"Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have - life itself."
Walter Anderson

I continue to have bad moments, periods of prolonged sadness and depression about my situation. I think I'm not only driving myself insane but Ashley as well.

I want badly to be positive and think about the good things and not the bad but it is very hard.

I'm in just enough pain to keep me from being able to do anything on my own except going to the loo and heating a cup of soup or getting myself a drink.

I've never been a big TV watcher, even on my days off I'd spend half the day walking around rundle mall shopping or going for a bike ride. I have never watched so much TV in all my life, and I feel lazy and sad and lonely. I've yet to feel even happy about the break from work, to tell you the truth I'd much rather be working than lying here on this couch worrying about how long it will take for my wounds to heal.

I choose that quote at the top of the entry because I want to feel that way. I don't want to be so focused on the negative, but I'm not there yet.

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand." Henri Nouwen


I mean no offense to anyone with this statement because I know not everyone has a belief in a higher power, but I want to believe more than anything that God will give me nothing that he doesn't believe that I can handle.

On Saturday the 20th of June I was walking, I was not 15 minutes from my destination and listening to my ipod. It was around 6:45am and the stars were still out. I must have been thinking about the music or where I was going. I was in a pleasant mood, looking forward to my weekend. I had to stop at Wakefield street to wait for the pedestrian green light to let me cross, and shortly after starting to cross the street a car turned onto the street, not looking, and hit me.

The only thing I remember is seeing a car, the image of the car just flashes and next I was being asked questions by the emergency staff of the hospital. I don't really even remember much about the ride to the hospital, it is really all a blur.

Luckily I'm at home now, I only had to spend 3 days in hospital, although thinking back I could have probably used a few more days there.

Turns out the guy who hit me is actually a doctor. He wasn't speeding or drinking and will probably plead guilty to failing to give way to a pedestrian. The penalties he face seem like nothing compared to the agony I am in at the moment.

Right now I'm on the couch at Ashley's house watching tv. The pain medicine that I took this morning has completely worn off and I can feel pain from numerous parts of my body.

I don't like that I have to take pain medicine but even on the stuff I feel excruciating pain. The injuries that I have are not fatal and I will heal but they are affecting me in dangerous ways.

Mostly I am sad and worried. I had a minor concussion which resulted in bleeding on my brain. From what the doctors have told me and what I have experienced this week, this is a pretty serious thing. I've had difficulty concentrating and also experience short term memory loss.. It is most noticeable when I forget something that happened on the beginning of a tv show when it is near the end or when I am trying to recall conversations.

I also have an increased irritability that has worried me. I don't really know to what extent that will last, they say it may be permanent.

I don't have much choice in this, I can't put too much stress on myself because when I have done too much I end up experiencing more pain.

I find it hard to sleep a whole night through because the injuries to my body force me to lie on my back which is something I never do when sleeping. But the moment I try to turn the pain is excruciating. Although I have no broken bones my muscles have been severely bruised and I may have some torn ligaments in both my knees.

I don't feel the same inside my head and that is the one thing that is the most difficult to explain to someone. Not everyone knows what it feels like to have been hit by a car and the pain of that, but pain is something most people understand. I worry that I may never be the same again inside and that scares me more than the pain.

I haven't got all the answers but the only way I know to get through this is to take it day by day. I don't know what I would do without Ashley because he has taken such good care of me from the moment the hospital called him. I can't even stay at my flat because I can't walk up and down the stairs.

I've been told it will take 4 to 6 weeks for my brain to recover alone, no one has even attempted to tell me about the rest of my body. I obviously hate not knowing but what I do know is I could have died, I could have been in a full body cast right now and I've not had to endure that.

And maybe, just maybe I can deal with this, because I'm still here.

If you go back and you read any random page of my years of archives you will see that my life has been a constant struggle. It seems to me that no matter what size or weight I was I was never happy with it. Always wanting to lose 5 more kilos, fit into that crazy dress. I starved myself for at least 2 weeks to get into that thing. I was obsessed with weight loss. There is no doubt about it.

Yes I had been overweight for sometime and had been suffering a lot from it when the whole crazy process started. The weight loss itself was a good thing until it became an obsession. I started reading other people's weight loss blogs and stopped my normal blogging and started this one, don't you love the title!?

I've had an online diary since early 2000, and look at this wow. Writing has always been an outlet for me and publishing my writing, even online was cathartic and therapeutic. I didn't always write about weight loss, I wrote of course about everything and everyone. Some people didn't like it when they found it. I never meant for them to find it, but we always get found out.

You may be wondering about now, where is she going with this? I don't know. All I know is I have something to say and found myself alone on a Saturday morning with it pouring down rain outside (something it never does here) and not a lot to do, well except clean my filthy room and take a shower. I can put that off for a few more hours.

Why did I abandon the blog? Some people out there no doubt still troll by randomly or hope in vain to see me pop up on their daily RSS feeders. I've gotten some comments wondering if I'm coming back. I've always gathered a following. If I weren’t me, I would read my blog. Now that sounds incredibly pompous. It is not how I mean it to sound, but it is true. I like it when people bleed onto a page.

I had for a while convinced my significant other to write a diary as well, he imitated me a little and wrote about his feelings and it was gorgeous. He stopped writing it when one of his brothers read it and went to his parents with it. He posts things now, but none of it is personal or raw. I'm a fan of raw.

So where was I? The abandoning of the blog, yes. I had a bit of a breakdown. I didn't end up in a mental hospital but sometimes I wonder if I should have. I left the home I lived in the entire time I have been in Australia and although I don't need to go into all the reasons, it was all I could do at the time. I ended up with my best friend, paying her to live in her small guestroom. It worked because we also worked together and she was having some personal hell problems too. They say misery loves company and it is a wise saying indeed.

By the time I moved in with her I had already gained a lot of weight. It could have been that the emotional torment (self-inflicted for the most part) I was in had me drinking a lot, and eating whatever I wanted. I remember many nights that I had alone just going home and drinking a bottle of red wine and eating potato chips for dinner while I cried about how much I was hurting.

My friend also drank a lot so I didn't have to hide it from her. She also let me cry but mostly, she just didn't judge me for what I was doing. What I didn't know at the time was that a doctor had misdiagnosed my hair loss as stress. This is important because after a while I stopped eating potato chips for dinner, although I still drank quite a bit, I hardly ate at all. And it wasn't until 3 months ago that a doctor finally diagnosed my thyroid deficiency. All those potato chips had no where else to go but my hips, thighs, bum and arms.

After a few months I had a mini wake up and a fight with my friend that pushed me to find somewhere else to live. I re-evaluated the drinking, although I still drank a lot the amount was reduced significantly and I started exercising. I only lost a little weight. I even rejoined weight watchers and was cycling. The scale refused to budge so I decided to quit weight watchers and just keep doing my best.

I'm on medication for my thyroid and after only 3 months the blood report was that the hormone levels are now normal.

"How long until I feel normal, until I can lose weight and it isn't so bad?"

The doctor says, "I recommend a dietitian for weight loss, but hang in there, it will get better."

It is laughable. Me go to a dietitian? I've done it all, read it all, and seriously DONE it all. I know what to eat, when, how much and where to lose weight. What I haven't figured out is how to quell the emotional hunger. Trust me when I say there is nothing a dietitian can tell me about dieting that I don't already know. I've read everything you can imagine on the subject and applied the methods. I was a walking science project. I know it all.

I've developed a real love of cycling. I just wish I could do it more. It is dawning on winter and dark most nights by the time I get home. It isn't that I don't want to exercise, because I do. What I want is an easy fix. I find life so fucking hard in every area. I don't want to be an obsessive woman again about weight loss. It was seriously not fun and when I was so thin I didn't even enjoy it! The week that picture was taken we were in Melbourne and I remember being obsessed the whole week thinking how fat I was. It is ridiculous. If I'm going to obsess about being fat, I may as well be fat.

Know what I mean?

So tonight, going out with my flatmate and her friends to celebrate her 21st. Last night she showed me the dress she plans on wearing. I think it may fit on my thigh. And I started getting all worried about what I am going to wear. I know I'm not the only one that does this, but I wish just once I could love myself the way I am.

To feel beautiful just as I am, not to judge myself for anything, to truly be happy inside myself: this is my goal. How do I plan to achieve this? I don't know. I have armed myself with a few books; The Mastery of Love is one of them. It is seriously an incredible book and I love the beliefs and ideas of the Toltec. I was so astonished to find that I've actually climbed to the top of the largest pyramid at Teotihuacan, which is just outside of Mexico City. It is known as the place where "man becomes God."

It is achievable, self-love. I plan to master it, but I also plan to keep writing now that I've dusted off the cobwebs. And with that I think I'll end this entry.

I'm on holidays in the US. I am mainly visiting family and such. I was so excited because I have not been here in 2 years and I was really looking forward to this trip.

Today I am feeling homesick for Australia.

This is one of those times when I realise that I am more at home in Adelaide than I am in the US. I don't really belong here anymore and it is not a bad thing.

I am not exactly sure what all of this means; but Australia, you're not finished with me yet, and I'm not finished with you.

I share this because it is relevant:

I was telling Amelie all about you. if only you could have heard me! I told her how intelligent you are, how we always don't agree but you always teach me things, how I think with my emotions and you think with your head. How much our differences make us work, how I broke it and how I want to fix it, how because you don't suffer fools I know I am intelligent.

from Chapter 14, of Women Who Run With The Wolves, La Selva Subterranea: Initiation of the Underground Forest

"during the darkest times of the feminine unconscious, the uterine unconscious, Nature, feeds a woman's soul. Women describe that in the midst of their descent they are in the darkest dark and are touched by the brush of a wing tip and feel lightened. They feel an inner nourishing taking place, a spring of blessed water bursting forth over parched ground. . . from where they do not know. The spring does not solve suffering, but rather nourishes when nothing else is forthcoming. It is a manna in the desert. It is water from stones. It is food out of thin air. It quells the hunger so we can go on. And that is the whole point. . . to go on. To go on toward our knowing destiny"

I know I've posted this before. But I feel it is vital to use again.

I woke up at 3am unable to go back to sleep.

The thing is, I've got so many decisions to make about my future. I'm at a real cross in the road so to speak.

I don't really know where to go, or what is best. I'm really trying to find wisdom to tell me the right way.

I'm not a perfect person. I've made a lot of mistakes. But sometimes mistakes are meant to be forgiven. The thing is, there is no one that is perfect out there. We all have warts, just a different variety.

I just want forgiveness. I want to be free of guilt and free of the carnage. I don't know if this person can do that.


Quote above from Clarissa Pinkola Estes, an amazing woman and author.

Let me introduce you to our first candidate for Queen B's room:

Miss S

First thing I ask is if she will be at work during the day, what does she do? etc. She says she is a student and has a job but she only works one day a week on Thursdays.

I think to myself: How does one live on that kind of income? I want to sign up! Damnit to hell I'm not Australian. Your government f-cking loves you.

Then she actually turns it around on me and asks me what I do! hehe. When I told her I leave almost every morning at 6am her jaw dropped to the ground. She said, "ohmygod!"

So then I ask her, "Do you have any references?"

Miss S nervously says, "Um no you see I haven't been on any leases because I lived in the UK for two years and when I came back home (I assume here) I didn't like it here so I moved to Sydney, but I'm back here now but staying with my sister.(stammering) I mean I could ask her flatmate (some guy's name) to give me a reference but I BETTER ask him first before I give you his number... I can't use my sister..." (yeah better ask him! haha)

I say, "Oh ok, I would like to speak to someone who can tell me if you pay your bills on time." (which was pointless because she obviously hasn't been paying any..)

Then after she went upstairs with Queen B (she is so loud I could hear her) to see his room Han and I discussed her. I obviously didn't like her. Her voice grated on my nerves too. But she was pretty in a great body, boring face kind of way. Han liked her body I could tell! And she plays soccer.

So we talk about the other bills, the utilities. I ask her if she thinks she can afford it. She didnt really answer. Just kept saying oh ok, so like $100 every 3 months for both combined?

I asked her how much stuff she has. She said she lives out of her car basically. So she brings nothing to the table! No tv! ?? Not even charisma!

I ask if there is anything she wants to ask us.

She says, "oh yeah so since you have the internet, you do have a home PHONE right, because my boyfriend lives in the UK and I need to be able to receive calls."

And with that, she was done.

But as she left she said, "When do you think you will know?" um desperate?

I am so not going to live with someone who is a 2 week flight risk to Sydney or the UK or to wherever, whomever takes her fancy. And I'm not about to get a huge phone bill and have her leave me with it.

Bring on the FRENCH GIRL!!!!!

who I will hopefully meet tonight.

I just remembered something, when L interviewed me for my room she told me it was mine on the spot. heh.

I dont know what to say, So I am going to share this song. I saw the music video this morning and my heart almost broke listening to the words.



Born to Try, By Delta Goodrim

Doin everything that I believe in
Goin by the rules that I've been taught
More understanding of what's around me
And protected from the walls of love


And all that you see is me
And all I truly believe


That I was born to try
I've learned to love
Be understanding
And believe in life
But you've got to make choices
Be wrong or right
Sometimes you've gotta sacrifice the things you like


But I was born to try


No point in talking what you should have been
And regretting all the things that went on
Life's full of mistakes, destinies and fate
Remove the clouds and look at the bigger picture


And all that you see is me
And all I truly believe


That I was born to try
I've learned to love
Be understanding
And believe in life
But you've gotta make choices
Be wrong or right
Sometimes you've gotta sacrifice the things you like


But I was born to try


And all that you see is me
And I truly believe
And all that you see is me
And all I truly believe


That I was born to try


I've learned to love
Be understanding
And believe in life
But you've gotta make choices
Be wrong or right
Sometimes you've gotta sacrifice the things you like


But I was born to try


Now you have
But you've gotta make choices
Be wrong or right
Sometimes you've gotta sacrifice the things you like


But I was born to try