My Design for Life

Like most mums I often feel a bit overstretched (hehe, this sounds like the beginning of an advert! But I digress…) After a day spent either at work or caring for Taters, once his bath is out of the way and I’ve finally managed to convince him to go to sleep (which some nights can take up to an hour) there really isn’t much time for anything else.  Once tea is prepared and eaten and the house is tidied, chores are completed: there’s little time and energy left for anything other than a little slump in front of the TV, perhaps a bath and then bed.

I certainly don’t resent the time I have with Taters, not for one minute, I absolutely love it, and I adore the family time together when it’s the three of us (me, Taters and his Daddy), or when we go out with family or friends too – that’s just magic.

What bothers me is all the things I need to fit into that little pocket of free time, it just isn’t possible – cleaning the house, washing pots, washing clothes, putting clothes away, weeding the garden etc. And once those tedious things are out of the way there’s all the things I actually want to do – like have quality alone time with my husband, catching up with friends, yoga and exercise in general, writing, painting or something else arty, blogging, reading, researching the family tree… just putting my feet up with a cup of tea and a magazine. How can I fit all this in? How? Argh!! Therein lies to cause of my stress!

A little time management is called for here – I know the key to happiness to look at the things that make you the happiest and prioritise your life around these (yes, I read that in a blog). For me that is the following:

·         Quality Taters time – this already is the main priority: when I’m not at work, and when he’s not asleep, that is Taters time.

·         Quality family time – again, at weekends this already takes precedence.

·         Time alone with my husband - we have decided that weekend evenings are to be designated couple time (perhaps takeaway and a DVD), on top of that we're aiming at a monthly evening out together, and a separate monthly day out just the two of us.

·         Seeing friends – I’ve already improved tremendously on this, the odd evening when Taters is asleep here, the odd Saturday afternoon there…

·         Some creative pursuit or other. For this I am designating week day evenings. I’m going to have to make an effort, do what the Why Don’t You kids were telling me to do years ago – switch off the TV and do something less boring instead. I need a little self discipline on this one.

These are the things I want to spend my time on. House work might feel important, but it isn’t going to lead to fulfilment now is it?

So, my mission now is to minimise or obliterate things that eat up my precious free time and get in the way of doing these things:

1. Housework

I don’t want to live in squalor but I also need to cut down the time I spend on it. So how? Well, I have a few ideas.

The Domestic God-help-us Guide to Housework (and how to spend as little time on it as possible!):

·         I hereby give myself permission to live out of baskets – putting clothes away just takes too long, sod it, I’m going to be controversial here and when those clothes come off the washing line, I’ll fold them up (well, I might…) and put them in the basket – but then I’m not going to worry about putting them away. I don’t iron anyway so that’s not an issue.

·         Cooking – what’s wrong with frozen veg anyway? It’s already prepared, it hasn’t been decaying on a shelf or in a cupboard/fridge for days on end so maybe it’s even better for you (I don’t know the science). Either way it’s a time saver. I’m not the sort of woman who loves spending time in the kitchen, it isn’t going to happen – so quick but healthy gets a thumbs up from me. And since I’m rubbish at portion sizes anyway, put the extra in the freezer and eat it another day. Oh I know that isn’t rocket science but somehow I still haven’t managed it yet. Time to start!

·         I really, really need to learn to pick up after myself and tidy up as I go along. It will make life much easier in the long run.

·         Then on a Saturday morning, let Daddy take Taters out for an hour or two and run around like a loon hovering, dusting, cleaning the bath room – whatever, just getting the house in decent shape. An hour or two once a week, that’s not so bad is it? Perhaps once a month give it a full on blitz so we genuinely aren’t living in squalor. I think I can live with that.

·         Unfortunately there’s not much I can do about dirty pots since I haven’t the room or the money to afford a dishwater. Grrrrr! 

·         Gardening – woodchips would keep down the weeds – job’s a good ‘un!

I do need to realise that my house is never going to be immaculate, not unless I sacrifice something else, either time with my son or husband, or yoga or doing something creative or interesting. I’m not prepared to sacrifice these things for an immaculate house. So forget perfect, aim for good enough. Chuck in the occasional bonus chore say if I’m waiting for someone to come round and fix the boiler or whatever, but I think that could work just fine.

2. Work

or The Art of Making Work Work for You

I can use this time more efficiently – get in some exercise at lunch time with a walk around the block (thereby no need to stress about no longer having gym membership) – I can take the stairs to the office. I can utilise rainy lunchtimes or quiet work days to catch up with blog reading and writing. I can use the time stuck on the bus in traffic to read books. I can’t avoid work, but I can make better use of the time there.

3. Laziness (for want of a snappier term)

It is with great sadness I have come to realise that in order to achieve anything it’s time to ditch the long soaks in the bath (lovely as they are) Face it, I could put that time to better use – i.e. creative pursuits.

Also I need to stop getting sucked in by mindless, rubbish TV programmes – once you start watching, the old brain switches off and before you know it, it’s time for bed and you’ve done nothing productive with your evening whatsoever.

4. Put a few things on the backburner for now

Accept my time is limited and some things need to be let go of right now. Better that than be dragged down by the stress of not achieving them.

-          The aim of keeping the house immaculate and up to other people’s standards – forget it, it’s not going to happen

-          Meditation time – I think yoga is close enough for now.

-          Swimming / gym classes – no time for unless I want to sacrifice sleep. Instead work in aerobic exercise to the general day – brisk walks up the hill with the buggy, walk to work, walk at lunchtime...

And relax……….

And finally, a special note for relaxing. Because if I’m going to put in all this extra effort into leading the good life, then I really need to make sure I have some genuine, relaxing down time too. I figure I can squeeze in a yoga session every other evening when it's my husbands turn to put Taters to bed. That will help me relax as well as keeping me in shape. I also plan to use Taters naps for pure, guilt free chill out time – the perfect time to read a magazine and have a cup of tea. My weekend evenings with the hubby are also chance for us to relax and watch a film together… time to relax isn’t something I plan to sacrifice – that would just be stupid.

Also, the occasional long soak in the bath when it’s really needed is just fine – just bring out the candles and the bath bombs and make it something special…

There;s trouble brewing...

It’s been a little over three years since I decided that if I wanted children then me and the husband better get a move on and start trying. I was 32 and tired of the world of clubbing and drinking, I wanted something deeper, more meaningful. I wasn’t certain I was ready, I didn’t feel grown up enough, but I realised that if I wanted two children (and that was always the unacknowledged scenario floating around in the back of my head) then we really ought to make a start now.  My other half always wanted children someday so the way we saw it, why not make that someday now? We do tend to make our major life changing decisions that way, with a shrug and a sense of,  “Ah go on then, why not?”

We didn’t expect it to be so hard, although actually we’ve had a relatively easy ride compared to others. Okay I fainted my way through most of the pregnancy and could barely walk I got so big, and life didn’t respect my wishes to have a zen pregnancy, making myself a haven of peace and calm in which my baby could grow. Oh no, life threw all kinds of shit my way – bereavement, threat of redundancy, taking out risky loans, debt collectors, family arguments… then what seemed to be the angriest baby I’d ever seen was cut from my womb and thus began a whole new set of challenges! It has not been the easiest of times, but then I know plenty of people have it much harder so I really don’t feel I have the right to complain. We all have our different challenges. I know people who seem (to me) to have had an easier ride than us bemoan how much hard work it is, how they can’t even think about having another child. I also have other friends who have spent three years trying to conceive unsuccessfully who would do anything for our ‘troubles’. It’s all relative.

But what really, really puzzles me now is this… Why I am pining so much for another baby? When someone announces they are having a baby, rather than scream “Run!!!” at them I well up with tears of joy, I have the sudden urge to look after them and become their new best friend (creepy!), but most of all I feel jealous. This is truly baffling. Have I forgotten all the worrying? The feeling of my blood turning to acid in my veins when I thought I was having another miscarriage, I was almost afraid of sneezing in case I lost my precious baby. It was nine months of terror. Even now sometimes I get this irrational feeling that if I let Taters out of my sight he’ll disappear and I’ll wake up, realising it was all a dream and that he never existed. It makes my blood run cold.

So do I think I’d be any different if I were pregnant again? Do I think second time round I’ll be the laid back earth mother I wanted to be? That I’ll float through pregnancy glowing with good health, then give birth at home and successfully breastfeed, and well, just generally feel like I know what I’m doing (instead of watching other mothers with their children and feeling like a rank amateur in comparison) I’ve heard people say that the first baby is really hard, so would it be different second time round? Or am I crazy even considering it, am I just inviting disaster? Would my marriage survive the strain of another newborn or would my husband completely lose his sanity this time round?

I also don’t like to think of Taters as my test baby, the poor kid I practice (and get it wrong) with, so that I can be a wonderful mother with the second. What a horrible thought! Amazingly, he seems to be doing just fine, he’s coming out of his clinginess stage now and becoming a rather sociable little man. He’s loves going around to the neighbour’s yard to play with the older children and their rabbits, actually that was when I realised how much I wanted him to have a sibling, I really don’t want him growing up the only child.

But then there’s that nagging worry of my age. I’m 36 now, will it happen a second time round? Will there be problems? I know women have babies much older than me, but you never know personally when your time will be up. I don’t like to take it for granted that it will just happen. Although saying that my grandmother was 47 when my dad was born - so much for older mothers being a modern phenomena (take note Daily Mail!) Older women have always had babies, before contraception was rife they pretty much had them up until the change.

So many questions and no real way of knowing what the future holds. And faced with this kind of gamble all I can do is give myself the best odds possible – isn’t that true of life in general? And so from today I’m in training, healthy eating, healthy living… hopefully for now that will be enough to satiate the broodiness.

Home Sweet Home Again

The sun is shining, the garden is blossoming, my back is red and burning… British summer time is here! For now at least, it tends to come and go in little bursts of lovely sunshine punctuated with longer spells of gray and drizzly skies. It’s a great reminder to seize the moment and live it up while you can, for tomorrow it may be raining.

I’m forever working at something, sorting the garden out, fixing things in the house – working towards the fabled day when everything is finished and I can just enjoy the house, or sit out in the lovely (completed) garden and enjoy the weather. I find myself enviably watching my neighbours enjoying a glass of wine in the sun while I’m up my ladder painting the dining room – and I wonder if I’ve got it all wrong! Obviously I have, you can’t wait until you’ve finished all your jobs, or got things ‘just so’ to then start living. You have to do it anyway, amidst the chaos and imperfections.

And actually I’ve not done too bad in making the most of this current heat wave, we’ve just returned from a week at Centre Parcs which Taters enjoyed immensely. I like Centre Parcs, although I can’t say I love it – it doesn’t thrill or inspire me the way other places do. Yes it’s living in a forest which is right up my street, but it’s just that little bit too conventional for me, too sanitised, too mainstream. But for a mother with a nervous disposition such as myself, it feels safe and convenient, and right now that is fine with me. Hopefully when I get a little braver we’ll swap the nice-enough chalets for yurts or something a little more ‘us’.

But right now it suits us just fine, and it was relaxing to be able to get up and have so many things around us with which to fill our day, all on our doorstep and without having to slog up great big hills and negotiate public transport to get there. We went swimming every day, had a lovely cheesy family portrait taken, ate out every day… but more than anything Taters just adored wandering around the woods shouting at ducks and chasing rabbits, picking up pine cones and sticks, exploring the forest and discovering it’s inhabitants. Honestly there was so much wildlife outside our patio door it was like living in a Disney film. And it really surprised me just how quiet the forest was, even when filled with so many people, it was truly lovely hearing the owls in the dead of night.

Back home I miss the peace and quiet, at first the busy roads and tightly packed terraced houses of home made me feel hemmed in and claustrophobic. But I’ve acclimatised again now, it never takes long does it?  And now we’re back among all the jobs that need doing, the clutter that needs sorting, and once again it’s easy to find excuses NOT to get out and enjoy the day. Yes, I really do have it all wrong! It just goes to show, you acquire all these things you think you need to be happy – but then you go away, taking only the essentials, and somehow you’re happier there. Hmmn, makes you think doesn’t it?

Please skip over if you stumble upon this, more self obsessed ramblings to follow...

I’ve just been re-reading the last few posts, and before I step away from all this introspection (hopefully), I just wanted to summarise my own little “eureka” discoveries. I do feel like I’m now starting a new chapter of my life, and that I’m making some really positive changes. So for the sake of clarity I thought a little summary would help me on my new journey, to keep me on the right path as it were.

So, what my psycho babble from this past few weeks amounts to is this:

1.       I am shy and unhappy about the way it is limiting my life

2.       I perpetuate this shyness by hiding behind a fantasy me in a fantasy world. It is time to leave this world behind and live in reality.

3.       I have neglected and disrespected the real me for far too long and never allowed her to grow. Now is the time to become her best friend, love her and let her evolve – stand up for her, believe in her, nurture her etc. etc. Be kind!

4.       I need to get to know myself better, accept myself, understand myself, know my own mind, define my boundaries. And then learn to work with what I’ve got, learn what works for me.

5.       It is time to forget trying to win everyone else’s approval and instead aim to earn my own respect- with the old fantasy me as my mentor, she is my higher self and something to aspire to, aim for. She is who I answer to at the end of the day.

Linking back though to a previous post, the reason the memories of my student days blaze more brightly than recent years is because I was living in the real world back then. So now I’ve been dragged back into it by my little boy, here’s to creating some equally vibrant memories now!

Arm chair psychotherapy

After writing that last post I realised one important thing. I wrote that despite my shyness, I always believed the person lurking beneath it was something pretty darn special - but you know at the same time I always carried with me an unhealthy dose of self hatred. So how could I have these two opposite feelings about myself at the same time. And who was this brilliant girl/woman I valued so highly? I realise now that she was the fantasy me, the ideal me, in my alternative life in my own little world, that's where she existed. She wasn't who I was deep down inside, she was who I wanted to be, she conducted herself how I wished I conducted myself, was smarter,  wittier, more talented, stronger than me. Give me a few drinks on a night out and sometimes I could convince myself that I was her. But really she isn’t me, and that is where the self hatred comes in.

So who is this real me and why do I dislike her so much? We can all pull ourselves apart and identify countless flaws, large and small, real and imagined and this is where I get my head in a tangle. And I suppose ultimately, when it comes down to it, my main crime is not measuring up to who I think I should be, and who the world expects me to be. I see myself as a timid little mouse, a wallflower, but we’re all meant to be strong, independent women these days aren’t we?

Over the years I’ve been rather mean to the real me haven’t I? Gagged by shyness, reviled for not being perfect, ignored in favour of the fantasy me, at school I sided with the bullies against myself, and even now I’m happy to tell people how useless I am at something or point out my flaws to them. No, I haven’t been much of a friend to myself at all and I need to start being one now. It’s time for acceptance and nurture. I wouldn’t dream of treating a friend the way I treat myself.

So the plan: if I want to improve my self worth well I need to appreciate and work with what I have, rather than berate myself for what I’m not. I need to know myself and know what works for me, rather than trying to copy what works for someone else and punishing myself when I can’t pull it off. Secondly I need to accept I won’t win everyone over and stop crippling myself trying, let’s remove that pressure for starters. The idea now is to stop chasing everyone else’s approval and try to earn my own respect.

And this is where the fantasy me could come in useful – as my higher self, my ideal self; who better to be my guide, my gauge? When I don’t know how to act, I need to ask myself what would she do, what would make her proud; when I’m setting myself boundaries, I need to ask what she believes is acceptable. This is who I want to be answerable to at the end of the day, myself. And this time around we’re going to be firm friends. 

Ok, this is going to sound big headed, but stay with me… Despite being shy I always believed that on the inside I was a great person, well worth knowing, maybe even a little bit special. And if someone didn’t have the patience or inclination to get to know me, I was fine with that because it was their loss. That little ruse kept my self belief in tact for many a year. It didn’t matter what people thought of me because they didn’t really know me.

Truth be told, I was terrified of opening up and letting people know me in case they rejected me, in case it turned out I wasn’t really "all that". And on the other hand I wasn’t any good at letting people know me – I lacked the conversational skills to express myself; I clammed up when talking to more than one person at a time; words got stuck in my head before ever making it out because I worried about how they would be received; then failed attempts at making comments or conversation got magnified and used as instruments of torture against me (by me – I doubt anyone else noticed).

This shyness as self preservation wasn’t ever meant to be permanent. I never thought I would hide myself away for ever. I was meant to blossom eventually, come out of myself and the world would see how amazing I was. Because hiding away from the world is quite simply unfulfilling. There’s a world out there but you’re too timid to make the most of it, you live a limited existence, only ever dreaming about the things you really want. That’s no way to live.

And as I’m getting older, it’s harder and harder to hang onto that feeling of self worth. I don’t blame other people anymore for not having the patience or kindness to reach out and get to know me, why should they? I blame myself now for being hard work, difficult, awkward. I also no longer believe there is this fantastic person inside just waiting to be discovered, I actually feel like such a disappointment, I was so full of promise and yet now I find I’m not so special after all. My biggest fear now is that I am now incapable of changing, of blossoming and I am destined to fade into oblivion, dissatisfied, bitter…

I will not allow that to be my fate.

There it is; the purpose of this post. It isn’t to wallow in self pity; it’s to give myself a kick up the backside because this is making me depressed.

So, my initial thoughts:

·         I need to seriously improve my self worth. I need to like myself again. I need to know what I expect of myself and live up to my expectations. Being lazy, not being true to my beliefs, letting myself to do things I know inside are wrong, allowing myself to become sloppy (leaving the house messy, my clothes creased and covered in cat hairs, my hair unkempt…) All these things chip away at my self respect and make me feel like I’m letting myself down. It doesn’t matter what others think of me, I have to be able to answer to myself and none of these things make me proud of myself. I need to decide who I want to be, and do the things I need to do to be that person. I also need to look after my basic needs and treat myself with care and respect.

·         I need to quit being so excruciatingly self conscious – not everything that comes out of my mouth needs to be perfect. I think too hard about what I say, but people aren’t listening anywhere near as hard as I am to my own voice. So relax, wrongs can be rectified, laughed off or apologised for – the consequences will be nowhere near as cataclysmic as I seem to believe. So dare to speak!

·         I need to be braver and push my boundaries, talk more, get out more. If I get knocked down, I need to brush myself off, get back up and do it again. I need to be bold and try new things, or aim for things a little bit higher than my reach. Keep moving forward.

All this amounts to: Love myself – be myself – grow.

And now it’s time to get to work!

Untangling my head

For the past few days I have been a total and utter Grumpa Loompa (bit like an Oompa Loompa but mardier!) It’s very disappointing, shouldn’t I be posting loads of wonderful Easter photos? Where’s my pictures of little children painting brightly colour eggs around my kitchen table? (I don’t have a kitchen table) Of the Easter egg hunt in the garden? (My garden is the least child friendly garden ever – perilously steep steps, six foot drop… not good) Where are the lambs and the fluffy yellow chicks? How did I end up bank holiday Monday sitting in a car on an industrial estate eating a MacDonalds while the rain pounded at the window? Am I just a rubbish mum?

I’ve managed to get out socially a few times over the last few weeks so I ought to be on a high. I’ve had the opportunity to catch up with friends, I even went to a burlesque night one Saturday night, then a cabaret night the next weekend… Isn’t that what I was crying out for? I’ve had some fantastic “me” time, but with it came the guilt that I was “gallivanting” about. Was it too much, two Saturday nights in a row and then an afternoon too? Am I being selfish, thinking I can just carry on having a life like I don’t have a child, palming my kid off on others to pick up my slack. It doesn’t help that the babysitters (my in-laws) on one hand offer to babysit while simultaneously disapproving of us going out (they never went out after having children apparently). Guilt, guilt, guilt. Yet again – bad mum! Am I not dedicated enough? Am I not sacrificing enough? Am I cut out for this?? I don’t have any further social plans for the foreseeable future, this little flurry was an abnormal blip, but still the guilt pursues me.

The other downside of catching up with old friends is that people inevitably ask how you are, and you are given a rare opportunity to discuss what has been happening in your life, to open up about issues that you don’t usually get the chance to even think about. This isn’t a good thing when you’ve been sweeping things under the carpet, and I swept a whole lot under there when I was pregnant, ongoing things I’m helpless to do anything about now so more often than not I bury my head in the sand. Having a nice chat dredged up a lot of unpleasantness and it’s only now, a few days later that the dust is settling again (back under the carpet – not healthy I know, but I’m powerless to do anything or believe me I would)

So all this has set me about and led to some pretty dark days. Do you ever have days where you feel like you’re getting everything wrong? Oh so wrong! That in general you’re just sort of wrong. That’s been my lot this week. I had a meeting with the new director at work, my opportunity to make a good impression and prove I’m an employee worthy of keeping (cuts are looming) Everything came out wrong; I stumbled over my words, in my nervousness I blurted things out I wish I hadn’t, I just didn’t come across at all the way I wanted to, nowhere near. I’m also struggling with panic attacks over my driving lessons – which is ridiculous considering they’re actually going well, but beforehand I’m a wreck and I find myself spending the latter half of the week fighting a growing sense of dread (lessons are on Saturday). I think that too is depleting my energy.

Sometimes I feel like I haven’t got what it takes to be happy, haven’t got the strength or confidence or energy to get the most out of life and I wonder if I ever will have. I just feel small, diminished, awkward... I know life is what you make it and all these wonderful experiences are there for the taking – and I know the biggest obstacles for me are the ones I carry with me; my own lack of self worth, my shyness. But I just can’t seem to get it right, I always seem to fall into the same ruts, I let myself down over and over. But now it means even more because I have my son to think of too and I don’t want to pass my demons onto him.

Thankfully the black cloud seems to have lifted this morning and things don’t feel so bleak. I’m currently in the process of dusting myself off and picking myself back up. A friend once told me a fantastic analogy; Life is like a toilet – you’re constantly getting crapped on. What you have to do is keep flushing the chain and starting again with a clean bowl. And that is what I’m doing today.

Oh and the MacDonalds thing in the car? Well, we were trying to go somewhere interesting, but the rain spoiled our plans. Taters was napping, we needed to eat. MacDonalds was just there… It happens…