Reality Calling

My last post was a bit like a pressure valve release before I blew a blood vessel, it was a therapeutic preventative measure to bring me back from the brink and to release the frustration and anger building quicker within me than I was able to deal with or process.

Looking back and reading my last post with the luxury of hindsight I now realize it all looked a bit messy, childish and embarrassing, a good old fashion dummy spit. But it did it’s job and by being able to vent my built up frustrations and anger I once again reduced the pressure to a manageable level and then started to process the facts that were left once the emotion was removed from the equation.

I always find it interesting how different people deal with their frustration and built up emotions, irrespective of whether it be anger, guilt, jealousy, fear or any of the other marvelous emotions that we all experience. Emotions that when it is all said and done remind us that we are alive. When we stop feeling these emotions is when we should really be worried.

Last Friday afternoon my first response to being told that I was being made redundant was to isolate myself from the human race, I instantly felt such anger and rage within me that I instinctively knew the safest place for me was to be by myself where my ranting and raving would not do any real harm and I would not be forced into making apologies further down the track or be forced to face legal ramifications to a momentary laps of sanity.

Once isolated my second response was to call my eldest sister “ Wendy ” and to just get her to talk to me, Wendy has always been my life line to hold onto while I let the barriers down. My lifeline which guaranteed that I would continue to have a lighthouse of sanity to focus onto and not just continue to spin off out of control once I let all the restraint go.

This is the part of dealing with emotions that I am least comfortable with, “letting go”. Now I know the logic which goes with the statement that “ Control is an Illusion ”, but the fact remains that I do not like not being in control of myself. I think that is the main reason why I hate surprises and change in my life because they both come with a degree of loss of control over oneself and surroundings.

So once I released the pressure I focused on giving myself and my son a normal weekend and I shut the dilemma of being made redundant out of my head and life for the long weekend. ( It was a long weekend her in Australia for the Queens birthday which incidentally was not this weekend … but that’s another Blog and discussion.)

There is a lot to be said for “ The Ostrich Principle ” of handling bad news. That’s the principle where you stick your head in the sand and pretend that the threat just doesn’t exist, after all if you can’t see it then it can’t get you.

Now I love the Ostrich Principle and normally roll out of my isolated rage while talking to my eldest sister straight into my golden period of denial while practicing to be an Ostrich. And I must say it at the risk of sounding full of myself ~ I am bloody good at being an Ostrich.

Friday night I went to a comedy club and actually sat there with friends and laughed till I nearly wet myself, Saturday was focused on my sons sports and then Sunday was taken up with a huge Winter Festival on the Gold Coast called Wintersun that runs for 4 days of live Music, Great Food and Classic Cars. To make sure the denial was complete I even let my son have two of his teenage mate over for the night Saturday and I took all three teenage boys to the Wintersun the next day.

If you ever get bad news that you really don’t want to focus on then surround yourself with three teenage boys, Hot Rod Cars and scantily dressed ladies on the Gold Coast. While listening to Live Rock & Roll bands in the Winter Sun.

So here we are, it’s now a week later, all the emotion is out of the situation and all we are left with is the hard cold facts that at the end of this week I will be once again unemployed.

But you know what …. Life goes on, the sun has still been rising every morning, the sky hasn’t fallen down on top of everyone, and politicians are still untrustworthy.

I have decided to take a week or two for me then just get back up into the saddle and get on with life. Actually my son is on school holidays at the moment and I am looking forward to being able to spend some time with him before he goes back to school. Just enough time for a bit of a road trip I think.

Till then ….

Dohi to you all