Singular Scene

So Singular in Each Particular

What you Don’t see – but What you Get.

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How many times have you had your personality tested? Or completed some kind of questionnaire that promised to give you more insight into who you really are and how you best interact with the general populace?

I’ve lost count. There have been many tests, and many results over the years. Of the ones that I remember Myers Briggs calls me ISTJ, Personality Plus calls me Choleric, I have an ID (Instinctive Drive) of 7453 and my highest scoring traits on Strengths Finder are… Intellection, Learner, Relator, Achiever and Maximiser.

So what does that mean?

It means that as someone who is Choleric, I am at my most satisfied when life, the universe is everything is in control (recipe for a stress free existence, no?), and it means that when someone uses manipulation to exert control over me I do.not react well (even if my reactions occur out of the earshot of the person pulling the strings).

As an ISTJ I have a strong sense of duty leaving me seriously motivated to finish what I start, and to do it well, without letting anything get in my way. It also means when something I start gets finished by someone else it’s a really tough gig to shake it off and move on.

The ID (High Verify for those in the know) calls me a thinker, and troubleshooter, with a natural talent for problem solving who needs to be clearly understood and listened to (and who has no problem going around things again, and asking the tough questions so that we’re clear, are we clear?)

The Strengths finder ‘strengths’ are all like they sound… Intellection… a thinker, spending significant time inside my own head… couple that with Learner and you have a thinker who’s relentlessly curious, add Achiever, and I will work at a problem until I see a result – extending that further with Maximiser means the result is nothing short of excellent – and as a Relator I prefer to be well known and to know well a select few, a trusted circle…

Handful much?

In all, these traits, for their good and ill mean that when I’m given a job to do, particularly one that captures my imagination, I will slog it out and the results will be good. Really good. It may take time but the deliverables will be worth it.

I have been working on one such piece of work, and on Monday it will be shown to the world. Frankly, this is a signature project for me, it will feature in a showcase next to work done by people I admire and I have been relentless about everything in it being as neat, clean and GOOD as possible so it will withstand scrutiny by my peers and by those above me. And frankly, when two of my code headed colleagues saw it and responded let’s say, appreciatively, about how good it was, it felt awesome to be the chick who turned the boys heads… with her code.

I can’t wait to show it you…

It will be worth the wait.

Virtual Friends and Relations

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Lettres de LouI got mail today. You know, the real kind. It was a lovely letter hand written by Debra, and sent from Chicago because at some point early in the year I said I’d love to be on her list of people she wanted to connect with in 2012.

Debra’s word of the year is connect… so it may surprise you that she actually shut down her twitter and facebook accounts and is connecting [OMG] In.Real.Life.

I applaud her. So much of my connection has been done online lately. Not all of it, I’m not yet reduced to spending all day in my jammies, ordering pizza to be delivered and shuffling to the door in my slippers to collect it. But, as I spend all day at the computer, there are any number of conversations happening on Skype, group chats on the forums I work on and occasional ‘pop ups’ from friends who are working, much the same way as me, in their home offices, or in cafes and co-working spaces. I live in a seriously connected world.

But I’ll be honest, it’s easy to mistake those connections for real life relationships and to be brought up short when they’re gone. The loss of them feels every bit as real as if a friend had slapped you in the face, turned her back and walked way saying she never wants to see you again.

Every bit as real.

How do I know? I’ve been there, and have spent a good part of the last couple of months completely bemused (read sad and disappointed) that the person I’d been chatting to daily, sometimes for hours, apparently found it a lot easier to switch off our connection than I did to be the one who was being switched off from! Frankly, I’m still surprised at how deep it cut.

I appreciate that life changes, you fall in love, become a step mum, start your own business and all of a sudden all those things you used to find taking up your time become quickly relegated to bottom of the priority heap in the face of all of these exciting, challenging new responsibilities. I get it. I really do and I don’t begrudge these wonderful things happening, I applaud and celebrate them all.

What I’m most disturbed by is not that I no longer have that connection, what I’m challenged by is that it meant so much to me, and that someone could have walked away without even an explanation or a ‘see you round’. It ended on a note of ‘I’m heading out of town for a week’ catch you when I get back – and I basically never heard from her again, at least not in my Skype window, and certainly for no more than a ‘Hi’ nice of you to contact me.

So it left me asking myself, how do I know that actually, any of it was real? She could have used a pseudonym, she could have been a 60 yr old man, sitting behind a computer playing with me for all I know. And why the hell do I care?

I don’t think there are any answers. I think there are lessons. The lessons are straightforward.

Guard your heart.

Don’t assume they feel the same.

And for goodness sake, don’t call it a relationship (or a friendship) until you’ve actually met, until you know more than their handle and avatar, and until you have looked them in their eye and gauged just how genuine they are.**

Lesson learned.

** Or, have read their handwriting on a beautiful card – as I did today – thanks Debra for that and for the inspiration to blog* this!!!

*Don’t hold your breath though for much more… unless you want to head over to http://thewebprincess.com and read technical mumbo jumbo!!

Where is she now?

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She was a really quiet girl, meek, actually, and she always came across a little as if she couldn’t quite believe people had enough faith in her to do her job.

She did, and well, dilligent, even.

I’ve never met anyone whose self esteem had taken such a hammering.  She may not have seen it in herself but she was one of the most courageous people I’ve known.  You have to be to beat down anorexia.  It’s part of her her history, and one she was encouraged to tell – as others often do, in church, to wow the crowds at the goodness of God. So she delivered, when asked to, a testimony of how her faith had made her well, and while she wasn’t exactly articulate, the pictures more than made up for the faltering words even though they were terrifying, so close to death, but thankfully, so long ago.

She worked a few cubicles away from me, and she worked in accounts. Ridiculous hours, fielding the disgruntled calls from creditors, calling in debts from the debtors.

She always said she was fine if she was asked, she turned down offers of help… not that I’d be any good at helping out with accounts… but at least I’d have been company.

She came to my house for tea, I thought she may have become my friend.

But then… she broke.

She walked into the boss’ office and quit, then walked out of the building, the church and out of my life, turning her back even on her closest friends, obviously wounded and protecting herself from further harm by withdrawing completely.

Church is supposed to be a place of solace.

It wasn’t for her.

I send the occasional text, assuming, perhaps wrongly, that her number is the same, that maybe my messages don’t just go out into the ether, maybe one day she’ll reply.

I ask after her in circles that go beyond our former workplace, just in case someone’s seen her, heard from her. They rarely have.

I’ve since left that workplace, that church too.  I’d like for her to know.  I’d still like to be her friend.

I wonder where she is.

I wonder if she’s ok.

The Best Laid Plans

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Yes no maybe
Yes/No/Maybe
There is a lot of traveling in my immediate future.  Easter is coming up with a promise of a few days in the Highlands with one of my ‘other’ families, including a certain Mrs Tasmania who shamelessly shucked off NSW for a man! A MAN, I tell you!

There’s a certain former flatmate’s wedding in Melbourne (I fell a strong pull to Melbourne… I won’t lie) at the beginning of May and I’m actually considering driving down (9-10 hours driving including generous rest breaks). Melbourne… [blissful sigh] I’m planning on staying in you a few days… there’s lots of techy goodness in Melbourne, I plan to have meetings, in cafes and/or bars. It will be awesome. And cold.

Before all this local travel action had been arranged I had planned to go to NZ to celebrate not just my birthday but my mother’s and brother’s who all fall within a 2 week period.  Yes, this is epic.  I haven’t celebrated my birthday with my family (it’s tomorrow, the 6th, if you’re interested) since my 40th so it would have been nice to be there, and to spend time with my Mum who’s officially retiring, having reached the grand age of 65. It would be lovely to see them, and to spend a couple of one on three days with some rather gorgeous boys…  But as it is, the whole crew, sans me, will be having lunch at a grand cafe. I will be missing, and will miss it, and will no doubt, also be missed.

But for whatEVER reason, I couldn’t get my sh*t together enough to book at ticket, couldn’t make the planets align in a fashion that gave me peace in my soul, so many variables to consider, so many balls to balance, so many people to try and make happy.

Cash.  That’s a big one… and when there are thousands of dollars worth of outstanding invoices in the ether and NOT in my bank account… organising flights is problematic, particularly given he time of the year.  Traveling across the Tasman at this time of the year, (school holidays and Easter) isn’t going to be cheap… or at least, cheap fares will have been snaffled up very early on… so even if the clients’ bills had been paid the price was going to be more than I really want to pay this close to the end of the financial year.

Time. That’s another biggie… it seemed rather like there weren’t enough days in the month – I still have to earn a living!! So, even getting home for Mum’s birthday could have been done… but maybe then only for a weekend.  A long way to go.. for a lot of dollars, and worth it, yes.. but not completely pragmatic in terms of the days of potential earning versus lost income due to gorgeous time wasting child fun balancing act.

That darn cat.  The Princess (whom I dearly love and who drives me completely barking on a regular basis) requires a fair amount of attention… and while I can leave her alone for a weekend with the promise of visits from the upstairs neighbour who gives out food and cuddles…  her usual cat hotel to which she goes to stay for longer periods, was unavailable in ‘birthday week’ and house sitters are apparently thin on the ground… so going home in April was going to be difficult from her point of view.

So even though I’d check in regularly to the airline’s sites to see what fares were like I couldn’t consciously, or unconsciously commit to coming home around April 16th. This messes with the head of my family who like to KNOW what’s going on… truth to tell it messes with mine… the inability to commit was causing friction that I didn’t even know about!  So while I wanted to make it work, and didn’t want to disappoint anyone, I couldn’t see a way clear to make it happen.

So, as is often the case when looking at all the options, the choice had to be made between disappointing my [brain injured, emotionally sensitive] mother and actually being able to sensibly structure my calendar and wallet to afford the time away from my desk.  Of course, in the end, the smoothing of the waters was much less stressful than it would have been to actually drop everything and head across the ocean to accommodate everyone’s wishes.

And what do you know, the universe, it its wisdom came to the party, and within an hour of making the decision to move the trip into late May early June – Air NZ threw me an airfare sale that will get me there and back for $300.

So, I’ll be in NZ from May 27th to June 12th.  Fi, there will be Northland action… can I come and stay?? I want to see you roller skate!!

I shall be looking after my 3 delicious nephews in Auckland for some of that time… (Trans-Tasman babysitting FTW!) and Princess Lulubelle will be safely installed at the cat hotel, in a very timely fashion while her hosts convalesces from some hospital action.

So… sometimes, when the planets don’t align… it’s for a very good reason… because changing the plan was actually going to be the better plan all along.