Life as Hine knows it

It has been awhile. I suppose after going back into lockdown a second time and all that jazz, I found it hard to come on and write, Especially cos I don’t own a laptop anymore. Sucks to be me. Not really though, I really am rather blessed and grateful. It has been a hectic last couple of months, more so because of work and making the decision to resign. I made a lot of life choices that will affect me soon, I mean they already are affecting me, but more so in December/January. After having a meaningful conversation with a dear friend of mine, i made the decision to hand in my resignation and move to be with my partner full time as of December. I used to get so worried about what people would think about me, especially when it came to Him, but now I do not care. The last few months have also been a rollercoaster professionally having to dedicate so much of my time staying at the centre 24/7, ensuring that the environment and my team as a whole were going to be okay the following day. It has been exhausting and I guess a lot of that has caught up with me now because I am currently posted up in bed, sick with a throat and ear infection. It is totally great to be me! I have no idea what the point of this post was, other than updating the loads of people that read this LMAO SIKE! Anyway, here’s to embracing everyday as it comes, because the Lord knows that’s exactly what I have been doing lately lol.

trying to find ways to help me fall asleep, starring at a device probably isn’t helping, right? Although, this is the first time I’ve looked at this screen.. Im yawning but cant actually find myself wanting to fall asleep and I have no one else to blame but myself really. i don’t even know the point of this post, but i felt like writing something and i mean why not, what else am i going to do, stare into the darkness… i feel like im going to pay for this tomorrow, but whats new?!?

late night thoughts tend to be the most extreme and if you’re anything like me, you find yourself thinking absolutely everything, from relationships, to why a toilet is called a toilet and not a kitchen…

I found myself feeling incredibly lethargic and unwilling or unmotivated to want to do anything over the last few days. Purely because I think being confined to my house, has got me feeling a little suffocated. I’m probably not the only one thinking this though and when I woke up this morning I had to have a serious look at myself in the mirror and remind myself of everything I am grateful for and that I am incredibly lucky to be where I am. I woke up today for the first time in two days and reset my self-care cards, I left my phone wherever it was when I threw it last night. I opened up my doors and windows to allow the morning air to come through and cleanse the room. I pulled my daily cards, said my daily mantra, and then done a 20-minute yoga session in the privacy of my own room, only wearing my underwear and a shirt. It was incredibly invigorating and I felt much better and back to myself again.

I think everyone goes through times in their lives and more so, being in rahui for as long as we have been, where they are starting to feel like they’re losing their minds and sanity. It can be very challenging facing these times, regardless of whether you have mental health issues or not. I hope whoever else out there has been feeling this way, is able to pull themselves through their shit. We’ve gotten this far, we got this ya’ll.

Me te arohanui, Hine xxx

It is the 27th April 2020, making that a Monday and it is the evening. At 11:59pm today, we will go from level 4 to level 3 in Aotearoa. For those not yet returning to the workforce, we have been advised that it is not any different from level 4, however, we are now able to do a few more things. We are also still being advised to stay the fuck home, which is okay. I mean we’ve made it through 4 weeks, what’s another two, right? So, as far as I am aware, being in level 3 does mean that more businesses, mostly within the trading industry, will now be open online and posting/shipping products are now allowed as well. Not going to lie since being in rāhui, I’ve done some major online shopping. Such as, new duvet covers, winter clothes, yoga gear, body products that have been made in NZ, cause all about supporting local businesses ya know and some crystal shopping. Retail therapy at it’s finest. I don’t know what the point of this post was, I don’t really think that there was one in general tbh lol, but felt the urge to write something regardless.

Me te arohanui, Hine xxx

So, I wrote something, it’s almost like a poem or something rather and if you know the song If the world was ending, by Julia Michaels and JP Saxe, then this is a spin-off version that I wrote, but with the same context in mind, except relevant to my life. If you know, you know. So here goes…

I was daydreaming, reminiscing, wondering about how you were doing.

Were you busy working, singing or watching television,

Getting high, making knives, or were you drinking.

It’s been a few years now I think I’ve figured out,

How to live without you even if I don’t want to.

Cos I know, you know, we know – we were meant to be together and its fine,

Cos I know, you know, we know – one day our worlds will collide.

And if the world was ending you’d come over, right?

We’d laugh and sing like how we used to do,

Get drunk and eat cold pasta off of the same spoon.

And if the world was ending you’d come over, right?

You’d drive over and you’d stay the night.

We’d talk about the times when we were teens

And remember falling in love at 9TEEN.

Do you ever find yourself dreaming, thinking about how I’m doing

Is she busy working, dancing or watching TV series,

Getting drunk, traveling, fighting conspiracy theories.

It’s been a few years now, have you figure out how,

To live without me even though the world can see.

Cos I know, you know, we know – we were meant to be together and it’s fine,

Cos I know, you know, we know – one day our worlds will collide.

But if the world was ending you’d come over, right?

You’d ask me if I still like my back rubbed at night.

We’d remember the nights we walked home high,

Holding hands and laughing, staring at the sky.

And if the world was ending you’d come over, right?

You’d drive over and you’d stay the night.

You’d tell me that you’re scared of being hurt,

While pulling me in, as I’m wearing your shirt.

Cos I know, you know, we know – we are meant to be together and its fine,

Cos I know, you know, we know – one day our worlds will collide.

• the rain
• helping people
• feeling loved
• nurturing things – people, animals, nature
• being around water
• camping
• the crackling of a fire
• stars and te marama (the moon)
• the smell of home baking
• waves crashing
• driving in the countryside
• the sun
• rain on corrugated iron
• burning sage
• waterfalls
• the smell of bacon even though im a vegetarian
• the smell of the countryside
• giraffes
• whales
• Our Planet and David Attenborough
• the ocean, lakes, rivers
• candles
• headwraps/scarves/bands
• white nails
• the colour black
• self-care rituals

I felt the need to share my daily morning rituals, so here goes. Every morning since having been in rāhui I have woken up any time between 7:30-8:30, gotten out of bed, cleaned it and my room. Drank a bottle of water, gotten dressed, take my daily vitamins and by vitamins, I mean anti nasal meds and antidepressants LOL. I then move on to either doing yoga first or pulling my cards. It doesn’t matter too much to me in what order I do that in, but it goes something like that. The photo above is one of my reading/writing/meditation alter and I like to sit here when doing either of those three things. I light some sage, let it burn and then say my daily “mantra” I suppose and then pull these cards. The big card is one that I pull everyday and comes from my Sacred Oracle pack, it is of Native American nature and I absolutely love them. The bottom three are my self-care cards and I like to pull three out of that particular pack, as it gives me three things to focus on in regards to me as a person and filling my cup.

These morning rituals are so beautiful to me because it makes me feel relaxed and put’s me in a state of neutrality.

“I am in front of me, I am behind me. I am to the left of me, I am to the right of me. I am to the bottom of me and I am above me – Love and abundance surround me everyday and I can create the life I love”

For a very long time, I have always believed that I am beyond my years. This basically implies that I feel, see and am older than my age. I watched a Facebook live today of a girl who went on her platform and was incredibly angry but needed to address her Father about how she had 27 years worth of anger built up inside of her and that she was completely over the way that he would rub that in her face, instead of supporting her and her journey to recovering from the mental and emotional abuse. This struck a nerve with me and I found myself tearing up, because she spoke about how he would constantly blame her mother for brainwashing her against him and that he had tried to reach out multiple times, only to be rejected. She spoke about how he was abusive both mentally and physically and basically rejected her throughout her life. This has been titled what it has because after watching that, I felt like I needed to write something on my own platform about me and MY STORY, so here goes. . .

I would have been about 7-8 when I asked my mum why we kept coming back, to which she would reply saying something along the lines of “because he’s your father, I love him and he loves us”, I clearly remember me looking at her and saying “you don’t do these things to people that you love”. I hadn’t even hit double digits yet but I knew that what I was experiencing as a child and what my family was experiencing was NOT normal and was most definitely not LOVE. It broke my heart to think that this is what I was being role-modeled as love. Do we hit the people that we love? Do we let the people we “love” feel scared in their own homes? None of that makes sense to me and I suppose my idea of love has always been tainted. I should have been worrying about running around too much and triggering my asthma OR whether the fucking feijoa tree was fruiting, yet here I was at the tender age of 7-8 worrying about whether I was going to be sleeping in my own bed or in the back of the car because we had to run away again. I spent so much of my childhood between the ages of 0-10 traveling between Dargaville and Auckland, as well as other places occasionally such as Whangarei. I remember having to fly down to Palmerston North to a Women’s refuge and my siblings, mum and I were there for literally one night and one day and then we had to leave again. I remember attending school down there for one day. I had been to at least 5 different primary schools within the North Island and the first 10 years of my life. To me that shit is insane and I can only imagine how much harder or how much different I would be today if that had continued to be my life going into intermediate and high school. As a child, I was constipated and I didn’t quite understand why I refused to go to the toilet and as I got older and grew out of it, I think I began to realise and understand that it was how I used to deal with the trauma I had been exposed to. I quite often laugh about it now and make comments like “I am not shitting, this is the only thing I can control” and although I laugh about it now as an adult, it was very much my coping mechanism and how I chose to deal with my life as a child because this was the one thing I could control. The older I got as well, I then put up a mental block in regards to what I saw happen to my family and so now some things are a blur to me and the majority of things I remember about my childhood were incredibly traumatising.

I just want to get something off of my chest as well, whilst I am here writing heart on my fucking sleeve, my father only ever hit me ONCE. Which may seem like I never really experienced anything, however, my Mum and Older Brother were at the hands of my dad’s wrath ALL of the time. I say all of the time because they literally were the victims of my dad’s abuse and come downs. I do not know if it’s because I know first hand what it’s like to experience the anger behind a “Step” parent when a child isn’t theirs, but I felt and feel for my brother and I have so much love and protection over him now. My brother got everything from my dad. Beating after beating and even for things that he didn’t even do. When the physical wasn’t enough, he then had to endure mental and emotional abuse. I remember him having to stand out on the side of the ride in the middle of nowhere and do the haka because he was told to. I also remember him being beaten with a cactus by my mum, as she cried her eyes out because my dad told her she had to. Witnessing that is much more traumatising to me than ever being physically beaten. Mental and emotional abuse affected me much than being beaten. I would have much rather endured being beaten up by my father, than HAVING to watch my Mum and brother get it all. My heart aches even writing this, but I feel like this is a step that I need to do in order for me to grow. I have done everything in my power to move on with my life, from substance abuse both alcohol and drugs, I have gone to psychologist meetings, I take antidepressants, I write, I vlog, I do yoga, but I really do feel as if this is one massive step to releasing all these emotions that I am feeling.

Growing up I was told quite regularly by my aunties and uncles that my nana would have loved me and I would have been her favourite if she were still with us today. I never understood that as a child, but now as a 26-year-old, I really feel that in my heart and soul. I quite often find myself thinking about the kind of man my dad would have been if she were still alive and it makes me extremely emotional. As a teacher, I am a firm believer in the whole biological wiring affecting the overall growth and development of a child, which is funny because if I look at it from that perspective, everything about my biological wiring would entail that I should have been just as fucked up. I put it down to the whole because I have been through it, I don’t ever want anyone to feel that way and I will do my best to be the best person I can be whilst I am alive. Where was I though. . . Oh yes, I find myself thinking about the kind of man my dad would have been if my nana were still alive and I think about the stories I was told as a child about how my dad was such a happy boy and it makes me both happy and sad. Happy because I am glad there was a part of his life where he wasn’t so angry at the world and that he was able to experience what it was like to feel loved, even if it were only for a short time of his life and then it makes me sad because he also never got to experience the love of a mother, as their child goes through teenagehood and I think if the roles were reversed and I had to experience what I did as a teen, without a mother I would be just as holistically fucked up as he was.

For years, I was torn on how to feel about my dad after my Mum decided to leave him. For a while, he kept trying to come back and was asking for forgiveness, and I am glad after 13 years of abuse, Mum made the decision to finally leave. My dad blamed my mum for a lot for things, his anger, his absence in our lives, his addictions and although I never believed him or the words, lies and, threats that ever came out of his mouth, for years I sat there letting him think that I believed him. It wasn’t till we had reconnected after 13 or so years when I looked him in the face and said, that the only thing stopping me from seeing him was HIM. For years, I never knew how to feel about him and whether it was worth rekindling our non-existent father/daughter relationship. There’s that whole saving grace thing that emphasizes on the whole “there is only one man a girl can rely on and that’s her dad” and part of me wanted that to be how my relationship was with my father, doesn’t every girl. I think that might have been what made me believe that my dad could change and be the father that I wanted him to be. I wanted him to be the male figure in my life that I could go to and ask for anything and get it, I wanted him to be the only male figure in my life that I could rely on. Like a lot of things in my life though, I was the only one left feeling disappointed and hurt. I never expected anything from him as a person, not even as my dad, just as a person, but I had hoped that he would turn around and be everything I had wished he would be.

I used to hold a lof of undealt with trauma, anger and, emotions in general towards him and anyone that came into my life and threatened my safe spaces because I had never been committed to working through that bullshit until I got into my early twenties. From the ages of about 14-23 I was either high as a kite or drunk as fuck, this is how I chose to deal with my inner demons. It’s funny looking back at it, cos I’m currently sipping on a vodka and cranberry drink as I type this, but things are different now. I no longer drink to bury my sorrow, I drink to celebrate my life and myself as a whole. Substance abuse was my escape and it literally welcomed me with open arms. As a 14-year-old, I was only getting high recreationally and that was on just weed alone and then the older I got, the more that started to turn into harder drugs. Mentioning this is important because there are so many people in my life, who are funnily enough blood-related (cos you know blood is apparently thicker than water)  that have thrown the fact that I have done drugs in my face. I never understood that because I never ever dreamed of putting them in that position. Mentioning this is also important because if I write about me doing drugs and putting this online for the world to see, no one else can use that against me. As an adult I used to think I was the victim of a lot of things and yes I may have been, but that isn’t true, there were multiple times that because of the way I dealt with my childhood and past, many people were the victim of my bullshit and to this day I will forever be sorry for the people I hurt because I was hurting.

Writing this entire post was/is important to me because as mentioned prior this was something that I needed to address as part of my healing process. I was able to write this post in tears, in laughter, drinking, singing and it had me feeling all kinds of ways. It was important to me because I don’t think I ever as a person acknowledged the mamae in my heart and to me that speaks levels. I have always wanted to be the kind of person that was able to influence people in a good way and to support their overall growth and development, but how was I ever able to do that if I hadn’t dealt with my own raruraru. And so, at the end of the day, this is me releasing all those emotions and feelings I have towards ever wanting my dad to be part of my life, all those feelings of ever thinking that I was never loved regardless of him being there or not. This is me releasing all my past trauma. This is me releasing all the anger and sadness I have ever felt towards anyone. This is me releasing all my bad coping mechanisms and habits. . .

With that being said, I would like to end this post with an introduction of who I am today in 2020. . .

Hi, my name is Hinemoa Reremoana Hall. I am 26 years old and I am a loving daughter of a beautiful woman who goes by the name, Libby. I am a sister to 3 siblings; Klarissa, Duke and Te Rangi . I am an aunty to a handful of related and non-related nieces and nephews. I am a good friend. I am an amazing teacher. I am a writer. I am a poet. I am a reader. I am a spiritual being. I am ME.

Ko Tutamoe te maunga

Ko Opanake te awa

Ko Mahuhu ki te rangi te waka

Ko Ngati Whatua te iwi

Ko Ngati Kahu te hapu

Ko Tama Te Uaua te marae

Ko Hinemoa Reremoana Hall toku ingoa.

she met a boy at nineteen and fell fearlessly in love with him. she shared her world, her dreams, her soul, her mind and he loved every bit of it. she moved differently, spoke with life and nothing else seemed to matter to her except him. every passing moment she was thinking about him. waking up next to him made her smile, going to sleep next to him made her feel at home. he was everything to her. they spent 10 months with each other, living and being so completely in love with one another, until one day they reached a point where they were both heading in different directions. he needed to find himself and she needed to do the same. as hard as it was at the time, they decided it was for the best that they break up and parted with “if it’s meant to be, it’ll happen”

an excerpt from ‘she fell fearlessly in love’ / hine

as of about 1.30p, this afternoon i officially passed my last assignment for my degree. my heart is so incredibly happy right now and although i am not a hugger, i want to hug every single person that has supported me and my journey and i plan on doing so as soon as we come out of rāhui. no one knows yet what changing from level 4, to level 3 will entail, but that has been the topic of conversation within parliament and our wonderful PM made an announcement about it today. this wasn’t meant to be the purpose of this post though, it was really to just talk about how proud i am of myself. i feel like in NZ we don’t appreciate and celebrate our successes enough because that’s just how we have been bought up really and it’s some serious bullshit. so, i stand here proud to say that i am so proud of everything that i have achieved and i am so happy that i never gave up on my studies and just my life in general. there was a phase where i was a little concerned, however, recovered from that shit and i am so proud of myself to the point where i kind of get emotional. gratitude and appreciation are just the beginning of how i am feeling for all the people who have continued to support, encourage and push me to being the best person i can possibly be. my heart goes out to you all and when this lockdown is over, i am going to try and hug as many of you as possible.

me te arohanui, hine xxx