HI there lovely Newsletter Family!

I hope you’ve all been keeping well these last few months. It feels like FOREVER since Christmas and New Year already. Time is a strange thing. It can feel excruciatingly slow and like it’s flying by at the same time. Bizarre.

On Wednesday I penned a well overdue open letter to my Doug and have only this morning got around to posting it. As always, my intention for sharing is to normalise the weird and wonderful feelings of life’s hiccups and by doing so open up space for others to tell their truths, if only to themselves.

If you are reading in email tap the heading in the body of text and like magic you’ll be taken to the website where you can like and comment if you wish. I love hearing from you.

Feel free to share my thoughts around if you they resonate with you.

Remember…

“Some things can’t be fixed, they can only carried” - Megan Devine

And that really is okay. XO

Dear Dougstar,

Sometimes I don’t know where the days go… days of late that have been running parallel to last years’ time line coinciding with firsts and lasts, reflections of elation and deflation. Each calendar day sucking me back to experiences where I wish I could have done better and also wish to not lived at all. You know, sliding door moments and all that deep and meaningful naval gazing jazz.

It’s been 12 months and two weeks since you passed away. Yes, I torture myself by still counting the weeks… 54 weeks today if you go from Wednesday to Wednesday.

The other day I wore a pair of white pants down the street with one of my favourite tops. I was wearing a different pair of white pants the day you died and hadn’t been able to wear white since then. I couldn’t wait to get home from shopping and take them off, throwing them into the wash basket with unexplainable repulsive offence. Grief is dumb and stupid and weird and at times makes no bloody sense.

Reminiscing with an old friend this week of times before wheelchairs and a defiant body was belly laughing good. It all seems so long ago and dreamlike – was there really a fraction of time where illness was present but not in charge of the trajectory of our days? Yes and no, with variable intensities. Those days were certainly simpler though, our life map mantra of ‘one day at a time’ yet to be born of necessity for sanity.

In other news…

I found another dead mouse in the shed. Sooo not funny Doug… NOT. FUNNY! I’m slowly working my way around the shed giving it a Spring Clean in the middle of Summer (because that’s how I roll) and I came across something (besides dead mice) I’d completely forgotten you’d been working on.

A dear friend of ours was turning a shed near her house into a ‘She Shed’. I remember you telling me you were going to make a sign for said shed out of a nice piece of timber you’d discovered in your stash and use your Dremel wood tool engraving thingy to carve the words.

Given the affectionate cheeky banter that was always present during her visits the words half stencilled, half free hand sketched on the plank of timber unsurprisingly read “BAT CAVE”. I delivered the sign to our friend that afternoon and chuckled throughout the day at the timely reminder to not take life too seriously. Given that particular find on that particular day just happened to be the anniversary of your passing I sure felt it was a nudge from beyond.

I’ve been giving an old wicker chair I found on market place a new lease of life. Someone had painted it a delightful (not) shade of lime green so I set about giving it a ‘gentle’ pressure wash, light sand and a spray - first with primer and then with satin white. I’d like to say it’s come up a treat but I didn’t factor in you not being there telling me to go easy and lightly build up the layers of paint between drying. Which I did try hard to do… honest!

*Sigh

My impatience got the better of me so of course there are minor (read not so minor) cases of drip runs and accumulated paint glug. Taking on projects without your foreman finger dishing out the guidance I need is just not the same. I’ll keep giving it a stab though so at least you can shake your head at me from above with the familiar exasperated grin you’d give me.

Early in January I took a road trip for a couple of days to beautiful Taradale (near Daylesford) to stay with some beautiful friends. Long way without you, my co-pilot, sitting beside me but John Denver and I had a lovely time singing many duets together.

What a gorgeous part of the world Taradale is. And I was so spoilt. Upon return I was so grateful for the experience I posted this shout out on Instagram…

“I’ve spent the last two days with my beautiful human, my soul sister, on her gorgeous daughter’s magnificent property at Taradale.
I’ve been served the most scrumptious food, chatted away time lounging on the outdoor daybed overlooking the picturesque valley, spied Fairy Wren families twittering away beneath tree canopies, smiled at the sight of ducks waddling between dams, sent the wild bunnies scurrying for cover with the sight of my early morning bed hair as I walked towards the rising Sun, made friends with the rescue sheep, complimented the chicky on how cute she was, listened to the diverse bird choir heralding the dawn, breathed in the freshness of cleansing thunderstorms as they slowly swept by, marvelled at all the work achieved around the property, been pampered with a foot bath, massage, great company, laughed, hugged, said goodbye, cried, got lost (just a tad on the way home) and felt beyond blessed for it all.”

The company, the place, it could not have been more soul nurturing.

My energy levels have not been great the last little while so in and around caring for Mum I’ve been plodding through the mornings with the necessary household mundane crap that has to be done and then depending on what I’ve got left in the tank I choose what to go on with, or not, for the afternoon (hello ever growing shit storm in the roll top desk that I continually avoid with great success).

Maybe I need green juice.

I tried to get you on the green juice once. Remember? I had no idea the human face was possible of such contortion.

Best be off to sleep now Dougie. Energy avoidance stores need to be replenished.

Love always,

Sandra XO

Hi from Sandra!

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