Tackling shyness

I’m 35 and I’m shy. There it is, I’ve said it. I try hard not to let people see it; I consider it my weakness, my embarrassing little secret that is probably rather obvious. When I meet new people I always set out to be brave and confident, but somehow every time my self-assurance dries up and I always end up falling by the wayside, finding myself on the outside again and become the quiet little wall flower in the corner who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, barely noticeable, slowly becoming invisible. Boring.

For me, one of the main downside of shyness is that it traps me in my own little world. Venturing out alone is daunting to say the least. If I’m with my husband I hide behind him, ditto with friends, I hate that fact, I don’t want to be a burden on anyone, I don’t want to be the person you get stuck with at a party or event. I want to be independent, strong; I could achieve anything with those attributes. But I’m afraid of the world, nervous of anything new, meeting new people is uncomfortable at best, excruciating at worst. I may come across as aloof and standoffish, or alternately overly chatty and desperate depending on the day.

Yes I’m socially backwards. And this limits my life considerably.

I don’t actually want to be a loner, I daydream (too) often, and all my daydreams are full of people. But I’m far too old for imaginary friends! It’s just that I find real people exhausting, draining, complicated. Social situations wear me out; I can’t think what to say, sometimes I stumble over my words, in my attempts to say the absolute right thing, I sometimes come out with the absolute wrong thing. I even outright lie in order to have something to contribute. I find “just being myself” near impossible. I’m painfully self conscious but I can’t seem to switch off that inner voice that scrutinises everything I say and do, then makes me re-live my mistakes over and over.

Faced with this I run away and hide in daydreams, in fact most of my life I’ve practically lived two simultaneous lives – one with a linear narrative, and the other where history is regularly re-written to incorporate some new passion or other, where bad days are softened, broken hearts are patched up. It’s my buffer from reality.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with daydreaming, it’s a wonderful tool for brightening up a bus journey to work, it’s fertile breeding ground for creative projects, day dreaming can be a wonderful thing, I’m a huge fan! But not when you hide in your daydreams rather than deal with the real world. Not when it allows you to cope with the status quo when you should be tackling it. In other words not when it gets in the way of leading a fulfilling real life. I have remained shy at the grand old age of 35 because it was easier to hide in a fantasy rather than try to make something of myself in the real world. Daydreams are all well and good, but you can’t put them on your CV, or update your Facebook status with them, they count for nothing in the real world. You risk looking back at what you did in the last few years and finding a gaping hole in your life.

In fact I’m finding the more I do it, the less alive I feel, the less my brain seems to function, the less I seem to feel. I’m becoming vague. It has begun to scare me that I will never have anything like the things I dream about – because it’s here in the real world you make these things happen. It’s not enough that it happens in my head, it needs to be real.

This is one of the many issues having a child has made me face. I don’t want his world limited by my shyness. It’s bad enough mine is. When it’s just me and him I feel guilty if we have a day in the house – I should be taking him places, doing things with him, there’s a whole world out there! But it’s hard to get myself together and go outside, we usually just venture to nearby places that are within my tiny little comfort zone. It took such a long time to pluck up the guts to take him to play group, as it does each week to go back. And when I’m there I still feel like the outsider, all the other mums seem to know one another, know each others kids. I smile and chat to whoever I meet, but I always seem to end up outside of conversations, wandering around with my little boy on our own. It makes me breathless with worry for him. I don’t want him to exist on the fringes of the world like I do.

This has to change. For me and for him. I want the freedom confidence and independence gives you. I want to lead a fulfilling REAL life; I want the same for him. I want to be a good role model.

I’m already taking steps; I’m pushing at the boundaries of my comfort zone continuously. Learning to drive is the scariest (I was less scared when my waters broke!); starting this blog is helping me find my voice and wake up to myself; I’m working hard on my conversational skills – learning the art of asking questions about people and remembering the answers thereby giving you something to talk about the next time (seems so bloody obvious! I can’t believe I used to think the best way to get to know someone was to tell them absolutely everything about myself in excruciating detail in the hope they’d find something to connect with…I just came across as self obsessed not self effacing). Also because I want to be seen in the real world I’ve been thinking about how I’m putting myself across – making more of an effort with my clothes, dressing to be seen and make the right impression rather than my usual non descript self that politely requests people don’t look too closely at me or they might discover my creased clothes are covered in cat hairs – sloppy and lazy, me? (I read a fascinating little piece here that really made me think). Hell I’ve even changed my hairstyle this week for the first time in years.

I’m ringing in the changes. I just need to keep the momentum going. I don’t want my shyness standing in the way of the life I want.

Which is? How do I define a perfect life? The kind I hope to look back on with a contented smile? Well, it’s full of friends and laughter, interesting people doing interesting things; it’s full of children and animals, my wonderful husband, creative projects and a fair amount of red wine. There’s a real fire somewhere in their too and a modest sized home with a lovely garden…. And I’m charming and warm and quirky and yeh, yeh you know how it goes!

I am NOT sitting in the corner of my own life so quietly no one even remembered I was there.

Please be kind to learner drivers, please...

I’ve only gone and done it; booked my first ever driving lesson at the grand old age of 35 that is. I’m terrified and I haven’t even stepped inside the car yet.

I never felt the need to drive before having Taters, I could get around just fine on public transport and let’s face it, there are too many cars on the road already. I quite liked slinging a back pack over my shoulder and travelling wherever I pleased by train, sitting back listening to my ipod, flicking leisurely through a magazine while enjoying a cup of tea, maybe a bar of chocolate… ah bliss! But slinging a mountain of “baby essentials” into a changing bag, then lugging my things, his things, him and the buggy to the station in time to catch the train, carefully timing it to fit in with his routine so he isn’t overtired and grumpy, then trying to entertain said child on the train so as not to annoy other passengers… Well you get the picture, that’s not so relaxing.

I accept that you lose certain freedoms in having a child, and I’m fine with that. But I’m hoping that by learning to drive we’ll regain some we’ve never had before. And there’s just so much I want to show my little boy, so many things we can do – right now we’re limited to wherever we can get to by buggy and foot and if we want to go further we need to enlist the grandparents who drive. But I don’t want to be a burden any longer… The time is right to drive.

That doesn’t mean I’m not terrified though. I’m scared of other drivers bearing down on me while I crawl along the road terrified to go over 20mph, I’m scared of other drivers shaking their fists at me when I make some inevitable error or other, I’m pretty much scared of other drivers full stop (they seem like such an impatient and unforgiving bunch). And learning something in public, on full display, in front of others who already know how to do it – it sends shudders down my spine.

This was one of my New Year resolutions and it may have taken me until March to pluck up the courage to do it, but do it I will. We all know it's good to do something outside of your comfort zone once in a while, it gives you a new zest for life... 

From Maiden to Mother

I have this old brown battered case that has followed me from house to house. Often I’ve considered burning it, just burning the lot without even opening it for one last look at the contents, a symbolic letting go of the past and the painful memories locked away in that case.

I’ve been sorting out Tater’s room and making space for his ever growing collection of toys. And in doing this that brown case has resurfaced again, as it does every once in a while, dredging up with it old memories and feelings. Almost casually I decided to take a peek inside yesterday morning and while my other half dressed Taters I amused myself reading snippets of my teenage diaries. Predictably they made me cringe with embarrassment – it was all exactly as you’d expect, the insane crushes on pop stars and older boys, the jealousy and back stabbing amongst the girls in school (I was such a teenage cliché!) I tried to avoid reading my accounts of the bullying I suffered, but I can’t say I need re-read all that anyway, I still carry a lot of it around with me. I wish I didn’t, but there you go. There’s lots of other memorabilia in there besides the diaries, not all bad – there are letters from friends, magazine cuttings of my teenage crushes (they’re always fun to revisit), a sympathy card from my best friend when River Phoenix died. There’s later stuff too from my early days at University, much happier times – valentines cards from the man I went on to marry, a tape of songs he made for me.

Basically that battered brown case is a memory box filled with memorabilia from the most intense periods of my life and whenever I open it, the concentrated emotions that fester within can be overwhelming. That’s why I often think it would be healthier to just burn the thing (perhaps removing the nice things in there first). At the moment it sits hidden away half buried in corners of the house, almost polluting the atmosphere around it.

Anyway after my little meander down memory lane I sat on the bus to work listening to some old albums I’d recently uploaded to my ipod. It wasn’t a conscious decision to revisit my university years but as I listened it was almost like travelling back in time – I could clearly recall dancing in rock clubs to those songs, the thrill of the loud music, the dark room and the smoke machine veiling me, the alcohol and the dancing, the fantastic new friends and sense of belonging at last, I relived the first rushes of love and excitement as me and my now husband started seeing one another. I remembered the newness of life; the turbulent times now behind me, free for the first time, happy for the first time in a long time, the future full of hope and possibility. It was a truly magnificent time.

By the time I found myself listening to those same songs on the way back from work the effect was now somewhat draining. In fact when I arrived home I felt rather depressed, wondering why the memories of both those eras (teenage years and uni) burn so much more brightly than the more recent past? How can it be I remember something more vividly from ten years ago than from three?

I think the true source of yesterday’s malaise was the feeling that I’m losing myself, that girl burning with passion for life back then, packed full of potential and dreams for the future, that she’s fading and all that potential is wasted. In my darkest moods I feel like I didn’t blossom into the woman I hoped to back then and now I’m wilting. It’s partly because the old me is currently submerged in motherhood, struggling to find an outlet to just be “me”. It’s also a lot to do with getting older.

I am very much shaped by that era of my life, scarred by the memories of school I want to forget, moulded further by the memories of university that I try to hold on to; clinging to the same people, trying to do the same things, I still have the same hair, I don’t dress all that differently, it’s like I’m still trying to be the same girl. I supposed I’m scared to change the formula that worked for me. Yet I’m still viewing the world through the eyes of a 20 year old, which makes looking at my thirty something self in the mirror harder and harder. It doesn’t work for me anymore. Of course I’ve failed or “sold out” if I’m judging myself by the unrealistic, idealistic standards of a teenager. Yet here I am getting all depressed because I am viewing myself from that very perspective.

So is it time to burn that brown case and properly grow up? Let go of the pain of school years and the glory days of university. After all these are the new glory days and I hope in years to come they burn even more brightly than the last. But I do think I need to redefine myself as a grown woman. I’m not the maiden now, I’m the mother. Yes this is a new golden era, and there needs to be a new me to go with it. I don’t want to look like a faded version of my old self, I don’t want to be a faded version of my old self. I want a new self. I’ve resisted change for far too long.

The time has come to pull my socks up!

I’ve broken the rules and I don’t care. For the last few nights Taters has slept with us. Yes slept. We have all slept. I’m a new woman and long may it continue. Naysayers will tell me that I won’t get him out of our bed until he’s five now I’ve given in, but that’s fine – just so long as I’m getting some sleep. And yes I know it’s another one of my parenting “things I’ll never do” plans out of the window, but sometimes you just have to do whatever it takes to survive.

And so back in the land of the living I’m trying to rebuild bridges and make amends. It’s proving to be a frustrating task. I don’t remember friendships being this complicated before? Everyone is now so busy I have to schedule meetings with them sometimes months ahead of time. And sometimes it’s more like having keep-in-touch meetings with colleagues rather than spending time with friends. It only brings it home to me how separate our lives are becoming as we chat about things we’ve done with other people. Our lives used to be intertwined, we were almost inseparable, I have albums full of photos of the times we’ve had together.

And for some people, sadly, I just don’t think my life is all that interesting to them anymore, babies just aren’t their thing!

All in all it’s a sad state of affairs and I’m feeling a bit lonely. I miss the deep connection I used to share with these people, I used to feel like I could take on the world after a conversation with them but it’s becoming obvious we’re all drifting apart. I don’t make friends easily either and so this is leaving a gaping hole in my life.

Work, ouch, work – that’s another tricky area. While I was on maternity leave many of my colleagues were made redundant. I came back to a very different work environment to the one I left, my once passionate and enthusiastic workmates rather battered down. I was surprised to find myself back at all. And now round two of changes have begun. Further cost reductions need to be made, functions have been merged and what the future holds, well no one as yet knows. This is the time to really prove yourself, to demonstrate what a hard worker and asset to the team you are. It is certainly not the time to be wandering round like a zombie with a migraine, struggling to keep your eyes open in meetings and contributing nothing to the team whatsoever. So maybe it’s too late for me, I do suspect it is. And to lose my job now would be terrifying – what are my chances of finding another part time role that will pay the mortgage? Part of me thinks it’s time to go anyway, this is such a depressing, soul crushing environment to work in. A new challenge would do me the world of good and I know that. But I’d rather that challenge be a new and exciting job, in this climate however the challenge is more likely to be finding a job when there are so few around.

Well, that was a cheery post wasn’t it? The future is looking rather daunting. But you know, so long as I’ve had some sleep, at least I can put up a fight!

A long, long night

It’s uncanny; every night as I’m drifting off to sleep the sound of stirring in the room downstairs breaks the silence on the baby monitor. How does he know? Does he sense my brain waves changing? Is this the maternal bond they speak of and if so, why is he using it to torture me?

The shuffling builds to a few soft cries. My heart leaps to attention, my stomach flips and my spirits crash. Again? Really? I hold my breath, will he find the dummy in time and go back to sleep? Please, please, please, I’m so tired from doing this last night, I don’t think I can do this again! A loud cry bellows out, followed by another and another…

I throw back the quilt and swing my legs out of bed, I feel like stomping down the stairs but no, softly, softly I go, quietly into his room with a gentle “Ssshhh” to reassure him mummy is here. Back up dummy is located and quickly shoved in his gob. The arms go up. Still “sshh-ing” but not speaking I stroke his arm and try to encourage him to go back to sleep in his cot, like all the good books say. Gritting the dummy between his teeth his cries become more insistent, arms up reaching out again demanding to be cuddled.

With a sigh I scoop him up and we settle into the rocking chair. Oh I know I shouldn’t pick him up, but I’ve tried resisting and as a result spent hours with a baby screaming blue murder at me, night after night we’ve done that. Then one night I picked him up and he fell soundly asleep in my arms, so soundly just minutes later I was creeping out of the room and back in my own bed. Bliss!

Yes he soon got wise to that one. Now he dozes in my arms with one eye open, I stroke his cheek and his little eyes close in blissful relaxation. Until I stop and they spring right back open, or I continue too long and he gets bored and yes, they spring right back open.

I try every technique with a history of success. I stroke his arm, I stroke his hair, I shush, I stay silent and do nothing, I rock, I sit still, I sing, I hum. I put him back in his cot and do it all over again. I know, I know, I need to be consistent, that’s what the good books say!

Sometimes he torments me and lays silent and still for long enough to build my hopes up. In my head I am making my retreat back up the stairs, I might even allow myself to doze a little so that when I get back to bed in oh, 15 minutes or so? I can fall asleep more easily.

He knows what I’m thinking. It’s that maternal bond again. But he’s evil, and so he waits until I make it to the door and then, bam! He flips onto his back and commences to cry.

I look at the clock, it’s 11:30pm. Worst case scenario I’ll be back in bed by 3:30am, he never lasts more than four hours. Then I’ll be up at 7:00am, well if I’m lucky and he doesn’t wake up at 6am. Can I get through a day at work on that little sleep? I keep having to!

We’re back in the chair only now he’s sitting up and bouncing in my lap like a little chimp, throwing me irresistibly cute smiles and teasing me by resting his head on my shoulder for brief moments before flashing me a cheeky, knowing grin as he sits back up. Yes, he’s evil.

He points to his cot, hoping I’m understanding his cues correctly I put him back in and gently stroke his back, shushing again. He sits up, then stands up. I quietly say “sit down”, he obeys. I quietly say “lay down”, he bends over and attempts a head stand – he doesn’t quite have that down yet. Then he springs back up, grinning. The arms go up again. I lay him back down. He’s up again. I lay him back down. He starts to cry. I relent and we’re back in the rocking chair. I know, I know, I’m too soft on him!

As he alternates between playful chimp and quietly relaxing in my arms seemingly on the verge of sleep for hours, I alternate between calm and understanding mother, and frustrated and sleep deprived nutter. Unfortunately for me husband cannot help in case you’re wondering where he is, Tater’s gets hysterical rather quickly if mummy does not come to him in the night. He steps in to give me time out if I really feel my temper boiling over, but this usually only extends the waking period even further. So mostly I sit in my rocking chair in that quiet, dark room by myself. After mentally rearranging his nursery and imagining scenes in which someone I admire is observing me and commenting on what a wonderfully patient and caring mother I am, I start to lose my marbles. Last night I tried to think it through rationally, determined to get to the bottom of it. What I needed was a plan! If I have a plan then I can be consistent in sticking to it, it will at least make me feel that I have a modicum of control. Husband will be on board and we can work together. Yes, a plan will sort us out.

I hastily hatched my plan. It went like this: Tater’s is most likely awake simply because he wants to be up. So I have to make being up so boring he will prefer to go back to sleep. I read that in one of the books. Yes, I already do it partly in that he is only allowed to either sit on my knee or be in the cot during these mammoth wake-a-thons, but I’m still entertaining him with the singing and the sodding Winnie-the-Pooh light show and music box – “I think I will sing a sleepy song..” Grrr!. So other than being there I will do nothing. Yes I will cuddle him at first, but in a few days I will step back further and not even get him out of the cot. I will be firm but understanding. He won’t like it because he won’t be getting his own way, but soon he will learn that there’s nothing to be awake for and we will all be happier as a result.

I decided to begin right away. It didn’t take long for him to get pissed off with the new regime. Soon he was sat in my lap screaming his head off and trying to shove my arms away from him. I felt like the biggest meanie in the world. Ever. But I had to be strong. This is for his own good too, he’s such a happier child when he’s had proper sleep. Okay so he didn’t want to be on my knee so I put him in his cot, he stood up and screamed. I remained resolutely boring. No talking, no singing, no Pooh Bear light show on the ceiling. Nothing to stay awake for here Mister.

I started to crumble, am I damaging him doing this? Isn’t this just cry-it-out with me in the room? Have I given this enough thought? My now worried husband keeps coming into the room to check everything is okay. Is he sick? Should we give him Calpol? Call an ambulance? My god that kid can paddy! He sounds like a scalded dog!

Finally I scoop him up in my arms and head up to our bedroom, defeated, weak, exhausted. FAIL! It’s not that it even helps half the time, after he’s finished bouncing around on the bed, elbowing and kicking us both in the ribs, head, neck, groin, eventually we all pass out and when I awake a few measly hours later it is with painfully stiff limbs and a cold arse hanging off the edge of the bed. Very ladylike! Dr Sears makes co-sleeping sound so charming too.

And so there we have it, a night in our house. I don’t know what on earth to do. I don’t feel strong enough to sit out the gentler version of crying it out on my own. And we’ve had months of doing something similar and it hasn’t worked at all. So I don’t know, I need another plan!

8 hours straight would be lovely, please?

My how time flies when you’re living existing in a fog of sleep deprivation! Writing a blog does fall by the wayside when it takes everything you have just to get through the day. I’m turning out to be a useless blogger! (not to mention an unproductive member of the workforce, a useless friend who doesn’t even know what is happening in her friends lives, a lazy, snappy wife who looks terrible all the time…) And this has been dragging on for so long I’m scared that by the time this phase is finally over I’ll “wake up” and find myself to be a stranger in my own life, an unemployed one at that. Maybe I’m being overly dramatic but it feels like life is passing me by while I wander round in my sleepless daze, neglected friends are drifting away from me, I feel isolated and frustrated at my inability to achieve anything, almost as though I’m fading away.

We’ve had periods of sleeping through, or near sleeping through at least, but we’ve also had prolonged periods of waking up every hour throughout the night, refusing to go to sleep, refusing to go back to sleep. This current phase has been going on since he turned one. That was four months ago. I just don’t know what’s going on, I don’t understand why – what causes him to wake up in the night and then proceed to stay awake for anything up to four hours – demanding my attention for the entire period? Is he too warm? Too cold? Hungry? Thirsty? I just don’t know! Why won’t he go back to sleep? I don’t want to do the old “cry it out” but one thing is for certain, we can’t keep going on like this.

In search of the elusive Christmas spirit

We’re going to have a great Christmas this year, oh yes we bloody well are! I’m determined, I’m adamant. No excuses, Christmas will run smoothly, it will be magical, it will be the fairy tale, we will all laugh and wipe away tears of joy from our eyes, it will be special.

The pressure to have a perfect Christmas is spoiling Christmas. I’m very good at doing this; I think of something lovely to do then work so hard at making it perfect I end up stressed out, exhausted and don’t really enjoy it at all. I’m daft like that. And I’m at it again this Christmas, I’ve dragged my family to every Christmas market and event I can find, desperate to soak in the Christmas spirit and make it wonderful and magical for us all. There has been the Winter Fayre at the City Farm, complete with carol singers and Morris Dancers and not forgetting the animals (Taters will love that!). It sounded lovely, perfect to get us in the mood. We trudged there through torrential rain with me stubbornly refusing to turn back because it might stop soon and I’d been looking forward to it so we were going! Taters didn’t see very much of the farm from behind his rain cover and many of the stalls hadn’t turned up (due to aforementioned torrential rain)

everybody in! it's spitting!

But we saw a few animals and it stopped raining long enough for Taters to watch a piglet having a poo, though the bigger pigs terrified him and ultimately he was really rather bored stuck in his pushchair the whole time.

A piglet having a poo!

Then there was the Victorian Market. We didn’t go last year when Taters was 10 weeks old, it was cancelled due to snow. I’d been so looking forward to it too, it was to be our first family trip out after the cesarean, he was going in the sling, it was going to be lovely.

Yes I’d envisioned the whole thing and it was magical, ahh! Then it got cancelled.

So we were going this year no matter what…

Bloody hell it was freezing.

And raining.

So Taters didn’t see much from behind his rain cover and when he was allowed out of the pushchair inside the big hall, it was so packed it was utter mayhem. The result was poor Tater’s throwing a premature “terrible-twos” style tantrum because I wouldn’t let him meander around aimlessly in circles and yank Christmas decorations off the stalls. I had to send him home with Grandma and Daddy in the end and then spent an hour or so Christmas shopping with my brother and his family. Yes, wonderful family trip out that was! I have a vague recollection of my wonderfully patient and understanding husband trying to warn me it might be a bit much for Taters… but I might have possible tuned him out or muttered something about him being a killjoy…

Fast forward a week or so and we’re at the Botanical Gardens Magical Christmas Light Show; there’s a miniature stream train, Santa’s grotto, a light show…. How could I possibly fail to feel the stirrings of Christmas spirit here? At last, it will officially feel like Christmas… As we drive past the enormous stationary queue wonderfully patient and understanding husband suggests we might want to rethink this one… (killjoy)… But I remember there is another entrance, huzzah! The queue is minuscule here and moving. I will not be defeated!

It’s drizzling a little, we contemplate bringing out the rain cover for the pushchair, but it slows to a stop… Woo-hoo!

And the Botanical Gardens Magical Christmas Light Show? Well it was alright, kind of nice, not really worth £6 but nice. Overcrowded, yes. Worth dragging out Taters, his daddy and grandma after dark on a drizzly, windy evening? The jury’s out on that one. I felt little flickers of Christmas spirit here and there like the candles dotted around amongst the trees, but it was so packed we were pushed along on a tidal wave of people – there was no time to savour the moment or let in the magic, or even just enjoy the colourfully lit trees and Christmas music. It was just nice.

I’m annoyed. I’ve never really liked Christmas but now I have a child I really want to love it. I want to make it wonderful for him. Last year I was ill and it didn’t live up to the image of how “our first Christmas” together should be. I feel like I let Taters down because of that, hence my manic overdrive this year. I need to get a grip. I know I’m just trying way too hard and I need to calm down. I so want to build magical memories and enjoy this special time as much as possible, these are the golden years are they not? Why do I feel so flat?

Anyway the tree is up now, the presents are mostly bought. It’s still only mid December so it’s not too late. I will try to stop dragging my family around in the wind and rain to any event labelled up with the Christmas tag and listen to wonderfully patient and understanding husband… I drive myself mad sometimes.