One of the things that I'm learning, through loving David, is that I have to make myself.   I can't rely on anyone else to complete me.   That's something I have to do for myself.

This might seem self-evident, but for whatever reason, it seems to be something that I have assiduously avoided for a long time.   A long time?   Try all my life!   I've always looked outside my self to feel complete.   As though me, on my own, just isn't enough.   

And that might be true - I am not enough because there are so many things I don't 'do'.   I'm not a very good friend.   I don't think of others very much.   I don't have a joy of cooking - especially for others!   In fact, the thought of cooking for a dinner party is sure to put me into a state of nervous anxiety!   I live in my own little world, without much thought for what other people might need or want of me.

I know a lot of the people who read this blog will feel that polyamoury is just an excuse for David to continue looking for 'the one'.   That he can't really love me because he's still looking for someone who suits him better than I do.   More than one person has said to me, "I hear David has fallen in love with someone else" ... and so he has.   But I'm fortunate that he still loves me.   In what way, I'm not sure and it is this uncertainty about my 'value' as a person, that I think forms the basic insecurity I have about being loved.   My fear of losing what I have has sometimes been stronger than the certainty I have that I am loved.

It's easier for me to believe that I am not lovable.   Easier because that IS my reality.   I have been on my own for many years now and it's very rare for me to find someone who interests me, much less find someone who finds me interesting!  

I'm fortunate though that I've found friendship - both with Mark and Dick - two men who were in my life for ten years apiece.   What I have found with David makes me content - IF I don't start fantasising about what I would like it to be.   He's always been honest and up front with me and since I passed on that wonderful wisdom of, "Let the people IN your heart, know your heart", I feel more assured of not having any surprises jump out at me.   That's not to say that I don't brace myself a little every time he mentions someone he finds interesting.   

I'm feeling rather sentimental these days.   I'm not sure if it's hormonal or I am indeed going through 'a change of life'.   I used to be able to look in the mirror and think, "Not bad".   Those occasions are now much rarer.   It's a stand out moment these days to look at my face and see prettiness or loveliness.   Just lately though, there's been a glow there that comes from 'looking after myself' - from eating well (or at least better) and for taking the time to care about how I am and what I am.

There's a kernel of hope there, that I'm not lost.   At least, not lost forever.

From time to time I do acknowledge that I can't rely on David to nourish me.   I have to fill my own life.   To write my own story.   To nurture my own self.   Each time he reminds me that I am only a small part of his life (not in so many words, but that's what he's telling me), my stomach churns and tears spring to my eyes - a welling up of emotion at not feeling 'enough' love.   Dick once said to me, "Give you an inch Cheryl and you want a mile" and that is true - I always want more.   Life isn't happy enough, or rich enough, or stimulating enough, or easy enough ... I always want more.   Even when I put dishwashing liquid into the sink, I always think, "That won't be enough, I'd better give it another little squirt."   And of course, I always have plenty of suds.   But that doesn't stop me next time thinking that it needs that extra little squirt.

And so ... fate has brought a wonderful man into my life.   A man I love very much.   A man who brings me joy and who DOES make me feel loved.   

It's me who is jeopardising what we have, because in my eyes, no matter what he gives to me in the way of attention or time, I continue yearning for what he has told me he can't give me - his whole self.   Like the heroine of "Eat, Pray, Love" - I want to eat his soul.   I want to absorb him into me, to fill the gaps.   To obliterate the lack within me.

Occasionally I have wondered how I would have turned out, if I had had a different upbringing.   Different parents.   That, of course, is a pointless exercise because that is anybody's guess!

My god I am a late bloomer!   I keep reciting the mantra in my head, "I'm 55 years old and I still haven't ... (fill in the gaps) ... found a joy of loving / of cooking / of being a good friend / of doing fulfilling/satisfying work / achieved anything worthwhile / had an overwhelming orgasm ..."

Just lately, I have been feeling like I'm a failure.   Because of all that I haven't managed to do.   Sometimes it takes me forever to FINALLY have the revelation which starts me on the journey I need to take.   I always seem to have to hit rock bottom, before I can find my way back up.

I titled this blog "Being Fearless" and all I've seemed to do since I set out is to be fearFULL.   But then the fear is spurring me on.   I don't want to be so scared, so afraid.   I don't want this fear in my life.

I want to be joyous that I AM loved, to be grateful for what I do have, rather than focused on what I don't.

It's time for me to make myself.   To create ME!   To do the things I need to do - to cook, to clean, to make a life, to buy a house or a property, plant a veggie garden, make new friends, invite more love into my life, to WRITE!   To express who I am, to be more creative.   Just how long do I think I have?   I can't be waiting around for someone else to do this for me.   I have no allusions about wanting to achieve any great fame - to lead a revolution, or make a great impact - I just want to be satisfied and fulfilled and challenged (and to meet that challenge).

Many years ago, when Mark and I were going through a bad patch and were living apart temporarily, he sat me down and said, "Cheryl, you just have to be responsible for yourself" and I honest to god, cried out in pain, "I can't bear it, I really can't - I'd rather die!"   And then of course, I laughed.   I'd rather be dead, than responsible for myself?    I'm sure you're laughing out loud now too.   That was probably 20 years ago and I've still been trying to avoid it!

Mum made it easy for me.   She would totter over to the cabin, for those couple of years that I lived at Montrose, and give me the odd $50 or so and like the weasel I was, I took it and bought chocolate bars and hummous and comforted myself because I was living such a miserable life.   As long as she kept bringing fifties, I keep on giving myself comfort.   I used to have the image in my mind of a giant baby bird, still in the nest when its parents were in their dotage - squawking, "Bring me food, bring me food!"

That all changed on 4th August last year when my mother died.   I finally had to grow up.   I'm so ashamed of that person - that me.   Why have I avoided making myself a better person?   It's humilating to be sitting here now, typing this, admitting that I've just wasted so much of my life.   Sitting on my arse, fooling myself!   I am a great disappointment to myself.

I can't remember whether it was Freud or Jung who said, "Change only comes after a short, sharp shock" (or words to that effect), and so it is that uncertainty and fear that I've experienced in the past several months have FINALLY focused my attention on what it is that I have not achieved in my life.   Hallelujah for that!   About time!

So ...

I am about to embark on a small journey of exploration.   If you believe that your house is symbolic of your life ... I am going off for several days tomorrow to find my wreck of a house so I can bring it back to life and let it sing again.   And through that nurturing of the house, I hope to find a better version of myself.

For every bird there is this last migration;
Once more the cooling year kindles her heart;
With a warm passage to the summer station
Love pricks the course in lights across the chart.

Year after year a speck on the map, divided
By a whole hemisphere, summons her to come;
Season after season, sure and safely guided,
Going away she is also coming home.

And being home, memory becomes a passion
With which she feeds her brood and straws her nest,
Aware of ghosts that haunt the heart's possession
And exiled love mourning within the breast.

The sands are green with a mirage of valleys;
The palm tree casts a shadow not its own;
Down the long architrave of temple or palace
Blows a cool air from moorland scarps of stone.

And day by day the whisper of love grows stronger;
That delicate voice, more urgent with despair,
Custom and fear constraining her no longer,
Drives her at last on the waste leagues of air.

A vanishing speck in those inane dominions,
Single and frail, uncertain of her place,
Alone in the bright host of her companions,
Lost in the blue unfriendliness of space.

She feels it close now, the appointed season;
The invisible thread is broken as she flies;
Suddenly, without warning, without reason,
The guiding spark of instinct winks and dies.

Try as she will, the trackless world delivers
No way, the wilderness of light no sign;
Immense,complex contours of hills and rivers
Mock her small wisdom with their vast design.

The darkness rises from the eastern valleys,
And the winds buffet her with their hungry breath,
And the great earth, with neither grief nor malice,
Receives the tiny burden of her death.

MY 'OLD' LIFE has well and truly slipped behind me now.   I have lost track of time and place.   All I know is that the dreaded Nullabor Plain is behind me and I'm enjoying feeling grass under my feet again at Esperance in Western Australia.

How long has it been since I last wrote to you all?   I would say Streaky Bay.   After that I spent about ten days at a great little surfer's camp at Cactus, near Penong.   As I drove the 21 kms off the highway, down the dirt road to Cactus, I wondered whether a surfer I'd known many, many years ago when I was a hippy living on the beach at Noosa Heads in Queensland would be there.   I just love it when there is a serendipitious connection and this time there was.   Yes, Bushy did use to live at Cactus and in fact, had managed it for a time for the owner, Ron.   But some months ago, Bushy had bought a boat and shipped out to the Solomon Islands.

I felt safe at Cactus, even though I felt quite alone there.   Every night there were at least 30 or 40 people in the camp - some permanents and some passing through.   Tara from Toolangi and her lovely little four year son, Jasper.   Chris, (who I found out was the nephew of a very good friend of mine, Lyn Cawcutt) travelling through to Perth.   Emmanuele from Quebec.   The lovely couple who I met one night down at Port Le Hunt.   The very good-looking Martin, a veteran surfer who invited me back to his van for a cup of milo and a joint.   And of course, the owner of Cactus, Ron, who toured the camping area morning and night - cleaning the toilets and collecting rent.   Even though people were friendly enough, they were all just passing through or satisfactorily involved with their own group of friends and didn't feel a need to include anyone else.

Never mind.   I made friends with a rather large group of stumpy-tailed (or shingle-backed) lizards that would appear from underneath the caravan each morning.   Marlo was so relaxed around them, that she would momentarily lift her head and then sag back into sleeping postion.   There were also a couple of appreciative seagulls who would visit from time to time, and I would always find a piece of fruit or bread to throw out to them.

While Ron has owned Cactus (or Point Sinclair as it is more properly known) for around 30 years, he says he receives phone calls, emails and letters all the time from people all over the world either wanting to buy the property or publicise it on television shows, newspaper stories, magazines etc.   He refuses them all.   "They'd only bugger it up," he said to me.   And I know he's right.   After all, who would pay around a million dollars for a property and then take on the job of going out each morning to clean up other people's toilet-leavings?   He has built these series toilets himself, from stone, which are really just four foot high cubicles without a roof.   When you're seated, you're out of sight, but when you stand out, everyone can see your head poking above the parapet.   The whole arrangement consists of an old-fashioned thunderbox metal can which is lined with a black rubbish bin liner and he empties these each day.   Each person who goes to the toilet just throws in a cupful of lime to keep the toilets sweet-smelling and fly free.   And it works!   Even though they're out in the bush and open to the elements, the toilets were always clean and not smelly.   

When I left Cactus, I fuelled up at Penong, bought some groceries etc., and noticed a hitch hiker by the side of the road.    An hour later he was still there, when I was ready to leave town and while it would never be my usual habit to do so, I decided to check him out as I drove past before I made a decision whether or not to pick him up.   I decided he looked okay and pulled over.   He ran to the car and crammed himself into the front seat, squeezing in beside the big container of water I had on the front floor.   We'd only got ten kilometres down the road when I heard a strange sound.   "What was that?!" I gasped.   Then, when I looked into the rear vision mirror, the van had lurched over dangerously to the left.   I braked as quickly as I could without fishtailing the van and when I got out, I was absolutely shocked to see I'd had a blow out on the tyre.   The rubber was gashed and filleted like a tinsel Christmas decoration.

I really was shocked.   "How could this have happened?" I asked Corey, the hitch hiker.   Of course he couldn't tell me, but he set to - asking if I had a jack, tyre lever etc.   I just kept thinking to myself, "I am SOOOOO glad I picked this guy up!"   While I know I could have changed the tyre, it would have taken me hours and I know I would have been crying and distressed.   Corey had no sooner got the new tyre on (I had two spare caravan tyres on the back of the van) and we'd realised that the spare was quite low on tyre pressure than a couple pulled up in 'a big rig' with a huge four wheel drive and huge van asking if we needed help.   This guy was so organised he even had a compressor on board, so he was able to pump up the newly-fitted spare tyre.   I was just so grateful I felt like kissing everyone!

When you start travelling, people tell you that those who travel the road DO look out for one another.   Not everyone is in a position to set themselves up with the latest and greatest in equipment, machinery, technology etc.   But those who do have it, are more than willing to share it with you.   I'm so eternally grateful for that.

Since I started on this journey, I've regarded myself, Marlo, my car and the caravan as a team - a unit - we go through it all together.   With the addition of Corey, I felt much safer crossing the Nullabor.   But I'd had enough of a fright that I decided I wasn't going to linger - I wanted to across that relentless 'desert' as quickly as we could manage it.   I was pleased to have Corey along and he, in turn, was happy to have a lift 'to the other side'.   (He was on his way back to Geraldton).   We spent two days and two nights together.   Despite my offer to clear out the back of the station wagon so he could sleep there, he preferred sleeping in the bush, so each night after I'd given him dinner, he would wander off into the dark to find a safe sleeping spot.   And each morning, when I let Marlo out, she would wake him up with a sloppy lick.

My heart leapt with joy, ten kilometres from Norseman when I heard that familiar little 'ting-ting' which signalled that my mobile phone had FINALLY come into reception.   "Hallelujah!   Civilisation at last!"   I SMS'd to family and friends.   As we pulled up in front of the tourist info office, both Corey and I were busy texting and listening to phone messages.   We bade each other farewell then as he was going north to Kalgoorlie and I was headed down south to Esperance.   I'd very much enjoyed his company - it was such a delight to have someone to talk to for those two days and nights and it certainly made the Nullabor a less arduous stretch.   

I had a bit of a laugh because it occurred to me that I'd gone from places where I was constantly saying, "Wow!" at the landscape, to an area where I gave a huge "Whew!" that I was through it!   

One thing that I couldn't get over was the number of dead kangaroos along the Nullabor - hundreds and hundreds of them!    The memory card on my digital camera got full and I missed the shot that really tickled my fancy - a warning to look out for Camels, Emus and Kangaroos. 

So ... to civilisation ... Norseman.   As I walked through the town with Marlo, I kept pondering what it was about the town that made it look like a slum.   Walls had been kicked in, fences knocked down, rocks through windows (in buildings that had windows! - most had metal shutters) and it hit me - no love!   Norseman is a town being kicked to death.

It's always been a paradox to me that aborigines are said to have such a strong connection to the earth and yet everywhere I've been where aborigines have lived in any great numbers, the town looks like a shit hole.   Wrecked cars in the front yard; engine parts in the drive; toys littered throughout the yard; windows, doors and walls smashed in; chairs thrown into the street etc.   I know they don't put the same importance on possessions that we 'white men' do but it surprises me that they have no sense of the aesthetic - i.e. you think they would prefer their environment to look natural (not littered with crap).

Many years ago I stayed several days at Seisia (right up the top of Cape York, just past Bamaga) and there was rubbish everywhere - cigarette packs, broken bottles, empty potato chip packs, plastic shopping bags - and I said to one of the local aboriginal girls, "I've always thought that aborigines respected the land, so I can't understand why they just throw their rubbish out of the car" and she said, "Oh, you've just caught us out of season and we're a bit lazy about picking up our rubbish."    My reply was, "But why throw it out in the first place?"

Maybe one day I'll discover why they have such different attitudes.

Despite all the moaning and groaning I feel I do, I AM enjoying this journey.   It's hard work and sometimes brings me to tears, but I hope I'm becoming a better person.   

I'm used to being on my own, but sometimes the loneliness does get very hard to bear.   I've never been too shy to go up to strangers and start a conversation and I do this all the time I'm on the road.   You can't imagine the excitement I feel when I hear another van pull into wherever I'm camped.   "Oh goodie, someone else is here!"   It doesn't matter how far away they camp, or who they are, it's always reassuring that someone else is around.    

It's a harsh country Australia.   It tests you in so many different ways.   One lady I met from Penong said, "You have to enjoy your own company if you live in a place like Penong.   If there's trouble, people do band together, but for the most part, you're on your own."   On top of the psychological challenges that Australia's huge landscape throws at you, I'm constantly on the alert for snakes, scorpions, ticks etc.   I have to buy Marlo a muzzle because a lot of areas have poisonous baits laid for rabbits and foxes and of course, in warmer areas, I have to protect her against heartworm etc.   But still, Australia has incredible beauty.   A fair exchange I suppose.