Compound Blues

I'm not loving compound life at the moment, and the feeling is growing. Every morning as I sit down to start work with a view of the garden, I tell myself that on some level that I am fortunate to have these riches – I find repetitive positive affirmation exercises help. However, at the moment all I can see is the fence, razor wire and security gates and when I try to engage in upbeat self-talk, I fail. All that comes out is girlfriend – you are in jail. And just as I start to ponder the implications of the view on my sanity, the guy with the leaf blower comes into frame - same time, same place, every day. I'm ready to scream at him "JUST PICK IT UP!!", but I don't want to feed crazy-white-woman-locked-in-cage-stereotypes. 

There has been much turbulence beyond the razor wire over the last week or so, and that's just the stuff I know about - a few big-ass car accidents, some more alarming car jackings, tribal fighting … the state of origin - staying home really seems like the best option. My captor has become my saviour - I think I must have Stockholm Syndrome. 

And why oh why is it times like these, when you are vulnerable and on the edge of snapping that little people seem to know how to exploit your weakness? Last night my angel awoke at 2.30am and I made the regrettable mistake of checking on her. Doing this meant I had a toddler rotisserie in bed with me for another hour and occasional limbs in my face before I resorted to an adventure downstairs to get milk for all. Back upstairs, back in her room, more pats, more bloody twinkle twinkle, and finally my soothing voice and pats resulted in a consenting angel back in her bed and tucked in ready for sleep. As I lay down and exhaled deeply, the screaming began. More self talk … push through girlfriend, it’s the only way … I know the drill. There’s always a point about five minutes in where she chooses to go one way or the other, and in this instance she chose to go all the way. The screams became unbearable, so I went and got her with the heavy awareness that I would have to repeat the above again for another 1.5 hours. It wasn’t quite that bad, and as I felt her breathing and body become still and sleep-like I finally let sleep come back into my world – it was 5am.

For some reason, this morning I expected an apology. I kept sulking and giving her looks, but she was oblivious. In fact, she went the other way. Scattered the UNO cards all over the loungeroom, refused breakfast, bit me, pinched me and did some huge body slams on my slightly sensitive preggers belly. And just to really hurt me, she kept asking me when her “Nanny” was getting here. I couldn’t agree more though – it was the break we both needed. When they finally left for a walk I retreated to bed.

And it was about that time that the leaf blower started right outside the bedroom window. Another day in the compound, same as before, same as the next.