The Ballad of Tommy and Faye – a Valentines Day Prompt

Not so long ago I was driving along one of our main roads and came across this:

It captured my imagination, so much so that I had to stop the car and catch it on camera.

I am now intrigued by these two whom I have never met. What is their story? What drove Tommy to proclaim his love and high regard for Faye and her achievements? Where are they now? Are they happy? In the city there are a thousand lives. In the city there are a thousand poles. In the city there are a thousand stories.

Are Tommy and Faye lovers? Siblings? Is this is the first time Tommy has proclaimed his love for Faye? Does Faye travel the same way everyday so Tommy is guaranteed a viewing? Is this Tommy’s prelude to or part of a proposal? Are Tommy and Faye young and impetuous? And why the need for Tommy to go public?

This is my ballad of Tommy and Faye.

Tommy was a truck driver. He drove a semi and usually did the gruelling Sydney to Melbourne run. He was a man’s man, loved his beer, loved his mates and had simple needs. Being constantly on the road in his home on wheels fed Tommy’s need for freedom, he was always on the move. There was never really time to stop, the big supermarket chains were relentless in their delivery needs, you missed a pick up or drop off by more than half an hour, you’d lose 5% off the job, cutting your margin to almost nothing. Not only that, your reputation as the best and most reliable of the best would slip and the work flow would slow to a trickle. The pressure and the traffic were ever present, but Tommy just kept on truckin’. It was the only life he knew.

Tommy was not one to examine his feelings in depth. Depth was a dark scary place that held surprises. Tommy hated surprises. However, discontent seemed to be gnawing constantly at his gut lately. Instinctively he knew he couldn’t continue with this life on the road forever. He had to settle down and start thinking about starting a family. His Gran always razzed Tommy that he would end up buried in the back of his truck with only his beer for company.

The one bright spot on Tommy’s horizon was Faye. Gorgeous Faye with the big eyes and even bigger dreams. Faye who was hell bent on making something out of her life and forgetting the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her overbearing father. Faye, the blond vixen who fit neatly under Tommy’s big arms, who made him forget the pressures of the road, who filled him with hope and yearning. Faye, who didn’t drink beer, but made him laugh like no on else. Faye, the one who made him feel.

Tommy’s mind went back to two weeks ago, to the fight he had with Faye. He’d been on the road ever since, a slave to the big chain supermarkets, and he missed her. Faye had advised Tommy that she couldn’t wait for him for ever and now that she had finished her early childhood studies certificate, she was working her way to opening up her own day care centre. Tommy was never book smart and felt totally out of his depth when speaking to Faye about her course and that unease came through the night of their fight. Tommy remembered Faye’s plea for security and stability, for a partner who would be there for her to share the journey. At that moment, Tommy questioned whether he was the right man for Faye, whether she could ever share in his world and stop dragging him into hers. The only problem was that he asked those questions aloud and in Faye’s presence. Faye’s big eyes and harsh words pierced right through Tommy’s gut, never mind his heart, which had taken refuge behind a wall of machismo.

In the two weeks he had been on the road with only his beer and his machismo for company, the kilometres stretching behind and before him in a never ending rotation of numbers, the highway scenery blending with his thoughts and his discontent he had found his clarity. His truth. Faye was his world and for her he was prepared to be vulnerable.

He just needed a way to grab her attention….

Has a homemade road sign ever grabbed your notice? Do you ever wonder about the backstory to those signs?

Please feel free to use this photo as a writing prompt. If you do, I’d love it if you posted a link to your post in the comments below so we can read it.

PS. I don’t usually write fiction, so this is new territory for me.

Would You Want To Know The Halfway Point?

Firstly, thanks for embracing my Forest for The Trees post. I received some wonderful feedback on it and I am delighted that it resonated with many of you. Sometimes all it takes is to know that there is another human going through the same things or feeling the same emotions to lighten the load. If I have done that, even in a small way, then I’m happy.

Secondly, please forgive my absence of comments on some of your blogs. My Reader is having trouble updating and I am missing a lot of your blog posts. I’m going to have a crack at fixing the problem when I return from my next road trip which starts tonight. I m planning to return with some more great photos to share with you every Monday.

In the meantime, I’d like to leave you with these thoughts. Having reached middle age, I have a real sense that what has worked for me for the first forty something years of my life is not going to work for me for the next forty something. A very big part of Raising the Curtain is finding things, thoughts, methods and means that will work going forward.

One of my favorite quotes is from Soren Kierkegaard:

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

I am finding this quote has particular relevance at this middle stage of life.

Looking back, I can see that my discontent (for want of a better word) was building for the last three years. My thinking until recently was to just push through that discontent, but the personal price became too high. So I made some changes and will be making some more until recalibration has been achieved. Life has a way of throwing us pointers for our big decisions. The trick is to have your mind and heart open to recognise the signs and to appreciate them even if they point in a direction you haven’t before considered.

On my forest for the trees hike, I came across this sign:

At the time, finding it gave me comfort. It negated a lot of the variables that related to the walk we were taking – time, distance and energy required. It also confirmed we were on the right track.

It started me thinking (always dangerous!) as to whether it would be a good thing to have a similar sign pop up in our life’s journey so that we could be confident in living it and understanding it moving forward. Think about some scenarios:

Waiting for that train or bus
Waiting in that long queue, whether on the phone or in person
Waiting for your mate or significant other to come into your life or commit, whether that’s soul made, spouse, best friend, good friend
Knowing when you will have children
Knowing how long you have to endure ill/good health
Knowing how long you have to spend with a parent or other loved one
Knowing how long you will have to toil before you achieve that dream
Knowing how long you have above ground

Would you want to know the half way point?

Instinctively my answer for each of these scenarios would be yes. But this begs the next question:

Would knowing make a positive difference to your actions?

Knowing would certainly make planning easier and possibly bring some comforting validation, depending on which scenario applied. BUT I can’t help thinking that knowing in some of these scenarios would preempt certain negative outcomes, particularly if the halfway point is further than you expected.

The first two scenarios are “no-brainers”. I think we would all want to know the half way point. But what about the others?

Photo from freedigitalphotos.net

For example, would knowing how much time you have left on earth help you maximise that time or would you constantly feel under pressure to maximise every moment and be let down if you didn’t? Would you get the life equivalent of the 4pm Sunday afternoon work blues if you knew? Would you be discouraged or encouraged by reaching the halfway point?

Surely, the answer is individual for all of us.

Would I want to know? Possibly not, living life forward and only understanding it backwards may just be enough in the long run. For now, the journey lies in TRYING to understand. The process of reaching for that brass ring may just yield more dividends than the brass ring itself.

Would you want to know the halfway point?

Halfway (rachaelrossman.com)

Mid-Life: Where Empowerment Meets Confusion

The Universe has been sending me a few signals lately that I need to return to the original theme of my blog, namely the journey through middle age. OK, Universe, I hear you and as always I am your humble servant.

Firstly, the ladies at Lipstick Rhetoric wrote two wonderful blog posts about middle life. In one they ask whether a mid-life crisis is tied to paid employment and whether as a result it is only a recent phenomenon in women and in the other they write about a mid-life career crisis and whether this is attributable to the general midlife crisis phenomenon. Both of these posts resonated and I believe that the more people talk about this topic the better. All of us may be pioneers in our own lives and journeys, but none of us are pioneers in the wider sense. Ask enough questions, read and hang out long enough and you will come across those experiencing the same feelings, asking the same questions. Let’s use this wonderful technology to laugh, communicate and support each other and I don’t just mean the women. Men, your input into this issue is important, valuable and extremely necessary. I know it’s difficult for men to overcome the notion that they must remain strong, but men, let me tell you, there is no weakness in talking about this. Rather there is an honesty and level of self awareness that should be applauded. After all, that is the first step to change.

Furthermore, the only certainty in life besides death and taxes is that nothing is actually certain. Anything can change in a blink of an eye. To me, middle age, more than any other stage, teaches you how to deal with uncertainty to prepare you for the trials and tribulations you are bound to encounter in old age. It teaches you to question more deeply and that good planning will only get you so far. It gives you the confidence necessary to deal with the consequences of your decisions and to shed those parts of your skin that no longer work for you. Those that use middle age wisely can be reborn. Those that don’t will continue to struggle. Wisdom will usually require some tough decision and facing of fears.

There are some days when I feel like this

The second sign came from an article in our popular press over the weekend on how some Australian high-profile women are positively facing middle age. The article focused on women aged between their early forties to their early fifties, which of itself was an eye opener for me. I always wrongly held the notion that mid-life crisis point was only reached from the age of forty five but I suspect that soon we will be dropping the word “mid” from “mid-life crisis” and that more and more people will start their questioning and catharsis at an earlier age. The impetus for this comes from several areas – there are many more life style options that are available today and society in general has a more tolerant view on people embracing lifestyles and workstyles that are not considered to be conventional, if not totally alternate. In that sense, these are exciting times.

I agree with the article that there are a lot of positives about middle age. I admit to a degree of trepidation at turning forty after I was too exhausted preparing for children when I turned thirty. But as my forties have worn on in terms of physicality, self-confidence and energy, I am embracing this decade like none before. After decades of trying, I finally have my weight under control and am embracing everything I can about finally being in proportion, including self confidence. What joy to have finally arrived at this point!!

I have concluded that middle age is that stage when empowerment meets confusion, rather than a number. There is no doubt the search of answers can be disconcerting, particularly if you had absolute direction to this point. The difficulty lies in realigning your life’s compass, after all you know so much more now than when you initially set it. True north, though, is still true north!

The hard part for me is finding the time and space to strategize about my own life whilst still being there for my family. These are the absolute truths I have discoved about middle age:

rebirth is not easy
strategizing takes time
you can’t strategize effectively with other noise in your head
you can’t turn the Titanic around on a dime
you can’t turn the Titanic around without affecting the position of other nearby boats
a mid-life crisis is harder on the partner not going through it.

The reference to “Titanic” here is as a symbol for a large ship, not a sinking one!

Like I said at the start of my blog, I am not a self-help guru and I have no wish to preach at anyone. I hope by outlining my thoughts and feelings about my own journey others may feel less alone, less disconcerted. There is much strength to be gained from solidarity and discussion. And if a friendship or two develops along the way, so much the better.

Have you discovered any truths or insights about mid-life? I would love to hear from you.