The year that was

As the year draws to an end and the Christmas tree's go up, "what are you doing this weekend" is replaced with "what are you doing for new years eve" and I cannot help but reflect. This year my life has completely changed in pretty much every way.
It's funny because I didn't really realise that it is happening, it's not like the year you graduate school or the year you turn 21, it was more subtle, unmarked with celebration or ritual, but just as dramatic when you look back.

In some ways this time of year will always be the same. This time last year I was spending time with family, putting up the tree, going to see Christmas lights, buying present for my friends and a boy, working hard in retail and relaxing before the start up of uni again. In these ways my life is pretty much exactly the same, but all the details are different.

I am no longer speaking to, let alone buying presents for, the people that I was last year.

The friends I had then who I would have very easily put money on being in my life forever no longer want anything to do with me, after many tears and failed attempts to bridge a gap I have let them go, realising that some things you just can't fix. I still don't know what really happened or why I was exiled from their friendship but I wish them all the best a pray that life is kind to them. As hard as the loss was I have looked around and not only found out that I had so many friends around me already who I had neglected but also I made room for new friends, new experiences, letting people in that I wouldn't have in the little bubble I had created for myself. I have re-evoked friendships that I had let slip by the way side and I have made some of the best friends in the past year. A year ago I would have told you I would not be able to go on without the friends I had but after mourning the loss and picking myself back up I have realised that not only can I go on but I think I am happier, more myself and more free of judgment then I have felt in a long time.

The boy that I was buying presents for is no longer in my life, which is something I never thought I would have had the guts to do, replaced... no upgraded by a boy who makes me feel like the only girl in the room. He puts up with my tantrums, dries my tears when crying over friends, tells me I'm beautiful first thing in the morning and goes to battle to defend me and try to fix things for me. I have stopped making plans for me and started making plans for us, the idea of forever with just one person doesn't scare me anymore and in so many more ways than he knows he has loved me back to emotional health from the wreck I was after my last relationship. He is nothing like I thought I would ever go for and yet he is everything that I needed. If you had of told me this time last year that I would meet a boy who would teach me to trust again, remind me that I am beautiful and call me on my shit whilst still having the most amazing blue eyes I have ever seen I would have laughed at you, but somehow it has happened and I don't take a minute of it for granted.

I still work in retail but I now work in a job that I love with people that I adore and a discount on shoes that has created somewhat of a monster. I realise how many people hate their job and so I count myself lucky that I don't dread my long hours of getting paid to hang out with some of my best friends and try on pretty things. Likewise I am still waiting for uni to start but a different major in something I never thought I would be smart enough to get into, psychology, whilst still keeping my passion as a second major in english and creative writing. I am so excited at the prospect of spending my life helping people make their lives better and coming along side people who may have been on a similar journey to me.

Finally in November of this year I did something I have wanted to do for so many years; I visited an orphanage in a third world country, I met some of the most inspirational people. The workers who give their lives to look after these children and the children who have nothing and yet dream of doing great things with their lives. It humbled me and gave back bone to the shit I used to talk about helping people, when I myself had done nothing. It started a love affair to go to more places, see more things and keep injustice firmly in my sight so I can never become complacent about poverty or peoples needs in general.

I guess the reason I share this is to say that no matter where you find yourself this Christmas, no matter how you feel or how hopeless your situation may seem, sometimes all you have to do is hold on, wait out the storm and see whats waiting on the other side. The light you struggle to see at the end of the tunnel may be more than daylight, it may be the answer to your questions, the first steps of your dreams and the warmth of the love you have been waiting for. As cliche as it sounds, sometimes you have to hit the bottom and lose everything you held onto before you can be free to appreciate how great life can be.
All in all I am the happiest I can remember being, where I was lost and without direction last year, 12 months has brought me so much clarity and new opportunities. I have amazing friends who make me laugh until I can't breath, an amazing boyfriend who buys me teapots, an amazing job and an exciting new course I'm about to start.

I am so excited to see what 2012 has to bring, I don't know if it can top 2011 but maybe a trip to Europe can help... (talkin' to you Spyra)

smile often
Beth x

Life

We only get one life and it is slipping away one minute at a time so stop wasting yours chasing big houses, fast cars and nice clothes.

Live the life you were born to live, the life your 10 year old self dreamed of for their future.
Stop complicating it. Get over yourself, you can't take your title with you.
Let go of the things holding you back, say goodbye to those that abuse you and embrace those that life has abused.
Share meals with the ones you love and order more than a salad.
Leave the house, heck leave the country, the magic exists just outside your comfort zone.
Read often, never stop learning, ideas are precious and you are nowhere near as smart as you think you are.
Love people, you may get hurt half of the time but you will get hurt every time if you never let yourself love anyone and when someone does hurt you: Forgive, you don't know their story so who are you to judge.
Stand up for what you believe in. Speak when you want to be silent, dance when you want to sit it out. Take time for people when you're busy with stuff.
Live from your deepest passion, even when people say you can't do it. No, especially when people say you can't do it.
Stop asking if people are making you happy and start asking how you can make people happy and if you aren't happy with something, change it.

Life was meant to be lived, not just survived because none of us are getting out alive.

she...

She sits silently, pen poised.
You can see it in her eyes,
the tension, the mystery, the truth.

With an army of letters called to attention on the page before her,
it suddenly seems all too possible,
that if the right words could find their way into the right minds,
then just maybe mere ink could change the world.

Wakeup call

"And I will never require more or ask you to change because my biggest fear is that if I threatened to leave you wouldn't try to stop me"

I wrote this sentence in my diary 2 years ago. This sentence sums up the past 3.5 years of my life. For almost 3 years I put up with a boy who would call me names, leave me on highways, throw forks at me, threaten to kill himself when he needed me and ignore me when I needed him.

After finally getting out I promised myself I would never let it happen again. I promised myself I would be strong and walk away at the first signs of a man treating me badly. I promised myself that I would live as an example to girls younger than me and girls I long to see set free. I promised myself I would never again fear being alone.

I wish I was stronger. I wish I knew how to require more.

27 million people on planet earth are in slavery TODAY; Being used for cheap manual labour, factory work and sex. Girls as young as 3 are being sold into the sex trade by mothers who can't afford to feed their families.

25 thousand people die from hunger EVERY DAY; think how long you would have to go without food to actually die from it, now think about the last time you threw food in the bin because you were "full" or it was "gross."

2 in 3 people don't have access to clean drinking water; That's the free stuff that comes from our taps, all treated and ready to drink, you know the stuff we stand mindlessly bathing in for an hour in the morning because it's waking us up?

11 million children do not live to see their fifth birthday because of completely PREVENTABLE diseases; The kind of diseases you and I have all suffered from and survived with little more than a course of antibiotics.

While I sit at home stressing about how a boy is or isn't treating me or worried about weather he will or wont call, or willing to drop everything to spend Friday night with him, I am completely ignoring the deepest call of my heart, the call to help people.

I know I need to be strong, if not for me then for all the people I can't effect while I am continuously wondering if I'm enough.

My prayer tonight is that I don't fear the unknown, but step into it.. even if that means I have to be alone.

Note: I write this not in some narcissistic attempt to rise above, I write this in hope that someone else who is looking for the strength to be strong may see this and feel like maybe they do have what it takes to stand up and say enough is enough.

It's going to be okay

There are so many emotions running through my head right now that I cannot put words to, held together by a strange feeling of peace. I have not shed a tear, I have not run away to forget, I have sat and processed and written and hoped and dreamed about my future. I have accepted that sometimes you cannot change things and sometimes it is nobody's fault.

People are not characters, They are not one or even two dimensional. They are real and fractured and amazing and terrible and honest and untruthful and beautiful and ugly and capable of hurting, healing, helping and haunting. People are, ultimately, undefinable.

It scares me how quickly things can change, it scares me how people can be the very essence of your every day life and then, in a matter of months, weeks, days, hours or minutes, can be completely gone, leaving nothing but jilted memories and happy snap shots in their wake.

The truth is that there are no black hats or white hats, no good guys or bad guys, just 6 billion people trying to get by with as little pain as possible. Along the way we bump, or crash into each other and all of us leave casualties. The truth is that none of us are completely guilty or completely innocent and the even bigger truth is that you, and I, will be okay.

This too shall pass..

On Monday night I sat in my then Boyfriends car thinking, in general, about all kinds of things in the world.
A big question of mine revolved around the issue of trust. You see the world is this big scary place with no guarantees to it, at any moment you could get hit by lightning or struck down with Cancer or wonder to far away and get lost in the bush. Each day we go out into this big scary world with nothing to hold onto but trust. Trust that people will do the right thing by you. Trust that they will do what they say they will or not do what they say they wont. All we have is trust.
What happens when that trust is broken?
When somebody promises you something and doesn't deliver or promises they will never do something and then does it?
What if someone tells you they love you and want to marry you and then they walk away without even a goodbye or a reason.
What happens to trust then?

Suddenly the world seems a whole lot more scary than it did in that car on Monday.

We all have a story

I take public transport. I work in the CBD of a capital city and I live in one of the lowest economical areas in said city. Needless to say I meet people with stories every day.


A week ago I met a man on the train, he smelt of alcohol and marijuana and I really didn't want him to sit next to me, he did. He asked me how far it was until his stop, I told him and looked the other way (We like to do that don't we) As each stop passed he would ask again and again when his stop was, finally he told me that his mother had died a few days earlier, I felt like such a terrible person.
"I got a new suit for the funeral" he said with his head bowed, "I look rather handsome in it" he added with the hint of a smile.
He got off at his stop and told me to have a good day.


That man has a story.


Across the road from my work a girl sits everyday with a sign asking for people to spare a coin, her head is always facing down as her eyes scan the ground, she is one of the sadest looking people I have ever seen. I always try to give her something, even if people tell me she will only spend it on drugs.


That girl has a story.


Tonight marked the end of the world vision 40 hour famine, a man spoke about some of the atrocities happening all around the world, from famine to human trafficking and the small things we can do to help.


Every one of those people has a story.




But is anyone listening?


It makes me sad that I live in a world surrounded by peers who can talk for hours about TV shows, music and clothes but the moment you bring up poverty, slavery, homelessness, depression, or the thoughts you have about helping, everyone shifts on their chairs and smiles at you with a wisp of pity that you should be so naive as to think you could ever help. My generation walks around, far too aloof and cool to say what matters.


I don't know if I am alone, if I am the only 22 year old that lays awake at night stressing that I'm going to live and die and the world will be no different from my time here. It has occured to me that I live in a society that tells you to
"look out for number one"
"put yourself first"
"make as much money as you can"
"cut down tall poppies"
"protect yourself at all costs"
"Survival of the fittest"
It breaks my heart to watch people compete with each other instead of truely wanting the best for the people around them, is the only way to get ahead to just stop caring about others? I have never gotten my head around this.


Call me naive, but I would be happy on minimum wage (which would still be so much more than most people in the world) if I knew I could wake up everyday and help people.
I'm sorry but I just don't care about having a fancy house or a new car or a 6 figure salary. I try to care, because I know that's what we're supposed to do but the truth is I JUST DON'T GIVE A SHIT!!


There are all these beautifully broken people in the world with these amazing stories that nobody gets to hear because we have labeled them "drunks" or "homeless" or "dirty" or "third world" it makes me wonder if people really don't care or if we are all just too scared to talk about whats really on our hearts because we feel as though our ideals will fall on deaf ears.


The truth is that I am the problem. I am the problem because I spent $190 on a cardigan that doesn't even keep me warm, when that same money, in the right hands, could give a family in Africa the means to make an income to support them for life, or give a single mother in a homeswest house her rent for the week, or buy the soup and bread for a soup kitchen to feed a few hundred people.


There is 6 billion people on the planet and I can only manage to conjure up enough thought for one...


I don't care what anyone says, that's not how it was meant to be.