Days end

At the end of the day I am grateful for:

•    a wee furry face who greets me with adoration, hugs and doggy kisses.
•    a place to call my own, at least for a while, as I work out where to from here.
•    for the stars that are so vivid, numerous and bright, away from the harsh lights of suburbia.
•    for the chance to relax and unwind and ponder deep thoughts.

What are you grateful for tonight?

All is quiet

It's been quiet around these here parts.

I've been struggling. A lot.

I've realised it doesn't take much to tip the scales. I guess I've always been a fragile little thing. That may come as a surprise to many of you. I inhabit the outward persona of a fierce warrior Mama, ready to defend her kids, stand up for herself and not take too much bullshit. Truth is, all that's a facade, erected to protect the very insecure mouse - type creature that lives within.

Fact.

There have been some things that have happened lately that have done more than slightly tip the scales. They've kind of up ended them, swung them around a few times and hurled them into the wide, blue beyond. It's taking me a while to set them right again....and I've entertained some dark thoughts.

Some people in my actual life wonder why I expose my vulnerabilities so publicly on a blog. Some of them feel uncomfortable; reading their own parts in my story as I write, feeling exposed, even though I carefully and mindfully make sure I keep their stories out of my writing. Their stories are, after all, their stories and I have no right to write them.

So I don't.

It wasn't until I saw Caroline Bowditch's show Falling in love with Frida a couple of weeks ago that I saw the power of owning and telling one's own story in whatever way one chose to tell it. There, on stage and in front of an audience, my friend Caroline told her story in as much detail as she wanted. There were things that I'd heard whispers of...but there she was, telling the stories in all their glorious truths, in her own words, in her own way.

And I felt empowered to do the same.

Tell your story Leisa. Tell your story and own it. For too long others have done it for you and mashed it up to a pulpy mess.

Tell it so that you have power in the words.

As an avid reader of blogs and other people's stories I am constantly in awe of people who tell their warts and all tales and own them. I read myself in their words and I realise that I am not alone and adrift in this sea that sometimes threatens to take me away. There are others who wrestle with the same demons in the same darkness...and in telling their stories, in exposing themselves so openly, so honestly, they show me that no matter how dark it gets, I'm not alone and that things will eventually be ok.

So that's why I write like this. Because you might be reading this and you might just want to read those five most hopeful words:

"YOU'RE GOING TO BE OK!"

You might be a person with dwarfism and you might need to read the story of another short statured person who, even though she is loved and healthy and happy-ish and has accepted herself and her condition, would take that magic cure in a heartbeat if she could.

Because I would.

And that's OK!  That's my story. It's ok to feel this. It's not ok to deny it and feel bad for feeling it. I haven't "let the side down".  It's my truth.

My truth today is that I'm struggling.  I'm sad and grieving intensely for a life I thought I had and a life I always wanted ever since I was a little girl. Sometimes there is no happily ever after,  no matter how much you might want it and work for it. Sometimes you have to know when to stop working and just let it go.

The fight has gone out in this petite warrior and she now just has to feel all the feels and work out where to go from here.

Our spot

Balnarring Beach

Maya and I love this little spot, so much so that we think it's Paradise. It is Maya's most favorite spot in the whole world - although sometimes I get the impression with Maya that her favorite spot is where ever I am. Oh the love of a dog folks! It is just so pure and simple. You are just their whole world, their everything.

Maya knows when we are going to the beach. She senses it even before we leave the house sometimes. I don't do anything to indicate to her that we are going. I don't pack a towel. In fact, when we are going for a beach walk all I take is her lead and the car keys. That's it.

But she knows.

I wind down the window for her and she stands up and sticks her head out, ears streaming behind her, big smile on her face. We turn down the road leading to the beach and she starts to whimper excitedly. She smells the sea air and she's just one little bundle of pure joy.

At low tide we love peering into the rock pools that are left behind. 

On the beach she becomes happy and energetic. Lately she's been giving out short, excited yaps and bouncing about.

"You want to run, don't you girl?"

So we run a little way...and for a short while she seems like that energised puppy all over again. Her heart murmur that normally makes her heart thunder in her chest seems to have given some reprieve and she is able to run with me. We don't run far - not even 100 metres - but for that short time it is just Maya and me again, running for the sheer enjoyment of it.

She even loves paddling through the water with me - especially in the water of the rock pools. She won't go in for a swim, but loves a paddle.

I decided last Friday that every Friday for the next 12 months Maya and I will go to the beach - rain, hail, storm or shine. Maybe I'll take the camera with me. Maybe I won't. When we are on the beach I am enjoying being totally present - no phone, no camera, no Facebook, no Instagram. Just Maya and me, enjoying the sun, the sea, the smell of the salty air, the sound of the sea birds and the gentle waves rolling in.

I can't believe I finally live where I've always wanted to be - in a small country town near the sea.

Up high

I love being up high.

I remember when I was a little girl I used to love being up in my Daddy's arms. I would look around and down to the ground and think there was no higher place to be. The world looked entirely new and different.

I wondered what it was like being up that high all the time.

Even now when I'm doing things up on a ladder I like to just pause, look and wonder at that different world.  What would it be like having that view as your normal every day?

One day, I'd like to climb Everest. Can't get much taller than that.

Up in the highest seats in the dance studio.

Acorns

I've always loved acorns.

There's so much potential wrapped up in an acorn. Just imagine! Those enormous, shady trees coming from this sweet little parcel. 

Amazing!

They always remind me of little faces with cosy hats. Sometimes I find my hands longing for a black marker when I pick one up. I want to draw a little face on it...and find a way of fashioning a little body somehow. 

When I was a little girl I loved picking up the little acorn "caps". I would think they were bowls for fairies. I'd fill them with flower petals and leave them under trees, imagining that the petals were sweet honeycomb that the fairies could eat. In my mind I could see fairies and imaginary woodland creatures wherever I went. I believed that the fairylands that I read about in my Enid Blyton books truly existed. 

Secretly......I still do.

But acorns hold a very special meaning for me. 

After my son was born, his Granddad (my late father-in-law) was holding him. He was holding his sweet little starfish shaped trident hands - which is a feature of achondroplasia. As he was holding my son and looking at his hands, my father-in-law said to him in the beautiful, quiet way that was just so him......

"He's a little acorn.
Remember what little acorns grow up to be Tim.
They grow up to be mighty oak trees."

It was one of the most beautiful moments I've ever witnessed. 

Skinny shaming

You know what I'm getting tired of seeing?

This:

This:

And this:

Seems "skinny shaming" is a thing. For some reason I'm really noticing it at the moment. I see stuff like this in my Facebook news feed and quite frankly it's annoying...and hurtful. In my mind,  skinny shaming is just as hurtful as teasing someone for being overweight.

I guess you could say that I'm skinny. I find it hard having an objective viewpoint on this due to the fact that achondroplasia makes it look as though I have "junk in my trunk" no matter what I do, but I do know that I am lean because I work out regularly and eat well. I work hard at maintaining this level of fitness. I'm not going to deny that. It takes commitment and work. I get up at the crack of dawn two mornings a week to go swimming, I lace up my running shoes a minimum of twice a week to go running. I push my body to test it's limits, but I do it because I enjoy being healthy. My drug of choice is that naturally high feeling after I've completed a good run, a decent number of laps in the pool or a session of yoga. I love the feeling of vitality and energy coursing through my body. It's worth it! 

The only down side to being lean is that I've lost curves and I'm flat chested - but I'm OK with that. I've learned to be happy in my own skin. 

Looking back, I've never had a problem with my weight and, apart from pregnancy, I've always been on the leaner side. Good genes maybe? I remember my mother saying when I was a young teen that if I was average sized I would possibly have the same body type as one of my slender sisters. At the time I heard that with the ears of someone who was struggling with an eating disorder and my mind turned it around to mean, "You're fat". She didn't mean it that way at all, but my illogical mind took it that way.

Silly goose.

Good metabolism? Possibly. I've always been interested in and committed to being as physically healthy as I can possibly be, maybe that's it? I'm committed to being active. I walk a lot. I choose the stairs at train stations and in shopping centres rather than escalators. I like to move. I don't like eating junk or drinking soft drinks (soda). It's both a preference and a choice. Maybe my metabolism has adjusted itself according to these choices. 

I have been called a bitch because I am lean. That was kind of hurtful. I didn't really know what to do with that comment when it happened. Being a bitch for being lean and healthy? I didn't get it at the time...I still don't get it. Why?  If you're not happy with your own body and wish it were different, then the choice is yours. DO something about it, but don't call me (or anyone else) a bitch in the interim. Please. 

I wouldn't dream of insulting someone because of the body shape they inhabit - whatever shape it is. I feel concern for people who are unhealthy but to make personal remarks or insults is just not on! That WOULD make me a bitch. 

For this year

I know, I know....2016 started weeks ago and I haven't blogged yet. Normally I would have written about my theme of the year by now....but I've been thinking about a lot of things, and when I think about a lot of things I normally retreat into my cave and just, well, think. Don't worry...my cave is a nice little cave, filled with wool and crochet hooks, books, fabrics, music and movies, but it's the place I retreat to when I've got a lot on my mind and I don't come out until I have to....or feel like it.

Over the past few years I have had a theme word for the year. As I was meditating on a word for 2016 this verse kept coming to me. It wouldn't leave me alone....so in the end I decided that this entire verse would be my theme for the year.

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. 

(Philippians 4:8)

I've been intentionally keeping away from  watching, reading and listening to the news for quite a while now. I can't handle the doom and gloom, the violence and hatred filling my screens. It brings me down, makes me depressed and affects my outlook on life. I start wondering if the world really is a horrible place. I start making generalized statements, such as "People are horrible," and therefore it starts affecting the way I relate to the world around me.

I think it was Mister Rogers who said that when he was a child and saw terrible things happen on the screens, his mother would exhort him to "look for the helpers". Helpers were always there, making bad times better. It helped him form a better outlook on life.

With all the therapy I have had over the past twelve months where I have unlocked some of the past and realised the root causes of why I do what I do, why I believe what I believe and why I think the way I think, I realised it could have been very easy to just dig a hole and spend a lot of time blaming and wallowing and being angry. But with this verse going over and over in my head like a soothing mantra I have been able to turn a whole pile of things around and learn valuable and insightful lessons from everything. The greatest of these is that people did the best they could with the tools they had and with the very best of intentions.

Sometimes people react out of their own stuff. Sometimes someone says or does something that touches sensitive trigger points in my heart and mind. It's up to me how I look at that and respond. Do I go the "easy" way and simply react, blowing up and causing more damage - both to myself and the person who touched a trigger point? Or do I stop, breathe, think and search within to work out what is really the issue? Did that person really mean it the way I took it or have I just reacted out of some unresolved issue?

All of us, each and every one, are fighting unseen battles. I think the kindest thing we can do for ourselves and our fellow human being is to remember that and grant each other some grace.