Truth is, I know that being passive-aggressive just makes things worse in the long-run, but sometimes in the short-run it can be so satisfying.
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Truth is, I don’t do illness well. I’m a terrible patient, and even worse nurse (my poor husband ). I hate the whole helpless and icky stuff that happens when you’re sick. And I hate having to go slower and (horror of horrors) ask someone to help me. Then there’s the whole ‘rest and recuperate’ saga which just feels like agony.
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Truth is, I don’t need fixing. That doesn’t mean I do everything well and I never make mistakes. It’s just that I now get that making mistakes doesn’t mean I’m tragically broken.
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Truth is, I get scared when I see my family members or friends facing really hard stuff. A few people I care about are right now working through the death of someone they loved and cancer diagnoses. I'm standing by trying my best to work out how to be useful.
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Truth is, I’m really good at over-doing stuff. Planning endlessly, trying too hard to fix unfixable things, wanting to know beyond certainty that things will be ok.
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Truth is, I’m pretty bad at making decisions. Well technically, the bad bit is that I just don’t make the decision at all. I’m very experienced in the full range of decision avoidance strategies - I go into a mini-panic, flip flop between choices, over-stretch myself to compensate, hope it’ll just goes away and/or that someone else (who’s so annoyed at me taking so long) will make the decision for me.
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Truth is, I’m pretty crap at recognising when I need to stop and take a break. I don’t know I’m near the edge of the cliff until I’ve gone headfirst over it.
With the grief and stress I went through after my first husband died…
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Truth is, my confidence gets knocked as much as the next person and I have my self-doubt days. I said that to someone the other day and she was surprised. Sometimes the confident smile is just pasted on and there’s a whole lot of scrampling going on behind the scenes to hold everything together.
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Truth is, as a recovering serial over-achiever, I thought that being really busy was a badge of honour. I got very sucked in to the ‘busy culture’ of working long hours, getting antsy if I had a few spare minutes and always looking around for what else I could squeeze in my schedule. I saw my value in being someone who always has a plan and rushes around ticking jobs off a list.
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Truth is, I think getting older is pretty cool, and I found a 30 year old who agrees with me. She said she thinks she has become more mature as she has aged. The stuff that used to annoy her just isn't on her radar anymore.
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Truth is, telling the truth can be deceivingly difficult! I’m not one to go around telling big porkies, but sometimes I notice that I haven’t been completely truthful either, mostly to myself.
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Truth is, when I get stuck in something I can't work out, I tend to dwell on it a bit. Or a lot.
I've noticed how some friends do this too. It's like we're looking at this mountain we have to climb and start stressing immediately about how hard it'll be, or we might get lost, then it'll get dark, then we'll fall and get hurt.
After seeing the movie ‘War Horse’ a while ago, (pre-pandemic, when going to the movies definitely didn’t involve social distancing and hand-sanitiser) my friend Angie revealed that she has always wanted to learn to ride a horse. She told me how she loved visiting her grandparents’ farm as a kid, getting up close to their magnificent horses and sitting proudly in the saddle. But that’s where it stopped - Angie’s family didn’t have the money for horses or riding lessons.
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It was a great pleasure to work with Jane Turner and her workshop participants at the State Library of New South Wales about how to deal with your own grief while also sharing it with your family.
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A few months ago I shared my story onstage at the Women Economic Forum in India. Women had travelled from all over the world to be together in this amazing space. We talked about our struggles, triumphs and the days when we just can’t be convinced to get out of bed.
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Five women talking about what grief is really like as a young widow. Thanks to Nicole at the Sydney Morning Herald for including me in this story.
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Check out my TedX talk "It's Time to be Right Here". It starts with a story about when I was volunteer teaching in Cambodia and the school got its very first laptop...
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I was at a forum in my capital city, 1000 kilometres from my home, with property developers, mayors and other politicians. I didn't know anyone else there and sat down to eat my lunch alone.
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