In an effort to introduce myself to those who don’t know me, impart some new insights to those who do and give some background into how this blog came into existence, let me present Sami’s Days of Our Lives, or rather Sami’s Days of Her Lives or really Sami’s Days of Her Life. Alright already, here’s my life story so far.

Note 1: Parts of this are M rated. You might want to check out my disclaimers, particularly the first one.

Note 2: Such is the grandeur of my existence to date that it’s as long as a 3 part mini series. You might want to get a cup of tea.  

Mini Series Part 1 – The Middle

Where do I begin? Well, normally you’d begin at the beginning but as I’m rapidly discovering, I’m hardly normal (in my book, that’s probably a good thing) and so I’m going to begin in the middle – well I hope it’s the middle and not the end because the middle in this case is now!

I currently live on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia – an absolutely stunning part of the world. I’ve wanted to live in this area for about 10 years now and not too long ago I got my chance…

Life Lesson:

• It just felt right to live here. When it feels right, go for it (I maybe won’t leave it 10 years next time).

September 2008 my partner, Chris, and I left beautiful Banff, Canada (where we had met and where Chris had lived for 3 years and I had lived for 2), on route back home to Australia. It was difficult to leave. 

Banff, with a population of about 8000, is a small town in the middle of Banff National Park, which is in the middle of the Canadian Rockies. This part of the world has a magic about it that’s hard to describe so I won’t even try. It’s something you need to experience yourself if you haven’t already (maybe add it to your Daisy List). Apart from leaving behind a truly special place, we were also leaving like-minded and much-loved friends who had become our surrogate family.

Life Lessons:

• Having been away from home, I further cemented the importance of family and my close Aussie friends.
• I learnt who my true friends were (both old and new) and that it was OK to let go of other friendships that had run their course. True friendships stand the test of time, life changes and distance.
• After living amongst the Rocky Mountains and experiencing the power of nature at it’s finest, there was no way I could move back to the suburbs of a tree-less big city to the power of the smog at it’s finest.
• As my Mum always says, when one door shuts another one opens.

So how did a 33 year old (at the time of arrival), single (at the time of arrival) Aussie chick end up in the middle of the Rocky Mountains? Well apart from the fact that I’d always wanted to visit Canada and I love to ski, the D word came into play. Now, I’m not fond of the D word so I will continue to refer to it as the D word but let’s just say it starts with D and ends in schmivorce.

A very painful time in my life for sure and it was something I saw coming about as well as one of the three blind mice on Valium. I didn’t have a clue as to why it happened, especially as we’d had what to me and everyone around me, an amazing 14 year relationship including 4 years of marriage (evidently he was the only one who thought otherwise??). All I had to go on was the “diagnosis” that he was going through a mid-life crisis. He was 31 – if that’s mid life then if I was him, I’d be worried. Besides which, I thought having a mid life crisis involved the guy buying a young blond with giant and fake babylons and a red sports car with giant and fake horsepower (and yes I mean buying both). In this instance, that wasn’t the case, although I did think the fluorescent white belt and matching shoes he’d bought were a little odd.

To this day, even with hindsight, I’m not entirely sure how it could all have gone so pear shaped, but it did, shit happens and usually for a reason. So, I figured I had 2 choices, I could remain as bitter and twisted as a contorted lemon with a bad attitude or I could use the situation as a platform to grow, learn about myself and redesign my life. I’m hoping from this blog you can see I chose the latter. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that my ex-hubby, let’s call him Mr X, has done me a huge favour that I’ll forever be grateful for. I can see now that whilst I’ll always maintain that we had a good life together and a great relationship, I was living in a fog and well, not really living. I was especially not living what I believe is my purpose for being put on this planet.

Life Lessons;

• We humans are a resilient bunch. I found a strength I didn’t know I possessed.
• I found that during a time that was very much less than desirable, my family and my true friends stepped up in amazing ways to support me. You only really get to see this when the chips are down.
• I found meditation (and medication) to be a powerful way to counteract the sadness, desperation and stress and reduce the chance of going postal (responsible use of sleeping tablets were a godsend for much needed sleep).

At the tender age of 34, I took hold of the second chance I had been given to create a life for myself that is truly amazing, have no regrets and leave the world a better place than I entered it, and so began the great adventure to Canada…

Stay tuned for the next enthralling episode (you won’t have to wait long because it’s next). 

Mini Series Part 2 – The Middle Continued…

Last episode of Sami’s Days of Her Life, our heroine, me, suffered Broken Heartitis and fled to Canada. The story continues.

Banff, Canada was where I chose to settle (or rather it chose me – I came in on a tour bus and basically didn’t leave) and undergo the majority of my recovery from Broken Heartitis. Recovery Phase 1: lived in a hostel, partied, got drunk, pretended I was 18 again, cried, learnt how to avoid frost bite, worked cash jobs to survive while waiting for the infuriatingly bureaucratic juggernaut that is the Canadian Government to process my visa.

Life Lessons;

• Sometimes you just need to get drunk!
• I learnt that some rules are meant to be broken and that sometimes you have to break them to survive.
• I learnt that if things are supposed to be, hang in there, it will work out.
• I also learnt about the concept of earth angels (ie people who give you a break and help you out in more ways than they will ever know).
• You really can survive on very little and you really don’t need as many material items as you may think.

Recovery Phase 2: managed to get a job without my visa (kinda fibbed to get the interview then outed myself during the interview after I’d convinced them I was far too great a catch to let a small inconvenience like a piece of paper get in the way), after a large inconvenience I finally received my visa and started the job with a tour company as their Schmoozer (basically a sales and marketing role and yes, that was my actual title), learnt to live as a single without getting drunk, cried, got angry, settled into a new life, moved out of the hostel in to a basement apartment with fellow Discover Banff Tour employees, Robyn and Tiff (who became great friends, which is lucky considering we were living in a tiny space with bugger all furniture), and, little did I realise at the time, met my future partner, Chris.

Life Lessons;

• I learnt that if you want something be tenacious (I really wanted that job so I could stay in Banff. I didn’t let up. They didn’t stand a chance).
• I learnt that anger has its advantages. It’s a great help to pull you out of the doldrums and get you fired up and back into life.
• I truly thought that Mr X was my one and only great love of my life and that it would be impossible to even come close to what we’d had. With that in mind, I got to a point where I felt I could survive and thrive on my own…then I met Chris.

Recovery Phase 3: got to know the Schmoozer role back to front, skied, went dog sledding, skied,hiked, kayaked, skied, climbed mountains, skied, went zip lining, went heli skiing, went snowmobiling, skied, went ice fishing, spent time with friends, did some anger management, skied, went on road trips, Chris and I started dating via skiing (and boarding for Chris – he is an inhabitant of the dark side. Just so you know, skiing is the new black).

Life Lessons:

• I learnt that the best revenge really is to live well.
• I learnt there was a lot to be grateful for and even got to the point where I was grateful for the time I had had with Mr X and for the D word.
• I learnt that there comes a point when the anger has to stop (occasionally I still forget this lesson).
• I learnt that it is possible to cure Broken Heartitis and trust again and to not assume that history will necessarily repeat.
• I learnt that skiing is a very mental sport in both a mind over matter way and a sanity way.

Whilst I’ve outlined the recovery phase in quite a simplistic way, obviously a lot more went into it including life coaching, marriage counselling, reading, journaling, talking about it, etc, etc, etc, and truthfully, I’m still on the back end of that journey even now. I have, however, come a very long way and am a much better person for it (even if I do say so myself).

Life Lessons:

• Pre D word I used to think that if you didn’t see a relationship separation or breakdown coming then you weren’t paying enough attention – big judgement that I no longer have!! I was paying attention and I still didn’t see it coming.
• Pre D word I used to also think that people who go through the D word should just get over it and that it can’t be that bad. It’s not like anyone died or anything – massive judgement that I most certainly no longer have!! The D word has the same impact as being told someone close to you HAS died (particularly if you were a blind mouse on Valium who thought all was just peaches and cheese). The D word is a death of many things.

After driving out of Banff, seeing the mountains disappear into the distance and blubbering half way to Lake Louise (the next town 45 minutes away), we travelled across to the east coast of Canada and then on to Peru, South America.

Here we achieved a monumental, long sort after and very cool dream of hiking in to the lost city of the Incas, Machu Picchu, an amazing place. Walking in the gates at dawn was a momentous occasion of which we captured on a camera that, an hour later had a corrupted memory card. At least we had a second camera and the memories of THE LAST 5 DAYS WORTH OF HIKING THAT HAD BEEN ON THE FUCKING MEMORY CARD!! Damn you SanDisk. I’m not bitter.

Life Lessons;

• Imodium isn’t good enough for diarrhea. Get antibiotics.
• SanDisk memory cards are poo.
• Hiking into Machu Picchu is a mission.
• Really amazing stuff can come out of a bad life situation if you want it to.

October 2008 we land back on Aussie soil and make a bee line for the Sunshine Coast to temporarily mooch off my olds. Home sweet home.

Tune in to the final episode of Sami’s Days of Her Life where she finds Bo Brady in bed with her postman and Hope looking on, a mysterious stranger leaves a mysterious letter containing nothing very mysterious and her partner Chris is caught washing up [insert gasp] [also insert panning camera to a tight shot of heroine's face showing surprised goldfish type look and big hair].

Mini Series Part 3 – The Start 

During episode 1, our heroine (that would be me), suffered Broken Heartitis and fled to Canada. In episode 2 she recovered from Broken Heartitis and fled to Australia. The story continues…

OK, enough of the middle. How about the start? Here’s the short version…Born: small rural town, Queensland, Australia, 1973 (great vintage that). Can’t remember the first few years so will skip them, although I’m told it mainly consisted of whingeing, shitting and whingeing so not much to report anyway.

Spent the majority of my childhood growing up on a farm in a little place called Pine Creek just south of Bundaberg which is 4 hours north of Brisbane, Australia. Pine Creek was so little in fact, it didn’t even have a pub (this is blasphemy as far as Australia is concerned and quite unusual). We did however have a small, 2 teacher primary school called Givelda State School that I attended.

Life Lesson;

• Ah the joys of being a kid, no major life lessons yet except that bindies (ie prickles) are unforgiving and while mud pies might look rather inviting, they do in fact taste like, well, mud…with a sprinkling of horse poo.

At this point in time, there was Mum, Dad, me, my sister Ness (aka Vanessa), Mandy the dog and a crap-load of fleas that had taken up residence in the house we’d bought. Over the years Mandy flitted off to doggy heaven (luckily the fleas followed suit) and my other sister Shrimp (aka Miranda) arrived, followed by my brother Pig (aka Josh).

Life Lesson;

• Aussies and in particular, my Dad, like nicknames.

As with any farm, we had many comings and goings of various animals (too numerous to mention), and much fun, which usually involved, horses, bikes, tree climbing, tractors, mud, bush bashers, cubby houses, chook wrangling or a raft made from a 44 gallon drum split in half (or a combination of the above). For me, going the 30 minutes into the immensely populated, urban sprawl of our smallish rural town of Bundaberg was a fate worse than death as it meant I’d have to leave my beloved farm and wear shoes. Noooooooooooooo!

All I can say about my family and my childhood is that a girl couldn’t ask for better. I can safely say my family is the cream of the crop with the majority of the thanks going towards my Mum and Dad who are the Rolls Royce of parents.

Life Lessons;

• Parents have the hardest job on the planet.
• I have no idea how I (or they) survived my youth.

Went to Bundaberg State High School (you might think that that explains my gutter mouth but in actual fact that honour goes to my Dad). Spent a year working in a newsagency in Bundaberg, mainly because I was too chicken shit to leave home. After some bribing, coercing and the use of a crow bar, I left home for the big smoke of Brisbane to start university studying marketing. As Dad likes to put it, I majored in bullshit and had a minor in crapping on. Unfortunately, he wasn’t far from the truth!

Life Lesson;

• When you leave the nest, flap hard. Gaining your independence is both liberating and terrifying (and necessary).

After uni, I had a few odd and dodgy jobs then landed a marketing role with Coca-Cola where I climbed the corporate ladder, almost had a stress-related breakdown as a result and even worse, completely lost my sense of humour.

Life Lessons;

• I learnt that no job, I repeat, NO job is worth your health, relationships or sense of humour.
• I learnt that my values didn’t align with my job so no amount of money, promotions, glory or corporate ladder scrambling was going to give me job satisfaction.
• Coca-Cola invented Santa Claus. No wonder he’s fat.

During this time I also lost my beloved Grandparents, Gen and Paps. Gen from bowel cancer and Paps a few years later from a stroke. They had been married over 50 years, loved each other deeply and were amazing, generous and non judgemental people who are greatly missed.

Life Lessons;

• Just before Gen died, all the grandkids were brought together to say our final goodbye (she didn’t want us to see her in the very final days when she knew she’d look really sick). She saw us one by one and gave us her words of wisdom tailored to each of us. She told me to not ever be scared of doing or being anything because I have a family around me who loves me and will always be there for me. I can perhaps blame Gen for all the crazy and generally colossal ideas I now actually follow through on (the outcomes of which have varying degrees of success but always with the support of my family)!
  
• I also learnt the importance of telling those you care about how you feel about them while you have the chance. I was so sad when I saw Gen that, although I told her I loved her, I couldn’t tell her what a huge, positive impact she’d had on my life (I ended up relaying it to her through Mum). I would have liked to have told her myself.
  

After quitting my job with Coca-Cola, I owned my own corporate training and coaching business with Mr X and became a Life Coach. Had a swindling business coach and his swindling friend swindle us and my parents out of a lot of money through bogus property deals. Then through life coaching with a talented Life Coach and the lack of income made the tough decision to give up the business and go for the security and income of a brain numbing marketing role with the Queensland Government (never again) whilst working on my Blaze Australia concept on the side.

Life Lessons;

• As much as I’d like to think that my leaving a job will have an immense, immediate and devastating impact on the company such that it will implode and melt down, this my friends, is not the truth. They will and did survive quite well thank you very much without me. It was a humbling lesson. Ahh, the innocence of youth.
• I learnt to know when you’re flogging a dead horse (or company) and that it’s ok to give up on something that isn’t working. Failure is also ok and a fantastic teacher if you choose to see the lessons.
• Trust in my own abilities more and less in those of so-called experts.
• I learnt that as boring as it can be, do your homework, never give up full control of your own money, trust your gut and have a healthy level of scepticism.
• I re-learnt the lesson that my values didn’t align with my job so no amount of money, security or flying under the radar just doing my job was going to give me job satisfaction.
• For me, money is important but not important enough to ever work for the government.

And then the D word hit.

Not Really The End

So here I am, back in the middle. But what’s at the end? Well, death, but I do plan on doing a few things in the meantime, much of which you’ll see in this blog. Speaking of which, I am now a full time blogger, gazing out at the trees, I mean feverishly writing (when I’m not trying to work out what the hell <span style=”color: #993366;”> means) and enjoying every minute of it (I finally have my values aligned with my job).

Who knows what’s ahead but I do have a sneaking suspicion that my reason for being here, and a big part of the end bit, will be centred on this blog and Blaze Australia.

Some recent pics;