Posted on by

What’s been your biggest challenge in life?

‘Doing my first degree when I was 38 which I loved and sailed through and I got a first. I studied Drama.’

What advice would you give to your 20 year old self?

‘Aim for RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London) – do the degree early! That is where I wanted to go but my parents wouldn’t let me. I became a registered nurse when I was 18 instead.

‘I’ve only stopped performing on stage in the last five years because I’ve had a lot of problems with my teeth and I won’t go on stage with no teeth. I can’t annunciate properly but I’ll have new teeth in soon.’

Will you go back to stage then?

‘Only to do cabaret – I love cabaret. I didn’t find cabaret until I was actually doing my finals project. I love singing and dancing. I shall return!’

Posted on by

What’s the best thing you’ve learnt about yourself while you’ve been studying psychology?

‘I’m not that different to everyone else. When I was young I had traumatic experiences. I have a complex traumatic disorder and so for a long time I was such a depressed person. I’d get anxious and feel like I was so weird and so different and didn’t fit in.

‘But just about everyone has their own issues and problems. It’s just about how those problems combine together and that means that some people are depressed and some people are just sad sometimes.

‘I think everyone’s a little socially anxious. I’m probably more socially anxious than a lot of people I know. In the same way I would reserve judgement when meeting someone else, I try to reserve judgement about their judgement. I try to assume they’re not judging.’

Posted on by
‘The GP said I had a 50% chance of survival when I got the prognosis. I asked her what that meant because no one survives life. Everyone’s got 100% chance of dying so what does a 50% chance mean? And she said 50% chance of surviving the next year.

‘If it wasn’t for new forms of treatment apparently I would have died. I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of advanced breast cancer four years ago and according to my oncologist I’m still in the critical phase for another year.

‘I don’t take my life for granted. I think I’ve been lucky to have been given these four years and I don’t know how much longer I have.

‘I watched a documentary once and they interviewed a funeral director. She said that regardless of the religion, a good life has had three things – compassion, love and gratitude. I wrote those three things in black texta on my mirror and I looked at it every day. The gratitude one is something that I really hold close to my heart. You try and see the good in everything.

‘What I’m grateful for is that I live more in the moment and appreciate the day. If you’ve only got a year left, you’ve really got to make the most of that year. That doesn’t make me different to anyone else. Everyone should and could live their lives that way but it’s just sort of being brought home to me more because it’s a reality.’

Val is fundraising for the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse. Please donate or share this post:
http://sy14.endcancer.org.au/site/TR/Events/Sydney2014?px=1059544&pg=personal&fr_id=1071

Posted on by
‘When I was 12 years old, I stepped on stage with 140 other young people as part of the Cumberland Gang Show which was a Scout and Guide show at Parramatta Riverside Theatre. It filled me with so much joy to be making people laugh and smile by being up on stage. I couldn’t see any of their faces because they were in the dark and I was in the bright lights.

‘When I was doing a comedy sketch on stage and I was making people laugh, I was addicted to stand up from then.

‘As a creative person who doesn’t have the security of a regular income, I feel like the toughest thing for me is knowing where my next thing is going to be. Often I don’t know where that is. I pretend and people believe me sometimes and give me lots of money to do it but I just don’t know where those opportunities lie.’

If you could give one bit of advice to people, what would it be?

‘Keep it real. Be honest. Honesty is always the best policy when you’re doing comedy or when you’re doing anything.’

Posted on by

‘In Hong Kong I just didn’t have the time to enjoy things. It’s too rushed and you can’t really observe stuff in detail. We don’t have a second to relax and enjoy life so for me, I want to take back the time. Here, at least I can get back free time and the lifestyle. And the food and the air. The air is so important because Hong Kong is so polluted.’

‘I think I’m going to take the Australian lifestyle back to Hong Kong with me. I’ve been back to Hong Kong twice since living here and now I’m just not used to how people walk so quickly and how rude they can be. I’m so used to now getting off the bus and saying thank you and stuff. I think I’m just going to keep doing that in Hong Kong.’

Posted on by
‘Once you get to a certain age, you’re not so consumed about looking around for how people perceive you. You start perceiving yourself in a different kind of way and start trying to expand who you are.

‘Sometimes I feel like I’m behind. I have friends who are in corporate jobs. Fluorescent lights are nice but I’d much rather have my hands in the dirt. I’ve embrace an artistic lifestyle and I have no fear that money will come. It doesn’t really matter.

‘It feels liberating in a way. You’re more in tune with things. You see things and you draw creativity from it and that fulfils you – it’s the best. It’s frightening too. You have to make something from it because you have no other choice. You have to go forward.’

Posted on by
‘Originally I couldn’t stand up without support. I used to come up here to King Street with my walker and sell my pictures. I progressed from a walker to a cane and now I can stand up without the cane.

‘I had two strokes in 2002. My physio at the time said I should do something with my hands because my balance was completely shot. Her theory was if your hand-eye coordination improves, so does your balance. So I started to do picture framing as a way of recuperation and my balance has improved no end.

‘Everything on my right side – my leg, my foot, my arms – I had no control over them whatsoever and that’s why at times I had to strap my arm to my body to control it. I used to come up here to King Street and sell my stuff one-handed.

‘My left hand has become my right hand. I’ve learned to write left-handed, shave left-handed; I’ve learned to do everything left-handed. Every now and then I forget my circumstances and I pick up a pen and go to sign my name right-handed like I used to and it doesn’t quite work.’

Posted on by

‘I felt totally useless because what could I do? I couldn’t do a thing. All I could do was hold my wife’s hand. It was the first in my life that I felt completely useless. One minute it’s just the two of you and the next minute there is another being with a personality and character just out there. That’s the most amazing thing about it. The miracle of the whole thing is just amazing. When he was born, it was like looking at a picture of myself as a child.

‘Before you just lived life for yourself and your partner and all of a sudden you stop and live life for someone else and try to make a future for them.’

Posted on by

‘We were together for five years. We moved here from New Zealand and then he left me. I’m very family orientated so for me just to not pack it all up and go back home for a boy, that was really challenging.

‘I had to look within myself and think was it worth giving it all up for a guy because he leaves you or do you want to further yourself? When I looked deeper within myself, I found somebody who’s very outgoing and spontaneous. I learnt that I shouldn’t be defined by what somebody else makes me. I saw myself as a bigger entity than in a relationship.’

Posted on by
‘I spent too much time being angry. I spent a good couple of years being really, really angry at someone that showed no remorse, never apologised, never even looked at me. But karma gets you at the end of the day. It is what it is. He’s living his life and I’m living mine. I try not to think about it.

‘My biggest challenge is removing the stigma that people in chairs just stay at home and do nothing. Also being socially accepted and being able to access all gig venues and general locations independently. Not have to plan whether I can go and see a band or meet up with friends at a café that I can’t get into.

‘Life’s too short. I don’t have time for negativity. Don’t worry about the small things. I just want to live. Stay true to yourself. Just love who you are and love life.’