My New Year Resolutions Otherwise Known As Ways I Want To Change Myself

1. Lose a minimum of 18 kilos and a maximum of 23
2. Go to bed at 10pm on weeknights and get up at 6am
3. Exercise every day
4. Eat well
5. Re-establish a regular meditation practice
6. Finish the second draft of my novel
7. Read a minimum of 15 books this year
8. See a minimum of 10 movies at the ciinema this year
9. Pay off credit card debt
10. Cut down on expenses and be resourceful with what we've got

Easy right? I'll let you know how I go...

Movie - While We're Young

Last week I decided to start a 'Monday Night Movie Club' at the Nova. At this stage, the club only has one member - me! - but I'm hoping it'll catch on pretty soon...ha!

Actually it doesn't bother me if it's a club of one - watching a movie isn't the most social thing you can do anyway.

My partner and I are pretty broke at the moment, we have upgraded our home from one to two bedrooms - yippee! - and move into our new place at the end of this month, so our mortgage payments will increase quite a bit. So, it feels a bit decadent to see a movie once a week, however I am justifying it because it only costs $9 on a Monday and because I intend on reviewing each movie I see on this blog.

Now you might say to yourself - Dizzy, I don't believe you! You are constantly inventing new goals and challenges for yourself and you never follow through and my response to that is Yes, you are quite correct but I'm working on improving that part of my personality. I have been working through a course on procrastination and hopefully I am making some headway.

So without further ado, here is my first movie review.

Movie Title - 'While We're Young'

Directed by - Noah Baumbach

Starring - Naomi Watts as 'Cornelia' and Ben Stiller as 'Josh'

Supporting performances by - Adam Driver as 'Jamie' and Amanda Seyfried as 'Darby'.

Plot - A middle-aged couple's career and marriage are overturned when a disarming young couple enters their lives.

Source - IMDB

The movie starts with Cornelia (Watts) and Josh (Stiller) visiting their friends who have just had a baby. Cornelia and Josh are clearly out of their comfort zone and struggle to interact with the baby. They return home and reassure themselves that their life together is full and meaningful and best of all they have the freedom to do whatever they want, whenever they want...the trouble is that they just don't! They haven't taken a holiday in years due to demanding careers in the film industry. They are part of the middle-age rat race as much as their friends with kids are.

Enter Jamie (Driver) and Darby (Seyfried), a funky gen Y hipster couple, in their mid-twenties and also married. The pair ooze new-skool coolness and reject technology at every turn by living a 100% retro lifestyle. They prefer boardgames to online games, testing their memory rather than googling facts, using a typewriter versus a laptop and the list goes in.

Josh becomes totally enamoured with the couple and as he and Cornelia feel increasingly alienated from their peers who now have to act like responsible parents, they form a close aspirational bond with the youngsters. Josh is a documentary filmmaker and it turns out that Jamie is starting out in the same industry. He lavishes praise on Josh, and as Josh has been working on the same boring documentary for years, Jamie's admiring gaze helps to boost his wounded self-esteem.

But can Josh and Cornelia really fit into a younger crowd? Are they cool enough and is it really want they want? And are Jamie and Darby really as genuine as they first appear to be?

I really enjoyed this film with it's trademark Stiller humour. I'm not sure if he collaborated with Baumbach or the script writer, but it has a definite wry wit about it that is refreshing for American film. However, this doesn't make the movie free from a corny ending or predictable plot. The wryness is more evident in the solid performances by the whole cast.

The film is interesting in that it's exploring modern Western society whereby couples are waiting longer to have kids or deciding they don't want children at all. The film celebrates youth and the simple life of forty or so years ago, when technology hadn't bombarded our every waking second.

But moreover, what this film is really about is friendship and how far someone can fall when you put them on a pedestal.

I give 'While We're Young' 3.5 stars...good film to watch at home with a glass of red on a Sat night.

Bin Food Man Saves the Day!

I think I'm gonna start blogging more. I guess I've always thought that I need to be in a good mood or have something really pertinent to say to do a blog post, but maybe that's not true. I tend to get good feedback from people when I blog, so maybe I'll do it more often.

Today I'm in my writing space in Footscray. I come once a week to write my novel. It is pure heaven, regardless of the way I'm feeling. Part of what makes it so heavenly is that the office space is so inviting, so light and airy and very funky. The other part is my lunchtime jaunt through the heart of Footscray. It's like coming to another world that's only a 20 minute drive from where I live.

I was sitting in a cafe half an hour ago eating a steak sandwich as you do, when through the open window of the cafe, someone's barely touched, leftover burger was nibbled at. Now where I come from, normally when discarded food is nibbled at, it's by an opportunistic seagull. But no, this was just a dude passing by who said to the waiter as he was clearing the plate, "I'll eat that, what a waste!" and proceeded to shove the burger into his mouth.

Wow. Speechless. But somehow I felt I wanted to pat this man on the back. Yes, that quarter-eaten burger was a waste and now you have filled your stomach and won't need to buy lunch. You've also helped reduce landfill. I think we may have a new contender for Australian of the Year!

And in case you're wondering, he wasn't homeless. Well at least he didn't look homeless. His clothes were clean and he was well put together. Maybe a little eccentric but definitely not someone you'd expect to see foraging for bin food.

Although, I guess if I was Laurina from The Bachelor, I wouldn't be impressed. In fact I wouldn't be eating there in the first place - not in a cafe that sells dirty street burgers...

Must Be Winning

Woke up this morning feeling pretty shit. I've been battling low-level anxiety all week. We are going through a restructure at work and we all have to apply for our own jobs, plus several more in case we don't get our own job. I'm in a better position than most as I'm on a fixed-term contract that ends in January and would be leaving then anyway, and now I have the opportunity to go permanent if I'm successful. However for some reason it feels as stressful for me as it does for people that are permanent staff members.
Anyway, that aside, I've had anxiety all week. I do a pretty good job of hiding it most of the time. And maybe you might ask, why hide it? Well, I guess because it feels like the more attention I give it, the bigger it gets. I don't know if that's true or not though. Maybe that's part of the mind-fuck of this illness. I guess I normally ignore it and after a few days, it's grown like a fungus anyway, threatening to overtake me and wind it's way around my legs like the thick roots of a tree till I can't walk a step further...I confess, it also makes me a bit dramatic ;)
So today I dragged myself out of bed. I didn't want to get up. My first thought of the day was 'there's nothing good about today.' It didn't matter that it was Friday and tomorrow is the weekend. It didn't matter that it was sunny outside. My second thought as I heaved myself out of bed, and watched my reflection in the mirrored wardrobe was 'I'm so fat and there's nothing I can do about it.' So as you can see, the day was getting off to a great start.
It sounds like I'm depressed doesn't it? But I'm not. Anxiety is different. You feel flat, depleted of energy, lethargic but there is still brightness you can clutch hold of if you want to, unlike depression which cruelly gives you no out.

My brightness today was:
1) - my little cat had snuggled his way under the doona while I was sleeping and when I got out of bed, he stretched out his little paw at me. All I could see was his grey arm, the rest of his body was obscured by the doona.

2) - my gorgeous boyfriend saying good morning and hugging me in a warm embrace as he does every morning (but it never gets old.)

3) - eating my breakfast in the sun on the couch and really enjoying the texture and flavour of the gluten-free muesli...no I'm not being sarcastic - it's actually really nice! (And no I'm not a glutard but I have started eaten some gluten-free things as it aids my digestion.)

So I'd managed to get up, shower and have breakfast but now I was debating with myself about whether to ride to work. I have started cycling to work on occasion but I fell off my bike last week and although I'm now a proud owner of a really cool, disgusting scraped knee, it has knocked my confidence around a bit. So feeling anxious already and fatigued, I wasn't sure if riding to work was a great idea.

But I did. Why? Because I got out of bed and that was a victory. And because three little things had
brightened my morning, it was enough to tip me over the edge of my indecision and convince me that riding was a good idea.

And how am I now? Still a little anxious, there's a general unease and I have to push myself to be bright and perky around my colleagues but the sun is shining, and I must have got a few endorphins from the exercise, so on that basis, I conclude that today...I must be winning.

The Worry Warrior or Anxiety and Alcohol = Perfect Bedfellows?

Is life a constant struggle? Do you feel guilty that the good things in your life aren’t making you happy? Are you battling negative self-talk every minute of the day? If the answer to these questions is yes, you are probably suffering from anxiety.

I guess I’m a bit of an expert on the subject seeing as I’ve got a long history with the big A. Two anxious parents raised me; one was more of your garden-variety lovable worrywart and the other a closet security freak. Both were tending towards the OCD side of the scales when it came to hygiene issues too. So I guess you could say that it’s in my blood.

As a child, I avoided every crack in the footpath so Mum wouldn’t end up in a wheelchair. I would never under any circumstances walk under a ladder or cross the path of a black cat. Umbrellas, when inside, would never be fully flexed. As I grew older, and I was given a key to the front door, I would run back and check it was locked, even though I knew it was.

Then as I teen, I began surreptitiously touching wood, whenever a bad thought came into my head that a loved one might come to harm. Many a tree trunk or fence paling would be touched nonchalantly as I walked down the street. I don’t think anyone cottoned on to these habits until one day, when I was nineteen and sitting in the bath, I asked my boyfriend to pass me an empty toilet roll. Of course, he asked why and when I answered back, ‘cos I just need to touch it’ and he looked at me like I was crazy, I suddenly realised that maybe I was.

A few years ago, it got to the point where every night, before I fell asleep, I would hold my palm to the bedhead and would ‘touch wood’ for all of my friends and family. One by one. Then all my enemies too. As you might imagine, this was a time consuming process and I am very grateful it’s something I’ve been able to shake.

These days, I seem to be less focused on repetitive anxiety prevention measures like OCD and more in cahoots with GAD (Generalised Anxiety Disorder). I’m on medication, which has helped a lot, but with anxiety, it’s kind of all or nothing. Some days I’m totally fine, not a care in the world, I’m feeling good, alive, excited and life is good. I forget that I even have a mental health condition.

Then other days, like today, in fact like most of this week, I feel like I can’t even put one foot in front of the other, because that requires a decision. It requires my brain to tell my foot to move and repeat, left in front of right and to keep heading in one direction and who knows if that direction is right? Maybe it’s better to stay still but even that is a decision in itself. Maybe it’s better to climb into bed and pull the doona over my head but that’s a decision too and doing that would prove that I’m lazy and I’ll never amount to anything and why am I even trying to write a novel anyway and if I can’t cope right now, how am I ever gonna be a good mother one day and a good wife and why do I have such an aversion to cooking and cleaning and maintaining myself and my home and…

You can see what my brain is like on these days. I guess it’s a bit like being depressed, the feeling of wanting to shut down and the inability to do anything but unlike depression, I actually have the desire to do things, I just feel like I can’t. It’s a feeling of being frozen.

This is really hard to write about, especially when I inhabit this space right now.

And one of the hardest parts of this illness is avoiding alcohol. Because alcohol is an extremely seductive mistress to anxiety. Although anxiety may know that clean living is the best partner for them, let’s face it, clean living is not attractive. Clean living is the mousy, shy, boring girl next door. The reliable, diligent, wholesome friend who doesn’t like loud music or sangria because it’s too sweet on the tongue. But alcohol, is another thing altogether. Alcohol wears fishnets and tight miniskirts and a push up bra. Alcohol has sweet intoxicating breath that whispers in your ear, you know you want me.

So I succumb. On and off. Looking for that high, that moment when I can shrug off my cloak of anxiety and sprint around the yard naked and carefree. When I can feel safe in a social situation, when I can feel normal on a night out with my boyfriend, when I can have a lively conversation and impress my friends with my wit and intellect.

But it never feels the way it used to when I was younger. I don’t feel a freedom when I drink anymore. If anything, since I have truly recognised that alcohol and me just don’t mix, drinking can heighten my anxiety. I’m on alert, trying to walk the tightrope of the fine balance between feeling relaxed and not being a douchebag. Because a few drinks on an empty stomach and I’m not ok. I’m a liability and it’s up to my loved ones to look after me. So these days, I take a step back from the precipice. I don’t look over the cliff and tumble off anymore. I’m not free.

So now, the biggest challenge is to finally, for once and for all, realise that I’m much better off with the boring beige-stockinged, plain-faced girl next door.

Day 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7

Ok, so I didn't stick to my promise to blog daily about this challenge...the week ran away from me and I was too tired to chase it.

So instead, here's my rundown now!

Week 1 went pretty well. I only meditated 3 times (I just couldn't be bothered and really didn't think 10 mins of meditating would do me any good - red flag!) but I managed to do 5 studio practices and 1 home practice as instructed.

Nutrition wise - I didn't really change anything. There is no eating plan for this project but the recommendation is to cut out caffeine, sugar, bread and alcohol. I cut out one of the four and didn't have a bevvie all week. Which was of course not hard as I am practically a teetotaler now anyway. (I say practically as I have decided the odd glass here and there in a safe environment won't hurt me.)

I answered the self-enquiry questions about my ultimate purpose in life, my dreams etc.

So I'd give myself a 5 out of 10 for Week 1. I think I did really well on the yoga component, but not so good on the eating and meditation parts.  Monday to Thursday, I ate pretty healthy but as usual on the weekend, I got stuck into some 'rot-gut' as my elders would say.

Yesterday I felt shocking with a headache and nausea for most of the day and today I feel much the same. Straight away I start stressing that it's something to do with my blood clot (as a scan a couple of weeks ago showed that there is still a pesky clot super-glued onto my left upper lung). But maybe I'm just overdoing it? Or maybe all the crap I ate on the weekend is causing the sick feeling? I'm not sure but all I know is I hate feeling off-colour.

Day 2 of TMYP

So I got up this morn around 6ish and made my way to the yoga studio. Luckily my sister and I have already been doing the 6.30am class three mornings a week, so it wasn't a huge shock to the system.

I've decided to do the 6.30am class Mondays to Fridays, then a home practice on Saturdays. Sunday will be a rest day.

I also will meditate every evening after dinner.

It's like having another full time job!

I'm hoping by the end of the 42 days I will be stronger, illness-free and have more energy. And more discipline to redraft my novel. These are my intentions that I set in our first class last night.

For dinner tonight, I'm having veal snitzel, ratatouille, mashed sweet potato and steamed broccoli. A meal fit for a modern yogi!

Chat tomorrow :)