Welcome

Strange things happen when you are over 60!  All my adult life I have been living in a “tomorrow mode”, in a strategy mode, speeding through every day and every year at 300km per hour, changing gears to achieve each and every target I set for myself. To bring my sister, niece and my parents over from Poland, to get back to Uni, to pass exams, to get a job, to get a second evening job, to get a loan, to buy a house, to have children, to send them to good schools, to buy an investment property, to start a business, build an investment portfolio, to take my children to the Gold Coast and later to Disneyland!

As an immigrant at 21, I needed to act many times faster and harder than the locals. I had to catch up. Work on my English, learn how to to understand the system, structures, institutions and cultural nuances. I subscribed to newspapers, magazines, became a member of various associations, went through reading lists to catch up on Australian and Asian history (at school in Poland we did not cover this region), discovered Australian authors, musicians, comedians and colloquial expressions!  I actively sought out new person-to-person connections, made new friends, took risks, made bold decisions, executed many projects and ticked off all the items on my wish list!

I have been blessed to reach all my goals, all my dreams have come true.  I stumbled a few times but all in all, the rewards have been much greater than the sacrifices. I suffered from a lot of guilt as a working mother who went back to work only 4 weeks after each pregnancy. Thank God for my sister and my parents who helped us with child care when only they could. 30 years passed in a flash!

From now on I am going to slow down and notice every detail, evaluate and reflect.  I am going to look closer at the pieces of my life’s puzzle.  I also hope that new pieces will be added still, but they will be fewer and more deliberately chosen.

Every year I choose a word that guides me for the next 12 months.  This year it is the Latin word “respectare”, in English “to respite, to look again, notice the little things”.

I am creating this website to share my life’s milestones, adversities and successes as a reflective tool to come to terms with the many complex moments and transformational events in my past.  Call it a healing and therapeutical instrument, but also a sort of tutorial for the younger generation of those brave women and men who could benefit and maybe learn from my lifelong experience.

Some sections of this website are public and available to everyone. My Blog is designed in two sections: one public and one accessible exclusively to subscribers via a password. I reserve the right to administer the subscriptions myself and admit only a selected network of subscribers to the pass-worded section.