utterly over it today....

so, the interesting thing about having a potentially life threatening health issue is that what ultimately follows is an evaluation of one's life...

and it seems that no area is protected...

so the last few weeks since I found out, have been a roller coaster...started almost immediately after I'd made all the phone calls to the large number of my caring friends/family/work colleagues to let them know the good news...

you'd think that I'd be jumping for joy right?

and of course I was, and am, very happy that the 3.5cm lump in my thyroid turned out to be nothing serious, and certainly nothing life threatening or even serious enough to warrant surgery...big sigh of relief, thank you universe :-)

but almost immediately, I noticed that I felt 'meh'...flat, not sad, not depressed, but just meh...and the most obvious thing I noticed was the lack of focus...

see, when this sort of thing happens, well this is my experience, one seems to find a rather unfortunate focus - from the time I was told there was 'mass' until the time when the lovely Dr Richard Gallagher called me to tell me it was all ok, I became incredibly focused...

initially on trying to stay calm, as really, until you know, you don't really know anything more than you did before you found out you had a lump...reality is, the lump had probably been there for sometime...

so staying calm, working through what you will do if you get the news that it's cancer, what if that means you have to have surgery, what if that means radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy (thankfully, the second scan showed that my lymph nodes were clear, so from a few days in, I was pretty comfortable that chemotherapy would not be required in any event), if it was bad news what would you spend your last days doing, who would you spend them with, would you bother to continue in the current job?

so many questions, so many thoughts - it seemed there was no escape from doing a mental check of everything in my life and looking at it from an entirely different perspective...

so no surprise then when that's all over, that the evaluation continues, and as I said to my Dad, I wonder if I don't think of it as a chance to really evaluate my life, will it have been a wasted opportunity?

existential I realise, but what I think is, having gotten through the physical scare unscathed, what has resulted is a genuine existential crisis...and rather than resist it and just say, I'm fine, it's all good, I have really tried to stay in the moment and think long and hard about each of those aspects of my life...

exhausting frankly, but not in a bad way! more in a 'I don't want to waste this opportunity, make it count' sort of a way...

and I don't feel any undue pressure to make any massive changes, but it's an opportunity to reflect on my life that I may not get again, and I want to make the most of that...

it has certainly allowed me to be more focused about my plans to leave my current place of work (and added to my own feelings about that, the behaviour of a small few people who just really piss me off, are now much more visible...)

there are many upsides of this sort of experience though; namely, the opportunity to reflect and identify what is good and what isn't working...sure, the downside is, aside from all of this, it's bloody scary...although I actually coped remarkably well...keeping busy was good, letting the fear come up, but then, not dismissing it so much as reminding myself until I actually knew, there was no point wasting valuable time worrying or crippled with fear....

so, where have I landed? well, I really want to be doing something different...unsure if I want to manage a team going forward (I currently have one person about to leave - the one who gave me feedback a few months ago but crossed a line and another who's being precious and really, for someone of her age and inexperience should just be grateful for what she has and stop pissing and moaning - I'm over that!), I'd prefer to be in town where I can regularly catch up with more of my network (which has grown over the nearly 3 years with current employer - tick!) and whilst I am not naive enough to think that a new workplace will be perfect, it certainly won't have some of the characters I have to deal with now, and perhaps less of the legacy issues which nearly 3 years in, still plague me and my team on a daily basis...it's exhausting! and today, which was just a crappy day, had me wondering by days end if I'm really cut out for this corporate stuff and wondering if eventually I'll be caught out?

yep, definitely time to go...I have done an incredible job there, against all the odds, not the least of which is a boss who isn't really convinced HR is valuable...but still, I've battled on, with the help of my little team and a couple of other advocates...and sure, we have made excellent progress, and sure, my work there isn't yet complete, but I've lost my mojo...perhaps I've also noticed an increasing frustration with certain aspects of the role, the company, the people in my team, the people more generally, and I'm a bit over dealing with all of that...?

so, sure I'll still do my best to meet my objectives and make a positive and valued contribution (I always do - and my 90% is most people's 150% so I'm not overly concerned about that), but truth is, I'm not happy there...I'm not unhappy either, but I would dearly love to be doing something and going somewhere every day where I look forward to it...

so, eventually my existential crisis will pass and I will land on exactly what I want to be doing and when and if I'm incredibly lucky, that opportunity will present itself...and the biggest issue I am dealing with now is this: 'what is stopping me going out and getting it right now?'...

yep, reasonable amount of fear around the what next...something to consider...

but on that note, I'm going to close off and get myself a cup of tea before crawling into bed to read the existential masterpiece that is The Unbearable Lightness of Being...thanks Milan, just what I need :-)

two of two: i have a lump...

yep, it's true...so my neck's been playing up for a coupla weeks, and before that my throat was a bit weird, so after 4 weeks of just about constant neck pain I asked Dr to send me for a CT scan...

did that Thursday and Friday, the report came back announcing a 3cm mass behind my trachea and near my thyroid...WTF?

so, I'm trying not to completely freak out, and in fact, I've done a pretty good job of that as really, right now, I don't know enough to warrant a freak out, but I've observed the various fears/scenarios float in and out of my head since I found out...

guess positive is if I hadn't had a back neck, who knows how long it would have gone unnoticed for? and given some of the health issues of the last few years (hormonal, weight, sleep, temperature etc), might actually provide some answers...

so, sure I'm anxious and would like to know what it is, and sure I don't want it to be anything that's life threatening, but in the meantime, I'm trying to just take it day by day...

Monday I'm having a contrast CT scan and an ultrasound - that should provide more info, and if it doesn't then I'm guessing a biopsy will be the next step...

one good thing about knowing the steps is they don't feel so scary...

fingers crossed! universe if you are reading this, I appreciate your support as always x

one of two....

so let me start with the good stuff! last week, after a few days off, then a few more days in Canberra with the parentals, I came home and thought 'it's time'....

time for what  you may ask? and yes, true, I was spurred on by the countless ads on the telly, and of course a message from my spirit guides delivered by the lovely Bec...'you could help by getting out there a bit'...

so, I re-activated my eHarmony profile...it's been a while and honestly, when I put my toe in the water last year I just wasn't ready

but I feel good, and even though the last few months have had their fair share of challenges, I feel that I have met them head on and am stronger, and happier, and more complete somehow :-)

so, less than a day after said re-activation, I got a 'smile' from one 'Dave'...I checked out his profile and read it a few times, as I recall in the past, there have been times where I may have overlooked potentially important details (Ben, as an example who turned out to be a smoker), others who have been too short etc....and sere that might all sound superficial, but I know what I want, so I figure there's no point in the first instance, compromising...

so, once we'd gotten through the 'guided communication hoops' where I found that on the whole we had a staggering number of similarities (this is good), we started emailing directly....this went on for all of last weekend where we had upwards of 40 emails....talking about all manner of things and just generally trying to get to know each other in the comfort of being behind a screen...

by the end of Sunday, he'd told me he really liked me, wanted to meet me and that I had lovely eyes...so we progressed to phone/text and have spoken a number of times during the week...

and, all going well, we'll be going out on Tuesday night...and I am very much looking forward to meeting him in person

this is (seemingly) a nice man; a man who knows himself and what is important to him, a man who is articulate, and I suspect a gentle soul...he is funny (in a whacky quirky sort of a way), he's articulate, seems to be quite comfortable talking about feelings and expressing himself (case in point his description of his perfect rainy Sunday)....

so, bring on Tuesday! funny too that this morning, after waking up early and rolling over to go back to sleep I had some rather odd dreams, with him in them...having thought them through and discussed them with Sal (just happened to see her today), my conclusion is as follows, and in no particular order as I can't recall the order:

a) I'm at a bar with friends and I am not expecting to see him but he turns up and gives me one of those protective beautiful hugs.....reassures me that he is there for me and on my side (interpretation: confirms that I am pretty clear on my preferences for height etc and it's what I want, even though I've resisted verbalising it as I felt it was superficial, but really, given my background, it's not surprising).  what struck me about this dream was how I felt when he held me...safe, protected, like he was on my side...I like it!

b) still in the bar but this time we're sitting at a high table; in one scene he's wearing one shirt and has no facial hair and in the next moment, he's wearing a different shirt, has facial hair and is smoking...interesting! wondering if this is me wondering if I've missed something, or wondering if he's lied to me to only show me the side he thinks I might want to see...may be related to the issue I have with Nick right now re him deceiving me (even though he says he hasn't - sad thing is, only person Nick is really deceiving is himself, so guess I should be happy and grateful he's no longer someone I'm remotely interested in...and I am happy!);

c) this one's weird! we're at mine, all of my furniture (well the smallish movable pieces) are stacked up outside the front door of the building and he's helping me in with them, although I remember asking him why he'd put stuff outside? next scene we're inside watching something on telly, mum is there, grandma is there and some other bloke I don't recognise...I go for a shower and when I come back he's gone...I don't really have any clue what this is about, other than possibly my fear that he will just up and leave, and yet again, I'll be abandoned...possibly it relates more to other relationships rather than him, but weird and maybe my subconscious reminding me that I'd like things to be different this time :-) funny though, in this scene it didn't look like Dave - but in the others (except e) it did...?

d) we are sitting somewhere, not my place, me on a couch, him on the floor and we're talking and then he looks at me and says 'I don't think we're a good match'...the oddest thing is how I feel in the dream (and when I wake up as I'm pretty sure this was the last snippet)...sad, disappointed and wondering what is wrong with me...again, very familiar territory, so perhaps I've experienced it here (in the dream) so it'll be different in reality? otherwise, it's a simple reflection of my fear of not being good enough...

e) in this scene, again it doesn't look like the person I know from the photos (of course, we haven't met in person yet, so hard to say)...we are walking along the street, he has his hands firmly in his pockets - I'm coaxing him to try and hold my hand - when he reluctantly takes his hand from his pocket, I refuse to hold it...weird! that one may stem all the way back to Ben as I recall a day early in our relationship (which I now know was the start of a major depressive episode) where he wouldn't hold my hand...I was hurt

so, all rather interesting...but what I can tell you is this! so far, I like this man and am very much looking forward to meeting him...