Alone Not Lonely

I've been taking part in Fat Mum Slim's Photo A Day challenge this month, mainly to feed my iphone photo app addiction, but also because it's a chance to flex a little creative muscle in a life that is currently dominated by procedure, organisation and analytical thinking. And navigating children's meal times ("I don't like chicken anymore!", "I POUR DA MILK!" So much fun.)

The prompt for Day 4 was the word 'Alone' which immediately reminded me of my friend Taylor who posted this on our mother's group page recently:

I want a day off. Alone. Just one. An entire one. At my own house where I am all alone and don't have to do a single thing for anyone else. Alone.

And doesn't that just sum up perfectly how many parents feel? We love our children without a doubt, but oh my giddy aunt, the desire to have a teensy tiny window of time alone can be overwhelming.

I sometimes look back at my single-girl twenties and wonder what on earth I did with ALL. THAT. TIME. And I would still not get around to paying bills. What on earth did I do? I honestly can't remember, but I was obviously extremely, very, enormously busy looking after myself and indulging my own needs. It's a wonder I got around to having a shower some days!

Earlier in the year I wrote about the intense desire I still have to spend time alone, a desire that was indulged by three days at the Golden Door. Alone.

I remember talking to some friends at the time who found my request to spend time alone a little odd. There were comments like "I could never leave my children for three days" or "I wouldn't know what to do with myself" or "My husband would never cope." I can understand those sentiments, I really can, but I can't bring myself to say them because, for me, they are not true. I could, I would and he did. But that's just me.

Although dig a little deeper, widen the circle, and overwhelmingly there are many of us harbouring a secret urge to occasionally run away for a bit. In my case, not so secret. And nor should it be.

Whilst the good ship Mother-Guilt is difficult to disembark, I am firmly of the opinion that it is critical to leave her vegemite-encrusted decks and give yourself time off, to remember what it's like to be you, just you. To be alone with your thoughts, to let them ramble or spin off on random trajectories, not reined in by timetables and shopping lists. To let the horse have her head and gallop wildly. For dreams to come out of hiding and be thrown into the light, imagining what they could become. A novel written, a new baby planned, a trip to Paris that you will start saving your gold coins for.

I've always been good at being alone. Oldest child, only girl, vivid imagination - my childhood laid the foundations for an adult who is comfortable buying a single ticket to the movies or sitting alone in a restaurant. I look forward to the two days a week when I work alone at home. I get the children off to school and daycare, put the kettle on for an uninterrupted cup of tea (which I get to drink while it's still hot! Imagine!!) and happily camp out in my own head for the day, working on our various businesses and periodically engaging with the world via email, social media, sometimes the phone.

Me aged 3. Resemblance to anyone?

When I first met John, he had forgotten how to be alone and for awhile it caused occasional friction between us. He couldn't understand why I needed to sometimes wander off alone and I couldn't understand why he wouldn't want to. Eventually I came to the realisation that he had been an employer, a father, a husband for so long, he had forgotten how to be Just John. Like an atrophied muscle, he had to start flexing it again, teaching it what to do. Nowadays, Saturday mornings see him champing at the bit to get out on his paddle board. He drifts away on the sea, out of sight around the headland, and dwells in the land of Just John for a bit.

I believe in the ability to be alone but not lonely. Contentedly alone. Although the contentedly bit can be hard to achieve, sometimes impossible. I hate that. Alone time and a brain that insists on being a scattered, worried mess. Like shopping for clothes with a wallet full of cash and being unable to find a single garment that suits me.

I want my kids to develop the alone muscle, and not just for the obvious fact that the quality of my alone time is directly proportional to the quantity of their alone time. Invariably they will find themselves on a train from Rome to Paris with only a novel for company, or stood up in a bar, or in the limbo between starting a new school or job and making friends. I want them to be okay with that. To know they are a self-contained entertainment unit, content with an audience of one.

"There is no friend as loyal as a book" Ernest Hemingway (shame old Hemmers didn't take the same view regarding wives!)

Francesca is growing out of her daytime naps, a milestone I've been dreading. Being around a toddler from sunup to sundown without a break is enchanting on so many levels, but utterly exhausting as well. It's easy to fall into the trap of feeling like you need to entertain them all day - an endless parade of food, drinks, outings, babycinos, books, songs with actions and swings. Oh God, save me from the swings! The two hour daytime nap was the circuit breaker we both needed.

Thanks to the magic clock, she still has at least an hour's break a day. We call it rest time. She must stay in her room until the 'sun' comes up on her clock (I set it for approx 75 minutes). Sometimes she falls asleep, but most of the time I can hear her pottering about in her room, chatting to her dolls and teddies, drawing on her blackboard or pretending to read her books. In other words, learning how to be alone.

Can you guess what the best part of being alone is? Not being alone at the end of it. Spending time by myself brings my relationships into sharp relief and, dare I say it, makes them better. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." A tired old cliche, sure. But an accurate tired old cliche.

So here's a crazy idea. Why don't we all just agree that there is nothing selfish or strange about wanting to spend time alone. That it's part of being human and doesn't need to be cloaked in an excuse. Let's just agree that it's normal and energising and inspiring. Go on. It's really quite liberating.

As Audrey Hepburn said "I have to be alone very often. I'd be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That's how I refuel." And Audrey Hepburn was a goddess. You want to listen to a goddess, don't you?

It's now 1.29pm. The clock is set for 2.30. I can hear Francesca talking to her baby doll (who is being told to close her eyes!) and I have 61 minutes in which to miss her, forget about her and be a better, rested, happier mum for her when she comes out.

I'm outta here. Ciao!

You can follow my Photo A Day challenge over on Instagram . . . (join me!)

Glass Half Full

Lemons at the ready! That's if the Very Hungry Caterpillar or that mean looking Transformer doesn't get them first*

I try to be a glass half full kind of girl, I really do. But there are days when it's not as easy as it sounds to make lemonade out of lemons. 

"Hey ho sad little lady, let's make lemonade!" says the universe.

Seriously? I'm having a shitty day when I can't even be bothered to drag a toothbrush through my mouth and you want me to put the damn juicer together, squeeze a gazillion lemons, spend half an hour adding enough sugar to make sure it tastes palatable, then dismantle the juicer and wash it, getting tiny bits of lemon out of its 27 moving parts?

Well okay then. I'll do it!

Why?
Because if I do, at least I'm doing something to take my mind off my shitty day.
Because if I do, I might enjoy it.
Because if I do, I'll be rewarded with a sugary, lemony drink somewhat resembling lemonade for my efforts.
Because if I don't, I'll feel shittier.

Last week, I accidentally sprayed hairspray in my eye. After 30 years of forcing various hairstyles to stay glued in place (especially the Farrah Flick I sported in Year 11) you'd think I'd have perfected the art of closing my eyes while spraying. But in a not uncommon brainfart moment, I opened them at the wrong moment and copped an eyeful of Tresemme Extra Hold.

Your blogger at a 1984 Christmas party with attempted Farrah Flick. Oh dear.

The hairspray incident occurred after having a shower at the same time as John decided to do the dishes and being treated to alternating boiling hot and icy cold water on rotation (he likes to rinse every article before placing it in the rack - not complaining, BUT did a bit of Morning Fresh residue ever kill anyone?)

Later in the morning, I carefully placed Francesca's banana smoothie on the front seat of the car while I did her belt up, only to find it tipped over when I got in, thick creamy milk oozing into the crack between the seat bit and the back of the seat, and dripping into the space between the seat and the door. The first word that escaped my lips rhymed with 'duck' which was a very bad mummy moment because Francesca, the world famous copycat, was in the back. Fortunately she was glued to my iPhone (another awesome parenting example) and I just sat there feeling suddenly that it was all too much.

I'm sure you know what I mean when I say I felt paralysed by a sudden and utter sense of hopelessness. That moment where it all feels too hard. That the little things have accumulated into a big thing that just might be insurmountable. And the fact that they're such silly, inconsequential, first-world-problem things just makes it seem so much more pathetic. But for whatever reason, whether your serotonin has taken a dive or the silly thing is just ONE MORE THING that went wrong today, you can't help it.

Lemons.

Despite wanting to cry and wallow and shake my fist at the silly universe and its silly way of showing me not to sweat the small stuff, I forced my brain into gear. My lemonade instinct. I remembered I had the weekly grocery shop in the back including a triple pack of paper towel. I ripped open that paper towel packaging like a lion tears at its prey. I may have even growled. I used reams of the stuff to soak up the smoothie. I found a new home for the watermelon and used the plastic bag for all the soggy paper towels and used a baby wipe to remove the stickiness from the leather. Huzzah! I was a canny, resourceful survivor! I was a problem-solving Man from Mars! I was making lemonade, dammit!!!

So when I say I 'try' to be a glass half full person, I mean I really do try. And sometimes it's trying. Very 'ducking' trying. But if I don't try, then I'd be a glass half empty gal and somehow I just don't think that would feel as good.

* Note to self: Clean sorry looking fruit bowl. Remove alien robots. Populate with more actual fruit.

These are the days my friend

Thank you daylight savings for your lovely six month stay. We were sorry to see you go with your balmy evenings and late sunsets and toddlers that slept till 7am.

How absolutely bonkers is it that putting the clocks back ONE MEASLY HOUR can turn your whole world upside down? For the first week, I feel like I had a daylight savings hangover. Morning wake-ups at 6am instead of 7am and afternoons that dragged on like a Logies telecast.

"Can it really only be 6.30pm?" I moaned every day last week when my body was expecting to have already eaten dinner and would have been anticipating the joy relief tender moment when I lay Francesca in her cot to sleep. At 6.30, she was still demanding to eat 'gwapes in the barf'!

My body clock caught up with itself this week. John and I decided we would take advantage of the early starts and Indian summer weather by taking the kids to the beach this morning at 6.30am, followed by brekkie at our local cafe.

I'm so glad we did.

The water was warm and calm. While the kids played on the beach, John and I struck out with long strokes across the bay - him shearing through the water with strong freestyle, me setting a more languid pace on my back. We duck-dived to the ripply sand on the bottom and shot like arrows through hazy green and blue back to the surface. Such a beautiful start to the morning.

These are the days my friends. You know . . . the days. The ones we'll look back on and think "Life was bloody good."

Letting Go

Letting go . . . 

I've been thinking a lot lately about the concept of 'letting go' and conversely, why we become so attached to things and people in the first place. Buddha is good on this. Do you know Buddha? He's that laid back guy sitting under the tree in the park with a smile on his face.

Of course there's the cruel attachment one forms with one's favourite TV shows and the agonising wrench of having to let go of Don Draper or the good folk at Downton Abbey at the end of every season. It's difficult but achievable, especially as there are always reruns of Modern Family to fill the gaping hole with lovable humour.

Harder to let go of are people. And not just the horrible-nasty-no-good-very-bad-just-plain-mean people who pop up in everyone's life at one stage or another. They should be let go, and rightly so.
But sometimes it's important to let the people you love go too.

Let me explain . . .

We've just moved to a house high on a hill overlooking the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Every morning at dawn I stand in the still, cool air on the deck of our house, high above the world. From this vantage, the sky also seems bigger - I can see banks of clouds running towards us through the blue overhead and big bashing storms forming out to sea. And perhaps because I feel so small in the universe amongst all of that, I suddenly feel more 'me' than I do at any other time of the day.

Not a mother.

Not a wife.

Not a daughter.

Not a business owner.

Not a friend.

Just. Me.

All alone, with my childhood dreams, my sense of wonder, my knowledge of all that I am. A happy introvert. A sentimentalist. A believer in love and forgiveness. Too emotional at times and sometimes not emotional enough. A former fairy-believer. A tryer who is sometimes trying. A girl who wants to be everything all at once and fails to be anything often. A dreamer who would rather write a cool novel than make a cold call. A shower-singer. A total dag.

And it's such a gorgeous, liberating feeling to have those few minutes just being grateful and accepting where I am right now. My place in the universe.

But to get to that place, it's necessary to let everything go. Fear and anxiety are inherently linked to the things and people in our lives. Worrying about something happening to the children, anxiety about jobs, money, the future. It's all too much. Modern life is overwhelming. It wakes us up at 3am and gnaws at us. No wonder we're all so tired all the time. It's fricking exhausting being a human being on this earth, being harrassed at 3am by an internal harridan about the cupcakes for the school fete and the screechy brakes on the car and the mean kid who's telling your child they're not allowed to play.

But up on my deck, my eyrie, for those few minutes, I bring the people I love in close to me and I thank the universe for them, their health, and everything we have in our lives. Then one by one, I let them drift away from me. My husband, my parents, my children. I send them floating off into the sky on their own journeys, knowing that they will back with me momentarily, after I've had my fill of solitude. Of getting back to me.

It's like picking up a beloved book from long ago and rediscovering a gorgeous, warm story. One you can come back to again and again.

Happy Friday xx

Image author's own doodle. Note the excellent big hair and absence of tuckshop arms.