I’m sitting at my kitchen island right now, which is also my dining table, and my desk, the place I cook and write and talk with my boyfriend over morning coffee and late dinners and where I consistently pick up our cat Mumu and I tell her: get down baby with not nearly enough force, so she thinks it’s a game or maybe even just straight up praise, so it’s also where I, almost consistently, wipe the countertop down so we’re not consuming cat hair with every single bite.
To be perfectly honest, the last two weeks have been a blur.
I come from a tiny family. For most of my life, Christmas has been very, very quiet. When I think of Christmas I think of my parents balcony, of their backyard, of the beach being full of people I don’t recognise, fresh berries, multiple coffees, hopefully a new book or something cute to wear.
When I think of Christmas, I also think of work.
For many years, I worked in fashion retail, spending more than a few holiday seasons in Australia’s most old school Christmas obsessed department store. It’s the place to take your Santa photos, to look at the window displays, to listen to the live pianist on the first floor. This was both the most wonderful and most terrible time to work, as I’m sure you would know. The terrible part was mostly the working every single day leading up to Christmas and then at 5am on boxing day. The wonderful part being the public holiday pay, how I loved the pulse of a very busy day, how holiday excitement, for most people in the store, tended to override holiday anxiety and nerves. Sometimes it did feel like a world all of its own.
When I started working for myself teaching yoga, the holiday season became my biggest opportunity to grow. While seasoned teachers, or those with family and kids took time off, I taught all their classes non stop. It was through the holiday period over those first few years I really laid the foundation for all I have today. People are always impressed with the TDR Studio’s growth in under a year, and while I am too, the reality is, it started over seven years ago, putting my hand up to cover classes as a fresh teacher, skipping a proper Christmas break to do something I adored.
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This Christmas was different.
I spent thirty six hours at four seperate family gatherings and by the end of the 25th I was so tired I’m almost positive I forgot my own name.
On the 26th I woke up early and went for a really long walk.
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