The Chaos Theory

There’s stability, and then there’s chaos. Two separate ends of the spectrum.

There’s something about chaos. It draws you in, pumps you up, sucks you dry.

Growing up, chaos was the norm. Growing up, and then reaching adulthood, chaos still reigned as I attempted to recover from my childhood. Stability did not live there.

It took a lot of energy to live in the epicentre of chaos. It was hard to relax, because I never knew what was going to be around the corner. Would I have a place to live? Food to eat? A job? Family? Love?

The longer I endured chaos, the stronger I became. I was a survivor. And I took pride in that. I didn’t let the bastards get me down. I beat the odds and I made it. It took a long, long time to realise that being survivor is quite sad.

But the human spirit is a wonderful thing. The edges of the rifts and chasms in my psyche eventually grew together. Perhaps the seal was not as straight as it might have been, but it healed.

It began to heal when I took control of my own life. When I took control and provided to myself, the love that should have been given to me freely. It began to heal when I started to make healthier, less self-destructive choices for myself. When I chose people to be in my life because they treated me with love and respect. I surrounded myself with good, loving people. My friends became the family that I chose. My love and loyalty towards them was fierce. Conversely, I could cut them off without hesitation if they hurt or betrayed me, and never look back. I lived in a very black and white world.

And gradually my world became infused with shades of grey. Edges softened. Everything was kinder, gentler, easier.

Stability had arrived. It unpacked its bags and settled in for the long haul. Security was mine. Eventually I completely and utterly forgot all about chaos. It was a distant memory, part of the past, never to return.

Until now.

Until, my midlife crisis. Chaos is back! It has kicked security and stability to the curb! And let me tell you, they’re none to happy about it! I have no idea what tomorrow will bring. I’m constantly working a 3-tiered system. What has to happen today, what has to happen in the near future and what has to happen next year.

I have started my own business and no one told me that I had to become reacquainted with chaos to accomplish it! No one told me that security and stability would high tail it outta here at the first sign of trouble! Expressions like “flying by the seat of my pants” and “I’m gonna have a stroke” have entered my vocabulary with alarming frequency lately. I took up smoking again. I gained 15 pounds. Yup, this is chaos all right. I know it well.

At first, I was incredibly distressed to find that chaos had returned. I mean really, really distressed. It was most unwelcome. What good did chaos ever do for me? I felt that I was taking ten steps backwards. That I was a failure for bringing all of this uncertainty and instability into my life and into my husband’s life. I think I believed that this path had to be well thought out, smooth but with a few manageable bumps in it. Challenging, but not impossibly so. Something to get the old blood rushing a bit.

And all of that was about right. Until the start-up phase of the business ended and we had to get down to brass tacks.

I have discovered that it’s a good idea to have a limitless supply of money if you want to start your own business. It’s for the best, really. A lot less stressful.

And then I woke up and fell back to planet earth. Face to face with chaos, my old nemesis. It was going to be him, or me and I wasn’t planning on laying down and dying anytime soon.

I took off my rose coloured glasses and ground them beneath my foot. I smoked my last cigarette. I ate my last brownie (with vanilla ice cream on top). I turned to face chaos. It was time.

I held open my arms and embraced all of the uncertainty that was bound to come our way. I wrapped my arms around chaos and stroked it's head as it lay against my racing heart.

I had been letting chaos catapult me back to the past. But I will never go back there. What’s different now is that I have a foundation that I have never had before. Friends, family, the love of a good man. A deep and abiding belief in myself. I realised that I had to have faith in our ability to make this plan work. When times are lean, we will do what we must to get through. We will survive. And in surviving, we are moving forward. Growing our dream every day, every step of the way.

And there’s nothing sad about that, is there?

The Moment I've Been Waiting For

In my life, I have found that there are dreams to dream.

Dreams of faraway places that you want to visit. Dreams of things you want to do in life. People that you want to meet, things that you want to accomplish.

For me, these dreams have lived in my head and in my heart and in my gut. I’m not sure if they’ve resided in any other body parts, I’ll have to think about that.

And these dreams, these desires build up and develop in you from the things that you read, the people you meet, the experiences that you have. I remember being an impressionable young thing of about 24 or so. I was at work, on a break in a dingy basement room. And a girl, I believe her name was Anna, had just returned from a back packing trip. Before I met Anna and listened to her talk about her trip, I couldn’t say that international travel was officially a dream of mine. It took root in my heart, and by the end of that day, it was.

I fulfilled that dream seven years later. And until I did that, I don’t think I fully realised the impact of fulfilling my dreams, either. Dreams were dreams, after all. They lived in various body parts and were a wispy, vague, far-off sort of concept. Until I fulfilled that first one.

Oh the power of fulfilled dreams. When I saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa for the first time, something that had only previously existed in a book for me became real. My world became very small after that experience. The planet became a finite thing, something to be discovered one step at a time.

After that trip, I learned that dreams can come true. As a matter of fact, that trip concluded with me meeting my current husband, another dream come true! And now I am fulfilling another dream. This one has lived in my gut for as long as I can remember. Borne, as I have mentioned, from the teachings of my father. This dream was to start my own business. My goal was to launch on May 1st 2009.

Better late than never, my husband and I launched Scotia Vacations (http://www.scotiavacations.com/) on May 27th 2009. This last year has been a huge learning curve, and I still have so much to figure out. I don’t think my brain is big enough to hold all of the new things that I’ve learned. I can’t say that the launch of the business has given me one giant “Eureka” moment. The pleasure has been in the journey that has lead us to this point. The thousand little eureka moments that I’ve experienced along the way. Things like facing absolute terror along the lines of, “What have I done? Am I crazy? What do I know about cottage rental businesses? This is our life’s savings! What if I get it wrong????” and simply surviving. Not just surviving, but accomplishing something that I am very proud of. Realising that I am now doing exactly what I want to be doing.

Facing my fears and doing it anyway.

I am so lucky to have this opportunity. I know that others may have similar dreams but be restrained by their life’s circumstances. For me, and for my husband, it is the right time and the right place.

The moment I have been waiting for.

Fear

One of my goals for this mid-life crisis is to cast off some of the fear and anxiety I hold around me like a security blanket. My nickname is Neurotic Nelly. I’m a self-confessed control freak. If I’m not in control, I’m likely huddled in the corner, a quivering mound of insecurity. I don’t want to be Neurotic Nelly anymore. I want to be Positive Paula.

I have a sort of bucket list of things I’d like to do before I die. Most of them strike a cord of terror in my gut. Which would explain why I haven’t done them already. Here’s the condensed version of my list:

1. Go to Australia.
Sounds pleasant and rather exciting, don’t you think? Not so easy to do when you’re phobically afraid of flying. Now fulfilling this goal would require me to be suspended at unnaturally elevated heights for an extended period of time, at a high rate of speed. We’re talking minimum 18 hours here, depending on the departure point. Being a Canadian living in Scotland, I have flown over the ocean quite a bit over the last ten years. My coping method included large amounts of alcohol and graduated to large amounts of alcohol mixed with valium. Got so as I was pretty drunk when I landed. I was in Rome once with my husband, and when I de-planed, I naturally had to pee really badly. I rarely make it as far as Customs or the baggage carousel without having to run to the nearest toilet. Come to think of it, I drink so much before I get on the plane, I always have to pee before take-off, when everyone’s getting settled in their seats. So, we had just landed in Rome and I got to the ladies room and commenced my business, so to speak. Well, I locked myself in the toilet stall. Could not figure out how to get out. I don’t think there was anything particularly difficult about the locks on the toilet stalls in Rome, I was just too pissed to figure it out. I’m shouting “Hellllooooooo…..heeeelllppp me pleeeeeeasseeee”. I’m not upset, if anything I think it’s hilarious. Two German girls had to talk me through unlocking the toilet stall door.

Funny story. I am not a good person to sit beside on a plane. If my husband could get away with it, he’d settle me in my seat and go to the opposite end of the aircraft. I can be embarrassing. I always advise my seatmate that I’m a scardey-cat flyer and ask them to please ignore me and tell them I’ll be fine. Well, I was seated on the isle (naturally, so I can be the first one out in the event of a crash landing. And also 'cause I have to get up to pee so much) and there was a really sweet fellow to my left, and his wife was on his left. Drink service had passed and I had a happy glow in my belly and I was wondering what’s so bad about this flying thing anyway? Dinner service begins and thankfully, it includes free wine. We’re all getting along famously when we hit a really bad patch of turbulence. BAM, we drop down a few feet. I immediately become hysterical. It’s what I do. We’re all clutching on to our trays as the plane bounces about. In the mêlée, the sweet man to my left grabs my hand and holds it through the whole thing, comforting me. I’m declaring loudly that this is not normal. “I’ve flown a lot” I say, a note of doom in my voice, “and this is not normal”. I’ve got the sweet man beside me terrified. Of course, things eventually settle down and I look around and take stock. I am not dead, the plane has not crashed. I’d like to finish my wine to celebrate not being dead, but it’s nowhere to be seen. The sweet man beside me looked sheepishly down at his lap and confessed that he drank it. Turns out he didn’t have enough hands to hold his wife’s hand, my hand and make sure my wine didn’t spill over during the turbulence, so he sucked it back! Bless him.

This story actually has a somewhat happy ending. I realised it was getting pretty bad after the above incident. I was at risk of being arrested for being an obnoxious drunk on a plane. How embarrassing would that be? Last year, for unavoidable reasons, I had to fly something like six times in two weeks. I reached a few conclusions. Bars in Canadian airports aren’t open at 6am like they are in Scotland. They won’t serve alcohol on a Canadian flight before something like 10am!!! It’s physically impossible to maintain that level of terror when you have to fly that many times in quick succession. Once these fates conspired against me, I had to accept that I would be unable to control what happened once I got on that plane. And I will not stop flying. I may be frightened, but I have never let my fear of flying keep me grounded. I still get scared, but I seem to have let go of most of the abject terror. Turbulence and I are still mortal enemies, but I no longer get stinking drunk just to get on a plane. Since then, I have actually flown without having a drink! Ok, it was a one-hour flight. But a one-hour flight is like seven hours in phobically-afraid-of-flying-time. So perhaps a little jaunt to Australia is in my future after all….

2. Go skinny-dipping.
Have you ever gone skinny-dipping? It’s fabulous. I’ve done it once during a family camping trip. I was 12 years old. I’m surprised I was that outgoing. I was not enjoying the whole camping experience. I spent most of the trip whining because there were no electrical sockets to plug my hair dryer into. (Wow, some things really don’t change!). There was nothing but trees around for miles! I was bored. At least I could go swimming. I don’t know what made me do it, probably boredom, but one day I got under the water and tugged my swimsuit off. I pushed off the bank and it was glorious. What a feeling of freedom and release. I’ll never forget it. I’ve never done it again. The closest I’ve come was to go sunbathing topless in Greece. That was almost as good. Very liberating. I resolve to cast off my inhibitions and go skinny-dipping as many times as I can as an adult. If you don’t like what you see, may I suggest you turn the other cheek?

3. Sing on stage.
I’ve always been told that I have a good singing voice. Now that I’m older, I realise it’s not true. People were just being kind. But I still love doing it anyway. I sang in school plays, in the chorus mind you, where I could hitch my wagon to the melodious, in-tune voices of others around me. One of my favourite things to do is to turn up a much-loved song and belt it out at the top of my lungs. My hairdryer is my microphone and I always finish the song to a standing ovation. (You realise this is in my head, right?).

Secretly, I want to be a pop star. In my heart of hearts, I know there’s not much call for middle-aged women who weigh 750 pounds and can’t carry a tune. Ok, there’s Rita McNeil, but she can carry a tune and what are the chances that the market can support two of us? Not that I hold a candle to our Rita.

My dirty little secret is that I love the American Idol show. I know that I could so get to Hollywood! No way would I be one of those deluded audition-ees who are simply gobsmacked when Simon smacks them down like the dogs that they are.

So, let’s recap. I’m middle-aged, I weigh 750 pounds and I can’t carry a tune. Sounds like karaoke night to me!

Finally, I'll share with you the reason I wrote about fear today. Today I went sledding (note the above description of my good self). As an adult, I have only been sledding down a driveway. Hugely fun, but not frightening in any way. Today I was invited to another sledding hill all together. It was high, it was steep, it was fast and it was icy. I sat down on the sled at the edge of the run. I contemplated my mortality. I decided that I was too afraid to do it. I was so very disappointed in myself. Once again, I was letting my fear rule me. I spoke sharply to myself, let out a gut-wrenching scream, and pushed myself over that “cliff”. It was fantastic. This time, I won the battle that I rage with my fear.

I took no prisoners.