What an eventless couple of weeks it has been since my last blog post. I was so hoping to regale you with stories of adventure, of joy, of emotional highs and lows that would leave my audience gasping with admiration for me. Alas. The last two weeks have been, to put it simply, as boring as batshit. I've had all 3 kids home on school holidays, and it was nice to take it easy and relax with them. They fought, they cried, they played laser tag. All in all a fairly ho hum couple of weeks, but the monotony was a welcome relief from the rollercoaster of emotions plaguing me these last few months.
My visit to Centrelink, which caused all the emotional angst I explored in my last blog post, turned out to be fruitless after all. The loophole comes with the fact that my husband and I are still living under one roof. An unpleasant necessity brought about by economic challenges. In other words, he's still here because we're broke.
It turns out, that in the eyes of the government for which I voted, we are separated, but not quite separated enough. There is still some level of financial support, I still wash his clothes. The level of detail requested in the form I filled out was quite astounding. Who cooks? Who cleans? Who does the shopping? Who pays for the shopping? Do you eat together? Sleep together? Talk to each other? 12-or-so pages needlessly ripped from a dying rainforest (probably not, but let me have some dramatic license) just so the Government can say "No, you're not a welfare case. Yet."
There has been some good come of the process however. You can't just be a single mum in receipt of a benefit in this country unless you have a child who is 5 or younger. And because that's not me, the nice people at Centrelink (and yes, they were all very nice people actually, even the guy who phoned me to turn me down) set me up with a job agency. To be perfectly honest, I had no faith in the job agency whatsoever, however, they arranged an interview for me, and told me today that I've got the job.
I should actually be really excited. Yay, I have a job! It's in retail, a field I love! There are so many who are struggling for work in retail at the moment, and I landed a job with very little effort. I'm not as excited as I should be however. It's a "greeter" at a supermarket. My job will be to hand out those little uncomfortable-to-hold shopping baskets at the entrance, and tell everyone where the condoms are. But only, much to my trouble-making disappointment, if they ask where the condoms are.
But I can't help feeling somewhat let down. I've been the manager of my own business in the past, with 26 contractors working with me who I had to manage and train. But apparently, in the big bad world that is the job market, that counts for nothing. Nor does my 155 IQ, or my ability to sell ice to an Eskimo. But, my new employer has promised to be flexible with hours, so the chances of me being allowed to work in school hours are a distinct possibility. Plus, if I work Sundays, I'll earn more than $30 an hour, which isn't to be sneezed at.
But an additional reason why this makes me sad, is that my beautiful Scarlett and Miss Pink have helped me turn on a light which has been crackling away in the darkness for 30 years. And it's all because of this crazy blog. You see, after reading it, Scarlett told me - and you really should brace yourself for this - that I am the best writer she's ever read. You heard right. But Scarlett, I said, that can't be right. You've read Marian Keyes. You're better, she said. Ummmm.... what??? That can't be right. I can't be better than Marian (my literary idol). No, said Scarlett, You're better than Marian Keyes.
Insert stunned silence *here*.
It took me quite some time to absorb this information. How can I be better than Marian? How could I possibly write something more entertaining, more profound and more moving than Rachel's Holiday, or Is Anybody Out There? Marian's books are an adventure in emotion. I laugh, I cry, I am transported across the world to wherever she chooses to take me. And someone whose opinion I value, who is a clever little duck, thinks I have the talent to do what Marian does. Wow. WOW, WOW and a thousand times WOW!!!
And so, with Miss Pink nodding and agreeing next to Scarlett, that little switch that I have been too scared to flick for 30 years, has finally been snapped into the "On" position. And then another penny dropped. I had read years ago, and Scarlett repeated this fact to me, that the only thing that sets "real" writers apart, is that they write every day. Even if what they write is a load of crap, they write every day. They don't go to creative writing courses (which I discovered while I was trying to find a creative writing course), they don't wish and hope for a publisher to come knocking on the door, they don't write an anonymous blog and hope that someone will turn it into the next Harry Potter (my other literary idol). They just write. And my visions of pounding frantically on the keyboard have been somewhat tarnished by this news that I have a job, a job that, while it will pay the bills, will drag me away from my passion and dream.
I had hoped that, once the kids were back at school, I would sit at my keyboard in a bubble of zen, my creative aura pulsating around me, and the Great Australian Novel would fly out of my fingertips, and in a matter of a month or two I'd have a best-seller that the best publishers would be fighting over. Of course, I am worldly enough to know that that's not how the process goes, but nonetheless I love to dream, and that would be an exceptionally cool set of circumstances. So now, as a retail hag, I find myself in a situation where the luxury of time is not available to me. Working 8 till 3, and mothering from 3 till 9, doesn't leave too many windows of time through which my best-seller can climb out and take the world by storm.
But one thing I am learning, and it is a lesson I wished I'd learned long ago, is that the best things are worth fighting for. And if I have a novel, or six, or twelve, in me, I need to make it a priority and write whenever I've got the chance. But more than that, I have to make chances. As a fatalist, I have always had this view that whatever will happen will happen. To some extent I believe that in the great scheme of the universe, that's true. But if I'm perfectly honest, I've also used it as an excuse for laziness and inaction in the past. No more. Whatever I make happen, will happen. That's the mantra I must retrain my brain to chant. I have the power within me to make my dreams come true. I just now have to find the door to my courage and determination, and make those little puppies come out to play as well.
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