Giving Fear a good Feel-up

The past few months of work, health and renovation struggles have been ones I'll be more than eager to wave goodbye when the 'Better Be Great 2008' new year rolls around. It can start right-bloody-now for all I care - let's bypass all of the absurdities and waste of Christmas, Boxing Day return queues, stale mince pies, greasy legs of ham hogging up fridge space and desperate-to-be-seen-to-be-partying New Years Eve celebrations that go on far longer than my preferred 10:00pm bedtime.

One thing I have learned this year however, throughout all of the trials and tribulations, is that I veer more wildly than Britney Spears on the road to Starbucks when it comes to being brave.

When forced to deal with relatively minor things, I've got less backbone than a rubber chicken. For instance, the very generous and talented Redcap invited me to come over and meet her in person when visiting her workplace to pick up some CDs for reviewing. And yet, when I got there, the reception area was unattended and the distant sounds of a busy bunch of people working behind the partition was clearly evident. The desk had that standard little bell thingy to summon up the receptionist but I have never, ever dinged a reception bell. I'm always afraid that when the person arrives and realises that it is merely me, their annoyance and disappointment in my assumption that I thought I was important enough to ding a bell for service would be too crushing to bear.

On the other hand, I can fight like a taunted Tasmanian devil if my job/career path/ability to pay a share of the mortgage/reputation is unfairly threatened. To be able to confidently yell down a phone, "I don't give a FAT RAT'S CLACKER what your boss is going to think about the inconvenience of setting things right!" immediately transcends any fear one might have had when warily picking up the receiver with a squeaked-out "hellooooo?"

Catch me walking in front of a busker down the mall however, and I'm a blushing, snivelling, cringeing piece of human driftwood. For some reason the thought of stepping out of the safety of a large crowd of people towards a hat to flip in a gold coin is more agonising than agreeing to let 15 med students in on my final pelvic examination during childbirth.

And these self-realisations lead me to where I am today. Over the weekend, Love Chunks and I swapped our bedroom with Sapphire's purely on the advice of our sister-in-Law, Dr B.

Dr B may be a world-authority in her field of medical research and all that intellectual sciencey stuff, but she's also right into Feng Shui. She's been utterly convinced that my crap year is attributed to being in the wrong room in a 'coffin position'. Something about my karma or BO or chakras literally flying out of the door quicker than a pensioner at a half price hosiery sale. Either that or having our fuse box on the other side of the wall by my head might be posing a bit of a threat to rest-and-recreation as well.

Anyhow, we lifted, shifted, vacuumed away grey lint balls (the belly button kind, not the Lindor versions, alas), wiped down every piece of furniture, shifted armfuls of clothes, socks, jocks, shoes, lamps, pictures, toys, nasal sprays, inflatable Adelaide Crows mascots, ducks made out of wicker, unused lipsticks, ill-advised handbag purchases and pre-millennium copies of 'Choice' magazine - the sum total of seven years of living in a room with wall-to-wall storage space.

In deference to Dr B, straight after fiddling with the Feng Shui my work issue was resolved with a 'win' in my corner. It may have left me bloody and bruised, but I was the one standing at the end and I also enjoyed three totally solid nights of decent, non-nightmarish, restful sleep. But last night, at an end-of-year celebration at my meditation class (yes, har har, not a wild party of course, being meditators), I mentioned the rearrangement of rooms but was afraid to say why. "Oh, er, we think Sapphire needs more space to call her own and I want to be near a window," I muttered, not really understanding why I was worried about raising Feng Shui with a dozen people who had, just minutes earlier, been sending out soft pink lights of "Love and acceptance to everyone in our suburb, in Adelaide, South Australia, the Southern Hemisphere, the entire globe."


Hmmm. To continue my inconsistency just a few minutes ago I rang and cancelled my appearance at a fairly hefty job interview (with a panel of four, no less) with this venerable crowd. Good job, best university in town by a mile, great pay, good career options, gorgeous old building full of history, my old studying ground and that of my father and grandfather....

.....to trying my luck as a 'Happy Hack for Hire' with this little beast as my able office assistant.

Am I afraid?

Nah, not really.

Ask me tomorrow and it'll be an entirely different story. I'll be placing our much-fought-for Feng Shui stability into jeopardy when I take nervous residence in the toilet and forget to close the door which is in direct line with our front door.....