The quiet

It has been quiet round here.

We don’t say much and when we do

it’s not always helpful.

We’re tired and cross.

We both want to make it better

but neither knows how.

I think about making it better.

All. The. Time.

I wonder if he does too.

I think about a lot of things.

Of making me better, of making us all a bit better.

I’m doing big work and I hope

I don’t give up

too soon.

 

It’s hot and we’re inside a lot.

That doesn’t work well but

right now

we have no alternative.

I know we both want an alternative

but our lives just aren’t there,

right now.

A new house, a garden, more space, more light,

privacy, room, things on the wall,

quiet

at night.

Ah, at night,

the quiet.

I’m back

I’m not sure the protocol in these situations.
Am I meant to start a new blog.
My purpose is gratitude.
Which fits too neatly with half full glasses.
I’m sticking around until
I think of somewhere better,
if I think of somewhere better,
to house my thoughts.

These days we are quiet.
There are now five where there were four.
We’ve added another little boy.
Four and a half months and every day more.

The reason these days are quiet,
is because 2 little boys leave
the house early in the morning
3 days a week.
These days are my solace, my substenance
my necessity.

So gratitude seems to me
one very real way
of making sure I live
squarely in every moment.
Looking for the things about which
I should give thanks.
Maybe looking will help me
be.

Nurture

Life ebbs and flows and kinda dips a lot at the moment. I’m still trying to find my feet in Melbourne and mentally get on top of my body’s health.

One thing I have decided to do, now that I have the time as a SAHM (ouch!!) is cook. In particular, make my lunch from scratch.

Cooking brings me joy. Even more so, eating what I’ve cooked. So, they say focus on the little things each day that make you feel ok. And that’s what I’ve been doing. It’s a crap photo but here is my lunch time salad. So yummy and even pretty fun to cook. Actually lot’s of fun. I found the recipe here which is a GREAT site. As someone who is trying to eat healthier in the hope that my body responds with gusto, this site makes cooking and eating healthily still seem lots of fun.

So where does the love go?

C and I were not together long before we fell pregnant. We’d talked about it, how much we both wanted kids together but we hadn’t really committed to it, or at least I hadn’t in my head. We were lax about contraception and voila, A was born 9 months later.

The speed with which things have happened have, until now, worked in our favour as a couple. We were still going through the honeymoon phase of our relationship when our first was born and fell even more in love as new parents. I really do believe that the newness of C and I helped us cope with first newborn hell and made us even more starry-eyed.

And for so long since then, even after S was born, I’ve thought how lucky I am to still feel so utterly (and newly) in love with my husband. Until about a month ago, when I had the inevitable reality of the relationship shakes. I believe that these ‘shakes’ truely are inevitable and probably a necessary part of any relationship. My guess is that they play an important role in making a relationship stronger.

Having said this, it threw me. It was unexpected. It scared the hell out of me. We’ve recently moved states and I’ve left friends and family to be here in Melbourne. I was always looking forward to the challenge and I’ve always been impressed by Melbourne as a city, but as leaving day drew nearer, I realised I wasn’t so fine with it all. I freaked out. And C kept getting more and more excited as I got more and more resentful.

We started fighting. As you know my health has also been crap and that was getting me down. The boys are sleeping that well so add to all this a good dose of sleep deprivation. We bickered, I was irritated and irritating. He was nasty. I was very angry. So was he. This pattern has played itself out on and off for about 4 weeks now and it’s getting tired.

I realised the other night when we were out to dinner that it was the first time where we were on our own that I didn’t feel excited and heady with love for him. It seemed mundane. No fighting, but no intensity of conversation and emotion that usually comes when we actually get some time on our own. None of this speaks of any underlying troublein our relationship - at least I don’t believe so. But I guess what I’m coming to realise (and perhaps dread) is that this is just a natural part of any relationship and I need to get used to it. Or at least not get so despondent about it.

C says I have not been nice to him for a long time. He says I snap and always look for the negative in what he says. I realised for the first time yesterday, that he’s right. It’s been relentless, and while we’ll survive the inevitable boredom, the lessening intensity, we will not survive my constant niggling and undermining.

So, I realise that the love is obviously still here. No question. It’s changing form as it will continue to do for years and years to come (I hope). We’ve now been together long enough that negotiating one’s physical and psychical space is challenging but necessary. It’s hard but we have to do it and we have to do it better than we have been.

I need to improve and yesterday, I realised, I am totally committed to doing so.

We’re here

I’ll write more soon but we’re finally here, altogether now and while it feels so nice to be a family again, I cannot help feeling loss. Tears well in my eyes as I inspect our new home finding the linen cupboard and the breadboards, the nappies and the toothpaste.  

I am thrilled at the making of a new home but I can’t help but wonder why, oh why, did we need to do this 800kms away from the people I love.

I’m not sure I’ve made the right decision but my first day, tired as I am, in this new house, in this new city, in this new state, must just be that – a first day, rather than a last.

Moving

I’ve been so quiet because we’re in the process of moving from Sydney to Melbourne. No mean feat. I’m soooo exhausted. Totally beat. I can barely tap over the keyboard. But I miss this and will definitely be coming back to it. For sure. Won’t be long now.

Toddler totals…..

I had completely forgotten the highs and lows of having a toddler. While I spend much time delighting in the fact that I am getting to know the little person S is, what makes him laugh, his favourite books, his favourite rabbit and the way he hugs her for his dear little life, I also spend equal time pulling my hair out (or screaming because someone else is pulling my hair out) as his little body catapaults through our lives.

I forgot that toddlers can’t communicate but desperately want to. I figure they go from, “nah-can’t-be-bothered-trying- to-tell-her-what-I-want-cos-she-won’t-get-it” to “why-the-hell-can’t-you-work-out-what-I-want-goddamn-it-are-you-crazy?” in a matter of days.

S screams all the time for things he wants but gives us little indication of what that might be. He throw his head back or his body to the ground, opens his little mouth and lets out an almighty wail and then stares right at me as if to say, ‘here’s your chance to change my life. can you do it?” and of course I can’t because I DON’T KNOW WHAT HE WANTS.  Have I said that already?

He’s bloody cheeky I can tell you that much. A was mellow. The mellowist little toddler dude (although I think I”m paying for it now) so I guess some of this with S is novel. S is N-A-U-G-H-T-Y. And while that rocks my socks fleetingly it’s also beginning to be a bit painful. REALLY. Like the little adventure below. I heard a draw in the kitchen open. I heard a rustle. I heard giggles. I heard little pellets drop like rain across the wooden floor.

He’s been sick which doesn’t help things. So he’s really been trying to tell us how he’s feeling. After an overdue visit to the doctor yesterday (desperate enough to pay Sunday rates – sheesh!) I realise he’s been trying to, croakingly, tell us that he’s got bacterial conjunctivitis, a middle-ear infection, and bad, bad tonsilitis. Oops. Doctor will be visited more promptly next time. It was a good lesson for me not to blame everything on the craziness that toddlerdom is.

All you need is friends

I was listening to an interesting piece recently on a new favourite podcast. It was women talking about female friendship and while that seems like the most banal and standard discussion for women, I realised (as the participants realised) that we don’t often talk about the nature of female friendships. Sure, we talk about our friendships – we usually bitch and moan about all of them at some stage but we don’t often ‘out’ ourselves and the way we conduct our friendships.

I’m useless as a friend. Particularly since having a family. But more than that, I’m pretty introverted. I’ve always had a handful of good friends (close? I’m not sure) and make little effort with others; others that would consider me a friend and that they are one of mine. But what can I say? 

But I guess what I was most fascinated by on the programme was the capacity women have to talk about each other to each other. Not often to each other’s faces but about each other. How this form of communication is really quite normal. Par for the course. We all do it. We can’t help but do it. But I’m just not sure why. I know why I get frustrated and annoyed with friends but I don’t know why I have to talk about them with my other friends. For reassurance? For guidance? I don’t think so. It confuses me.

I’m leaving this city soon but more importantly I’m leaving a group of wonderful women who make me feel better (usually) when I’m with them. Only now, faced with ‘starting again’ on the friends front, am I truely aware of what my friends mean to me, what they bring me in life and how much I share with them. It’s going to be tough and I’m not great socially. I’m already at risk of failing to share all of myself with others but over the last 6 or so years, the friends in my life have inspired me to be more open, to share more, to give more, to care more, and to laugh more. It was quite a long time coming. It took a while for these disparate women to come together regularly and just be with each other. But we do it now (albeit not as much as we’d wish) but we are a team I guess.

What team will I belong to now? I’ll be teamless and I can’t help but feel that my natural reaction will be to look for one-man sports, avoid the groups, the many, the glasses of champagne. I also know that this isn’t healthy for me.

Only time will tell and in the meantime, I’ll be flying when I can back to Sydney, back to the arms and the laughter and the too-many-bottles-of-wine of my nearest and dearest.

Travesty

I know that not writing on your blog for an extended period of time is , well, a travesty. Good thing that no one really nreads my blog and therefore no one is really missing anything at all.

Having said this, it’s been a couple of weeks of quick, slippery slides….down. Down. Down. For the first time in a long time I thought about the packet of tablets sitting in my bedside table top draw since December. I’ve looked at the packet. I’ve picked it up. I’ve taken the tablet sheet out. I’ve imagined what it would feel like to pop one out of it’s little casing. I’ve wondered, deep down, if I need them. If they will help me cope with my condition. If they will help me see a little joy in the days that follow and are to come.

It’s been a tough time round here. You will remember this. And most importantly, I was feeling about it. My father-in-law was sentenced last Friday for a scarily, inordinate amount of time. I mean, I know he did something bad. Something wrong that hurt other people. But what other people lost was money. He’s losing his life (of sorts). It may sound melodramatic but in sentencing him to 8 years, the judge was basically taking away the life of a 65 year old. Or at least, ensuring that he has no quality of life remaining. We are all in shock. We are all pretty quiet about it.

And we’re moving. Closer to C’s family and far away from mine. That hurts real, real bad. I struggle with my health and to know that I won’t have the support mechanisms that are currently available to me scares me beyond belief. But, I owe it to C. I know we both want something different.

I also know, the only way I can cope with the fate of my father-in-law is to know that he will see those two little boys who bring him so much joy, on  regular basis. That makes me feel ok. That makes it all feel ok.

Vacation

We are away at the moment which accounts for how quiet everything has been around here lately. It has been lovely having some time away with the boys and to see them so relaxed and happy.

But my health has been crap. It makes me sad. It makes me very frustrated. It makes me feel disappointed and even a little angry. I feel like I’m doing all I can to try and make it ok and nothing works now after things feeling ok for a while. Let’s just say that my body doesn’t work completely correctly. Sometimes it’s just uncomfortable. Sometimes it actually hurts. Sometimes I’m so embarrassed about it. I just wish something could fly in and make it ok. I just wish I wasn’t allowing it to affect my holiday.

I know that’s my problem. I know that this can be mind over matter. But when something doesn’t work and sometimes hurts, it’s hard to forget about it. I know other people’s bodies are failing them in far more devestating and profound ways. Ways from which they may be unlikely to recover. But it doesn’t stop my anger and my deep disappointment. 

But that’s my last word on the matter.