Well, here we are again. Needing to write and finding the time because Oscar has taken Rosie to gymnastics. I'm sat under an acer tree looking out over our veg plot. We didn't do raised beds, I just used about 20 bags of compost and lined it with cardboard to stop the weeds and so I didn't have to dig it over. It is blooming and it's the first day of July.
Last week we had a record heatwave of 36/37 degrees in England and it was unbearable. I had the weirdest night of my life which was a mix of heat exhaustion, anxiety, and trauma induced panic. I think it was a reaction to the heat, the constant making sure everyone was fed and watered and the slow gradual build up of heat. My body felt like it shut down and expelled everything. Before the event, I felt bloated, exhausted, and running on a never ending treadmill. Oscar took over the girls and I led in bed to recover. My brain felt fried and I was on edge that it would happen again. The knots in my stomach began and I knew anxiety had come back. I'm further down the road with this feeling now so I know that this feeling occurs for a particular reason. It either pulls me out of something or opens up a new pathway of creativity.
In 'recovery' mode, I took it slow but also cut out most caffeine (apparently matcha has some?!) and alcohol. I don't need it. My body was running on the next way to feel relief. I was bored of not being able to create or do what I wanted because I had to parent. I felt the girls were taking everything away from me and I felt resentment and frustrated. I was gaining relief out of a 50/50 coffee and yes, that's less caffeine than normal to most people, but I have grown up being caffeine free. Decaf started in the house with my Mum changing it due to a medical issue with my sister. So my body has never had that stimulation. It's actually never felt good. I used to get headaches when I had caffeine and feel all weird. Then I began to have 50/50 mixed beans that we would grind and create coffee with. I started to understand why people needed coffee every day. It becomes something your body and mind can't last the day without. It's slightly worrying. I look forward to a proper coffee in Italy, where they can make me the best decaf expresso in the world and I can start my love for it all over again. Until then, we're currently planning our first holiday in France...! Of course we'd rather it be Italy, so more on that next year, but this year - we're meeting our friends out there and I think we're going to camp again.
Anyway, recovering from the weird heatwave attack, I've been having a matcha drink instead (powder mixed with water and milk and honey/maple syrup) and I am still yet to be convinced on the grassy taste but I think it's better. My energy is longer, I don't have the desire or craving for that coffee or I no longer crave any wine or beer or gin...I've really started thinking about what I like the taste of as I'm beginning this strange new reaction to the event. I feel it was a time to start a few changes to begin a more me way of being. I was on the caffeine hamster wheel loop. I was on the wine at 4-5pm loop and for me - I'd just want more and more. Oscar seems to be able to just have one drink and have an unbelievable amount of will power but I just drink the rest of the bottle and left feeling a bit irritable. I mean, I'm still irritable, but not as bad and my head is clearer. Another Mum friend of mine said she only drinks at weekends because she has to be so on it throughout the week. I'm not sure what's happening but my stomach is definitely less bloated and my energy is different.
Again, there is a shift. Maybe I'm growing up and out of old habits. I even went to the doctor as an emotional mess and even though she was wonderfully nice, she just offered me trauma calls with talking therapies and a course of antidepressants. She didn't really try to get to the bottom of me with breastfeeding or my thyroid. My hormones are just ruined. And I feel no-one knows anything about them...there's barely any scientific research on how breastfeeding impacts thyroids and hormones. Women are not supported scientifically with research. We need more data and more scientists researching us. I need to be called up and tested on. But I end up calling them to test me. Why do we all seem to be left alone to fight these young years with children at home? I need labs to research mothers and help them with their feelings and emotions and how to balance them. They all thought we were hysterical in the Victorian ages and shut us away in asylums and now we're at home, with everyone knowing it's ridiculously hard, but with no real way of managing other than using coffee/alcohol and making sure to create a safety net and a village and a support system. Most women seem to have this rage/this frustration/this desperation to be a whole wonderful Mother and also crave that modern way of working for stimulation and reward. But the children suffer if the women want to work. Or you need money to hire someone to replace the mother, but a mother can't be replaced, so the mother ends up left at home, craving something you know you can't have. Then the partner ends up thinking you're insane. The women that do return to work, does the guilt of not seeing them or raising them make them nicer parents in the evening? Is that the trick I'm missing? To remove myself from the majority of my child's life and then come home-time, feel so guilty that I'm then a better parent? So I always choose being there for them. I always chose presence. They need me but I constantly worry about how they are when they're not with me. Maybe I love too hard and too deep. Maybe I'm too much. But I'd rather be too much than too little.
Back to the doctor, I personally can't hack the mind altering idea of tablets. I can just about manage with dietary and feeling how my mind shifts from the panicky event and then when I'm almost recalibrating my mind every day after. I would have 'waves' of anxiety for a few days and now I haven't had any yesterday or today. It was like that with baby blues after birth but worse so I think it's hormonal shifts. If I had listened to the doctor and taken tablets, I wonder how this would have changed my brain chemistry and whether my brain would have adjusted itself or, by using the tablets, lost the ability to control itself and relied of tablets to do it for me. Ultimately, I just don't trust them. They worry me and it's another thing to worry about. All this brain chemistry is so interesting because all our brains work differently and how my brain now calibrates is different to how someone else might respond and recover. I think it's all about the awareness of our own bodies...?
I may have to go have a nap in the shade after all that. Another post to come shortly about five year olds. Our second daughter has just turned five and she is a whirlwind and I think all of this is wrapped up with that, too. Parenting alters us so much. The doctor said I needed to find time to be 'me' again but I will resort back to my old post on identity and how I have already shifted into a new being and will continue to change. I am no longer able to access 'old me' nor would I want to. We are constantly shifting to allow new 'me's' to open up. With each new chapter of ourselves, comes a chance to rest, reassess, and figure out what the fuck we are here to do.
With this particular event, I realised that the girls need a chart for being able to get ready at morning and bedtime. Again. They need re-structuring and after time off during the heatwave, we all got in a mess. I know it's a short term fix and will only work a few days but it is something. I know June has said that I need to fix her dress to put a new button on that she ripped off in rage. She said I can do it in the craft room and then I can do some framing as she knows its what I like to do. I know that I need to help Olive go through her favourite box and try to find her panda pen pencil case. I know Rosie just wants to 'tuddle' me every second of the day. I am their finder, their mender, their person to help them with their problems. I console them. I soften the hard world for them. I will carry on until they need to plunge themselves into the cold, hard world - and I hope they find ways, and people, to help them carry themselves through with smiles, grace, and laughter - all while being able to express themselves in whatever way they need to. Sometimes I need reminding that I need to soften and surrender. Being fierce and hard breeds anger and frustration over time (so does surrendering) so more often it's now all about balance and knowing when to tap out and being able to with the support system in place.
Our saving angel since Spring has been our au pair that has come look after Rosie for a few hours twice a week while I do a few hours of tutoring. Exams are now over and I'm quieter but the relief of knowing that help is coming has been life changing. Being from Australia, she can also deal with the heat much better than I can. Oh, and with the house, we're converting the office into an office (I've ended up co-sleeping with Rosie but that's been hard on the two big girls), we're turning the upstairs loft office/yoga room into Olive's new bedroom, and then eventually, Rosie and June can share a room. I also need to talk to Oscar about squeezing in a new toilet for Olive up in her loft. I remember this time of house creativity and how much hard work it is to rebuild and renovate from no energy with children but it's got to be done...we have the luckiest environment for the girls to grow, we now just need a 'few' tweaks and then we can relax in-between each stage. Oh, and Oscar's starting a new job...it's actually a lot and enjoying these little moments under the acer tree is what it's all about. Well, that and tennis. On that note, centre court is about to begin the first sitting and the garden is calling me to tinker and trim the tomatoes and check the beetroot/butternut squash/courgette/fennel and many others. Oh and I have a dress to fix and photos to frame.
Oh, and I have mice in the craft room...
Here's to turning a new leaf and becoming a new chapter of me. First things first: change bedrooms, stop breastfeeding, and conquer new jobs.
From one exhausted home to another - drink more matcha -
ZP x
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