If

There's no answer to this. No manual of guidelines and rules and checklists that can help you overcome each stage. It's a case of taking it how it comes and dealing with it the best you can. I feel completely brimming with emotion, and yet at the same time so empty that I feel guilty for feeling nothing. Is this right or wrong? Am I that laid back that I just don't care enough to let things affect me? Or am I going though some psycho suppressive period, where I'll come out the other end a raving lunatic like my mother? Am I pretending it isn't all happening? Am I unconsciously trying to pave it all over, planning to "deal" with it when the time comes?

It's been a month since I found out "The Truth". The truth about what? It was never a lie as such I guess, but a taboo subject that was never spoken about. And one year after placing that advert on a geneology site I finally got the answers I'd been looking for.

Maybe I expected it to be a whole lot bigger, that my whole world would change overnight. Deep inside, I know that it's down to the fact that I don't have my support group here, I'm on my own on this one! If I break down and fall apart, who is going to go to work every day? Pay the mortgage? Keep the house clean? Look after the dog? I feel angry that I haven't broken down about it and amazed at the inner strength I have at the same time.

If anything, this has given me more strength - strength to be myself and stop trying to please everyone else. Trying to please my boyfriend, his mother, his friends, their girlfriends, my family and everyone else I share my life with. I need to stop worying about how they'll be affected by what I do and what it means to them instead of me, as the only one who's going slightly loco here is me.

I know what I want, and I know how I want to do it. This is so important to me, yet I have noone here by my side to help me through it and just "deal".

It's not every day that you find out your biological father died of hypothermia in a park in Boston 8 years before you were able to contact him. If he'd known that I was looking for him, he wouldn't have gone down that route. If, if, if....

I want to take control of my life and focus on what I want.

I love my job, and I want to be the best I can be. I want to study again. I want to travel. I want to buy a freaking Mustang! Boy can keep the BMW if that's what it'll take. I want to see my friends in England. I want to be able to go out with my girlfriends for an evening without a sulking boy screaming at me and calling me names for not including him. I want to get to know my "new" family in Australia and England. I want to see where Danny is resting. I want to visit the park where he died. I want to dream and draw and imagine.

I want to live again.

I want to be me again before I forget.

DL

I'm in quite a wierd place right now. I've been waiting for this moment for years, yet thinking it would never happen. Hoping it would, and hoping it wouldn't. Knowing what to expect and not having a freaking clue.

Well...now it's happened.

14 months after placing an ad on a geneology forum, I've been contacted by the brother of my biological father, and I'm so confused.

When the email popped up on my screen this morning mentioning that this person could help me on my search for "DL" I didn't think too much of it, not wanting to get my hopes up. I replied saying I would be interested to speak with them, but nothing prepared me for the response I got.

I was suddenly really pleased, then empty, then unsure, and then I just burst out crying, sobbing really, and reading the email over and over:

Dear Joanna.

Thank you for responding to my email.

Like you, I find it hard to begin. I only found out about you today when my daughter somehow came across your request for information regarding DL and contacted me. I am your uncle S, born in D in 1947.

There were 8 kids in the family with DL being the youngest.

The family moved to England in 1959 and lived in London.

In 1973 the family split and my wife (J) and I, my sister L and her family along with my Mum and Dad (your Grandparents) came to Australia.
Your grandparents are since deceased.

Joanna you are part of a pretty large family who, until today did not kmow of your existance.
On behalf of all of us,we are extremely sorry for any pain or heartache that you and your mother suffered on account of the action DL took.
Please let us get to know you and understand your thoughts regarding DL.

With love,Your Uncle S.

I've shared a couple more emails back and forth, each one so friendly and understanding on their part. I never dreamed it would be like this. It's not even anything yet, but the first response has been so....kind.

I don't know what I was expecting - in fact, I don't think I was expecting anything. After so long looking for someone, and in an age where Google can find you anything and everything, to keep coming up with nothing kinda resigned me to the fact that maybe he wasn't findeable.

I've checked the advert I placed so many times and not seen one single responce. Until now. I don't know what I feel, or what I should feel, or if I should feel anything...it's wierd. I can't think of anything to write that will help me any more.

This Uncle S is supposed to be calling me tomorrow or Sunday - what am I going to say? What are we going to talk about? How much shit am I causing for them? As far as I can make out they had no idea I even existed, and there's a reason for that. There's a reason his family don't know about me. What problems am I going to cause by suddenly appearing in the picture?

Hey! I'm the kid you had 24 years ago!

I don't want a dad. I have the world's best dad. But there's so much that my mum never told me - I need to know who this person is - and what really happened in Boston in January, 1984.

I don't feel any anger at all. Curiosity for sure, but no anger. The few people that I've talked with over the years have mostly suggested that I should be angry at him, but why? What's he done to make me angry? I don't think he abandoned me. I think he wanted me. I even think he wanted my mum to marry him. From what I understand, it was her that cut off all contact. So do I feel angry at her? No - just hurt that she never told me anything and that I had to find out everything by sneaking through diaries and getting information out of my grandmother.

Should I have just let everything lie? I have a great dad, and I love my mum so, so much.

I guess I've just never felt complete. Sure, I love myself far too much and make a joke out of me being a dotty princess...but who am I really? I don't think one day has gone past that I haven't thought about DL. Is that healthy? Am I obsessing?

I don't expect anything from this. It's not going to be some fucking fairytale.

Drivers....and how they irk me

I have always wanted to use the word "irk" ever since I first saw it repeatedly appearing before my eyes during my high school typing test exams. Now I have done - one more goal down on the way to my life's tick box.

The way people drive here amazes me. Seriously. Anyone who's witnessed or actually driven in Spain will know where I'm coming from. To put things in to perspective, I'm 23, a female and drive a BMW (so...really...I should fall in to the worst drivers ever in the history of everything category) - and yet I am still astounded at the things I see.

This evening I made my regular journey from my house to Boy's place of work to collect him, and back again - nothing too tricky there - journey time can vary between 5 minutes and 3 hours depending on the number of accidents/police controls/roadworks etc etc I encounter on my merry way.

I had left the vicinity of my urbanisation without any incident - so far, so good. Driving along a minor road, I could go no faster than 40km as there were kids riding their bikes towards me on my side of the road.

Approaching the roundabout I slowed to about 30, checked the traffic, and to my horror of horrors saw a taxi driver attempting to pull out from a parking space with no lights on and no indicator :-o Needless to say I beeped my horn quite sharply and got a fleeting apologtic look from the (female) driver.

Side on collision avoided. Car and yours truly alive and well.

About four minutes later, I was chugging along in my automobile in the right hand lane, and noticed a large queue in the left hand lane - something that often happens at this part of the road where there is a semi roundabout/U-turn function thing which doesn't quite cater for the traffic load on the Costa del Sol. Thank whoever resides above that I wasn't whizzing along (as, naturally, I should have been being a female and driving a poncey car) as a Peugeot, whose driver did not wish to remain in the queue any londer, decided to pull out in front of me - again, with no indicators.

Don't even get me started on the roundabout in the Port...

Now, perhaps it's just me, but surely wing mirrors and indicators are there for a reason? And do forgive me if I'm wrong, but it seems from my position as a mere Observer of Others that the more expensive and prestigious the car, the less need or usage of indicators?

When I arrived at my destination, I sat and watched all the cars going round the roundabout, and observed:

Only one driver chose to use his indicator when leaving the roundabout. One!!! And I was there for a good 20 minutes!

I counted 16 drivers talking on their mobile phones while going round and round.

A Range Rover Sport zipping along so fast it had to skid to a halt half way across the zebra crossing to let a (quite rightly so) irate man pass. It's not exactly like zebra crossings are hard to miss.

On the drive back I had another car practically glued to my rear end. I know my car's derriere is pretty and all, but you don't need to get that close. It won't make me speed up or get out of the way when the speed limit in force is 80kmh and you're trying to go at 140kmh, no matter how many times you flash your lights or honk your horn at me. Speed limits are there for a reason...boring, I know, but true.

These things irk me (yay! I used it again!) because in the last 12 months I have lost 2 friends in seperate incidents - both were victims of someone jumping a red light while speeding and talking on their phone.

Is your conversation THAT important?

Is jumping that one traffic light gonna get you there that much faster?

Just because your car does 240kmh easily, doesn't mean you have to travel that fast.

The World as it stands on Saturday, 14th June 2008

The decade that has passed since my last post has been caused by the fact that I now have a job which makes me work 25 hours a day (or so it seems) leaving me little time to complete all my female house dutes, and even less for blogging.

Boy is being trained to help out a bit more, so hopefully blogging duties should return to normal...

Work in the Land of the Naked People was starting to get...slightly unsure, and so I took it upon myself to create a super impressive CV during one of the quieter days, and sent it off to various companies advertising positions along the Costa del Sol.

Evidently, it worked, as I had a call for an interview at a law firm less than a week later.

I clearly did okay in the interview, as they invited me back for a second, and before I knew it I was working there full time from the end of January.

Due to astronomical mortgage payments (not that I live in a castle or anything, sadly the astronomics are down to tax), bills, petrol etc etc etc I found myself unable to survive on the wages from my new job alone, and so am still working in the Land of the Naked People every weekend.

Which, at the begining, didn't bother me at all. At All! However, that was in January and February, when it was raining and cold and grey and damp and miserable and wet.

It is now the middle of June, and outside temperatures appear to be somewhere around 28ºC. All the Naked People are varying shades of pink/red/tan and I am, quite honestly, most upset at having to spend my Saturdays and some Sundays inside.

I have therefore taken it upon myself to enter every single online competition I can find (yes, my inbox is filling with spam, but when that €55 billion cheque arrives in the post, I won't be complaining) - and dedicating several minutes a day to completing online surveys (my current balance is €17,75!!).