I don't own a house

Not any more.  I've had four.  I had no choice over what happened to them but I no longer miss them or the social context of property ownership.  They were a burden I can do without, in so many ways.

The western world places a great deal of emphasis on property ownership as an indicator of wealth.  Sadly, as we have seen in Spain with mortgage suicides, property is also an indicator of the sort of debt that most people simply can't comprehend.  Bricks and mortar should never be considered so valuable that someone would take their own life because of it.

Around the world people are divested of their houses for so many reasons - war, natural disasters, financial strife, greed.  It's only when you no longer have something that you once valued that you really start to question just what is of value.

To me, now, a house is simply a building that shelters the things I hold dear.  Home is being surrounded by photos and books and music and people I love and my furry friends - all the things I can take with me wherever I choose to be.

At this point in my life I choose to rent, I choose to have the freedom to move if I want, I choose not to have the mortgage or the maintenance or the stress. 

I may never again own a house - that will be my choice.

Finding me

I found a book today whilst surfing the ‘net – Steve Olsher’s “ Journey To You: A Step-By-Step Guide to Becoming Who You Were Born to Be”.  Since I’ve never really found “me”, I skimmed it, and downloaded it (yes, free!) and am now reading it.  Maybe it can’t find me for me, but maybe it’s a step in the right direction for me finding myself.

At 56 I am uncomfortable with my life… well, what there is of it, because what others have seems to have completely by-passed me.  Yes, I have a wonderful husband – much luckier second time around, I wasted so much life on the first time.   Yes I have a beautiful daughter – but somewhere along the way I lost my son and my grandchildren.  Yes, I have a job I enjoy and a (mostly) good boss – but I know I am better than my employer gives me credit for or pays me for.

So what can I do about it?  I am not prepared to cruise.  I’m not a cruiser and never have been.  While I have been trying to find my true self for many, many years I have taken so many different turns, usually dead-ends, because they weren’t “me”.  I know I have valuable insights to offer.  I know I can make a difference to people.  I just don’t know how.  Yet.  But I can visualize myself standing in front of an audience and imparting some of my knowledge and experience and not feeling like they’re not interested, and not sweating buckets because I’m scared.  I will get there because I know I can and because I must.

I just don’t know how.  Yet. 

I’ve written off and on for years.  I’ve always loved words and I usually think I can do them justice.  I started this blog as a sort of “Dear Diary”.  It was never intended to be a public vehicle for my private thoughts, and yet I posted it on the internet.  Maybe I hoped that one day someone would “discover” it.  It’s been held up along the way by my “real life”.  Losing my grandchildren when their parents took them back to NZ, problems and self-doubt with my post-graduate study, problems with my husband also wondering who he is and where he’s meant to be.   Perhaps the “discovery” of my writings will never happen, but my thoughts are out there in space and one day in the not too distant future I will have found for myself a road to take that doesn’t entail dead ends but leads instead to who I was born to be.

Watch out world!

When is a child not a child and what does that have to do with WHS harmonisation?

In workplace health and safety in Australia many current discussions revolve around harmonisation of WHS.  It has, to date, not exactly been successful, but one only needs to look at legislative differences in other areas to realise that it was probably never going to work.  The various governments don’t even agree, for instance, on the age or definition of a child, youth or “young person”. 

  

Confusion reigns.  According to the United Nations a person is a child until they are 15, at which time they become a youth until they are 24.  Presumably, by some miracle, at 25 they are then adults.  But there is chaos amongst the Australian states and territories when deciding when a child is no longer a child (for instance, in the ACT a child is a person who is under 12 years old and a “young person” is between 12 and 17 years of age, and in SA a child is anyone under the age of 18) and at what age a child or youth (or “young person”) can legally do certain things. 

 

A child may not sit in the front seat of a car until age 4.  Very sensible.  I would make that 18 or until they have their own car.

A child may not be a pillion on a motorbike until age 8.   Except at 8 are their legs long enough to reach the footrests?  This doesn’t appear to be a deciding factor.  Perhaps it’s left up to “common sense”.

It is recommended that children do not walk to school alone until they are 10.  Also very sensible, not just from the safety perspective but most mums appear to need more exercise than they get.

Most states have some sort of legislation regarding the age of employment and just what constitutes “employment”, with regulations being a lot tighter for children under 15 except in Queensland where it’s 13.  WA goes one step further and adds that “A child is considered to be employed if engaged to carry out work in a business, trade or occupation carried on for profit, whether or not they are paid or receive any other kind of reward.”  (Someone better tell the WA kids that they might be working for nothing…)

At 16, in WA, ACT, NSW, NT, VIC and QLD a youth can legally have sex.  In TAS and SA it’s 17.  And no-one can leave school until they are 17 unless they are in training or full time paid employment.

However, they can’t drive a car or ride a 50cc scooter in NT until they are 16 ½, 18 in VIC and 17 elsewhere, and can’t ride a motorbike on the road until they are 18.  Or operate a forklift or drink in a bar or marry or vote.

So let’s recap.  In general, a “young person” can work at 13 or 15, have sex at 16 even though they are still at school and sex education is not compulsory, ride a scooter or drive a car – any car - in traffic at 17, but can’t ride a motorbike – up to 250cc - or legally drink until they are 18.  Hmmmmm.

Yet “parental responsibilities”, everywhere it seems, extend until the child/young person/youth is 18, whether or not those responsibilities have been superseded by legislation, unless the child/young person/youth is married or in a de facto relationship.

Perhaps, then, it isn’t any wonder, in a system of government which is based on independence of state and territory, that the pipe dream of harmonised WHS legislation was never going to work in reality.  Pity.  It could’ve been great.

http://www.business.vic.gov.au/operating-a-business/employing-and-managing-people/employing-children

http://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/labourrelations/content/Employers/Hiring_and_Firing/Laws_on_employing_children.html

http://www.kidsguardian.nsw.gov.au/children-s-employment-1/copy2_of_children-s-employment/

http://www.justice.qld.gov.au/fair-and-safe-work/industrial-relations/child-employment/child-employment-other-than-in-the-entertainment-industry/restrictions-on-children-working

http://www.dhcs.act.gov.au/ocyfs/young_workers

http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/sa/bill/ceb2011190/

http://www.dpac.tas.gov.au/divisions/cdd/information_and_resources/children_and_young_people_in_tasmania_snapshot/income_support_and_assistance

http://wr.victas.uca.org.au/assets/2585/Child_Labour_Laws_in_Tasmania_V_9_2_1_2_.pdf

Who cares?

This week a rabbit ran in front of my daughter's car.  Most people would have shrugged and kept driving.  Not my daughter.  She went back, put her hazards on and sat with the rabbit until the wildlife rescue people could come and pick it up.  It had a severely broken back leg and had to be put to sleep, but how much better for that little rabbit than lying injured in the road waiting for another car to hit it?

Most people wouldn't care.  Or even if they did, it would be fleeting and not enough to warrant time out of their day.  It was just a rabbit, after all. 

In the scheme of things, that little rabbit is miniscule.  Every day, somewhere in the world, whales are killed in the name of "science", elephants and rhinos are killed for their tusks, people are beaten up and even killed over their sexuality, suicide bombers kill civilians on buses, and someone will enter a school, a youth camp or a cinema and randomly kill people they don't know.  We collectively feel sad and  voice our disgust, but few of us will take any positive action to stop the carnage.  We have become conditioned to violence.

We are a society that laughs at people's painful mistakes.  We send the video to You Tube or upload photos to "Fail" websites.  We may express indignation and disgust about these behaviours - and never more so than when children or animals are involved - but we become accomplices when we share them, even if our sharing is an attempt to publicise our disgust.  All we have succeeded in doing is giving the perpetrators their 5 minutes of fame. 

We have become guilty of collective inaction.  We see the problems of the world as too hard to do anything about, so we voice our disgust at some atrocity, shrug and move on.  Maybe, if more people were like my daughter and went back and took time out of their day to care for a living creature, we could finally begin to move towards collective action.

I am a very proud parent.

Battling the beast

Maybe it’s human nature to want to “belong”, to “fit in”.  So what happens when we don’t?

I think, in one way or another, I’ve always been trying to “fit in”.  I’ve been a member of many different groups – Master Swimmers, Hamilton Operatic Society, Waikato Ice Skating Club, NZ Motor Caravan Association, Ulysses, Safety Institute of Australia – and every time I join a group I get involved.  I’ll take on anything.  I’ve been secretary, treasurer, event organizer, web page designer, newsletter editor, envelope stuffer, waiter, chief cook and bottle washer.  And vocal supporter and noisy fan.

And perhaps that’s my problem – I don’t seem able to be “just a member”.  Trouble is, groups are always bemoaning the lack of volunteers and how the bulk of work ends up in the laps of a few, so I’ve always wanted to do my share.  And yet, it seems the more I do the less I am accepted.  It’s as if I offer to do something no-one else seems to want to do, and I’m side-lined because I do that.  What is that about?

Yes, I’m passionate.  Yes, I’m outspoken.  Yes, I can be obnoxious.  So what makes me so different to everyone else on this planet?

Maybe I’m finally tired of trying to fit in.  It’s a demoralising feeling to be somewhere you’re known and yet to 99.9% of people you’re not visible, not even when they are looking directly at you.  Or maybe that is through you.  No eye contact, no recognition, no acknowledgement.

I’m not a forward person – quite the opposite, I’m not at all secure in myself.   I’ve never been good at small talk.  Perhaps that’s an extension of feeling like I don’t fit in – why would anyone be interested in what I have to say?  So often I don’t say anything, and that seems to be taken the wrong way.  Or I jump in feet first with a full-on discussion or debate, and that’s taken the wrong way too.  I shouldn't care, but I do.

So I'll just talk with my fingers, write it here where I can be free with my thoughts and I don’t give a crap if anyone reads it or not, or if they agree or even understand.   

I don't think I'll ever truly “fit in”.  Time to stop trying.

Understanding ageing

For a brief time in my late teenage years I worked a second job as a weekend kitchen hand in a retirement home.  The facility had wards for those who required full time care, and self-contained accommodation units for those who were more able bodied.  One lovely lady in the self-contained units baked every weekend for the residents in the full time care wards.  She amazed me with her determination because her hands were incredibly deformed from osteoarthritis, yet this was a weekly labour of love that she was determined to continue doing until she too had to move into a full time care ward.

At the age I was then, I had absolutely no mindfulness of the ravages of old age on the body.  I could sympathise but I couldn’t understand.   Now, in my 50s, I am only just starting to understand how older people feel when they start to lose the mobility we all take for granted when we are younger.

As I approach my own senior years, my body is starting to undergo degenerative changes that are related to age.  I quite probably assisted the early onset of my approaching atrophy with a life less than ideal in my younger years.  We treat our bodies for the most part with contempt.  Is it any wonder they get back at us as we age?  It’s not a process I am looking forward to, but I won’t let it wear me down.  

   

I have osteoarthritis in my thumbs, and sometimes I lie awake at night with the pain and stretch and twiddle my thumbs and fingers, determined that the loss of cartilage which causes the deformity is not going to win in my hands.  I’m probably too late, and I’m probably kidding myself that my stretching and twiddling will have any beneficial effect, but I’m still way too young to concede defeat to this insidious disease which has already caused me to stop riding, and sell my beloved V-Star 1100.

I have macular degeneration in both eyes, but predominantly in my right eye.  I use the Amsler grid to check the progress of this.  I’ve always had very good peripheral vision, and when the wavy lines take over as they sometimes do, I rely more and more on my peripheral vision.  Going blind is something that scares the crap out of me.  I surf the net for treatments, and find that dietary supplements containing high-dose antioxidants and zinc might help.   Apart from that there doesn’t appear to be much I can do but I’ll keep looking.

I have mild degenerative scoliosis in my lumbar spine as the result of an accident when I was 17.  When my spine goes out of alignment my legs seem to become different lengths and my hips move distinctly to one side.  It’s very painful but after many years of self-management I’ve developed a little routine for pain management which entails hanging – either using my arms or upside down if possible – stretching and walking.  Movement is essential.  

How I cope with these things and other age-related matters is entirely up to me.  I choose to stay reasonably fit.  I belong to a gym.  Until very recently I was a regular at Body Combat classes.  I loved the combination of martial arts moves to music, and I’d been doing it for 10 years but have finally decided I can’t sustain the energy required for an hour.  Instead I now do Sh’Bam, a group dance class, and I walk. 

For the last few years I’ve taken part in the Bridge to Brisbane, the Mother’s Day Classic and other fun runs and walks.  I enjoy the challenge and they help to keep me fit.

I subscribe to sarcopenia.com so I can keep up with ways to keep my muscles active as I get older.  I know I don’t do enough resistance training, but the fact that I am aware of what I should be doing probably puts me way ahead of most other people my age and older.

I also work at keeping my mind active.  I read, surf the internet and contribute to a few forums, do Sudoku and crosswords and am enrolled in a post graduate study program.

Most people have choices about how to manage their own age issues.  Like my elderly friend when I was a weekend kitchen hand at the retirement home so many years ago, I choose to approach my age issues with determination that they will not wear me down, even as my body is determined to wear itself out.  If I can hit my 80s and 90s still upright and still cussing, I’ll be pretty damned happy with myself!

Choices

Recently A Current Affair had a story on scams which targeted the elderly. The general essence of the story was that scammers were somehow worse for preying on the more vulnerable within society. Personally, I believe a scam is a scam, no matter who gets caught up in it, and age and gender play very little part other than in the obvious relationship scams. But a scam can only work if the “target” allows it to.

Many years ago my ex targeted one of my sisters for a loan. The long term result was she had to sell her house to pay the bank, but until then no-one in the family knew what she’d done. She’d slept with him, kept his little secret from me – and everyone else – and yet when the crunch came somehow I was to blame because, despite the fact that he had a very questionable financial history known to the family, he was my ex-husband and he was only around – according to my sister – because I allowed him to be. She has never accepted that she made her own choices.

So it is with any scam. There are choices to be made, and when those choices involve handing over money, for whatever reason, I know I’d like to have all the bases covered – as much as possible – with written contracts witnessed by reputable legal people known to me.

I just can’t understand how someone can hand over thousands of dollars to an unknown entity in order to supposedly receive multi-million dollar lottery winnings from another country in a lottery they never even entered.

Or send huge sums to someone they met through an online dating site and have never met in person.

Or mortgage their house to give money to a person with a proven less-than-acceptable track record with finances.

I do know how desperate people can be, for whatever reason, and it is often the desperation that causes otherwise sensible people to take risks. Desperate for love, desperate for money – or maybe simply desperate to believe that people are intrinsically good. But that doesn’t excuse the foolishness of those who are on the receiving end of a scam. For a scam to work in the first place someone has to allow it.

The adage that keeps popping up is “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”. I can empathise with people who get caught, but I find it hard to sympathise with them because, ultimately, they made their own choices.