This blog is late this week… Well, because of writer’s block

This blog is late this week… to tell you the truth, because of writer’s block. I know enough about creativity to know that if it’s not there, it’s not there. You certainly can’t force it.

I also know enough about myself to know that if I am not overflowing with ideas something is likely not quite as it should be. In this case, maybe I just need to step back and reconnect with myself for a bit. 

One of the things I tend to do when I am stuck and out of sorts, is go into the garden and find something that needs tending to. In this case, it was weeding a couple of Japanese Black Pines that are on their long and slow journey to becoming bonsai trees.

Quietly weeding away, my thoughts turned to our day back in June with Tom Panos. 

(Thoughts quietly turning is a good sign…)

“Why do we post those photos with our late model cars all over our socials”, he bellowed. 

“They hate us already”. ‘They’ meaning everyone who is not a real estate agent (and maybe a fair few who are). 

Over the past 5 years I have been deeply fortunate enough to see the other side of real estate agents – a perspective I knew but didn’t really appreciate in the past.

The mums (usually…) and dads and grandparents juggling the school aged kids, often feeling like they are not giving enough.

The children taking care of elderly parents whose needs just get more pronounced. 

The mate who will travel the country to support a mate who is down in a dark place.

The parent with the addicted kid – an illness that requires the denial of parental instinct to give in order to relieve suffering.

The partner nursing their unwell other half.

And on it goes.

All of this life stuff is the backdrop to incessant and constant demands of buyers; ‘I want to see something now and what is the owner’s bottom dollar’ and vendors; ‘why can’t you get an offer on my house’, and ‘that third picture on Trademe is supposed to be the fourth’.

There is such an elevated pressure that goes with trying to sell one’s house, more often than not, it’s a home. Always valuable, usually loved. Selling it or trying to buy one can turn the nicest and kindest of people into someone much less pleasant. 

So, Tom, maybe they do hate us already. 

But from my position, reflecting on what I see on a daily basis, y’all are not such a bad bunch.

In fact I would say most of the time, quite the opposite. 

While I don’t know your circumstances specifically, I do want you to know that if you are feeling unseen, and unappreciated today, then I for one want to recognise you for the whole picture and for all that you do. 

Because I am late, and it is Friday afternoon, I get to say have a great weekend. I hope you smash it out there in your work life, and your personal life too.