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Swimming around the rips!

It’s a warm summer evening in Melbourne. We haven’t had too many of these in the last few years, so I’m grateful to be experiencing one today as I sit under my gumtree in this suburban house that I’ve come to call home. It’s a rare moment of stillness. I can hear crows in the background having some sort of a heated discussion, as other birds sing their night songs, with the occasional sound of thunder and a promise of rain. It’s an idyllic evening and everything is so perfect! I don’t often get to sit and hear these bird songs, as I roll through the seasons of life, and often find myself looking longingly at my gum tree and wish I had more time so I could just sit under it and appreciate the wind rustle through its leaves, so I am grateful today that I made time to be here in this moment.

As a child I always loved watching the shape shifting clouds as I sat under the mulberry tree in our frontyard, and those were some of the best moments of my life!
When life was simple and dreams were abound! When I hadn’t yet discovered tumultuous heartbreaks or how it feels to miss the unending kisses.

I miss that – the beauty of the untarnished innocence of a child that found immense pleasure in the taste of fresh mulberries and distaste in homework!

Today as a middle aged woman, I sit under my beloved tree, watching the resident ring-tailed possum stare right back at me from the top of the tree, I think I have done alright! I am learning to accept failures with grace, and the fleeting moments of love and laughter with gratitude.

Happiness flows in ebbs and flows, and I have learnt to swim around the rips and try another time!

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Never have I ever…

I have lived over 4 decades, in more than 15 towns across 3 continents, but it’s been a relatively tame life, with the wildest thing I can think of ever having done being riding topless, shotgun with a friend on a highway for a dare, back when bras were optional at best! So, it would be safe to say that my never have I ever list is fairly long and quite unimpressive! But then I met him, and, well! I don’t know what happened!

As autumn dragged in the beginning of another cold and lonely winter, there was a lot going on in life. I was moving into my new home, adapting to the hybrid ways of working, and going on multiple first dates, hopeful to meet a kindred spirit! I was just leveraging math and some of that autumn sunshine to meet someone I’d click with, want to see a second time, when I got a message on Hinge. There was a very cheesy one line about my dark eyes and how I am totally his type, and how beautiful the painting was that I was working on in the photo.  We said hello and decided to meet up for a drink!

I think it was a Sunday evening, I wore my first date dress, the white summer dress, unassuming and friendly, and as I walked to the bar we were meeting at, there he sat, outside the bar, waiting for me. I think the first thing I noticed about him was his warm smile when our eyes met, and then I noticed how tall he was. Definitely my type, tall, athletic and a bit scruffy! I do dig that distressed look on a man! We had a drink each, and Adam ate a taco, giving up on using cutlery halfway through, giving an apologetic shrug! I don’t really pay much attention on first dates because I never go for second ones usually so I don’t remember what he told me, but what was refreshing was how attentive he was to me and seemed very keen to know me. It was a typical Sunday night in Hawthorn, with traffic bustling along on Glenferrie Road, and I was happy to be out on this cool autumn night, talking to someone who looked at me like I was made of stars!

As the night progressed, we just kept talking and it got a bit chilly. While I could have sat there, talking to this very interesting stranger, it was time to go. He insisted on walking me to my car. Call me old fashioned, but I do love a bit of chivalry! We walked to my car across the road, and he looked at me so earnestly and asked if he could kiss me!

Never have I ever kissed someone on a first date, let alone a total stranger, and I have been on a lot of first dates with a lot of strangers! Yet, I don’t know if it was something in the water, or the way he looked at me, like I held the key to his happiness in my answer. I said OKAY, and we kissed! He kissed me like he had all day, like he knew me from before. It was a bit intense, my heart was ready to leap out of me, and I just had to pull away!

He looked so shattered, and asked if we could kiss again. Adam is a 49-year-old man, and he managed to look like a teenager desperately in love! It was heart-melting, but I couldn’t believe I had just kissed someone I had literally just met! So, I had to say no! For the sake of my sanity, I think, or may be to keep my feet firmly on the ground! So, I told him I had to go and got in my car. He stood there as I drove off, and that marked the beginning of a few never have I evers for me, but it has been a fun ride.

Adam thinks it was the pheromones and apparently there is a whole science to it, I believe it was the universe, and the law of being in the right place the right time, meeting the right person when you are in the right state of mind! I’d debate, but I cannot explain most of my actions around him, so this one time I am letting the rationale go.

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In and out of my own life

It is 2022, Covid has evolved, I think I have too! It’s a muggy summer day here in the leafy suburb of Mount Waverley, my fridge is empty, as the kids are at their dad’s this weekend! It’s a perfect Sunday and I am sitting at my local café, waiting for my breakfast to arrive.

Sometimes I feel like an imposter living this beautiful life, doing what I want, when I want, how I want to! I am still not dating, we could blame it on the infamous extended lockdowns, but really, I know its more because I still don’t know who I am, and what I really want.

Eckhart talks about mindfulness, the power of staying in the now, and I have read that book so many times in the past, gotten through it, feeling enlightened and wise, but not really understanding what it meant until this winter when I turned to the book again, a bit broken and dissatisfied with the quality of my life.

It hit home! Life is more or less the same for everyone, what differentiates the happy and contented from the rest is the approach we take to living it.

Stillness and the ability to experience the emotions we are feeling, letting them pass through without resisting, or holding onto them is a powerful skill, and even just knowing this has empowered me so much.

There is so much packed in the phrase living in the moment. For me, it has been to accept that not everything will go my way every time and at the same time. Living the feelings – the sound of my heart breaking, pure joy of painting a sunflower on a canvas, the sound of my kids’ giggles as they have an all-out playdoh war in my living room, the unbearable urge to be held by someone who desires me, then holding myself to sleep; feeling the feelings, and then seeing myself in those moments, living in and out of my life has helped me become who I am.

I am healing, the shoe fits, and the walk through the woods is more pleasant. Life will never be predictable, and I love that about life, but I know me now, and that means all I need to do sometimes is to take a deep breath and shift my gaze!

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Love or not to love!

We live in a world where movies and social media influence what we eat, how we look, and even how we should feel. The undiluted stimuli in the information age have made our outlook to simple joys of life so jaded that when someone reaches out to us, we mistrust; when we feel love for someone, we build walls, hence spending our lives being miserable about potential misery!

I walked my kid to kinder today, and along the way, as he always does, he collected heaps of feathers, leaves and rocks for me and kept handing them to me as presents! As I watched his rosy cheeks with that constant sunny smile on his face as he handed me these gifts, all I saw was the love he felt for me, and the absoluteness of his love was enough for him to know that I appreciate those gifts, and for me to feel blessed to be the receiver of this pure love that expects nothing back!

It was a reminder for me to learn to feel the love I do just because it makes me happy to feel it for someone. Love is not a barter, it is a feeling and feelings are not required to be rational, measured, or calculated! It is sometimes reciprocated, and at times it is not, but the fear of what lies on the other side shouldn’t discourage us from giving it a go.

The learning from my walk today stayed with me, as I decided to pull down another wall, emptied the moat, and decided to let the warmth of love embrace me! We don’t stop ourselves from cuddling someone’s cute puppy, or from drooling over a little baby for the fear of them rejecting our love! In that moment, we just feel pure love for them, and share ourselves with them, making ourselves richer with emotion and warmth as we share it. Why then stop ourselves from sharing the same feelings with someone we adore or love, or may fall in love with?

Why let the fear of something that may never happen keep us from not giving a chance to something that might? We get one life, and we can spend it in what-ifs, or we can risk it all and give ourselves a chance!

I am a gambler, and I will always take a chance on life, because isn’t that what we are here for?

With these thoughts in mind, as I sip my lemon ginger tea on this not so summery February night, I have decided to shed my inhibitions one at a time.

I want it all, the love, the passion, the potential heart breaks! I want to feel it all, and I want to live! I want the butterflies in my stomach, the first kiss again, the looks of passion, and the reassurance of strong arms around me when the thunder threatens a peaceful slumber!

I will chance heartbreaks, or the ignominy of being ignored, because at least I will have felt, I will have lived!

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What do I need to feel whole?

Swing on swings with my kids

Lay down on the decking and imagine shapes of clouds as they morph from a horse into a sea dragon into a bowl of spaghetti in the blue sauce ⛅️

Run in the rain 🏃🏽‍♀️

If I had to be honest I think I need to be loved and desired to feel whole again, but a bowl of ice-cream on an extraordinarily balmy spring evening, watching the stars surface up will have to do for now! 🌌

Because he is Peter Pan

He will talk endlessly about his accomplishments, detail out everything and everyone that makes him a bit grumpy, and get all starry eyed telling me about how he rescued an animal or scored a goal!
But he won’t respond to anything I say that might mean accepting that he feels anything at all!

He didn’t even touch me once, and I fell in love with his beautiful, sad eyes!

This man, whose favourite book is the time traveller’s wife, who once asked me if he could wear thongs to my house for dinner, and wants to make love on ice… but doesn’t want to connect, because he is PeterPan.

He wants to be loved, wanted and understood without any thought for the mark he leaves on others’ souls with his frivolous ways!

Oh so selfish PeterPan, taking it all without asking, giving nothing, knowing full well you ought to, for you have pretend pirates to slay and live in the pretence of perpetual youth!

For he is PeterPan, and adventures must life be, as much as I adore that little boy in him, I must let him go, for, I am no Wendy!

Spring will come soon, and flowers will bloom, but I won’t be visiting to help spring clean your heart PeterPan! May you find whoever and whatever it is you desire!

1 step forward, 2 steps backwards

Conversing with Edward Frankle is like solving riddles, and that is probably what keeps me interested, because who doesn’t like solving puzzles!

I woke up today very hungover from a big night of drunk dancing with some gorgeous, strong women at a beach house in Mornington Peninsula to a text from Edward. It was a question about whether I had been to some restaurant – that’s it, just a text asking if I had been to this restaurant, which when I googled, looked pretty cool, and I hadn’t been, and so I said as much! And that was that.

Turns out, that was him asking me if I would like to go there for a coffee… go figure!

Now, I will admit that we did talk about a Sunday late night coffee, but nothing was agreed, and I had planned a dinner with a lovely girlfriend, so when Edward said he was suggesting that place for a coffee, I was already at dinner with this friend! Safe to say the coffee did not happen (again).

Anyone who knows me will tell you that you couldn’t possibly meet anyone more direct, and I think Edward couldn’t possibly be any more vague about his thoughts and desires! Working with unspecific plans is really irksome, and to avoid obsessing, I almost always choose a distraction!

And that is the tango that Edward and my communication is based on. We have now tried and failed to catch up for a coffee about 5 times in the last 4 weeks, and it’s not because of lack of trying! I believe when I say let’s have a coffee this weekend, I actually mean – Let’s have a coffee this weekend! We live in Melbourne, for the love of all things green, it is Café Central! Coffee is our religion, how hard can it be to agree a date and time and just rock up?

Apparently overly complicated when it comes to this lovely man with a brilliant mind, but complex thoughts! It is not fun being me right now, wanting to get to know a man who talks in riddles and cannot commit to a coffee but will ask to have one every other day!

I love an emotional challenge!

It only took Edward 2 and a bit year to ask me out for a coffee without using work as a crutch.

A few weeks ago, he asked me to invite him for a cuppa, and when I did, he didn’t get back to me for a whole day! Who takes a day to say yes to a coffee they asked someone to invite them over to? If Edward is a bit average at expressing himself, I am the queen of not saying what I really want to say! So obviously that coffee never happened!

Edward and I both decided to ignore the fact that we had an almost coffee and neither of us could be adult enough to talk about why we just didn’t do it. We moved back to our usual pointless conversation about plants and vegetable gardens, his Philodendron Xanadu he calls Mary and my unnamed Xanadu that doesn’t love me all that very much!

Then on a Friday night while listening to the rain drops falling on the tin roof, making these joyous metallic sound, I was surfing dating sites when a thought occurred to me and I wrote to Edward – “ Tinder-swiping when drunk is so adventurous, Saturday morning should be full of surprises”. It sounded like a fun thing to say at the time!

And I think that poor humour broke the barrier so to say.

We have been chatting almost daily, and Edward likes to keep me abreast of everything he is up to in life, we share our idle dreams with each other. It is really annoying to like someone that cannot make up their mind about a coffee but insist on showing you their shopping! I am trying to listen to my heart more than my head, and the heart says if chatting to this cautious, complex man makes me smile, where’s harm in that eh?

His pain struck a chord

Most of the conversation during our coffees centred around him telling me how sorry he was that he was so scruffy, when I was so impeccably dressed, or about how hard his life was, as he was going through a divorce.

As expected, I spilled my coffee on him a couple of times, bumped into the coffee table while trying to sit down and at one point sat right next to him, which seemed to make him jump up and shift over! I wish I could blame my awkwardness on genetics, but I think it’s just me!

During one of our coffee catch-ups he mentioned that whilst he tried his best to make his relationship work for the sake of kids, he couldn’t, and he saw himself becoming a sad, broken person, so he had to move forward. He said he didn’t think he could be a good father if he wasn’t a happy person. It hit a nerve with me, as those were my thoughts that haunted me each night about my personal situation. This was a period when there was a war raging in my head regarding my marriage.

As I sat listening, we said in unison “I/we have a right to live our best life”. And it was awkward after that, we just sat there looking at each other and then he said we should go.

But I couldn’t get his statement out of my mind, and I felt we were both on the same journey, he was probably a bit ahead of me in his thinking as he was already separated, and was going through the pain of having to co parent his kids, the separation was tearing him apart as a parent and as a human. These were my fears, he was living my fears! Watching him so broken, yet coming to work each day, taking the next step forward gave me some comfort in the possibilities of a life as a single woman, coparenting with an ex after 12 years of marriage.

Edward continued to semi flirt with me, in his weird aloof, disengaged way!

He would sign his emails as Mary and Edward, Mary being his Philodendron Xanadu, send me photos of his thriving veggie-patch and anytime I had a work related favour to ask, he would ask me to bribe him with a coffee.

I was living through a very painful haze in my personal life, trying to work up the courage to tell my then husband that I wanted out, so it was nice to have a distraction.

He is a quiet, very intelligent, seemingly shy man who is very tall and handsome, with an enquiring gaze, a lovely smile and a passion for water-polo. He wears this very English jumper with the Great Britain flag on it, almost every day, I am not even sure if it gets washed enough, but we digress! I don’t know what attracts me to him, but I cannot help smiling when I get a text, or really annoyed when I don’t.

I think he is still trying to find himself a little bit and is overly cautious.

He seems to be okay with regaling me with details of his sports encounters, or his frustrations with his ex, but if I ask him what he is up to on the weekend, he does not respond.

He gives honest advice and has spent quite a bit of his precious consulting time solving my work problems for cups of coffee, so all in all, I think he is a lovely man!

He texts at midnight to wish me a happy new year, send me borderline sexual jokes, or ask me what I am up to on Friday nights, but if I ask him the same question, nada!

We are now in lockdown 2.0, everyone is in house arrest, so we chat now and again, and it’s fun. I would like to not obsess over him, so I named my vibrator after him! Yes, I know that does not help, but I do get a kick out of making him pleasure me at my command!

Edward the English Strategist who is obsessed with roosters.

I think it’s time I introduced Edward Frankle!

3 years ago, I was looking for someone to facilitate a workshop for my organisation, and a colleague suggested I try Edward Frankle for the job as he was well regarded in the business and at my workplace. Well I had worked there for 7 years and never heard of this person, which is something to say as I work for a medium sized organisation and literally know everyone.

Anyway, off I went with the recommendation, and he did our workshop, it went well. He was quite friendly, but didn’t really do much beyond time keeping, and, well the post event notes were abysmal. He took forever to send us the invoice and when he finally did, I was astounded by his hourly rate! We paid that out, and that was that. I was probably too busy being a mum, or just didn’t think of myself as a woman anymore, whatever the reason, I never thought of the guy beyond how expensive his notes turned out to be!

And 3 years in, I struggle to not think of him!

It was around my 40th birthday I think when I first took notice of the man. I was walking around telling all my work mates about my impending trip to Hawaii to celebrate my 40th when a tallish man looked up at me with an amused smile and asked who I was going with. I told him it was a trip with my girlfriends, no husband and no kids and got a gorgeous smile in return!

He was very chatty and went on to tell me all about a trip his friend did to Hawaii and all the things I could do.

Then somehow the conversation shifted to plants. Well, by now we know I can talk anyone’s ears off when it comes to plants.  So, we had a bit of chat about plants, Edward shared that he would like to grow some vegetables and could use some help.

Over the coming weeks we talked about his veggie patch, and for a highly intelligent man, he was clueless about keeping plants alive, so I would like to think I educated him a bit. He also has the strangest sense of humour and it all revolves around roosters, must be an English thing, because I have yet to understand any one of his jokes!

Months went by, and, Edward would ask me for information and then suggest we talk over coffee! If I had to be honest only one of those coffees had anything to do with work. Mostly, we’d just get to the café and he would regale me with his stories that ranged from his obsession with ties, to his passion for water-polo. We would of course talk about plants, and I really enjoyed listening to him. I was happy to just hang out with someone who did not know me and seemed to like to hang out with me.

Growing pains in my 40’s

I feel a lot happier today! After a really long time, it feels like a weight is lifted! All it took was a change in outlook.

Getting back into running helped clear the fog and remind me that I am more than just a lonely woman!

It made me remember all that I have, that I worked hard to get, and I genuinely felt grateful for having it all after quite a while!

I sat alone for a long time under the sun a couple of days ago as I watched this couple standing on the cross roads, caressing each other’s shoulders with so much love that the kiss they shared after seemed to lack in passion in comparison!

Sat some more as another woman sat on the same bench next to me, lost in her phone, smoking a cigarette, seemingly content!

Everyone around seemed to have their own perfect life which was imperfect from someone else’s point of view! The woman kissing that man did not seem worried that their kiss wasn’t what one could hashtag about, and the young lady next to me didn’t seem to care that she was alone on a beautiful sunny afternoon!

And then it occurred to me, the realisation that somewhere along the way over the last few months, I had become this person who expects from the world, and I was getting more miserable by the day!

That is not my natural form, I am a giver, not a taker! I am an empath who wears her heart on her sleeve, happily sharing myself with the beautiful people I connect with!

I thought of all the friends I have and of how they absolutely love me and would be there for me in a heartbeat, but I don’t call on them!

Because I am enough for me!

Infact I am so much that I always want to share, to spread happiness and bloom in the warmth I spread!

This thought stayed with me for a couple of days and I think the relief of finally letting go of any expectations from anyone took such a weight off, that I slept for 8 hours straight, 2 days in a row!

That’s more than I would usually sleep in a whole week!

So I woke up today, happy with myself, just how I am, accepting that just because I am in love with Edward, doesn’t mean he needs to be! And it also doesn’t mean that I get to build expectations and draw lines in this undefined relationship we have!

Whilst it might be too late to hope that we can go back to that undefined connection we share, where he makes me feel safe, comfortable and warm by just being there, sitting next to me, chattering away about his sports adventures, &, I nurture his insecure little-boy heart; I could atleast let him know that I saw the fault in my ways when I told him he needed to pay more attention!

So, I sent him a kind of an apology, letting him know I value him, a friend who accepts me how I am, with all my weirdness and all!

Most days I would exhaust myself by overthinking his response or lack thereof, this was just me telling him, I acknowledge I have been unfair, and I still value the light he brings into my life!

But I have no expectations, I don’t care if he replies or not! Just the feeling of not having expectations has shut down my overthinking mind, and the relief I feel is second only to the sweet exhaustion after a long run!

Now when I see him next, my heart wont hurt, because I don’t need his validation, and my smile will be intact, and I hope I won’t feel those butterflies I feel in my stomach each time he looks at me, and I will be able to say “hello” like a grown up! Well one can hope 😉

Broke my own heart … again!

It is not easy to be open to life and protect oneself from heartaches, because I wouldn’t be
human if I could love without expectations and give without wanting! And that is how it
came to be, the end of my beginning with Edward Frankle !
We met several times, for meals and coffees! I invited him over and cooked him meals, and
on his part, he never said no, even broke the COVID curfew once and came to see me! He seemed to enjoy my company! The nurturer that I am, I think I encouraged his inner child, as he shared mid night texts about his sports wins
and the random new hobbies he developed and left!
He added me on his social media, stalked me on insta and we even car pooled to work! And
just when I thought we were going okay, it changed! I don’t know if it was the fact that I can give but struggle to accept, want to know more but wont share, or if it was just the plain old
he is just not that into me! But one day after we car pooled, he just stopped interacting.


I ended up breaking this little blue heart of mine before it could be whole again from the last rejection! I have cried many nights now, wondering what I did or said, or didn’t do
or didn’t say, but as my very wise and beautiful friend says all the time – you can never put
yourself in someone else’s shoes, you can just do what you think is best for you!


So, I did! I made a promise to myself to live an honest life, make vulnerability my strength
and always speak my mind! So, I told Edward I was going to stop being the one taking initiative
and he can lead me on from here! I was expecting that he would see the turmoil in my heart as I struggled with my ego and my unstated expectations from him! Edward on his part, true to his aloof, detached nature, decided not to respond to me on that text and we left it at that. If I message him, he will send me something sweet, but gone are the days when I would hear from him all hours of the day!


It’s just another heartbreak and has nothing on the last one when my husband of 12 years
just decided I was a rebound! But damn! It hurts just the same!
I went into work a week after all this, we passed each other a couple of times, and I was
so embarrassed for having opened myself up to this lovely, mysterious man who never
made any promises, was always a gentleman to me and never crossed any lines he didn’t
intend to commit to, that I couldn’t even make eye contact!


Of all the heartbreak, the rejection, and the unanswered questions, what makes me saddest
is the loss of the friendship we had.
It was so comfortable and happy and simple! I will miss his quiet, unassuming ways, his
beautiful smile!

I will miss playing chess with him, and most of all I will miss his midnight texts declaring his wins at sports to me, because he felt I cared!


While I heal my broken heart, putting more band aids over the tattered ones, I know one
thing for sure though, this will not put me off from being my whole self! I will still always
connect with people with my whole mind and soul! I will seek wholesome connections and I
will love and give without prejudice!


Falls will not stop me from running and heartbreaks will not stop me from feeling all I can while I am alive!