Blowing Out The Candles

Birthdays make you think don’t they? Beyond the arbitrary marking of time passing, the little traditions we observe of gift giving, messages penned in cards and making a wish as you cut your cake, all lend themselves to kick starting thoughts about the past, changes that have taken place since previous birthdays and aspirations  for where you might be heading in the future. With both my birthday and a milestone birthday for my daughter being celebrated within the space of a week, there have been a lot of thoughts floating around my head this weekend. 

A year on since my ‘fabulous fifty’ celebrations and I find myself writing this 50^th blog piece and thinking of all that has happened since I began blogging last July. What began as an anonymously safe space to log my thoughts like little diary entries of my midlife musings, now has taken its own shape and direction, openly as me for all to see. The content of a great deal of the posts formed the basis of my book and to have written and published a book would have been something that I saw as unobtainable a year ago. With many negatives that I could have dwelt upon, writing has somehow become my lifeline, my positive action and escape. It has often been my nostalgic route too, dredging up glimmering moments from the past to give them a fresh opportunity to shine again.

Such thoughts are quite apt this evening as I think about the significance of the next few days. Tomorrow we are going out for a family celebration of my daughter’s 18^th birthday and then two days later will be joining her in all that she has planned for her special day, as she officially joins the adult population. No longer my little girl in a pink tutu dress, running around the garden. No longer the Rainbow, the Brownie, the Guide, full of ideas and keen to help in the running of activities. Now instead, she is a grown woman with opinions and a drive to complete tasks that she sets for herself.

I find myself welling up as I write this. I have blogged before about the role of parents when your children are adults and how that is often hard to define. Much of who I have become over the last twenty-something years has been inextricably linked to being a mother. Choices I have made within my career to fit around childcare arrangements and the way that I tried to accommodate both home and work demands. Choices I made with my husband through the years about purchases, holidays, moving house and redesigning our current home, to provide what we felt would work best for the good of all of the family within the financial parameters that we had. Often quick to help out my children, to facilitate their hobbies, to provide transport to and from their social engagements, it is easy to become the ‘yes person’ to their requests.

Then, initially unnoticed, they begin to need you less and less as they become more independent. Then the day comes along when it hits you that you are no longer the central figure in their lives, no longer run ragged by the daily to and fro of school, clubs, appointments, work, dinner, bedtime and starting all over again the next morning. Some days this revelation feels like the positive success story that it is – you brought up your children well enough for them to be functioning independently within the world. Some days though it can leave you feeling without a purpose and yearning for those times when you held their hands to cross the road and you stamped your feet to keep warm as you stood in the park, pushing them back and forth on the swings for just a few minutes more.

It is all about adjustments. I have had a lot of adjustments to make at different points throughout my five decades. Some have taken longer than others and some have needed more support than others. I worried about my children the first time I left them with a childminder and on their first day at school. I cried when they went off for their first residential school trip, out of their sight of course, but nevertheless I cried. I panicked that they would not be okay the first time they walked to the shops or went to play with friends in the park on their own. I was both proud and a little sad on their first day at High School, dressed in such a grown-up uniform. I wished I could have had all of the pain of injections and X-rays and illnesses as they came along, so that they would not have to endure it. I hoped all would be okay and their nerves would hold whenever they had exams or tests at school or for their hobbies.

I had no control over any of those things and at the end of the day, I have no control over what will come next for them through their adult lives. So I have to adjust to that and accept the truth of it. Yet, whatever age they are, they will forever be my children and I will always want the best for them and worrying about that just goes with the territory. It is part of the job description of a mother and that’s fine by me. There are 18 candles to blow out on the cake this week and there may well be a few tears to wipe away at the same time, but I shall be proud to do so as we all sing ‘Happy Birthday.’

Quality Time

This week has been about quality time. Time spent away for a few days, with my Mum, my daughter and the dog. Three generations together enjoying each other’s company, talking about all manner of things and loving the luxury of the hot tub that came with the lodge that we had hired. We stayed in a small holiday park which was basically set up to be a landscaped area for the lodges - both privately owned and holiday let - with a small reception office, staffed a few hours a day. That was it - no frills, no shop, no on site activities, just peace and quiet a plenty, with sheep and ducks as our neighbours.

Knowing this was the type of site we had signed up for, we had planned accordingly and between us taken a box of provisions. Although we could drive a short distance to a supermarket if we needed to, there was something of a nostalgic element to packing our provisions box. A nod to past holidays in my parents’ caravan when our kids were small and we would load up the car with groceries, toiletries, clothes and all the extras that toddlers seem to need before driving off for a long weekend or half term break.

We weren’t far from the spot that Mum and Dad had their caravan and although over a decade since we were last there, it was hard not to reminisce about past days out back then, with my Dad. Much has changed and some aspects remain the same, like any typical English seaside town, but walking around Hastings and Bexhill-On-Sea I found myself wondering what Dad would have made of it all. Back before his illness took hold, he would walk for miles and find a little spot to sit to survey the countryside with his packed lunch of sandwich spread or crab paste sandwiches, a packet of crisps and a chocolate penguin biscuit. Once retired from teaching, he would often travel down on the train for a few days and spend his time walking, running and cycling. He always had a drive to be in the outdoors and active.

Being close to nature, as I described earlier, was part of the relaxation process this week. Of course, as I have often mentioned in my writing, I benefited from being by the sea. Beyond that though, to feel the wind on my face, walk around the fields and watch the clouds pass overhead, all helps to focus the mind on the important parts of life and induce an inner calm.
Being back in the setting of the many holidays spent when my children were young felt strange at times and made me consider how much has changed since then. I miss the togetherness of when the children were younger - when we would all go to places together, eat together and be part of the experience together. A ‘bear hunt’ through the swishy, swashy, long grass on our way to Pevensey castle, looking for fairies hidden in the tree trunks of a National Trust garden, or losing count of how many strokes there have been as we work our way around a busy Crazy Golf course.

Does everyone look back to past sections of their life and think how much simpler things were then? The ‘memory seive’ effects your perception though, filtering through all the positive moments and nothing in life is ever really that simple. For every happy bucket and spade moment there may well have been disagreements about where to go, what to do about lunch or stand offs with the children when we wouldn’t let them buy up a whole souvenir shop. I am sure you can recall both the good and bad parts of your own holidays or days out with family, to know what I mean. Then again, family by its very nature and familiarity brings out the best and the worst of us all, perhaps as it is when we are with family that we are in our safe space to show how we really feel.

Today life often feels complicated, my children have their own interests and pursuits, meal times are sporadic and that elusive together time is to be treasured even more when we actually all manage to sit down together and talk to each other for a short while. If anything should come out of my week of quality time, then I think it is the importance of valuing what you have and when you have each other, take a few moments to be grateful for that. It may not happen so regularly with a grown up family, but when it does and we are all in the same place at the same time and absorbed in a given activity together, I’ll be content with quality over quantity.

Back to School

This week has seen the annual proliferation across social media of first day at school shots of children standing somewhat nervously, somewhat excitedly, all smart in their uniforms and ready to go off for the new school year. I felt quite emotional about this last weekend as this is the first year that nobody in our house is following this pattern. Neither of my children are packing bags with arrays of coloured pencils and newly chosen lunch boxes and I too, after almost thirty years of being governed by academic calendars, am not returning to a classroom or office of folders, waiting for my attention to help the children whose names are contained within them.

Although removed from that immediate environment, the first week back at school makes itself known in other little ways to the wider community. There are certain times of the day to avoid walking the dog in the park, when it would be busy with the newest intake to the local high school letting off steam on their way home, slinging off their heavy school bags to snack and chat with each other. My husband’s morning journey to work has become more crowded and taken longer than it did each day over the summer break, so he is back to factoring in more time for his morning routine. Just being out and about for a walk or to pick up a few groceries, there seems a renewed purpose to people as they travel to or from school, or pick up placatory treats on their way home for tired and not-so-tidy uniformed children who will want to chill out and play rather than settle to some homework after their long day of listening and following rules.

I think all of that gives a little context to my unsettled feelings this week. I thought I had adapted to this writing life, after all, I have been doing this now since Christmas. A discussion with my daughter last Saturday showed how similar we both are. She said that she felt like she wanted to be buying new stationery, even though she has no need of it, just because she used to like shopping for it and planning for the work ahead. I have always been a lover of new stationery too, even my writing now is still divided between laptop and notebook – part of the joy of writing is the physical act of letting your ink flow across the blank page and then selecting a new, funky notebook to begin the process all over again once the current book is full. My writing notebooks have become like sketchbooks to an artist and I am now half-way through my second one this year. A glimpse inside the covers and you would quickly see what I mean, not neat at all, jumbled notes, some even scrawled up the margins but nevertheless meaningful to me at the time.

I mention this stationery fetish as it is connected to that need to plan for what is ahead, to embark upon a new term, to give yourself something new to boost your mood so that you can continue with a renewed energy. Last week’s blog ‘Fairy dust and wishes’ talked about my determination to manage the part I have been given in our drama group’s pantomime, by setting myself goals to achieve – fitness, weight loss and learning lines etc. For me, the new school year was always a moment for personal reflection where I would think about what I wanted to achieve in the academic year ahead, what I might do differently this time round. I guess that is why I have been asking myself similar questions recently.

I have a new writing project in the pipeline and have been working on that almost every day for a few weeks now, giving both it and myself the structure that is needed to make purposeful strides forward. I also face a challenge connected to my writing. This month I am due to lead a talk about my journey into writing and publishing my book and some of the issues covered within the content of it – menopause, mental health, self-help and empowerment. Planning for this event, takes me back to times when I prepared training sessions for fellow teachers or presentations to support talks to parents. The difference, I suppose, is just the context. Whilst I have the skill set required to lead a discussion and I know the content from first-hand experience as, after all, it is my story, it will feel strange to introduce myself as an author.

I am not going back to school this year, in all honesty I do not think I shall return to school in future years – not in a professional capacity anyway. Yet this month still feels like a new beginning for me, reminiscent of all the new terms that I faced. I am growing into my new ‘author uniform,’ I am working out my own timetable and rules and if I need to, I may even get myself some new stationery.

Aged five or six, at my first primary school in Heston, Middlesex.

Fairy Dust and Wishes.

We have just started rehearsals at our drama group and this year I am playing the part of the evil fairy in our version of Sleeping Beauty. I am beginning to embrace the opportunity and the challenge of this, after initially being more than a little hesitant to accept the part. Deep down I knew that it was a part that I would love to do but my midlife head was telling me all the reasons why it would be better played by a younger member of the cast. One who might sing better, look better in a fairy costume and remember the lines better - there are a lot to learn and forgetfulness seems to be creeping into my everyday recently. I don’t think a quick wave of my fairy wand will solve that or have the power to slim me down into an acceptable fairy size, so I will just have to resort to taking on the hard work to achieve it all without magic.

My daughter soon turns eighteen which will mean that both of my children are adults. Old enough to face the scary world out there, and at the moment it seems scarier day by day. My job of protecting them from all of that feels now redundant and the fairy dust that I used to sprinkle liberally around the house on birthdays is gone (as truth be told, I was the birthday fairy all along.)

Yet don’t we spend our whole lives as parents wanting to wave a magic wand to keep on protecting our children, and I’m guessing in time, our grandchildren? We have very little power to do so, especially as they have grown up, and we can really only be around for as long as we’re given the privilege of doing so, to advise if they’ll listen but to allow them to make their own way in the world. Be that good or bad, we can but watch sometimes and offer a support when they need it. Letting them go can feel like watching a fledgling trying to take flight, with all the dips and swoops before soaring off into the distance. I can but hope that both of my children will soar, even if the process may take some time to achieve.

Returning to the question of whether I can measure up to the part I have been given, I have repeatedly told myself that I need to tie up all my doubts and leave them at home in a corner, when I go off to rehearse each week and definitely not let them loose during show week. So what of the challenges that I mentioned? Well both seem significant and so I have decided to use that well-spun strategy of breaking down what appears to be a huge task into smaller, hopefully more manageable chunks. I think it is actually good for me to have a personal challenge, both physically and mentally, to keep me moving forward positively.

The ‘fairy size’ question - well, how big is a fairy? Have you ever actually seen one? In reality, I need to fit into a costume. There’s my challenge - I lay down the gauntlet, to feel comfortable in my costume. I am actively looking to up my steps and level of physical activity each day so that I might achieve this in time for show week. Eat less crap, walk faster, start a fitness workout at home (safe from cynical gym eyes) and possibly, if confident enough, go for a swim a few times too.

The mental challenge does worry me, if I’m being totally honest. There are a lot of lines and also song lyrics to learn and some days I can’t even remember why it was that I walked into a room! Anyway, split it into chunks. Sometimes if we have a whole mountain in front of us and we look up at the vastness of it all, it is too difficult to move, too overwhelming. But every journey starts with one step. I have already started learning the lyrics and I will try to practice what I preached during my teaching career - don’t leave it all to the last minute to complete your homework. I shall attempt to spread it out in the hope that a drip-feed approach works.

I could have refused the part and taken a step back but then I know I would have been wondering what if and regretting having done so. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we only really regret the things in life that we didn’t do. Even though challenges may feel difficult at the time, perseverance gives us a will to achieve them, plus a lot of support from those around us. I heard a phrase the other day that has stuck with me:

 “Without effort there is never any real reward.”

This may take some effort but my reward will be when my lines are drowned out by booing, excitable kids who I can shake my fairy wand at. Perhaps there is still a use or two for my fairy dust.

Too shy, shy...

This week I am doing something a little different with my blog as I am starting with words that are not my own. Words that struck a chord and prompted me to explore the subject further. I was sent this, from a follower of my blog: 

“I was thinking have you done a blog about shyness? I was thinking about how I was quite a shy person which I know it might be hard to believe now. What is being shy? Is it misinterpreted? Is it a lack of confidence in yourself or just who you are? I know deep down when thrown into some situations that shy girl reappears but more and more I find the voice to speak up or is that confidence? Can becoming more confident make you overcome being shy?”

This got me thinking about all the children that I have taught over the years that one might label as ‘shy.’ Often they were girls and knowing what I know now about certain special needs, for some there may have been something deeper underlying their behaviour, their perceived lack of confidence. Putting that to one side though, there are always some people in a group who are the shy ones, the ones choosing to be at the edges of the conversation, first to sit at the back of a room in an attempt not to be noticed. Are they anxious about doing so or just happier not to be in the spotlight.

My husband has completed the ‘Myers Briggs’ questionnaire as a work exercise which analyses where a person falls upon the introvert - extrovert scale and looks at how each functions best. In an ideal business environment a workforce requires a balance of people for each type brings its own qualities. I think it is good to remind ourselves that silence doesn’t mean that a person has nothing to say. A shy person may have the best ideas in the room and it is how they are enabled to share them that is important.
In my book, I look at my own confidence and how I have had significant dips in that and how I’m trying to keep on rebuilding it. I use the quote about age, paraphrased eloquently by David Bowie: 

“ageing is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.”

It’s certainly true that age and experience of life both bring a certain level of increased confidence. I look back to attending training courses and speaking in front of parents as a young teacher and how nervous I would get and where I chose to sit to hide. Since then I became the one who would scribe the ideas and feedback during group tasks and stand out front to lead curriculum evenings or staff meetings with a learnt confidence. Yet, as the ‘guest blogger’ noted, certain situations can still trigger the former shyness experienced as a child. I suppose it is more likely to be the times that we move out of our comfort zone.

For me, the age-related confidence boost has had the flip-side brought into focus by peri-menopause. Each time that gives you a slap to dent your confidence it can become harder to stand up the next time and there are times that you have to dig deep to stick at it and not run for the hills. The more I have researched for my writing, the more I am aware of just how many previously confident and capable women are out in the workplace, doubting their abilities and working hard not to be those little shy girls.

In a few weeks’ time, due to a post shared on my Linkedin Profile, I have been invited by a London-based media company to talk to their 'women in the workplace' group about the process of writing my book and how that and this blog emerged as positives from the place I found myself in, losing confidence in my abilities but finding an outlet in writing about my thoughts and feelings. The easiest response to such an invitation would have been to politely decline and then regret doing so as a missed opportunity. So instead, I have accepted and am pushing myself to talk about all that has been the focus of my writing this last year, to step out of my comfort zone and to be part of a dialogue with other women, hopefully all finding support by doing so. It is great to see that companies are slowly getting on board with finding ways to support women and as a cause close to my heart, it is important that I step up to offer my ideas within such a context. When that morning arrives, I will be channelling thoughts of the times that I have successfully led presentations, meetings and difficult discussions to tell myself that I can do this so that I can leave the shy girl at home that day.

Shyness, confidence, anxiety - I am not sure where the definitions and the lines between each are drawn. I am not sure that really matters either. Sometimes the loudest person in the room can also be the most insecure too. Human nature is a complex beast and I think we all hide the personality traits that we aren’t comfortable with. How many times do we scan a room and make snap judgements about the people within it? How many times do we overthink our own participation within a work or social situation? Perhaps we should cut ourselves some slack and allow our inner child a space once in a while without the need for apology.

This picture was taken back in the 1980s: confident or shy? You decide...

 

Master of the House

‘Who wears the trousers in your house?’ That’s a strange expression isn’t it? So many aspects to explore there that I would see as irrelevant in the modern day family dynamic but I know this is not the case for many. Obviously the assumption is that ‘traditionally ‘the man of the house, wearing the trousers, was the dominant driving force of the family. I am not sure where to even begin to unpick that. So many different family types with so many different relationship dynamics within them and even thinking back to the archetypal nuclear family of the 1950s, wasn’t it often said that behind every man was a good woman who was holding it all together? 

Perhaps such an analogy still holds up though, if we ignore the sexism implicit within it. If the phrase is to apply to who is perceived as the driving force, the one making all the decisions, the one motivating the others in the household, then at different times in our house we may both wear the trousers or, with increasing regularity, feel that neither of us are doing so. In fact, the trousers have become like the proverbial missing sock in the wash and have disappeared so far back in the wardrobe that they have gone to Narnia! Those are the overwhelming days. When life beyond the confines of home and immediate family, demands reactionary measures and you can feel yourself standing still whilst all around blurs into a fast-paced montage. An image comes to mind of an individual standing still on Waterloo Bridge whilst all the commuters and tourists hurry along on all sides in a blurred focus of movement. I have probably lifted the scene from a film or somewhere. Suffice to say, when life throws a lot at us at once it is easy to feel as though you are standing still and observing a whirlwind unfurling around you.

Within the family unit too, lines blur- at least they seem to have done so for us. I have written before about the changes and adapting to life in close proximity now that we have four adults and not the parents and two children dynamic. Take a look at my previous post 'The Rule Book' to see what I mean but today I do find myself asking whether the children who are now grown-up, are the ones to be wearing the trousers? Have they become the masters of the house? That can often feel the case and whilst the knee-jerk reaction to that might be that as the parents in our own house, we should still be calling all the shots and making our own decisions, reality is often far more complex.

In a time when children are remaining in the family home long into adulthood, they have to have scope and space to make choices, become independent and feel like adults. Getting the balance right so that each of us feels respected within the shared space and a valued part of the family unit can be tricky though. I am not sure we have managed that yet. Then again, I am not sure I have managed to find what I truly want and where I am trying to get to and that’s at the age of fifty. I frequently find myself wondering where I am headed and asking for guidance from friends or family members or anyone that will listen really. 

Being master of the house and I choose that phrase over mistress as that unfortunately has a whole other set of connotations! Being master of the house or master of any relationship, surely requires you to understand those things? To know what your long term aim and your short term objectives are and have some sort of viable action plan in place of how to get there? Maybe that’s why the trousers are missing in our house. Sure, we both know where we are aiming to be in the long term - mortgage free and both able to stop work and start living some of life’s adventures together. Getting to that point seems to include an unsure pathway and we have certainly stumbled over many of the bumps in that path over the last thirty years. I am sure there will be many more bumps or pitfalls to negotiate in the future but actually, I have to admit that we have also started to find some little stopping points along that path where we are tasting some of life’s adventures. We have been learning the value of enforcing a pause on daily life - taking a time out to think about all that is going on around us. Perhaps the key has been admitting to each other that we don’t really know what we are doing or where we are going but that we’ll keep on trying to work it out together. Who needs to know who the master of this house is anyway? I think it’s the dog! 

A Cartwheel or Two?

When is the last time that you cartwheeled to work? As you walk your daily route, do you find yourself breaking into a parody of the iconic dance to ‘Bring me Sunshine,‘ established by Morecombe and Wise? I’m guessing that’s a collective sigh and a resounding ‘no’ all round with possible questions in your mind of where is she going with this today. I should explain.
I have just seen both of these on two different corners, each executed by a girl in their summer school dresses, making their respective ways to school. As I drove past, the unfolding scenes brought a smile to my face and I thought about the carefree nature of them. Both girls were old enough that school will represent a tangible workload so in effect is their workplace and it just got me thinking about our working lives and wondering when we start to lose our exuberance of youth.

I don’t recall ever cartwheeling along the street but I used to do so in the park or my back garden without a second thought. It’s one of those skills that I wouldn’t put on my CV but if asked to demonstrate, I am guessing that I would still believe I could and then be sorely disappointed with the results. I imagine it would be like a silly moment I had in a friend’s garden last year when I acted upon a random impulse to roll down the incline of her lawn to find that I am definitely not as physically supple as I used to be.They say that once you know how to ride a bike, you never forget. That phrase does not take into account the physical and mental changes that can creep in with age - the adjustments to your core balance and your inner confidence. Then again, is it all a matter of perception? I haven’t ridden my bike in years, I feel that if I did I would wobble off - akin to some comic character, but I might just surprise myself.

These two schoolgirls took no account of others perceptions as they cartwheeled and danced down the road. They had no lack of inner confidence in expressing themselves in this way. Perhaps they both had something exciting happening at school today, or they’re both just having a positive day, or they just do that sort of thing all the time. I need to start having more dancing days and random moments when a metaphorical cartwheel would be the go to choice to make. I have had a few weeks recently when I have been sliding and allowing the dark corners of my mind to take hold a little. I have found myself overthinking- sometimes even the simplest aspects of my day. It has coincided with me feeling like I have lost my way a little, as I have made some readjustments to my usual responsibilities within my drama group and also fallen out of the writing habit. Again I find it interesting to reflect upon my need to write regularly. The words did not flow for a while and so I did not try and then I doubted that they would ever flow again. Recognising that I was struggling, my husband encouraged me to talk about it and the last few days our snatched moments of conversation, in between the mundane and the necessary, have been about strategies to move forward. Again, he has been right. He set me a challenge to get up at least once a week and start writing, doing nothing else first.

It is the routine of a writing habit that I need, even if much of what I write ends up amounting to nothing. When you have a purpose and a defined role you can follow your direction and notice the details along your pathway. Writer’s block, hormonal trickery and continuing to juggle some of life’s curve balls combined into a heady mix last week. I thought about stopping my blog and all my writing actually. I questioned my ability to take on the part that I have been allocated in our current drama run and considered stepping off the stage this time. I was unsure how to pick myself up and keep walking. I kept most of that to myself and my inner monologue- the one that usually plays out complicated scenarios in the early hours as I wrestle with the familiar insomnia beast. But if I just stopped everything, where would that leave me? The suggestion of a friend to take a break from writing struck a chord and I asked myself why. What am I writing for and who am I writing for? Well, we all have an ego and mine has undeniably been massaged by a handful of book sales and positive reviews that is obviously true. However, it is clear that the book sales will remain a handful, there is no magical international best seller waiting to emerge from my laptop at any time soon, but I knew all that going into this writing thing.

Many years as an Early Years educator have shown me that it is the process and not the product that counts and I should really be aware of that. After all we all have the same destination, it’s the journey we make through life to get there that is important. I should keep writing because it is an outlet and possibly my self-help therapy. I am writing because I have relaxed about it again and I shall keep on writing because I have found something to say and I know that a few people want to read it. These are the things that I need to keep telling myself when my mood dips, when I question myself about my role and whether anyone would notice or be bothered if I stopped writing or stopped drama. If it would matter to me, then that’s all that should matter. I have to stop looking for external endorsement and just cartwheel when I need to - or at least take a graceful waltz around the garden.

The Path to Happiness?

I am almost at the end of my writing journal and it is now six months since I left teaching. I have flicked back through the pages of my journal with a wry smile as my eye catches some of the quotes pasted within. It is interesting to see how many strike a chord with me now. Where I stand now, with a book published, a new script written and perhaps most importantly, an acceptance of myself within the new parameters of the life I have now set up. Perhaps the most pertinent of these quotes is this -
“If you want something you never had, you have to do something you’ve never done.”

This year has felt like quite a lot of doing things that I’ve never done and sometimes that has been very difficult. Who do we turn to when faced with a hurdle, or at times a brick wall? As a child there was always a parent or teacher around to explain and to help you over an obstacle. There always had to be that delicate balance established between helping you to think around a problem and solve it and not to step in and do everything for you so that you were no longer required to think. Resilience and problem solving are strands that we are in danger of losing in the current educational landscape but that discussion would form content for a lengthy piece, not accommodated here. Needless to say, skills learnt as a child in these areas will reap their own rewards in the long term when times are hard as an adult.

As adults we are mostly expected to know what we are doing and it can feel wrong to admit that we don’t and it can be a challenge to push ourselves out of our comfort zone. During my teaching career my philosophy was always that learning should be a habit that you adopt for life. I have certainly had to learn a lot in the past six months.
Change is always unsettling, often scary, but without change there is no personal growth. Keeping the status quo, having all remain the same becomes mundane and dulls the senses to the richer details of life.

When the changes we face are significant, we need support to stand up and keep going sometimes. I am back now to thinking of that balance that I mentioned. Support can be a word of encouragement, advice from another who has more experience or a push to stop deliberating and to commit to a course of action. At different times this year I have received all of these and some days it has not felt good to hear it but it was necessary.

Feeling that I have accomplished a lot in a relatively short space of time, a friend asked me this week what I was going to do next. My response was ‘Rest, think, and write some more.’ Although this reply focuses upon my chosen writing direction, I am also thinking about other areas where I am yet to achieve - other things I have never done. What would be on your bucket list? When pushed to go for it, I wonder which I could manage to achieve. I am still wrestling with the idea of getting a seahorse tattoo. I have places that I have always wanted to visit, including Canada, New Zealand and Italy. I would love to conquer my fear of heights and ride in a hot air balloon or take a cable car up a mountainside. It would be fantastic to choreograph a dance routine for a theatre show and see it all performed in full costume. As with all challenges, all tasks that seem insurmountable, it is best to focus upon the first step. Every journey, even the longest hike, starts with that first step. Who knows where those first steps may lead me to?

Millennium Mother

I had an early morning doctor’s appointment this week and so I shared my walk along the pavement with the pre-school traffic. Not the type in cars but those walking or shuffling along, mostly it seemed to be mother and child partnerships making their respective journeys. I’m guessing to school and on to their jobs or various ‘Mum’ duties of the day ahead.

Just as I was thinking back to my own walks to school many years ago, a vision of Millennium Motherhood sped past me. A sleek, silver scooter with the child stood on it grasping tight to the handle bars and - I presume - the mother behind, one foot balanced upon the scooter as the other pedalled gracefully along. The mother wore a rucksack on her back with a water bottle in the pocket, the sort of bottle with a central space for a piece of fruit or cucumber to sit dispersing its flavour throughout the working day. She was also carrying the daughter’s school bag, nonchalantly slung over her shoulder. 

So it was that this pairing wove between the walking school traffic, zipped across the road and deftly bounced up the kerb and on their way. I don’t know if this was their everyday mode of transport for the school run, I don’t know anything about them but this snapshot kick started my writing engine - an inner monologue scattering sentences and questions around my head. I thought about how passive the child was in all of this - a passenger perched on the scooter, facing away from the parent, no dialogue between them, no exchange of observations about the world around them as they travelled, no exertion on the child’s part. Then I thought how it was maybe a positive experience, this way to travel to school - both in close proximity, zipping around obstacles, sharing the fun of the ride without using up petrol. All that is indicative of current times: fast, green, a child balanced precariously but protected by the arms of her mother - a working mother looking sleek and well-presented, what we have termed as a ‘yummy mummy.’

The whole image screamed ‘sign of the times’ to me and made me think of my own times. That made me sad. Many times I missed out on sharing that walk to primary school with my own children. Often they would walk with my parents or the childminder as I had dropped them off as I rushed into work. Ironically getting to the classroom to be there for other people’s children, I wasn’t around for my own.

We often feel guilty as a parent. We lay blame upon our own shoulders for steps we didn’t take and for ones we did that we wish we hadn’t. We can’t remove the imprints left behind by those footsteps but we hope we learn to tread a little more carefully the next time round. I’ve had times that I have been brought back to a decision made long ago and re-evaluated it. Hindsight brings us a wisdom with which to judge directions taken but its experience can cause us to overthink the past, knock our confidence and cloud our judgement moving forward. Add the effects of the menopause into the mix and a spiral of overthinking, self-doubting thoughts can take hold which will only lead to a distorted picture of your past decisions.

We have always made a conscious effort to treat both of our children the same. If one was given a treat for a certain event or achievement, then so would the other when their time came around. Yet there is always that nagging feeling that you did some things for your firstborn that you were unable to replicate the second time around, merely due to the fact that this time you had two children demanding your care and attention. I suppose you could argue that you perhaps had the time and space to mess things up with the first and so get it right more quickly with second or subsequent children. What I do know though, is that none of it was by design.

I am sure that if I was parenting a baby or toddler now, it might have many aspects that look quite different to when I was doing it with births in 1997 and 2001. Straddling the dawn of this new millennium as a novice parent, I set out to do the best that I could. Much has advanced at a rapid pace since then and the world currently feels like an uncertain and often hostile place. I cannot imagine being a new parent now and I struggle still to be a good parent, to take those positive steps, to be supportive to my children now. The parent-child dynamic certainly changes over the years but I still remain the Mum. Often now, they tell me how to do things but they still seek advice, confirmation, someone to listen, to praise and support them. I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on myself if they’re still turning to me for those things. I currently feel far removed from that yummy mummy image, that sleek scootering career mother, but perhaps I did get something right in this business of being a Mum.

Just Keep Swimming

To be a parent is at times akin to taking on the properties of a length of elastic. Often being pulled simultaneously in different directions there can be days when you feel that one end or the other is going to reach the point when it all snaps or at the very least, is stretched incredibly thin. Mostly we reform ourselves each day, back into working order, like a durable elastic waistband holding everything up. But what about the odd days when we have frayed too much, snapped and all falls down to reveal your metaphorical undies?

This week a friend reached out to me for advice during one such time when the demands of parenthood felt all too overwhelming for her, asking me what you should do when all you can give did not seem enough. It made me think. Being a parent is a permanent thing and more often than not it is the best job in the world. Yet at our lowest points, when we can feel that all around us might be judging our decisions, it can be a thankless and lonely task.

I have often got it wrong and continue to do so. I in no way have all the answers but I suppose I at least have a track record. With over twenty years of being a parent, you gain some perspective and at least a bank of experiences to draw upon – be they good or bad in the results that they achieved.

Growing up is a complex adventure and making adjustments as a parent to the relationship that you have with your children as they grow up, is also complicated. The phrase ‘they will always be your babies’ may well hold a truth in that you will always feel the need to be reassured that they are safe, happy and supported in their lives. Adjusting how you do this takes some effort, so that their independence and identity is not stifled but that your own well-being is not compromised by being taken for granted or by always playing second fiddle to the tune that they call.

Our house has grown over the years to accommodate our needs by which I mostly mean our children’s hobbies and associated paraphernalia, but really I suppose I mean to accommodate spaces for us all. With my daughter fast approaching a milestone birthday, we will soon officially have four adults in our house – and many days when this number is added to as friends drop in frequently. We are fortunate to have a comfortably-sized house but within that it has been important to carve out spaces for us to escape. Sometimes to escape each other for a while, sometimes to escape the world, the pressures of work or the decisions to be made.

Thinking back to the call for help mentioned earlier – there was much tied up within it about the need for space. Giving yourself space as a parent to pause from juggling all the balls at once, to tell yourself that it is okay to drop the balls some days. Busy families and busy working lives can leave us drained emotionally and it is important to give ourselves the space to step back from it all, to ask for advice, or to block out an hour or two from it all to drink coffee, eat cake and giggle about random shared experiences.

None of us truly know what others are going through or what they may be coping with on a daily basis. Many take on the appearance of a graceful swan and look for all the world as if they are gliding through life majestically without a worry. Onlookers do nto see how furiously hard the feet are paddling beneath the murky pond waters just to keep on course. As parents we see those other swans and can feel like an ugly duckling in comparison but we all have our water ways to navigate.

Before pausing my life to write, my teaching career gave me many experiences to draw upon as a parent. Strategies that worked for behaviour management or in supporting a child’s needs in school could often be mirrored or adapted at home with my own children. However, it doesn’t always work that way. We all know how differently children can appear to be within the two contrasting environments of home and school. General, everyday parenting I gained confidence in. When life becomes complicated by changes, additional needs, moving on to new phases as your children grow – then I could be left floundering around looking for answers. When you feel like you’re getting it wrong with your own children, there is an incredible pressure to resolve it, a guilt that you have made a wrong decision, a need to make things right with the world just as it was when a simple baby cuddle was all that was needed.

All of that has to contribute to the pressure being put on that elastic. It’s good to know who you can rely on at such times, to remind you that you are doing a good job. Keep on paddling, swans, you’ve got this.

Lotions, Potions and Defying Gravity

This blog title came to me as I reached for my jar of face cream and contemplated just how many creams and lotions I have started to apply in recent years. As I have slid into my fifth decade - let’s label it “my 50s: the polyfilla years!” - I have become more aware of the work that needs doing to maintain some sort of worthwhile body image.

Rarely one to wear makeup, always one to choose the throw on an outfit and quickly run a brush through your hair route, I now find that I am having to work much harder to maintain my appearance and striving to develop the necessary skills to achieve this. Being currently between viable hairstyles, I can no longer sport the bouncy curls of last year’s perm, yet there’s still enough of a persistent kink in many strands of hair to necessitate a whole hair care regime that I am not used to. A sharp learning curve accompanying the routine of washing, conditioning, applying product, drying and straightening every single time before leaving the house, has left me feeling reliant upon my daughter’s patient support and uncanny knack with the straighteners. Whilst bemoaning my lack of skills to a friend recently I exclaimed in an exasperated fashion that “I’m just no good at being a girl!”

It is certainly true that so-called ‘girly things’ often leave me feeling out of my comfort zone, an aspect that I touched on in my previous blog ‘Sunshine and Spa Days.’ I’m not sure why that is exactly but I guess it is subconsciously linked to confidence and my body image issues. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always made an attempt at looking my best for a night out. With my body that’s taken some effort at times. Too short for many wardrobe choices and with breasts that started migrating south years ago, there’s some serious scaffolding required to defy gravity and many a time that the eye is tricked by relying on a splash of colour or a scattering of sparkle. After all I grew up with the stage message of “Razzle Dazzle ‘em” ingrained in my psyche from my years of dance classes.

Perhaps I have just woken up to the need to make more of an effort to make the best of what I have, as my perception of my body image has shifted over the past year or so? I’m still struggling to keep the weight off and to gather some momentum in keeping the numbers on the scale moving in a decreasing direction. Yet it has to be said that I have dropped dress sizes and changed my wardrobe choices along with that. Maybe it is more linked to my mental state - the confidence I have been working to build back up? As I have explored recently in my writing, a little effort in a clothing choice, a well-matched accessory or an effort to apply a sweep of eye shadow and a bit of lippy can have a positive impact upon my day.

I have never felt skilled in applying makeup, knowing any kind of beauty regime to follow, being adept at styling my hair. Being the short, fat girl I mostly felt that it didn’t matter, and being somewhat nondescript in those areas helped if I wanted to blend into the background. I made fashion choices that presented myself adequately and never more than that. Now within the limits of the clothing and makeup that I possess and the minimal skills base that I have, I am actively trying to present myself more positively. On a good day, makeup, shoes and accessories match. I have been moisturised and polished, straightened, plucked and clipped. Between the creams and lotions, the exotic fruit and plant extract fragrances could make a passer-by think that they’ve strayed into a branch of Lush! But isn’t it good to take care of yourself? On reflection I think this development is maybe just an extension of my self-imposed well-being programme. Taking care of my body and mind with my quest to exercise, keep positive, all with the overarching aim of trying to lower the stress that can seep into daily life at times. If it helps, then it has to be a worthwhile venture to continue, even if it takes a bit of time and effort to do so. Pass me my potions, Harry Potter has nothing on me!

Motherhood Masquerade

There may be manuals, websites and blogs with advice for motherhood out there, with tips and practical advice and more increasingly with recognition of the fact that mothers need emotional support. (So do Fathers, of course, but I can only comment from the first-hand experience of being a mother, whilst recognising that much of this would be the same for either parent.) However, all the advice in the world can’t make you ready for the job and just when you think you’ve cracked the job description and are easing into some sort of auto pilot state with it, motherhood can throw up an unexpected moment or two to send you into a tail dive for a while.

Recently I have found myself talking about those days when your body clock starts ticking and telling you that you need to have a baby. That time when you decide to take the big leap and then every month becomes a waiting game to see if all has aligned to create two lines in the window of a pregnancy test. Way back when this was our aim, it seemed like someone had planted a baby at every corner to remind me that it hadn’t yet happened for us. Once you’ve been through that process, the highs and lows of pregnancy and then negotiated childbirth, the true job of motherhood begins. When thinking back to these early days I think now that I probably had some post-natal depression, especially with my first child. Having had him by emergency caesarean I had an irrational belief that I hadn’t done the job properly and so immediately set up thoughts of failure as a Mum. Throw in an inability to breastfeed too, and I really felt like I was incapable of the basic functions required of a mother. When health visitors asked questions and got me to complete forms I knew all the right answers to say. I put on the happy mother mask, because that’s what is expected. I was mostly okay but knowing what I know about depression now, I would have benefited from support with this at the time.

Over the years, I think I have worn many masks as a mother. The mask to hide your disappointment that something that was special or important to you was swept aside or forgotten. Sometimes a small thing, sometimes larger but those moments when what you were hoping for, or what you wanted to do is brushed aside for the greater good - the needs or wishes of the wider family, so you just park your thoughts to one side and move on.

The mask to hide your worries when your children are embarking on something new that you know may not work out for them. You want so much as a mother to have your children succeed and to avoid pain and disappointment that you try to protect them and feel a growing tension when you cannot guarantee an outcome to be the way you would like it to be for them. Of course, we all have to experience failure in order to learn from it and to grow and succeed in the end. Yet when things look bleak, you would willingly suffer yourself in order to see your child achieve and soar.

There is the mask you wear to effectively gag yourself from passing comment when you know that to do so would only push your child further down a negative pathway. You hold it all in and keep worries to yourself about a phase they’re going through or a relationship they’re forming, save the thoughts up so that they play out in disjointed movies in your waking moments in the early hours as sleep evades you.

What about the mask that can become so well worn that it’s hard to take off sometimes? The “I’ve got this all under control” mask. To many, that appears as your real face: capable mother, professional and competent career woman, loving wife and adept homemaker - wow, you’ve got it all in that multitasking mask. Pity the friend that dares to peek beneath that mask with a well-timed question or comment that reveals what’s really going on under there.

As I began to write this I started to wonder how it was for my own mother. As a child I cannot recall any obvious problems being in evidence with her doing the job of a mother. Well, more precisely the many jobs of a mother. It all seemed so effortless and without issues. Once you’re in the position yourself you wonder what cues you didn’t pick up on, how difficult was it for your parents as you happily and obliviously got on with the important business of being a child? From my point of view I always had clothes that were clean and ready to wear, a hot meal on the table after school, support with homework or hobbies, like accompanying me to about six dance classes a week! All the mundane routine stuff was taken care of in a smooth fashion so I was left to focus on my own things - toys, TV, records and 80s pin-ups - so I guess I had no need to notice what else might be going on around me, for my parents. Unless all that is breaking down in front of you, I imagine that children just perceive everything to be okay. Perhaps my parents too had a series of masks they chose from to wear?

What is going on now then? How many masks am I wearing lately? I close my eyes and imagine myself at the centre of a masquerade ball where all the participants have their true identity hidden and for one moment, one night of sheer decadence in truly magnificent surroundings, we can all be anyone and do anything we would like. Immediately my poetic and dramatic self, commands my thoughts and paints a picture of the colours and feathers and glitter and I find it hard to move myself beyond this. Is that my subconscious grappling with my ongoing unease about my current position? A writer waiting for the next inspiration, for peer or external approval, for the drive to complete a project and see it succeed at some level, and all the while feeling that it’s all just a mask I have put on to disguise the fact that I am without work, without direction, without purpose?

Whilst this mask may be the most complex one I have worn to date, at this point in time it is simultaneously allowing me the luxury of time and space to devote energies to the finer details of still being a mum. I have had more opportunities to spend time with my daughter and to talk in some depth about the really important stuff of life. Moments like that should be treasured. All too soon, she will follow the example of my eldest and they will both be completely absorbed in adult life with little opportunity or motivation to pause and interact with their parents. We will still be here, on hand should they need us, but I don’t know what we’ll be doing or wearing by then. I hope it will still have a feather or two.

Searching for Sunsets

Have you seen some of the fantastic sunsets in recent weeks? When the weather has been unseasonably warm for February, we have been afforded the delight of majestic masterpieces as the days draw to a close. Struck by their beauty, I have been caught up in a mood of reflection. I am taking it to be a good sign as I am considering where I stand on my journey and feel an acceptance of my situation. I started this year with several weeks of turmoil as I attempted to look ahead to the unknown. I was obviously searching for answers and a plan for myself within the coming months and felt adrift on a sea of uncertainty. An evocative image, a poetic spin on what felt unsettling at the time, as I kept trying to rationalise what I was doing and make sense of how I would be able to move forward. Steps that I have since taken have brought me to an understanding that no plan actually is a plan for my own well-being.

It is funny how since I have adjusted to where I am now, I have allowed myself to think back to how things were a year ago, and have found myself asking where we now find ourselves. Thankfully the disruption of major house renovations are past and we are all settled into the new spaces created from it. I love the oasis of calm that our loft bedroom has become. Clean lines, limited clutter and views across the rooftops combine to create a positive space. Having had years of trying to unwind at the end of a day in the one room that we had never got round to decorating, a room full of furniture that never really fitted the space, it is now actually restful to go to bed, chat about our day or plans for the week ahead and snuggle up for the night. I don’t know if it is a common practice, but we always had that mentality of it only being us who saw the space so why bother making too much effort for a room that we spent little time awake in. I wish now that we could have put energy into rectifying that years ago, for the calm now is helping to seep into the fabric of our everyday and helping us both to manage better.

My children now have their bedrooms and space for their respective creative outlets: art and music. Now that my eldest has finished university and has his new band embarking on a programme of weekly gigs, there is a lot of music in the house. It isn’t all confined to the studio space that he has either, for the sounds and equipment have started to spill out all over the house. I hope he’s very grateful for the indulgence when he becomes rich and famous! I expect that’s the sunset that he is searching for. Until then, I am guessing that he and his equipment will be permanently resident in our house for many years to come and we will all just have to accommodate that.

I am not sure what this phase of our relationship has become - the parent- child relationship once the child has become an adult. No longer a situation where the parents hold all the power or control cards in the deck, more that we stumble along finding ways to co-exist, live alongside each other, re-establishing rules of living within a shared space. I am not sure we have managed that trick yet and I think some days that a better balance is needed, one where we as the parents don’t have all the responsibilities and all the chores and none of the freedoms that youth and exuberance enjoy. I guess I still have a way to go in adjusting my expectations so that I don’t keep defaulting to the ‘Mum position’ running around and clearing up after everyone. Not having a ‘recognised job’ certainly adds to the perception that my role is the maid and dog walker and whilst I am happy to take on a fair share of all of that, I am still working at speaking up to get some help in this – after all, I don’t make all the mess.

It is true that the physical differences to the house and the circumstances surrounding jobs and career moves have changed, but so too has my outlook. I suppose I have been given the luxury of space and an ability to pause for all this reflection. I have moved forward with my stress management and well-being and although I know I am still climbing that confidence mountain, making footholds for myself with each achievement along the way, I am gaining momentum. The anaemia and associated health issues seem to be more under control since Christmas which in turn, is helping my mood. All of that is positive, even if I have gained a little weight in the process. I’m guessing you can’t have it all! Less comfort eating and more getting out as the weather improves to exercise and feel the sun on my face will help with all of it though. I can’t be the only one who has the winter comfort bulge to tackle?

Then of course, the major difference from a year ago is that I am now writing every day. Having no expectations has meant that I have now relaxed into a writing habit - writing every day and missing the process if there is a day where I have been prevented from doing so. I currently have several projects running at the same time: these blog pieces, scripts to create and edit and a book – where my energies have mostly been channelled. When all the chores of the day are done and the dropping off or picking up of the children, shopping and so on is complete, I am excited to sit at my desk and write. Absorbed in the process, I feel as if I have different coloured threads from scattered garments all around me and as I type, I am working hard to pull together these many strands and weave them into a whole - something magnificent, or at least something that holds together when you hold it up for others to see. The jury is out on that score, for I am yet to get to the feedback stage. As I edit, and re-edit, it is with trepidation that I await responses from initial readings. But that is all for the future, for some sunset yet to be searched out. Now I must admit that I have made a long journey, emotionally and in my writing, and need to be content to play in the long shadows of an afternoon. There is no rush, I might just pause and sip tea and look around a while longer.