Tandem blogpost: Too Much For You

Today is my 1-year anniversary of living in Australia. I can't quite believe it. It feels like longer and yet also not - so weird. The title for this week's blogpost touched a nerve, and so due to my reflections on being here a year, it has me getting all deep and personal.

I have been having a pretty rough time of late, where it feels like all my best laid plans keep being thwarted and it has brought about a lot of angst and self-doubt. I hate it when things aren't going right, just like everyone does, I'm sure, and my first instinct is to find a solution and apply it with force to make the discomfort go away as quickly as possible. I don't like emotional discomfort, and this year has brought me more than I thought possible. I thought I was done with the really hard, messy stuff; that I'd paid my dues, at least for a good while at any rate. I naively thought I would get married and move to a new place and everything would just fall into place, with a little time and a sprinkling of optimism. That there would be an instant reward for the leap of faith required to move a whole life halfway across the globe. Boy was I wrong.

You see not only did I move to a new place, but initially I came without my daughter, for reasons I don't need to go into here. I spent the year feeling incomplete and stressed and sick with worry, and told myself that if she was here things would be different. I'd be calmer and happier and therefore able to kick ass and do all the awesome stuff I've been dreaming of. But today she's been here a month, and things have been going amazingly with her considering the huge upheaval of it all, and yet I am still stuck. Stucker than a monkey with his fist full of pips inside a small hole at the top of a chained-up pumpkin. The road to this point was one of ridiculous stress and required of me a kind of strength of mind and character that I have never needed til now. You see I'm a relatively easy-going, conflict-avoidant people-pleaser. I don't need to gird my loins for battle often because I am usually running in the other direction before the trumpets have even sounded. Standing in my own power, trusting my instincts and staying true to them despite a lot of vocal opposition drained me, and perhaps I'm just still physically recovering from the biggest battle of my life.

Which brings me to the title: too much for you. I think we all go through life believing that there is a threshold for our tolerance of the ugly stuff in life. That should x happen, we would not be able to continue. I've been there, in fact I was there just over a year ago. I didn't think I could cope without my daughter, but I did. Sure, it was incredibly difficult and not something I'd care to ever repeat, but I did it. I'm still here. It makes me think of an awesome thing Elizabeth Gilbert said on her (inspiring) podcast a while ago that initiated a lightbulb moment for me: that often the thing you fear the most has already happened. Failure? We''re already well aquainted. Loss? Yup. Heartbreak? Affirmative. A crumbling of identity? Yes ma'am! They may wear fancier clothes now, but these challenges are not new to the party.

And so last night, as I was drifting off to sleep and feeling the now familiar sensations of a mild panic attack approaching, I decided to try something new. I said, "I can take it." I repeated it over and over until I started to feel a little better. Maybe the answer lies in reminding ourselves that we are more resilient than we think, that we won't die or melt or shrivel up in the face of big challenges and heartache. We can choose to cower and cry and dwell in self-pity or we can say "I can handle this" and get up again. Maybe that's all that's really required.

I am so grateful for this beautiful city and the opportunity to live here. I've met some wonderful people who have embraced and encouraged me; done some awesome workshops and heard fascinating talks. I've watched numerous inspiring theatre shows and drunk and eaten way too much deliciousness. AND I've got to spend almost every single day of an entire year with my wonderful husband, with our daily long-distance skype chats happily a thing of the past. I'm also grateful that I can give my daughter this opportunity too, to live somewhere else and gain perspective on her life and her home country; to experience another culture and discover herself while she discovers a new city. What a gift to give anyone.

So, as I face another day of putting myself out there, waiting to see what, if anything, comes back to me, I will take a deep breath and repeat these words:

Things will get better. I'm strong and resilient. I can take it. It's not too much for me.

If you enjoyed this post please head on over to Brett's blog and check out his post of the same title. Thank you for reading!