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Transcript
The Magic of Words
“I love words. I mean, I love words because they are such magical transformations, transportations into a different world.”
A Realization of Fatigue
“And yesterday, yesterday, yesterday, I often used to feel in the body, and we know that the body leads the mind. I would feel a certain level of fatigue or tiredness in the body and didn’t want to say it out loud. I wanted to acknowledge what was going on, so I didn’t step over it because I am one of those people who have stepped over a few messages from my body in the past. And then yesterday, it was an epiphany. This word: spent.”
“I can’t remember where I found it, but I copied and pasted it because I wanted to remember it. I wanted to go, ‘Oh, my God, yes, I feel a little spent.’ But not only there, not just stopping at ‘I feel a little spent.’ It’s like, ‘Oh, I can make a change.’ Because if I look at my expenditure of energy, if I needed a pillow to hold me up as I wander down the street, a little place to have a tiny nap because I’m feeling a little spent, it means I could figure out a way to fill the tank.”
“Like, if I’ve spent something, all I need to do is look at what brings me joy, what fills my tank. And we know. We know.”
A Moment in August
“There was a moment in August. I’m getting these calls, ‘Where are you? Where are you?’ And I arrive at the hospital, and the nurse is at me. My dad is at me.”
“And it’s like, there’s this. We had to get him to Canberra, the patient transport, my dad’s in pain, he’s on drugs, and there’s no one else, there’s me. I took a photo because I thought, ‘What if this is the last time we see my dad?’ And there’s that conflict of ‘What if it is the last time?’ And he’s high.”
“So I took a photo. I took a photo of my dad high. And there’s this. ‘Oh, my God, is this the last time she’ll be taking this?’ There’s no one else there. There’s only me. And so I took a photo.”
The Series of Photos
“Dad’s high off. He goes, ‘What if that’s the last time?’ Little did I know, I started a theme because a couple of weeks later, there’s a photo turning up of another family member.”
“I am French. Another family member being taken away in a hospital, in the back of the ambulance. That person did not look quite as high as my dad. But then, not too long after, there’s another photo.”
“There’s another photo of a family member, a close family member, on a hospital bed, trying to do the thumbs up. He did not look good. And I said, ‘Can we please stop? Can we please stop taking the photos? Can we please stop?’ We’ve started something, and I don’t want that.”
“And that was all in like a month. Then I get another call that an extended family member had been in hospital and had just gone, like, he’s not coming out well, he has come out, but he’s come out different to the way he’s come in. It’s like there was nothing left.”
Reflecting on Being Spent
“And it has me wonder, especially for women, because there are all these things I wanted to do. How can I help? And I realized, in retrospect, I was spent. I played with wants, and I looked and I thought, ‘You know what? Women spend more time being wanted than taking care of their own wants.’ And that led me down a rabbit hole.”
She Knows What She Wants
“And there’s this one thing, so I don’t get spent. I don’t get to that level. My great niece, she’s three and she is adorable.”
“Her great grandmother on the other side wanted to teach my great niece a lesson and told her that she couldn’t have any cupcakes. ‘No cupcakes for you, because you have not behaved in the way I want you to behave.’ But then the great grandmother on the other side decided my great niece had been punished enough and she said, ‘What would you want?’ Thinking it would be a cupcake, my three-year-old great niece hopped up onto the table and said, ‘I want a beer.'”
“That every time I think of that, that adds a little bit of joy. A little bit of yes. A woman who knows what she wants into my bank account.”
“Take it in.”