Wednesday, September 14, 2011

RuOK Day



I'm not sure if I've told you this yarn before, but when I first arrived in Australia, I was desperately lonely, bar for a handful of fledgling friends,  and the butcher and The Husband.  One day when doing the school pickup, I parked somewhere I shouldn't have outside school.  A very efficacious school mum hurried up to me as I stood beside my car with my two little boys inside, and gave me a very loud and rude earful.  She ranted at me and yelled purposefully at me.  Other school mums heads quickly turned to watch the show, my eldest son, fresh out of class, looked like he wanted to crawl under the car.  I could have kept him company under there.  I was absolutely mortified.  And literally as I drove home, I plunged free fall into the depths of despair.  Deep, deep despair.  This was just the catalyst my fragile mind needed to go, "That's it, I'm done trying to be brave and establish a new life for us here.  I am officially done.  Done."  And suddenly my house was jam pack filled with dark clouds and black dogs.  I could barely look my family in the eye, I functioned and nothing more.  But somehow amongst all the sadness and self pity, a small ray of light poked through.  White hot rage.  How dare this woman destroy my fragile equilibrium in the snarl of a string of mean words.  How dare she do that to me.  She didn't know my situation, she didn't know me from a bar of soap, so why should she have the right to be so cruel?  It was this light that I clung to, and pulled myself out of the pity I was wallowing in, and I got on with my life purposefully.

Today is RuOK day.

A day when we should remember that some people aren't ok, that some people do have facades with crap going on behind them.  That sometimes people just need to be asked if they are ok, and that that you have the time to listen. Sometime people just need a little kindness, for someone to be interested in them, for someone to care.

Are you ok?





2 comments:

  1. Love it! I had one of these moments right after we moved to Oz too! Thanks for the inspiration today!

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  2. Love this Lise. We're all vulnerable at times but struggle to be open about it or admit it to ourselves. I love your frank approach to this and love the idea of 'RUOK Day'.....and by the way...yes I am today. I have to say I feel so lucky that I have such a strong inner strength (like yourself) and I think the hard times that I go and have gone through over the years has only made me stronger and more spiritually aware. x

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