Category Archives: Motherhood

Be More Sid

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Humour, mental health, Motherhood

≈ Leave a comment

This is Sid.

Sid is not my cat.

Sid likes to sleep on my landing.
And my sofa.
And my bed.
And the Big Small’s Bed.
And the Small Small’s Bed.
And Catonthenetheredge’s bed.

Mostly, Sid likes to eat Catonthenetheredge’s cat food.
It is apparently delicious and to be coveted above all things, and sought after at every opportunity.
It is from Aldi.

Sid’s name is in all probability NOT Sid.

We named him after the children’s classic ‘Six Dinner Sid’, a book about a cat which goes round the neighbourhood hanging out with different families to get his requisite six dinners.

I have tried to discourage Sid from illegally breaking and entering my house, largely out of respect for Catonthenetheredge.

I have thrown water on Sid.
I have banged pans at Sid.
I have hissed at Sid.
I have shouted at Sid.
I have set the Smallest Small on Sid to smother him in pent-up four-year-old affection, which cannot be unleashed on Catonthenetheredge for fear of losing an eye, or possibly a finger. (Let’s be generous and say she’s not much of a cuddler. If we were being less generous we’d say she’s a vicious little cow).

Sid just comes back.

In fact, most of the time he doesn’t even leave.

He sits just outside the catflap for about 30 seconds until he’s convinced himself we’ve either forgotten or forgiven him, and pops back in with good-natured cheer, like nothing’s happened.

He patiently endures the Small Small’s maulings, with an air of palpable and long-suffering indulgence, and goes straight back to the cat food when she’s finished with him. If Catonthenetheredge attacks he just hunkers down with his ears back and tries to look unassuming, whilst not moving one inch away from the aforementioned cat food.
Catonthenetheredge is so used to people screaming and fleeing her in abject terror she has absolutely no idea what to do with him. In the end I think she’s come to the same conclusion that we all have: Nothing.

You see, there’s just no real help for it but to LIKE Sid.
He now has his own bowl, and we got him his own catnip mouse for Christmas.

The only fault I’ve found in him is that he is definitely a Free Range Pussy Cat. On the two occasions he has been accidentally locked in the house he’s turned into some sort of freak Hulk Cat and battered his way out through a locked catflap. (And then come right back in again for a snack).

Hell, it’s got to the point where I don’t just like Sid, I ADMIRE him.

And as I head into 2020 with a spare cat, I can’t help but feel like he’s got a lot to teach us all (although possibly not the bit about going uninvited into strange houses).

Because JUST IMAGINE living your life like Sid.

Just imagine.

The audacity.
The tenacity.
The single minded focus on a goal.
The willingness to fail, again and again, and to try, again and again, undaunted.
The unfailing good humour in the face of adversity.
The sheer CONFIDENCE.

I wish I was more Sid, in lots of ways.
And the thing I admire in him most is his absolute, rock-solid, unshakeable conviction that people are going to like him. You know, eventually.

God, I wish I had that.
I have always worried, you see, if people like me.
I worry about what they think of me. How to make them accept me. What they want from me – what they need me to be in order to like me, and how I can change myself to give it to them.

And I do this with everyone. EVERYONE. From the damn postman to random shop assistants, work colleagues to school mums, even my long standing friends – even my own bloody kids. Even to the point where I lose my sense of myself when not defined by other people and what they think of me. And I question it constantly.

Do they like me?
Am I good enough?
Am I enough as I am?
What do I need to change?
What did I say wrong?
How do I fix it?
What if they find out the truth?
How do I keep them from finding it?
How do I make them like me MORE?
How do I make them like me over and over again every time I see them?

A month or so ago, something of this was caught by the Big Small.

We’d had a humdinger argument where she’d basically been a BRAT, and told me she hated me, that I was embarrassing, and the worst mother EVER (a recurring theme). And I was out of all energy to empathise, distract, appease, ignore or rise above anything. So I told her that you know what? Sometimes I don’t like myself very much either. Sometimes I don’t always say the right thing. Sometimes I don’t always DO the right things. Sometimes I don’t have any of the answers. But I always love her, and I’m trying my very best to be my very best for her and her sister.

The argument blew over, but I hadn’t realised that what I said had hit home quite so hard until I got The Christmas Card.

It is the best and the worst present I have ever received.

In it, she told me that I was the BEST mother ever, that she loved me, and that she knew it was hard doing everything on my own and that she thought I was very brave. And then she said, ‘I know you say you don’t like you. But I like you. I like you because you are lovely and kind and play with me and [Small Small]. I asked my friends to write down why they like you too.’

And four little girls aged between 7 and 8, with clearly far more emotional intelligence than I’ve gathered in 40 bloody years, wrote a sentence about what they liked about me.

They like that I’m funny.
They like that I’m kind.
They like that I love to play with slime.
They like that I make them laugh.

And I cried like a baby.

Because people don’t really say nice things about me. And when they do I find it so easy to dismiss them or not to believe them. Have you ever noticed that? That the good stuff, the compliments just slide off you like water? But the bad stuff sticks? And if someone says the bad stuff to you often enough it becomes truer than true just by being consistent. And it’s so easy to believe… That I’m too intense. That I’m lazy. That I’m too much and doing too little and over emotional and being over sensitive and slightly stupid and not wired up right and never follow through, and I’m all talk and all of it, all of it, all of it. It’s all still there, not even buried deep.

But then four little girls in Year 3 sat down in their Christmas jumpers on Christmas party day at school and made me the most beautiful card I’ve ever had, and I feel like they pierced through all the bad stuff for the first time. Because for some reason they’re easy to believe. And I have never been more horrified or more grateful for anything.

I can’t work out whether it is a massive parenting fail that I’ve allowed my daughter to think I don’t like myself and set that example for her, or a massive parenting win that she’s just turned 8 and she’s done something so thoughtful and mature and kind.

What I do know is that she deserves for me to find my inner Sid this year.
She deserves to see someone who doesn’t need to be validated by anyone else, including her.
She deserves to see someone happy in their own skin.
She deserves to see someone who doesn’t constantly worry if people like her, if she’s said the wrong thing, made the wrong choice, who doesn’t second guess herself and who isn’t afraid to be who she is, always, in all ways, no matter what. No matter who’s looking.

And do you know what? I deserve that too, this year. In 2020 I deserve to see myself in 2020 vision – or at least how 7 and 8 year-olds see me. Because sometimes they see a lot of things a lot more clearly than we do.

I deserve to like myself.

And so do you.

So my New Year’s Resolution isn’t a complicated one. I’m just going to look at everything and think, What Would Sid Do?

Because Sid wouldn’t give up.
Sid wouldn’t care if people liked him – he’d know they would when they got to know him.
Sid wouldn’t be diminished by cold water, or derailed by loud pans, or depressed by failure.
Sid wouldn’t be hemmed in by other people’s rules or boundaries – he’d just break his way out.
Sid would just be Sid.
And then have a nap.

And that – that sounds like a resolution I can really get behind.

I highly recommend you do the same.

#BemoreSid
#WhatWouldSidDo?

By the way, if anyone lives in the Woodseats area of Sheffield and actually KNOWS Sid, I’d love to find out where he lives. And his real name. He’s literally an inspiration.

I AM SANTA

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Humour, Motherhood

≈ Leave a comment

I AM SANTA.

This is the secret, silent scream in the hearts of women everywhere around this time of year.

Because towards the end of December we start to quietly resent the fact some overweight white bloke in a red suit and questionable facial hair comes swooping in to take the credit for all our hard work, blood, sweat, tears – and rather more money than we’d planned on spending. Again.

Yes, I know some men do pull their weight at Christmas, and some even go beyond reminding their wives to buy for their mother circa Xmas Eve, stringing up the outside lights like it’s an act of heroism, fetching the Christmas tree from the loft under heavy duress, and carving the damn turkey after a lot of unnecessary and self-important knife sharpening. That’s GREAT. Yay for transcending festive gender stereotypes! But let’s not pretend that’s what’s happening in most Great British households.

The mental load of family life falls to women, and it falls in drifts over Christmas.

We are the ones making the nativity costumes, keeping up with the non-uniform and Christmas jumper days and one-pounds-to-the-teacher and carol services and bake sales and moving the Elf around, and buying all the presents, even for his side of the family, and remembering not to re-gift the terrible smellies Auntie Carol got you last year, and thinking through what the Smalls want and orchestrating the Santa letters through a series of heavy hints so they match up with what you’ve brought, and co-ordinating relatives’ gifts and writing the Christmas cards and then bullying the Small people into writing 60 more bloody Christmas cards for the classes because it’s part of Small social engineering, and waiting up to get the Tesco delivery slot and then STILL having to do to an over-crowded supermarket with two kids in tow anyway for last minute bits on Christmas Eve, and decorating the tree and figuring out how to fit everything into the fridge and then the OVEN, and then WRAPPING all the presents and making sure the Father Christmas paper is kept special and hidden, and stuffing the presents into suitcases in the top or bottom of wardrobes at the dead of night so they’re not found, and thinking about who should sit where and that Grandad MUST have sprouts although everyone else hates them, and Cousin Sue’s gone Vegan, and making sure the kids open the matching presents at the same time to avoid arguments, and leaving out the mince pies and carrot for Santa and Rudolph and then eating/pretending to eat them and laying out footprints in flour/bicarbonate of soda, and then hoovering them up the next day, and taking the sellotape off the paper for recycling and remembering the festive recycling collection days and A MILLION AND ONE OTHER TINY THINGS THAT MAKE CHRISTMAS CHRISTMASSY.

It isn’t bloody Santa.
It isn’t the magic of Christmas.
It’s the magic of Mums.

If you’re starting to struggle with annual resentment, particularly around the fact that even a fictional fat fella gets more glory than you do, just remember you ARE Santa. The real Santa. In the ways that really matter.

And that’s how I’m going to try and explain Santa to the Smalls, when they come to the end of their belief, hopefully not too soon. Santa isn’t just one person – he’s lots of people. He’s YOU. And the magic is very real, it’s just not the magic you thought it was…

Too often, you see, when we give it is as much about us as about the person we give to. It’s a transaction – for thanks, for affection, for appreciation, for our sense of ourselves and who we want to be. Even when we make traditions, make memories, there is something of ourselves in there. We want to be remembered.

But Santa, Santa is the ultimate act of selflessness. It is an act of selflessness that as a collective we have all agreed to participate in EVERY YEAR.

If there is gratitude to be had, it is deferred by around 10 years until they KNOW, a good 30 years until they think to appreciate it, and definitely some time post their own parenthood before they actually GET IT.

At a time when a lot of us need our faith in humanity restoring – this is it. This is something we do, as human beings, together, that is kind of… amazing. We just all got too distracted by the anthropomorphisation bit to remember how amazing it is.

Because Santa isn’t a bloke in a red suit.
Spoiler alert: HE DOESN’T EXIST.

He is a concept.
A communal flight of whimsy:
A living, breathing fairy tale.

He is the best of us.

The existence of Santa is the existence of the only sort of magic that’s really real. It is a manifestation in a wildly avaricious and commercialised Western world of pure, unselfish love. Of giving without expectation of recognition, reward, or gratitude – just for the sheer beauty of it.

And that means Santa, in essence, IS a Mum. Or at least the essence of all Mums…

Because that, in a nutshell, is what motherhood is all about.
That’s what we do.

So Santas out there, I see you. I see you when the whole bloody point is not to be seen. I see you BECAUSE the whole bloody point is not to be seen.

I am Santa.

So are you.

And so one day, if we pass it on right, if we communicate it as the true magic that lies underneath all the exasperated threats, awkward knee-based encounters, half eaten mince pies, messy flour footprints and the piles of presents, it will be our children too.

It will become their privilege to be part of one of the only kinds of magic humanity is still capable of.

And that – THAT’S a gift worth giving.

It’s also a gift worth never being thanked for.

Merry Christmas.

PS. Facebook doesn’t show my posts to people unless I get likes and comments. So if you like this, please raise your hand and say ‘I am Santa’ in comments. I’ll wave back. #santasolidarity

ELF WARS

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Divorce, Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ Leave a comment

ELF WARS.

I blame America.

They bred the Elf on the Shelf. And they infected us. And now we face Elf segregation, Elf division, ELF WARS!

First there is the deep and deepening divide between parents who ELF and parents who, for the sake of their ‘elf, don’t ELF.

The first group hate the second group because a large number of them secretly sincerely regret making such a foolish month-long annual commitment of unsustainable creativity, but can’t say so, because the ‘magic of Christmas’.

The second group hate the first group because they have to explain to their children why their home DOESN’T have an Elf, while simultaneously maintaining the ‘magic of Christmas’, which essentially after infinity cyclical conversations with Smalls boils down to BECAUSE MUMMY HAS A BLOODY JOB.

Some within this group will secretly feel guilty: others militant: still more generally aggrieved, which is the British Way. The militant will talk at length to the generally aggrieved about the moral, ethical and consistency issues with telling one’s children a creepy toy-spy is watching them for good behaviour while simultaneously moving about the house at night and performing ‘hilariously’ naughty deeds. A few extreme crunchy outliers may even debate whether or not we should by lying to our offspring at ALL, about Santa, magic, Christmas, etc.

Within group 1 there will be the hardcore Pinterest Parents, who become evangelical about their cause and Competitive (big C) about it, often utilising the classic humblebrag and the medium of Facebook – or worse – the class WhatsApp group. “Oh Little Martin loves the Elf! This morning he made a hammock out of Mummy’s bra and put shaving foam all over the cat!” ENDLESS EMOJIS.

Somewhere a funny-man Dad will have put the Elf into a compromising position with Barbie, Oh the LOLS, What are we like? Monkey covering eyes, When Daddy’s left on Elf Duty, Etc.

Other Elfers will then be spurred to share their own Comedy Genius Elf Antics, thus putting up the backs of the Non-Elfers still further and inciting Non-Elf Extremism,

AND THE WHOLE OF PARENT SOCIETY CRUMBLES AND DESCENDS TO WAR.

Sooooo….

I have an Elf.

I try not to get competitive with it, or indeed particularly creative, or traumatise my children through it, or even judge/admire the non-Elfers.

I have an Elf for a very specific reason.

Two Octobers ago, my husband moved out. I had two very upset little girls (well okay, one pretty oblivious baby and one very upset little girl) and the days were dark with more than Daylight Saving Hours. I was desperate to do something for us, to bond our new smaller family, and to create a bit of light and sparkle for the Smalls. So my lovely sister suggested and then sent us an Elf.

We called it Elfie, like approximately 75% of all Elf on the Shelfs the country over, we put a Barbie skirt on her, and the Smalls were smitten.

Ours is not a naughty Elf, or a Santa-Espionage-Elf. She is a Kindness Elf. And through December she reminds the Smalls to be kind, to give to others, and to basically not be selfish greedy little boohoostards. This often isn’t inventive, because I’m tired. It can be simple as smiling at a stranger one day or giving someone a hug. There are definitely year-to-year repeats (I keep the notes). She also writes the girls a hello poem, with a poetry treasure hunt around the house to find her, simply because rhyming makes me happy and making them happy makes me happy.

Last year the Smalls found the Elf book in the summer, and missed Elfie so much she had to turn up to visit in August. IN AUGUST.

Elfing, you see, takes commitment, and energy, and frankly – desperation. That’s what Elfie was really born of. Desperation.

This year, there has been a new twist in our Elf journey.

The ex has now got an Elf.

It is called Snowy. It wrote them a poem. It introduced itself as being best friends with Elfie.

And I have Feelings.

I am now in my own internalised Elf-War.

One half of me thinks that it’s great he’s showing this level of interest in Christmas (he literally never even helped me decorate a tree). It’s great the kids get that at his end, and they love Snowy! And that should make me happy, right? I mean, I don’t own the Elf on the Shelf concept.

But.

This was… my thing. It was special. It was a bit of magic I created, that I carved out for us when there didn’t look like there would ever be magic again. I wanted to make my own Christmas tradition, and if feels like it’s been nicked. Or at least piggy-backed.

And now I’m dreading them coming back and telling me all the SO FUNNY things Snowy did, because he and she have a team and time and they’re not on their own at 11 o’ clock trying to think of something for it to do, and they’re not two years into Elf-fatigue, and I have to smile and say how lovely and keep up the pretence my Elf is best buds with theirs when really, really what my Elf wants to do is STUFF A CANDY CANE UP SNOWY’S TIGHT RED ARSE.

And that, my friends, is the Spirit of Christmas!

I hate myself. Although I think I’m having a pretty human response…
And I hate him, too. Which is also human.
And Elves. Who aren’t human. Or a sub-species. Look, no one really knows.

Particularly though, I hate having been dragged into the competitive Elfing world of the ELF WARS, which I never really wanted to be a part of.

Luckily, it’s nearly over.

In January all parents can negotiate a peace treaty and find other reasons to judge and compete with each other, and rouse ourselves to arbitrary indignation!

I can’t wait.

xxx

(PS. Now you know EXACTLY what Barbie is thinking about where the candy cane is going to end up in this picture. I like to think she’s taking revenge for all Barbies used and abused by Elves and Comedy Dads).

EDIT: For the last 2 years me and the Smalls have also done matching Xmas pjs. If even a hint of a picture of the four of them in matching pjs crosses my consciousness that candy cane will be REPURPOSED. Also I’ve had mulled wine. 😉

Project Stop

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Divorce, mental health, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ Leave a comment

There’s a phrase that has been bouncing around my head for some time now.

What if you’re defined by the worst thing that ever happened to you?

What does that make you?

Who do you become?

How do you seize back control of your own story, as someone who DOES and not someone who is done TO?

Well the worst thing that ever happened to me wasn’t all that bad by Terrible Life Stuff standards.

I just got divorced. People break up. Families split. It’s as common as, well, you know, RAIN IN SHEFFIELD.

But 2 years on, it is still rubbish. It still hurts. And dammit, it IS still defining me…

For the last few weeks, it’s once again been the first thing I think about when I wake, usually at 3am, by the call of miscellaneous dread.
It’s the last thing I think about before I eventually go to sleep.
Some days, I am wandering again through the motions of everyday feeling like a stranger in a life I don’t recognise and never wanted.
Some days, I can’t hold a normal conversation with people about anything that’s not THIS, because it’s all there is, and they won’t understand, and saying what I think or feel or even just the facts about what’s happening is BORING, 2 years on, or inappropriate, or even just plain bitter.

That’s the trouble with 2 years on. People want you to be ‘over it’ by now.

But how do you get over something that’s not actually over? That keeps coming back around, like a vindictive groundhog day?

I was working on it. I was actually getting there. I was BETTER for a while (one very significant letter’s difference to bitter).

But then it started up again. It’s still alive and kicking and BITING. It’s still impotence and fear and anger and ridiculousness and lack of good choices and being backed into corners and there is no respite or even keel or even clarity – even REALITY – because it is lost in the he said/she said and twisted logic and semantics and anti-correlation and blame and accusations and ultimatums and reasonable vs unreasonable dressed up as reasonable in sheep’s clothes, howling at the damn moon.

And the only thing, the ONLY thing I can change about any of this – the only thing I will ever be able to change – is me.

MY reactions.
MY actions.
My choices, such as they are.

And sometimes that’s the hardest thing of all, isn’t it?

Especially when you feel powerless. When you feel done TO. When you feel the world can see but simply doesn’t care. When you feel alone.

So I do what I always do, when I feel my feet scrape the bottom of everything that is.
I Weeble.
I roll back up.
I show up.
I plan.
I invest.
I TRY.

But mostly, I DO.
(Ironically words I have come to sincerely regret…)

I throw myself into Christmas early and all the fab stuff we can do together, and crafts, and trips and tickets and friends and festive, because now I only get 2 December weekends to do it.
I try and use my alone time to do all the doing that needs to be done so I can just do Mummy when they’re back, and do it properly, so they remember me. So it matters.
I clean, because that means I’m coping, right? Look – mopped floors, everything must be fine!
I buy too many presents I can’t really afford to make up for everything that I know they see and don’t say, but comes out at odd times, and I’m sorry they have to live with all this, and I buy cheap sparkly clothes I won’t wear because I don’t go out, but sparkles make me happy – or at the very least sparkly, and maybe that will do – and I try and not look at the families in the shopping centre.
I try and build ME and be a growing, flourishing, rounded PERSON and not (only) a diminishing, scared and exhausted shell, so I plan activities and start courses and hobbies and write bad poetry and draw bad pictures and reach out to people and gatecrash friends’ activities but then don’t always respond or show up because I can’t face it.
I run until everything aches and I can’t breathe and then I drink wine so life looks funny again and have sex until it’s the only thing I can feel and blocks out everything else.

What I don’t do, very often, is stop.

I think I’m afraid that if I stop, everything that I’m fighting or running from will catch up with me.

I think I use momentum, I use DOING, randomly, so that I feel like I’m the one in charge of my life. That I’m the one doing the DOING, not having the doing done to me….

And I think that isn’t always the right call.

Sometimes stopping IS doing something positive for yourself.
Sometimes stopping is an investment.
Sometimes silence is golden.
Sometimes doing nothing is renewing.
And sometimes you need to stop before you fall over….

I suck at it. Stopping.

It feels like the enemy.
It feels like admitting defeat:
it feels terrifying.

Because, who am I when I’m not going?

How do I find a forwards, an out, an exit, if I stop moving?

What happens in the empty space that follows?

What is in my head if it’s not full of plans, and can I actually bear it?

What if all I am IS the worst thing that ever happened to me, and it has eaten away everything else and there is now nothing left underneath?

STOP.
STOP.
STOP.

I suppose that’s my new project, in my overall campaign to REdefine me – Project Stop. (which may in fact undermine the whole stopping ethos by being planned and attacked as a project, but it’s the only way I know how to tackle it, because old habits die hard).

So one of the things I’m going to DO this month is to learn to not DO, and take myself off to a pamper evening, run by a lovely friend of mine.

If any other Sheffield-based Weebles out there fancy Project Stop, I’d love to see you there.

It’s a Feel Good self care and pamper evening, at St Gabriel’s C of E Church, Sat 30 November from 19.00.

Here’s the Eventbrite link: http://bit.ly/FeelGoodEventbrite

xxx

Write on Bananas in Biro

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Aging, Humour, mental health, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ Leave a comment

So I’m halfway through my 40th year, and the other day someone asked me for some advice.

A large part of me wanted to pig-snort and spit out my tea, because I’m basically the least sorted person I know and with each passing year, if not month, I realise how ill prepared I am to deal with, well… pretty much anything. Adulthood, I suppose.

But another bit of me knew that I knew stuff.
I’ve been through stuff.
I’ve experienced stuff.
And this, this was something I could help with…

Unfortunately she wasn’t ready to hear it.

It’s back to the ol’ Grandmother Paradox I invented last mother’s day. The one where you can know so much but can’t pass it on to the next woman because they need to come to it by themselves. You can only watch, and listen, and be there if they’ll let you.

Every woman is the first woman to have a baby, to feel those new, old-as-time feelings.
Every woman is the first woman to suffer heartbreak.
Every woman is the Eve of her own life…

And every generation is silenced by and powerless under the Grandmother Paradox, watching helplessly from the sidelines as our daughters and our daughters’ daughters follow the same well-worn paths, without ever seeing our footprints in front of them.

This is not what I thought 40 would look like, back when I was, say, 20, starting out on that path.

And I wonder if there’s anything at all I could say to that woman, to me, that I’d have actually been able to listen to?

Weirdly, I fear we’d have very little in common. SingletoninCrookes was a very different creature. God, she was so naive.

She was so energetic.
She was so sure.
She was so well-rested…
She was so damn HAPPY.

Lordy I often feel I’ve lost the trick of that.

She – she knew everything, already. And she ignored the rest.

She was in her last year of University, fed up of studying and not doing enough of it, distracted by this AMAZING man she’d met the year before, her first real boyfriend, with a somewhat damaged past and a backstory that made her feel protective, proud, and probably a bit grown up.

There were some alarm bells. Bits that didn’t add up. Warnings from friends. Differences she told herself were strengths in the relationship rather than weaknesses…

Hindsight is a funny thing, isn’t it?

So is advice.

So here’s the bits I think I could say that maybe I could have heard. That maybe could soften some blows, or inform some better decisions or reactions… at least help 20 year old me develop some tools to deal better with the stuff coming down the line.

1. Always write on bananas in biro before you eat them

It’s a weirdly satisfying thing. Do it. Find a banana and do it now.

In fact, just take pleasure where it comes in all small things, and stop to appreciate them. Warm socks. Belly laughs. Purring. Spinning until you’re dizzy.

(Also, there may also be something coming called ‘Brexit’ that may or may not affect banana prices and supply. Enjoy them while you can).

2. Listen to your instincts

I know you think you’re instincts are sheet hot. Well they aren’t and they are. But only if you listen to them and don’t get lost in other people’s, well… advice.

But please keep reading.

Shut your eyes. Centre yourself. Find your strength, your energy, your core, and channel it at your choice.

You’re usually right.

3. Be your own person, not who you think you should be, or you think others want you to be.

You’re actually pretty cool.

Also, learn to take a compliment.

4. Stop worrying what other people think

Sorry love, not everyone is going to think you’re cool. Not everyone is going to like you. That’s okay. Let it go. (This will be a hit song!) Yes, I know you’re really nice. Yes, I know you get a buzz out of making people respond to you and creating harmony.

But it turns out harmony isn’t everything, and nor is being liked.

Defining yourself by other people doesn’t work. Define yourself from the inside out, not the outside in. As long as you like you, you’re #winningatlife. (This is a hashtag, useful for mini-blogging, coming soon!)

Just keep hold of the bits you like best, that make you you, and try not to lose them along the way.

5. Face conflict head on

Avoiding conflict is going to impact every relationship you will ever have, romanticly, professionally, platonically.

Sometimes people will behave towards you and others in ways you don’t like. Ignoring the problem, placating, pacifying, pretending it’s not that bad, looking the other way, all of these have a price.

Work out what your boundaries are.

There will be things that are best let go for the greater good or the bigger picture. There will also be things you need to stand up for, and to.

6. Don’t be afraid of anger

Feeling anger is okay. Expressing anger can be okay, too. It doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t make you unstable, or volatile.

It makes you a person with feelings and the ability to process them. Congratulations!

7. Feel all the feelings

You know what? It’s not just anger. Feel ALL the feelings. Burying them will hurt you.

I know keeping emotionally steady feels safe for you. I know sometimes the big feelings come out in ways you don’t like and are trying to forget – in obsessive thoughts and routines and physical pain you inflict on yourself.

But choosing not to feel things, to self anaesthetise your emotions with bland routine and a veneer of normality (not to mention the drugs and alcohol), is masking what’s real.

And what’s real is beautiful as well as scary.

8. Ask questions

Keep curious. Don’t pretend you know what something is if you don’t. Everyone is making it up as they go along. No, they really, really are. Even the important people. Yes, even the Doctors. And the politicians.

Terrifying isn’t it?

Ask all of them questions. And ask questions of yourself. Keep asking even when you become annoying.

9. Keep learning and growing

Want to stop making things up as you go along? Know stuff. Follow the stuff that interests you. Read. Create. Expand.

Soon you’ll be able to do this on your phone! Using the interweb! Wherever you go!

10. Keep moving

I know you hate exercise. I know you’re traumatised by years of wearing industrial-strength-navy-blue-knickers and no sports bra and being forced to run (and consistently lose) stupid races round a track with all the boys in the middle fully clothed in cricket whites and staring.

But moving is good for you. It makes your body and mind feel great.

And running is good if you’re wearing a proper sports bra (invest in this!) and not doing it in giant humiliation pants. Honest.

11. Tend friendships

Connection is what connects you to everything, and tending friendships is key.

Look for the ones that you can show all your faces to. The ones that you don’t have to perform for. The ones who let you be more than one thing, have different moods, meet you in different guises, for different activities. The ones that show up at 3am if you’re lost. Physically or emotionally.

Don’t mistake colleagues or drink buddies for true friends. When the brown stuff hits the cooling device they won’t be there.

12. Look for people’s gaps

This is the real trick to identifying the true friends. Don’t let people tell you who they are, let them show you.

And if the two don’t match up, think about why, and what that means.

Look for your own gaps too. Be the person you want to be, and the friend you want to have. Show up. Keep you word.

13. Don’t forget family

You’re building your life. It’s exciting. There are so very many possibilities and opportunities. There are also dark times. When these come, your family (and a few of the really good friends) are the ones who will pick up your pieces.

Treasure them.

14. Keep up your hobbies

Find a way to do what you love, and don’t get distracted by the meaningless bells and whistles of life… or the damn TV.

Top tips: Give up soaps. There’s going to be a lot of random plane crashes/explosions/affairs/deaths that make literally no narrative sense. Meanwhile, watch out for the rise of the Super Series! Don’t watch ‘Lost’. Do watch ‘Game of Thrones’.

15. Remember you’re beautiful

No one is looking at your damn spots.

You’re not in the least bit fat and I can’t believe you’re worrying about it, because you’re gorgeous. Jesus, I wish I looked like you.

Wear the short skirt. Wear the crop top. Enjoy your body. It’s going to do AMAZING things. Try loving it.

16. Say yes

Say yes to the night out, the trip, the experience, the everything.

17. Say no

Learn to say no if you need to protect your boundaries. No isn’t a negative. It can be a strength.

18. Don’t save things for best

Look, stop saving stuff for best. It’s not the 1950s.

I don’t care if it’s evening wear, trust me, you soon won’t be going out as much, and you should just wear it everyday if you love it. No, it won’t wear out. That’s really not a thing. It’ll go out of fashion first. It’s just your Mum talking, because she is from the 1950s. She’s old, like, over 40, what does she know???

Apart from shoes. They do wear out. Get them reheeled and save yourself a fortune.

19. Be honest

Sometimes, you lie.

You lie to put people at ease, to create a relationship – sure I know that book/show/place. You lie because you don’t feel like you’re enough without embellishment. You lie to yourself because you can’t face feelings, conflict, pressure, decisions, even the truth.

You lie because you are hiding, from so much.

You don’t need to do this.

20. Check who you are

These are the questions you should be asking yourself. Are you someone you like? Are you someone you recognise? Are you being the best you, the very truest version of you?

Check in with yourself every now and again. And make changes if you can’t answer yes.

21. Expect the unexpected

There will be stuff. You can handle the stuff.

You are far, far stronger than you think you are.

22. Everything will be ok

Spoiler alert! It all works out in the end. Everything will be ok.

I promise.

Looking back at this list, BUGGER 20 year old me. That beeyatch can fend for herself!

All of this is the advice I need RIGHT NOW.

Maybe this is the year I’ll start to take it.
Maybe this is the year I’ll learn the lessons of half of a lifetime.
Maybe this is the year I’ll start to live them…

If you’ve got some advice to add to my list, I’d genuinely love to hear it.

I’m now officially old enough to try and transcend the Grandmother Paradox, and learn something from those who’ve gone before me.

I hope.

World Mental Health Day, Baby Loss Awareness Week, International Day of the Girl

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Love and sex, mental health, Miscarriage, Motherhood, Parenting, Postnatal depression, Pregnancy, Returning to work

≈ Leave a comment

So this week it was World Mental Health Day, Baby Loss Awareness Week, and International Day of the Girl.

For me these are all sort of related. And I’ve struggled to say one thing about any of them.

I think being a girl brings with it particular mental health challenges. I suppose they start with hormonal imbalances… and power imbalances. Expectations, from others and then from yourself. Pregnancy, pregnancy loss, baby loss, infertility, post birth PTSD, post natal depression, the whole-life upheaval of motherhood, shaped by both biology and society.

Life batters women’s bodies and minds and it’s supposed to be normal but when it’s you it’s not – and the thwarted expectation of normal is probably the hardest of them all. It feels like there’s a conspiracy of silence around being a girl, that minimises our pain, and leaves women very much isolated as a result.

We’re not supposed to tell anyone we’re pregnant until 3 months, becuase early miscarriage is just a thing that happens and should be gotten over, and God forbid it might make others uncomfortable.
We have to grieve our losses, appropriately, in private, at the correct volume, for the correct duration or we are unstable, hysterical, need to get over it now, have you considered taking up a new hobby?
We’re supposed to live with the pain of endometriosis because that’s normal and we should stop complaining when the decorators are in, it can’t be that bad.
We’re not allowed to address or even process a traumatic birth because at least the baby is healthy and that’s the main thing, isn’t it?
We can’t say how awful and hard and boring our new baby is because that’s ungrateful and some people would kill to be in your position, you know – you don’t deserve to be a mother.
We can’t share the thought the baby would be better off without us, in case they take it away.
We can’t say we are struggling – with motherhood, work, life, our marriages and relationships, with crippling loneliness and disconnection because that’s failure, other people are doing it all, look at the Facebook pictures.
We can’t talk about waking up in the middle of the night terrified the baby has stopped breathing, even when they’re 8, living the worst case scenario in our heads and fighting off crippling fear every waking moment of every single day – of which there are too many – in case the world thinks we’re mad, because maybe we are.

And those silences leave women alone in their heads. They leave women’s mental health untreated. They leave too many too normal things a taboo.

If there’s anything that I’ve learned about my own mental health, over the years but particularly recently, it’s that you need to be able to feel your feelings. They are not wrong. Ever. No one else should tell you how to feel, when, for how long, or how to express it.

Not feeling a feeling, suppressing it, denying it, trying to shape it to fit someone else’s expectations, replacing it with another feeling like anger instead of fear or sadness – turns it dark. And it will eat you up from the inside out.

We owe it to ourselves – and to each other – to come out of hiding. To say the things we’re afraid to think out loud. To share our pain, so it is heard and we are witnessed, and so that others can find comfort in the mirror of their own feelings.

I suppose really, that’s what this page has become about. It’s a bit about motherhood, sure. It’s a bit about mental health. It’s a bit about being a girl. But mostly it’s about truth. It’s about not being afraid anymore. And stepping out of the shadows.

No photo description available.

The Gas Light

28 Saturday Sep 2019

Posted by in Divorce, mental health, Motherhood, Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

Gaslighting has become a bit of a millenial buzz word, and it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.

I think a lot of people don’t really understand what it means, what it looks like, why it matters, why it’s so hard to deal with, how it relates to wider abuse – or even if it’s actually happening to them or someone they know.

And it’s not just about personal relationships, it’s bigger. It’s about politics, women’s rights, #metoo, and more…

And sometimes when something is big and complicated and hard and I’ve been trying to sort it out in my head for a long time it comes out as a poem.

And that’s not always a good thing, because they can be harder for people to connect with, but if you’ve ever wondered what gaslighting sounds like or feels like then maybe this will help.

Thanks to all the women on this page, and in personal messages, who have shared their stories with me. You’ve certainly helped me.

xx

The Gas Light

when it’s lit, you don’t notice
a fire sitting under a potted frog
did you forget again? silly

it doesn’t illuminate, it obscures
sucking up light and clarity
consuming your spark and turning it dark against you –
but that didn’t happen, I never said that
the gas starts invisible, odourless but poisonous
a mist of missed marks, misunderstandings, mistakes, failed tests,
that’s okay, I forgive you

the canary sent in ahead is long dead
and a colour you second guess yourself used to be yellow
but now can’t be sure if you saw it at all,
because you’re being over sensitive

and maybe the red of the red flags is just menstrual,
are you on your period or something?
you’re overwrought, did you take your pills?
you need to chill

because up is down and down is up
and black and white come in stripes of static
and logic defies gravity but you are always wrong, somehow,
and everybody thinks you’ve lost the plot
I cannot deal with you when you get like this
it’s not normal

beginnings and middles and ends and causes and effects get muddled,
and you’re falling
down the gap between words and actions and stories and evidence,
befuddled,
and at the bottom of the trap are spikes
you’re talking crap, I’m the one being reasonable
you’re behaving like a fucking terrorist

because beneath the gaslight smoke are mirrors –
no, you’re controlling, YOU abuse ME
look you’re gaslighting me, now, can’t you see that?

and you can’t see so you close your eyes to clear them
but it’s the only peace you’re allowed
and you’re so tired maybe you should just keep them shut,
like your mouth,
you’re being paranoid you need to get a grip
are you thick? don’t be ridiculous

and as the gas light turns up things just get dimmer, diminished,
no one else would put up with you
you’d be nothing without me – less –
and maybe, maybe nothingness would feel like relief

and it scales all around you blocking escape
I grabbed her by the pussy but that’s not assault it’s your fault I’m like this
and 350 million lies on a bus means nothing don’t fuss,
look at me I’m a good guy, I’m trying here, it’s you

and what do you do if everywhere bare-faced truth isn’t true
and alternative facts before your eyes are/aren’t presented as lies
and in the eyes of the beholder, bolder is realer than real
and swagger sways, pays well, and steals actuality
and whatever you feel is a betrayal, a pale imitation of you
that will always lose but you’re the one that’s confused
an unreliable witness unfit to think your own thoughts
your mind undermined
tricked by a ruse in a rose that you chose
you made me do this
why are you like this?
what’s wrong with you?
what the fuck is wrong with you NOW?

and the cycle of create, stipulate, manipulate, capitulate, abate and wait
for it all so start again, starts again –
flaring in the black the gas-light is back
throwing shadows into the future long and low
no one’s going to believe you, I argue better
you’re a psycho

and you will host ghosts inside
because you can’t hide from the fact that secretly you will always believe –
even if you’ve managed to retrieve something of yourself from the fog –
you will still ask, was it me? is it me? is it me?
maybe I am the mad dog, after all?
pass

and in your heart of hearts there will always crawl doubt,
lit by him
fuelled by gas.

The scribble trap

28 Saturday Sep 2019

Posted by in Divorce, mental health, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ Leave a comment

I didn’t think I’d ever be here. Right now.

I’ve been so focused on moving house, and getting the Small Small started at school, I didn’t really think about afterwards.

And here I am, staring down at the rest of my life from a precipice because I literally never envisaged a point beyond this one, and I feel like I’m teetering on the edge of a void.

I’ve been so stressed for so long and getting through and getting by that I literally can’t come to a dead halt.

And I’m worried that’s what’s going to tip me over…

Anxiety, you see, isn’t a straight line. Stress doesn’t have a neat beginning, middle and end. It’s more like one of those mad squiggle scribble drawings kids do, when you then colour in the spaces.

Red for rage. Green for fear. Blue for despair. Yellow for madness. Don’t let the colours touch, because if you do, doom…

The bit that SHOULD be the scribbliest bit is the bit when it’s happening, whatever the IT is that is the stress epicentre or focus of your anxiety.

But it’s not. It’s afterwards.

When you can’t come down or calm down. When your body is still in fight or flight at high alert but with nothing left to tackle or run from but ghosts, and too much in the tank to stop, and all for too long so it’s starting to take a physical effect on your sleep, and breathing, and hearing, and vision, and concentration, and weird aches and pains and blank patches as everything shuts down because it can’t keep going like that, but you can’t remember what normal operation looks or feels like anymore.

And you’re on the other side in theory but there’s nowhere to go, and nowhere to put it all.

You have to go from ‘Oh God, what NOW?’ To just, ‘….what now?’

And the unplanned nothingness is as vast and scary as all the vast and scary things real and imaginary you’ve been fighting and everything inside of you is still coiled but the enemy has changed, and might be inside of you too.

The thing with those scribble pictures is that no child has EVER FINISHED ONE. Have you ever noticed that? They are always discarded half done, and amongst the mountains of artistic offerings slipped furtively into the recycling by beleaguered parents.

I think if you’ve been living with that sort of mad-scribble anxiety or stress it doesn’t get finished, or unscrambled. You don’t get to follow a straight line again straight away, possibly ever. I think over time and with age you learn to make the loops bigger and easier to manage and fill in.

And maybe you remember, from childhood, that the next blank piece of paper is an opportunity for more prolific artwork, and not just a terrifying abyss.

I hope so, anyway.

In two minds

28 Saturday Sep 2019

Posted by in Divorce, Humour, Motherhood, Parenting, School

≈ Leave a comment

So my Small Small goes to Big School next week.

Well. Not next week, obviously, when the Big Small goes back. That would be too simple a September Childcare Challenge for the Working Parent!

Instead there is a week’s wait, the dreaded Teacher Home Judgement Visit, and then an interesting series of several hours in and around not including and then including lunch, followed by half days and, in theory only, an ACTUAL start somewhere in mid-September, which may or may not exist as a moment in time. WHO CAN KNOW?

Gird.
Your.
Loins.
(And hoovers for the home visit).

But beyond Mild Exasperation/PANIC, there are a lot of other emotions churning under the surface as we reach what’s a heavy milestone for everyone, first or second time round.

In my case, the Small Small (as the name implies) is also the Last Baby.

And she got big far, far too quickly.

The start of school marks so many ends, so many lasts – and so many of them slipped past without me noticing them. Not really. Not enough.

The last Mummy/Small Small one-on-one day.
The last sling ride.
The last rendition of Row row row your boat (don’t forget to scream).
The last buggy trip.
The last playgroup.
The last pull-ups.
The last time I walk into a room to find her in her pants, half upside down with a leg stuck out at a funny angle, telling me “Mummy, this is one of my nastics”. (She says GYMnastics now).
The last day of nursery.
The last of the delicious, squidgy thighs.
The last of babyhood…

The last of being a Mum to really small Smalls – something that has defined me, changed me, broken me, and MADE me, over again, for 7 years.

And I am gut-wrenchingly empty at the thought of losing that, losing her, losing me, losing us.

I’m also filled with excitement.

I’m excited about what she’ll learn and do and bring home and observe and SAY.
I’m excited to see her grow and thrive and learn and read and write.
I’m excited to receive my first ‘I love you’ note – and my first ‘I hate you’ note.
I’m excited to have more hours to myself.
I’m excited about doing chores SOLO and EFFECTIVELY – without eating into evenings and weekends.
I’m excited about having more energy to be the parent I want to be.
I’m excited about taking time to write, and be, and SHOP AT ALDI.

I’m excited to become – magically and without conscious effort – that Mum who turns up at the school gate in full make-up and Active Leisure Wear, who drops off the perfectly turned out poppets ON TIME, and goes for a jog and possibly an Iced Latte, which I will suddenly like the taste of, as well as being able to actually run without sweating all the make-up off, and as well as suddenly owning actual items of lycra that were manufactured AFTER 2003.

THIS WILL HAPPEN AUTOMATICALLY DAMMIT DON’T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME.

I’m excited about the freedom, what I’ll gain;
I’m terrified about what I’ll lose, set adrift.

And this, this mixture of feelings, this double view, this dichotomy, is very much my experience of motherhood.

Too often, I am two.

I am in two minds, I am both at once, I am opposites.
I am desperate for this long, long summer holiday to be over so I can get some routine back, and yet so conscious I only get 17 or 18 of them, if I’m lucky, these summers, and now she’s 7 I’m nearly halfway through with the Big Small and there isn’t anywhere near enough time left. There never will be.

I am desperate to touch them and feel their bodies against mine, and I want to be left alone in my own skin without being mauled, just for a minute.

I am love, so deep I can’t feel the bottom, and I am rage, so huge and ugly and mindless it scares the bejeezus out of me.

I am exhausted to the marrow of my bones, craving sleep all day, and too het up, too wired to drop off, too afraid of the next one.

I am enthralled by my children and SO DAMN BORED of the grinding monotony of parenthood.

I am happier and more fulfilled than I’ve ever been, and more desperately, hollowingly, harrowingly sad.

I dream of time by myself, my old life, the old me – and I wouldn’t change a thing, never want to leave them for a second, and hate it when Daddy weekends roll round so quickly.

I am all of these all at once, all ways, always, all days.

And it’s not just being in two minds.

There is a general and constant duality to motherhood, with the emphasis on DUEL – an eternal, internal conflict, double-taking, second-guessing, checking and re-checking, umming and ahhing, vacillating, a madness of options and choices and what-ifs and fears, and highs and lows and inconsistencies I can’t separate and won’t be boxed or contained or ordered.

Once, this was not the case.

I had one mind and it was SURE.
I had one feeling, and I knew it was TRUE.

There was black and there was white. Now there is gray and there is haze…

Being BOTH like this makes me feel like I am less, like I am less than I was, like I am nothing.

Nothing whole.
Nothing solid.
Nothing substantial.

Like nothing I do or say or think or feel is right or certain.

And it feels like there is no path forwards, just twisting, concentric, confusing circles of smoke and mirrors.

But I’m trying to remember that both, by mathematical definition (as the Smalls starting school are soon to learn), is actually MORE.

By being and feeling and thinking everything all at once, I am more.

With my double vision and double heart I have more empathy, I can see more angles, find more solutions, create more patterns. Conceive more beauty.

Being both doesn’t make me nothing;
It makes me everything.

(Just possibly not Hyper Groomed Jogging Mum on the School Run).

Motherhood split me in two, twice, literally from the c-sections, and figuratively in so many other ways, so many other times.

And I am only just learning that this didn’t break me. It multiplied me. Like an amoeba – an aMUMba! And that is a type of success, a type of power. A type of immortality…

And as I am both again, in two minds over the Small Small’s school start, I also know I will continue to grow through this new division, and the next.

I CAN be both. It does not make me mad, or less, or stupid, or confused.

I can be EVERYTHING, at once.

I can divide, and conquer.

I am MORE than I was.

And so are you.

The Weeble Plan

28 Saturday Sep 2019

Posted by in Divorce, mental health, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ Leave a comment

The other day I discovered, through a process of rigorous self analysis (not really), that I Am Not A Barbie.
I am a Weeble.
(I’m probably not a Marshall Weeble, but this is all I happen to have in my weeble-repertoire).
I am a Weeble because, much to my surprise, I get back up, again and again, after every knock that leaves me reeling.
And there’s been a good few.
The only problem with the Weeble description is that it seems… involuntary.
A reflex.
The weighted marbles in my base (and I’m reliably informed that I have giant hips) forcing me upright.
But it isn’t.
It’s a choice. (Unlike the hips).

Sometimes, of course, it doesn’t feel like one.
It feels like there is very little choice but to keep going – especially when you’ve got to keep two Smalls going too, for instance. It feels like there are no options.
But there are.
You could throw in the towel, give up, stay in bed, abdicate. It’s an option – you’re just not succumbing to it.
So it IS a choice.
In fact, it’s more than that: it’s a Superpower.
Because if I have ever had any sort of Superpower at all, this – this is it.

It is the power of TRYING.

You see, I am not just forced back up by the inevitability of gravity.
I choose to shake it off, and start again.
Hit refresh.
Do it over.
Turn up again and again determined to make it work –
this time.
This time.

My superhero name, I think, would be Finnegan –
Finnegan Begin Again.
I would wear red, like Marshall, with a big F across my chest.
Every day I would get up ready and raring to try harder and do better.
And that’s exactly what I DO do, on a macro and micro level, in real life, right now. I just don’t wear the costume.
Every bad day when my anxiety has pounded me from the inside out, every day when I’ve got it wrong, in the wrong places or by the wrong amounts, every day I have to deal with more idiocy and control, or domestic disasters, every looooong day of summer with grumpy kids taking all the change out on me, every failure, every knock, every time – I go to bed making up my mind to do it right the next day.

I have been so concerned recently about the dangers of bringing the old crap me into my fresh start. But actually the old me is the Queen of fresh starts – or at least the Superhero.
She is less Girl, Interrupted and more Woman, Continuing. Or at least Weeble Continuing… Rolling back up, trying again.
The thing with Trying, as a Superpower art form, is that you’re not always successful. And rarely the first time. But that’s not the POINT of trying. The point is to show up. And show willing. That’s the (heavily weighted) bottom line. And that’s the BEAUTY of it.
The old me is the new me, every day. Or the potential of her. There isn’t just one fresh start: I can orchestrate a thousand – just through the power of trying.

They say the Lord LOVES a tryer.
They also say that the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.
And I think that has in the past been my Achilles heel. My kryptonite. Finnegan’s flaw…

Even my ex knew I was a trier.
When I told him, during the mechanics of our breakup, that I got up everyday and tried to make us a family and tried to make everyone happy, he told me he’d seen me do that. It’s just that, by then, he wasn’t interested in doing anything but watching.
Sometimes, I’ve had to learn, you can try TOO hard.
Sometimes you can force things, and break them.
Sometimes, you can be fixated, in a rut, grinding through a groundhog day of awfulness because you can’t see any other way, or any other choice but to put your head down and plough through.
And then try it again.

I hit that magic reset button too often.
Instead of learning from my mistakes, I made the same ones.
Instead of spotting patterns that were damaging me, I kept turning the paper over to a blank sheet. I kept starting with me. Starting again. Assuming I just needed to try harder to make it better. Doing it over.
I missed important signs.
Hell, I missed the writing on the wall, drawn by my own hand.
By going back to factory settings I erased too much – eventually even parts of myself.
My Superpower became my downfall.

I suppose that’s the trouble with the whole weebling thing. Sure, it’s kinda handy. But a Weeble doesn’t just go down and up again. It spins around. And when you come back up you’re disorientated, and you don’t know which way you’re facing, or where to turn, or what is true, and constant, and real. It is all too easy to become confused. It is easy to do the same thing, the same way, the next time. And every time after. Because your head is still spinning and your heart is still lurching and you can’t see or don’t know any other way. And you hold on to too little, too hard, for too long, because that’s the way the manufacturers designed you.

Sometimes – not often – you have to STOP trying.
Sometimes, you have to stop flogging a dead horse.
Sometimes, you have to stay down, for a moment, a beat.
Sometimes you need to regroup.
More times than all of those put together, you need to get back up and try something NEW.

So, fellow Weebles. Keep on weebling. Do it with deliberation, with intent.
Don’t let yourself believe it’s just happening to you. You are CHOOSING to get back up, every time, every day.
And it IS a Superpower.
Now you just have to choose what you do when you get there.
And you have to avoid the Tryer’s Trap…

When you begin again, don’t go back to the beginning.
When you reset, don’t rewind.
Iterate.
Learn.
Grow.
Build.
Continue.

Bring your effort and your energy to the front and centre, and let it centre you.
And then go from THERE.
Go forwards.

At least that’s my new Weeble Plan.
And maybe one day I’ll start to enjoy the roll and the ride again, and not just endure it.