Giving up in 2014

I hate this time of year. The no-man's land between Christmas and New Year. It's not that I specifically hate the days. They are often lovely and full of fun and relaxation and a wonderful "nothing to do" vibe. But it also has that sense of approaching doom for me of another year beginning. Think the soundtrack of Jaws...

It has not always been this way. I am naturally a lover of all things fresh and new and full of possibility. I am a planner by nature and used to love to think about what I would be doing in the coming year. But over the last decade or so I have become jaded and frankly completely afraid of facing the new year as appears on the horizon.

You see, reflecting on the past year and planning for a new one is like cocaine for a perfectionist, planner with unrealistic expectations, such as myself. I guess for an alcoholic the New Years party creates its own share of temptation and risk. And for me, the list of resolutions has grown to become something I run from. This is where the alcoholic analogy falls over completely so please disregard any connection from here on.

Imagine loving to plan but becoming fearful that all a plan becomes is a trap to throw myself into and live in for the rest of the year. If I follow the plan I am "good", if I don't I am a failure. And the plan itself is only based on whatever felt important at the time I wrote it. Oh and it was written by a perfectionist with unrealistic expectations so it was also completely impossible and detailed and really was a set up for failure from the beginning. Add to this not just a plan, but specific goals that deal with specific things I want to do EVERY SINGLE DAY!

So in reaction to the obvious flaws in the above approach, I stopped goal setting, planning or really expecting anything. At least officially. I was and remain a very harsh critic and the expectations, whether written or not, still float around in my head as some kind of yard stick of "living well". Unfortunately this has led to me losing some of the joy I do find in looking forward to the future.

When I was a teenager and couldn't get to sleep I used to daydream until it turned into real dreams and I drifted off. My daydreams would be about actual things I was looking forward to or hopes and dreams I had about the future. I often thought about what my life would be like when I "grew up". This usually meant move out of home, go to Uni, get a job etc. This was the stuff which reminded me while I struggled through the angst of teenage-hood, that there was another age and stage around the corner where I would be able to make more choices, have more freedom and maybe the self confidence to be the someone I was sure I was, hidden under my insecurities and awkwardness.

And I have to say my 20s were a lot like that. My dreams didn't quite come true but I loved the decade as I grew into myself and made so many wonderful friends. I became more comfortable about who I was. But it still was never enough. Each New Year approached and I would try again. Often the same goals rewritten with a twist for 2002 or a focus on something which was becoming more important to me at the time. But every year I looked back and was disappointed in myself. After a while I stopped. Why do something which makes me feel so bad even if at its heart, I wanted to make my life better?

However, it seems this year that there is a change in the air. This week I have felt so exhausted as the weight of how hard the white knuckle ride of the last 6 months has been. I honestly feel that hibernating for 6 months is required for me to ever venture beyond my front door again. And so I find myself thinking that I better make a plan. This time the plan is not to improve myself, well not in the usual sense. I think this plan could be more about avoiding breakdown.

I think I need a plan to work within my capacity, to treat myself as fragile and to recognise that this body I am in and the person I am will actually fall apart both literally and figuratively if I keep living like I am. I am still allergic to the idea of goals and feel the tentacles of perfectionism beginning to tickle my ankles even as I stand paralysed this side of January 1st 2014. This plan will not be about being "better" or "improvement". It will be about weakness and vulnerablity, saying "No, I can't manage to do that". And being able to sit with my imperfection. I say I believe in a God who loves me as I am and has made me in his image. I say I believe that I am forgiven for anything and everything I could ever do or have done that would hurt myself or anyone else. I say I love others because I can see how fearfully and wonderfully we all are and how precious we are. But somehow I seem to think and behave as if none of the above applies to me. And this year I plan to give up. Give up on trying so hard to do things that don't matter and leave me in a pit of self loathing hiding under my duvet.

Hopefully the plan can remain a relief and not a noose around my neck. There is a glimmer of hope here but so many roads that still lead down the path of not-good-enough and unacceptable. I wonder if I can create a new path. I pray I can cause this one is a dead end. Pun intended.

The grass is always greener. Always...

So we are at the end of "the weekend of tonsillitis". It was a weekend of paracetamol, throat lozenges, tissues and tag team parenting. George and Ella had a cold at the beginning of last week. Ella shook it but George's developed into tonsillitis with a dose of ear infection thrown in. Poor baby. Blocked and running nose, watering eyes, sore throat and fever. I succumbed on Friday and on Saturday I had a headache that threatened to push my brain out my cranial orifices ( hyperbole is totally allowed when ill). Hubby succumbed on Saturday and was in the thick of it by Sunday. Thankfully it was the weekend, and our suffering was staggered so that one of us could be horizontal while the other maintained feeding and watering children, laundry, dishes and comforting of very unhappy wee man.

It is at times like this weekend that I think "Why on earth did we have children?!"
I mean, when you feel sick it is not unreasonable to feel a little regret that the days of feeling sick and being able to stay in bed and get better are over, at least for the forseeable future. My perspective fails to acknowledge there is a horizon or that kids grow up when I am feeling this way. By Sunday I was feeling more chipper and while hanging out the 5th load of laundry for the day, I realised that wishing I was at another stage of my life really has nothing to do with the specific situation I faced this weekend, it is more of a habit and fact of how I think.

I always think the grass is greener in someone else's life. Our neighbours are an excellent example or this and a constant reminder of how it could be or will be. We love our neighbours on both sides. On one side we have a couple in their 40s with late teen kids. They are doing some home improvements at the moment. New kitchen and solar hot water heating. When I hear the Mum yelling at her kids it is usually about midday and she wants the lawns mowed. She has trouble waking her kids. I have trouble getting mine to sleep.

On the other side are a younger married couple who bought the house soon after we bought ours. They both have good jobs and have a couple of flat mates to help pay the mortgage. They all are a busy, going to the beach, going camping, going mountain biking, to music festivals and having parties. They leave the house when they want, sleep in at the weekends and generally burn the candle at both ends. We often share meals with them and I don't think we give the best impression of life with preschoolers. One commented on the amount of laundry on our line, another on the fact she got home late from a party and heard hubby asking Ella rather the forcefully to please "Do a wee, just do a wee" at about two in the morning. They told a story about going to a one year old's party for a friend's child who has had the first baby in their social circle. "There were babies every where! They were all over the place!" Oh the shock, oh the horror. But as I heard them heading off to Laneway the other weekend, I admit, I was jealous.

But my lovely neighbours haven't caused these moments (or days) of wistfulness about the past or the future. I have become a professional admirer of other people's life stages and situations. Before we had kids I was just desperate to become a Mum and have our own. It got to the stage where I was certifiably obsessed. I mean, it was understandable. We had talked about kids and having a family for years before we got married and then finances dictated waiting a while longer so that my biological clock had moved from clanging to some kind of earthquake. That kind of wanting and waiting is really not healthy. And for those people who have to continue to wait and want, I have absolute admiration that they can keep on or the ability to have some balance and joy in life. I definitely was quite unbalanced. The lost and grief of losing our baby was piled on top of that.

Now I find myself with everything I ever hoped and dreamed of. A genuinely fantastic hubby who I joke about cloning and selling online because he is such a great model. I could make a fortune. A lovely home which we hope will be our forever home and a wonderful suburb which gives us a quality of life we can't really believe. And to complete the perfect picture, two beautiful kids who are a delight to watch grow and get to know.

But despite this it is still possible to look at the people around me and wish my life were different. While Ella and I were shopping yesterday I saw a dreadlocked guy sitting in STA travel. I imagined he was booking some exciting trip to an exotic destination and continuing his journey to see more amazing places and to discover more about himself. I started quickly calculating the cost of four round the world tickets and talking to Ella about visiting her godfather Paul, in Spain. But of course we couldn't do that. Young kids, mortgage, no money yada yada yada. Later on we saw the same guy. Except this time he was accompanied by his wife and toddler. Mmmmm maybe if you want to do something you should just do it Marion instead of assuming your life is so different from the guy with dreadlocks.

And I think that is what it comes down to. Whether by choice or chance, I am where I am. And I do love my life. There are always tough things about life. Some times are tougher than others. But at the moment anything I have to complain about is small and fleeting and kind of symptomatic of my age and stage. Nothing is massive or disastrous. Admittedly, some things are painful, especially the growing up and facing facts kinds of things. But I think most of us have those experiences.

Before I go and knock on every wooden surface in my home (paranoia anyone?), I am trying to focus being content and to appreciate my life as it is right now. It is hard when I am tired and sick and George is waking hourly at night cause he is still sick. But wishing I were 24 again or wanting to fast-forward to world trip in our twilight years has some pretty obvious draw backs. So focusing on my own green grass and being grateful. Cause I love my life and if I keep looking over the fence I might miss it.

A year I am proud of but never to be repeated

The last few weeks have been in stark contrast to this time last year and with the new year it is not surprising that I have found myself reflecting on 2012 and its impact on me. I have to say I am really proud of myself. It was a year full of challenge but also of me consciously taking on those challenges and coming out stronger with a new faith in my ability to deal with life and not succumb to the temptation of that dark pit that is depression. I definitely don't want to leave the impression that sheer will has led to this. Instead a combination of therapy, an awesome husband, family support and an amazing midwife, along with the decision to keep taking antidepressants, have all made this possible.
But in the end I chose to do these things. I chose wellness and to never go back to the horror of depression and stuck to it. I have had to make some really hard decisions to get here but I regret none of them.

Over the last year I have been in hospital three times, been really ill for the whole pregnancy with George, faced the terror of the prospect of a relapse of depression, planned to birth at home despite most people thinking I was "mental" and struggled with feeding George, eventually letting go of breastfeeding. And put my hubby and daughter through all of this too.

But I am so proud of me. I am proud of the tough decisions I have made but I have no regrets. I made decisions that were right for me and my family despite what others may think or what I may have wished for. I have had the courage to face my reality, to be honest about my fears and feelings and to stay present to what is happening right now in my life. I have had to face up to all my faults and weaknesses, many of which are still things I have to deal with every day. But through it all I really believed it could all be okay. I believed it without putting my head in the sand or leaving my life in the hands of others. I took responsibility for me and my baby and I am so proud of me.

The real test for me was the completely unexpected and very difficult time we have had with feeding George. I have had to accept that there is no "right" way and that the "best" thing to do is different in different situations. I have to look myself in the mirror and say I chose not to provide my son with breastmilk because the toll it would have taken was too high a price to pay for myself and my family and ultimately George.

Because in the end kids need parents who are ok, who are well enough to be able to loved and laugh and be present in their lives. And I am. I am well. I don't fear depression. I feel empowered to recognise the signs, to take the steps to be well and enjoy my life.

So 2013 is looking bright. I am enjoying each day as it comes. I don't have big plans this year. Just living life. Enjoying now. Cause I feel like I am living my dream. I have dreamed for so long of enjoying family life but ever since we lost our first baby that dream just seemed distant or even impossible. I thought I was faulty as a Mum and would never truly enjoy having kids. I would just learn to "cope" to "survive". Yes, I have had to learn to have more realistic expectations of myself and do less. But instead of feeling disappointed by that, I feel free. I can live how I choose without perfectionism being the monkey on my back.

So hear's to enjoying life and living. Being present in my life right now and celebrating all the simple everyday joys I appreciate so much, as I could have lost them all. And that is truly a miracle. Under all of this is God's constant faithfulness. I hope I can truly reflect the love I have been shown in my life and actions this year.

Bless you in 2013.

Loving laundry

I have always been the laundry go to person between hubby and me. He has put washing on a few times in the last 8 years, and has hung out plenty of loads. But I am the one with the strategic planning in my mind of how many loads on which days and whether they will be delicate, regular, sheets and towels, etc. I am also the folder. There are three loads waiting to be folded in the lounge while I write this.

And I actually love laundry. I used to love the folding and putting it away. Creating order, a fresh start, a job done. Now I like putting the loads on. Watching the huge piles diminish and the machine humming away. While I was pregnant I had to buy Persil again cause I couldn't cope with the "natural" smells of eco friendly laundry liquid. So I love walking past the cupboard the machine lives in and smelling the smell of "clean". But recently my absolute favourite bit is hanging the washing out.

Hanging it out takes a long time. And it involves lots of bending up and down. But I am alone - at least with a bit of personal space. I get to move and stretch. I can smell the air and the day. I have to squint into the sun and get up on my tippy toes to reach the line. It is a rotary clothesline which is stuck a bit too high for me. There is still the satisfaction of organisation (I am definitely not a fan of the random washing arrangements hubby seems to go for). I have rules I follow to try to fit as much on the line as possible and for it to dry as fast as possible. I get to look around the garden and see the bees flying in and out of the hives, the chickens scratching around and the veges growing. At the moment the "cherry on top" is looking to see if there are any ripe raspberries or strawberries. It sounds blissful, and it really is. I look around and see how over the last few years our dreams have unfolded from our minds and into our reality.

Ella loves to play in her ride on car and make up all sorts of games while I am pegging busily away. At the moment there is lots of talking to herself and her imaginary friends. I hear her talking like she is the mummy. Sometimes what she says is a little too close for comfort "Stop that Mafi!" (her imaginary friend). "You are not using your listening ears and I am getting cross". Mmm wonder who says that?

If George is awake, he doesn't quite have the stamina for a whole load of laundry. He sits in his bouncinet squinting a little at the outside, outside world. Funny how babies are born from inside tummies, to inside rooms, and then finally out into the outside world, especially July babies in New Zealand.

Hanging out the laundry reminds me of me. That I love being outside and being at home and growing things and all this life that is around me and that I am living is what I have wanted. And sometimes I forget that. Sometimes it all gets really overwhelming and I think "Is this really me? Am I in someone else's life? Has there been some terrible mistake and I am supposed to be somewhere else?"
But with pegs in hand, creating a little order in the chaos, I remember that I love it all - the everydayness and the ordinary of it. And that we are really living it. Living our dream. I might have a lot more scars - real and invisible - than I expected, but I am still essentially me. I can trust that, even when it feels like the ground is in constant motion and I am lost.

Laundry as meditation.