A lesson in humanity
There are rules of school and if you break the rules you are guaranteed to get the stink eye from other parents and teachers at the school. Nobody likes to be a nag, but nobody likes to see someone taking advantage of others. Small rules include not sitting outside the classrooms before school starts. There are designated areas for that. Making appointments to speak with the teachers instead of standing inside the door for a half hour while everyone tries to work around you trying desperately not to listen to you telling the story of how “little johnny fell out of bed and is there something bigger at play, do you think?”
You don’t park in drop off zones, you don’t park inside the school grounds unless you have a permit and you don’t park other people in, regardless of how far away the school is, how late you are, and how heavy the rain is. (Which has been me, every day for the past three weeks – parked four blocks away with a cranky toddler on my hip holding my umbrella in it’s still folded down state because I don’t have enough hands to carry the umbrella, him, run and avoid puddles.)
I’ve spoken before about a friend of Lucy’s from school who uses a walker due to brain tumor and subsequent complications when he was only 18 months old. They are the most beautiful family and while Lucy isn’t in the twins’ class anymore she seems them out in the yard and we stop to talk to them each afternoon on the way out.
A couple of weeks ago I was picking Lucy up from school and we we bumped into Lucy’s twin friends and their Mum. The boys were rambunctiously throwing themselves against the windows of the car, yelling and waving at us as we walked by. Mum (I’ll call her May) was urging them to sit down and buckled in because they have a hospital appointment – par of the course when you have a son with additional needs such as his.
Next thing, a clearly marked disabled van pulled up behind her, and parked her in. Parking people in out on the street is bad enough but seriously Internets! You just don’t ever park in a vehicle that’s parked in a disabled park! May came to the back of her car, where the van’s driver had gotten out and was assembling ramps and asked her very politely to please move her van, because she’s parked her in, and she’s not parked in a car-space, she’s parked illegally.
The driver shot back with ‘I’m parked in the wheelchair bay. I have to pick up a disabled child”
May again politely responded. She told her that actually No, she’s not parked in the wheelchair bay because MAY is parked in the wheelchair bay and can she please move her van because she has to get her son to his appointment.
Lucy and I were standing by, observing this happening. May was clearly frustrated and upset but she was still being polite and kind. Then the driver of the van dropped her zinger.
“Well lady, this is a car park for disabled people so you have no right being here. When I’m finished loading my disabled child into this van I will move it and you’ll sit there and learn all about how you shouldn’t park in places you don’t belong.” {Verbatim}
I have never been so angry and upset for another person in my life. May, to her credit is always gracious and simply turned to the woman and said to her ‘My son____ has _______, ___________, ____________ and ____________” Then she opened the boot of her car, to show the walker frame, the special equipment her son uses every day to just attend school like his peers. NOW is he disabled enough for you?”
Then she calmly got into her car, waited for the woman with the van to reverse out and using a series of amazing maneuvers did a complete turn and left the school.
I. WAS. SEETHING.
Lucy could see I was angry, and was worried I was angry at her. I told her that Mummy just needed five minutes of peace, to calm down, and then I would tell her exactly why I was so angry at the lady in the van, but that she was not in trouble at all.
Then, in the car for the next thirty minutes we had a discussion about different abilities, about disabilities and about additional needs. We talked about silent illness, about people having things wrong with their bodies that you can’t see. We talked about judging others, about saying rude comments to people when you know nothing about them or their situation. I told her that I never want to hear her make a comment about where someone else has parked because at the end of the day, it’s just a car park and it’s not worth getting upset, or making someone else feel upset or hurt over.
Most importantly though I told her that what the lady in the van did was so wrong because if anybody should have known better about judgement and rudeness it was this lady who will have seen more than most already and will continue to do so. And maybe she was just having a bad day and took it out on May and her boys but that the most important thing to remember is that behind the car park, behind the car in the space where you want to be is a person. And people have feelings and emotions and as a fellow person we should never intentionally upset or be rude to another person.
Lucy took a lot away from our conversation. I know she did because she still talks about it. Not about the lady in the van, but about May – about how she was still kind, how she still used her manners and she didn’t shout or get angry at the other lady. “That’s the sort of grown up I want to be, Mum” she said to me later.
Me too, lovely girl. Me too.
Ticking Time Lessons
“Mum, can you stay just a little bit longer today? I know that you have to go to work, but today I just want you to stay for a little longer…”
Of course I stayed. Being a few minutes late for work is the compromise I must make if it means that on the 5th day of school my girl needs some extra reassurance. But I watched the clock, and saw those precious minutes slipping by, and just knew the traffic would be unbearable.
“Mum, my teacher said that we need Mum’s and Dad’s to help in the tuck-shop… can you do that?”
“Oh sweetie, I’m terrible at math. I still count on my fingers and need a calculator to make change. Plus, I have to work. Tuck-shop isn’t’ something I can do but if there is something else that comes up I promise I’ll make it work….”
Phew. Got out of that one.
“Mum, there is a meeting on Monday night at the school. Can you come? It’s to learn about what we’re doing this year.”
“Sure, sweetie. Let me find someone to watch you and your brother, and I’ll go for sure.”
“Thanks Mum. “
God, I hope this isn’t a waste of a baby sitter….
“Mum, my teacher said that she needs a parent helper to come in every day of the week! That means a Mum or Dad has to come to school and stay in the classroom with us and do jobs so we can learn better and learn more! Can you do that?”
“Let me talk to your teacher. Wednesday is my day off, so I can do Wednesday each week for a little while.”
“Yay, Mum! Lets go and tell her!”
Yes, lets. I have to get to Aldi, and the sale is on this morning on those hand-wash / teeth brushing timers that I wanted for home and for work. If I stay until the second bell, then I should be able to get out of here and down there before they are all gone…….
“This is my Mum! She’s going to help you change your home reader! And she’ll help you pick a new one! And then she will help you put it in your folder, and help you put your folder away! This is my Mum! She’s our parent helper today!”
I don’t know any of these kids, or their names. I feel so out of place right now. Come on, kid. Time’s a ticking. I have somewhere to be! Pick a book, any book. That one? Great. Rinse and repeat.
“This is my Mum! She’s been helping us! Mum, I have to go and do some work now, will you say bye to me before you leave please?”
“Of course I’ll say goodbye, Luc. Go write in your journal now.”
Oh, now you want me to listen to kids read sight words. Well, sure. I mean, I don’t have anything *that* important on, I can stick around for a bit longer. Oh, the bell has just gone – oh you still need me? Alrighty then… maybe I can call and ask them to put one aside for me…
And then, as I sat there helping a little 5 year old boy sound out the sight words I heart the voice of my daughter, carry over the top of her classmates chatter….
” That’s my Mum over there. She’s pretty busy you know, but today she is just helping here because she’s a great mum and she knows I wanted her to so she just did it. She’s a great Mum.”
Oh The GUILT. Not only had I been half- hearted, wishing to avoid this entire morning, but I’d be convincing myself for well over a year now that all those missed events in prep that I just couldn’t get to, the avoided P&C BBQ’s, the dodged Tuck-shop duties, the missed Parent Helper opportunities hadn’t meant anything to her. She didn’t mind. She forgives me. She understands.
She’s FIVE. And all she wants is her Mum to be a part of her school life.
Today I learned a valuable lesson about time. About being present in a child’s life, even when you think they aren’t looking or won’t notice. About being one hundred percent committed to something, even if your heart wasn’t entirely in it when you agreed. Today I made my daughter proud of me and even now tears spring to my eyes when I remember the joy on her face, and the way she introduced me to every.single.child and parent who walked through that door.
Next week I’m going back again, and I’m not wearing my watch. I’m taking my water bottle and for however long they will take me, I will be there and fully present.
Time isn’t measured in days, in things achieved, in how clean your floors are or how many towels you fold up and put away. It’s measured in seconds, seconds doing the things that make you happiest, things that make your child happiest. Time is measured in the moments today that I wasted, thinking of myself and my own selfish agenda instead of the precious moments I could have had helping other people’s children, talking to them about their mornings, their families, getting to know my daughters new friends. Helping my daughter. Making my daughter proud.
Those are the moments that are valuable and I am going cling to those. Because those moments are worth more than anything.
Sunrise
It’s been a while. So long in fact that when I came to log in I had to look up my password, my blog reader is just out of control and I have about ten emails sitting there not yet responded to – or thus far, read. (Apologies, people! I will try harder I promise!!).
Truthfully I’ve been feeling a little ambivalent about coming back to this space, after my last post. I would love (LOVE) to come back here full of hope and promise and feeling back to my old self but I can’t lie, and I’m just not there. Yet. I say yet because I have faith that one day I will look at my kids and my husband and myself and just see the great, I won’t dread getting out of bed of a morning because of what the day might hypothetically hold and my enthusiasm for life, for living life and for this space will return.
Until then, I have small and achievable goals. Today they include things like getting Oliver to take the nap he so desparately needs in the vain hope that it might help lower this fever he’s been hanging on to all morning. Things like doing a load of washing, not eating junk food and maybe even cleaning a bathroom.
Ultimately, things will get better, life will get easier and I’ll return to firing on all cylinders. If you’ve been hanging about here waiting to hear from me I appreciate it more than I have the ability to say. As someone very close to me recently said – “The best part about hitting rock bottom is all the things you get to see on the way up again.”
I can see a sunrise – it looks a little different than the one I am used to seeing so please bear with me whilst I reach for it.
The confessional.
I was driving home from school pick up and it was pouring with rain. As I went to merge onto the highway Oliver started yelling about something, really i couldn’t understand what it was and Lucy was singing loudly along to the radio and I just.couldn’t.think. My brain stopped working, I was barely present and I started yelling at my kids to stop… being kids.. Oliver kept yelling, but Lucy fell quiet. Both of my kids have heard me yell a lot lately.
I woke up this morning feeling pretty rotten within myself. For all I have spoken previously about being open about depression, about talking about it and dealing with it truthfully and honestly I didn’t get on here last night and admit that yesterday I finally went to my doctor, and got a mental health plan and a referral to a psychologist.
The rain was belting down, visibility was practically nothing. I turned off the highway, heading towards home and caught a glimpse of my two kids in my rear-view mirror. They were both silent. They weren’t happy anymore. I had taken their happiness from them because I am such a train wreck right now that I have no control over my temper. Quick to anger isn’t a part of the “love is” meme’ and looking at those two faces I felt such bone crushing guilt and anger at myself.
Instead of going through the lights at the intersection I turned right, and before I could even think about it I pulled into the local Medical centre, dragged my kids out in the rain and walked in and made an appointment. The estimated wait time was two hours, but I dared not leave and come back - the simple truth is I knew if I walked out that door I was never coming back in it again and my kids would go months longer dealing with a mother who alternately acts as though she adores them, and then hates them.
During the wait I managed to convince myself that the biggest reason I was feeling like this was because I’m fighting off a virus right now, and have a mouth full of ulcers that have been causing me a lot of pain. But when I walked into the doctors office and she asked me ‘How can I help you today” I fell to pieces.
I cried my heart out in that office. All of it came pouring out – how I’m not sleeping, how I just want to sit on the lounge and eat until I explode, how the house hasn’t been cleaned properly in two months because I can’t be bothered, how I swing from feeling completely overwhelmed and sad to furious for no good reason. I told her I don’t think she can help me because I’m a total fucking train wreck and then she did something so unexpected.
She hugged me, handed me a tissue and started making phone calls on my behalf. She told me things that I intellectually knew, but just haven’t gotten through to actually believing about myself. I have to stop carrying everyone else when I can’t carry myself. She told me to take time off work when I’m sick, instead of trying to work through it. She told me to rest more – not sleep more but just let myself relax, instead of always feeling guilty about what I should or could be doing. She told me to have more sex, drink less wine and laugh a lot. And she told me that I’m normal – it’s just my brain chemistry that’s messing with me. Then she told me the truth. That these past couple of months I haven’t been a great mother, but I’m still a good mother and by seeing her I was well on the way to being that great mother that I used to be.
Yesterday in a fit of weakness, or maybe strength (I have not figured out which) I dragged my kids in the pouring rain to an appointment with a doctor and they got to watch me fall apart and ugly cry. The three of us left that appointment with puffy eyes, streaming noses and a plan for the future – a plan for the better.
Today I am at home resting, being kind to myself and making phone calls and appointments to finally get on with this. I’m feeling ambivalent at best, In the cold light of day I feel like a drama queen. But I’m not going to let my brain chemistry lie to me today. I’m going to make that appointment and I’m not going to let myself talk me out of it.
God, give me strength.
Real wealth
As a modern aged mum we’re educated to believe we can do it all. That we can juggle the housework, the job, the study, the family commitments, the friend commitments and our relationships. We’re supposed to get a solid seven hours sleep each night, and bounce out of bed ready to face a new day filled with peak hour traffic, sibling rivalry and employee and employer expectations with a smile on our face because after all – this is what women before us have fought for. The right to work. The right to vote. The right to have it all.
Confession. I don’t want it all. I am waving a giant white flag above my head and declaring to you all that not only do I not want it all, but I can’t do it all.
In my day there are twenty four hours. How you use those hours counts – nobody gets to do their day again, nobody gets to rewind time and save a few hours, or fix a few hours.
I don’t want a life of luxury. I don’t want to be rich, sitting in my glass house judging the people around me. I want to feel satisfied with my life, love my kids and have sex with my husband on a regular basis. Occasionally I’d like the house to be clean and I’d like to feel challenged in my job.
Watching my full of attitude five year old run down that lane this morning, with the wind in her hair and a grin on her face as she came in second last I had an epiphany. If having it all means I have to spread myself thin, across the things that really matter? I don’t want it all. I want to sit, and watch Lucy and her friends race. I want to watch them high jump over that bar and throw that shot put. When she finishes the relay with a grin on her face and no idea where the relay baton is because she dropped it at the start line I want to be the one there, laughing with her and cheering her on.
If that means other things have to wait, that I can’t take on more responsibility at work, that an assignment gets submitted late or that sometimes Matt comes home to an empty house full of mess from the mornings clutter while we’re at the park then so be it. I don’t want to be so many things to so many people that I’m not whole enough for my kids, or my husband.
The women who have come before us did incredible things in raising women’s profiles, in making it ok for women to dream, to work, to exceed expectations. And just as we learned things from then, the next generation will learn from us. I don’t want my daughter to see me as a mother who only had time off when she was sick, a mother who only came to events that fell on her rostered day off, or a mother who only stays for half an event because she has things to do. Of course I want her to understand that the world doesn’t stop, because she has a race to run but I want thing things that are important to her, to be important to me too. I want Lucy to learn from me that as long as you try your hardest, as long as you run the race the best you know how and as long as your priority is your family – everything will be just fine.
I don’t need to ‘have it all’. With this family, in this life, I am wealthy.
Taking responsibility.
It’s peaceful. Deceptively quiet. Isn’t there supposed to be thrashing around? Fighting, or aggression? Surely there should be something clear, a clear signal. But, not unlike actual drowning falling into the pit of desperation and depression isn’t signaled with a crash of cymbals that makes others aware. Rather, it sneaks up, quietly, and like a ripple across a pond pulls you deep into it’s depths leaving those left behind scratching their heads and wondering just where that lively and friendly person has gone. It happens so fast.
I think as a adults we are responsible for our mental health, within a certain degree. Certainly, I believe depression is caused by a hormone or chemical imbalance in a persons brain. But don’t we have to accept responsibility for ourselves in this as well? Don’t we have to take control of our lives, and seek out the things that make us sad, seek out those around us who influence us negatively and be proactive in removing them from our lives? I don’t claim to be perfect at doing this – indeed digging through those parts of yourself that you don’t particularly like or aren’t proud of can be entirely demoralizing and disheartening. Looking at the things in other people that you don’t like or disagree with and seeing and acknowledging those things in yourself is brutal! Nobody likes to think they are just like the people they can’t stand. The cold truth is that many, many of us are. In fact, it’s often our similarities that make us so volatile. After all, if you don’t like them but you’re just like them, then you don’t like yourself either.
Accepting responsiblity for your mental health means letting things go. It means accepting apologies that are proffered to you, it means offering them genuinely for what they are. Not every relationship that ends has to be coated in bitterness, bitching and nasty inuendo. It’s healthy for people to go their separate ways, for things to draw to a natural conclusion. If you agonize over every ended relationship, over ever facet of something, and pick it to pieces you will drive yourself to madness. It drove me to madness. It’s been a hard lesson to learn, but finally – I get it.
I blame Barbie.
1466 days ago, my daughter was born.
She was born screaming, with dark brown hair, and gorgeous dark brown hair that people have spent the past 1466 days commenting on. She was beautiful then, and she is beautiful now. Her smile is infectious, her laugh makes every one around her laugh. She is intelligent, she is friendly, she is polite and kind and has a deep social conscience. She wakes at night crying, cold, but crying not for herself but because other kids out there are cold too, but they don’t have blankets for their Mums to pull up over them, or they don’t have Mums.
She amazes me, daily. I tell her that, daily.
She doesn’t believe me.
I blame Barbie. Up until a year ago we didn’t have any. (Barbie is a slut, the end). Lucy turned four, and people started buying them for her as gifts. She loves Barbie, I hate how they make her feel. At five years old she worries, because Barbie has blue eyes and blonde hair and that’s how she thinks the pretty girls should look.
FIVE. YEARS. OLD.
Lucy has been raised to be friendly, to be kind. She has been taught that how you treat people makes you beautiful, not how you look. She has the sweetest soul, her genuine kind nature makes her gorgeous. But my girl, my talented, wonderful, intelligent five year old get’s sad, because her dolls are prettier than her. She worries that her brother is prettier than her, because he has light hair, blue eyes.
Almost every little girl dreams of being a fair maiden and being swept away by her prince charming. Little girls want to be beautiful fairies and princess’s. Fairy-tale and fantasy is fun, but this, this worry, this anxiety over her appearance….I debated taking them away, eliminating the problem. But taking away Barbie won’t fix her self-image. Instead, we started buying Barbies. Now she has a collection, brown haired, black haired, dark skinned, pasty white… They are each unique (as mass-produced plastic boobs on legs can be).
I want her to know that she doesn’t have to ‘fit the standard’ to be amazing. I want her to know that no matter what she, or anyone else looks like, it is the inner beauty that matters. How you treat the homeless, what you do with the lost dog you see on the corner, if you go back to check on the bird that flew into the windscreen. If you empathise when someone is crying, if you worry when someone is sick. If you want to make people happy. If you are truthful, kind, considerate and compassionate.
Those are the things that I want her to know about. I want her to see beauty in all of nature. I want her to understand that Barbie is not pretty. Barbie is an inanimate object, she lacks the life-force of a person that generates true beauty. Barbie is a thing. A cold, plastic doll with no soul, and no way to contribute anything meaningful to society.
Listening to the news I am tired of hearing about the obesity epidemic in one news story, closely followed by children as young as five who are being treated for Anorexia. What a confusing message for our kids – You’re too fat, now you’re too skinny.” Magazines show skimpy outfits for children designed to make them look like street prostitutes. Parents are enrolling their children in beauty competitions and then erasing every natural and beautiful feature of the child by covering them in makeup, fake hair, fake eyelashes, fake tan, hell, even fake teeth! Is it any wonder our children are growing up with body image issues? Lucy has never so much as watched an episode of that travesty they call Toddlers and Tiara’s, and she’s already having the ‘not good enough’ conversations with me. I truly feel for those poor children who are put out on that stage week after week, and made to perform. I can’t imagine what their sense of self worth must be like.
Barbie looks nice, but she’s not pretty, or beautiful, or stunning. Barbie might be ‘just’ a doll, but the expectation of hollow beauty that she portrays to hundreds of thousands of little girls every day is just not acceptable and our girls deserve better.
MY GIRL DESERVES BETTER.
Stripper? Never again. (Or, how I pissed off women I don’t know, and who don’t know me by standing by my marriage.)
I feel the need to preface this to say not only am I not a prude, but I am a pretty big beliver in other people’s relationships being none of my business. If you’re married and sleeping around not only do I not want to know, but I literally don’t care because that is YOUR life and what you do with it is your business. Unless you are hanging off a bridge by nipple tassels I am not going to get involved.
The past week has been hard, and not because of anything to do with this blog, with my last post or any of the associated trolling that went on over on the facebook page. Personal relationships (not mine) have been tested and so to head off down the coast this weekend for a hens celebration seemed like perfect timing. We had a pretty standard hens weekend planned, lots of wine, a party cruise, clubbing and of course the standard stripper. (The stripper was actually a last minute addition because while some thought it would be better to give it a miss, others determined it should happen. So at the last minute to keep the peace we booked a stripper. I wish now that I had stood by my instincts.)
I’ve never seen a male stripper before. I’ve been in strip clubs, I’ve entered those ridiculous wet T-shirt competitions and been generally drunk and stupid. But I’ve never sat in a group of screaming women and watched a completely random (and honestly, foul smelling!) man take his clothes off for money.
I was very naive about what was to happen next. After only three minutes of the ‘performance’, I had to get up and leave. I thought that a male stripper would come in, dance around, act silly, take off his clothes, and then pick up and go home. I never anticipated watching other (married) women laying under him on the floor while he gyrated around on top of them in lewd, over sexualized movements that honestly made me feel as though I had stepped into a tacky D grade porno. Watching these women screaming, touching this man and him grabbing their hands and rubbing them all over him actually made me want to vomit. I walked away and went to sit outside. I didn’t know then, nor can I really explain now why, but I felt like a complete emotional wreck. I burst into tears, and called my husband.
The thing about my man is that he gets me. He knew as soon as I called him something was up, and he was happy to talk to me through it, and just hearing his voice on the phone made me feel a whole lot better about how I was feeling. I felt dirty, violated. This stripper never laid a finger on me, he walked by me once. He never looked at me, or tried to include me in his ‘act’. Just being there, in that room and witnessing three minutes of this was enough for me to feel as though I had betrayed my husband. Intellectually I knew that I didn’t do anything wrong, but because of the time I did do something wrong I just knew that my presence in that room was inappropriate.
Oh, I was called a prude for it. I was told I should hide in a bathroom because this was a hens night and what did I expect it to be? I was told to loosen up, I was told that it’s just ‘fun’. Other’s were furious at me for walking away because I felt wrong – as though I was judging them. I never did. But I don’t like that kind of fun. That kind of fun isn’t who I want to be. It’s not who I want to be for myself, for my husband and for my kids. It felt so wrong to me, and in that instant I knew I had to get away from it.
Looking back, stone sober I am proud of myself. I am proud of the commitment I feel to my husband, it was that commitment that compelled me to walk away, that I knew even watching was something that I would never ask him to tolerate, or expect to have to tolerate. I know that I didn’t do anything wrong that night by walking away. I don’t think that anyone who watches a stripper is ‘cheating’ or commiting an act of betrayal. If watching a stripper, and participating in a strip show is something that you and your husband or partner see nothing wrong with then that is up to you.
But for me, personally? Celebrating the upcoming wedding of someone I love by hiring a stranger to get naked and grind all over them just seems absurd and dangerous and in a way, I feel as though it tries to cheapen the vows that the woman or man is preparing to take. I really regret playing any part in paying for, booking and hosting such an awful and lewd ‘entertainer’.
Know better, do better. Lesson learnt.
{ I want to state very plainly here that not only did the Hen not take part in the strippers’ ‘act’ but she removed herself from the situation and directed him to perform for the others as she was so uncomfortable with what was happening. At no point did she engage with this man, or allow him to touch her. Other women did so quite willingly – she was never a part of it, and I asked her if I could write about this experience from my point of view before posting it here.}
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