Audit of a decade
Facebook would tell you that I’d become a mum, got married, bought a house, celebrated my 30th, become a midwife, got my Masters, had papers published, been on a couple of holidays and city breaks, worked hard, made new friends and tried to keep hold of old ones. Facebook also would have told you that I had been to a festival, danced on tables, been to a friend’s 40th, welcomed new babies, taken innumerable selfies of me and the kids at the beach.
Twitter would tell you a different story. It would document the abuse, the postnatal depression, the battles with my mental health, the trials and tribulations as a newly-qualified midwife. It would tell you about the inner workings of my slightly rambling mind. It would tell of the hurt and pain and tears, and it would do justice to the incredible women who make my life worth living.
Neither Facebook nor Twitter would tell you about the continual struggle of ‘who the hell am I?’ And ‘how do I rebuild myself?’
There’s all this ‘new year, new me’ hyperbole flying around (as is usual for this time of year), which largely seems to be invented to make the masses buy a gym membership or sign up to a food delivery service that promises to keep you full and make you lose weight, or to generally make women loathe themselves further. There’s the ‘love yourself before anyone else can love you’ rhetoric… but really, how can you start loving yourself when you spent the lion share of the last decade living with someone who continually made you feel worthless?
2010 to 2019 was a learning curve of epic proportions. I learnt that kids and marriage and home ownership won’t make someone love you or treat you well. I learnt that midwives are the hardest working, most dedicated, loving, generous and tenacious group of people you could ever wish to meet. I learnt that if you ask for help, someone will help you. They will give you the tools to get yourself out of a rubbish marriage, help you realise your dreams, hug you when you’re crying in the pool room at the end of a long shift on Christmas Day. I’ve learnt that the absolute best of friendships happen when you’re least expecting them, often when you’re determined to shut out the world. I’ve learnt that single parenting is hard beyond belief, and I have a new found respect for how my mum raised my brother and I. I’ve learnt that on the very worst of days, the absolute worst thing I can do is close the door and retreat into my own world.
It’s been a decade of shedding the most vile people from my life. Husband: gone. Many friends: disowned. The friend who used me for what she could get while she needed me, and then told me I had it easy because I didn’t have a man to clear up after, before then calling me a c***: not even worth a goodbye. Family who seem to enjoy belittling and insulting me: no thank you.
Me and my girls are in it together, and are encircled by a team of such awesomeness that I’m actually feeling quite smug about it. The kids enrage me, make me laugh until I cry, and cry through frustration, they make me proud beyond belief at the people they are growing into. I watch in awe as they navigate life and push each other’s buttons, then I consider bashing my head against a brick wall at the homework they’ve been set. My dissertation wasn’t as challenging as some of their homework. Motherhood saps the life out of me sometimes, and it’s a constant battle, but at the end of the day it’s an incredible privilege to be a mum.
The 2010s was a decade of chance encounters and cosmic alignment. I met some incredible women through sheer luck and a bit of pluck. I accosted one incredible person in the toilet at a study day, and she was the driving force for many of the decisions I’ve made throughout my midwifery training. Geography meant I was allocated to a particular community placement where I happened to meet the life guru, who is now one of my best friends.
Team Awesome ebbs and flows, and I love these women who have brought me back to life. They have been the backdrop to nearly five out of the last ten years, but I have done a lot of the hard work. They were the constant support, advice, encouragement, kick up the arse, shoulder to cry on, but it was me who cooked dinner, found babysitters, made packed lunches. I’ve written articles, blog posts, extracts for a book, a dissertation, numerous essays; I’ve organised study days, supported an incredible friend to set up a midwifery society. I’ve done it all with two small humans who sometimes don’t get the time and attention that they deserve. I’ve got two small humans who have seen me laugh and cry and rail against the world. They’ve seen me make friends, move house, succeed, and fail. They’ve watched me work hard to pay for Christmas and holidays and days out.
I’ve done it all with some relatively bleak bouts of unhappiness, periods of anxiety, dashes of self harm. I’ve managed to do it because I can always send out the bat signal and the life guru will offer some kind of wisdom, encouragement, tough love. I’ve learnt so much about myself in the last ten years. I’ve grown up a bit (enough to know that I’m not making resolutions this year, because I will inevitably feel like a failure when I break, ignore or forget them), I’ve loved, walked away, found a career I am passionate about, stumbled into a community so full of love that it terrifies me that it might not last.
The girls and I were lucky enough to see out 2019, and welcome 2020, with two people who love us beyond belief. A couple who are family and so much more, because they’re distant enough family that they could legitimately send us a Christmas card once a year and that would be acceptable… and yet we’ve all chosen to be so much more than that to each other. We watched the fireworks, drank champagne, sat in our pjs, went trampolining, ate party food, played games, and laughed.
I’ve got no grand plans for self-improvement or world domination in 2020, or for the next decade for that matter. Not because I don’t need to improve, but because I’m 35 and can’t really be bothered. I’m too old to buy into the ‘new year, new me’ stuff. Instead, I have a list of 20 things I want to do in 2020. None of them are particularly grand, but all of them are things that I wouldn’t have been allowed to do had I still been with my husband (listening to music was outlawed). One of the things is to get a tattoo (cue life guru telling me it’s glorified self-harm), another to spend more time outdoors, write more, reconnect with old friends, travel.
Here’s to 2020, to no resolutions, to comfy pjs, to a tribe that loves us, to a job that I love, to crying in the pool room, to women supporting women. Here’s to the life guru, to the safety net of the bat signal, to the kids being feisty and fearless and full of adventure.
