Published in On Our Selection News February 13, 2014

There are always times when you question your instincts.

Some examples are when I let my nine year old sister cut my hair like Lindsay Lohan’s sassy American character in The Parent Trap or when I trusted my best friend to take the wheel of the ride on mower while I sat in a wagon which was being towed behind and ended up with a nasty scalp laceration. These choices weren’t really decisions, they were mere actions – instincts, I suppose. It was more rush than reason. Once I was kicking a footy with friends in a park across a busy road from their filthy, possum infested house. On the way back to the crapshack they called home, one of them made a joke that I should kick the ball across the road into their front yard. I instinctively put foot to ball, which apparently nearly caused a major traffic crash. My two amigos were stunned. “Oh yeah, you do things without thinking,” one of them remembered out loud once the immediate danger and beeping of horns ceased. He was right. A great many defining incidents of my high school career could attest to that.

But since becoming an esteemed adult who once had two university degrees and an old Hungry Jack’s “Crew Member of the Month” certificate magnetised to her fridge door, I have endeavoured to make my choices more deliberate. Of course this does make my lunch decisions lengthy and an entirely painful experience for the poor deli workers at my local food store, but has also seen a steep decline in near death situations.

Recently, I made the decision to instil a self-imposed “dry February”. Being the shortest month of the year, I thought it would be breeze. However, being my sister’s 18th birthday on February’s last day, I thought it would be reasonable to make it a 27 day drought. The number was whittled down once more when we had some down time before a wedding dress fitting on February 1 and of course, being 11.20am, my sister and I decided an espresso martini was the best way to fill the time. I recoiled in shock as I remembered my pledge on the ride home hours later. But I reasoned that this was okay. “Bookends!” I told myself. The pledge was still intact! The next weekend was much more successful, and the only bottle I hit was plastic and filled with water.

Heading to a friend’s house party on Saturday, I told myself that I wouldn’t need to bring anything, yet I arrived with not one, but two bottles of red – in case I decided that I didn’t want to follow through with my feeble pledge. I stayed strong for two hours, until I stepped up to the carefully arranged pyramid of cups, ping pong ball in hand and decided to undecide the choice I had previously chosen. I had ignored my instincts telling me that the pledge was stupid as I absent-mindedly ordered a drink on February 1. As a young woman, many a magazine has told me that my instincts are never wrong. They can only bring good outcomes. I decided never to question my instincts again. Unfortunately, I broke this pledge too. I questioned why my instincts led me to foolishly volunteer to cover an event the next day: none other than the Queensland Whip Cracking Titles. In an echoey hot shed. For two hours. Perhaps I have more to learn.