the fifo wife

I took a picture of myself in the mirror the other day while we were at a suit fitting for the boys. I looked at the picture and it took all my might not to scrutinize myself on how big my thighs were in my new vintage pleated skirt; which I will admit not the best choice for someone with a shape like mine but I had to have it and wear it too. It took all my control not to look at how my face crinkled when I smiled and how big bug eyed my eyes looked. Instead I looked at the kids at my feet in the picture and the smile they had brought to my face.

I am trying to stop looking at myself in such a negative detrimental way because it’s tiring. I want to stop feeling like crap and I don’t want to be a liar any more. I want to change how I see myself because when I tell my boys that I as a women; as a person I can do anything I don’t want to feel like I am lying because the reality is the one of the simplest things in the world; self acceptance is hard. Well it was and occassionally still is until about two years ago before then it seemed impossible but I’m working on it; with some success I might add. I’m trying to change how I see myself too how my husband sees me, how my kids see me.

It’s a work in a progress but until a couple of years ago I avoided mirrors at all costs. Getting my picture taken was like pulling a bar stool out from a man at the pub. I didn’t like the way I looked after I had babies but if I’m honest I have never really liked how I look. Which is probably why I spent so much time at the gym and eating lettuce; never mind lessons learnt; food tastes good. After my boys were born but even before I didn’t like the way my body was shaped, how my face looked, right down to how I sound on the phone yet I knew I could and can do anything. I like who I am as a person, who I stand for, how I love, how I contribute and I like myself that way a lot. I am a good person. Does that sound contradictory to the extreme? Someone with issues? I call them quirks..it sounds cuter and less likely to have me admitted.

I should add that I’m not writing this for oh that’s not right. You’re not fat or you are pretty in your own way. I don’t want or need that. What you say makes no difference to me ( but thank you anyway the sentiment it is appreciated) because it needs or needed to come from me and I’m writing this because I’m sure there are others out there who think or battle the same way I have or did and it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t. We should like ourselves completely. So whilst I still battle hard to be okay with how I look. My body. My face. I like to think I’m winning against the voices in my head because now I think I am pretty damn fine, my husband could do worse than have me and from what I here Natalie Portman is now off the market so she and I can both relax.

My husband loves me just the way I am; always has. and he doesn’t get my thing about my body, just doesn’t. How he doesn’t it baffles me. It baffled me at 23 and it baffles me at 36 but he says he can’t get enough of me and my naked body but he says it’s not just my naked that he likes. He says being naked with someone is more than that. He says ‘my naked’ is made up of so much more I don’t get it well I didn’t I do now. My husband he tells me what he sees is someone who has given him the world. That is beautiful and sexy. That I bore him three children. I laboured three times for him. I gave up my body for him, my children and I nourished those children with my body. He tells me that I’m not afraid of doing my own thing, that I am independent, I like having an opinion, speaking out when I feel necessary and knowing when to stop and walk away. He says that makes up the naked. The body. The me. Not just the skin, muscle and flesh. He loves me, is in love with me not just my body.

Yet I still often find myself looking at images in the media saying to myself is that what a 36 year old looks like, OMG? Now however I try to remember that my story, my heritage and theirs are different. Most days I get it and some days rarely I don’t although as I get older those days are becoming fewer and it’s been a very long time since I cried over the way I looked in a skirt. Back then I found myself looking at cosmetic surgeon’s pages a lot and I did go once I got as far as the reception area and walked out. I couldn’t do it wanted to but couldn’t.

Now it’s simple I shut out those negative thoughts telling me my thighs are to big completely. I control those thoughts. I have complete control of them and I simply stop listening to myself or I distract myself whatever it takes. I also don’t compare myself with anybody; anymore. At all. I don’t read gossip magazines. I have become grateful for my body and that it’s still working. My body amazes me now. Amazes me.  My neighbour has been diagnosed with MS whilst another has just lost their voice box just to stay alive so I have a lot to be grateful for. Grateful that I can speak without the aid of an ipad, that I can control my own limbs and put on my own knickers.

Still I’m not at the stage of walking around naked or sleeping naked my body and I still aren’t that comfortable with each other and truthful I’m too much of a prude and what if someone was to see other than myself or my husband? So there are still those very rare days when I am feeling horrible about how my stomach sags or how much weight sits in my hips but now instead of listening to myself I now do several things. I do something nice for myself it can be as simple as have a shower with a nice soap or getting my eye lashes tinted or I go for a work out. I challenge my body I keep it healthy and as cliché as it sounds I treat it well. If I think I look crap I change up my style I might wear a nicer outfit and I no longer aspire to modern day celebrities there is no point I am not built like them. If I want style inspiration I now go back 50 years to when women had a bottom and boobs like me.

I remind myself that I earnt those stretch marks and wrinkles that I hated so much. They are my tattoos of life and that is now how I wear the sunspot on my left cheek that won’t budge despite how many times my therapist zaps it with that damn laser. Many a day was spent canoeing up the Katherine Gorge; mud crabbing with my father that got me that sunspot and wrinkles. My last pregnancy gave me the stretch marks on my breasts. I earnt those. I can’t deny that and wouldn’t change a single thing so why see them as something ugly when so much fun and love got them in the first place. I will remind myself how my husband see’s me and how my kids think of me as superwoman. I remind myself of that a lot that my kids think of me as Superwoman and I’m sure never doubted how she looked in her cape or if her bum looked big in that. I bet she thought of herself as pretty damn fine.

Overall though when now I look in the mirror I really do think I am pretty damn fine but tentatively I will add it will always be a work in progress.

Want to know what others look like not to compare but to reassure that we are just all pretty damn fine head here

Xx Deb

How beautiful is ELLIS HOUSE?

Ellis House is now a beautiful guest house owned by Tracie Ellis founder of Aura Home.

Last week I read a post by Katrina Chambers she commented that she was waiting for her good run to end…I went ah ha..yep I get you. She isn’t unhappy in fact its that exact opposite as am I but when it happens its like a heaviness over your shoulder, a cloud sitting out the corner of your eye. Know that feeling? she said hell yes but whenever I have said that out loud in my community I get that what kind of crazy talk are you going on about? Followed by the look of do you need a little more Lovan or sun shine?

And not to ‘copy’ Katrina’s post I just wanted to write about that ‘feeling’ the one I can a kin too. That dark cloud just over your shoulder is like a tentative, a waiting. You don’t want to go over board with the happy just in the case the happy it gets ripped away from you just as fast and you are left crying in the street like a two year old who has dropped their ice cream.

My life is so blessed. Its perfect in my eyes. Completely perfect. I am. So. Very. Happy. We have worked so hard for this life its earnt not given but some things are out of my control and that is what I struggle with most. My boys are healthy. I am happy and in love with my husband and I would like to think vice verse for him. Life is good for me, for us. We have our ups and downs but the even the downs are good- in hindsight. Whilst I’m not pessimistic I feel the exact opposite its that thing, that waiting that had gripped me for years. It has never stopped me from doing things. Its just there. Just over my shoulder every now and then. Reminding of how good I have it and not to get to happy.

My reaction to this feeling can sometimes see me go over board with kisses and love; which is never a bad thing although my boys have tendency to go what the? My husband however get it. My boys will go driving with their father my whole world in the big red truck and I will smother them with kisses because just in case because that ‘waiting’ is on my shoulder. I insist my husband calls me before and after the chopper flight off his vessel because ‘it’ will stalk me until he is through the door. I make everyone have full medical check up’s every year just because I am so damn blessed its mind blowing that Im ‘waiting’ and I’m a control freak trying to control something I have no control over.

Is it anxiousness..is it FIFO, too much time spent on my own or has mother hood has finally started taking its toll on me? I don’t believe so its just the knowledge that most if not all good things come to an end don’t they? My good run soon has to end? That feeling is that waiting will some day take over, come true and so I remember feeling like Katrina wondering if anyone else did. Then while visiting my father a couple of years ago sitting at the traffic lights in his little go go mobile Bravo I told him my cup full of crazy theory of all good things ending. Tears welling up as I told him how happy I was and how this ‘waiting’ feeling of my world having to end sometime not literally but some time and I remember he looking at me not really knowing what to do.

Deb he said not all good things come to an end well they do but they don’t. Right Dad I said. No he said when you feel that way not really saying how but hoping by throwing his hands in the air it was the right description and it was almost because even I cant describe ‘it’ right. When you get that feeling; that is just the world, the universe if you like he said telling you to slow down and take stock of what you have. When that ‘waiting’ grips you its the world saying slow down your taking me for granted and just a wait a minute. Stop breathe and appreciate what you have. That’s what is keeping you grounded because the reality is you could fly off with the fairies. I looked at him with a little wonder all awhile trying to work out weather taking off with the fairies is something I should be offended about. All this from a man who said little about anything if not fairies. Appreciating what you have and the work it has taken to get it ‘that feeling’ its reminding you that none of that comes easily. Then with last breath he said you cant control everything Deb for that I don’t have any advice but you cant and there is no point fretting over what hasn’t happened and may never happen. No point. It will do your head in its like controlling the weather it cant be done and if you go on trying to you will end up like your mother.

At that point he went silent.

I sat looking at the blue Mazada car mat I had brought him for Christmas. I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing because I knew he was right. He knew he had made his point and he had succeed in getting it across because who wants to end up going off with the fairies and resembling their mother?

So do you get the ‘waiting’ feeling? Does it keep you from going off with the fairies? Or should I just increase my dose of sunshine?

xx Deb

I have lived a cup full of crazy this weekend. Crazy. Emotional. Sad. Happy. It was have the office call husband crazy. Never do we call the office to call the husband but we needed the leveller to stop the crazy that was starting in my head as a result of of the crazy. Got that it was crazy? and wouldn’t you agree that speaking with the husband can make the world just better?

It’s the only time I curse no phone reception in the middle of the ocean and curse the fact he is on a vessel with three hundred men and four phone lines. It’s the only time I go curse you Norwegian vessel for allowing a seven minute calling card. Damn you. Damn you. Damn you.

He called. I cried. I crouched in the locked bathroom so the boys were unaware mummy was having trouble dealing with the cup full of crazy that was going on. He said its okay. Your okay and so are the boys. I love you and right there and then I was okay. I got up from my crouched position. Straightened myself put on my big girl pants and got on with what was a long weekend.

So here we are now in the silence of the house all the crazy has gone home now there are just a few things on my mind.

1. It’s been raining for weeks. I am over the rain. Hear that rain maker person give me some sun shine and I will give you some happy.
2. My oven is broken. I’m lost. There will be no cake this week.
3. If the only part of my world that is broken is my oven I am one very fortunate girl.
4. Finally learnt the art of separation and just being there for someone. That sometimes the best thing to do is say nothing and just be present. Hold no judgement just their hand and say nothing because nothing I say will change what they have in their mind to do.
5. Tell me do you think is feminine? and tell me why?
6. Apparently one million children grow up without fathers? I’m wondering if someone is going to blame that on FIFO too.
7. Bradley Coopers still lives with his mother…I wonder if that’s why he is no longer the sexiest man alive…he may be the sweetest however.
8. Shakira…my hips don’t lie songstress…says she finds mother hood relaxing…I have nothing to say but yes I may be a wee bit jealous that I don’t find mother hood relaxing and wonder is she just kidding herself just a little.
9. Brad Pitt says that Australia is even better than on TV…I’m sure I could say the same about him.
10. I have a new tumbler (blog)…to dedicate my love of pretty stuff too…because I need another excuse to be online rather than cleaning my house…its here if you would like to look at her.

Well that’s it sweets…its countdown week…well almost. Have a great Tuesday but Monday start to the week.

xxDeb