Into the Woods.

Autumn has long been my favourite season- it’s such a treat for all the senses. The spectacular colour treat that meets your eyes as you walk past trees - like artistic masterpieces on show without the need for a visit to a gallery, just emerging in the sunshine or fluttering on a breeze, even being reflected in a puddle from an autumn shower. The sounds that accompany the fallen leaves, crisp under your boots to remind you of a time when adult restraint didn’t keep you from stopping in the street to scoop up an armful of leaves and throw them high over your head to watch them fall all around you.

Then there’s the tastes and smells of autumn - many I am sure are inextricably linked to my childhood experiences. The smell of a bonfire reminds me of standing in a dark park, wrapped up in hat, scarf, gloves and coat waiting for the fireworks display. The joy of slowly chilling to the bone was the thought that when you got home, Mum’s sausages and jacket potatoes would be ready to warm you up, along with a cup of cocoa. Nowadays, it’s hot chocolate, rather than cocoa. That may sound like a subtle difference but the cocoa of my childhood was a simple affair whereas today’s offerings are one of luxury velvety chocolate, cream and marshmallows towering above the drink below.

The clocks turning back time at the end of October signals the shortening of days and to some seems a foreboding signal of darker times but this has never worried me. Without dark there is no beauty in candlelight, flickering bonfires or twinkling fairy lights that adorn homes and gardens during the festive season. Autumn has its own beauty, in nature’s display and in bringing people together, sheltering at home from the cold or sharing time together in celebratory mood whether that be for Halloween, Diwali, bonfire night, thanksgiving, Hanukkah or Christmas - indeed any other festival or celebration that brings family, friends and groups together. There’s something about gathering as a group at this time of the year. I’ve always liked the colours that appear on the autumn fashion rail and the sparkles that scatter themselves across the party outfits. Perhaps I just get caught up in the romance of it all?

It’s also an annual reminder of life’s ongoing circle, an outlandish flurry of colour and splendour before winter’s metaphorical sleep and end, whilst beneath it all is the promise of the first snowdrop and a spring awakening fresh and renewed next year.

As I write this, I’m taken up with the question of whether I am now entering my own autumn. The Spring of my youth is certainly long gone, although glimpses of those carefree days have come to the forefront of my mind as I’ve scanned through old photo albums or discussed memories with my own teenage children when they ask those recurring questions of ‘What did you do when you were that age, Mum?’ The spring-like eagerness you have when you’re finishing school, finding work, getting married and looking to the future seems somewhat naive with hindsight sometimes, but it sees you through the difficulties of setting up your adult life.

Summer - known by many for its long days, idyllic peaceful retreats with opportunities to paddle in the waves and eat ice cream, has also its fair share of pests: persistent wasps at a picnic, hay fever hindering your enjoyment of the outdoors and sometimes a humidity and heat that’s almost too much to bare. All in all, a good metaphor for the adult life I’ve had so far - nurturing a family, married relationship and a career path through all such highs and lows.

So now I stand in my metaphorical autumn wood. It’s my chance to be outrageous with a splendid colourful display, to kick up the crunchy leaves from beneath my boots and sink back on a sofa sampling the velvety smoothness of a hot chocolate. Whether anyone is stopping to watch the display before them or they’re too caught up with their own daily demands to notice another middle-aged mother with something to say, something to offer to others, that’s not for me to decide.

There’s a certain joy to the slow realisation that over time you’ve started to lose some responsibilities and that you can carve yourself a bit of time and personal space. When you notice that your kids don’t need you in quite the same way anymore it can feel a little like you’re a kite whose string has been cut on a windy day. The twists and turns of the journey ahead can leave you plummeting towards the ground some days and soaring through the clouds towards the sunlight on others.

If this is my autumn, then I’m going to emerge myself in all that it brings and show all that I still have to offer. There are some things in life that I can’t control but there are others where I have choices to make. Now is my chance to show my true colours, as the song states, and I intend them to be vibrant russets and golds - the very best that an autumn can show. I may even climb a few trees!

Diva or Door Mat?

At the risk of showing my age and alienating those readers born too late to share in the cultural phenomenon of children's TV in the 70s, I'm reminded of the daily choice of which window to go through: round, arch or square? ⁽¹⁾ Choices back then were simple, like which type of penny sweet to add to your bag in the sweet shop on a Friday on the way home from school, or which outfit to put on a Sindy doll when your friend came round to play - it was always the ballerina.

Still, making simple choices as a child is good practice for the myriad of indecision coming your way as an adult. I often think of myself as standing in a changing room looking at a row of pristine white doors, each with its own neatly numbered shining plaque, considering my options before opening one of them to put on the outfit that hangs within it and pick up the baggage that accompanies it. Don't we all have different roles that we play each day? I have my wife role, kissing my husband 'Good morning' before I stumble around the bathroom trying to make myself presentable for the day ahead. I have my Mum role, which used to involve a lot of multi-tasking to enable my children to get through the pre-school checklist of breakfast, dressing in uniform, bag checking, picking up lunch boxes, reassuring that PE would be fine that day and they just needed to try their best in their spelling test. Lately, my Mum role is more likely to involve a checklist of whether breakfast is going to be eaten before a work shift or calling up the stairs to see how long it really takes to do eye make-up! As children become more independent, my Mum role is more that of a hotel receptionist checking everyone in and out and asking about their dinner reservations. I expect it's a common cry from parents of teenagers and beyond to bemoan the use of the house as a hotel with all services on tap: laundry, meals provided, room service when I've removed the pizza boxes casually thrown on the floor when they had a friend round and ordered out. If I moan too much about the lack of responsibility and demand that chores are completed, am I being a diva?  If I continue clearing up after them and doing those Mum things that were always part of my job description, does that make me a door mat?

Well, clearly the dressing room door to the Mum outfit contains a lot of baggage! What about the other roles that I habitually adopt? I don't know if anyone else has these scenarios going around their head, but my adulting life is managed by me adopting different characters within it. Don't get me wrong, I don't actually have names for each and physical costumes to wear - that would be entering some kind of multiple personality realm - but adult life is only really advanced role play isn't it? What started in the home corner or on board a pirate ship just becomes more refined and subtle as an adult.

I have my 9 to 5 soundtrack in my head as I fire up my computer to check on emails and start my working day. I have the socially adept, a smile for everyone persona when faced with a family / friends gathering. You know the ones where small talk is the order of the day and no-one really actually talks about anything significant and we go back to our lives having moved no further forward as a person. I have my daughter role where I balance being supportive and taking on a semi-parent role reversal scenario with moments of being back to being told what to do, as I was as a child, although this is now in the guise of friendly motherly advice. Then there’s the more recently developed writer’s role. In this I inhabit a somewhat romanticised world in my head where I am both the editor and writer with a deadline, snatching moments of time to write the latest piece or addition to a longer work in progress. Sat in a coffee shop or in a quiet space at home, writing for whichever current project, allows me that feeling of headspace which is fast becoming the goal to strive for within a busy working week.

Now, as I stand in the dressing room with all those doors lined up before me, I see a door that had been mostly left shut for a while. This is the door with outfits behind that allow me to be myself, a woman looking to have an evening out with friends being relaxed and doing silly things just because I can. A woman who likes to dress up in a newly purchased outfit and put on my bright lipstick and paint my nails and have a date night with my husband – whatever that might entail. A woman who doesn’t have to explain to anyone why she might have had a few too many drinks and is now singing rather too loudly on a night out. A self-assured and capable woman with diva aspirations.

The reasons this door has been neglected are complex and perhaps we all go through phases of being the last priority in a long list? In our busy lives with work demands and family commitments, especially when the children are younger and more dependent or there is a family member with health issues, it is so easy to get caught up with the automatic and mundane and find so many reasons not to put yourself first from time to time. I have recently found myself asking if this has meant that I have created an expectation that I will drop everything when asked and rush to help others – particularly where my children are concerned. I think the circumstances of the last year or so have had a cumulative effect where I lost self-confidence and sought solace in seeking out a calm ticking over life by having a default mechanism of agreeing to things, in that sort of ‘anything for a quiet life’ way.

When you’re feeling low and lacking confidence it is somewhat of a paradox that you take on more by not saying no to requests. So yes, there have been times when I’ve been thinking that rather than the sassy diva I would like to portray like a leading lady upon a stage in the spotlight, I’ve been more like the proverbial door mat – down trodden and gathering the dirt and dust from the stamping feet above. The way forward now is to pick myself up off the floor, fling open that last door and strut out with confidence – well, at least every once in a while.

⁽¹⁾             http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/playschool/trivia.shtml

Coffee and Cake - Code for Therapy!

I’m completing those medical type questionnaires and I think they’re missing something. You know the ones where they try to check out your addictions and give a health baseline? My answers portray a somewhat bland, some might suggest boring response:

Have you ever smoked? – No

Do you / have you ever taken drugs? - Prescription only, a morphine drip after an emergency C-Section for my first child and a couple of puffs of gas and air having my second before I decided that I didn’t like the woozy feeling and gave up on that!

How much alcohol do you drink? – Most weeks none; it’s not a usual thing in our house. Lately, if meeting up with friends, a few glasses to get into the spirit of that Friday frolic fever. You know how everyone seems to manage their mundane and stressful working week by putting Friday up on a pedestal all week so that we can glam ourselves up, park our working lives and feel silly for a few carefree hours? Close friends might testify that’s it been more than a few glasses on some occasions, but no-one puts the whole truth on these forms do they?

Do you exercise? – Well, I walk the dog when no-one else in the family will and I join in dance routines at my weekly drama group. If the dishwasher is loaded and the TV programmes haven’t caused me to nod off and the stars of passion are neatly aligned, I might have an extra bit of bedroom exercise from time to time.

What’s missing from my questionnaire though is the thing that I am now having to admit to myself is my addiction: coffee and cake. Along with a proliferation of coffee shops over the last few years, comes the realisation that they’re tapping into something. It’s not that everyone has just suddenly developed an unquenchable thirst for coffee – though it is in itself addictive. It’s more to do with the fact that we’re looking for a little slot of relaxation and, when you find yourself a friendly local coffee spot, a smiling barista with a few minutes to listen to you and make you feel important. This, I’ve come to realise, is my therapy.

Half an hour on a sofa in a coffee shop with a sweet treat and a latte and I’m ready to carry on with my day. Whether I’ve sat alone or to catch up with friends, used the chance to check work emails or to chat with my Mum or pop in for a moment away from the kids to actually talk to my husband (though often we’ll sit alongside each other checking out the screens on our phones as we sip coffee) – it’s all a way to recharge batteries and pretend for a moment or two that life has been put on hold. An equivalent slot on a sofa with a therapist would be infinitely more expensive and possibly no better for me.

My coffee time is my ‘me time’ and has become a necessary part of my week – my mindfulness programme. I can make coffee at home and have been known to create perfectly adequate bakes but it isn’t about that, is it? Taking time out, in a little sanctuary of calm, is to step away from the plate spinning that encapsulates my waking hours; a plate for managing an increasingly stressful job, a plate for coordinating kids’ activities, a plate for caring for pets that we were persuaded into buying and now have most responsibility for looking after, a plate for keeping the home running, a plate for being there for friends and family. How many plates is that now? I’m a walking circus act!

This year, I have to admit that my need for ‘coffee therapy’ has certainly increased – possibly to worrying levels. I’ve been joking with friends that I am having a midlife crisis but I think it has just been a significant year. One kid has finished university, the other managed to get through GCSEs despite many challenges. We’ve had 5 months of disruption as we have refurbished the house in an effort to future-proof it, for we see little hope of our kids being able to fly the nest any time soon. My job has taken a new direction too, with more responsibility, more deadlines, more of everything except money and recognition – such seems the accepted norm in the austerity driven work place of the current day. Against this backdrop, I’m planning celebrations to mark a significant birthday – I intend to be fabulous and fifty, at least for the celebrations, it’s most likely to be downhill after that!

Why one birthday year should be more significant than another is arbitrary. For many, each candle on the cake is just another passing year – one no more meaningful than the next. Many have developed this habit of celebrating the ‘decade birthdays’ more than others and certainly, for the last few years I’ve not particularly gone overboard on the celebrations. Six years back I spent a memorable birthday night sat alongside my Dad’s hospital bed, following the difficult decision to withdraw medication and wait for him to pass. The fighter that he was meant that he struggled on way past expectations and died 8 days later. So I guess my birthday has been inextricably linked with those events since.

Determined – that was the word he used to describe me in his speech on our wedding day. Determined to pursue a course of action whether he was proved right or wrong in the wisdom of my choices. Well, despite many stumbling blocks along the way, he was proved right that I’ve been determined enough to stick at my marriage and persevere as a parent – something that comes with no prior qualification or manual.

With no let up on the horizon – mortgage payments to continue for a fair few years, workloads staying heavy, it’s fair to assume that I’m going to require coffee therapy for a long time to come. Now, pass me my latte.

Does coffee therapy work for you? How do you make time for yourself among your daily responsibilities?

Mum's the Word.

So, I’m staring at a long path in front of me, wondering how I came to be there and how I might even take one more step along it…

“Don’t look back” they say, for nostalgia clouds the pictures in your mind and regret hinders the ability to step forward. Yet, where you are is a reflection of where you have come from – the path already trod, the familiar footsteps that lay behind you, fading with the memories they have touched.

Sometimes it seems obvious how to proceed – keep on going in the direction you have chosen for yourself, your family, your career. But life has a habit of throwing a curve ball and disrupting this. Then there is no obvious course of action available. As wool from a pull in a jumper, I have found myself to be unravelling lately. The very fabric of the foundations of my life fraying around the edges.

A Mum at a certain time of life, should know what she’s doing by now, shouldn’t she? I mean, I’ve been doing the job for over 20 years now! Yet, the task remains as complicated now as it ever was before. The boundaries are blurred. When my children were young, I called all the shots (well, jointly with my husband of course!) Looking back, I didn’t appreciate how simple things were at the time. The obvious tiredness from the demands of the baby and toddler stage can blind you to the pure joys of the discoveries our children are making amongst the daily routines and then, all too soon, they’re off to school and never quite just yours any more. Still, you know where they are; you direct their mealtimes and bedtimes, facilitate their hobbies – even if you joke with friends that their social life is better than your own and you note that you have added taxi driver to your ever growing list of jobs. Multi-tasker – that’s your middle name!

Perhaps the birth process triggers something deep within, kick starts an energy reserve that serves to get you through the early sleepless nights, the troublesome toddler years and the juggling of everyone’s time and resources to succeed with the military-type schedule of the school years? Or is it just that, at almost fifty, I’m just not young enough to manage daily demands now? A job, a home under refurbishment, two kids – one still a teenager, a dog, older family members that need support too. Okay, that sounds like quite a list but I’ve juggled a lot before, right?

Then, along comes a snake in the grass – slithering in unnoticed at first. I’ve heard its name but know little about it, for it seems to be a well-kept secret weapon which only unveils itself once it’s well and truly bitten you on the bum! The pre-menopausal stage. There, I’ve said it, and said it out loud! How is it that only once you’ve mentioned to others that you’re having a difficult time, do you discover that so many others are too? Women should really give each other the heads up about this. I’ve felt out of control, unsure what is happening to my body and my sanity, unable to sleep, weeping at the slightest things, incapable of rational thought at times, as well as having the symptoms that are far more publicised.

So, a menopausal mum I am. A stressful job I have. Nothing unusual there, I’m sure – except for suddenly adopting Yoda-type phrases! But to be serious, amongst all of this, I’ve had several years now of coming to terms with how mental health issues have affected close family members and, more recently, I’m starting to think myself.

Have you ever thrown a pebble into a still, calm pond and watched the ripples emanate out in circles, widening and widening until they reach the furthest edges of the pond?

Observers are full of opinions about depression and anxiety. Stock phrases are quickly offered: “You have so many positive things to be thankful for” or “Cheer up, things aren’t that bad” Or there are the questions – “What started this then?” “What’s caused it all?”

To be caught up in the maelstrom of mental health and see first-hand how it chips away at the loved one you know, changes their personality, seeps into every aspect of their daily life, and is to be stuck on a twisting, turning roller-coaster that has no end.

I’ve had days of triumph as we’ve slowly worked on recovery techniques together as a family. I’ve had days of despair, when everything seems bleak and no answers seem possible to find. I’ve been on a journey that I wouldn’t invite anyone to accompany me on. Yet, I’ve learnt so much.

Mental health issues are starting to hit headlines, they’ve even been somewhat exploited to form an advertising campaign for a bank! People are starting to talk about it and need to keep doing so. Talk therapies sound weak when you’re at the start and you’re looking for a magic wand to wave or a super pill to take. But we all need to keep talking.

So, ‘Mum’s the Word’ is an accurate description of who I am but the idiom – hold it all in, keep a secret – that’s a complete mistake. I’ve learnt to ask for help, to talk through what is on my mind and to recognise that it is okay to say that I am not coping well and I am not having a good day. That’s when you find out who your friends really are: those who are there to listen, are not afraid to say that they don’t have an answer but they will listen anyway. I may not be the best Mum in the world but I am doing the best I can in my world, my home, with my family and with the support that I have to carry on, facing the days as they each come along.

So I’ll take a few more steps along that path and see where it takes me…