2008: THE YEAR OF ALEX

Yesterday, walking through the 6pm rush-home crowd with their cloudy faces and downcast eyes, sidling along in their grey suits, scuffing along the grey pavements, all under grey skies ... I looked ahead and there was someone someone someone from the past. Alex. He looked tall and bigger and really more like the Man that his body always promised he would be. And what did I do? I turned around and ran into a convenience store until I was sure he had passed and then I came back out again.

One word: Chickenshit.

Or just: Shit.

And it just amazed me that when I saw him I felt so shit inside, so crap about myself, so ugly, so mean, that I couldn't bear to face him, that if he saw me he would know how awful I am and feel nothing at all.

And I know that sounds extreme, but there is some truth there and so ... I have decided, this year, 2008, is THE YEAR OF ALEX. By the end of 2008, if I am walking down some street some afternoon some day and should someone like Alex pass me again, I want to be so emotionally and physically and spiritually well (ie not perfect, not ultimate ricebag, but just well ricebag), that some kind of radiance is just is flowing from my eyes and my neck and my breast bone and my calves and my hips and my hands and just from right inside of me and reflecting off of every dull surface. And the only thing that that radiance says is that I know who I am and I love that person.

So that a Man like Alex would look at this ricebag marching to her own beat and have only one word: Damn!!

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Felis Navidad. Hepi Niu Yia. Etc Etc.

Wish I could say it has been a ball of laughs since everything started spiralling and unravelling since I got to Sydney, but it hasn't it. And, to a great degree, it's been my fault that I let my work take advantage of me and consume me and my family hijack my emotions and my time and my frenetic life exhaust me and spin me. The result is that in the new year, upon some reflection and introspection, I have realised that I have been running around in circles in order to avoid some of the big questions ...

Like Who Am I? Who Do I Want To Become? How Do I Get Better?

How Do I Not Become A Bitch.

How Do I Not Become A Lonely Old Bitch.

Aaaaaaah.

So I need to sit down and clear through the white noise and simplify simplify.

And I am starting to do that by focusing. Focusing. Making a simple plan for the year, the year 2008 and focusing on a few simple goals. Mind. Body. Spirit.

And while I am sorting through some of it at the moment, I am going to start doing a few simple things as I tread water:

• smile more and talk less
• listen more and talk less
• sleep more and sleepless less
• read more and think less
• rest more and worry less
• walk more and bus less
• like myself more and hate myself less
• write more and publish less

THE YEAR OF ALEX isn't about bagging Alex.

THE YEAR OF ALEX is about my self-esteem and my phyiscal presence and my emotional strength and my spiritual power. It's about never running into a convenience store again to avoid the past and strangle the future.