family

In which I ponder…teenagers

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(I have loads of drafted unpublished posts and I found this the other day. I imagine I didn’t post it because it might have caused offence to said teenage offspring. They are both out of their teens now, and this still rings true, so here it is).

teen_whisperer

 

Unless you have teenage children, you really have no idea how stupid, emotionally unstable and embarrassing you are.

In the glory days when they are young, you are perfect. You’re the best Mum – the prettiest, the cleverest, the kindest. You can do no wrong. Children have fights in the playground over who has the best mum or dad.

Then, overnight – and without warning – you become persona non grata. It starts with the rapidly dropped hand in sight of the school gate and the cheek turned away as you lean down for your goodbye kiss, and is followed up quickly by eye-rolling and a reluctance to be seen in public with you. Then before you know it you are – apparently – a fully fledged psycho.

I’m happy to say that these stages of teenager-dom are close to being over in my household. In fact, one of my children is no longer actually a teenager, and has moved out to his own place. But I do still have one hormonally charged resident sharing my home, and although I’m fortunate that for about 98% of the time she is absolutely the light of my life, during the other 2% she comes close to driving me to the sort of psychosis she thinks I exhibit anyway.

I read somewhere once that teenagers are particularly sensitive to changes in the volume of voices. I hope I did anyway, as every time I am even slightly irritated I am accused of shouting when I’m pretty sure I am not. The problem is though that then we get into a cycle. Because originally I was mildly irritated about something like – oh I don’t know – the sink being full of washing up when I got home from work. But then I’m irritated about the fact that what we seem to be debating now is not whether it is reasonable to fill the kitchen sink with your redundant plates and mugs – often along with uneaten food – but whether or not the amount I am ‘sooooo upset’ about it is commensurate with the crime, which apparently hadn’t been anticipated*. And if I’m not careful, I can then find myself shouting things like – ‘if you want to see me soooooo upset I can do that if you like’, and I end up looking like the teenager while she sighs and does the washing up.

So the other great thing about being the parent of a teenager is not only that you can be stupid, embarrassing and emotionally labile, but you can be a complete loser as well.

This dynamic is made more difficult by being a single parent. If you’re still happily ensconced in wedded bliss with the other parent of your teenager – or maybe even if you’re still ensconced but not necessarily happily – you should have at least one other adult in the house to support you during these interactions. How I’ve longed for someone to say ‘don’t speak to your mother like that’. Also what your teenagers don’t realise is that when they say we are being unreasonable, horrible, or difficult, we are often wondering if we are or not. Am I an awful parent? Am I? There is no one to debrief with, no one to back you up, or to discuss where you might be going wrong, or could take another approach, and it makes it all that little bit harder.

I have been extremely lucky that my own teenagers have been largely lovely**. We’ve even reached a stage where sincere apologies and reparations are made after there has been an incident. But as a parent, I’ve learnt that you also have to be prepared to apologise when you’ve overstepped the mark, and that admitting that sometimes you’re not sure, or you find it hard seems to build trust and understanding. It’s ok not to be the expert, to be fallible, imperfect. And to be honest – whilst they are struggling with never being a teenager before and all that brings, we are also struggling with never having been a parent to a teenager either, so we’re going to make mistakes. When you do this, of course, it does mean that you’ve gone full circle from superhero to real actual person, but it also seems to open up the door to a new type of relationship – a more adult and authentic one. And you teach your children that it’s ok to make mistakes so long as we learn from them – the first stage of which is admitting them.

Of all the phases of parenthood, these teenage years are the ones with the highest anxiety. You must let go, you must allow them to start to assert their independence, go their own way, take some risks. Even though every fibre of your body is saying ‘stay home with me, where it’s safe!’. I have successfully traversed the nail biting experience of knowing your child is in another country alone, of first forays to nightclubs, of driving with their friends down the coast for the weekend. Every parent of a teenager will know the horror of the unanswered call, the text message with no response and of waking up in the early hours of the morning and discovering their teenager is not yet back from their night out in the city.

I’m no expert, but I’ve tended to allow a higher level of independence than many parents, often out of necessity rather than choice. As a single working parent, I couldn’t drive my children everywhere, and we live in a major city. They’ve been navigating the public transport system near and far for years, and learnt to drive right in the city centre (literally terrifying for everyone concerned). My son was at school in the UK, flying back and forth on his own. Both children have made the long trip to and from the UK alone – the first times only just in their teens. I like to think that these experiences have contributed to making them the independent, brave, adventurous young adults they are today.

However, on the rare occasion, I’ve put my foot down with regard to what I’ve felt was an unreasonable request. And when the inevitable onslaught of begging, and accusations of unfairness and being horrid etc etc has begun, I’ve asked them this. Do you think I am saying no to this because I’m a dreadful person who just wants to ruin your life (as suggested) or….could it be something else? Then I’ve made them tell me why. And of course, it’s because I love them and I want them to be safe. Even very bolshy teenagers seem to find it hard to remain quite so indignant in the face of this. And if they carry on being rude or difficult, unplug the internet and take the modem to work with you. If nothing else it will make them come out their rooms.

I would say though that it’s also my experience that teenagers often ask to do outrageous things in the hope that you will say no, in order to absolve them of the embarrassment of declining to do so, even though it would be achingly cool or would ingratiate them with someone cool if they did. I’ve been happy to be the fall guy and have everyone think I’m a bitch – to the extent that we even had a code which would tell me in a text message that I should say no, prior to the call asking me. I won’t tell you what that code was so as not to embarrass my kids, but you should think about setting one up with yours.

So if you’re currently parenting teenagers, good luck! But remember – like all those other stages, even when it feels like it’s lasting forever, it will be over before you know it. And then adulthood beckons – so enjoy them while you can.

*even though I have repeatedly, since the beginning of time, been expressing irritation at said dishes in the sink…

**well I would say that wouldn’t I? But it’s true.

 

In which I ponder…being loved and being remembered

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me and mum

It may seem harsh, but my mother is universally acknowledged as being a rather difficult person.

Until I had children of my own and had matured enough to at least try to see the world through her eyes, as far as I was concerned that was it – she was tricky and sometimes volatile and at times we clashed terribly. For my own part, I’m probably universally acknowledged as being a rather sensitive person, so I would often feel hurt or angered by her behaviour and so it went on. At times I wondered if she even liked me, let alone loved me.

Then – partially as a result of study – I started to wonder about my mum. When I had children, I realised that there was no doubt that she had felt and probably still felt the intense love for myself and my siblings as I did for my own children. And seeing how gently, how delicately she treated my babies reminded me of a mother I’d largely forgotten in the red mists of the teenage years and then the struggle to establish myself – to differentiate myself – away from my family.

Mum was anxious and I realised that often when I felt she was being controlling or difficult or unnecessarily obtuse, she was actually just trying to control her environment so that she could feel safe. The things that made her anxious were irrational, but I knew that this was the nature of anxiety. And I knew all this because I recognised it in myself – either as a result of inheritance or learning or both.

My mum had an anxious mother too. Of course her mother was anxious – she was bringing up a child in London during the dark years of the Blitz and her husband was away being a soldier with all the other husbands. So my mum’s first 6 years were spent largely without a father, scurrying to an air raid shelter every night and often during the day as well. If she was in anyway predisposed towards an anxious personality, this cannot have helped, and her position as an only child meant that – according to psychology – that all the anxiety in her family system had only one place to go. To her.

Over the years, she got older, and I got older and I started to feel that I understood her better. Either she was getting less difficult or I was getting less reactive and we clashed less. I began to realise that her little digs at the way I ran my house, was bringing up my children or cooking dinner were less criticisms than rather clumsy attempts to help me and – as a person who was not given to shows of affection – a way of showing me that she loved me.

Now my mum has Alzheimers and doesn’t know who I am.

It’s not just me – our whole family is generally a mystery. And as she’s lost her memory of the nearly 50 years I’ve been alive or the 67 years she’s been married to my dad, she continues to reveal parts of herself that I either previously ignored or overlooked.

For example, I always felt she was not close to her parents and that this had always been the case. She rarely had anything positive to say about them. But now I know that she loved them, and saw them as her support system, as we all do. I know this because she re-experiences the shock of their loss every day. I’ve realised the gentleness of the way she was with my children was not a quirk in relation to my babies but part of who she is – possibly hidden by her anxiety. She laughs easily, and makes jokes with me. She loves my dog and even let him on her bed when she stayed with me, although we were not even allowed human friends in our bedrooms when we were children. She loves cake. More than virtually any other food.

How could I have missed all this? How lucky am I to have found this out before it is too late?

And – even though when I ask her who I am, she doesn’t know, and is either surprised to discover she has a daughter or adamant that she doesn’t have children – I’ve never felt more loved by her or loved her more. If I call out ‘Mum’ – she answers. If I ask her if she loves me, she answers without thought – ‘yes’. She treats me with love, along with my children. Her voice (most of the time) carries love. Although she refers to my long suffering dad as ‘my new man’ or ‘that man’, and is confused and surprised when we tell her that that man is Colin, her husband of 67 years – when she is unsure she asks us where Colin is.

So it occurs to me – love is more than memory. When your brain can no longer articulate your relationships with, and your love for, the most important people in your life, your heart knows. Your body knows. Somewhere deep inside, somewhere beyond words, you know who you are and who you love and who loves you.

And given a choice, I’d rather feel and give love, than be remembered.

In which I ponder…decades

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pico-iyer-quote-home

Last weekend – the 1st April – marked 10 years since we left the UK for a new adventure in the sun. If it wasn’t for the fact that the children have doubled in size and gone from primary school kids to adults I’d have trouble believing it, but in other respects our previous life seems like a very distant memory.

As a family of four, although we were sad to be leaving our family and friends, we were certain we would not be returning home. We wanted to make a new life, start again, challenge ourselves – and anyone who knows me well knows that this sort of thing excites me. So even though I knew leaving everything that was familiar to me was a risk – for many reasons – I was still keen to do it. It would be easy to mistake me for one of those people who believes that if you change everything externally – your home, your job, your country – then internal things will change too. Like your relationship. However, I wasn’t stupid enough to think this might be the case, and I figured that if I ended up divorced then Australia was as good a place to do it as anywhere.

After all, everything seems better when the sun is shining, doesn’t it?

In the event, just when I thought that miraculously distance, some good weather and beautiful beaches had done it’s job, everything fell apart in spectacular fashion, and it turned out that the sun didn’t make a whole load of difference.

At first I wanted to go home. I was desperate to go home. I was lonely, and frightened and heartbroken. But the idea of returning home – packing up and making such a momentous decision on my own – was overwhelming. I’d never made a decision of that magnitude on my own. And I knew that taking the children to other side of the world, where they would rarely see their father was not in their best interests. Inexplicably, even though at times I hated his guts and would happily have stuck a fork in him, somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do that to him.

The longer we didn’t go home for, the harder it got. The children cemented their friendships and got to critical moments in their schooling. I started a career which I enjoyed and in which I was successful. Eventually, I too started making new friends and developing a life removed from and separate to my old life. We bought a dog.

But the pull to return never went away. I didn’t sell the house in the New Forest. And every time I visited I became convinced that going back would be – conversely – the way forwards. My family* want us to. And we miss them so much. My friends want us to. And we miss them so much. When I’m there I think that’s what I want too – it would be so easy to be there, in my house, with my best friends round the corner and my family not too far away. It’s confusing. It’s all so familiar.

So why haven’t I done it?

Well…this weekend I decided that we should celebrate these 10 years in Sydney. We came for a new life and we certainly got that. We came for a better life, and in many respects my life is indeed better. We came for a challenge – and we got that in bucket loads. I’m finally at a place where I feel proud of what I’ve achieved. Things didn’t turn out how I expected, but I’ve raised independent, resilient, smart, awesome young adults. I’ve established a career in a new country. I’ve made a new home and new friends. And I’m a new person – stronger, more confident, more independent**. I have become myself.

It’s been a hard lesson and a long road, but I’ve learnt how to be me…

The children and I spent our decade anniversary evening surrounded by friends in the most iconic of Sydney spots, in the shadow of the Opera House. I had so much fun and I felt blessed to have such wonderful people in my life. I realized that I am not lonely. My life is full. I have my moments – of course – but life is good.

And I think I have to recognize that the reason I haven’t gone back is because I don’t want to.

Because I’m already home.

 

 

 

 

*except my dad. And I suspect that’s because he wants to live here himself

**with better shoes and hair

In which I ponder…how to be friends with single people

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being-single

 

When I was married, I thought of myself as being well liked. We had lots of friends, hosted and were invited to lots of social events, and as well as a group of close friends – both in Australia and in the UK – we had a broad network of other friends and acquaintances with whom we would occasionally catch up. On the social front, life was good. We had been in Australia for only a few years, but we had a great group of friends – our Aussie family – and I thought we would be there for each other through thick and thin.

I was unprepared – in the extreme – for how this would change when my marriage ended.

These days I could count on one hand – and still have a few spare fingers – the friends I have retained from that time. And I have to say that this loss of friendships has, over the long term, caused me more pain than the divorce itself. It was clear that my marriage could not continue, but the end of so many friendships took me by surprise.

This may all be in my head, but it seems to me that when you are single, people think, at some level, that you are a bit of a loose cannon. For me, this was most evident when it transpired that a friend of mine was of the belief that I was involved in drug selling, despite having had only very limited and short lived experience of smoking marijuana in my late teens and never having touched anything since. I don’t even drink caffeinated  coffee for goodness sake.

But there are other signs. When I was married, we would frequently have friends over and much alcohol was consumed. Generally speaking, those who were driving would stay sober whilst their other half got a bit merry and loud, and everyone had a great time. I’ve noticed that single women getting drunk is viewed rather differently though. Judged is probably a better word to describe it really – as though their being a bit inebriated is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how wild they might really be and that they are only barely keeping a lid on their debauchery.

I refuse to be one of those women who believes that the reason that they are no longer invited to ‘couples’ events – which is virtually all events – is because the other women think they will try to take their man. Partly because I’d never do it, but also because it suggests somehow that you believe that you’d be attractive to your friend’s husbands. The reality is – as I know far too well, unfortunately – that if your husband is the sort of husband who would sleep with, or run off with, one of your friends – or any other woman in fact – he won’t care if she’s single or not. And nothing you do, and no amount of trying to keep single women away from him will stop him.

I think the reason that single women become outsiders is simply because people like symmetry. They are a couple and they want other couples in their lives. They also like stability, so they don’t want someone around who might up end the apple cart by introducing someone into the mix that everyone doesn’t like.

When you become single, you don’t belong in the social group you used to belong in. You’re a special category – perfect for coffees, girl’s lunches, girl’s nights out and not much else. Weekends away with groups of friends is out for you – unless all your married friends come away with you for a girl’s weekend. It gets so that you virtually never get to speak to a man unless you’re on a date or in a business meeting. And I like and miss men – not just as partners but as people generally – most of the time without a single thought of getting them into bed. Throughout my life, pre marriage and during my marriage, I’ve always had close male friends. One of my closest, and best loved friends is a man – who is thankfully single or else I’d probably not be allowed to speak to him either.

So – in the interests of public education, I’d like to share a few top tips with you for being friends with a singleton…

  1. Never assume that your single friend won’t want to join in something that is otherwise all couples. We’re used to being single – we’ll probably cope. Every single woman has had a friend tell them that the reason they haven’t been included in something is because they thought you wouldn’t feel comfortable. If you find yourself having that thought, first consider whether it is actually you that won’t feel comfortable – and then having done so, give your single friend the opportunity to decide for themselves whether the event is likely to make them feel uncomfortable or not;
  2. Don’t assume that your single friend only ever wants to see people of the same gender as them. Personally I really miss family style events where there are couples and children and I am very rarely invited to them* – and I think this is probably more acute for those of us who don’t actually have any family in the country;
  3. For most people who get divorced, fundamental material things about their lives change. For me, I went from not working to working full time and I moved house to be nearer to work so that my children were alone for shorter periods before and after school. I was very much busier than I had been previously and found it hard – although I really tried – to balance the need to do my job, be a parent and run a household alone as well as try to manage my social life. These changes are on top of the challenges of the end of a significant relationship and can often cause tension in friendships. Try to bear with your friend while they make these adjustments – the likelihood is that they value and want to retain your friendship but it’s going to look different to how it was. And be prepared for things to take a while to settle down;
  4. Try to avoid prioritizing ‘couples’ events over social events with your single friend, particularly if you’ve already made arrangements to do something with them. All of my single friends complain – and I’ve also experienced this – that there is a hierarchy of invitations, and doing stuff with single people is at the bottom of it. It’s so far at the bottom of it that there is an assumption that we understand that couples events take precedence, so people are often quite open about cancelling or postponing an arrangement with you on the basis that they have now been invited to something with the other half and sometimes the kids. I can’t think of another way to describe it so I’m going to come straight out with it. It’s rude. And often really disappointing.**
  5. Think of your single friends occasionally on those days when traditionally you’d be all en famille. Check in with them to say hi, and if they are alone and it would be appropriate to your family circumstances, ask them if they’d like to pop in. It’s likely that they will say no as they wouldn’t wish to intrude, but just to know that someone thought of them is probably enough. This is particularly true of single people who have shared care arrangements for their children, and so might be spending some special days completely alone;
  6. This doesn’t happen to me so much anymore as the few friends I’ve retained know me pretty well, but don’t assume that if you’ve arranged to go out for a drink with your single friend that they are wanting to drink 6 months worth of sparkling and have their biggest night of the year. That’s you wanting to do that, because you’re on a girl’s night. For us this is possible any night we go out so it’s more likely that we’d like to have a couple of glasses of wine and a good chat, getting home in one piece and waking up the next morning with a clear head.
  7. Related to the above – don’t be afraid to go out for a drink with your single friend. They’re not going to get drunk, chat up some hot guy at the bar and abandon you in the dodgy end of town. They can do that any night, and if they do, they are probably not a good friend regardless of whether they are single or not.
  8. And lastly – if you are a singleton who has now found love, don’t forget your single friends. If they are good friends, they will be thrilled that you are happy, but they still want to be part of your life.

 

*in Australia. When I’m back at home in the UK with my friends who have known me forever this doesn’t happen. I’m not sure whether this is a function of the longevity of our relationships or whether this is a cultural difference between the two countries

**again something that I don’t think would happen to me in the UK but the same applies – is it the length of the relationships or a cultural difference?

In which I ponder….Lemonade

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So…it’s finally properly and completely over.

Although we’ve been separated over 5 years and divorced for almost exactly 1 year, I have only just today received our court stamped financial settlement.

I’m neither happy nor sad about it really. It’s good to know that I will no longer be lining the pockets of lawyers, and that I at last know what the future is likely to look like financially. I’m never going to be rich but I’m not going to be poor either, and that’s fine. I won’t have the sort of life I would have had if I had remained in the marriage, but for every material thing I’ll no longer have, I’ll have a ton of happiness to which I previously would not have had access.

There was no fighting about the settlement – I took what I was offered, and I didn’t ask for more. But I was careful to seek legal advice throughout the process so my decisions – although often against the advice of my lawyers – were well informed. The most important thing for me was to maintain my integrity and find a path through what was equitable and fair, and what was enough. In the end I went for enough, because what I was offered was enough. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling that I was lucky that my ex husband was so successful. I want to spend the rest of my life knowing that I’ve worked hard and that with hard work comes rewards.

It would have been easy in some respects to fight – and certainly that was what my lawyers were hoping for, since it would have lined their pockets. But if you should ever find yourself in a similar position, make sure you consider whether the psychological and emotional toll of the process would be worth the potential financial gains. I was constantly aware of the incongruency of feeling envious about the fact that my ex appears to live in such comparative splendor given that I have spent my entire career working to improve the lives of the disadvantaged. Why should I be entitled to anything better than the actually very nice life I already have?

But envy is an insidious thing. It creeps up on you as you scroll through your social media feeds, watching your friends living the life you expected to have post childrearing – exotic travel, holiday property purchases, renovations, rediscovering romance with your loved one. It mixes up with anger and takes you back to a place you thought you had left. Then I realized that my envy was really just a disguise for the grief I was experiencing for the life I had lost, both present and future, that I thought was going to be mine and ended up being one of the casualties of divorce. And I was reminded, again, that nothing is guaranteed, nothing can be promised, and that you have to make your own luck.

Even without fighting though, I found the process draining and demeaning. In addition to my inner turmoil about the above, the system seems to consider that the material assets built up over the course of a 21 year relationship belong to your husband, who may, out of the goodness of his heart, decide to give you some. Then you are supposed to be grateful and consider yourself lucky.

I refuse to be grateful.

I am grateful for my beautiful children, and I am grateful that I have the means to support myself going forwards – but everything I have taken from my marriage is part of what I helped to build up and as such I have taken my share. I am not lucky that my ex husband is successful – we (he and I) are lucky that over the course of our relationship we jointly built up a life and careers from which we will both continue to benefit.

Now I can start the work of really planning how I will protect my financial interest going forwards – something that I should have been doing all along.

I already know that leaving my husband is the best thing I ever did for myself. I’ve never regretted it, although I’ve found it hard to process. But I will no longer torture myself over what was done, or not done, or could have been done. I will not wish for the life I would have had, or mourn the one I’d left. I will race forwards in life, reaching out for all the opportunities I would have missed, all the adventures I would not have had, all the lovers I would not have kissed.

And should I ever find myself in a similar position again – God forbid – I will simply channel Beyoncé…

“This is your final warning…

  You know I give you life

  If you try this shit again

  Gonna lose your wife”

 

 

In which I ponder…mothering

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tired-mom2

Years ago, when I had two children under two, from time to time someone would observe my sleep deprived visage, my poor body wrecked by two difficult births and my often hysterical demeanour, and tell me that I had to enjoy it, because it would be over before I knew it, and my two beautiful babies would be gone and grown.

Frankly, if I could have, I would have happily bludgeoned some of those well-meaning people to within an inch of their lives with my double pushchair, but generally I would smile through the pain, agree and return to my life, which consisted mainly of child related activities and sobbing quietly in corners when I thought no one was looking.

I was terribly disappointed with myself. I loved my two children – of course – but at the same time I couldn’t help feeling that I had somehow ruined my perfectly good life by having them.

On reflection, I had to admit that there was really nothing in my life, prior to actually producing children, that would have suggested that I would be either good at being a mother, or indeed enjoy it. I watched some of my friends in envy as they took to it all like ducks to water, baking cakes, making jam and spending hours playing mindless games with a two year old, and appearing to be actively enjoying it all.

I, on the other hand, wanted to poke my own eyes out after 10 minutes of toddler play, and felt like a massive failure.

None of this stopped me from loving the bones of them, or from doing the things that I knew were good for them and for their development. I would have – still would – lay down my life for them. I just wanted to like it more. I had expected to like it – I had thought that even though baking and jam making and building a tower and knocking it down over and over and over and over again had never interested me before, that the act of pushing a child out my nether regions would perform some sort of hormonal miracle and I’d find all that stuff fun.

It didn’t. And I didn’t.

I felt like my life, and my self concept was disappearing – being subsumed to the needs of others. And now, looking back with the benefit of maturity and experience, I realize that essentially that is what mothering is. What seems like a sacrifice at the time is in fact a brilliant quid pro quo arrangement, where you give up your life and in return you get a lifetime of parenthood which actually knocks pre parenthood into a cocked hat and then stamps on it.

Thankfully, as they got older, I got better at it, it got more interesting and as a result it got easier. And now just at the moment when I could honestly, without a hint of irony, say that being a mother has actually been the best, the most important, the most fulfilling and the most challenging experience of my life, and that my children have brought me more joy, more laughter, and more love than I ever thought possible, I find myself the mother of two adults aged 18 and 20 who are contemplating flying the nest completely.

So, stand down your double buggies ladies and listen to me. Cherish every moment. Know that your best is good enough. Because it turns out they were right.

It is over before you know it…

 

 

 

In which I ponder…times – they are changing

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vacations alone

 

Not that long ago, going on holiday used to be all about doing as little – physically – as possible. I would judge the quality of a holiday by the number of books I managed to read, and it was not uncommon for me to get through 10 books during the course of a two week  break.

I would sleep as late as two young children would allow, then move myself from my bed to a sunlounger either by a pool or a beach and read. Then I would eat my own weight in food and drink, as if there was a danger that I might be starved on my return home. Holidays were a free pass to sloth like activity and gluttony.

These days I approach holidays very differently.

These days I see holidays as an opportunity – that does not often present itself – to get in maximum exercise, whilst not succumbing to the sort of desperate, stress and tiredness fueled eating that can often punctuate my day to day life.

I still love to read, but the one week holiday I have just returned from resulted in finishing only 2 books but walking 75 km.

A typical break consists of getting up relatively early and going for a decent 7 to 10km walk. Then all I really want to do is eat a healthy lunch, lay on the beach reading a book and periodically venture into the water. I might go shopping, so long as I also have time to read and walk as well, and in the evening I’m not that bothered about going out drinking or eating – I’d rather go to bed, read and make sure I was in fine fettle for my walk in the morning.

I’m starting to realize that this is not making me a great holiday companion for many people.

This holiday I’ve been away with my daughter and my parents. My daughter is generally of the view that her legs have been designed exclusively for the purpose of dancing, and my parents are getting older and are not much up for route marches through the National Park. To her credit, my daughter did, under some duress, accompany me on one walk – the longest and probably most challenging walk I undertook during the week – but there was no way she was coming every day.

This does make me wonder whether I’m actually suited to holidays with other people. I want to be selfish when I’m away. I work hard. When I’m on holiday, I want to indulge myself. And I find increasingly that the way I most successfully indulge myself is by doing things alone. Yet at the same time, I feel terribly afraid of being in a situation where being alone is not a choice, but just my life. There is something about being on holiday alone, as a necessity, that fills me with dread.

I’ve decided though that I need to meet this fear head on. I’m going to experiment initially with short breaks alone. Years ago, during a particularly desperate moment in my marriage, I spent a week alone near Marbella – ostensibly to get over some recent relationship trauma. I learnt the hard way that for me this was not a good thing – an analytical mind that some might describe as prone to overthinking, does not benefit from a week alone even somewhere as lovely as Marbella. I had way too much time in my own head. With this in mind, I’ve decided I should not initially plunge myself into the traditional 7 days away. A few long weekends will suffice and I will see how I go.

There is a part of me that isn’t the slightest bit afraid and suspects that I will love it. I’ll let you know. And if you have a good book recommendation, please do let me know.

 

 

 

 

Stop all the clocks…

/ howtobemeagain / 2 Comments

When I was seven years old, my best friend was a little girl called Jodie. She was more adventurous, outspoken and courageous than me, and I loved her for it. We rode our bikes together across the Lincolnshire countryside – so far from home that later, when we both had children of our own, we were appalled – had sleepovers in the garden, and wrote our names and the date on the wall of a cottage in her dad’s timber yard.*

In 2002, Jodie was diagnosed with breast cancer, but treatment put her into remission, so she and her husband Jim and their two small boys forged forwards in life, embarking on the renovation of a beautiful but virtually uninhabitable Grade II listed property. The return of her cancer and a terminal diagnosis was a devastating blow to everyone who loved her but especially to her young family. Jodie had always been stubborn and tenacious, and she used the same bloody minded approach that had ensured her business success to confront her illness. We used to joke that she was too stubborn to die, but really she was just determined to see both her children start school.

Jodie died in 2005 when her boys were 5 and 6 years old. She had fought a brave, hard fight but in the end the big C got the better of her.

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So it was with devastating and heartbreaking irony that today we laid her eldest child to rest, having taken his own life. A beautiful, intelligent boy of just 16 years, much loved, with so much to offer the world.

There are some things for which nothing can be said. There are no words of comfort available, nothing which will make it better, nothing which will make it go away. There are some things which can only be borne, not gotten over.

At Jodie’s funeral we had known what was coming. Jodie had asked me to deliver the eulogy, and my writings had been vetted in advance. She had organized the ceremony with Jim. But it was still hard. It was still heartbreaking. In the church today there was little that I recognized, and I can only think that I got through that day in a blur.

But there is no possible preparation for what we had to do today.

His dad said that George had not been able to see the point of life. But if he had asked me I would have told him that the point was in the hundreds of people in the church today, at his grave, and at his wake. It was in the gatherings of the last two weeks, as his family supported one another to get through all the arrangements necessary after the (always untimely) death of a child. It was in his close group of school friends, as they let off balloons in his memory and put together slideshows of photographs of his life. It was in the eulogies bravely delivered by his devoted father and by his best friend.

Because the point of this life is quite simply love.

Hold your children close tonight – and every night.

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*it’s still there

In which I ponder…over sharing

/ howtobemeagain / 1 Comment

oversharing-social-media

I’ve been feeling a bit uncomfortable about my last post.

I knew I would.

I had been thinking about writing that post ever since I started blogging but just hadn’t had the courage to do it. It’s not just that it’s obviously very personal, but that I actually have no wish to embarrass my ex-husband and for that reason there are things I’ll never write about.

And despite the things he did, he is not a wholly dreadful person, and we were not unhappy for every moment of the 21 years we spent together. I’ve always known that he did not do the things he did to deliberately wound me – even though they did. And like most things the situation was complex at times and I certainly was not perfect.

The reality is however, that this is/was my life.

After publishing that post though, I received a lovely email from my equally lovely father. He said;

‘Wendy

I love reading these writings; but as literature, not as missives from my daughter! They are beautifully written and if they (hopefully) become more varied in content, they will become maybe a collection, like Norah Esson, or Dorothy Parker, or even Virginia Woolf, which people all round the world will read and admire and eulogise about.

But they tear me apart as a Dad’

I love my Dad. He genuinely thinks I am capable of doing anything (even being Dorothy Parker. He’s a big fan of hyperbole). I remember when I was graduating from University, he would tear job adverts out of the paper and post them to me (yes, I am literally that old…). Some of them were way beyond my capabilities at the time, and some of them probably still are, but when I would say this to him, he’d say

‘If you apply you’re only risking the cost of a stamp’

which I suppose was true. It’s a wonderful thing to have a father who is so unrelentingly positive about the possibilities for you and your life. Even at the times when you’re kind of fucking things up and you both know it.

Anyway, my Dad is concerned that my writing about my marriage and divorce might be evidence that I am not moving on.

The thing is though, five years ago, I couldn’t have written that post without it becoming incoherent in a sort of crazy lady way, and I wouldn’t have written about it because I felt kind of ashamed.

Really, when I write about this stuff it’s a way of owning my experience and integrating it into all my other experiences. I enjoy the process of writing from an intellectual point of view regardless of what the content is. So the fact that I’m writing about what happened, and how I felt about it then and now doesn’t mean I’m not moving on. It just means I’m writing about my life – some of which has been imperfect but kind of fascinating.

And I particularly wanted to write about how I feel about his new partner because I know that lots of women have problems with the ‘other woman’ especially where children are involved. It’s a common struggle these days, and until I was in this position I could never understand this tension. And perhaps writing about how I feel about it might be useful for people who have found themselves being the ‘other woman’.

So anyway – what I’m saying is – no one needs to worry. I didn’t feel sad or upset or anything negative really whilst writing that post. I don’t sit sobbing over my laptop, swigging from a bottle of Chardonnay* whilst blogging. I enjoyed writing it – because I enjoy writing. And if I write about my own personal experiences I can’t possibly miss out what happened in my marriage, as I’ve no doubt it is the most transformative experience I’ll ever have.

You’ve got to love my dad though, eh?

*I’d never do that. I don’t drink Chardonnay**

**my dad’s email also said he doesn’t like the footnotes

In which I ponder…love, family and distance

/ howtobemeagain / 2 Comments

love-around-the-world

When we are young, we imagine we are invincible and, unless forced by circumstance, we rarely consider our mortality. In middle adulthood (I think this is where I’m at now, although some – including myself – might want to discuss whether I’m actually an adult, but I’m certainly in the middle of something), those of us who are lucky enough to have them around, kid ourselves that our parents are immortal.

I’ve not always had the greatest of relationships with my parents, in particular my mother. But the passing of time, and in particular the experience of parenthood has taught me to be more tolerant and more grateful for what I have. All parents are just doing the best they can at the time, with the tools they’ve got.

I love my own children with a passion and a depth I did not know was possible until I had them. And I can remember then having an epiphany about my parents – realising that they must feel like this about me too.

Moving to the other side of the world means that visits are infrequent, although I have been fortunate to have seen my family at least once a year during the 8 years I have been in Australia. The time passing between visits, though, means that those incremental signs of change and ageing that can go unnoticed when you see someone regularly are visited upon you starkly every time you meet.

For my dad, this has meant his hair has gotten whiter, and he’s become a little grumpier. His wit is still as sharp as ever and he is still in demand for his professional knowledge on boards and the like, and for his local activism and advocacy. Adventurous too – he just got back from Machu Picchu. We will gloss over the unfortunate incident involving alcohol related but apparently elegant (according to him anyway) pirouetting on the local station platform. Suffice to say, dad is not much different to how he’s ever been but during the time passing between two visits 18 months apart, my Mum seemed to get smaller, a bit frail and rather muddled.

However, it is one thing facing the mortality of one’s parents, which is in the natural order of things. It is quite another watching your brother and the rest of your family deal with a terminal diagnosis for his beautiful 11 year old son when you feel you are too far away.

I’ve learnt through the experience of emigrating that love, family and friendships recognise no borders, particularly in these days of technology and easy (ish!) travel. In many ways I feel as connected as I was when I was only round the corner or a few hours drive away. Social media allows us to continue to have a window into the lives of people thousands of miles away on a minute to minute basis, and Skype and texting and other applications mean that chatting is frequent. But there are some ways of expressing love that do not translate well across hemispheres. The loving touch, the hug, a much needed cuddle. Picking up a prescription and dropping it round, helping out with the shopping, turning up with an unexpected bottle of wine…how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

I can’t help wondering if I am on the right side of the world. I love Australia and I have made a life here, but when the inevitable happens, will I feel I loved Australia so much it was worth sacrificing time with the people I love – and who love me? Will my annual visits provide enough memories to sustain me when they are gone? Am I doing enough to support my family?

I’m not sure that I know the answer to these questions but I do know that I am not the first, and will not be the last, to consider them. They are the dilemma, the pain and sorrow of immigrants all over the world. I suppose I just have to hope that I have enough time to decide.

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My nephew has been diagnosed with Battens Disease and you can read about his brave struggle here.