It’s been five weeks since I lost my job. My life has changed. Maybe I’ve changed? I haven’t found a new job yet. A lot of people ask me what I’ve been doing, how I’m doing and how I’m filling in my time. The obvious thing to say is that I’ve been watching the job vacancy websites like a hawk. I see every single job that gets advertised in this town. Occasionally I see an advertisement for a role I could imagine myself in. I have my eye on three or four of them right now.

My current job search strategy is that I have absolutely nothing to lose. I am going to put my hat into every conceivable ring and see what happens. I don’t care if people reject me or my attempts to intrude into their industry. If you don’t want me working for you, that’s fine, I will find someone who will.

Nor am I going to sell myself short. I’m educated, been working for 10 years and I need a job to challenge and stretch me. I want to work, I want to work hard, think, learn and all that good stuff. No sense in applying for a job where I’m going to end up resenting a long commute or be bored inside a week. I’m not ashamed to admit that the only roles that fit the bill have some combination of the words ‘senior’, ‘manager’ or ‘consultant’ in their title.

But fuck, this is a slow process. I have to wait weeks for applications to close on advertised positions, then weeks again for the company to go through their hiring motions. The whole process is completely out of my control. I have no choice but to wait.

I don’t know about you, but I find the interview process for landing a job a form of torture in itself. The interview phase of my job search is looming. I would sooner have teeth pulled without anaesthetic by a person who wasn’t a dentist than sit through a job interview. I find the process flawed, unnatural, unnerving and downright awful. I hate having questions fired at me, I hate panels of people judging my every move and I hate regurgitating contrived stories about when I did something innovative in the workplace. It’s a bullshit process. I’m dreading the inevitable questions about my redundancy, even though I have my three sentence response memorised by heart.

I have been pressing the networking flesh. I need to. I have been in this city for five minutes and haven’t built up the networking contacts that I’d like. If I want to stay and work here, networking is a necessary evil. I am not at my best or most comfortable striking up conversations in a room full of strangers. But I have persisted and met some really interesting people, many who have been sympathetic to my plight. It’s amazing how little you hear about redundancy and job loss until you put it out there. Once you’re open about it, everyone has a story about how it happened to them or someone they know.

I always look for the silver lining and I’ve used this time to explore this town. I have been visiting the city beaches in this last chance summer weather. I go for long walks and even bike rides to various places I’ve heard of but never been to before. I have read some wonderful books, seen every decent movie out, had extra fire and concentration to put into my dance training and I have done a lot of running.

I’ll be attending my MBA graduation ceremony in Melbourne later this month and I need to prepare myself for the fact that I may not have a job when I get robed up, don that funny hat, walk out on stage, tip that funny hat and accept a testamur with my name printed on it. I will be proud to be on that stage, but some of the lustre will be gone because, well you know why. Equally, my research got published in an international journal last week. Again, bittersweet. On one hand I was thrilled to see two years worth of work finally in print only to frown the next minute thinking, ‘I’m the lead author and driver of this research, why then don’t I have a job?’

What's harder about this, my empty head or the boredom? I have nothing to think about. It’s amazing what a job did for my headspace and my identity. There’s a void there now. In a small way, my head is my own worst enemy that a job helped to distract me from. I can try to fill that void with books, music and film but it’s just not the same.

Sunday evenings are hard. If homesickness is going to infect me, that’s when it does. If you have a job to go to on Monday morning, Sunday evenings are usually spent with family and/or in preparation for the working week ahead. When you have no job, live alone and away from your family, Sunday evenings can make you feel even more isolated and alone.

It’s easy to tell my friends that I’m fine and everything’s fine, but sometimes it’s not. Sometimes I am not fine. I’m not good at telling people that. For the some times when I’m not fine, I will take myself outdoors, up onto melancholy hill somewhere, sit under the shade of my favourite tree and sob. The hill quickly turns into a hole and I have a tough time pulling myself out of it. This all wasn’t part of the plan.

Consider yourselves all forewarned, friends. Next time I’m up on melancholy hill, look out. One of you is going to get a phone call from me because one of you is coming to melancholy hill with me. Enough of trying to fight my way out of sob-filled holes on my own. We are going to fight our way out of it together. Fortunately for you all my melancholy hill is difficult to get to. Even with this most recent life event, it is rarely visited these days.

Now what? I dunno. Until everything works out, I have to live with this having no definite end point and the big wide unknown just makes it tough. Plain tough. I have no choice but to ride it out and take the learnings where I can, while avoiding what’s up on melancholy hill as much as possible.

I was inspired by this quote from Helen Keller that I read in another context the other day. I really believe it. Tough times can make you stronger and, if you let it, can make you a more rounded and robust person.

‘Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved’.

Seems melancholy hill may have its own silver lining after all.

Sarah

I was genuinely saddened to hear today of the passing of Jim Stynes. I’ve been sad all day about it. He was the only footballer I ever admired, for what he did on and off the football field.

For my non-Australian and non-football audience, Jim was a champion Aussie rules football player, imported from Ireland, who enjoyed a spectacular football career throughout the 1990s. His post football career saw him work tirelessly as a youth worker where he co-founded the Reach Foundation. He was particularly well known in my home city of Melbourne, where lived and played out his football career.

Jim lost his battle with cancer today, aged 45 years.

My memories of Jim aren’t really of him on the football field. When I was a teenager, I remember sitting in the audience, listening to Jim give a motivational speech about realising our dreams and potential. The speech wasn’t at my high school, it was at the school my two brothers attended. It must have been held after school hours because I remember my mum attended as well.

I don’t recall much about the content of Jim’s presentation, except for one exercise he encouraged the audience to do during the session. At one point during his speech, Jim asked us to turn to the person next to us. He wanted us to ask our parent or guardian ‘what’s your proudest moment’. I turned to my left to my mother. I didn’t know what she was going to say and her response somewhat shocked me. My mother said to me, ‘my proudest moment.. was the day I married your father’.  

It seemed insignificant at the time but reflecting on it now has me well choked up. Not only the setting of listening to such an inspiring man, but my mother’s response as well. I think from that moment onward I realised just exactly how strong and unconditional the bond was and continues to be between my mother and my father. I completely admire them for it now and I thank Jim for making me ask my mother that question on that day.

I know a health professional or two who treated Jim’s symptoms related to his cancer and its treatment over the years. While being respectful of his privacy, my friends described Jim’s incredible courage, dignity, willingness and positivity in the face of adversity and overwhelming odds. I’m sure my friends who knew Jim that little bit better are doing it tough today.

Jim’s message to youth was to find what you’re good at and chase it. Here’s the thing, it’s not just a message relevant in youth. It would be at least 15 years since I attended Jim’s presentation as a teenager on that night. I’m now well into my 30s and Jim’s message of chasing what you’re good at is still the dream I continue to chase today.

RIP Jim.

Sarah

I lost my job last week. And no, I am not joking.

Technically I wasn’t fired. My job was declared redundant. Like the difference between the two is supposed to make me feel better. It’s a horrible word, redundant. And to be declared redundant? Officially it means deprived of one’s job because it was no longer necessary for efficient operation. For efficient operation? Fuck that. I’m still sitting here, the first Monday morning in over 10 years and I have no job to get up and go to. It feels very strange.

This was supposed to be my dream job. My dream post-MBA job. Recall that just four months ago I chucked in the very secure long term job I had in public health, packed up my life, moved on my own and to a different state for this job.

This is very unfamiliar territory for me. I have never been fired or made redundant from anything. I have never felt so comprehensively rejected in all my life, and foolish, and completely demoralised. Welcome to the real world of work, Sarah! You are no longer the sheltered pseudo public servant you once were, in a cushy job where no one gets fired.

I am not going to go into the specifics of why I lost my job and I don’t want to bash my old firm. I need to tread lightly here. What I will say is that the GFC is not over, kids. This country has not escaped it. It is starting to permeate into government departments who are reducing their spending accordingly.

I knew for the better part of two weeks that this was coming. While no names were mentioned initially, as soon as I heard the boss say ‘reducing headcount’, I immediately felt very vulnerable. I was the last person they hired. I may have had nearly two weeks to sit with it but how do you prepare yourself knowing you’re probably going to get fired?

I had wondered exactly how they would do it; the part where they tell me they are terminating my employment. Would they take me to a public place, tell me I have to leave, where I couldn’t make a scene or hissy fit it out in public? Or make a meeting time with me on Outlook, where I would know in advance what was coming? I knew my head was on the chopping block. Decision day arrived. It was uncharacteristically grey and rainy outside and it mirrored my mood. I wore my favourite pretty red hair clip and hoped for a shift execution.  

I am proud of me for handling it as well as I possibly could. I listened to what sounded like a short rehearsed speech from my very nervous boss. I had time to cry about it. I was told to gather my things. I had $30 cash stuffed into my left hand. I was promptly marched out the door and into a waiting taxi. The fucking indignity of it all. How’s that for a swift execution? It was all over in 15 minutes and by 9:30 that morning, I found myself back at my apartment wondering what the fuck just happened.

Two weeks is a long time to wait to learn your fate. It was incredibly difficult to front up to work, knowing I was probably going to get fired soon, and actually concentrate and do anything that resembled work. It was like a rollercoaster. At times I brushed it off and felt fine about it, other times I was convinced I would keep my job and other times I drove myself crazy and over-thought it to the point of floods of tears. Only natural I guess.

I hate thinking I was an easy target for firing because of my personal circumstances. Or lack of them. I don’t have a family or partner to take into account. I don’t have a young family or kids in private school. I’m the one with the newly minted MBA who can take it pretty much anywhere and if that fails, can always use my clinical background to fall back on. I could always do a PhD if I got really desperate. I may have options, I have more options than those around me but I have worked hard to set myself up to have those options. Nonetheless having options doesn’t make it any easier when you’re the one in the firing line.

I have hated telling people about what happened. Especially my old colleagues in public health, where redundancy isn’t part of their vocab. Some people I just haven’t told. I am completely ashamed to put ‘unemployed’ and ‘my name’ into the same sentence.

It’s been nearly a week since it happened and I’m feeling a little lost. As much as I’ve resented it, my work has always been a huge part of my identity. Now that’s gone and I’m not sure what I am anymore. I am not used to having so much time on my hands.

But I am much more than my work. More than a growing collective body of research. I get the feeling that this experience is going to prove it to me. I can take the time to cherry pick and wait for the best job with the best fit. I can explore what I am truely passionate about, what blows my hair back and what will really make me jump out of bed each morning.

In the meantime I have to stay positive and busy. I can finish off a research paper that's up for presentation mid year. Think of all the running I can do! I have no excuse for not smashing up that half marathon I've been eyeing off next month. I'm going to watch every single movie nominated for Best Picture, all in one hit. And the tv I can watch! American tv is cranking up soon in the lead up to its summer hiatus. Awesome. And what about all the wonderful new music waiting for me to explore and wrap my ears around? I can catch up with pals and not be the one that has to rush back to work or be home before 10 on a weeknight. My kindle is going to get a serious work out. I can read and read and read and read. I can even try meditation. I can take dance class every single night of the week. I might just do that.

I will be okay. I am not going to panic. I need to spend time thinking hard about what happened and what I want to do next. I need to keep the bigger picture in mind here, now more than ever. People get fired every day. I can keep a roof over my head and food on my plate for a very long time to come. And I don't have to quickly scoff my lunch sitting at my desk at 4pm any time soon.

On the back of every bus ticket sold is this town they print short motivating affirmations. On the back of my bus ticket last week was this very timely quote.. every ending is a new beginning. Exactly right. As for my new beginning? Dusting myself off, taking full advantage of the downtime and not letting this smash my confidence are some of the options I’m considering.

Sarah

I love sport. Always have.

I have always enjoyed watching basketball. It’s a simple game with numerous strategies on how to play it well and how to win. I enjoy its fast paced nature and how there’s always something visually going on. The fundamentals of the game of basketball are not hard. Shooting, rebounding, passing; it's what young school kids practice during recess. It's a team sport that can showcase a team’s ability to play well together while allowing individual talented players to shine right through.

Games can get close, the stakes can get high and the game can come right down to the wire. Couple this with its fast paced nature and you have a recipe for some of the most thrilling and entertaining sport you could ever watch. The game can be played equally well by small six foot guys as well as dominant, agile seven foot giants. The American NBA is my league choice these days. The NBA has deep roots, with a long, proud and illustrious history spanning many decades.

You can follow teams, you can follow players and you can follow egos too. There is an entire subculture under-riding the game, at times more like a soap opera, where players marry Kardashians, some get dumped a few weeks later, and all is right with the world again.

I understand the game. Much better than I understand any other team sport. The game comes naturally and just makes sense to me. I don’t have the same feeling watching any other sport; soccer, Aussie rules or otherwise. Mind you, I have not spent as much time watching other sports as I have spent watching basketball over the years.

Not only do I love to watch it, I love to read about basketball too. People analyse the game and the league in such tremendous detail and then write about it. It deepens my understanding of all aspects of the game and I just can’t get enough. Bill Simmons is the best and funniest sports writer going around these days. Long live that man, he is a gem.

When I talk about my history and love of the game, I think it surprises some people. It’s not a common sport to like in this country and to have good working knowledge of, doubly so if you’re a female. I have a long history with the game of basketball. I have my family to thank for it.

When I think about it, I grew up in the absolute prime of basketball, in this country and overseas. There’s the Michael Jordan factor I grew up knowing and loving from overseas. At around the same time, the early 1990s, was the epitome of the national game in Australia. The talent and hype was there, along with interest from the media and the loyal fan base that made up the decent crowds each week. As a family we went to local basketball games from the national league. A lot of them. We would even travel interstate to watch games. For years we had season tickets. Watching basketball was something we regularly did as a family and it brought us closer together. We bonded over the game.

When I was growing up, my family and I spent many Australian summers in the US. I’ve blogged about it before here. Every single time we went to the US we’d end up at some kind of basketball game. I have many, many fond memories of watching basketball in the US with my family. I went to The Forum, twice and watched the Lakers play. This was where I saw a recently retired Magic Johnson strut around the sidelines like some kind of courtside God. I saw Shaq play out of Orlando and get driven home after the game in the biggest car with the biggest wheels I have ever seen. I saw Jason Kidd play in a college ball game once, before he turned pro. He played out of the University of California back then, and the hype surrounding him as a potential NBA player was enormous. I watched the Shaq and Kobe show at the Staples Centre in Los Angeles more than once. Our seats were so far back in that monolith of a stadium, Shaq was an inch tall from where we sat. No matter. We were a family and we were there.

Watching all this sport, little wonder I have a finely tuned competitive streak. It’s more than a streak, more like a side. Or an edge? Whatever. I want to win at everything. I love how I feel when I win. I get monumentally pissed off if I lose, no matter how small the stakes. Whether you like it or not, I will compete with you on just about anything, especially sport. All kinds of things will bring out my competitive side. Lately I have found myself getting most competitive at anything remotely related to my career, at dance class, at fantasy sports, during epic words with friends battles and of course, while out running.

And so finally, someone asked me recently, which modern day player do I think I resemble the most? That’s easy. Kevin Durant. KD. He is understated, well drilled, kinda nerdy, supremely self-assured, respected and driven. It is early days for that young man and his basketball career. And that is good news for all of us. Kevin is like me in a way. It sounds trite and I really mean it. Our best is definitely yet to come.

Sarah

I have a genuine opportunity to run in the 2012 New York City marathon. So go for it right? I haven’t jumped at the chance to take it. Surprising I know. The New York City marathon is my ultimate running event. If you’re going to run a marathon, why not do it at one of the most iconic and dramatic cities in the world, through all five of its famous boroughs? I feel a strong connection with New York City and would jump at the chance to visit there again.

Lots of people ask me, but I have never run a marathon. Half marathons sure, that has been my distance of choice over the years. Here are my reasons for why I have never run a marathon.

Time. I simply have not had the time in recent years to commit to marathon training. My part time university studies and full time work commitments seriously ate into my spare time in recent years. I can no longer use time as an excuse.

Injuries. My body has struggled with injuries while training for a couple of half marathons each year, how in goodness name would it cope with a full marathon? The pattern for me in recent years has been to battle injuries in the first half of the year, like strained hamstrings and slow ITB recovery, only to have it come good again in the second half of the year in time for all the big spring running events.

The training. Even with all my running experience, training runs of 3+ hours scare me. I’ve seen many a fellow running group member train for these events. I’ve seen their battles with injuries, battles with their own minds and the impact on their bodies as they get deeper into the training. The lead up to that final magical 32km effort is such an effort for many of them. Why put myself through that?

I prefer halfs. I prefer the half marathon distance anyway. It’s long enough to be challenging, long enough to test me over the final few kilometres, long enough to play serious games with my mind, long enough to hurt me, long enough to require solid training and long enough to make me want to beat my personal best time every single time.

The impact. There is always a lingering question in the back of my mind as to how good running a marathon actually is for your body. And my body especially. The weeks of recovery afterwards with minimal running or impact would frustrate me no end. At least with a tough half, I can be back to doing something physical in less than a week or so.

But the question still remains, does my lack of tackling a full marathon distance make me any less of a runner?

There’s a school of thought that says real runners appreciate and train only for the shorter distances. I know many proficient and seasoned runners who are simply not interested in running a marathon. In my experience, the more experienced and coached a runner is, the less likely they are to have run a marathon.

A marathon is not a rite of passage I think I need to meet in order to consider myself a decent runner. I’ll bet Usain Bolt has never run a marathon, and who in the world is going to say that guy isn’t a runner? Bottom line, if running is a part of your life, you’re a runner no matter what your distance of choice.

Will I ever run a marathon? Not sure. One day maybe. I’m happy with half marathons for now. If I took the New York City marathon ticket, it would mean having to raise a decent amount of funds for a charity. It’s pretty much the ticket most people use to enter the race. I have no problem at all with the charity raising aspect of the entry. What I would find difficult is having the social, business and running contacts to raise such funds. I feel I haven’t lived long enough in my current city to have built up those kinds of contacts yet and I’m too detached from my old city to readily call on those contacts again.

So maybe my New York City marathon dream is simply a no for now and a yes for later.

Sarah

Up until a few months ago, I worked in large metropolitan-based hospitals with different types of caseloads and on different kinds of hospital wards. I was fortunate enough to receive excellent and advanced training in my area of clinical expertise that allowed me to pursue ward-based clinical work at such an advanced level.

I learnt and saw a lot in my time. And yet no one really talks about what it’s like to work inside a hospital. You are in the front seat, witnessing modern western medicine in full flight. From that front seat you can see humans at their worst. Sickness and illness become the norm, to the point where you forget what normal ageing and healthy socioeconomics actually look like. A routine day for you will not be a routine day for your patient and their loved ones.

Now that I have stepped away from that kind of work, I see now that working in a hospital is a mash up of bad news, sad news, managing risk, decisions, traditions, anguish, pressure and guilt. The negativity and chaos that envelopes the system is acknowledged by those inside it as the status quo.

Exploring one of those themes in more detail, hospitals are a workplace built on traditions. Nothing really changed in the 10 years I worked in them. People do things because that's the way they've always been done. Despite the constant air and threat of change, processes and treatments largely remained the same. The chasing of constant dollar saving drove most of the changes, rather than impact on patient care or outcomes.

Working in a hospital has shaped how I work today. Here are seven things that working in a hospital taught me.

Empathy: most people who work in healthcare should have this in spades anyway. It doesn’t have to be about engaging in long deep and meaningfuls or dishing out warm fuzzies. Although I did a lot of that in my time. You have to talk to and engage all kinds of people. Everyone has a story they want to tell. Short bursts of listening and acknowledging difficulties faced by patients and families was often all that was needed. I found that people frequently forgot the detail of what I said, but not how I acknowledged them or how I made them feel.

Medicine is fascinating: human bodies amaze me. What a human body can tolerate in the form of disease, illness, abuse and treatment should get more recognition. In those that avoid chronic disease or dodge bad genes, it has tremendous reserves for sustainability and healing. Medicine is always researching itself. There is always more to learn and know.

The fear: I’ve seen this look a thousand times. There is no mistaking it. Something terrible has happened suddenly and a loved one is gravely ill in a hospital bed. It is the look of absolute fear in the eyes of a relative, contemplating the thought that their loved one might actually die. The processing, the panic, the heightened emotion, the unknown, all with eyes the size of dinner plates. Rarely did I see the fear in patients, more often in their relatives.

People die: without wanting to get morbid here, hospitals are supposed to be a place where sick people are healed and get better. It doesn’t always go to plan. Many patients die. People forget this. And frequently people leave the hospital in worse shape than when they arrive, with nowhere near their previous level of functioning.

Miracles do happen: occasionally patients defy the odds, take a different path than anticipated and go on to make some kind of recovery. In my experience these patients tended to be younger, had much to lose and everything to gain. It was a rare thing and difficult to predict who would defy the odds. Such patients would be in the system for a long time afterwards continuing their recovery. I would try to follow their recovery once they were discharged to a rehabilitation facility by engaging my rehab colleagues to track their progress towards eventual discharge.

Value your health: I appreciate and acknowledge the fact that I am well and healthy. I value my good health. I never take it for granted. I understand the importance of limiting one’s risk to chronic conditions that are precursors to so many other disease processes. I intend to keep myself well and out of the hospital system all together, now and for as long as I possibly can.

Know the system: I understand the patient journey. I know how the system works. I lived and breathed it for 10 years. I understand where the weaknesses and kinks are in the system. I can talk to any health professional and relate to their background, expertise and point of view. If I or anyone close to me ends up seriously ill in a hospital, I know enough to advocate to the best of my ability. It is a huge advantage that only comes from working inside the system itself.

Sarah

If you read my tweets carefully enough, you’ll know that I went through a colossal relationship breakdown last year.

One of the features of this relationship was its lack of children. We weren’t like every other young couple we knew. We were the only ones that were not actively trying or didn’t already have a young family. It was a conscious choice on both of our parts.

A wise person told me recently that sometimes, having children is the glue that helps to bind a relationship together. It’s not as silly as it sounds. Granted most of what’s written out there talks about the significant strain and stress raising children can place on relationships. Many relationships fail even when children are present. Was our lack of children our downfall? Let me say this. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind; if I was a mother to a small family right now, that relationship would not have broken down in the way that it so spectacularly did.

Here’s why I think so. Having a young family would have put a serious dent in my career aspirations. I would have happily continued to work in hospitals helping people while my real job would have been to raise a small family. Raising that family would have become my absolute priority. A contented life in suburbia would have likely followed. This in turn would have extinguished any urge or energy I had to commit to what have been my recent priorities; to selfishly chase higher education in pursuit of research dollars, glory and ascending the corporate ladder.

I am open about my choice to pursue my career but I need my future relationships to bind and hold together. Without the glue that can bind a relationship together in the form of a young family, and if this was so lacking in my last relationship, how do I make up this void? What should one’s priorities be inside a relationship, when children aren’t in the picture?

I have pursued my career hard, only to find myself feeling empty and to have a meaningful long-term relationship end. I have paid a very steep price for my recent priorities and pursuit of happiness. But I have to sleep in the bed that I have made for myself. That doesn’t mean that I can’t sometimes reflect on what my life might have been like, if I went down the path of family life that I have so openly chosen not to pursue.

Sarah

I live in a kind of Limbo Land. I live neither here nor there.

I don’t live in Melbourne anymore so I can’t call it my home. Besides it let me down when it was supposed to make me happy. But I haven’t lived long enough in Adelaide for me to call it my home either. So where is my home now? Where do I belong? I don’t know anymore and it’s unsettling for me, especially around christmas time.

I’m starting to dread the thought of going home for christmas.  It’s only a few days away and I don’t really want to go. What if I don’t want to come back? I don’t want to have to go through the trauma again that was saying goodbye to what I knew. Then there’s the whole other issue of dealing with christmas as a single gal. First time in a very long time for me. It’s strange. It’s also a whole other blog post in itself.

Despite the dread I am desperate to see my family and friends again. I am going to be all over them like a rash. Never before have a yearned to be in their presence, to drive familiar streets again and to be around surroundings that I know.

Limbo Land demands thoughts of home and belonging that can seem all too hard. I avoid them nicely, by putting on my happy face, driving my energy into running, getting out there and making friends and my latest craze.. staying out late. That way I can sleep all weekend and not have worry about filling in so many voids of solitude and emptiness.

Avoidance is not a good strategy. Because every now and then, like right now, it all catches up with me. It chases me down, taps me on the shoulder as if to say, Sarah, you can run but you can’t hide from this. Someone told me recently that I need to get better acquainted with my own company; that this is the life I have now chosen and I must completely learn to deal with it. Sound advice.

I’m turning it over to you, friends. What is the answer to Limbo Land? How do I get out of it? At what point do I leave this place and have it cease to be an issue? What advice do you have for me?

Sarah

Fiji is one of my favourite places on earth. Get me away from the bustle and poverty that is the main island to search out its real beauty, its magnificent islands. I love Fiji because it’s close to home, the people are friendly, it’s easy to navigate and even easier to island hop. Parts of it, particularly the untouched and remote parts are visually stunning, both above the water and below it. Whatever you picture in your head when you close your eyes and think of an island paradise, Fiji has it.

On a trip several years ago, I was on large catamaran, spending the day island hopping. The final stop was to the island of Monuriki, an uninhabited island a couple of hours boat ride west of anything that resembled civilisation. Monuriki is famous because it is the island where the Tom Hanks movie ‘Castaway’ was filmed. It is a large island and its volcanic past is evident in the high mountain at one end that’s covered in rock and dense scrub. The islands surrounding it gave rise thanks to the volcano’s activities thousands of years ago.

I remember this day because it was unbelievably hot. Every inch of shade on the boat to get to the island was taken up with bodies. No one, not even the locals, wanted to be in the sun that afternoon. Stepping off the dingy and onto the island, my feet weren’t prepared for the assault that was the hot white sand that had been baking under the sun all afternoon. I quickly headed up and over the beach away from the water and straight for the shade of the palms and scrub that dotted the main beach.

It was too hot to do anything. Draping myself over a palm tree that was bent almost to a right angle, I couldn’t help but think about how Hollywood made a movie here. Did they have to sweat through days like today? I thought about the only line from the film that I remembered, the one about the most famous volleyball of all, where Tom’s character unmistakably cries out, ‘Wilson!’

Despite the heat and oppressive sun, I felt the urge to go exploring. Maybe I might find my own secret cave, just like in the film? I headed away from the main beach and towards the old volcano. Among the scrub under the palm trees, I noticed something out of the ordinary. At first it looked like a broken glass bottle and I was instantly wary, thinking shattered glass could be nearby and that I was barefoot.

On closer inspection, the bottle was intact, not broken. I fished it out of the scrub. It was clearly a wine bottle, with the wine and its paper label long gone and the cork still intact. The bottle was green but clear, probably meant for a white wine, with an imprint in the glass that said ‘Stonehenge’. I found out later that Stonehenge is a boutique winery in the Napa Valley area of Northern California. The link here was uncanny, the Napa Valley is another part of the world that shines on me. It too is beautiful, and is home to dear family friends that I have visited often over the years.

The bottle had a piece of paper inside it. A long piece of paper, rolled up tightly into a small cylinder. To keep the paper cylinder in place, it was tied at the middle with what looked like a long length of regular brown cotton. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t open it. The cork was firmly in place, like it had never been opened before.

I had found a message in a bottle, on an uninhabited island in the middle of the South Pacific. I inspected it closely, turned it over, shook it, anything to give me a clue as to its origin or contents. How did it get here? Was is washed ashore from afar? Or more likely, had someone left it here for me to find?

With my new prize in tow, I proudly showed it off to anyone who would listen on the boat ride back. I even showed it to the boat’s captain. ‘Open it!’ was the common response. I couldn’t. I didn’t have a bottle opener. Wine and corkscrews aren’t commonly found on isolated islands in the South Pacific.

I took the bottle and its precious contents back home with me to Australia. I don’t often keep mementos of my travels, but this was no ordinary memento. I remember being fearful that it might break if I stored it in my regular luggage so I took it onto the plane in my backpack as hand luggage.

In my home, my message in a bottle took pride of place on the mantle. I looked at it every day as a reminder of the wonderful location in which I had found it. Over the years I have been seriously tempted to open it and read its contents. But mostly I just imagine what its contents might be. Is it a convoluted map to a loot of buried treasure? Or is it a desperately sad love letter written to an old flame? Is it a marriage proposal to an improbable love? Is it a suicide note of someone who later jumped into the volcano and to their death? Does it tell me where Wilson ended up after Tom’s character lost him at sea? Does it contain the secret to curing cancer or solving global warming? Probably not.

And so it remains unopened, my message in a bottle. Leaving it unopened keeps alive the mystery of its contents and its original owner. Having said that, what I want to know is this.. did you write on a piece of paper, roll it into a cylinder, tie it with brown cotton, shove it into a wine bottle from Northern California, re-cork it and leave it for me to find on Monuriki Island off the west coast of Fiji? Drop me a line if you did. I have something that belongs to you. Buy me a beer and let’s uncork that bottle for the final time, together.

Sarah

I had a friend hurt me pretty badly recently.

I am not going to give specifics about what happened. Just know that I came away feeling amazingly upset and hurt by my friend’s actions.

I couldn’t believe the strength of the anger this person made me feel. I am not normally an angry person. I wanted to run around in circles, scream, punch, thump and cry, all at the same time. I wanted the whole world to know what a fake and phony person I saw her to be. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops, what she had done. I wanted to say, ‘You all like this person, but now I don’t and here’s why!’

I didn’t do anything like that. Lucky for the person involved, I am not the vengeful type.

She apologised, a couple of times. But I didn’t want to hear it. It came off as insincere, condescending and more like going through the motions of what a friend should say to another friend at the time. I even felt sorry for her. I was so wrapped up in my own hurt and anger, no apology was going to make me feel better. What was the point?

After the dust had settled and I had a few days to calm down, my anger just got worse. I was so completely pissed off that she had left me in a difficult position; do I cut her off completely or do I forgive and try to forget?

A wise lady taught me recently that my reaction to dealing with negative emotions is not a healthy one. My natural instinct is to block them out immediately and to drive them out of my head. Instead what I’ve been practising lately is to sit with negative feelings. Treat them like a rain cloud. Let them flood over me, have them rain down on me, look at them, acknowledge them, think about why I’m feeling them, take a step back and examine them, all the while knowing that clouds can’t really hurt me and that they will eventually pass. It might take 15 minutes, it might take half a day.

In this case, it took about a week for the rain clouds to clear. Goes to show the strength of the anger and hurt that I felt. Towards the end I agonised about what to do. Could I really cut this person out of my life? Did I even want to? Was there a fundamental flaw in their character that I’d somehow missed and didn’t like the look of? Would this person hurt me again? All I knew for certain was I had to do something and that couldn’t leave things the way they were.

So I accepted her apology. I said to her something along the lines of ‘you hurt me, but I value your friendship more than the hurt I felt’. I don’t condone what she did. But in choosing to forgive, I was no longer the victim. My life will not be defined by hurt. Her behaviour was her failure and by choosing to forgive, I was ensuring that her failure was not my own. I chalked the whole event up into another of life’s lessons; that you must forgive your friends, no matter how unforgiveable and painful their behaviour might seem. I learnt that when you’re the one that’s been hurt, forgiveness is incredibly empowering.

Sarah