In the year I turned 40, I rediscovered myself as a writer.
I'm not going to detail here the strange, mystical, spiritual experience that preceded it, but suffice it to say that one long, dreary Sunday afternoon, while my kids were away visiting their dad, I sat down at the computer and decided to try writing something. Following the adage 'write what you know', I produced a couple of pages of story about an overweight, single mom trying to make ends meet, trying not to feel like a loser, agonizing about finding love again ... in general, all the issues that were plaguing me at the time. (I think I still have it buried in a file somewhere...) It was fun! Words flowed, in an odd kind of way, and I felt good about my ability to create.
I carried on, writing scenes, descriptions, chapters, events - nothing cohesive and certainly nothing publishable. And I enjoyed it hugely! I started a little writer's group - a few friends who met up once a month and read their ramblings to each other. Then, through the internet, I got connected to a Christian writers' group and in 2002, was given the opportunity to attend a Christian Writer's Conference in the USA - all expenses paid. What a gift! Part of attending a conference, however, is that you are expected to bring along a sample of your writing and to receive critical feedback on it from real, live editors or agents or published authors. So I took my collection of scenes and chapters and pulled them together into a kind of a story. Wrote up a synopsis, polished the first chapter and printed it all out. Took it to the conference and got raves from the two editors I submitted it to.
Now, if memory serves, the writing wasn't all that good. The story was about a man who lives for twenty years under an assumed name, hiding his real identity from his first and second wives and his sons. Then one day, something overturns his world, his little daughter's life is in danger and he goes on the run, trying to prevent his carefully-fabricated world from collapsing. The story was heavily imbued with religious elements (befitting a Christian story) and had a redemeptive theme.
Since then I've written a lot more, mainly fiction in the form of a few short stories and a few more attempts at a novel. My writing has been heavily influenced by whatever is going on in my 'inner life' at the time - and for the greater part of the last few years, that has had to do with my personal spiritual journey / odyssey / whatever you want to call it. And interestingly, a recurrent theme has been to do with hidden identity - with things looking like one thing on the surface, but underneath, there is something completely unexpected going on. Characters are never quite who they seem to be, but they all manage to fool everyone around them (and themselves!) until suddenly, for some reason or other, the system breaks down and the old masks no longer serve ... then the real journey of self-discovery and redemption begins!
Now I have turned 50 and once again, life is imitating art to a degree. Not only is a new emigration plan underway, but I think my writing life is getting a revamp. I seem to have lost all interest (for now) in building a 'world' and in developing characters. I am still trying to make sense of the spiritual. My thinking has undergone a 180 degree change in the last two years and after being a Christian for well over 30 years, the most honest thing I can call myself now is 'agnostic'. And that upheaval is the thing I most want to get to write about.
Not as fiction, though. Maybe as literary or narrative non-fiction. We'll see. I hope it will still be fun, though!!
Showing posts with label Me. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Me. Show all posts
Thursday, August 14
Wednesday, October 24
November
November is NaNoWriMo time - National Novel Writing Month.
Foolish dreamer that I am, I signed up again (!) so from now until the end of November, any and all blogging that happens will be on my other blog: Write On The Edge which is specifically writing-related.
If, as has happened before, I fail in my Nano efforts, I'll be back here much sooner. So wish me luck!
Foolish dreamer that I am, I signed up again (!) so from now until the end of November, any and all blogging that happens will be on my other blog: Write On The Edge which is specifically writing-related.
If, as has happened before, I fail in my Nano efforts, I'll be back here much sooner. So wish me luck!
Wednesday, September 19
Next Year
Today something weird happened. I was talking to M on the way to the test center about me and my thoughts and dreams and hopes and plans for next year, to try and take his mind off the upcoming test. I don't know if he was too interested but it kept us occupied for the half hour drive.
I said: "Next year just has to be better than this year has been." And I waffled on about some of the ideas I'd had and which ones looked potentially feasible and which ones were turning out to be just a laugh a minute. Then I added,"Of course next year has one big disadvantage in the 'must be better' stakes."
"What's that?" he said.
"Well," and by now I'm feeling stupid, "well, next year is the year I turn--I turn-f--f--fi--fi..." and I simply could not bring myself to utter the word? It was as if I was blocked, muted, gagged. But he got it.
"What is so bad about being fifty?" he asked. So I tried to explain. "It means you're not a beautiful, supple twenty-something anymore. Or even a vibrant, full-of-potential, richly fertile thirty-year-old. You can't even claim to be a fabulous forty, in the prime of life!"
He's like - "Well, duh mom! Of course you're not." So I tried again.
"It's more to do with loss of hope. The brutal reality is that my chance to be a young, beautiful and desirable woman is now officially past. And that makes me feel sad."
Looking back, it often feels as if I somehow missed out on being that person in the past and that turning *this age* kind of puts the seal on the fact that I'll never ever be that person. :-( Instead, I get to be officially 'middle-aged'. Before this, I could still refer to myself as 'forty-something' and get away with it, but the Big Five Oh puts a stop to all that. End. Finito. Over and done with.
Over the hill. :-(
Actually, although I still hate, loathe and detest the idea, it doesn't cause quite the same emotionally devastating surge of rage and depression it has done for the last few years. I *know* that it's important for my psychological development that I accept and embrace this next step. And hopefully, next year with all its changes will be a part of that process. I'm actually really excited about a possible 'Me Year' and what better year for that than a landmark birthday year?
And in other not-so-wonderful news, M did not get his license. He had a fair shot at it, he passed all the yard tests like parking and three-point-turns etc, and his examiner said his actual driving was absolutely fine, but he failed him because at a traffic circle, he and another car arrived almost simultaneously and although M judged it safe to go, technically he should have waited. It's a bummer. He seems to have bounced back quicker today though, I think I'm the one who is most exhausted now, having encouraged and cajoled and supported him through the last twenty-four hours of fear and dithering. Not to mention sitting in long queues for paperwork and paying all the fees for the second time.
C'est la effing vie.
I said: "Next year just has to be better than this year has been." And I waffled on about some of the ideas I'd had and which ones looked potentially feasible and which ones were turning out to be just a laugh a minute. Then I added,"Of course next year has one big disadvantage in the 'must be better' stakes."
"What's that?" he said.
"Well," and by now I'm feeling stupid, "well, next year is the year I turn--I turn-f--f--fi--fi..." and I simply could not bring myself to utter the word? It was as if I was blocked, muted, gagged. But he got it.
"What is so bad about being fifty?" he asked. So I tried to explain. "It means you're not a beautiful, supple twenty-something anymore. Or even a vibrant, full-of-potential, richly fertile thirty-year-old. You can't even claim to be a fabulous forty, in the prime of life!"
He's like - "Well, duh mom! Of course you're not." So I tried again.
"It's more to do with loss of hope. The brutal reality is that my chance to be a young, beautiful and desirable woman is now officially past. And that makes me feel sad."
Looking back, it often feels as if I somehow missed out on being that person in the past and that turning *this age* kind of puts the seal on the fact that I'll never ever be that person. :-( Instead, I get to be officially 'middle-aged'. Before this, I could still refer to myself as 'forty-something' and get away with it, but the Big Five Oh puts a stop to all that. End. Finito. Over and done with.
Over the hill. :-(
Actually, although I still hate, loathe and detest the idea, it doesn't cause quite the same emotionally devastating surge of rage and depression it has done for the last few years. I *know* that it's important for my psychological development that I accept and embrace this next step. And hopefully, next year with all its changes will be a part of that process. I'm actually really excited about a possible 'Me Year' and what better year for that than a landmark birthday year?
And in other not-so-wonderful news, M did not get his license. He had a fair shot at it, he passed all the yard tests like parking and three-point-turns etc, and his examiner said his actual driving was absolutely fine, but he failed him because at a traffic circle, he and another car arrived almost simultaneously and although M judged it safe to go, technically he should have waited. It's a bummer. He seems to have bounced back quicker today though, I think I'm the one who is most exhausted now, having encouraged and cajoled and supported him through the last twenty-four hours of fear and dithering. Not to mention sitting in long queues for paperwork and paying all the fees for the second time.
C'est la effing vie.
Saturday, September 15
Silver linings.
After having toyed with the idea for six or seven years, in May 2005 I attended an introductory meeting for nurses interested in emigrating to the US and finally made the decision to give it a go! Got started on the process which was estimated to take between two and two and a half years.
Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork! It seemed to never end. Got a job offer from a hospital in central CA. Medicals, bloodwork, telephone interviews. Lost that job offer when the hospital group changed ownership. But we kept going. Studied for, wrote and passed the NCLEX exam in June 2006. In October 2006, we heard that emigration processing had speeded up and there was a chance that we'd get there sooner, much much sooner. Like within six months - yippee!! More paperwork. Took the IELTS exam for English proficiency. Got a police clearance. More paperwork. Finally, in January 2007, the emigration attorneys filed my I-140 application, the second to last step in the process. When the I-140 is approved, you get a INS priority date, meaning you are in the home stretch - just a consular interview to get through and finally, that Green Card will be yours.
Time passed and we waited. The news was that processing time seemed to have slowed right down again, people were waiting longer now, much much longer. Like EIGHTEEN MONTHS from the issuing of an I-140 to getting a priority date, a wait that used to take max 4- 5 months.
A few days ago, I got an email from my agent, who is wonderful and amazingly committed and supportive.
More importantly, though, with the upcoming move in mind, I recently accepted an offer on my house, made by dear friends who plan to sell their own large home and renovate my smaller home into a comfortable retirement property. The deal isn't done yet--they have to sell before it can go through. But with my son moving out in Jan (he'll probably live with his dad for 2008, which will be great for them and will mean easier access to college for him), I'd planned to rent something really small and easy to maintain for my daughter and myself. Put the money from the house sale into the bank and let the interest fund the rental property. That still seems like a good plan.
But here's the biggie: In many ways, I've felt like I've really wasted time the last year or so. Not doing much writing. Not developing career-wise, just getting by with not very challenging part-time work. Not doing anything constructive at all, really. Just drifting along, gathering dust, getting depressed (and indulging in a lot of comfort eating!) Now I suddenly have a large chunk of time up ahead for which I have no specific plans. A year to a year and a half.. maybe even two, who knows?
I could carry on drifting, waiting, dreaming, eating, reading, blogging etc etc.
OR I could take hold of this time and make it productive.
So I started thinking about all the things I've often thought of doing, if I had the time and money. And I made a list, including the serious and the silly (and I'm very open to more suggestions!):
Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork! It seemed to never end. Got a job offer from a hospital in central CA. Medicals, bloodwork, telephone interviews. Lost that job offer when the hospital group changed ownership. But we kept going. Studied for, wrote and passed the NCLEX exam in June 2006. In October 2006, we heard that emigration processing had speeded up and there was a chance that we'd get there sooner, much much sooner. Like within six months - yippee!! More paperwork. Took the IELTS exam for English proficiency. Got a police clearance. More paperwork. Finally, in January 2007, the emigration attorneys filed my I-140 application, the second to last step in the process. When the I-140 is approved, you get a INS priority date, meaning you are in the home stretch - just a consular interview to get through and finally, that Green Card will be yours.
Time passed and we waited. The news was that processing time seemed to have slowed right down again, people were waiting longer now, much much longer. Like EIGHTEEN MONTHS from the issuing of an I-140 to getting a priority date, a wait that used to take max 4- 5 months.
A few days ago, I got an email from my agent, who is wonderful and amazingly committed and supportive.
Well. That was a blow and no mistake. Part of my need for this to happen relates to the fact that in many ways we are living 'in limbo' - not really wanting to get too deeply into anything here but not able to get involved in anything over there either. My son who is graduating from high school in Dec this year has registered for a one year Foundation course in 2008, with a view to continuing his education when we get to the States. My daughter goes into Grade 10 next year - we'd hoped she'd be able to start senior high in the US not here, as the curricula are very different. I've been marking time with several part-time jobs, gradually distancing myself from friends, not dating and wrestling with existential crises, lol!It is so difficult to judge timing etc for applications right now. We need to find an offer for you as soon as possible and I have someone who might be interested in the Home Health side at the moment and am waiting for their response to your resume’.
My opinion is that you should do what you need to do in order to survive in South Africa for at least another year to 18 months judging from the current INS priority dates.
More importantly, though, with the upcoming move in mind, I recently accepted an offer on my house, made by dear friends who plan to sell their own large home and renovate my smaller home into a comfortable retirement property. The deal isn't done yet--they have to sell before it can go through. But with my son moving out in Jan (he'll probably live with his dad for 2008, which will be great for them and will mean easier access to college for him), I'd planned to rent something really small and easy to maintain for my daughter and myself. Put the money from the house sale into the bank and let the interest fund the rental property. That still seems like a good plan.
But here's the biggie: In many ways, I've felt like I've really wasted time the last year or so. Not doing much writing. Not developing career-wise, just getting by with not very challenging part-time work. Not doing anything constructive at all, really. Just drifting along, gathering dust, getting depressed (and indulging in a lot of comfort eating!) Now I suddenly have a large chunk of time up ahead for which I have no specific plans. A year to a year and a half.. maybe even two, who knows?
I could carry on drifting, waiting, dreaming, eating, reading, blogging etc etc.
OR I could take hold of this time and make it productive.
So I started thinking about all the things I've often thought of doing, if I had the time and money. And I made a list, including the serious and the silly (and I'm very open to more suggestions!):
- Do an MFA in creative writing
- Get a personal trainer and get into shape
- Study primary health care, useful for advanced nursing practice in the US
- Audit courses in a subject that interests me … science, philosophy, literature, cosmology
- Write, produce and direct a short movie
- Study naturopathy or homeopathy
- Plan, train for and do some kind of challenging trip eg the Otter Trail, or cycling from here to Durban (yeah, and get murdered along the way? No thanks! ;-) Maybe somewhere outside SA would work though ....
- Buy a video camera and learn to use it
- Buy a good digital camera and do a digital photography course
- Join an amateur dramatic society and get involved in a few plays
- Do a course in counselling e.g. LifeLine or similar
- Do a basic paramedic course and volunteer part time with CMR
- Do a course in therapeutic
- Learn to speak French
- Learn to play a musical instrument, eg violin, cello
- Learn a new software package, eg InDesign
- Take up bellydancing or paragliding or rockclimbing or microlighting - something that stretches me mentally and physically
Friday, August 31
Such a fool ...
I can't believe I am still such a fool. Even now, after all this time, there is a part of me that still yearns for God, still longs to find him, to experience him as real.
Yesterday, I started a new writing project, the first one in a long, long time. I was excited, gave it my all for almost the whole day, and it felt good. So tonight, after a long day of work, coffee with my dearest friend, take-out for dinner blah blah, I opened up yesterday's document to carry on writing. And I re-read it. And it was all crap. It sucked. All the pleasure and excitement I'd felt yesterday, all the dreaming and scene-planning just fell away in a heart beat. I used to be able to write, now I'm not sure I have a usable talent any more. It all feels wooden, contrived, cliched. And that tipped me into deep sadness and despair. Writing is the only area I have ever felt I had a chance of making good in, of perhaps doing something of worthwhile, lasting value. Now, along with all the other losses that come with middle-age, I'm facing the loss of the only real talent I have ever had.
So I took myself off for a bath, knowing I needed to weep, to somehow release this sadness from my spirit. And as I soaked and cried, I found that my grief extended far beyond the simple fact that maybe I'll never be any good as a writer. Yes, I grieved for that. But in the depths of the despair and pain, I found a deeper grief. It's hard to explain, but comes down to one simple and utterly unanswerable question:
Even if I was a good writer, what would be the point of it, anyway? It seems to me that life is essentially meaningless. What, I ask, is the Meaning of Life?
I'm NOT talking about what gives my life or your life individual meaning, like maybe I write good stories that move people emotionally. I'm talking about meaning on a global scale. On an individual level, I may feel good for a while about my achievement, and my readers may either laugh, or cry, and maybe they'll learn a little more about something. But in the end, life comes down to a seventy-something- year cycle in which we eat, we drink, we reproduce, and eventually, we die. Just like plants, or animals, or algae, or tapeworms. And when we're gone, we may be remembered by a few for a short while, but most of us will be forgotten within a decade or two unless we happen to be Hitler or Churchill or Ghandi or Mandela.
No, my question is what is the point of human beings as a species existing on this planet?
If the only point to our lives is simply to reproduce ourselves so that the species is perpetuated, then I really don't get it. If there is no higher purpose to human life as a whole on this planet, then what is the friggin' point of us existing at all? Some may say that we exist to help and serve others. Fine. So what are all the 'others' doing that is so important then? Why, like us, they're basically just getting through each day, doing what they need to do to stay alive and making sure that they to manage to reproduce themselves, so that they can leave more people behind who then have to do what they need to do to get through life themselves until they die, leaving behind yet more people ...and round and round it goes.
If that's all there is, it seems extremely pointless to me, even for those of us who do manage to have a nice time while we're on the planet.
So as I lay in the bath and wept and contemplated the awful emptiness of the existential abyss, I once again realized that what I wanted above all else--above my need to be able to write properly, above my need to get all my problems solved, above my need to be loved--what I yearned for most deeply of all was, shamefully, still 'God'. Meaning someone or something who exists beyond the limitations of this physical life, to show me that there IS life beyond birth and death, and that that life--whatever form it may take--is meaningful and eternal. I was horrified to discover that even after multiple disappointments, even after countless nights spent weeping and begging God to 'help me' know the reality of himself, even after at last making a start on the deconstruction of the faith that has proved so impossible to sustain over more than 25 years, after all this, I still hope for 'God'.
About a year ago, when talking to one of my dearest friends in all the world, I said to her that even though my faith had taken a huge knock, I wasn't going anywhere. If God wanted to find me, he knew where I was, and if he wanted me, he needed to come get me because I have spent almost all my adult life running after God, and never finding him in a way that allowed me to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is REAL.
And yet, I still cry, yearning and longing for something I'll never have. It's pathetic, really. How the hell do I get past this? Does one ever?
It's very sad.
Yesterday, I started a new writing project, the first one in a long, long time. I was excited, gave it my all for almost the whole day, and it felt good. So tonight, after a long day of work, coffee with my dearest friend, take-out for dinner blah blah, I opened up yesterday's document to carry on writing. And I re-read it. And it was all crap. It sucked. All the pleasure and excitement I'd felt yesterday, all the dreaming and scene-planning just fell away in a heart beat. I used to be able to write, now I'm not sure I have a usable talent any more. It all feels wooden, contrived, cliched. And that tipped me into deep sadness and despair. Writing is the only area I have ever felt I had a chance of making good in, of perhaps doing something of worthwhile, lasting value. Now, along with all the other losses that come with middle-age, I'm facing the loss of the only real talent I have ever had.
So I took myself off for a bath, knowing I needed to weep, to somehow release this sadness from my spirit. And as I soaked and cried, I found that my grief extended far beyond the simple fact that maybe I'll never be any good as a writer. Yes, I grieved for that. But in the depths of the despair and pain, I found a deeper grief. It's hard to explain, but comes down to one simple and utterly unanswerable question:
Even if I was a good writer, what would be the point of it, anyway? It seems to me that life is essentially meaningless. What, I ask, is the Meaning of Life?
I'm NOT talking about what gives my life or your life individual meaning, like maybe I write good stories that move people emotionally. I'm talking about meaning on a global scale. On an individual level, I may feel good for a while about my achievement, and my readers may either laugh, or cry, and maybe they'll learn a little more about something. But in the end, life comes down to a seventy-something- year cycle in which we eat, we drink, we reproduce, and eventually, we die. Just like plants, or animals, or algae, or tapeworms. And when we're gone, we may be remembered by a few for a short while, but most of us will be forgotten within a decade or two unless we happen to be Hitler or Churchill or Ghandi or Mandela.
No, my question is what is the point of human beings as a species existing on this planet?
If the only point to our lives is simply to reproduce ourselves so that the species is perpetuated, then I really don't get it. If there is no higher purpose to human life as a whole on this planet, then what is the friggin' point of us existing at all? Some may say that we exist to help and serve others. Fine. So what are all the 'others' doing that is so important then? Why, like us, they're basically just getting through each day, doing what they need to do to stay alive and making sure that they to manage to reproduce themselves, so that they can leave more people behind who then have to do what they need to do to get through life themselves until they die, leaving behind yet more people ...and round and round it goes.
If that's all there is, it seems extremely pointless to me, even for those of us who do manage to have a nice time while we're on the planet.
So as I lay in the bath and wept and contemplated the awful emptiness of the existential abyss, I once again realized that what I wanted above all else--above my need to be able to write properly, above my need to get all my problems solved, above my need to be loved--what I yearned for most deeply of all was, shamefully, still 'God'. Meaning someone or something who exists beyond the limitations of this physical life, to show me that there IS life beyond birth and death, and that that life--whatever form it may take--is meaningful and eternal. I was horrified to discover that even after multiple disappointments, even after countless nights spent weeping and begging God to 'help me' know the reality of himself, even after at last making a start on the deconstruction of the faith that has proved so impossible to sustain over more than 25 years, after all this, I still hope for 'God'.
About a year ago, when talking to one of my dearest friends in all the world, I said to her that even though my faith had taken a huge knock, I wasn't going anywhere. If God wanted to find me, he knew where I was, and if he wanted me, he needed to come get me because I have spent almost all my adult life running after God, and never finding him in a way that allowed me to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is REAL.
And yet, I still cry, yearning and longing for something I'll never have. It's pathetic, really. How the hell do I get past this? Does one ever?
It's very sad.
Saturday, August 25
Burnout in Progress...
Having just got over my second bout of flu this winter (and I never usually even get sick!) and feeling very flat and wiped out, I was trying to figure out why I was proving so susceptible to passing viruses all of a sudden, and why this bout of illness had also left me all depressed and lethargic too.
So I stopped mentally and looked at what was going on in my life at the moment and that was when the "Aha!" moment happened.
If I step back and look at my life objectively, there is a heck of a lot of stressful change going on right now. And Stress leads to Burnout, which often brings with it a Depressed Immune System. Which explains why I'm getting sick and why I feel like I'm just not coping as efficiently as I usually manage to do.
I did an online stress / burnout questionnaire: The key said:
36 - 50 = Candidate for Burnout
51 - 65 = You are Burning Out
Over 66 = You Are In A Dangerous Place!!
My score is 69.
Guess some emergency stress management is called for! :-) At least I can identify most of the sources of stress, now I just need to figure out how to prioritize and then deal with all of them!
Two weeks holiday sounds like a good start.....
So I stopped mentally and looked at what was going on in my life at the moment and that was when the "Aha!" moment happened.
If I step back and look at my life objectively, there is a heck of a lot of stressful change going on right now. And Stress leads to Burnout, which often brings with it a Depressed Immune System. Which explains why I'm getting sick and why I feel like I'm just not coping as efficiently as I usually manage to do.
I did an online stress / burnout questionnaire: The key said:
36 - 50 = Candidate for Burnout
51 - 65 = You are Burning Out
Over 66 = You Are In A Dangerous Place!!
My score is 69.
Guess some emergency stress management is called for! :-) At least I can identify most of the sources of stress, now I just need to figure out how to prioritize and then deal with all of them!
Two weeks holiday sounds like a good start.....
Tuesday, August 1
Epiphany of sorts ...
Yesterday I had an epiphany concerning an aspect of myself that has long puzzled me. I often experience unexpectedly deep rage reactions to something basically very insignificant – like having to wait three or four months for new movies to be released, or TV shows to be broadcast, or when a smooth, well-groomed woman in a large shiny car cuts in front of me on the road. At these times, when things like this happen, I get so angry, I feel like screaming and crying and climbing the walls with frustration and rage.
On the surface, it seems absurd, doesn’t it?
But, in talking to my daughter yesterday, I wondered out loud what it was all about, and I said, Gee, it feels like a child throwing a temper tantrum because it feels all deprived. And that was it! That is exactly how I was feeling and that is exactly where it was coming from.
I grew up eldest in a family of four kids. Dad worked long hours at a stressful job for less than wonderful pay and Mom was a SAHM. Money was tight, and while we never went without, luxuries were for Christmas and birthdays. My best friend in junior school was the youngest of four in a well-off family, and whenever I came home from visiting her, home seemed most unsatisfactory. Kids are so horribly mercenary, aren’t they? Our family wasn’t perfect, and neither was hers, but they had more money! On top of that, I was a shy, clever, non-sporty child, severely lacking in confidence and very introverted, and I always felt like I never quite fitted in. Like there’d be trials for the netball team. I’d persuade my friend to stay with me after school and try-out; she’d get in, I wouldn’t. Picking sides for games – I’d be amongst the last to be picked. A party was on, and I wasn’t invited.
Very early in life, I learnt to feel envy, and a failure, and what it was like to be not wanted.
In my teens and twenties, relationships were few and far between – mostly never-go-anywhere connections with friends of boyfriends of more popular girls, plus two relationships based solely on lust, accompanied in one instance by emotional abuse, which I, in my ignorance, thought was just ‘how he was’. And because he was also intellectual, physically appealing and liked sleeping with me, I thought I was in love with him.
(Speaking of love, my baby sister fell in love and got married long before I did – they’re about to celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary. They live in a great house, both kids are at varsity, she earned her degree along the way and teaches high school now, and they’re all active in church life. I married later, divorced within ten years, am still alone and have nothing except my house as security for my ‘old age’. My kids, however, are fabulous and I’m doing my best to make sure they don’t inherit an emotional legacy of envy, failure and regret.)
All this helps me to understand why, when something makes me feel like I’m being overlooked, left out or in some way ‘deprived’, I get these insane reactions that are completely over the top… reactions that make me want to scream ‘unfair, unfair’. It’s that damned unhappy little girl still battling with the emotions of yesterday. Shit! How do you get rid of stuff like that?
All this relates to some degree to what my next post is going to be about – a continuation of that Open Letter to God I posted awhile back …
Tbc
Elleann.
On the surface, it seems absurd, doesn’t it?
But, in talking to my daughter yesterday, I wondered out loud what it was all about, and I said, Gee, it feels like a child throwing a temper tantrum because it feels all deprived. And that was it! That is exactly how I was feeling and that is exactly where it was coming from.
I grew up eldest in a family of four kids. Dad worked long hours at a stressful job for less than wonderful pay and Mom was a SAHM. Money was tight, and while we never went without, luxuries were for Christmas and birthdays. My best friend in junior school was the youngest of four in a well-off family, and whenever I came home from visiting her, home seemed most unsatisfactory. Kids are so horribly mercenary, aren’t they? Our family wasn’t perfect, and neither was hers, but they had more money! On top of that, I was a shy, clever, non-sporty child, severely lacking in confidence and very introverted, and I always felt like I never quite fitted in. Like there’d be trials for the netball team. I’d persuade my friend to stay with me after school and try-out; she’d get in, I wouldn’t. Picking sides for games – I’d be amongst the last to be picked. A party was on, and I wasn’t invited.
Very early in life, I learnt to feel envy, and a failure, and what it was like to be not wanted.
In my teens and twenties, relationships were few and far between – mostly never-go-anywhere connections with friends of boyfriends of more popular girls, plus two relationships based solely on lust, accompanied in one instance by emotional abuse, which I, in my ignorance, thought was just ‘how he was’. And because he was also intellectual, physically appealing and liked sleeping with me, I thought I was in love with him.
(Speaking of love, my baby sister fell in love and got married long before I did – they’re about to celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary. They live in a great house, both kids are at varsity, she earned her degree along the way and teaches high school now, and they’re all active in church life. I married later, divorced within ten years, am still alone and have nothing except my house as security for my ‘old age’. My kids, however, are fabulous and I’m doing my best to make sure they don’t inherit an emotional legacy of envy, failure and regret.)
All this helps me to understand why, when something makes me feel like I’m being overlooked, left out or in some way ‘deprived’, I get these insane reactions that are completely over the top… reactions that make me want to scream ‘unfair, unfair’. It’s that damned unhappy little girl still battling with the emotions of yesterday. Shit! How do you get rid of stuff like that?
All this relates to some degree to what my next post is going to be about – a continuation of that Open Letter to God I posted awhile back …
Tbc
Elleann.
Tuesday, July 11
Life changes and choices - Part Two
“More tomorrow” should have read “More Next Month!” Ha!
Back in the mid-1990s, I became aware that more and more companies were recruiting SA nurses for positions in the UK, Saudi, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. Now, in my heart of hearts, I’ve never been ‘Proudly South African’! Yes, this country is beautiful and yes, my family all live here. But still I yearned to move somewhere – anywhere, really – that wasn’t crime-ridden, corrupt, full of white guilt and black anger, where jobs weren’t handed out on the basis of skin color, where my kids would have real opportunities to follow their dreams and live in relative peace and safety.
I wanted out.
But my kids were still young and needed their dad, and he needed them. So I put it to one side, all the time thinking – I could leave anytime, if I really wanted to. Until, in early 2005, I realized that time was ticking by and the possibility for me to emigrate wouldn’t be around forever. I did my research and honed in on a small company that specialized in placing nurses in the US – a girl I knew had made the move through them and she was very happy. I called them, and learned that the US director was in CT – a twice-yearly occurrence. I met with him the next day and within a week, things were underway.
The big plus of going with him was that he recruited for a hospital group that, unlike just about every other agency and group, did not require the prospective nurse-emigrant to be currently fulltime employed as a nurse. My part-time relief work was regarded as sufficient in the light of my CV. In July, I received an excellent job offer. The deal included a generous relocation allowance, plus the hospital would cover all the expenses related to licensing fees, visas, INS services, most of the flight costs etc, for my two kids and I. So I went for the medicals, and started studying for the NCLEX – the US nursing board exam which you have to pass to be licensed as an RN in the States.
Then, at the end of the year, the blow fell. The US hospital underwent an internal reshuffle and recruitment of foreign nurses got axed. I now had no guarantee of work or of financial support for the move. But I couldn’t give up. There had been so many ‘clear signs’ – a dream I’d had, words from a minister I respected, the timing of my meeting with the agency and so on. So I studied like crazy for the next six months and in June 2006, I flew to the UK, took the NCLEX exam in London—and passed it first time. So I am now officially licensed to practice in the USA!
So, now I stand at the door of my future. I’ll be meeting with my US agent in about ten days time and hope to learn from him what the job situation is, how the whole thing could play out. There are so many factors here, though. I’m not a specialist nurse, even though I have previous experience in ICU. So I’d probably need to find a basic med-surg position somewhere. Somewhere, of course, is a whole other story in itself.
But back here at home, my freelance writing and editing career is going from strength to strength. I just landed a contract position with an ad agency to write web copy for a major restaurant group, which has several websites that need weekly updating. Articles, stories, event coverage, educational stuff… interesting work and great experience for me as a freelance. I’m also part of a team pitching on a big tender project, which, if won, could mean several months’ steady work at a really good rate!
However, if current employment as an RN is an issue for a future employer in the US, this may mean I need to go back to nursing here and now, in SA, at miserable rates of pay.
What I’d really like, of course, is to find a job in the US that uses my writing and editing skills against a background of healthcare or nursing, meaning I don’t need to go into hospital work now. Best of both worlds, see?
It’s a dream. A dream I can only leave in God’s hands, cos He’s the one who made me the way I am, gave me the skills, talents, yearnings and desires that I have. So, it’s over to Him.
Elleann.
Back in the mid-1990s, I became aware that more and more companies were recruiting SA nurses for positions in the UK, Saudi, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US. Now, in my heart of hearts, I’ve never been ‘Proudly South African’! Yes, this country is beautiful and yes, my family all live here. But still I yearned to move somewhere – anywhere, really – that wasn’t crime-ridden, corrupt, full of white guilt and black anger, where jobs weren’t handed out on the basis of skin color, where my kids would have real opportunities to follow their dreams and live in relative peace and safety.
I wanted out.
But my kids were still young and needed their dad, and he needed them. So I put it to one side, all the time thinking – I could leave anytime, if I really wanted to. Until, in early 2005, I realized that time was ticking by and the possibility for me to emigrate wouldn’t be around forever. I did my research and honed in on a small company that specialized in placing nurses in the US – a girl I knew had made the move through them and she was very happy. I called them, and learned that the US director was in CT – a twice-yearly occurrence. I met with him the next day and within a week, things were underway.
The big plus of going with him was that he recruited for a hospital group that, unlike just about every other agency and group, did not require the prospective nurse-emigrant to be currently fulltime employed as a nurse. My part-time relief work was regarded as sufficient in the light of my CV. In July, I received an excellent job offer. The deal included a generous relocation allowance, plus the hospital would cover all the expenses related to licensing fees, visas, INS services, most of the flight costs etc, for my two kids and I. So I went for the medicals, and started studying for the NCLEX – the US nursing board exam which you have to pass to be licensed as an RN in the States.
Then, at the end of the year, the blow fell. The US hospital underwent an internal reshuffle and recruitment of foreign nurses got axed. I now had no guarantee of work or of financial support for the move. But I couldn’t give up. There had been so many ‘clear signs’ – a dream I’d had, words from a minister I respected, the timing of my meeting with the agency and so on. So I studied like crazy for the next six months and in June 2006, I flew to the UK, took the NCLEX exam in London—and passed it first time. So I am now officially licensed to practice in the USA!
So, now I stand at the door of my future. I’ll be meeting with my US agent in about ten days time and hope to learn from him what the job situation is, how the whole thing could play out. There are so many factors here, though. I’m not a specialist nurse, even though I have previous experience in ICU. So I’d probably need to find a basic med-surg position somewhere. Somewhere, of course, is a whole other story in itself.
But back here at home, my freelance writing and editing career is going from strength to strength. I just landed a contract position with an ad agency to write web copy for a major restaurant group, which has several websites that need weekly updating. Articles, stories, event coverage, educational stuff… interesting work and great experience for me as a freelance. I’m also part of a team pitching on a big tender project, which, if won, could mean several months’ steady work at a really good rate!
However, if current employment as an RN is an issue for a future employer in the US, this may mean I need to go back to nursing here and now, in SA, at miserable rates of pay.
What I’d really like, of course, is to find a job in the US that uses my writing and editing skills against a background of healthcare or nursing, meaning I don’t need to go into hospital work now. Best of both worlds, see?
It’s a dream. A dream I can only leave in God’s hands, cos He’s the one who made me the way I am, gave me the skills, talents, yearnings and desires that I have. So, it’s over to Him.
Elleann.
Saturday, June 3
Life changes and choices - Part One
One of my all-time favorite sci-fi novels is Robert Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast, published in 1980. (This wonderful book parodies the pulp fiction novels of the 30s, as well as paying homage to the Martian novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs.) In this story however, the biblical “number of the beast” turns out to be, not 666, but 6 to the power of 6 to the power of 6 or 10314424798490535546171949056, which equals the number of parallel universes that Zeb, Deety, Jake and Hilda could have visited if they’d had the time…
Parallel universes fascinate me… all those what-if worlds of the past, present and future – I’ve often wished I had a way of finding out what might-have-been in my life, if only I’d chosen a different path to the one I did…
When I was 17, way back in the Dark Ages, there was no such thing as career guidance. I was the oldest child, first of four, and I hadn’t a clue as to what I wanted to do with my life. I knew I liked literature, writing, film, drama, English – but somehow, choosing a career that started with a university education just never came up for discussion. Maybe my parents couldn’t afford it? Maybe we thought I didn’t have the brains for it? I can’t remember. What I do remember is that in the middle of my matric year, my grandmother got sick. I visited her in the state hospital and I remember light, bright airy wards, where the sun shone in through big windows and the gardens outside were dominated by oak trees, squirrels, lilies and agapanthus. The nurses were sweet-smiling, calm, moving round the wards in their starched white uniforms with starched white caps and shiny laced-up shoes. It felt magical to me.
I applied, got accepted and six months later, started my training at that same hospital. My ‘A’ for English, my love for literature and words, my interest in drama—ended up submerged in the nursing world for the next twenty years. The closest I got to literature was reading books like The Magus (John Fowles), The World according to Garp (John Irving) and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the fabulous and late-lamented Douglas Adams). The closest I got to writing was documenting the bowel actions, aches, pains and pills of my patient’s in the nursing Kardex. The closest I got to drama was seeing Saturday Night Fever and Grease at the flicks!
I’ve worked in nursing almost non-stop since then. Sometimes fulltime, sometimes part time, sometimes day, sometimes night, through singleness and marriage, though my ex-husband’s three years at bible college, through two pregnancies when we subsisted on my income and the good graces of his parents, through the drawn-out months of the divorce, through the two and a half years of my post-divorce health breakdown, through croup and bronchitis, through temper tantrums, childhood depressions and tonsillectomies, through the good and the bad times … I worked.
I have to say, though, that there were times when I really, really liked being a nurse. I like caring for people, relieving pain, advising, helping, counseling, supporting … I liked my years in psychiatry, I liked understanding what makes people tick, I liked learning … but I didn’t like the boring, repetitive nature of most days on the wards. I didn’t like getting up at 5.30 to be at work by 6:45am, I didn’t like leaving my babies with the nanny or the day mother or the crèche.
And during that time, I forgot that I used to like to write. I forgot that I had a vivid imagination. I forgot the joy of the printed word. Movies were for the weekends when the kids went to their dad, books were limited to Danielle Steele . I was in survival mode. Creativity showed up now and then in dreams about starting a business that would earn millions, in dreams of winning the Lotto, in dreams of meeting the real Mr. Right-for-me …
But in 2000, God put me through a bit of spiritual surgery, removing from my heart a dream that I’d clung to for several years. And in the aftermath, as I contemplated the aridity of my life-minus-the-fantasy, I started fiddling around with writing again. Puerile, imperfect scribblings littered my hard drive, words filled my mind, dreams fired up my imagination. I started a writers group, went to a couple of Christian writing conferences in the States (huge, unlooked-for blessings, both!) and moved out of the clinical field into working as a case manager / report writer and editor for a managed healthcare company. Retrenchment followed in early 2004 and I lived on UIF and a small redundancy package for six months before deciding to pursue a freelance writing / editing career.
Two and a half years later, we’re still living from hand to mouth, as I mix freelance work with occasional nursing shifts. Most of the work comes via a friend who runs a very successful graphic design studio, so I write and edit ads, brochures, folder inserts, directories and so on. When the work is there, the pay is great. When there’s no work, I do transcription (long hours, low pay but it’s at home) or nursing (long hours, mediocre pay, away from home). With some serious marketing, (not my strongest point), I reckon I could make a go of this, and still keep on writing fiction on my own time.
BUT … isn’t there always a ‘but’? BUT, there’s another dream in the pipeline. A good dream, a wonderful dream, a life-changing dream. A dream that will upset my current career applecart completely.
More tomorrow …
Parallel universes fascinate me… all those what-if worlds of the past, present and future – I’ve often wished I had a way of finding out what might-have-been in my life, if only I’d chosen a different path to the one I did…
When I was 17, way back in the Dark Ages, there was no such thing as career guidance. I was the oldest child, first of four, and I hadn’t a clue as to what I wanted to do with my life. I knew I liked literature, writing, film, drama, English – but somehow, choosing a career that started with a university education just never came up for discussion. Maybe my parents couldn’t afford it? Maybe we thought I didn’t have the brains for it? I can’t remember. What I do remember is that in the middle of my matric year, my grandmother got sick. I visited her in the state hospital and I remember light, bright airy wards, where the sun shone in through big windows and the gardens outside were dominated by oak trees, squirrels, lilies and agapanthus. The nurses were sweet-smiling, calm, moving round the wards in their starched white uniforms with starched white caps and shiny laced-up shoes. It felt magical to me.
I applied, got accepted and six months later, started my training at that same hospital. My ‘A’ for English, my love for literature and words, my interest in drama—ended up submerged in the nursing world for the next twenty years. The closest I got to literature was reading books like The Magus (John Fowles), The World according to Garp (John Irving) and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the fabulous and late-lamented Douglas Adams). The closest I got to writing was documenting the bowel actions, aches, pains and pills of my patient’s in the nursing Kardex. The closest I got to drama was seeing Saturday Night Fever and Grease at the flicks!
I’ve worked in nursing almost non-stop since then. Sometimes fulltime, sometimes part time, sometimes day, sometimes night, through singleness and marriage, though my ex-husband’s three years at bible college, through two pregnancies when we subsisted on my income and the good graces of his parents, through the drawn-out months of the divorce, through the two and a half years of my post-divorce health breakdown, through croup and bronchitis, through temper tantrums, childhood depressions and tonsillectomies, through the good and the bad times … I worked.
I have to say, though, that there were times when I really, really liked being a nurse. I like caring for people, relieving pain, advising, helping, counseling, supporting … I liked my years in psychiatry, I liked understanding what makes people tick, I liked learning … but I didn’t like the boring, repetitive nature of most days on the wards. I didn’t like getting up at 5.30 to be at work by 6:45am, I didn’t like leaving my babies with the nanny or the day mother or the crèche.
And during that time, I forgot that I used to like to write. I forgot that I had a vivid imagination. I forgot the joy of the printed word. Movies were for the weekends when the kids went to their dad, books were limited to Danielle Steele . I was in survival mode. Creativity showed up now and then in dreams about starting a business that would earn millions, in dreams of winning the Lotto, in dreams of meeting the real Mr. Right-for-me …
But in 2000, God put me through a bit of spiritual surgery, removing from my heart a dream that I’d clung to for several years. And in the aftermath, as I contemplated the aridity of my life-minus-the-fantasy, I started fiddling around with writing again. Puerile, imperfect scribblings littered my hard drive, words filled my mind, dreams fired up my imagination. I started a writers group, went to a couple of Christian writing conferences in the States (huge, unlooked-for blessings, both!) and moved out of the clinical field into working as a case manager / report writer and editor for a managed healthcare company. Retrenchment followed in early 2004 and I lived on UIF and a small redundancy package for six months before deciding to pursue a freelance writing / editing career.
Two and a half years later, we’re still living from hand to mouth, as I mix freelance work with occasional nursing shifts. Most of the work comes via a friend who runs a very successful graphic design studio, so I write and edit ads, brochures, folder inserts, directories and so on. When the work is there, the pay is great. When there’s no work, I do transcription (long hours, low pay but it’s at home) or nursing (long hours, mediocre pay, away from home). With some serious marketing, (not my strongest point), I reckon I could make a go of this, and still keep on writing fiction on my own time.
BUT … isn’t there always a ‘but’? BUT, there’s another dream in the pipeline. A good dream, a wonderful dream, a life-changing dream. A dream that will upset my current career applecart completely.
More tomorrow …
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