When I was young, I knew so much.

Seriously, I was an expert on heaps of shit.  I was an expert on some music I liked and memorising lyrics and singing those songs with my friends.

I was an expert on how fucking fabulous I would be as a parent compared to my lame ass parents who kept me from being a social ninja (disclaimer:  no amount of parental intervention or lack thereof would have made me a social ninja as I was an overly emotional weirdo with social anxiety who always went WAY too far with shit).

I was definitely an expert on how I’d change the world once I won my first grammy and how fame would not change me and I would be the most gracious and caring saint of an adored celebrity.

I was an expert on how lame heaps of stuff was.  I was an expert on how fabulous some other shit was.  I probably had a functioning strategy for creating world peace, if ONLY SOMEONE WOULD FUCKING LISTEN TO ME!

So, I’m pretty old now and the strangest thing has happened.  I’ve realised, that I really, truly don’t know what the fuck is going on a good chunk of the time.

Seriously.  I have given birth to four fabulous humans.  They all seem to be simultaneously experiencing different difficult phases and in varying levels and degrees of distress and delinquency.  I read articles, actively seek advice, I enlist the help of experts to assist and support myself and the kids… All of this happens with differing degrees of success.  Occasionally, we have a major breakthrough and overcome an issue or behaviour or see confidence and resilience shine with dazzling intensity in one of the kids.  And whenever that happens, there seems to be no apparent rhyme, reason or rational to adequately offer me answers or a formula to how or what we did right by our babies.

In my working life, I will lose my mind with angst and intensity.  I will gnash my teeth, throw up my arms, heave my body and soul through the cosmos of creativity to develop a campaign or idea that I feel absolutely confident is going to change the course of humanity, and the idea ends up being a huge flop and I can’t even get budget sign off to give it wings.  In other instances, I will jot down an idea or two, make a couple of calls and then pull of an epically successful activation or event with far reaching (and reasonably accurate) social and traditional media coverage.

In personal relationships, I can have a solid stint of seven or more years with someone popping in and out of my life and us being able to celebrate our diversity and always pick up where we left of.  I am forgiven for being busy and missing important events because of work, travel and family commitments and we get to make the most of our time together and laugh and cry and carry on with a kind of beautiful and spiritual intensity that makes life worth living.  We EVEN like each others shit on Facebook and make hilarious public quips that will have any onlookers rolling in the aisles.  Then.  I get unfriended and my attempts to call or text are ignored.  (This happens VERY rarely cause most of my friends are AMAZING and patient and feel my many faults are worth hanging in there for the good times for)

So I’m just going to say it.  I often have no fucking clue what is going on.

All I do know is this:

In your heart of hearts and deep in your gut, you know when you are doing something shitty, or forgetting to do something really important.  So, Listen to your heart and your gut and use your brain to make good choices when choices must be made.

Be consistent.  Be kind.  Be authentic.  Be honest.  Take risks and totally take responsibility for the shit that you do.  Good and bad, own it.  Basically… most situations in life can be best handled by following this popular buddha meme:

All the other shit appears to be little more than a crap shoot.

I have zero magic formula for life, because we are all so different and the rules keep on changing all the time it seems.  Truth be told, I am having a bit of trouble shovelling through the shit in the big, creepy, badass barn that is my own journey, so I won’t go telling you how to feel or think or what you should or shouldn’t do.

So I am going to leave it there for tonight and go and do some work now because it is the right thing to do and the baby has just gone to sleep.

It felt fucking fabulous just to get that written down.  Feels even better when I think someone somewhere might read it and feel better for it, so, thank you for reading my disjointed thoughts…  I wish you strength, and Love, and heaps of peace and comfort if you’re in need of it.

XXOO