My scare

I had a scare this week. I was out at a fitness class and all of a sudden I had no idea why I was there or what I was meant to be doing.

Hang up a minute let me rewind.

Back in 2013/2014 I suffered from headaches and migraines. They came from no where and in that time I always had a headache it was just the severity that differed. They stopped add sudden as they appeared in early 2015. I had over 12mths of 'normality'. In the last month though things changed.

I have had 2 migraines this month and have struggled to just get through the working day. I have tried though. Even if it meant foregoing a weekend to try and recover. I did it as I hate giving in to the need to sleep my days away. The last migraine didn't fully go away though. It has been lingering around like a bad small since early last week. It was just at a headache level when I decided to go to Konga on Tuesday night.

To say I struggled would be an understatement. I kept stopping. At first I put it down to missing a class last week and didn't think much of it, but before I knew it I was stopping every few minutes trying to work it what I was doing. I felt lost.  I was getting frustrated at the fact that even the simplest of moves I was struggling with. Moves that I have been doing for almost a year. My hands and feet weren't listening to my head. Heck my head wasn't even listening to my body. Nothing wanted to work. I have never passed out before but my mind was so blank it was like I was blacking out while still awake. By the end of the class I was upset and annoyed at myself for my lack of coordination. Walking over to my keys and phone I felt funny though. I had to actually concentrate on walking. Just putting 1 foot in front of the other. It wad then I realised that something was wrong.

My hands and legs felt shaky. I had trouble unlocking my phone. I felt weird and eventually took a seat and called mum. There was no way I was getting in my car feeling like this. Mum being mum came and picked me up and the whole way home I kept thinking "maybe it is just my blood pressure". When I got home I checked and that was fine. I still struggled to explain how I was feeling other that to say I didn't feel right.  I managed a shower and ended up having an early night. In the morning it was like the night before hadn't happened. For that brief moment I wondering if I imagined the night before.

Something told me to drive to the drs and see what he said. His answer was to seems me for a MRI. So I planned that for Thursday morning. Mum said she would drive me. Firstly I will say that a MRI is loud. Like really really loud! Second, if you have a headache before, it isn't going to end well. I ended up back at home with a severe headache and needing to crawl into bed. So I called in sick to work. Not what I planned, but I knew it would be the best thing for new. I slept the day away.

That night mum suggested that I didn't drive while I waited for my results. I agreed with her and she took me to work on Friday. I still had my headache and it quickly became clear that the brain fades were not isolated to Tuesday night. I have lost my words a few times in the last few days and aside from being frustrating it is also embarrassing.

So my weekend is on hold. I am still not driving in the hopes that this headache clears and with it my lost thoughts go too. All my plans are out the door and instead I am trying not to obsess over what might be and just chill out and wait for my results. I am hoping for answers and good news.

I will say though that the last few days scared me. I felt like my body wasn't my own.

Today I am choosing to listen to my body and take it easy. I hope that you listen to yours.

Xoxo

P.S - I released my 4th book yesterday. ☺

Lost and Found

So since before Christmas I have been missing something. I couldn't put my finger on what it was. It wasn't that I wasn't happy, but it was like I wasn't 100% me.

Tonight I worked it out. I was missing Konga..... or The Jungle Body as it is now called. 

The energy was amazing and I feel amazing now. No doubt that I will feel it tomorrow, but for now I feel like I have sweat out all the crap from Christmas and the new year and I have found my mental balance again. Ok so it is only 1 class and it shouldn't make a difference, but I know that it will.

Inside I know that I am doing something for me! 
I am spending an hour loving myself for who I am and not what everyone else things that I should be! 
I know that while I may not change on the outside, I am loving my inside! 
I love how I can laugh uncontrollably and be uncoordinated and NO ONE CARES!
No one is watching me fail, no one is checking out my bum as I squat (this still surprises me given how I joke about it's size) and no one is caring if I do things differently to everyone else.

In an effort to carve out Me Time, this is my hour a week.....well it is actually my 2hrs a week as I attend both classes. 

So to me time! To finding that place where I can just be me. To an amazing instructor who is teaching me to love me, just as I am. Who provides a non confrontational environment to get fit in. Where no one cares what I look like, or if I stink of sweat. To finding new friends and catching up with old ones you haven't seen for a while!

Photo used with permission of Sam - The Jungle body with Sammy

Me and Dating

Now for those who know me well you will know that I keep my private life VERY private. I don't discuss what is going on in it and I certainly don't talk about it openly. So this post is going to be very out of the normal for me, and it is likely to be very honest. It is also likely to hurt for me to write, so bear with me while I put it into words that I can deal with.

I don't date, I don't 'hook up' and I don't do casual sex. Oh and friends with benefits don't exist in my world. In fact when I say I never have....... I mean like NEVER NEVER!

I am 32 (gee I have said that a lot recently, like I am finally accepting that I am no longer 18, or even in my mid 20's) and I have never been on a single date. Before you ask me to clarify, this doesn't include when you are in "love" as a teenager and go to the movies with some guy (who I think now is gay).

I could look at this as tragic, but someone recently told me that it is only tragic if I let it be. So I am not letting this be a sad thing. I am going to say that it means that I have standards and I don't want to settle for anything less.

Ok so it has its positives and negatives, being dateless that is. Some of which are as follows

Positive

• I can just do, I don't have to check that I am free, as there is no one to check with.
• I am free to travel and don't have to take anyone else's thoughts into account.
• If I don't feel up to socialising, I can bum around in my PJs and get lost in a book (and fall in love with a new fictional boyfriend)

Negative

• There is no one to drag to those social events as my plus 1 when needed.
• I have no one to hold me when I am feeling down and tell me that everything will be alright
• I am alone..... like all the time

When I admitted to myself that I was 32 and had never been on a date I wondered how I had made it this far in my life and without going on at least 1 date. Once I started thinking about it though, it became really clear. 

In my late teens, early twenties I didn't like myself (as mentioned in another blog post recently). In fact I would probably go as far as to say that I hated myself. I avoided mirrors as I didn't like what was reflected in them. I have never really been a social person, so this made me retreat even further into myself. I had the mentality that if I didn't like myself that no one would ever like me. When you add in that I don't/can't drink, I have already lost the social lubrication that alcohol brings.

In my mid twenties I started to travel. Interstate at first and then overseas. I met a lot of amazing people who didn't care that I was quiet, who didn't care about my size, they liked me for me. This was really the first time that I started to try and shake off my self hate and move forward with my life. I still didn't care that I was single when my friends started hooking up with guys and settling down in serious relationships.

In my late twenties I was stuck in a rut, still not a majorly social person and still not 100% confident in myself. I was just me. My last year in my twenties I had a party for my birthday, it was the first time I was the centre of attention at a party. It was nice, fun and full of laughs, but it still felt a little overwhelming.

Now I am in my thirties, I have travelled part of the world and I am funny and amazing. I am getting fit and exploring my own boundaries while testing those limits that would be only fair to be deemed self imposed. I am still not overly confident and I have still never been on a date. It isn't because I don't want to, but because I am scared now. I have no idea what I am doing and I have no idea about where to even begin. 

Internet dating sounds good in theory, but I don't possess the confidence to put myself out there. Heck I have been writing since I was a teen and only published my first book this year and that was under a fake name as I was nervous about putting my work out there under my own name.

Blind dates scare me just as much.

So for now I think that I am happy to sit here and be dateless as if it is meant to be, it will be. 

I am learning to be happy one day at a time.

Kids and my life

Wanted

A child

Preferably one that is born by me

If not one that needs my love

I was 12 the first time that I told someone that I was never having kids. My grandfather had just died and in my head I didn't want to subject anyone to the pain I was feeling.

At 18 my mind was still set the same. I hadn't really had a boyfriend at this stage and wasn't loving myself, so I figured that no one ever would love me so kids didn't matter.

At 21 I was still content in my decision not to have kids. The world was a scary place. At this time I will point out that I didn't want to travel the world either.

At 25 despite having my first nephew I still wasn't interested in kids. I had a maternal instinct and loved holding and looking after my nephew, but I was still adamant in my decision not to ever have kids.

At 27 everything changed. Well maybe not everything, but things changed. I started wondering what it would be like if I had a child. Even though I know that I possibly shouldn't (due to health stuff and my own personal concerns), I started wondering if maybe I had been too hasty. I will also add that by this time I had already travelled to Europe once and was loosely planning my next trip.

At 30 I thought that I was too old, still being single and never have been in a relationship, I figured that my chances were slim of ever bringing a child into this world that I carried myself.

I turned 32 in October and while in the back of my head I still think that I am too old and my health still causes me moments of doubt and concern, I can't help but still want to have a baby. To feel them growing inside of me, to experience motherhood in all that it entails, to raise another living soul, to know that when I die I am leaving someone behind that loves me unconditionally. I don't want to be alone when I get older. I have finally gotten to a place where I am mostly happy with my body, even if it isn't what I thought that it would be when I was younger.

I am watching my friends, both younger and older than I am myself having kids, and wish that it was me. I celebrate in their happiness and wallow in my personal jealously at wishing it was me. I love that I can spend time around kids that are not my own and spoil them like they were my own.

So I wonder if I will regret it if I don't have a child, and if I do will I regret that I did? Do I have it in me to change my whole life, finding a new place to live and a way to fall pregnant that doesn't leave me feeling hollow and unloved inside?

The answer is that I don't know, but what I do know is that my ticking biological clock tells me that I need to decide and decide quick, before it really is too late.

I am a bad blogger, but maybe this will help make up for it.

I feel like I am such a bad blogger of late. For that I apologise. I hope that this will explain a few things and make up for it.

The last few months have been busy for me. I started a new job, one that challenges me every day in different ways, I have published 2 of my stories (which for those who know me well, know how hard that was for me to do), I have travelled to another country and I have had fun.

If you had asked me back in March how I felt about my redundancy I would have told you I felt gutted. Now I will tell you that it was a blessing in disguise. It really was a case of one door closing and another opening. I enjoy my job and I feel like I have found another "home."

I have managed to stay committed to Konga with Sammy every week, at least 2 classes where possible. I haven't seen the results myself, but I at least know that I am doing something active and I can say that I am doing more than anyone else who is sitting on their couch. I often get disheartened, but thankfully those that I Konga with help keep me motivated.

In April while I was still job searching I published a book, it was not for the money (because I don't have to coverage to make it big), but it was for me. To prove to myself that I could do it. To be honest I was scared, but I wouldn't change a thing. Last month my book club reviewed my first book Letters to Jenny and for the most of it, they seemed to like it. The constructive feedback was great and inspired me further. A few months later I released another story that was the first in a series of 7, the first one, I put on my blog only last year, but since then have edited and changed a few scenes. Life  and Death was very different to Letters to Jenny, but they are both close to my heart as they are my words on the page. There really is no better buzz than knowing you have taken a step outside of your comfort zone and that people, whether they are people you know, or complete strangers are reading your work. Now I am working on editing both the next story in the Agents of death series as well as what I refer to as my baby, the longest story that I have ever written, Danger Zone.

For my birthday this year I travelled to NZ and it was amazing! I met some amazing people and managed to do a lot of things that previously I would have just gone 'nup not doing that'. Things like zorbing (google it and imagine me laughing hysterically for 2 minutes straight!), ziplining, quad biking, flying in a helicopter and flying in a skywire. When I said that this year was going to be an adventure, I really had no idea what I was getting into, but I have to admit that it has been a massive rush.

I have a sign on my wall in my room that reads 

For me though, the greatest pleasure was doing what I told myself that I couldn't do. I may not have bungy jumped, skydived or did anything overly crazy, but I still managed to push my own personal limits. I won't lie and say that I wasn't shit scared, but it was worth it for the outcome.

I can't say it enough, push your limits, do things that you wouldn't normally do, don't care about what other people think, life for yourself and no one else.