COMING BACK TO LIFE

I went rollerblading today - and fell on my bum. 

The soreness is a reminder of my new get-up-and-go attitude to life, having replaced my can't-be-bothered oh-god-not-another-day malaise. 

Thank goodness I feel that I want to partake in life again. 

It's a whole new me.  

For most of my last six years, I've allowed pregnancy, post-natal recovery and childrearing to consume my life. I've been lost in a bubble of baby chaos. 

I've had an undiagnosed underactive thyroid brought on by pregnancy that has left me exhausted from dawn til dusk.

I've had no life myself. I've not known what to do with myself other than just survive the baby days. I've had no plan for the future. I've just plodded along, wishing away the days until the kids were a bit older, a bit more maneagable, and wishing my energy would return.

At last, finally, they are a bit more maneagable. 

And my health has recovered. My thyroid tablets seem to work.

Hurray, I feel like I'm finally getting my LIFE back. 

I've got so much going on at the moment. I've got a two-year-plan. I'm going to do a start your own business course and get involved in a couple of things. Things are getting back to some semblance of life. 

The problem is, grumble, grumble, the kids still steal and suck up so much of my time. Those pesky kids; the same ones who are whining at me now because I'm sat down and I'm not in servant mode. Am I a bad mum to want something more than just the kids?

To want to feel like a person again, not just a mum?

To put on a movie and give them popcorn during the day to buy myself quality time at the laptop?

A few precious minutes before the next unreasonable demand or the next scream from the one that's been hit or fallen over whilst doing acrobatics off the sofa.

That's what parenting's all about; pockets of time. Snatching those pockets and trying to make the most of them. Right now, I think I'm doing well, but goddammit there's just not enough hours in the day!

Here's what I'll fit into the next few weeks:

• Looking after 3 kids (aged 1, 3 and 5), school pick ups, playdates etc
• Designing a website for my husband's new business
• Co-ordinating and running a branch of the Irish Childbirth Trust, Cuidiu, which includes chairing the AGM
• Producing the quarterly newsletter for Cuidiu
• Heading to Dublin to train as an antenatal teacher 
• Writing freelance articles
• Trying to update my blog more than once in a fortnight
• Trying to develop my blog into something that gives me a little something back
• Attempting to keep husband happy, which means switching off tech/iphone when he comes home
• Fitting in friends and groups  
• Planning a few days away for us at Easter
• Writing a short story
• Painting a picture of a lotus flower
• Doing a start your own business course
• Going into business with a friend to set up an after-school club
• A few nights out with hubby and friends

Phew!

And the good news is, I'm no longer wishing my days away. 

I'm just wishing for more time.

And I can't wait to go rollerblading again...




 

SO IT'S 2013...

I was trying to write a blog post all over Christmas and new year.

I failed because the kids were around constantly. Or when my husband was home I felt we should do 'family' things together. 

I failed because I went very internal and hibernated in my own head. I didn't want to do anything other than dumb down and watch inane movies on TV. 

Sound familiar?

My brain feels suitably dead going into this new year.

A new year that is supposed to bring me success as I get back on my feet to work again. On a good day, the baby doesn't need me so much and the other two are in school/playschool every morning.

2012 was a year characterised by the kids outshouting me in the household with the noise levels reaching a point where my ears ring all the time now. 
It was the year when chaos reined in our household - yet I learned to embrace it... sometimes... [See Embracing The Chaos]
  
Other times, I still yearn to curl up into a ball and hide away from their wildness. It still gets overwhelming, at times, having three very loud and lively kids.

That's what it was like over Christmas - when everyone disappeared into internal family walls and my normal social supports weren't available. Home alone, husband working, no school to stimulate the kids, long wet days of just me and 3 buzzing kids in our small house. Argh!!

I have to raise my energy.

New year, new exercise regime... If only it wasn't so wet, so dark early, too many things to do, kids holding me back, excuses, excuses....

But one New Year's Resolution was reached last night: I went to a Toastmasters meeting. My intention for this year is to build a new sort of confidence in myself. To conquer my fear of public speaking, to connect my brain to mouth and to not be afraid of what other people think of me and my spoken words.

I don't know why I go to jelly when I'm speaking in front of more than one person, why my mouth dries up and why I'm suddenly not able to remember anything, but I do. And I always have done.

Years ago when I was working in London as a journalist, I would be asked to go on panels, radio or TV as an expert commentator. I reluctantly said yes to a few of them, thinking that the confidence I managed to adopt when I was interviewing people would carry me, but it didn't. The experience had me shaking with fear, petrified like a rabbit in the headlights, I stumbled, my voice went shaky and I couldn't even remember who I was. 

It still haunts me to this day and I still can't listen to my voice when it's recorded.
 
This fear held me back. I would avoid media exposure roles after this. Eventually I left London and national newspapers behind when I moved to Ireland to start a family, but it's always been something that I wanted to overcome. 

Motherhood has given me more confidence in myself, but I still can't connect my thinking brain to my mouth in matters of talking about myself or telling stories. Years of being shy and introspective as a child still linger, despite an outward persona of being confident and open. 

I was a shy child

So I'm on a mission to change this. At 40 years of age, I'm trying to re-set the foundations of me that don't function anymore and redefine myself as someone who CAN do things. Who CAN do anything. 

I like being 40. It's liberating. It's giving me permission to reinvent myself and be young again, to live again, after the five hardest years of my life making babies. 

Watch out world, here I come....

But seriously, this is what the blog is all about. It's about typing and not knowing what I'm thinking until it's been typed and appeared as a stream of consciousness on the screen. I'm good at connecting brain to hand - and just typing until I find some kind of sense in my thoughts. It's about giving my brain space to think and download, so that I can clear the decks for other important things. 

If I can learn to public speak, then that flow might extend to brain to mouth, without all the need to write it down in the middle. 

Does this make sense?

I've been questioning recently the point of my blog. The external versus the internal. Whether anybody is reading or cares about what I'm saying. The danger in revealing too much. The dirty laundry appearing in public. The kids becoming public property.  

There is a fine line between the personal and the private in all these days, especially with everybody Twittering on. I aim to keep that boundary between the personal and the private. But I also need to discover myself in my blog - and I'll only do that by being honest and writing regularly.  

So it's Back to the blog for me. Back to life. Back to trying to be more external because it's better that way. 

I am not an island. I am woman and I have a voice. 

And this year I'm going to learn to use it.

Will I blossom?

LIFE BEGINS....

Something happened on Saturday that I'm still getting my head around. 

I became a 40-year-old mum of 3.

When it's written down and you don't know the person, it sounds like they're over-the-hill and dowdy. 

Many a time I've heard a news piece mention a 40-year-old mum of 3 and never imagined that description, which for some strange reason conjurs up images of someone past their prime, as ever being applicable to me.

I've been re-calculating (as our satnav says) ever since.  

The reality is I FEEL GREAT. I feel young in my mind - what's 40 supposed to feel like anyway?

I've got cards sitting on my mantlepiece saying "Fabulous at 40"... "Flirty and 40"... "Life begins at 40"...

Why is there such a big stigma attached to decade-birthdays?

I feel seasoned. Well-rounded. Mature. Comfortable. 

I think I look younger than 40. But then what does 40 look like anymore? I'm the same generation as Kate Moss and Cameron Diaz, and they're looking fab at 40. Not that I've ever compared myself to them - or even viewed them as role models (I've always been too much my own person for that, thankfully).

Me this weekend, away in Girona, celebrating my 40th

I feel that I have the ability to be wise - and the confidence FINALLY to tune into how I'm feeling and stay with it, not changing it for anyone. I feel that turning 40 is suddenly making me feel very solid. I know myself now. I know what I'm capable of. I know how to achieve what I want. And I'm not going to take any shit anymore.

I'm not entirely sure what I want to acheive in the next decade, but maybe a move back into the workforce would be a good idea, given that I've earned nothing in the last 5 years! Designing a CV is currently high on my list of things to do in the next few weeks.

Having 3 kids in 4 years gave me confidence I never knew I had. I had to dig deep and find reserves not yet discovered such as extreme patience, operating at rock-bottom energy, taming mama rage, utter exhaustion, despair and overwhelm. But once I found a way of weathering the storm each time I came out of it stronger, more balanced than before, learning from my mistakes and able for whatever else the kids could throw at me.

My babies are now nearly 5, 3 and 1 and thanks to school and Thyroid energy pills, I finally feel I'm getting my life back.

Writing this blog has brought me out of myself in the past six months. I was feeling very "internal" before. I knew I needed to be more "external" to get through the feelings of being overwhelmed by 3 screaming smallies (these were the words I was using to Hubby) and that involved downloading my story into a Blog, to smooth the choppy waters of parenting and give me insights into my daily misadventures in mama-hood. 

It has given me a creative outlet which along with my painting, has given me sanctuary away from the kids. 

It has given me the opportunity to re-connect with myself and a whole new audience and e-buddies out there - and getting to grips with new tech such as Twitter which caught me offguard when I was in the baby bubble. 

I think I've finally found the right balance in life. 

So yeah turning 40 rocks! 

It's all good.

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