2011. My Year In Review.

As regular readers of this blog (both of you) already know, I haven't posted a new entry for months. There has been many factors as to why there has been so little activity, lack of internet/computer over a long period of time for starters, writers block in my NT series - I still have plenty to write about, but I want to keep it chronological and I am really stuck trying to get the next piece even started, work has kept me busy and sometimes to be honest I simply could not be bothered. I was sorely lacking in motivation to write. But as I was outside my house, bathed in beautiful summer sunshine I had one of those rare moments, an epiphany if you will. This year mores that other years has been a roller coaster for me, full of a few dizzying highs and some very deep lows. What better way to get some catharsis than to write about it, publish it on the internet and let the whole world (theoretically) see it. I mean everyone is interested in the menial tasks of one middle class country boy Australians life right?
New Years rolled around for me to a soundtrack of Dashboard Confessionals excellent Alter The Ending album. I was fortunate enough to have the deluxe edition which featured both the regular album and an all acoustic version. I had spent most of New Years Eve on my own, Bec at the time was working at the Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld and didn't finish work until five minutes to midnight. 2011 started with a whimper for me. I had high hopes for this year after the almost surreal 2010 which began with Mikey & I living in the crapshack in Darwin and ended with Bec, Pup & I living in the spare room at Bec mothers house. 2011 was going to be our year, I was sure of it. We were back home in Ararat, both kept busy with work and had some big plans for the coming year.
January was very busy for me. I was kept busy with work, at one stage working around 60 hours a week, often sleep over shifts and weekends, which was handy as that was helping me keep a steady income despite working on a casual basis. In fact January seemed to be over in the blink of an eye as days and nights seemed to merge into one with all the hours I was clocking up with my job. I also was working casually at the day program service run by McGregor Community Services, with one permanent day a week there as well as my casual work. It was tiring certainly working so many hours, but I had regained my passion for the disability field after it had been slowly eroding to the point of near oblivion by the time over the past 2-3 years. I didn't see Bec or Mikey as much as I would have liked with both of us working long and strange hours, but I was back in my hometown, able to go to the Grampians or the farm whenever I wanted. It was a very unusual summer however. The decade long drought that had gripped the south east of this continent finally broke, and when the rains came, they didn't seem to stop. Tropical type thunderstorms brought with them massive downpours which are rarely seen in the south of Australia. This in turn led to flooding and landslides throughout the Wimmera/Grampians region, causing major damage to homes, bridges, roads and property. The Western Highway, the main road between Victoria and South Australia, was cut off in different areas between Ballarat and Horsham. At one stage every road into Ararat was cut off due to flood water. The landslips caused massive amounts of damage at Halls Gap, the tourist centre of the Grampians and carnage throughout the national park as the rain and floods dislodged large boulders, which crashed through the trees and undergrowth leaving a trail of broken and felled trees behind them.
January wasn't all doom and gloom however. On the 29th I got the phone call I had been waiting for. I was an uncle for the first time as my brother Adam and his wife Katie welcomed a gorgeous little girl named Evie Sienna into the world. I had never really understood peoples obsession with babies until I went to visit her for the first time and she opened up her little blue eyes and grasped my pinky finger in her tiny hand. I had tried to play it cool and be almost indifferent to the whole new baby thing, but that moment instantly put a stop to the charade. Now I knew why people made such a big deal about newborns.
February, March and April were quite uneventful months. I continued on the same way that the year had started, working long hours and often working nights and weekends. I purchased my ute during this time, which Mikey enjoyed greatly, especially if it meant trips to one of the lakes or the farm to swim in the dam. Easter came and went, I seemed oblivious to it however. Everyday still seemed to be interchangeable with others, except for Mondays which were usually the days I had off. I tried to get out and do as much as I could. Our house wouldn't be available to us until the middle of the year, so we were still at Bec's mother house. This became increasingly more uncomfortable for me. It was an environment that I didn't feel comfortable in and as such I tried my best to keep to myself as often as I could. I was looking quite forward to getting our house back.
The previous three seemingly innocuous months were soon to be shattered by the events of May. I had been sensing a distance between Bec and I for quite a while. It all came to a head in this month. At the end of May, not long after our four year anniversary, we decided to call it quits. No animosity, no anger, just a sense of belief that we had run our course together as the differences in us as both people and in our goals and desires in life became more and more obvious and overshadowed the things we had in common to the point where it could no long be ignored. Still, a sense of hurt lingered long and hard over the situation. After all, after spending four years of your life with one person, making massive decisions together and achieving milestones in life together, having once in a lifetime experiences with them, it would be impossible not to feel some sense of hurt and rejection. It also meant Mikey and I had to find another place to live for a few weeks until the tenants were out of our house. I was able to stay with local tattoo artist and one of my oldest friends Nifty Davis and his lovely wife Kasey, while Mikey went and stayed out at Moyston on the property of another couple of old friends Doug & Kelly McKinnon and their two labradors Jemma and Suzie (Mikeys girlfriend!) The support I received through this tough period from my friends and family is something that I greatly appreciated and cherished. It was also good to know that even though we were no longer together, Bec still checked up on me as she knew better than anyone the struggles I have had with depression over the years. At her urging I went back to the doctors and began the long and winding road back to some sense of mental stability if nothing else. Bec still keeps an eye out for me and is constantly checking up to make sure that i'm ok. I appreciate that.
In June, Mikey and I finally returned to our home. We were both relieved that our nomadic existence was at an end and we could finally find some stability. It seemed strange coming back here however without Bec. However it also felt good to finally come back to our home, where we made the rules and had the freedom to do whatever we wanted without fear of upsetting any overblown egos. We felt free again. Although I was very thankful that Bec's mum gave us a place to stay when we returned from the NT, I was relieved to leave there. The situation had become increasingly uncomfortable for me and also I imagine for Becs family too. I didn't want to burden Nifty and Kasey with my presence for too long, nor Doug & Kelly with Mikeys, so to get the keys back to the house was a relief in many ways.
As much as I enjoyed the freedom of being back at the newly dubbed Palace Of Wisdom, I found myself sinking back into my old ruts and bad habits. The (still) ongoing saga of refinancing the house weighed heavily on my mind, my dietary habits slipped and I soon found myself back in that same old cycle again. My weekends were once again free, as I had began working full-time at the Viewpoint street day programs, however I lacked desire to even get out of bed. It all came to a head one night in August, after finishing work late (I had taken a group of lads to Melbourne for a footy trip), all the pent up emotions from the previous two years finally overcame me. I felt lost, hopeless and despondent. It was a rut I stayed in for most of July and August, with brighter spots in September and October,including my appearance on national tv on October the 13th. I was a contestant on Millionaire Hotseat, had a chance to win $100k but got a question I had no clue about. I still walked away with $1,000 and a once in a lifetime experience. In November however, my fragile mental piece was soon to be shattered again.
Ironically I was participating in the Movember cause with my friend Tom to try and raise money for Beyond Blue and prostate cancer research. However due to a number of factors I felt lower than low in November, and the moustache certainly didn't help things. I know it sounds ridiculous to blame a moustache for my deteriorating mental state, however I was to the point where I couldn't even stand to look at myself in the mirror. In addition to the mental angst I was feeling, I also felt extremely bad about myself physically, the moustache made me feel like a physically ugly person, the paranoia started to creep back into my mind because even though thousands of others around the world participated in it, I felt extremely foolish and ugly with it. I rarely ventured out in public and went back to being a recluse. I seriously contemplated selling the house and going bush, just leaving society as a whole behind. December 1st and my facial liberation couldn't come quick enough.
As I write this now, on the 23rd of December sitting at my kitchen table, Mikey laying at my feet, the dying roses from my garden on the kitchen table still mustering enough life to give the occasional burst of wonderful fragrance, the summer sun shining down upon the back deck, I can only wonder what 2012 will bring. There'll be lows, granted, but there will be highs as well. All I can do is strive to be a good person and make the world around me a better place. If I can achieve that in 2012, then the year shall be a success. So au revoir 2011. Don't let the door hit you in the are on the way out.