Attachment ParentingFeminismHighly Sensitive PersonThat's LifeWorking Mama
Monday, 30 December 2019
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The hardest words to say
Over the past year, life, as I knew and wrote about, has changed beyond recognition. There is no part of my former life left, except a few treasured items and, of course, the children.
So to put it bluntly, I tried and I failed.
I've said that a lot over the last year. I tried and I failed to be a wife. I tried and I failed to homeschool the children. I tried and I failed to hold down a high flying career without a partner. I tried and I failed to look after my mental health. I tried and I failed, more times than I will ever be able to count.
So what do you do with that? How do you take failure after failure and put yourself back together? How do you drag yourself back out of the mud after each gut punch to hold your head high?
That's not rhetorical, and I'm not asking for a friend, I'm saying these are the questions that go round my head day after day, punch after punch.
I want to spend some time going into each of the many cluster fucks of the last year, but there's time for that, and we've all just spent the festive season overeating, so I'm gonna keep the popcorn and schadenfreude quotient low on this return post. That said, I'm all about the spoilers, so here's my answer to my not so rhetorical question.
You just do.
You find that one thing that makes you smile today. You forgive yourself for the unending fuck ups as you learn how to be a new you. You lean on the people around you. You imagine new adventures.
Yesterday I changed my necklace from the one I have been wearing for years. That old necklace was one I bought during the worst parenting experience of my life and it reminded me that nothing would ever be that bad again.
Today I am wearing a pounamu that the children gave me last Christmas. It symbolises new beginnings. Give me some time and I'll share each of those new beginnings. I'll get brave again with my words. I'll feel safe in sharing my chaos.
I started writing this blog because I was going nuts trying to have a baby. I carried on writing because I was going nuts when I had three of them. Now I need to write because I have a crazy-ass life, no idea how I got here, and if I don't laugh about it with someone, years from now, none of you will get my epitaph even close to accurate.