her bloody teeth or finish her brekkie. To me it just goes to show how important routine is and how important it is for me to remember that they have this routine and I need to work with them to keep the momentum of a smooth sailing ship. Any other blokes struggle with this? Because next thing you know I’m flying out again
Delayed flights: I may be tempting fate here because I fly out tomorrow and we haven’t had a delayed flight for a couple of weeks, but this really winds me up….how hard is it Virgin airlines to get planes up here and back in a reasonable time so we are not left rushing to make our connecting flights in Perth back to Queensland – two solutions here, let us fly out in the morning of our last day so we can make it home that day reducing fatigue on day 1 of our RNR or get more reliable planes that aren’t what feel like 100 years old! GRRRRR
Support whilst we are at work: To me this is a tough one, because like many blokes I think I’m all ok and big and tough. Truth is I’m not, and most of us aren’t, it’s just a front, I feel like I’m the man and I need to be big and strong and not show any form of perceived weaknesses in front of family and friends, but let me say this, that it’s 100% ok to ask for support, there are so many options out there, not only for us at work but also for our families at home, most companies have an employee assistance program which is 100% anonymous, they won’t tell the company they have spoken to you, they will only give total numbers of persons they have spoken to. How can our partners at home support us you ask? Well for me, I love to be kept up to date with absolutely everything that’s going on at home, tell me about it, how were the kids days at school, appointments, pictures, basically keep me in the loop as if I was home every day, it gives me some sort of normality when everything in my world doesn’t appear normal.
Friendships in a FIFO life: I never had many friends growing up, I don’t know why, I was just one of those kids, it never bothered me, I prefer to be a bit of a loner, I’m happy just ticking along and to be honest I don’t think I have the personality to satisfy a huge number of friends, but FIFO does take its toll on friendships I feel, I’ve discussed this with many of my colleagues over the years and I get the same responses from them as I come up with myself. We all have our small number of friends that we have outside of FIFO, for me it’s two guys, I met Gillie in 2000 or 2001, we both have a love for motorsport (him way more than me), we met when we both raced karts, he has video tapes from Bathurst from well before when I was born and before he was born and he’s 40 this July and he can tell you all about them all….crazy I know, but I love the guy, in fact Nicole and I class him and his wife as our best friends and are apart of the fabric of us! They are our family and they are our kids Aunty and Uncle as we are to them and their kids. The other guy is Tom, Tom and I are just like little kids when we are together, we met in 2009 working overseas together, since then Tom has battled for his life with a serious illness and only in the last six months he appears to be on the recovery path after some treatment he was forced to take in Germany late last year, our relationship is a little different because we rarely see each other as we live so far apart, but that shouldn’t stop best mates being best mates, I have followed Toms battles closely and regularly touch base with him and I have a promise of taking him Barra fishing in god’s country (Hinchinbrook) when hes fully recovered – Tom fell ill overseas and I was the one with him banging on the French hospitals doors at some silly hour trying to get him treatment, he flew out with me the next day as I was due to fly home for the birth of my first child, that was 1st August 2009, Tom hasn’t worked since that day. Our bond will never be broken, we shared some amazing times in 2009 before he fell ill and I know we will again one day when he’s better – get better mate. Now to my FIFO mates, they are different bunch from all over, I wouldn’t call any of them my best mates, more like work mates, some I stay in touch with some I don’t, it’s just a different type of friendship, we have so much in common because of what we do, but I think it’s important that we all have our mates at home or at least mates that are not involved with FIFO, it helps keep the balance for me, I make special mention of another two mates here they are Kate and Shona (or George and Shones as I call them) who are just such good blokes albeit with boobs, long hair and ovaries. I met them on a different job we were all on a few years ago and we have just remained such good mates ever since although they no longer do FIFO, we basically stay in touch by email every day when I’m at work and solve each others problems and whatever else we can think of, some of our discussions I will never forget.
Feeling Re-energized: I think after a while of this fifo life and living in construction camps it’s important to keep yourself feeling fresh and with that I feel it’s important to be able to be allowed to pursue certain activities that you do at home, for me over the past few months I had started to become frustrated with the restrictions of camp life, now I understand that most of us fifo people are in camps in the middle of nowhere so it may be difficult, but lucky for me I’m on a job on the coast of the Pilbara, Onslow to be precise, I was recently asked if I wanted a permanent room in town at the local caravan park due to a room shortage at camp, I jumped at it, it’s been like a breath of fresh air, I’ve always been a water baby and being near the ocean has been something im loving, see im from Nth Qld and so most of the year we have the threat of Crocodile, box jelly fish and anything else you can think of that wants to kill us when we get near the water, but im also addicted to stand up paddle boarding or SUP as it’s called, living in town has given me the opportunity to get my hands on a board that I can use whenever I like, so these days im first off the bus, grab the board and run to the beach and get a sneaky ocean paddle in before it gets too dark, the freedom I now have is amazing, I feel like I have that bit of normality back and I get that break from the feeling of being at work for 22 days straight. That walk on the beach, that SUP after work, those sunsets on the water are what I love. I’ve even been getting some photos of me out there like these ones.
Ok, so back to the what’s wrong babe question? I said to her it’s nothing and I’m just being silly, she asked me earlier in the day but it was when we were lying in bed that night just talking, we were talking about lots of things like what’s the dog barking at and how awesome are our kids etc, and then she asked me again…I was reluctant to spill but we have this honestly thing with each other and I expect her to tell me when I sense something is up with her, so I spilled….it was affection, a lack of affection was bothering me and had been for some time during my swing at work…and no I wasn’t talking about sex, it was just affection in general, I don’t think she understood, but it hit home to me that morning when her and the kids picked me up from the airport, it was that life is so busy these days, even airport pick up is rushed because we have to get the kids to school, then we have this appointment, then we have to go here and do this, then it’s back to school pick up, then its swimming lessons, and then dancing, we just don’t get that time to STOP and EMBRACE each other, it was literally a 2 second hug and a peck and then it was on to do everything, and I explained to her that night I need some affection, remember I’ve been away for 3 weeks in a solitary room, I don’t get hugs, I don’t get good night cuddles and kisses, I don’t get wrestles with the kids, I don’t get the “Dad I love you” “you’re the best” in person, it’s all over the phone and Skype and don’t get me wrong they are great, but they are not the real in person ones, I crave those, plus I just want time to get that affection and I wasn’t feeling it that day or the previous 3 weeks obviously, then she rolled into my chest and said “I didn’t even think of it that way”, she apologised to me, though it was not necessary, I just needed to let her know. Believe it or not I’m an affectionate person and I just think life was getting in the way and we forgot to stop and slow down. It’s important to do that……and the rest is history.
Also this week I celebrated, alone, our 17th anniversary of being together since high school, something im so incredibly proud of despite all my naysayers saying it would never work, shes too good for you. Thanks for being my best friend Nicole. Xoxo
Thanks for listening
Kieran
