Belonging...

Someone asked me yesterday where was home? I’ve been in Cairns now for about 18 months. I said home is Cairns. They said but you had to come from somewhere that you called home. I find that thinking foreign. It’s not like in biblical legend when supposedly everyone had to piss off back to where they were born to get counted or whatever the story was depending on whose telling it.  I believe in the saying ‘home is where you hang your hat’.  Maybe that’s because I’ve moved around a lot. More than likely it’s because I’m not so fixed in my thinking. Or I reckon it’s I believe you belong to yourself first and if you’re happy with who you are, despite, the character flaws, that’s all that matters. A point of embarkation isn’t important. It’s about how you feel about who you are and how you get from place to place and what you make of yourself. I tend to think some people never work out who they are. Why? Possibly they’re too worried about what others think of them. That’s not a way to live.

Home and belonging – it’s about who you are. It’s not dependent on where or who you’re with.  Be at home with yourself first.

Just say it...

I’m older in age than most of the workers in my office. That’s ok. I like being my age and there is no way in hell I would want to go back to my twenties or thirties. I knew stuff all back then. The thing that amuses me in the office is they’re all so terribly conservative. No one speaks their mind and everyone is real careful when they say anything. Not me. I say what I think and get what I want and need but then I’ve always been like that. It frightens them that I am very direct and to the point. It worries me that people 10 or 15 years younger are so scared of life and consequences. Old age? It’s a mental thing – not a physical thing. These people are crotchety at 30. Think old? Be old.

Be yourself and age not.

Be who you have to be...

My mother used to always say ‘you’re a long time dead’ – what she meant by that was if you feel strongly, deeply, passionately that you have to do something like follow a dream or break out and do something that no one else agrees with or approves of, then just do it. In the end you have to be true to yourself.

I had a phone call this morning from a dear friend. What he said stuck in my mind all day. What if someone else says you’re selfish in your dreams or your needs? What do you do when you know in your soul that you have to follow your heart despite how it will upset another? Yeah, we all have to get on and co-exist but I have to wonder if another person is so against what you need to do then I have to question do they really get you as a person?

When you think about it every single one of us is unique. There is no one like you or like I. Other people can understand each of us up to a point. Our lives as individuals are bound by what is important to us. Can we really ask another to forgo their needs or dreams to fit into what we want? Is it really being selfish to be yourself and make yourself happy, maybe for just for a short time, in a world where daily we all have to deal with so much crapaciousness? Can it hurt to reach out and grab one thing that will make us smile or feel better about ourselves so we can then move on in the mundane minutiae of our lives? I think not.

You have to be who you are. I may not understand you and you probably won’t understand me but is it going to hurt either of us if what I want is not what you want to do?

You’re a long time dead – yeah, I agree. Grab the brass ring now. What are you saving yourself for?

(Picture is a sunrise at Port Douglas. My happy place)

Amarinda Jones
Penn Halligan
www.amarindajones.com
www.amarindajones.blogspot.com
Be daring...read an Amarinda book