Tree Change

Call it brave, crazy or just plain stupid but after a turbulent couple of years, Chaos, Mayhem, our cat and I moved 1300kms away from our comfort zone. From big city lights...well almost...to cows living next door to us. I love the quiet, but what happens now.

Being a psychotic overachiever I take perceived failure badly. I am able to comfort others and show them the positives from set backs, the only time you fail is when you quit and every other platitude, when I analyse me...lost in a sea of negativity...where the sharks with lasers are hiding! I sit, listening to the quiet, but when life is quiet, the voices that you drown out come in better than Dolby stereo.

For better or worse, I measure myself by the job I have, the difference I make to others and the happiness of Chaos and Mayhem. All of my life I have been something...daughter, girlfriend, wife, mother, professional career woman...then suddenly single, a level of comfort identity stripped away, so I desperately cling to the others. I work longer, harder, busier to drown out the voice of failure. Wife is gone, mother is part time, daughter is remote and all that is left is professional career woman. Crash and burn is coming and I missed the signs to exit.

So we have a tree change, the old identities are coming back like old friends...daughter, mother full time and professional career woman...but the quiet, creeping like a fog over me, putting a layer of dissatisfaction over these external identifiers...but they are familiar, comfortable...the internal identifiers I am not friendly with...they only come out in my dreams, when I have drank too much vodka or when I am quiet. But I think the key to my peace and happiness is becoming acquainted with them, turning them to my dark side and fully embracing who I am without the external identifiers...that is where the true tree change has to take place.