But not wholly (don’t worry, this isn’t going to be about how my life is really awesome but there’s this one thing where it’s not and isn’t that just the worst).

There’s a lot been going on for the last month or so, some of it concerning friends, some boys, some concerning situations at work that give me the irates, some concerning being told by lovely people that innocuous things that I do that don’t really define me or even matter are annoying and that leaving me in an emotional black hole because what do I do if someone doesn’t like every part of me etc etc.

It’s all very dramas and probably would make for very boring reading, so to summarise,

busy+stressed = not sleeping = exhausted+emotional.

A lot of sitting and watching Dr Who today helped, but what also assisted was having dinner and wine last night with pals at the boys house, dinner and wine with my housemates and my friend Jess tonight and talking to my mate Oz on the phone for his birthday. I love Oz; he is one of my favourites of the species. As are the housies, the pals and Jessie.

I realised last night as I contemplated the mental health day I was taking on the morrow, that I was feeling a little lonely. This is partially laughable, as I have friends in ridiculous and wanton plenty, thank God.

But it’s also just something that happens, I think, when you’re full up and perhaps not used to being so, and you’re surrounded a lot of the time by lovely people, who, though lovely, are still relatively new to your stuff and you somehow fall a little out of sync with normalcy and spend a lot of time in your own mind, going over the things that people have said are wrong with you over the last little while and remembering all you’ve got to do when you wake up.

So, what’s necessary here is a reminder that there is life abundant outside of my mind, and  it’s gorgeous and erratic and brave and some of it is in the voice of my dear friend who turned 32 yesterday, and some is in dinners with beloveds and some is in the lightning that lit the sky and tore it apart tonight.

And I am thankful for these things.

When I turned 30, I had a couple of parties (because that’s my jam) and as indicated in a couple of the posts I’ve self indulgently linked to above, both were populated with insanely wonderful people. I meant to write some of this then, but as I got busy (read distracted) I let my little tribute fall by the wayside. So because tonight I was reminded that my friends are to me like oxygen, here is a little something something that should have been written around four months ago.

I know the greatest people that walk the earth. I have not verified this fact by any mathematical or anthropological study, but feel certain of its truth. This is mainly because for such magnificent people (for instance Caz, fierce and passionate and courageous or Paul, who is funny and loyal) to be placed in such quantities at points around the globe would surely be a statistical impossibility. The people I know (like Adam, who is HILARIOUS and brave and outstandingly loving and supportive of his wife and children) are so much around me, and so much good, that I worry sometimes for their safety. It cannot last, someone being so surrounded by such goodness, surely. The world has taught me that.

Surely such riotously excellent individuals as Kate, and Josh, and the NSP, and Erin and Joe and Jess, all gentle and wise and love to me, SHOULD be spread out. I have too much, I am greedy and spoilt for choice.

I went tonight to celebrate with friends, and they came to me and they talked and laughed and stayed with me and they lifted me and warmed my heart because somehow, for some reason, they love me too, and I hold the unmitigated honour of being associated with them.

So I don’t know the reasons or the statistics, really, or the magic of why I’m loved so, but I will try to retain the sense to revel in it whenever I can.

x

Ps I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I couldn’t possibly mention all the people I love, it’s too much (just FYI my big brother, little brother, their wives, partners and children are all just IDIOTICALLY, UNNECESSARILY COOL and my mum should win awards). I will rest assured in the fact that as I have no internal monologue, if I love you dearly I will at some point have told you so.

Pps. Just to reiterate, Adam “Beat” Ganglen, yo. Fo sheazy. Top shelf.

I was born into you, raised by the faces of grown ups that smiled at me, collections of casseroles after church and of course obligation. You introduced me to The Lord and to your people, well meaning individuals who dressed neatly and said things like “Jesus came into my heart” and “I have a calling to go to Africa”. I learnt to raise my hands in worship and to try earnestly to remember how bad I was when instructed to think of the cross.

I went to many of your incarnations over time, and at some point along the way, I began to wonder what was actually going on.

Questioning the things your people said to me on a Sunday led to my feeling misrepresented and disconnected from and by you. Now this is nothing new, but led incrementally to distaste for you altogether. I am sorry, church, but I met too many people who didn’t understand what it was they were enthusiastically espousing and who blithely assumed that their truth was the only truth.

Added to this was your not insignificant betrayal of many people I know and love, including some in my own family.

I felt your denominations were irrelevant.

I wanted to be a part of the kingdom, not a man made institution that often seemed entirely removed from the world it allegedly wanted to help.

I kept attending a variety of your faces but always looking for what was wrong and the little that was right, my ear tuned for the mistakes that would be inevitably made and my cynicism about the whole palaver at the ready, should I need it.

I began working at Brunswick around 15 months ago now. I had concerns at first, though the job and my subsequent involvement in the regular meetings of your group here came at a time when I was ready to find a solution to my sparring with you.

I have to say, your little group here in Brunswick are lovely. They have been so outrageously welcoming and full of encouragement it quite literally shocks me. I often shake my head at my good fortune, and marvel at the lack of all that I despised about you before.

So Brunswick has taught me that while a congregation can be different from my experience and challenging in its views, it can also be heartfelt, authentic and gracious. I started thinking about membership a little while ago, mainly as a response to your people here.

That was shortly before I fell in love with you.

I went to a conference a few weeks back. I was scared of it, to be honest, on account of all the Christians that would be in attendance. We both know that I am not their type of people and they are not mine.

On arriving however, I found around 70 young people whose guileless friendship inspired and floored me and around whom I felt I was my most authentic self, cynicism and all.

During the week away I learnt a lot about you, and how you are, in your Uniting form, committed to the most basic and beautiful and important and life giving things imaginable.

I also realised with a shock, while watching Ken Sumner lead communion, that though I’ve never been someone who is ashamed of her faith, though I’ve not been afraid to talk about it, I have been so concerned about removing myself from all that I dislike about Christianity that I had at some point forgotten nearly all there is to love.

I had grown so competent at pointing out all that is wrong with you, that I had smeared my cynicism over all that was right, obscuring the possibilities you’ve been holding politely for years as I railed against your obsolescence.

I am sorry to say, I had let myself grow embarrassed of not just you but all connected with you.

As I watched Ken tenderly speak of this gorgeous tradition and remembrance, I realized for the first time, that I can actually embrace what I believe, and not become something that I hate.

I can celebrate with friends who believe and friends who don’t, because to celebrate my faith is to celebrate something both unique and beautiful and only found here, in me, and something that is a part of the ancient, the holy, the transcendent and the joyful. I don’t need or want to separate them any more.

So church, I am writing to apologise I suppose. I wanted to explain that though I have insulted you, and though I thought I had good reason, I want to give us another try, if you’ll have me, for in you I now see the face of my father.

I know you’re human, and fallible and sometimes dirty and broken and wrong, but you have the capacity for great beauty, and courage and wisdom and the ability to walk around in the mess of our lives, finding the lovely parts and making them shine and I’ve always been the type to believe the best about things anyway.

Lastly, I don’t think that church membership is the only, or the best way of doing life. But I have been placed in a fortunate position inside your monster, and believe that those that can unite to try in a corporate sense to fight for justice and mercy and love, to join the monster in its challenge against the empire, should do so. For me that means no longer pointing the finger at you in accusation, looking at myself as a part of this magnificent story and making sure that the change starts here.

With love,

Carlynne.

Seriously. Come on.

1. I do something/think about doing something.
2. I assume it is/will be shit.
3. I make verbal pronouncements to that affect.
4. I hereby save anyone who would have been disappointed/angry/embarrassed at my efforts  the bother of saying so, having cleverly circumvented their criticisms with my own.

Hahahaha. I am the most nefarious mastermind of all time.

It’s not like I spend my time crying about my lack of philosophy skills or not-quite-right skinny legs or am completely unaware of any mote of skill I might possess (my playlists, I kid you not, are award-winning**), I just am super good at pre-empting the sad faces I feel I’m sure to receive by trying my bestest at some stuff and very aware of people that are good at stuff that I dig. Which is normal. Maybe.

To whit:

I read Marieke Hardy’s book You’ll Be Sorry When I’m Dead (several months ago now, I’ve been brewing this for a little while) and I dug the shit out of it.

I had assumed the book would be funny and shoot-from-the-hip-honest, but to find it soft and elegant in parts and so bleedingly straightforward you wanted to call her up and say “thanks for being so sweet I’m also a right spaz” was a little unexpected. I found it totally mesmerizing and obviously hilarious.

After I read it I was a little desolate. She is just… so… good. AND she’s only a few years older than me AND she’s been writing columns for everyone for ever AND she’s written a TV show AND started the successful and entirely whimsical and lovely “Women of Letters” thing AND NOW A BOOK.

I began to resent my life. How have I ended up this bland and irritatingly unprovocative woman, at only five years Ms Hardy’s junior? How am I not writing columns for some such over a glass of wine or laughing loudly in public places with my roughly-the-same-amount– of-famous artist/writer/musician chums? I blame my friends. Why, as a middle class Australian attending a private Christian school I could not have had the decency to fall in with a crowd of no good, up all night, lets do whatever the hell we want, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt types is beyond me. How’s a girl supposed to accumulate ex’s like empties and anecdotes that would make your nostrils sting when the gang she hangs out with is PG at the most?

I at several points during and after reading thought “OK. We’ll just have to drink a shit load more. It’s not too late for that at least”.

I was also at several points during and after reading, when my disgust at my stubborn refusal to be anything but a regular, non-alcoholic person had stepped out to have a smoke, convinced that Marieke and I would be magical and life-long friends, should we ever meet (you see, in a secret cavern in my mind lurks the stupidly confident Carlynne, the one who still believes she will one day appear as a telepath with mad fighting skills in an indie superhero flick and who fortunately (or not, depending on viewpoint) takes over when I’m on the dance floor. Now, having read Marieke Hardy’s wonderful book, the weeny, inner, vim filled Carlynne cheerily tells me that one day, Marieke will stumble across this blog, be both stunned and chuffed by my skillful wordplay and humble affectations of hero worship and ring her publisher to tell them they’ve got another hit on their hands. She (inner sociopath Carlynne), was responsible for my 11 year old “Mark Gosseler’s limo breaking down out the front of my house and he has to wait for a tow but I’m not phased by his celebrity or blindingly white smile and he’s really impressed by that so we fall in love” fantasy and I suspect this one will be as unrealized) but mostly it was “aaaiii– my blinding lack of publishable material! Woe” and the gnashing of metaphorical teeth etc.

Now you see I write a little bit, but my only semi regular outlet (what you’re viewing. Gorgeous isn’t it) is a blog dedicated to how undeniably pedestrian my efforts are. Also note that I was here comparing myself to a woman who has actually attempted to do things that I’ve never tried. So of course I haven’t had the same level of success, publishers outside of my brain don’t ring unknown bloggers and ask permission to publish them. But by reading and bemoaning how much better she is, I got to remind myself that I’d probably never have her level of success anyway just to keep drilling the point home. You dig?

This is obviously all very amusing and Carlynne-like, but actually the last couple of months of the year, despite my powerhouse 30-is-still-alright-with-me performance got a little shit. I was both busy and exhausted, I was in the throes of a bout of loneliness to rival any I’d had for a few years that was kicked off, unfortunately, by a really lovely wedding and only exacerbated by the hideous timing of my first viewing of Jane Eyre, I had thrown a sort of unsuccessful weekend party a couple of weeks ago, I had put on weight and felt fat and inelegant most of the time, I doubted myself in social situations; I was for once, almost convinced that what I say about myself a lot is true.

It all culminated one night when faced with icing a mountain of gingerbread that I’d rather ambitiously constructed the night before and that refused to be iced either well or expediently in my bursting into tears over biscuits cut into the shapes of trees, bells and ninjas. Not a high point.

I went home to Adelaide shortly after and got a lot of rest, which was what was dearly needed, and also a lot of thinking time. I began to breathe again and found myself at the beginning of a new year, rather hopefully musing on the changes I wished I could make.

Wrapped in the protective cocoon of my mum’s house, far away from most responsibilities and the pressures I’d placed on myself, I decided that as no one else could claim to be in charge of making my life more palletable to me other than… me, that I would seize the dubious power of the Yule-Tide and make the new year an opportunity to be better. And not in a “you’re shit– be less shit” way.

Firstly I realised that being so thoroughly convinced of my shittitude was very, very unhealthy. I would need to work on that. Secondly, if I want to be healthier, in a physical sense, then I can choose to do that! I am a capable, mobile woman! If I want to eat better and exercise more, than by jove what’s stopping me? Huzzah! And finally, if I want to be a writer, then I probably need to fucking write! There’s no conceivable point lying around moaning about how successful someone else is when you don’t even update your blog regularly. Being good at something has to be worked on. Surely. So I resolved to be better, and while I was at it, better at being me.

And so, 2012 began, and with it a slightly more updated version of Carlynne.

More on that later…

Ps. I was planning on writing this closer to the start of the new year, but luckily enough, I’m hideously disorganized and have therefore had time to heal even more thoroughly than I did in my post-horrid-times time.

Pps. I honestly don’t write this stuff in the hope that people will read and feel sorry for “poor badly self-esteemed me”. I really do find this the best way of processing my thoughts, need the drive of a published medium to push me to write and also figure if someone else who thinks they’re naff reads it then maybe they’ll find something better to do with their time than think they’re naff.

*It has to be something I enjoy/feel is important. I am in no way envious of any athletes, sports players or producers of dub-step, reggae or trance music.

**Of course I’m kidding. There are no awards for playlists. Or are there?! Oh my gosh. If there are, that’s weird but please nominate me. I’ll enjoy another chance to be self depreciating.

The reality was much different. We started strongish with a lovely evening spent consuming shit loads of salad and performing various spoken word pieces (including a dramatic reading from the Kardashian novel) and musical numbers.

Saturday was altogether a more lonely affair. The very lovely Sarah did come over to make the aforementioned brownies and later on there was a solid craft and Community session but by late afternoon the friends had petered out and after several hours wandering from room to room I found myself playing mini-golf in the hallway with my housemate, his sister and our one unfortunate guest.

A few more people came later on and I had some laughs and smoked a cigar and pretended I was enjoying myself but all night I was inwardly saying “fuck them. Stupid jerky jerks, fuck them all” as I glared at empty rooms and huffing as another totally excellent song came on the playlist I actually put thought into that was now wasted just like the playdough I bought special and my joy and my soul and any expectation I ever have for anything ever.

I gave so much of a crap about how few people came to the weekend. We usually throw good parties. Like, reasonably excellent ones where people fill our house (inexplicably they’re mostly drawn to our stupidly long laundry) and laugh and drink and smoke moodily outside.

What’s worse than how shitty I felt about the lack of interest shown is that in justifying the vastly empty result of the much overplanned weekend (I had made a festival line-up and all), despite the fact that I knew there were a lot of people away and another party on the same night I at one point thought

“It’s because I’m lame and old now.”

Look– on the whole, 30 has been radding all over the place.

(I got a wee bit ramped about the whole 30 deal. Which is good, I think, on account of it means I’m not UN-ramped about it. And it is good, it feels good, it’s going well, I’m talking mortgages and investments (lies– but I have taken steps towards being a lipstick wearer(!!)) or more accurately I’m embracing me at an age that I can do nothing about and am deciding to celebrate the possibilities of me at this age instead of panicking about it).

BUT, when faced with the reality of dead air on my first not in my twenties party, I was, for a time, convinced it was because I was now an elderly person, senile enough to still believe her younger friends want to hang out with her.

It was my first real “holy shit what have I done” moment.

I felt naff and decrepit for days. Even though I knew that there were other parties on. Even though I knew a hell of a lot of people were out of town. I would focus on those who I knew weren’t, and glare at them inwardly, muttering about how relieved they must be to not have to hang out with me.

Poor, sad Carlynne.

Now just so you know how pitiful and stupid I actually am, a small highlight reel of some things that happened after I turned 30, before the weekend that made me Miss Havisham:

• I had not one but TWO nights out with friends for my birthday, one here and one in Adelaide, both of which were stupidly excellent and populated with people who have proven consistently that they don’t find my company naturally repellent.
• Danced like a mo’ fo’ four times, once at a 21^st that I put together the music for (resulting, gratifyingly, in a floor full of mad shapes, stank face and hip hop throw downs the likes of which Carlton has never seen)
• Road tripped with dear ones
• Partied with dear ones until 6 am
• Totally stuck it to the man with a permanent marker and a drawing of a rainbow (on a  wall)

I tell you this not to impress you (Because you know, several parties in one month– , someone alert Perez Hilton cos I’m the new Peaches Geldof) but to lay out the very normal and undramatic and multiple reasons I have to accept that I’m not entirely naff and do in fact take part in non-aged facility related activites so you can appreciate just how much I can ignore in order to feel sorry for myself. 

Geez grrl. Get it together.

Part 2 coming. Wha’ whaaa?

I’m about to post a four or maybe three part series about
how thinking you’re crap unnecessarily can be stupid
how being a writer is hard and
how to be better at life

Hold on to your snuggies. Shit’s about to get real.

Also I’m going to try and be hella creative.

And I’m doing a couple of cool things like blogging for the uni mag and making a monthly soundtrack for my friend Doyle’s life and then writing about it.

Combine all that with a shit-load of excellent people, a trip to Europe and a few ideas up my sleeve for work related projects and I’ve got myself a pretty ok 2012 lined up.

Achieved:

half completed “before 30” to do list

turned 30 (with minimum freaking out)

tagged one wall, one post box, one toilet (raging against the machine, you see)

embroidered one beard, one wolf, one banjo

attended 9 weddings

got significantly drunkish, quite a few times

procured a new mac

made a butt-load of new friends

got heart broken by A Song of Ice and Fire

discovered Chuck, Community, GoT, Big Love and a previously undiscovered depth of devotion to Grey’s Anatomy

Highlights:

Harry Potter wand

weddings

all the dancing in the world and finding shapes I didn’t know I could throw

my family, extended

rooster cardigan, cat vest

my dear, dear, dear friends

Learnt:

I should not be surrounded by good looking/intelligent/witty young men. Bad.

new friends are THE SHIT

I can hold down a job. For a year!

embroidery is quite soothing, for a bit

music will always save my life

I know some stupidly, extravagantly wonderful and loving people.

death is often completely shit

it IS possible to have a mental break down over gingerbread

I continue my streak of being an occasional but thorough douche

the viewing of various 19^th century novels-turned-movies is better done without the aid of much blueberry vodka

I can get good marks

I have the power to not like boys but said power is wily and precocious

failing subjects does not feel nice but feels better then losing ones mind

beauty is a drug

music is a drug

coffee is, of course, a drug

I do not wish sadness to be a drug

family, ay? Who knew.

I am addicted to sugar and will find giving it up hilariously difficult

George R.R. Martin is NOT TO BE TRUSTED

the power of a good playlist should not be underestimated

my ability to be envious of others talents and creativity is substantial

my ability to justify the spending of money on music, tv shows, vintage back packs and food is the stuff of legends

If I don’t think I’m wonderful, who will?

though-all of my beloveds seem to retain a steadfast belief in my wonder, even when I do not

I need to write more

to forgive is such good therapy

I’m ok, I think.

Another year, it seems. Lovely.

x

I love the food, I love the cheesy decorations (within reason people-I’m watching you) and the carols and stupid Christmas movies and TV specials. It is a shiny, lovely, sprinkly time of year. Why anyone would want to declare a war on such a magic-fest is beyond me.

I don’t really get the whole ‘War on Christmas’ thing. Probably because in Australia we don’t seem to be that fussed about it all so its import has sort of sidestepped me a little. It’s also probable that I don’t get it because I don’t need to.

The first time I really thought about it was while laughing my ass off in that Community episode where they’re really over the top about how to be culturally sensitive at Christmas. The dean was taking incredible pains to not be offensive to those who didn’t celebrate Christmas (Merry Happy!) and Shirley changes the words to Silent Night (sleep in relative ease). It’s classic.

Obviously part of why that is so funny is that it verges on the ridiculous to remove everything that could be conceivably offensive to anyone and in the case of Silent Night it left them with bland and meaningless (and HILARIOUS) words to engender some sort of vague holiday spirit. I thought “hahaha, how true. It’s a little ridiculous to care so much about religious sensitivity. How much of a big deal could it possibly be, if I say the word Christmas. It’s all a bit silly”.

I know it was an exaggerated situation, but according to some American contacts I have and some footage I’ve seen of certain American talk shows, this is the reality a lot of Christians are facing. Their children can’t say Christmas at school any more. Their malls display the generic and inoffensive “Happy Holidays”. The Christ is being taken out of Christmas. Bum bum buuuuum…

To that I say: Hooey. Bull, baloney, hogwash.

If you are a Christian, if you believe that Christmas marks a day (note to remind you that Christmas was originally a pagan festival, usurped by the Chrishies to celebrate the birth of Christ– he wasn’t actually born then) for the rememberence of when your loving and immense God became flesh and dwelt among us, then no rebranding of the arbitrary day chosen can take the Christ out of it. Let me tell you a secret.

Words only have the power that we give them.

It’s not like Jesus is Tinkerbell-ing every time someone says “X-mas” (note to remind you that the X in X-mas means Christ, so calm your farm) or “Seasons Greetings” and one day he’ll cease to exist because enough people didn’t believe in him (quick everyone! I DO believe in Jesus! I DO believe in Jesus!). If THIS is the God you believe in, you should exchange him for another because he sounds useless.

To that I also ad: I don’t care.

I don’t care if no one calls it Christmas. I don’t care if all nativity scenes blow up. They could send tanks into the streets with huge pointy guns pointed at my face that will shoot me in my face (which, btw, is similar to the experience of a lot of Christians in other countries who could conceivably cry religious persecution) if I so much as think about baby Jesus and it still can’t change what it’s about for me. I choose to celebrate the birth of Christ, as a reminder that love moved to be near us in the form of a wee baby and then went on to show us the importance of peace and a completely counter cultural, revolutionary way to live.

Christians! Think for a moment about what you’re fighting for! This time of year, the decorations, the Christmas specials, the ridiculous, heart attack inducing quantities of pudding don’t equal Christmas. It seems extraneous to have to say this after the millions of Christmas specials that have taught us, ironically, the true meaning of Christmas.

There is a reason everyone rather hypocritically decides that at this time of year more than any other time of year is the bit we should be nice and forgive our brother-in-law for backing his car into ours. It’s because Jesus came to show us how to give of ourselves and by doing so, changed everything. That, overly pedantic and petulant brothers and sisters is what it’s all about.

If you don’t celebrate Christmas, that’s cool! It’s fine. I don’t celebrate Hanukkah, or Eid al-Adha or any other non-Christian religious festivals, because it wouldn’t make sense and because they don’t mean anything to me. My fellow believers: same goes for everyone else. Similarly if, like my wonderful big brother, you think that the Christmas story is a load of hogwash, that’s fine too. It does seem ridiculous.

If you do celebrate Christmas, and you believe Jesus to be the (I’m sorry) “reason for the season”, perhaps a lovely way to celebrate is by being kind. And loving. And by reconsidering your four hundredth Christmas purchase and maybe doing something more necessary and helpful with the money. And by perhaps thinking about the many other ways you can expend your energy in loving the unloved, feeding those that are hungry and fighting for those who can’t fight for themselves as He showed you and in doing so, worshipping a God who cannot be hurt by people’s refusal to speak His name, and who does not care about tinsel, or shopping malls, or carols or presents or pudding or the word we’ve given to the day we celebrate His coming to us.