New toys ... anticipation and frustration

Over the past few days, I’ve been in touch with some old feelings from childhood - those feelings of anticipation in the lead up to Christmas Day or your birthday - the feeling you have when you know what you’re getting and you can’t wait to play with it.

In this instance, my new ‘toy’ is a Samsung Galaxy tablet. I bought it as a tool for my upcoming trip to Europe, mainly as a means of keeping in touch with family while I’m away, and to back up my holiday photos. However, I’ve been inundated with friends telling me about the wonderful world of apps that will assist me on my trip - maps, tour guides and every wonderful thing you could possibly imagine. 

So I’ve been exploring and loading up the tablet with a lot of wonderful apps - an app to find an ATM, an app to find Wi-fi hotspots, an app to find public toilets, an app to turn my photos into postcards and send them on to family and friends. I can download apps to brush up my French and find my way from one end of the Seine to the other. I’ve even downloaded an app to lead me straight to the closest café. Of course there are also thousands of games, books and movies to download.  

Since buying the tablet, I’ve been on a bus trip to the city - 6 hours each way - and had a chance to give some of the apps a test run. I couldn’t test all of them as many needed an internet connection which I didn’t have way out in the middle of nowhere, but many apps worked without it. 

My favourite game, Freecell, was the most frequently used app on my trip, and I jumped in and out of my library a few times, just browsing the books - a page here and a page there. How wonderful now that I don’t have to worry about which books to take and which to leave behind. How wonderful that I don’t have to consider weight and space. I can actually take an entire library in my handbag. 

Today, the anticipation was high again, as I went into town to pick up another new ‘toy’ for my trip - a good quality ‘point and shoot’ camera. I’ve had fun this afternoon, becoming familiar with the buttons and various functions, and love the quality of the photos it takes, but the anticipation has been replaced with different familiar feelings from childhood… those feelings of frustration when you get the toy you wanted but can’t work out how to use it properly. If only I could get the Wifi thing happening...

Cluedo as a peacemaking tool? Sometimes it just isn't enough.

I have been thinking a lot lately about peacemaking. I think I have been a peacemaker since I was born, with an innate desire to get between warring parties and assist them to find a resolution to their conflict. 

As a child, I remember putting myself between my parents when they were in conflict. Fortunately Mum and Dad had a happy marriage, and conflict was rare, but as any child will tell you, they generally remember any parental conflict clearly. Children have an internal radar, very sensitive to conflict, and, like sponges, they soak up and wear the atmosphere around them. 

My earliest memories of these conflicts date from when I was 5 years old. Although my parents didn’t argue frequently, I learned that these conflicts followed a predictable course. There would be a verbal row, and because Mum didn’t drive, Dad was always the one to storm out in a rage and take the car, driving down to the Murray River where he would park for hours until he was calm enough to come home again.

Sitting at home waiting for Dad to return was agonizing. A few times I wondered if he would come back at all. During these times, Mum often retreated to the bedroom to gather herself, and my siblings and I would keep things to a whisper, if we spoke at all. 

When we heard the sound of the car returning, my siblings scattered to their rooms and stayed out of the way, but I knew that this was my cue, and I’d stay put at the kitchen table … waiting. Mum also heard the car, of course, and came back into the kitchen to busy herself. 

I never intervened during the early heated stage of my parents’ conflict, when words and accusations were flying wildly. My childish interventions took place afterwards when Dad was back home again, during these long silences when the heat had gone out of the argument, and both of my parents were licking their wounds - too proud to be the first one to speak or make the first move to reconcile. 

Dad would come back into the house, sit down at the kitchen table and open the paper. Mum would continue attending to the house. Both were careful to avoid catching the other’s eye. I’d sit and observe them, waiting hopefully for someone to speak first, so that I wouldn’t have to dig deep for the courage I needed to speak up. Both would also completely ignore my presence - until I made my move. 

However, the conversation never started up again by itself. Maybe it would have in time, if I’d left things alone. I’m sure before I was born that they were able to sort things out without any help from me at all.  Anyway, somehow, I would determine the time to act and make my move to restore peace and order. 

What was my childish solution? How did I get myself between my parents and break down the walls of hostility that they didn’t seem to be able to do themselves? I’d get up from my seat at the table, go to my bedroom and return with the Cluedo game. Mum, Dad and I loved this game and we often played it together. The other children were still too young at this stage to enjoy and understand the game. I’d bring out the game, place it on the table and start to set it up.

‘Can we have a game of Cluedo?’ I’d ask innocently. 

Without fail, Dad would fold up his paper, and Mum would turn from the kitchen sink, and both would take their places opposite me at the table. Those of you who know Cluedo will know that it cannot be played effectively with fewer than 3 people.

By the end of the first game, Mum and Dad would be talking again. It worked every time. At the end of the second game, Dad would sometimes get up and put a romantic Engelbert Humperdinck record on. And by the end of the third game, my siblings had returned to the kitchen and were playing happily as if nothing had ever happened. Obviously a lot more went on behind the scenes later in terms of resolving their conflict, but I’d done ‘my bit’ towards restoring my parents’ peace.

Now as an adult many years later, where do I find myself working? I work for an organization that provides mediation for separating couples in conflict over the shared care of their children. I don’t work in the mediator/peacemaker role, but as a group facilitator and educator, teaching the impact of entrenched conflict on children during separation. I have however, been thinking of studying for a mediator’s qualifications in the next year or two, thinking that this might be the next career step for me. 

I love my work with a passion and sometimes wonder if my childhood experiences have anything to do with it. I work with these separated couples, helping them to learn the communication skills they need to have a successful mediation, but as I consider the deep rooted conflict in some of the families I work with, I know that it will take a lot more than a game of Cluedo to resolve things. If only it were that simple.

Reflections and second chances

It’s exactly a year to the day that I drove the 448ks from South Australia’s capital city, Adelaide, to Mt Gambier in the state’s south-east. It has been a return to the town where I completed my last two years of schooling, before leaving home as a 17 year old to make my life in the ‘Big Smoke’. I stayed in the ‘Big Smoke’ for the next 36 years, during which time I became a teacher, married and had three sons, and changed career directions several times, also working as a homeschooling mother, pastor and mental health worker. 

I had my share of ups and downs, including a marriage break-up, which was the beginning of a particularly steep downward spiral in many ways. Without going into all the gory details, I generally describe those years from 1999 as years of loss. I seemed to lose one important thing after another - my marriage, my father, my house, several jobs … just to name a few. 

I also knew a deep depression for the first time in my life - possibly triggered by all these losses, but exacerbated by that time of life more accurately termed the ‘mental-clause’. Three key things kept me going during this time … a strong Christian faith, solid, long-standing friendships and the love of and for my three beautiful sons. 

In 2011, things took an even deeper plunge with the losses continuing. I reluctantly resigned from a full time job, after an unforeseen dispute with my employers, and found I could no longer afford to stay in the rental home I was living in. I had been saving to add to a home deposit, but was suddenly without incoming funds, and found myself living in the back of a shed, (affectionately known as ‘The Dungeon’). It was warm, and snug and I had wonderful landlords, but I was still going backwards. I was in my early 50s by then - alone and with the dream of my own home seeming even further away than ever. 

It was during these sometimes dark years that I began to dust off some personal ambitions and turned to my writing and artistic pursuits in an effort to try to do something that might help to lift me out of my dark hole. I wrote ‘Mine to Avenge’ during this time and produced a wealth of calligraphy. 

I had been living in ‘The Dungeon’ for a few months when I managed to get a half time job in a call centre, with wonderfully supportive people but I wasn’t suited to the fast paced nature of the work and had little background knowledge to do the job well. I dreaded going to work each day, but I threw myself into completing ‘Mine to Avenge’ during my spare time. 

In that same period, the fourteen months between April 2011 and June 2012, I completed 60 job applications, and was interviewed for 54 of them, finishing in the top 3 for every single one, but always being ‘pipped at the post’ by someone else who had that slight edge over me. I also began to worry about ever finding employment again, being already in my early 50s.

Finally I struck gold, or so I thought, with a full time job offer in Mt Gambier. It was a difficult decision to accept it, knowing I would be leaving behind friendships of over 30 years. There were only two people in Mt Gambier I still had contact with from my two years here - my sister and a high school friend. But I grabbed the opportunity with both hands, moved out of ‘The Dungeon’ and drove down here to start my new job - in my little red Toyota Corolla hatch that I had virtually written off in a crash a little less than a week before leaving. I knew I had no time to do anything about trying to fix it before I left, so I took a chance and drove it here uneventfully. I took it to a mechanic the day after arriving to be told it wasn’t roadworthy, so had to buy another car quickly in time to start the new job. 

Anyway, after a bad start at Mt Gambier, I thought things would pick up with the new job, but that also proved to be a mistake. I found I was unable to learn the work fast enough and was floundering. I was seriously doubting my competence by now, and within six weeks found myself on stress leave.

During this time, ‘Mine to Avenge’ was with the publisher. The day it finally arrived, packed neatly in cardboard boxes, I was full of mixed feelings - stranded without a job, and unable to pay the rent (I had committed to a year’s lease) and I was also far away from my closest friends and supports. It was very hard to celebrate the arrival of my books but I had a few new friends and invited them around to lift my spirits and sold my first few books as a published author.

However, I didn’t feel the need to pack up and go back to Adelaide at all. Besides I couldn’t really afford to move back without eating into my precious home deposit savings. Besides, if I was going to be poor and unemployed, it was cheaper to live in the country than the city, but I tried to remain hopeful and began applying for jobs again. 

On the Friday prior to the launch of ‘Mine to Avenge’ last November, I was on the way to the airport to fly back to Adelaide when I received a phone call offering me the position of Parenting After Separation Case Manager. It was a position based here in Mt Gambier, so I could stay and wouldn’t need to pack up to move again. So I attended the book launch, buoyed with hope that maybe this job would be the one. I had been given a chance to try again.

I can say now, having been in my new job for 8 months that of all my paid positions during my working life, this is the position I’m most suited to, and the one I’ve been most passionate about. I absolutely love my job, and love going to work, and never dreamed that such a thing was possible. Also being in a country town, my house deposit was sufficient for me to take the plunge into home ownership, as house prices are much cheaper here. So after a long and difficult road, things have turned a corner. I have a job I love, I’m finally paying off a house of my own, I’m going overseas at the end of the year, and I’m a published author too, with ‘Mine to Avenge’ doing well. However, I’m a realist and know that things can change anytime without warning, so I am prepared for any eventuality. In the meantime I’m thankful that at the moment, life is wonderful. Thanks for sharing some of the journey with me and supporting ‘Mine to Avenge.’