2024: Much Gratitude

At this time of year, I tend to do a review. You know: things that have gone right and things that have maybe gone wrong. This year, building on A Few of My Favourite Things, I thought I would make this post about things I am grateful for. This year has been both difficult and wonderful. Challenging and enjoyable. I’ve had periods where I’ve felt incredibly sad and times where I’ve experienced a lot of joy. As 2024 draws to a close, I’m approaching 2025 with interest and curiosity, wondering what the year will have in store for me. This year has given me a lot to be grateful for.

My Friends

When I returned to Australia from Vietnam, after being away from Adelaide for four years, I had to start again. The people I thought would always be in my life — my family, for instance — weren’t. I’m grateful to my sister for giving me a place to stay during the scamdemic until my tenants moved out of my unit, but a year later, she made choices regarding my daughter that left me feeling incredibly betrayed and we now (sadly) don’t have a relationship. My daughter stopped talking to me in April 2020, one month after her wedding.

There have been a few old friends who have been a great support to me, and a few new friends who I have enjoyed getting to know. I now have a rather wide social circle, filled with interesting people doing interesting things and I’m grateful to know them and be included in their lives and activities. Life is unfolding in a myriad of meaningful ways. 

Studying Law

I wanted to get a law degree in the 1980s because it was peak L.A. Law time. Law seemed so damned sexy and who didn’t want to be a part of sexy, especially when you are in your twenties? Unfortunately, I was having too good a time at uni, and my grades weren’t up to scratch to allow me to transfer across. I graduated with an Arts degree with modest grades, but I did enjoy myself immensely!

Fast forward to the scamdemic, and being unable to find legal representation to fight the hotel quarantine fee, I figured I was smart enough to be my own lawyer and applied to study law as a post-graduate student. I’m now in my final year and while I started studying for a specific purpose, my legal training has been helpful personally. I’ve taken on the university and won three times. I helped a friend a get a refund. I also went to tribunal about another matter and won (but I can’t say too much about that for legal reasons). I know exactly the direction I want to take when I finish my degree, and it’s helping grandparents like myself. I recognise being able to study law is a privilege not available to everyone — and I am very grateful.

Volunteering

When Bella died in 2022, I was devastated. She was in my life for 15 years and I was positive, because she’d lived such a good life and was loved, that she would live to at least 20. That wasn’t to be. While she was alive, a friend told me about an organisation she volunteered for: Safe Pets Safe Families. In a nutshell, they foster out pets whose owners are in crisis, which gives owners the time and space to get the help they need to sort out their situations without having to worry about surrendering their pets. So many people helped me and made it possible to get Bella (and hence me) home from Vietnam. Yes, it was expensive but I couldn’t leave her behind. I know what it’s like to be “stuck” because of your responsibility to a beloved pet.

So four months after Bella died, I fostered my first cat. Her owner was fleeing a DV situation. I’m now fostering cat number eight — her owner was also fleeing DV. Some of the cats’ owners have been hospitalised for mental health issues, or recuperating from surgery. Some have been homeless. One owner had been incarcerated. The longest stay was five months. The shortest was two weeks. Every cat has loved staying with me and settled in well. I cry when they go, because I do get attached to them, but they are happy tears because they all go home to their owners. I have had no foster fails — yet. It’s an honour to help owners and their cats — and I am very grateful.

Housing Security

I bought my unit in the late nineties when my daughter was just about to start school. I bought in a fabulous area, but this was more luck than good management. I wondered at the time, because I was working part-time as a teacher and on a part-pension (sole parents’) how the hell I was going to pay my mortgage. I needn’t have worried: I have never missed a payment. I have lived in my lovely unit for more than 25 years.

Now, with rental accommodation almost impossible to find and high interest rates causing many people to either default on their loans or sell their properties because they can’t afford mortgage payments. My mortgage is so small that, even on Austudy, I have been able to weather interest rate rises with little impact on my household budget or my lifestyle. I can be very choosy about what paid work I do because I’m not a slave to my mortgage. I know I am lucky and am incredibly grateful.

My Brain

When I was young, school was a haven for me. It was a place where I was accepted and did well — the other kids liked me, and so did my teachers. I didn’t go to university straight out of high school, though — I was never encouraged — but I did attend as a mature age student when I was 26. I wasn’t a brilliant Arts student, but I did well enough to get into a post-graduate course to become an English teacher. By that time (1993), I’d had my daughter and needed to do something practical to support us. I taught for a few years before moving into marketing communications (perfect segue for an English teacher) and ended up with a Master of Communications Management — and was awarded a prize for being the student with highest GPA in my cohort. I’m doing very well in my law degree and have been awarded two merit awards so far, and been invited to apply for international scholarships as a high achieving student.

It’s not just academic achievement I thank my brain for: it also allows me to engage with curiosity in a range of activities where it doesn’t matter that I do well or not. I’ve taken up water-colour painting and it’s hard, really hard — but super fun. I’m back running, and I don’t care that I’m slow or old because being able to run at 61 is awesome. I’m belly-dancing again and go to a weekly class. I’m writing flash fiction and am constantly amazed that my brain can concoct character, a plot and twist in 500 words. My brain allows me to pursue really hard things with patience and grace and to also enjoy easy things like reruns of Burn Notice and Golden Girls.

Essay Challenge

This is the 12th essay in the challenge I set for myself at the beginning of the year, and to quote Rocky Balboa after his fight with Apollo Creed: Yo Adrian, I did it!

So. What’s in Store for 2025?

While starting things is sexy, in 2025, I want to finish things. I still have three episodes of my podcast to edit and load. I have a few flash pieces to finish off. Ditto short stories and non-fiction pieces. My novel has been languishing on my hard drive despite not one, but two! writing retreats in Bali. I have photos from my many overseas trips to edit. I’ll definitely finish my law degree and I have a few assignments that lecturers would like me to turn into journal articles for publication.

While hope is not a plan, I’ve set some things in motion regarding my daughter that I anticipate will come to fruition one way or another. Very cryptic I know, but I will reveal more as things play out. 

Thank you for reading and being on this journey with me. Happy New Year!


Image credit: Michaela from Pixabay

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *