I am driving an EH Holden - I have only been sixteen for 5 minutes.
My mum describes the tenacity and determination I have to learn to drive. I dream of it day and night. No kidding!
I'm crowned Miss Salisbury High - not because I'm your typical 'prom queen' but because someone believes in me enough to nominate me...In a borrowed dress, and partner (yes borrowed too) to escort me to the year 12 School ball, determination strikes again.
I don't believe I am as pretty or as smart as the other girls in the quest. But for five years whenever someone else was nominated I dream that one day it will be me!
My name is announced as the winner. I do not fein surprise, I am surprised. I still think the other girls are prettier and smarter and I think that others are more surprised than me. Not my family, they believe
in me.
I fail year 12 - partly due to illness; partly due to home stress and partly a deliberate attempt to sabotage my father's intention that I should go to teachers college.
I am a mother craft nurse. I dream it; I feel it and I believed it - from year 9, it's what I wanted to do. No one would stop me.
I'm living in a house with my friends, lifelong friends, although I don't know that at the time.
We are supposed to live at the nurses home; but no one can change our mind - we move without our parents consent. After all we are 18 years old and know what we are doing!
I'm called into the matrons office and told I am lazy and don't smile enough. I'm sick to the stomach. She tells me I will not make probation. I hide in the walk in linen cupboard. I cry. I promise myself then and there I will graduate and excel at my job - I love babies, Im enjoying the course and work. I am having fun. I feel confident and...determined. They are wrong about me. They don't know me!
I graduate with credits in my course and excellent nursing reports. I make a speech at our graduation. I'm proud to be a mother craft nurse.
Where to from here? I have met the man I will marry.
I have a job in the neonatal unit. We go to live in the Northern Territory - take a risk, make mistakes. Return to Adelaide. Marry.
I find a job in childcare... I discover a career path when I m invited to be assistant director. Another person has faith in my ability. More importantly, I have faith in my ability.
We buy a house, land and later another house. We have a mortgage and high interest rates strike.
I have to work, I want to work. I dream of being director or owning a childcare centre. I am 26. Five interviews later and learning I am pregnant, I establish and operate a community-based service.
We have the baby I always knew we would. She had her name long before she was born.
I have two miscarriages before our next beautiful baby girl is born.
Returning from maternity leave I need a new career path, one that works around my girls school years.
The skills, knowledge and experience I have gained over a decade in early childhood sees me pursue a job as a trainer in adult education. Firstly I'm invited as a guest speaker. I realise my potential. I love making a difference in students lives. I love mentoring and recognising the skills they have from their experience in life.
If I am to make a career of this, while paying the mortgage and raising children
I must study.
I sit the mature age entry into university. I commence my bachelor. A lecturer tells me I will never make it.
Four years later, separated from my marriage... I make it and graduate from university. My mother brother and daughter are there to support me. I wish my dad was here too. He died a year earlier.
I am a teacher/trainer and finding my way through a new millennium as a single mother while maintaining a professional status, job role and career.
There are many challenges, balancing life, love and the growth and development of my children.
At work I'm innovative and passionate for a cause - which will eventually be my undoing. I will not become 'like the system I oppose'
I stopped dreaming, I was fighting for something that I could not change. None the less I made a difference if only to some.
A new dream, a new vision. Plenty of action. Hold the vision and trust the
process they say!
Sometimes sad sometimes glad, I feel the the fear and do it anyway. I leave my job, my career and some friends of 23 years.
Today I have a book cafe that encompasses local business, women in business, community and fosters a sense of being and belonging... I also have a FB page called 'women, wonder and wisdom' and a blog that tells a story of moments before redundancy through to reflection and reinventing myself as a cafe owner!
Last but not least I survived the working mother period (single at that!) and now a 'senior-preneur' - I read, I write, I plan, think, dream and do! I have belief and vision.
There are many challenges today and still ahead
But with conviction, gratitude, lifelong friends and family who believe in me ... 'once again' I have the tenacity and determination of my 16, 18 and 26 year old self 😊
