The Story So Far

It’s less than 20 hours until I start my journey to Indonesia. I was pretty excited when (from memory) 14 people read my first blog post on An Ordinary Life. Apparently, I’ve collected some new readers along the way. I’m sure everyone hasn’t gone back and read through every post (and why would you, really?). So I thought I’d give you an abridged version of the previous 58 posts and the year that lead me to be here.

First, let me introduce the characters…

I’m Cate. I’ll be 39 in 3 weeks. I’m a writer…I write stuff. I was a music journalist for 13 years and ran a successful small business for 10. I’ve also worked as a prison officer and nightclub bouncer. I’m mild mannered opinionated, conservative a bit of a hippy, and I’m a people person people frustrate me, but I’m trying hard to understand them.

Then there’s el husbande Rick he turns 43 tomorrow. He’s a kind & caring grumpy & cynical man, who kinda looks like Pearce Brosnan a Hell’s Angel, he mostly thinks all my Buddhist stuff is brilliant a load of crap, but he supports me 110% in everything I do. He’s also the most hands-on father I’ve ever met. He does most all of the cooking, and shares most of the washing and ironing.

Then there are the children. We have a blended family of 9 children – Loki is nearly 19, he is the apple that the wind carried (ie it fell far from the tree). He thinks global warming is a farce and was incredibly annoyed at the cutting up of my wedding dress to make ring pillows to raise money for the orphanage. He was also none too impressed with the shaving of my head for the World’s Greatest Shave. He is, and probably will always be, my best friend.

Next is AJ (17), an independent thinking man, Matthew (15) family clown who comes out with the most random comments at the strangest times. Then there’s Asho (14) presenter for Planet You and budding sports star who taught me one of the most valuable lessons of my life, which features heavily in my TEDx talk. Bailey (13) researcher for Planet You, genius, Aspergian and radical thinker.

Then Julian (10) who we met lately in the post about getting your squee on class clown, gentle giant, finding his feet. Kelsey (8) – doesn’t play well with others, genius, lisper, grommet and gets my vote for most likely to do a Steven Bradbury and win the game of life by being the only one to stay upright.

The only girl in the mix is the one working on having her name changed by deed poll to Princess Ailish. She’s 6 years old and has featured heavily in the blog for sharing Oompa Loompa wisdom and political views. Before we started this crazy adventure, Ailish was one of the greatest catalysts for our lifestyle change. Frankly, we created a monster – we called her Veruca. Now she gives her tooth fairy money to homeless people, educates her school on palm oil and is co-presenter of Planet You.

Finally there’s Charlie (3). He’s the baby we had to have to stop Ailish being a complete bitch horror. I was devastated when I found out I was pregnant, he was born a sickly baby with many complications and I remember our family paediatrician looking at him with wide eyes, as he screamed incessantly, and say “I don’t know what to do”. Three years later, Charlie is the most pure and beautiful soul to have ever walked the earth, animal whisperer, Indonesian language student, superhero and old soul.

So that’s the characters, what about the back story?

We worked hard for a long time. We made a lot of money. We learned that with money comes power and because of it, we weren’t always the nicest people. We became obsessed with making money and the freedom (to be asshats) that the money gave us. We were smug at how well we weathered the Global Financial Crisis but as it turned out, it was saving us for last.

Within 12 months we went from riding the A-Train to being homeless, in a tent in the rain on Christmas day. We argued about what to eat. I don’t remember what we had, but it was one of the worst days of my life. I wrote a letter the Prime Minister. He never answered me. We got a lot of attention from people who didn’t know us but hated us anyway. I cried a lot.

People assume that choosing to sell my business and devote myself to giving was the catalyst for our homelessness. They are wrong. It had nothing to do with it. We fought for a year to save something that was unsalvageable, we gave it our best. We went a lot further than I think most people would to do the right thing by everyone else, before ourselves.

Out of homelessness came Cate’s Cause and a new passion to try to help the homeless in Australia as well as our established plans for Indonesia. I toyed with the idea that maybe, instead of dedicating myself to one cause I could use all this new attention to share the word, and raise funds for other things that were important as well. Not everyone agreed with me. I didn’t care.

I shared the worst year of my life with the world via my blog. They watched me lose my house. They criticised me and sent hate mail. People wished me dead and threatened to have my children taken off me. I’m aware that some people still think I’m a fraud. I used to care. Now I don’t.

My family has a little tiny house now, not big enough for everyone; half of the family still sleeps outside in a tent and a caravan. We have a long and tedious commute to take the kids to school and we live a very humble existence. The three months that we needed to rely on Centrelink payments to survive were the worst months of my husband’s life.  We are fortunate to have a small income now which means we can be self-sufficient again. El husbande and I struggled to keep it together but…

I am the happiest and most content now that I have ever been in my entire life.

Project 18 has successfully used social media to raise enough money to open an orphanage in Indonesia. I have no idea what will happen when I get there, but I’m going. It’s only a small fraction of what we hope to achieve in the long term, but even if we never achieve anything else – knowing that we were able to save 10 children from a life of starvation or sexual exploitation, will be enough.

I’m going to leave you with the stupidest thing I’ve ever said on these pages, and it’s from the first real post I ever made, Let Me Start Somewhere Around the Middle:

..what I’ve told you all so far is that I’m about to embark on a life changing expedition. Not so much a journey of “self discovery”, I’m pretty sure I’ve already travelled that path.

Oh Cate, you really were a tool.

That’s it. 60,000 words crunched down to 1,200. See you in Indonesia!