In two minds

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 Final Straw

Hi. I’m Mumonthenetheredge, and this – this is the Final Straw.

It was the final straw when my boiler started tweeting.

Turns out a baby bird fell from a nest in the soffits down the cavity wall behind it. Me and the emergency gas engineer could see it’s little beak and open mouth – a brick’s distance away through a gap by the pipe – but we couldn’t get to it. We had to block up the hole and I had to wait for it to die. It took longer for it’s mother to stop calling for it.

WHY IS THIS EVEN A THING???

It’s the sort of special Thing that seems like it only really happens to me. Oh, and it also cost me £100 call-out fee for the priveledge.

It was the last straw when Catonthenetheredge finally found her inner hunter – and bought me my first present. I’ve since had a two dead mice, a decapitated sparrow, and a real LIVE blackbird who could NOT be persuaded I was trying to help it.

I mean really, God, HAVE THE BIRDS OF NETHER EDGE NOT SUFFERED ENOUGH???

It was the final straw when, although on board with the lesson that one must always say thank you for presents even if you don’t really like them, both Smalls now refuse to go downstairs by themselves in case they get given a bird.

(I have not told them about the one rotting in the wall. They don’t need to know this is a thing. Hell, I don’t need to know this is a thing).

It was the final straw scraping the underside of car on the curb in the world’s most spectacular parallel park fail. That’s going to cost. And the gas engineer got this month’s contingency budget…

It was the final straw spilling cream under the massive fridge freezer at the end of a long, long day. Milk may not be worth crying over, turns out cream defo is.

It was the final straw to get the letter from the tax man to say I owed them a *SHED* load of money because essentially I’m stupid and can’t adult. Or at least add. Which it turns out is the first two very important letters of adulting – and you DO need to learn it at school after all. (You were right Mr Donnolly!)

It was the final straw to carefully make all the beds – the superking twice as it’s impossible to tell which way round the stupid duvet goes – and then shut Catonthenetheredge (practising hunter concealment techniques) in the room overnight. Where she used the bed as a litter tray. And weed through the pillow. And duvet. And mattress.

Ever tried to get a soiled superking duvet cleaned? Don’t.

It was the final straw trying to shift stuff online (including the superking bed) that won’t fit into the new house, and having an idiot turning up for the six foot trampoline with a tiny Ford Fiesta and an over abundance of optimism.

It was the final straw being trolled by some OTHER eejit because another item I was selling went to someone he reckoned was further down the list from him – and he continued to kick off despite the fact I no longer owned the item in question. Because I needed a LIFE LESSON.

It was the final straw when the cottage pie exploded all over the oven I just got cleaned.

It was the final straw doing the 824th tip trip.

It’s genuinely taken me A YEAR of every-other-weekends to collate and cull 20 years worth of stuff. So now I know how long it takes to undo a lifetime, and frankly I think I’d rather know about the decomposing bird carcass behind the boiler…

It was the final straw putting all the things into boxes all by myself. There have been a lot of lonely moments in the last 20 months. This has been one of the loneliest. (On the other hand, I have also learned you should pack your music system last, because doing it in silence makes it even worse. Another life lesson!)

It was the final straw to find the toy boxes unpacked. Thanks kids.

It was the final straw when in contrast, my ex cheerily told the kids on speakerphone how my ex in-laws were at his new place helping them upack and putting up curtains. Because they did that for me three times. And I don’t have family in Sheffield. And I don’t get that this time. And sometimes it’s hard to be reminded of it.

It was the final straw when, upon being offered first dibs on the trampoline, he told me about his and ***Jessica’s*** plans for their new garden. Because I needed to know that.

It was the final straw to be screamed at by Big Small for daring to forget her school bags one day, ruining her life, and then to be further berated by Small Small for having to return with them 20 minutes later. Why did you do that Mummy? You’re a bad Mummy.

(The ingratitude and lack of empathy sometimes really is breathtaking, isn’t it? And no matter how many straws you’re not allowed to howl at them about all the things you do and go through for them).

It was the final straw to start weeing blood and having to go to and fro with urine samples for the right antibiotics, which then weren’t in stock at any local chemist.

Also, WHY DO THEY MAKE SMALL POTS SO SMALL THESE DAYS? These are not circumstances where I feel particularly like practising the aim of my urethra!!!!

It was the final straw to find both sets of solicitors believing the other one owes them information, and sitting merrily in their offices doing nothing and refusing to talk to each other.

It was the final straw to find a last minute covenant saying I couldn’t work from home from my new home, when I WORK FROM HOME FOR A LIVING.

(I know this is traditionally SUPPOSED to be one of the most stressful times of your life, but I can’t help thinking our archaic legal system and the ego of individual legal folks ISN’T BLOODY HELPING).

It was the final straw to be told my ex and **Jessica** have decided it’s now time for her to start attending school events.

It was the final straw seeing my Dad for the first time in months, suffering the side effects of chemo, looking older and iller than I’ve ever seen him.

It was the final straw hearing my Mum talk about what she’d do when he was gone.

It was the final straw watching Titanic for the first time ever, and thinking about what love ought to look like.

(I held out until bloody Celene started up at the end. Emotionally manipulative COWBAG).

And then every work email, every phone call, every text, every mishap, every chore, every DAY really starts to feel like the final straw – the one that broke the camel’s back.

As a child, I used to think that’s why camels had humps. That the straw had created the indent in between the two… And actually – that’s sort of how I feel. Like my back is bowing in the middle under hundreds of pressures little and big.

(Or that could just be the water infection reaching my kidneys – who can really tell?)

The thing is, that whatever flavour of brown stuff hits the fan – in big splats or tiny nuggets – it turns out I am not, after all, anything like a Barbie doll.

I’m a Weeble.

Because every time I get knocked – and there have been A LOT of knocks in recent times, going way beyond my current list of straws – I get back up again.

I reel, and I roll, and I’m as surprised as anyone to find myself popping back up, rocking to find my balance, going dizzily through the motions, steadying, readying to take the next hit.

And get back up after that one, too.

My superpower isn’t flying or invisibility or super strength – it’s better than that.

It’s endurance.

Increasingly, it’s resilience.

The straws don’t break me – even when I expect them to.

Instead, I am learning to take them and use them to build a new nest. A place of safety and nurture that starts inside MYSELF. One that will grow on the outside to create our new home, should we ever (please God) get into it. (Which we should, as we have now sacrificed enough birds).

It’s the nest on my inside that cushions each fall, and that provides ballast for the storms. It’s what means that when I wobble, I don’t stay down.

I’ll just have to be super-sure not to put it in the soffits above anyone’s boiler…

The Alt To Do List

Last weekend, I went to a GIG.

The last time I went to see someone play live it was probably Placebo, or Crowded House, back in their (and my) heyday.
Don’t judge me.

I’d genuinely forgotten how exhilarating live music is.

The beat through your feet, up into your heart, pounding in your head and ringing in your ears, the atmosphere of the crowd, the movement and mood created by lots of people in one space – none of them under 3 foot and demanding sole possession of the Ikea pink plastic cup.

For the first time in a long time, I felt ALIVE.

While NOT HAVING SEX.

Because actually, that’s something I struggle with.
(Remembering I’m alive – not not having sex).

There are very few moments in my life, right now, that are truly mine.

And I often find it hard to BE in them, when they come along.

There is always so much to be done, so many deadlines, so many responsibilities, so many interdependencies, that I end up living in a constantly ticking-over To Do list.

You’ve probably got your own List.

And sometimes, sometimes it takes over.

For me, when The List gets out of hand, it means my eye is always on what’s next, what’s got to happen before the next thing can happen, what adulting I need to tick off right now before someone starts yelling at me – from my boss, to the school office, to people who need their bills paid, to the children who need their tea/playdate/project/insert-random-Small-Person-goal-here.

Boy, adulting is TOUGH. And The List is relentless…

It’s particularly gruelling living under The List at the moment, because I’m trying to sell my house, and sift through 20 years of rubbish to downsize to a new one. It’s adulting on acid. And I DON’T KNOW if there’s drains or wires crossing the property. I CAN’T REMEMBER when we had the damn windows done, and if I have to make another tip trip halfway across the city I’m going to SCREAM. (Also if I meet any more mahoosive spiders in the garage).

There is also always washing to sort, bags to pack, forms to fill in, errands to run, chores to do, and places to be by certain times, hurry up, put your shoes on, WE’RE GOING TO BE LATE.

If I stop, The List just keeps piling up ready to break in at 3am, and whirl endlessly around my head.

Sometimes writing The List down can tame it.
Other times, it just confirms that it’s a really, really TWONKINGLY LONG LIST.

Right now, it’s like I am always on a countdown trajectory to bedtime, theirs and mine, going through The List of what needs to be done to get to the next day without getting into deep or difficult waters, and then starting all over again from the top. And never, ever reaching the end.

The trouble is, that in the thunder of doing, in my enslavement to The List, I miss out on LIVING.

I am too focussed on the next moment and the path to it, to enjoy the one I’m in. And even the nice stuff ends up feeling like things I’ve just got to tick off and move on from.

Watching the Dropkick Murphys gave me no choice but to be there and to FEEL.

The noise, heat, life, beat filled me up and pushed out everything else, buoyed me up, so I could just… be.

There was no room for The List.

And that’s something I need more of.

So this week I’ve been trying to remember the things that fill me up, that allow me to feel present, and happy, and ALIVE. All the things that transcend The List. And then to do more of them.

So here’s my ALTERNATIVE To Do List:

1. Listen to music
I don’t use it enough to change my mood and our mood as a family – and it’s right there on tap in my house. Yay Spotify! And when the roller coaster of TO DO is about to tip me over the edge, I’m going to use it.

2. Dance
I love to dance. At the moment I still have a big living room. I can PHYSICALLY shake off the weights pulling me away from the ‘moments’ I should be savouring. And I can teach the Smalls how to use it to do the same.

3. Have sex
Recently my go to solution for remembering I’m alive. 😉

4. Talk to friends
I forget so easily how much I enjoy being with other people. When The List gets too long I batan down the hatches and attempt to power through, go to bed and try and get enough rest in to tackle it the next day. I don’t go out, brainstorm, ask for help, or take respite in others’ company or experiences. I get such a buzz from connection, I just need to remember to… connect.

5. Writing
I’ve struggled to write in recent weeks. I’ve got so much to say, things I can’t say, thoughts I can’t form, and other things that just seem to take priority. Like packing.
But look, here I am getting over myself and just doing it without creating imaginary barriers!!! Go me. And it DOES make me feel more present.

6. Playing
I love to play. I’m probably the only person over 35 in the whole world who genuinely LOVES PLAY CENTRES.
Don’t judge me again.
But when there’s so damn much to do, playing too often goes to the very bottom of The List – if it makes it on there at all. Playing takes energy, and when all that’s going on the adulting, accessing your inner kid is HARD.
This week though, I spent an entire day with the Small Small getting ‘stuck’ speaking in nonsense every other time she kissed me. With a lot of wild gesticulation – and a LOT of laughing.

And that – that’s LIVING.

Not existing. Not listing – sideways, about to capsize.

The thing is, with The List, you see, is there ISN’T an end.
It’s a trick, to drown you.
And it LIES.

It helps perpetuate that nagging sense I’m not enough, not doing enough, not being enough, not achieving enough…

But when I get out from under it – when you get out from under yours – when you’re really present and really alive and really yourself, when you remember to let yourself fill up, and let that anchor you in the moment – you ARE enough.

And this last week I actually felt it – in Rose Tattoo in Birmingham, in a 4 year-olds laugh in the car, and in dancing to ‘Holding out for a Hero’ in the living room.

I felt it, and it felt wonderful.

So if you have currently lost yourself in a List, if you are sinking under its weight, try making a new one…

I’d love to hear what’s on it.

Happily Ever After – Disney style

At the beginning, it’s Once-upon-a-time
(Which everybody knows)
And then Happily Ever After comes –
And that’s it, it’s done, it’s closed!

But life is not a fairy tale
The end is just the start –
And it’s not a smooth eutopia
But the very hardest part….

Let’s take for an example
A tale of truest love –
A girl stuck in a castle
And a bloke with sword in glove.

Our Sleeping Beauty found her Prince
Post curse and spindle prick
(Though snogged asleep she’s mostly gained
A weird consent-blind d ck).

But what happened next to this odd pair
Now navigating life?
The adventuring necrophiliac
And his barely legal wife?

Does she stack the dishes the wrong way
Does he leave open every drawer?
Do they spat about who’s turn it is,
To mop the kitchen floor?

Are they drowning now in nappies,
And wishing fervently
For 100 years more blessed sleep
Without feeds at 12 and 3?

Is he spending too much time at work –
Doing Princely stuff?
Is she too focussed on the kids
To tidy up her muff?

Have her lustrous locks gone greasy
Are there skid marks in his shorts?
Does he sulk if she says no to sex?
Are her abs no longer taught?

Do they only ever listen
To endless loops of Baby Shark?
Do they lie awake at nighttime
Not touching in the dark?

Has intimacy dwindled
To the obligation bonk?
Does he think she’s lazing out at home?
Does she think he’s a twonk?

Is life one round of gruelling chores
And bills, and bleugh and BORING?
Nit-picking at her menu rut
Or shoving him for snoring?

Yes, did true love go the distance
For Philip and Aurora?
Or does she nag him half to death –
And does he just flat ignore her?

See, ‘Ever After’ isn’t glamorous –
Happy’s harder than it looks;
We were all sold empty promises
By Walt – and ladybird books.

I feel for the princesses,
Who’s end-tale we don’t know
Did Rapunzel hair go thin post-birth?
Do the Dwarves still include Snow?

Did Thumbelina’s fairy fella
Try to clip her brand new wings?
Does Ariel blame Eric
For her loss of gills and fins?

And what about Beauty, kidnapped
With her severe Stockholm-type crush?
Did that infatuation last them
Through her recurring thrush?

Does Beast spend every Saturday
With his mates just playing golf
Does Belle find herself wishing
She’d let him die by paw of wolf?

And then there’s good old Cinders
Does she still scrub for her mister?
Did she give up on the grooming –
Do the school run ugly-sister?

Did the grind and dull of day-to-day
Dissolve Prince Charming’s smarm?
Did her love of shoes and rodents
Lose for him their first-blush charm?

Then next there’s lovely Jasmine
Who married her Aladdin
Are there still soft words and stars in eyes –
Or is each row Armageddon?

Does she go Christian martyr?
Does he stay out too late?
What happened to the Princess
On the other side of fate?

Did Pea-Prince keep on setting
His spouse impossible tests?
Did Frog-Prince take his ball home
When the baby stole her breasts?

For there’s nothing like mundane routine
To burst the idyll bubble
And nothing like a small non-dwarf
To turn relationships to rubble….

How did our couples deal with worms,
And snot, and pox and grot?
Did they pull together as a pair?
Or did the magic rot?

For when the birds stop singing
(And the deer stop cleaning stuff)
What’s left is empty glitter –
And that’s sometimes not enough…

Once the foe is finally vanquished,
And they’ve danced the final dance,
There’s just a boy and girl left there
Without all the romance.

Real life is kind of messy-gross
And that wears through the sparkle –
It’s hard to hold that heart-skip
Through a D&V debacle…

So when you choose your Prince, my friends
Seek more than looks and daring-do
Look for kindness and for laughter –
(And a tolerance for poo).

Love isn’t being rescued
Or in a gesture big and grand
It’s in the little everyday stuff –
In a life lived hand-in-hand.

It’s holding hair back when she’s sick
It’s letting him lie in,
It’s making tea and taking turns
At taking out the bin.

It’s squeezing spots and feeling lumps
Knowing sanitary brands,
It’s tickle fights and sofa slumps
And brainstorming names for bands.

It’s going gooey over baby steps
And marvelling at their cute
It’s going off to Cleethorpes
With a crazy bulging boot.

It’s a Kiss sing-song in the car
A Just Dance best of three
It’s stopping 12 times on the motorway
Because she’s got to pee.

It’s embracing all his comic books
Building flat packs from Ikea
It’s lying prostate watching crap TV
And sharing every fear.

It’s living with her mood swings
And his disgusting fungal nail
Throwing tantrums of exhaustion –
And saying sorry when you fail.

It’s a smile, a touch, a silent nod
Having someone on your side
Shared memories and in-jokes
And feelings you don’t hide.

If you both can still find Beauty
Without the bloody Sleep –
Well that’s an Ever After love,
And that stuff don’t come cheap.

9 things I have learned in 2018

Here are 9 things I have learned in 2018.

1. I CAN PERSUADE OTHER PEOPLE TO HAVE SEX WITH ME!
My self esteem has never been that high, and was frankly AWOL this time last year, so this came as something of a surprise.
I started dating at the end of the summer and it turns out I’m actually quite successful in this department.
(I’ve literally quadrupled my lifetime penis exposure in 4 months).
Either I’m more attractive than I thought I was or I’m just giving off some serious desperate middle-aged housewife pheromones…
At this point who cares?

2. I CAN ADULT
No not that kind of adulting – already covered.
I mean I can face my post, pay my bills, do my finances, mend shizzle, and organise single-working-parent life.
Mostly.
Okay, look, stuff is mostly mended with gaffa tape or by looking pathetically at neighbours, I rely on school mums and nursery staff to remind me about important stuff, friends often have to support the post opening and form filling-in, and I have to call my dad before I can look my bank account in the face,
BUT
I’m not quite the 1950s helpless housewife I was.
And you know what? Sometimes asking for help IS adulting.

3. I AM FLAWED
I’ve done a lot of soul searching, and a lot of counselling in 2018. And sometimes when you take a good hard look at yourself, you don’t like what you see.
I’ve learned a lot of hard things about myself.
I don’t like how I handle stress, how I become obsessive or fixated under it, how I batan down the hatches under fire, how much I peace-keep, avoid conflict, and how much I crave approval. I don’t like my need to be liked. I don’t like that I change myself to please others.
I don’t like living with the resulting imposter syndrome and inferiority complex, the continuous self-doubt, and that nagging, un-continuous dialogue – where no matter what our history, with 90% of people I know I still feel like I have to start at square one to prove myself to them, every time I see them.
All of that has seriously damaged my career, my friendships… and my marriage.
And all my worst bits – all of the above – basically stem from one thing. My fear of abandonment.
And recognising that is helping me start to change it.

4. I AM FABULOUS
Sure, I’ve done things wrong. I’m flawed.
But I am not mean.
I am not callous. I have never been cruel.
I’m nice. I’m funny. I’m kind.
The people I’ve had to cut from my life in 2018 are seriously missing out. Because I really am pretty okay, actually.
In fact, no.
I’m GREAT*.

5. I HAVE BOUNDARIES
If you follow this blog you know I struggle with the boundaries. I overshare. Like, a LOT. (See point 1, for instance).
They became confused by an interesting and toxic combination of baby brain, depression, fatigue, isolation and emotional abuse.
My instincts, my social skills, my confidence – were all eroded.
But I can and have set NEW boundaries.
I don’t keep the peace for the sake of it, anymore.
I’m learning what’s picking my battles and what’s losing my voice.
I don’t let people treat me badly, or watch others treat me badly and pretend it’s okay, because otherwise they might have to face some awkward truths. Wah.
I am learning where my borders are, and how to defend them more effectively.

6. MY EMOTIONS ARE NOT A WEAKNESS
I’m not mad. I’m not sensitive. I’m not over-emotional. I’m not unstable. I’m not over-reacting. I’m not intense. I’m not over-thinking. I’m not misinterpreting.
My feelings are valid. They’re telling me something important. They ARE my instincts.
They are my heart, my empathy, my essence – the core of my okay. My GREAT*.
And it’s okay to have them. It’s okay to be sad. Sometimes that’s an appropriate and reasonable response to external stimuli. It’s okay to be angry. It’s okay to be as happy and as exuberant as I like.
When I listen to my what my emotions are telling me, I make GOOD choices.
I will no longer let my emotions be used against me.
They are my superpower; not my kryptonite.

7. CONNECTION IS EVERYTHING
For me, life is about connections, first and last.
It’s about sharing meaningful, joyful and tragic times.
It’s about family, friends old and new, my village offline and online – all the connections I was starved of because I was lost and hiding.
Each one of them is a lifeline I am grateful for.
Thank you all.

8. I AM STRONG
So I don’t look it (I weight just over 6 stone after the divorce diet), and often I don’t feel it.
But then I remember.
At the end, when things were SO bad, he wouldn’t have behaved to a friend, acquaintance or a goddam stranger the way he behaved towards me.
And when I finally saw on one particular evening that it was having an impact on the on the Big Small, too, I said STOP.
I did that.
I did that for me. For the Smalls. And actually, for him, too.
That’s how bloody strong I am.

9. I AM LUCKY
When everything has been razed to the ground, at first it looks like utter devastation. But then there are new tentative shoots, reaching for the sun again.
There is new life, new growth, and new opportunity.
I’m going to be 40 this year, and I’m starting over. And I’m also starting to see how wonderful that is…
How many people get the chance to rebuild themselves, reassess their life, their choices, their values, their direction? How many people get to change the patterns they’ve fallen into? The grooves they’ve worn in their relationships, their work, their own sense of themselves?
That’s what I get in 2019:
I get to change the habits of half a lifetime.
I get to live more than the half-life I was living.

The truth is that I’ve been blinkered and buried and stifled and stumbling. Now I get to look up and see clearly again, with new eyes. Or at least slightly cleaner glasses. Now I get another chance.
Oh, I didn’t want it – I had to be exploded out of the old life, and there were some injuries. Some of them serious.
But there it is.
The last present of Christmas. A new future…

I get to carve out time to write, and paint, and run, and read, and dance, and LEARN again. All the things that make me feel like me. All the things I compromised. All the things I abandoned in survival mode. I get to be the mother I want to be. I get to be silly when I want and sad when I want. I get to have the art I want on the walls, and the cushions on the sofa, and to let the books get out of control again. I get to go to bed when I want. I get to pick up the strings of my career. I get to pursue the friendships I neglected, and the ones I have since forged in grief and relief. I get to have the sort of sex I always wanted but was too tired for – or assumed was just for other people. I get to fall for someone again. I get to have the flipping stomach, and the butterflies, and the giddy HEAVINESS of it.
And in all of that, through all of that, I get to fall for ME again.
I get… POSSIBILITIES.

Now all I have to do is make the most of them.

Happy New Year.

*(Some days).

WORMS

All I want for Christmas, and in fact 2019 – and in fact the rest of my entire life – is NEVER TO HAVE WORMS AGAIN.

As ambitions go for the New Year, that’s surely not asking terribly much? Right?

I was aware, as a Young Person, that cats and dogs got worms.
They’re animals.
This was okay.

No one informed me, before the year 2010 and the birth of the Big Small, that children could also get them.

IF I HAD KNOWN THIS I WOULD LITERALLY NEVER HAVE HAD CHILDREN.

Literally. I’m not joking.

I. Would. Not. Have. Had. Them.

(Possibly this extremity of reaction is why no one mentioned it).

I became vaguely conscious, post births and thrown into the world of small disgusting people, that worms was, in fact, a thing. But I was happily able to not think about it and blithely assume it was something that happened to Other People’s children, not mine.

Another episode, apparently, of the recurring issue I have with Parental Self-Delusion…

Now this post is slightly late, mostly because it took me a while to remember to order vermicelli noodles from Tesco (see pic), but largely because it’s taken some time for the trauma to recede to levels where I’m not rocking and singing my happy song (which for those who want to know is the theme tune to Dogtanian. Seriously, try singing this and being miserable. Especially the woof chorus. It’s not possible).

So it was actually a couple of weeks ago now that during a routine bottom wiping, I turned to wave goodbye to a child’s poo as it flushed away down the toilet, AND IT WAVED BACK.

WHY GOD, WHY IS THIS A THING???
FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND HOLY, WHY?

(Also, why isn’t there an option ABOVE capitalisation to express even more extreme horror? C’mon, God/typographers/Microsoft, you can do better).

Look, I know. There will be people out there now poo-pooing (NO MORE POO! ENOUGH WITH THE POO!) this post. They will be saying something along the lines of: “It’s one of those things, they’re everywhere, just get the medicine from the pharmacy and get on with it, there’s far worse things, people in other parts of the world have to live with worms all of the time.”

I AM NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE.

I have a thing about germs.

AND ABOUT PARASITES LIVING INSIDE MY CHILDREN.

Call me funny…

Then the really really blase-type people give you the nit thing. LIKE THIS IS SUPPOSED TO MAKE IT BETTER. “Children get nits all the time, you know, it’s just the same.”

NO, BLASE PEOPLE.

It is in NO WAY the bloody same.

Let me lay it out for you – like worm eggs.

Nits are ON the body. WORMS ARE INSIDE THE BODY!!!!!

They come out at night for an exploratory dangle out of your anus, laying their wormy eggs to perpetuate their species and try and take over the world. They are living inside you, and very possibly controlling you like a zombie and making you do stuff you don’t realise you’re doing because they want you to keep hosting them.

YES THIS IS A REAL THING I’M NOT FRICKING MAKING IT UP.
(Seriously, look up ‘mind suckers’ or ‘zombie parasites’ on the National Geographic website. You won’t be disappointed. Scared witless, but not disappointed).

ALSO – if you needed a arse-wriggling ‘also’ – nits just involves a bit of shampoo and some laborious combing.

Worms involve bleaching, disinfecting or quarantining for 6 weeks anything your bloody children have touched EVER. The bedding. The mountain of stuffed toys that aren’t actually washable. Clothing. Clothing that might have touched other clothing. Towels. Toothbrushes. THE TWATTING PLAYDOH. (Note to followers: don’t try and disinfect playdoh. It’s not pretty. Apparently).

If you happen to have a mini naturist on your hands, as I do, they’ve also been butt naked on the bloody sofa, your pillow, the table, the kitchen sides, the carpets, and probably the poor damn cat.

Plus, by the way, during all of this YOU HAVE TO PRETEND TO THE CHILDREN THIS IS ALL FINE AND NATURAL AND JOLLY LARKS DARLING! SO THEY DON’T TURN OUT TO BE AS COMPLETELY EFFED-UP ABOUT THIS SORT OF BOBBINS AS YOU ARE.
(This was possibly the most traumatising bit).

It took a day off work to deal with the cleaning aftermath, several pairs of marigolds, some fast-talking about the whereabouts of favourite toys, being talked away from the edge of a cliff by a good friend, and 4 trips to the damn launderette – the only time I’ve ever been to a launderette in my entire life, because clearly I’m embarrassingly middle class. (Although now I’m going to take my bedding there all the time because they have superior folding skills and the sheets come back nice and fresh and don’t look like a crumpled mess before you’ve even slept in them!)

The only OTHER good thing about the whole situation was the fleeting satisfaction of informing the ex he and his 28 year old would also have to get a worm pill and blitz his abode – which as he’d never even mopped a floor before he left (I’m not even kidding) – would at the very least be EDUCATIONAL.

Worm win?

Mumonthenetheredge
Xx

Ps:
WASH YOUR HANDS, PEOPLE. GO AND DO IT NOW!!!!!!

WITH SOAP.

Something fishy…

Here at Casaonthenetheredge we have embarked upon FISH.

These were a 7th birthday present for the Big Small, and we’ve had them for two weeks.

So far we’ve lost two fish. And by lost I mean KILLED.

This may be some sort of record.

Certainly I can tell you that it involved the sort of existential conversations on the quality and meaning of life before 7.30am on a school day that no sane human being could possibly relish, conducting a fish funeral gatecrashed by Catonthenetheredge to nearly disastrous results, and the delivery of an (if I say so myself) especially moving eulogy, where we each got to say our favourite thing about our finished finned friends Orangey and Tamantha – before ceremoniously placing shells upon their shallow grave (hasilty dug with a dessert spoon).

I then got to get told off by the pet shop people for being a Bad Fish Mum, over-feeding, and creating a dangerous ammonia cycle. Or something.

So it’s going swimmingly.
If of course, we mean swimming belly upside down…

Fortunately we still have Holly, Willow, Tabby, Tinkerbell, and our five zippy minnows, Millie, Tillie, Silly, Willy – and Katie. (My kids rock at naming stuff).

To be fair, Tamantha’s demise was entirely a matter of extreme idiocy, having got itself stuck in the window of the psychedelic tank castle purchased for its entertainment. I actually had to stick my hand in and push it out backwards by the face with my finger. Gross. It swam round bleeding slightly and then went increasingly white and manky over the next 12 hours, and turned up dead the next morning.

Orangey, meanwhile, favourted the innovative self-harm method of entangling itself in plastic weeds, and then pulling off its own tail trying to escape.

So in summary, I would like to put forward that I’m not quite the Fish Murderer I may at first appear to be.
And that fish are categorically a) stoopid, and b) NOT the easy pet… (Get a damn cat, people).

In many ways, however, they HAVE already been good and educational for all of us – and not just in learning to deal with death and loss.

Together we’ve been learning about fish transportation (hanging), how to keep a tank (not like we’ve been doing it, apparently), how fish sleep (thank God for Alexa), how they poo (unimaginable amounts), magnets (to clean the tank) and syphons (to change the water).

From a personal perspective, I’ve had to face, head on, my pathological fear of reading instructions, in order to put the tossing tank together in the first place.

During which time the unsupervised children broke out the art equipment and got black paint on the walls – which was a salutary life lesson for them in what happens when Mummy completely and utterly loses her ever-living, she-widdling SHIZZLE.

I’ve also had to learn how to ignore the incessant dripping and whirring of the tank, which for the first week gave me palpitations and paranoia that yet another thing was falling off/apart in my crumbling twonk-pile of a house. Learning to hear the sound of suspicious drips and to just think, ‘sod it’, and turn the telly up is surely, SURELY the true definition of freedom? (It’s the one I’m going to have to go with, anyway).

The children, meanwhile, have also been learning that when I say they have to take responsibility for their new pets, what I really mean is that if they whine enough about it I’ll give up and do it myself. PARENTING 101, PEOPLE! I may write a book.

After all this, my only real and chief fish beef is with Holly (pictured), who’s actually a really, really nice fish. She comes to the front of the tank to say hello, follows your finger round, and is clearly interested in tank-side goings on.

It bothers me to discover that they’re actually sentient and friendly – to the point where I had to go and eat taramasalata in the kitchen the other day, because Holly was looking at me funny. Seriously. I fear vegetarianism beckons…

Now let’s have a moments silence please for Tamantha and Orangey. And a quick prayer that they don’t get dug up and brought back in by Catonthenetheredge.

Amen.

Dating translations – what he says and what that means in REAL life

Being on the dating scene later in life usually means you’ll be meeting people who’ve been around the relationship block a few times. That’s inevitable, and actually GOOD news, because it means people are capable of forming committed relationships. Probably.

On the other hand, it turns out there are A LOT more frogs than princes out there…

WHO KNEW???

One of the red flags for me is how people talk about their previous relationships, break-ups and partners.

So based on a couple of months internet dating, here’s my quick guide to what he says, and what that ACTUALLY means in, you know, real life.

He says: “It had been over for ages”
He means: I was still going through all the motions (including sex) but had an eye on the horizon and was waiting for something better to come along and/or for her to chuck me out.

He says: “There was a lack of intimacy in the relationship”
He means: I didn’t get sex as often as I wanted because she was always knackered from work/childcare/washing/cleaning – most of which I didn’t help with.

He says: “I am/am not the sort of person who does xxx”
He means: I’m exactly the opposite of that sort of person, but hope that by reiterating it constantly either you or I will start to believe it.

He says: “I was staying for the kids”
He means: I was too lazy/cowardly to leave but I think this makes me look like a bit of a noble hero and might get me into your pants.

He says: “She didn’t support my career”
He means: She baulked at yet another golf day/night out with the team/late night at the office/work trip/cancelled arrangement.

He says: “She didn’t understand me”
He means: She disagreed with some of the things I said/did.

He says: “She’s a psycho”
He means: She got upset and called me out when I behaved badly and/or she had basic human emotions – and I found those really uncomfortable and inconvenient to have to deal with.

He says: “She neglected our relationship”
He means: Yeah, not enough sex again. It’s like I wasn’t constantly the centre of her attention.

Look – at this point if you find out he left when a kid was still under, say, 3, RUN FOR THE DAMN HILLS.

In fact, I’m willing to guess no woman over 30 or with her own kids is actually falling for this gubbins.

And if you are, you’ve now got a working translation to help you avoid the idiots!

Good luck out there daters.

MYSTERY PACKING!

MYSTERY PACKING!

Every other weekend, I am set the challenge of packing clothing for two children to cover miscellaneous, and mysterious, activities.

This week I must include multiple ‘home outfits’, outfits suitable for a play centre, multiple ‘party outfits’ to choose from (indoor? house party? outdoor? alpaca farm? climbing? paint a pot?), and multiple ‘park outfits’ as they are going to go to several undisclosed park locations, apparently.

OR he could just tell me what they’re ACTUALLY doing so I could a) tell the kids, set expectations and get them excited for the weekend and b) actually pack what they’ll need in under 10 outfits each and without having to put an emergency wash on.

BUT WHERE WOULD THE MYSTERY FUN BE IN THAT????

Blind date – BLOW BY BLOW

So who wants to hear about my first date in more than 20 years??? My first BLIND date ever.

Brace yourselves.

There was bonding.
There were tears.
There was laughter.
Things got really real, really fast.
Hell – there was actual BITING.

And I’m about to give you a blow by blow account.

Go get a cuppa. You’ll need one.

Back?

Okay, so I MAY have slightly oversold things…

Because my first blind date wasn’t a result of the Great Online Dating Experiment. It was with a woman I met through this blog.

Lots of people PM me. These are mostly people going through similar stuff, who’ve read a post and identified with it, but can’t really comment in front of family and friends. Those messages mean a lot to me. But I’ve always shied away from meeting anyone – possibly because I’m afraid I’d be a massive disappointment in real life, where I’m much less amusing, witty or deep.

However, now I am a YES woman. I say YES to stuff. I explore. I put myself out there.

And I go on blind dates, apparently.

*Mae* had had a similar break up to mine. Two kids, of similar ages, also struggling to varying degrees with their new split life; the new woman, the new routine.

What we recognised in each other was loneliness, I think. And not single parent loneliness – but the loneliness of being emotionally isolated for a really long time, in the company of the one person who used to think we were sunshine, but came to dim us.

What’s most upsetting, possibly about any break-up, is that it tends to be the very things that someone fell in love with that they come to hate the most. That your best bits are suddenly the worst to the one person you fully entrusted them to. That the beautiful parts – the very brightness that drew them in – are the parts that turn dark and ugly in their eyes first.

Kind of like moths coming down with a gradual but severe attack of photodermatitis. 😉

The word that came up most with Mae was CONNECTION.

Connections, for both of us, were lifelines.

Connection is why all those PMs mean so much to me. Why I started this blog in the first place.

And the lack of connection in our marriages had started to erode and rot other connections and relationships in our lives too – feeding tubes cut off through isolation, confusion, death, mental ill-health, and just plain old circumstance. And it has left both of us reeling, gasping for air, for meaning, reaching out in the dark – trying to remember our sunshine.

Trying to connect with ourselves again. And needing those connections to do so – to feel real again.

This wasn’t a man-hating session. It was about sadness, and loss, and growth, and solidarity. A lot of it focussed on our kids and how to help them – again relationships we both base on connection, and we talked about how hard a line that is to walk and hold alone.

I like to think what we found in the park was a connection. And that it was important to both of us – two lost fireflies passing each other and glowing brighter, just for a bit. And maybe stronger as a result.

I don’t know if I’ll see Mae again. We were both raw. Both busy. Both preoccupied. And obviously I don’t want to look too much like a massive weirdo stalker by insisting she become my friend (although if she reads this, yes please!)

I do know I learnt a lot from her in just a short amount of time.

She’s further down the break-up line than me. And more sorted and more wise than she thinks she is.

When the poor Small Small got bitten by another feral toddler vying for the slide (I promised we’d get to the biting bit!) Mae had an emergency lollipop in her handbag that fixed everything in super-quick time.

I have always wanted to be the kind of woman that has emergency lollipops in her bag, but it has always felt like a sea-change of personal development, organisation and adulting that I’m simply not ready for.

Mae made me believe that perhaps I could just pick a couple up the next time I pop into the corner shop.

And THAT’S what connection can do for you.

BLOW BY BLOW.
As promised.

It may not have been salacious, but I hope it’ll do anyway.

Happy Sunday.

Mumonthenetheredge
x