Calm and brave, brave and calm.

Jul 25, 2012

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These are the ways people keep describing me. At Kentwell, complete strangers in Tudor costume would stop me to smile and say how impressed they were that I was doing it with so many children. And this was usually when I didn’t have *all* the children with me. And as I collapsed into a seat on the train on Monday the poor chap whose table we had invaded looked at the tribe with me and said “you’re very brave”.

Am I?

I don’t feel brave. I don’t feel calm. I feel like I’m constantly drowning, never quite good enough, too fat, unfit, unlovely. I’m doing thinking slimmer, listening to my slimpod every evening but I still think about food all the time. I bought mutusystem, determined to do something to reclaim my body enough to fit into that dress, and so far haven’t actually made it through a single full day’s worth of exercises on any one day. And as to the idea that I’ll print out a diary and fill it in…

I’m grabbing ten minutes right now to write this post. It’s the follow up to the tightrope post. It’s everything that’s exploding from my heart, brain and soul. And I’m writing it in a room of absolute chaos, with four children piled around me, each wanting attention and input as I go, constantly disrupting what passes for a train of thought. I’m also aware that there’s wet washing in the machine that needs hanging out and dry washing on the table that needs sorting to be put away and that I can’t actually get to the drawers to put my clothes away and haven’t been able to for months.

And any minute now the front gate will clang with the sound of Dp back from his quick constitutional, and I’ll need to go fetch fish and chips. I’ve achieved nothing with the time I had, can’t find the login for the review blog I’m trying to set up, haven’t finished responding to emails, didn’t get chosen to be the British Gas ambassador sidekick and win an iPad and I just WANT.

I want all the time. I want to be better. I want to be best. I want to be *the* blogger that people think of, talk about, look up to. I want to own all the things. I want to live in a decluttered, gorgeous, minimalist house lined with bookcases and running on green energy. (I want another baby.) I see other people writing things I wrote years ago, doing things I’ve moved on from, evangelising about activities I’m almost bored of and it’s driving me batty.

Calm? Brave? Nope. It’s just a mask. That isn’t a smile, it’s a grimace. “This is me smiling.” That was an intake of breath so that I could control my tone before I speak to a child. That catch in my voice was me swallowing back tears, in the hope that I can give me children a happy childhood. (aargh, remembered yet another blogpost that’s due. Panic, panic.)

I need to be earning a living, and John Lewis and Sainsbury’s (yes, I’m naming names) have withdrawn their ads in favour of sponsored posts that require follow links. Which is against google guidelines. I’m not saying I follow google guidelines slavishly, but it seems to me having posts labelled as sponsored with follow links in is just asking for trouble and sooner or later someone will be smacked. I don’t want it to be me. But I don’t know how else I’m going to go about earning any money from this blog.

I didn’t actually want to monetise this blog. I’ve got a review blog that I got as far as installing but no further. A technology blog that I’ve got posts coming out of my ears about but never the time, energy and quiet environment to actually write. A plan for a technology related business that I *really* want to be doing, but not the several hours of quite space and time a day that it would take to get set up to do it.

I’m so not calm. I’m so near the end of my tether.

And yet, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. Today I had a check in call with Sandra from Thinking Slimmer. She pointed out that since I started the process, I’ve actually lost the best part of a stone. I am active. I might be thinking about food, but I no longer want bread, I’m actively searching for an alternative. I’ve started experimenting with food, cooking new things I’ve never cooked before, taking my whole family on a journey into the unknown.

I read Dawn‘s book, Nothing needs to be the way it’s always been, yesterday and today while breastfeeding. (Obviously I was multi tasking. I’m not sure I’d know what to do with myself if I was only doing one thing at a time.) And it occurred to me that if she could change her life in the way she describes in just a year, surely I can make much smaller changes to be the person I think I’m supposed to be? The person I am in that quiet moment in the morning before I open my eyes and see the chaos, the person I reach for in the moments of calm between the children’s demands?

The calm and brave and efficient and achieving and proud of herself person that other people seem to think I already am.

It’s where it is Kentwell

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Comments

9 responses to “Calm and brave, brave and calm.”

mamacrow
25 July 2012
(((HUGS)))
You certainly are calm. Maybe calm is a doing word, like love, in this instance? You may not feel calm but you are choosing to act in a calm manner – good for you!
You certainly are, in my opinion, giving your children a WONDERFUL childhood.
Maybe it is about what/how you see things, and it maybe also possible to CHOOSE how you see things… more glass full along the lines of what Sandra was pointing out?
Of course, while still trying to fill the glass fuller…
and don’t forget the swan. Everyone things how calm and beautiful it looks, gliding along the surface of the water with no apparent effort. If you’ve ever looked at the underneath of one as it glides along, you’ll see it’s feet going away like billy-o!
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1. Jax
  25 July 2012
  I am trying to choose happiness. Not least because if they don’t see it, how can children be it?
  Reply
hannah hawkes
25 July 2012
Oh Jax,
You have just written every thing that is in my heart and head, all the things I never dare say, because I don’t want people to worry about me, I don’t want people to think I can’t cope. When the truth be told, I also am at the end of my tether constantly drowning, never achieving what I want too, never quite good enough, falling short of the mark at every turn.
Its soul destroying.
I am Sorry, I have no words of comfort, no words of wisdom nothing clever to say apart from THANK YOU, most of the time I feel so alone and your words have brought me comfort and for a brief moment I no longer felt lonely.
Take care of yourself
Hannah. x
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1. Jax
  25 July 2012
  You are not alone, never think that. Huge hugs. Write what is in your heart. I need to do that to change it.
  Reply
Merry
25 July 2012
I hate brave and calm. Always sounds like a euphemism for something.
I have to be honest, the division of labour never feels fair in your house. I don’t think you should be trying to achieve all that and I think you need some honest conversations about it. A list of chores 50/50 adults and some for big and small?
Max gets about 4 minutes a week to himself. He cooks, shops, does most of the driving about, most of the business hours. I do my 20 hours from home, feed a baby, educate and direct the tidying that’s about fair divs I think.
I can’t promise to do it much before Xmas but if dp takes the kids away afterwards, I will come with Bene for a weekend and decluttered your house for you. You book the skip and get the bin bags and boxes in ready. And promise me faithfully that each time life feels overwhelming and you wan to write one of these, you’ll do a post for a blog project instead?
That is loving tough love from a loving friend who goes on a bit too much at times. But does love you. And the offer is there if you’ll take it.
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1. Merry
  25 July 2012
  Hm. Not afterwards. During. Afterwards would be less helpful. Duh 😉
  Reply
2. Jax
  25 July 2012
  I needed to empty my head. This is my safety valve. It allows me to frame what needs to be done, and I feel lighter and calmer (though no braver 😉 ) for writing it.
  The wanting to work comes mainly from me. It’s part of my self image. Independence, self reliance. And I don’t describe the things I don’t do, the main bulk of washing up, keeping the kitchen clean etc.
  If we haven’t cracked it by Christmas I may well take you up on it. But I want it done long before then. It needs to be.
  Reply
Merry
25 July 2012
Oh, I understand about safety valves, don’t think I don’t. Hence tonight’s post. Though that’s been brewing a good while.
I know you’re full of good ideas, I know you are. And skills and thoughts and dreams and good intentions. I’d like to see you realise them. And it is so easy, I know oh too well, to get bogged down in how big they are. what I meant was, next time you feel overwhelmed and bursting with ideas and frustrated at not being able to do them, just pick a tiny chunk and do it with that moment. I think it will feel better, long term, to see a body of work form from out of the frustration.
I’ve done nano twice in November, when it would be easy/sensible to say that was not a good time for a toy seller to write 50,000 words. The achievement from getting through it at an already hard time has been huge. Like I guess kentwell must have felt? And you looked happy, in that beautiful photo of you.
When you list all the jobs that need doing, which sounds an awful lot to me, you sound sad and overwhelmed and wrung out. That’s just no way to live. I would like to think that the other three big people in your house would want to divvy some of that upand allow you a break so you can recover. They love you and so they should. Or you need to stop doing it long enough for them to notice your input in their lives 😉
Ps, take it from someone who had 3 under 4…. Life is about to get very full on. Don’t have another 😉 and I was in my 20’s. I had that thing….erm… Energy… Back then.
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Jenny Lesley
27 July 2012
I empathised with this so much, it took me right back into that year after birth feeling when I demanded so much of myself and felt I achieved so little. Be kind to yourself, you do have a lot on your plate and truly, with my youngest now at 9 I can see that it doesn’t last forever, it just feels like it at the time 🙂 You are achieving way more than I did or still do and enterprising and vibrant is how I’d describe you. xx
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