The year that was 2015

I couldn't disappoint everyone who doesn't read my blog so true to tradition since I began this thing, here is the NYE post.
This year has truly been a hard slog through the ups and downs of life. I hadn't given much thought to FIFO workers but having been one this year I now know it sucks and you deserve every penny for being away from not just your family but your lives.
This year I have spent 4 nights a week living with my elderly grandmother in Southern Sydney in order to work full time in a job in South Western Sydney. My job has not paid me the bucks miners earn but I seem to have managed to get back in the swing and despite a big disappointment I have a lot to be thankful for, including the return to a regular full time income.
This year I missed my eldest daughters first year of high school including her first period, my middle daughters everything because she has distanced herself from me so she doesn't miss me while I'm gone and my youngest daughters loving tenderness which she makes up for when I am home with thoughtful gestures and PDAs. I missed The Husband doing his best to be me for the kids. What did they miss - me and they shouldn't have had to. I powered through the year loving my job and making it my consolation prize. That's how I coped, finding the positive thing in my life and hanging on. How did they make it through? Just barely white knuckling it into each holiday period and particularly the Christmas holidays with huge relief.
This year I have listened to people tell me what a great job I'm doing at work. I have listened to my Grandmother tell me how much she misses me when I'm gone and what she needs me to do for her. I have listened to The Husband and kids tribulations each week while I am gone. It took until Term 3 to realise I was feeling quite alone and lonely, floating through a life that left me little time for my 4 people let alone any other people we may want in our lives. As a result we have seen very few people this year. It was around this time that I got the shits with the fact that everyone in my life seemed so worried about themselves and how they were coping with or without me but no one seemed to interested in how I was coping. This year 4 people have asked me how I am managing being away from home so much. Distraction and a brave face.
Just as I was starting to not cope very well at all (and wound up in hospital for 5 days) The Red Centre Circus Train was getting ready to pull out. That trip pulled us through so much of this year on so many levels, it was an absolute highlight and something we will always treasure and remember.
This year we have seen people who had a loved one pass away, who made the effort to turn up on our doorstep or who live down the bike path and travelled half the country with us! This year has been just too hard for some of our friends but thankfully most of you have made it through and some of you have even excelled yourself and made feel wonderful through your love and kindness when you turned up to celebrate Christmas with us even though we tried to cancel it. Lesson learned - The Callaghan Christmas lives on. Highlight number 2, thank you to everyone involved in The Ambush xx We love Christmas in our house and celebrating took on even more significance this year.
In 2015 I have experienced more death than in my life to date. The first of my friends parents passed away leaving me wondering what it will be like when my mother is gone. My nephews father passed away unexpectedly and I learned that funerals are for the people left behind but that one was heartbreaking. Even though I haven't been a close part of his life for a while, I was when he was little and all I could see was a little boy and his last farewell. A friend lost an uncle whose friends were more like family to him and I wondered what my own funeral would look like. Another friend and her 3 children lost their Husband and Father and I recognised in them something I don't want to live through for quite a while yet. Then before Christmas my cousin passed away and tomorrow is her funeral. Goodbye to someone I grew up with. A first for me. The end of the year. The end.

That can't be the end though because we all begin again Friday morning. Into a new year, new hopes, new goals, new directions.

So in 2016 I am continuing to cross my fingers for a job closer to home while saving money to move my family closer to my job should it come to that. I am telling you all to get your shit together because I'm done with funerals for a while. It is my understanding that the Red Centre Circus Train will be morphing into the Sugar Cane Express or similar for another family adventure and The Callaghan Christmas will roll around again in the blink of an eye!

There have been some disappointments and sadness in 2015 but some fantastics high points too. I am looking forward to 2016 being a little more heavy on the Ups than the Downs and I hope it's that way for you and your loved ones too.

Celebrate carefully and have a Happy New Year!

PS. I know it's only the 30th but I won't be home tomorrow to write or publish. After my goodbyes, I'm off to say hello to some people I haven't seen in ages and ring in the new year with 4 of my favourite people, a buttload of fireworks and recovery breakfast champagne slushies apparently!

A little reminder

After my meltdown this week, which thankfully is a rarity, In fact, a first. I have had some reminders.

Dinner out with some very old and dear friends to remind me that, despite appearances, we are all up against it in one way or another but as long we support each other we'll be ok.

Some conversations with my Little Ladies to remind me that I am loved no matter what and when I need a cry or a cuddle I have 3 little people, who are getting bigger every day, to cuddle and make me smile.

Tonight, the Year 12 formal and a fun night with new friends to remind me that life is full of hope and possibility even though I can't always control the form in which it comes.

So even though I took a hit that was a bigger blow than I expected it to be, it's not the end of the world. We'll be ok because The Husband, Ladies and I have got a pretty cool crew and (because there'll be a lounge room dance party this weekend) we are all in this together!

The death of optimism

Many of you know I have been living away from The Husband and kids in order to get back into a full time, permanent job. To say it has gone well is well overstating things, to the point that surviving another year like this is highly unlikely.

Today I was handed a glimpse of my future and it holds none of the things I had hoped for in my life.

I had hoped to be able to do something other than worry about fucking money with my life but it is not to be. I am usually an eternal optimist who can find the positive side of anything. Today I am struggling and the best I can come up with that tomorrow is a new day. Unfortunately, though that may be true, it won't change my circumstances in any way.

For the last few years I have tried to get work on the coast where my family enjoy their life. I have been unsuccessful to the point of no return and took a position in Sydney just to have a job and a reliable income again. It couldn't have been further from home as far as Sydney goes but we made arrangements and we began the 'living away from home' saga that has been 2015.

A little while ago I applied for a job in the middle of nowhere so that we could be together, get ahead a little financially and I would have a job on the coast at the end of it all. In 21 years of working and job interviews, for the first time, I did not get the job. Despite the personal blow to my ego there are ramifications for my family life that I had hoped to avoid. Moving them back to Sydney for no real gain, more expensive living and no more income and the reality of the following facts:

We will never own a home.
We will never earn enough money to save any money for anything.
We will never travel to the places I have dreamed of since I was a child - it's possible this one hurts the most despite the impractical nature of it. Dreams crushed and all that.
When my children are grown and I have a small window to gather some cash, life is likely to be so expensive that I will in fact be gathering money to give to them so they can get the leg up I have not had access to.
I may be lucky to have enough superannuation when I retire to live but I won't have a home to live in or sell for a smaller property.
I will be forever relying on landlords for a roof over my kids heads and I have no one to blame but myself.

Here is the real irony of it all. When I was at high school no one told me about what I could do with my future, what I needed to do at school to achieve it, where I might have been going wrong? No one. I blew it. I hated school. There was nothing there for me and I had no plan or goal for the future therefore nothing to work towards. I jigged a bit, I drank, I smoked pot, I didn't give the future a thought and now I'm here, unable to earn enough money to support my family and trapped under a motherfucking glass ceiling I seem eternally unable to break through. So everyday I go to work and advise people about their futures while having no control over my own and having arrived here because I had no better idea of where to go.

Today there was a moment where optimism tried to die in me. I thought for a while it had.
I am sad and I feel defeated. I see no way out and no way up...at the moment.

Tomorrow is another day and no one else will end up here on my watch.

The Year of Living Away

Many things have transpired since I was last here. Many things to the point of a few jobs and spending 7 months living away from home while working in Sydney again.
It's nice to finally be back in a job I love and in a workplace that is friendly and supportive. If I could get both sides of my life together, wouldn't life be fantastic!
Things don't always go to plan though and so I work separately to enjoying my family because my family enjoy the life they have and are very settled as they are so we will keep plodding along like this for as long as it works.
Reading through my last couple of posts I am taken back to reflect on how bad things seemed in recent years, to remember some very unpleasant and life changing situations. I am shown how much things have improved for us all in 2015, even if we might be living a little unconventionally and missing each other a bit. No different really to many FIFO families and maybe a little absence will do us all a favour...
It has certainly pushed us to do something very memorable with 2015 and we are all looking forward to our much publicised trip to Uluru.
Leaving September 17th, the countdown is officially on - 26 days!

If you are inclined you can follow to organisation and adventure, plus  bunch of other stuff at www.2fbs.com.au