I may have briefly mentioned that we recently dropped Youngest off at University.
Well, that is not strictly true as she actually flew on a 10 hour flight alone to her university, but we dropped her at the airport.
At that time Eldest was still in residence finishing off a summer job and Middlest was about, in between various trips and activities, so we returned to a fullish house.
Then we ourselves flew on the same 10 hour trip to settle Youngest in her permanent dorm after her month of a nomadic lifestyle half way across the world.
When we returned 10 days later Eldest and Middlest had decamped back to university, and our nest was finally empty.
It has been a week and a half. It has been OK. But the oddest thing to get used to is the silence.
We have had years of loosely contained chaos. Noise. Madness.
And that has stopped.
So I do find myself laughing out loud at podcasts and ‘turning on the TV for company’.
I spent a lot of their childhoods counting the hours until 7pm, when they were finally all asleep. Or when they were teenagers relishing those times everyone was out at various places and I was at home.
Now I have that luxury all the time. And I miss the chaos.
Recently Youngest (as the name suggests, my last child) has moved to Canada to study and play football.
There is a whole lot to unpack in there. Empty nest syndrome (although Eldest and Middlest are currently in residence on their summer uni breaks). The mother daughter bond. Losing one of my best friends. Suddenly having time. The outrageous levels of admin required to move abroad, even temporarily.
But now is not the time for those. Maybe over the months to come I will pen thoughtful, moving pieces along those lines. They may help others. Or just be self indulgent. Or boring.
But so far one of the hardest things to deal with is the time difference. She is 8 hours behind us here. So my days have taken on a new pattern.
She is asleep when I wake up. If I wake up at a normal time. And she is surfacing around 3 to 4pm our time. Luckily for me she is an early riser.
Yesterday she called me as she was making breakfast and I sat propped up on the kitchen counter and after the breakfast bar, as she chewed an egg sandwich and the cud (with me). Before I knew it an hour and her washing up had passed. It was almost like she was here. I could nag (gently remind) her to take her iron. We gossiped and other than the lack of her physical presence it was not dissimilar to our usual breakfast routine, except I was missing Pointless (happy to by the way, it’s not the same without Richard Osman).
Then she disappears to training, or out with her new friends, or on an admin errand to a bank or mobile phone shop. Once she starts classes I am not sure she will have that hour. So I am making the most of that now.
Sometimes she is free mid afternoon and we have a chat as I am just about to go to sleep.
And I have now realised that if I get up about 6am I can wish her goodnight. And also catch up on any messages sent over my night (her day). Like today when the bank need a birth certificate, which is in the filing cabinet here. And provide some reassurance.
The up shot of all this is that I am going to bed later and waking earlier.
So currently the mornings here feel a bit like a desert. Once my other 2 ship back to uni it will just be me arising, rattling round this house. So I need a new routine. I am sure it will come, as humans we are creatures of habit. It will probably involve Wordle.
I’ll just touch on the other stuff. I miss her like crazy, as I did my boys when they left. But I am also immensely proud of what she has taken on at the tender age of just 18. Inspirational.
Today I woke up at 3am in a bit of a sweat. This isn’t unusual for me, seeing as I am a woman of a certain age.
However this time the menopause had nothing to do with it.
My alarm was set for 6.30am, despite it being the school Easter holidays, giving me a break from the usual early wake ups. The alarm was set because Youngest and I had a 10am appointment in London to provide her biometrics (as it turned out all her finger prints and a photo, no swabs required…) at the Canadian Visa office.
The appointment was made by me a while back when I sent her Visa application in. I picked a Thursday because there is never football on a Thursday. There wasn’t supposed to be football this Wednesday either, but that doesn’t always work out. Friendlies materialise at short notice. So I always schedule stuff for Thursdays.
A few days earlier I realised that my weekly online shop, which is always delivered between 9 and 10 am on a, yes you guessed it, Thursday wasn’t going to work. What with us being in London. Thankfully I was able to move the slot to 4pm…
Then yesterday I planned our train times, factoring in early morning traffic, how full the station car park gets, and the walk from Farringdon to our destination, bought the tickets, argued with Youngest about the early start and went to bed.
At 3am I awoke and remembered that I work on Thursday mornings and hadn’t told my colleagues not to expect me. Which I probably should have.
And this is a classic example of how my brain operates. It compartmentalises. Sometimes with quite difficult consequences.
I think compartmentalising is a useful skill, especially when there is a lot going on and the bigger picture is too large to hold. For fear of ending up gibbering in a corner.
I was speaking to a friend earlier in the week, discussing how exhausting it is to always have to hold everyone else’s emotions. Mothering teens and young adults is like that. Yes, there are logistics (quite mind-blowing at times) and lots of practical assistance required (food, lifts, getting stuff, finding stuff etc etc). But the hardest part is holding all those emotions.
Youngest is going to Canada to study for her degree. At the end of July. It’s a massive and scary step for her. But also a truly amazing opportunity. I have to hold all her worry and concern. And also be relentlessly optimistic and excited for her. Oh, and also provide tons of assistance with the frankly overwhelming amount of admin for it.
When people ask me how I feel about her going, I answer honestly that I have no space for that. That emotion is in a compartment that I will open once she disappears through the security gates at Heathrow.
So for about 20 odd years I have been in Project Management. I didn’t really plan to be (it wasn’t really something one did with a decent science degree) but like many folk I sort of fell into it.
To be honest it mostly suits me. Time management. Attention to detail. Planning. Huge amounts of multi tasking. Diplomacy. Dealing with many other professionals. Negotiating with difficult people. Managing finances. Playing the long game. Crisis management. Endless admin. Learning on the job. Giving love and support to clients and making them feel valued. Event planning. Social engagements Contingency planning. Even catering.
Some areas I have found more difficult. Delegating. Working from home throughout (even pre covid). Managing my stress levels. Keeping my cool and emotional stability. The day to day drudgery. The competitive market.
The pay has been shit. The pension non existent. The company did no appraisals. Holidays were of the busman sort.
But I have absolutely loved the role. It has been the best 20 odd years of my life. Seriously. And I wouldn’t change one single moment. There have been immense highs, proud moments. Laughter. Love. Joy. Fun.
Recently, however, there has been a company restructure. And I have more or less been forced into early retirement. There’s no package. Or party. Or golden handshake. I need to slink off quietly.
There will be bits and pieces left to do and I may get called in on a consultancy basis.
But I need to let that (more than) full time role go. It’s hard to adjust. I need to find more hobbies, expand my social circle. And be happy about it.
Because the outcomes of those 20 odd years are out in the world (or nearly).
So there we have it, that’s my real appraisal. That I have raised amazing people who no longer need me.
I have reached that point in life when my nest is emptying. It still has one fledgling, and for her I am very grateful. And the other two migrate back to their home nest on a relatively regular basis (last week being a case in point), and are always very welcome. But those years of us as the four musketeers are over.
I haven’t found it as bad as I thought I might, mostly because Youngest’s sport takes up a lot of time. And also because I try to believe the perceived wisdom.
That perceived wisdom is that a mother should be glad when her offspring fly the nest, because their upbringing has all been leading up to this point. The years of love and care have produced young people equipped to make their own way in world. They were never yours to begin with, they were on loan. Etc.
And I agree with all of that. I am pleased Eldest and Middlest are off in the world smashing it. And that Youngest will soon follow. I am immensely proud of the people they have become. They are wonderful human beings, whom I adore.
But today I went to my hairdressers. I parked in a car park I haven’t really used for a couple of years, because for some reason my car feels wider than it used to and I prefer the overground one now. But I went there today.
I walked from there to the hairdressers through the carpark of the Lidl, and down the alley way to the street. And then it hit me that all those years of my taking them to that same salon for their half termly tag team of haircuts (always preceded by an animated discussion on who was going first), walking from that same car park, down that same alley, followed always by a pizza , were over.
They won’t ask me again what those strange boxes are in that Lidl alleyway. They asked me that every time we made that 6 weekly walk throughout their childhoods and adolescence. First as a genuine enquiry and then as a joke. Every damn time.
Today there’s that small thing that has floored me.
Over the last 17 odd years of parenthood there have been quite a few times I have felt totally out of my depth.
As soon as Eldest popped out (and that’s a kind way of putting it he didn’t really ‘pop’ more sort of extruded in a long and anguished battle of wills that, I cannot lie, felt at times personal) I was out of my depth. We couldn’t work the car seat, I had no idea how to ‘latch him on’, he cried for hours and I was totally unable to work out why.
It slowly dawned on me through my sleep deprived haze that there is no handbook for parenting. I had read books. They all said totally contradictory things. Yes there was no one way to do things and certainly no ‘right way’.
As a natural rule follower, list maker, control freak and fine detailer this was intensely terrifying.
The longer motherhood goes on the more you realise that the roles it involves are myriad and diverse. Some of them fit easily into one’s natural psyche (I for instance never miss a school letter, return a form late or fail to have the right child at the right place at the right time) but others…don’t.
In this last week I have been:
chef
maths/ English/ biology teacher
taxi driver
therapist
logistics manager
gaoler
confidant
baker
cheer leader
repairer
finder of lost treasures
cleaner
team manager
boss
tester
entertainer
party planner
butt of jokes
and that probably only scratches the surface. But there is one recent role that I absolutely loath and that is ‘driving instructor’.
Firstly I want to say that the mere fact that that child I extruded the blink of an eye ago can sit behind the steering wheel is unfathomable to me.
But leaving that aside (which I really can’t but that is another blog) being a driving instructor to one’s offspring is frankly terrifying.
I am not a good car passenger. Over the last 17 odd years the amount of driving I have done has been astronomical. I am the main driver now (partially due to my ‘bad passenger’ vibes but also because I do not drink) and as such my ability to tolerate others’ (and here I mean Husband’s) driving is probably somewhere below zero. I am a terrible passenger. I squeak at late braking, I grab the handle above the door on corners, I get stressed and tense and I offer ‘advice’. All of which are intensely annoying.
So when Eldest asks to go out in his car with me to practise my heart literally sinks. Probably how he feels when he hears me say ‘lets have a family board game evening’.
When I learnt to drive my parents never took me out driving. It took me a year of lessons to finally pass. Eldest does not want to wait a year. Frankly neither do we. We need him to take up some of the logistics slack. Leaving aside the eye watering cost.
So although I agree that I should take him out to practise I still do not really want to. It’s scary. He is not a terrible driver. Just not me. So he does things when and how I would not. It takes all my will power not to let out little shrieks of distress when he pulls out into a gap I would not. I breathe in when he passes parked cars. We fall out. I undermine his confidence.
So this morning at 7.10am (I kid you not) we went to the local village car park to practise manoeuvers and I determined not to speak/ shriek/ offer advice/ breathe in.
It went quite well. I think.
I am not sure teenagers really understand what it is like to just have to assume these roles, for which there is no training, which you would never do as an actual job, and for which you are totally ill equipped. No I am absolutely sure they have no idea. And why should they?
Still a little understanding wouldn’t hurt. Or a dual control car.
On Monday all three of mine went back to school for the first day of a new year.
I forced them to have the obligatory ‘first day back’ photo which has happened every first day back since 2008 when Eldest started in reception.
Actually I lie there was one year when I forgot. That came up on my FB memories recently. I did a second day back shot instead.
This year’s shot had the same poignancy as that first ever photo in Sept 2008. And that is because it is the last time all three of them will go back to school for the start of a new year.
Somehow those 13 years since that little boy set out into the academic world in his grey shorts and with his shy smile have trickled away.
When you have a baby and the days seem interminable, one long round of feeds and nappies and crying, older and wiser parents tell you to cherish the moments as the years will fly by.
Of course no new parent takes this advice on board. We all rush for the next steps. The weaning, the crawling the standing, those precious words, using toilets. The first question is always ‘Is he crawling yet?’ or ‘How much weight did she put on last week?’. Wishing away the time, striving for the next milestone. Worrying about any perceived delay. As if it matters. Which it doesn’t.
To be honest I did find the early months of Eldest’s life long and tedious. The days were cold and the nights long and dark. I was bored and tired. I didn’t enjoy his babyhood. He was hard work as a baby (and I only knew this once I had his siblings) or maybe I made hard work of it. Probably the latter.
But once Middlest and then Youngest came along life sped up. I enjoyed their toddler hoods and their preschool years. We were a tight knit foursome and had a great social life.
But then the treadmill of school kicked in. The years suddenly became punctuated by half terms and reports and parents evenings and the holidays rushed towards me at hurtling speed.
And then the move to secondary school sees time hit the turbo button. The tests and assessments. The week full of clubs and sport and music lessons and driving. The endless driving. The holidays offered some respite but were still full of activity.
Even a pandemic didn’t seem to slow it down much. Those terms with them learning at home, which I secretly enjoyed, still whipped by. Even when only allowed out once a day.
And then you suddenly find that you are at the end. You paste on a happy face whilst discussing unis and being treated almost as an irrelevance by your teens, except for that endless driving (which of course you are doing all wrong) and food and cash.
I dropped mine off this morning as I have done every day for years. I remembered the countless days of discussing homework and teachers and mates in the car. Singing along to disney hits. Cursing the traffic. And it hit me that those countless days weren’t countless at all. They were finite and precious.
And although I have made the most of them I know that many have been done unconsciously, almost carelessly. With rush and stress and hurry.
And I think it will be those moments I miss the most. The little gems of conversation and humour. And also the rows and annoyance that dragging 3 kids to school entails.
Even though I will still have one year left with Middlest and another couple after that with Youngest, once Eldest leaves that dynamic will change.
And so almost too late one realises that all those older and wiser parents were right.
So in the 16ish months since the pandemic took real hold in the UK my family has done really quite well isolation wise.
None of us have been ‘pinged’. None of us have been called to self isolate by track and trace.
The kids have managed all their in person school without coming into close contact with a case.
it is probably mostly luck but there is also an element of me being a raving, anal control freak and (mostly) making us all stick to the rules. I am not sure anyone can hand on heart say they have never broken a COVID guideline but we have been pretty compliant. In the very early days some of us may have left the house for a walk more than once a day. But generally we have done as we were told.
As a result my older teen has missed out on an awful lot. Many an illicit get together, too large a party or a sneaky meet up with friends. I even banned him from meeting up with one mate last summer and ‘accidentally’ bumping into another pair of mates ‘who happened to be in the same park at the same time’….
To be honest I have got a bit sick of being the bad guy. All the time.
On Monday everyone will be free to do what the hell they want. As terrifying as that seems.
Both my husband and I have been double vaccinated and so I have got more relaxed about my pneumonia history.
So when Eldest asked to go to a party (well he didn’t really ask he just said he was) I decided to be a more ‘chill’ mum. I remembered back to being 17 and the summer between lower and upper sixth which I spent nearly exclusively with my boyfriend or mates and decided we could risk it.
In any event the guest list was limited to 30 and the party outside which was all in line with government guidelines although I severely doubted the 2m social distancing rule would be followed. Especially with the alcohol flowing.
Now both he and in turn me have COVID. And so my attempts at being ‘cool’ mum have spectacularly backfired. We are all locked up until Thursday (him and the others) and a week on Sunday for me and both he and I are locked in our rooms bored stupid. Middlest and Youngest are running the house and Youngest has forfeited her 14th birthday tomorrow as even to open presents will mean a Zoom call between us all or a massively socially distanced garden event.
And that’s if I feel up to wrapping her gifts which I haven’t done yet. I feel rough in the extreme and pray it doesn’t get much worse. And that that claim that both vaccines are a panacea (which clearly they are not) and will prevent me ending up in a hospital pan out.
In a month’s time I would have been gaily walking around free from isolation as a double vaccinated individual for those days between Eldest getting it and my symptoms (c 4 days) spreading it on.
When the local council called to check we were all isolating she asked if anyone had had the vaccine and I said I had and yet I had still caught it and she said ‘we are hearing that a lot especially when kids bring it home’.
So a word to the wise people.
I will be going back to anal, control freak mum. Eldest may have hated me if I had put my foot down last week. But if I had we’d be sitting here now (or actually walking around freely now) watching all his mates fall like flies (at least 10 have tested positive since) smug and healthy. Instead of which we are in this COVID hell.
Trying to be something you aren’t hardly ever pays off does it?
As per my previous post Hope we are currently struggling through this third lockdown.
Our daughter is really unwell and daily life is a struggle for her. And when I say struggle I really mean it. Not a struggle in a slight feeling of ‘meh’ as each day dawns in its groundhog fashion but proper struggling to even carry on.
She is 13.
The reasons are on the one hand fairly obvious but on the other complex and proving hard to untangle. There is a lot of anger and guilt and depression and unhelpful thoughts. For all of us.
And so what I find the most difficult to deal with other than watching my beloved daughter be completely wretched are the endless posts and assemblies and articles on thinking positive.
We actually had to leave an on line school assembly yesterday when the speaker suggested it was impossible to visualise negative thoughts. That one should merely be an optimist and look on the bright side. What a load of crap. Of course it is possible to visualise negative thoughts. My daughter is a pro. She sees no bright side. A year of her short life has been taken away. Fact. Hard to find any bright side in that.
We all have a right in this unprecedented situation to feel like shit. And when one feels like shit being told one should not feel like shit is not going to change that feeling. It is going to make it worse.
If mental health was as easy as ‘thinking positive’ there wouldn’t be any mental illness.
So, if like us, you are struggling in this lockdown I am not going to say that you should think positive, look on the bright side, find the upsides, look forward to a rosy future. Because for some of us that is not currently possible.
I am going to say feel angry, feel sad, cry, rage take each day one at a time, or each hour, or each minute. And try to keep yourself physically safe until your mind can deal with the shit it’s been dealt.
And try to stop feeling guilty for not coping. Not coping is fine. And actually perfectly understandable.
And seek help if you are able to.
And if you feel fine and feel positive and are optimistic and can look forward I am pleased for you. But please don’t ask my daughter to. It’s too hard.
Perhaps my favourite Whitesnake track. I have slightly paraphrased.
Staring down the barrel of a new lockdown here are my thoughts so far.
It felt inevitable. And now it feels late.
It is slightly better than March as there seems to be a genuine desire to keep kids at school. Which is a good thing.
And yes I get that teachers are scared. Hopefully less community interaction for all, students and staff alike, will mean less incidence in the classroom. And safer classrooms. Whatever the pros and cons I am grateful to teachers and other staff. My kids cannot take another extended period of on line education.
It feels worse than last time. This won’t be a cure. Like we hoped the last time was. It’s a braking mechanism. And this shit will probably happen again.
It’s really quite simple. That helps the message. Stay at home. No really. Except for all the bits of life that aren’t fun; education, work, medical shit, exercise and caring. Otherwise stay at home. If something makes you want to leave the house it’s probably not allowed.
We need to give up on Christmas. Grieve it a bit. Not live in a false hope. Others have given up Eid and Diwali and other major festivals, Easter was locked down. We can and should give Christmas up too. Yes it’s shit. But hey what isn’t.
It’s winter. Enough said.
I need to start getting my head around all the stuff that will never be the same at least not whilst my kids remain at home. Things that probably won’t happen like their last school orchestral concerts, proms, first XV or first XI matches, ever seeing a teacher in the flesh again. So far I have been too chicken to face them. But I need to face this shit. Grieve and move on. Act like the adult I am supposed to be.
Being the adult is shit.
I am going to miss fireworks.
The tardiness of our inept Government at least means we got a 2 day caravan holiday and I got all my kids’ eyes and teeth checked, Middlest’s shoulder and neck osteo’d and all their hair cut.
By a strange co-incidence I have a haircut booked for Weds. I had a haircut booked the week before the last stay at home order. I may grow my hair. I seem to be tempting fate.
I don’t like having to have to console my weeping daughter who cannot conceive how she will get through the next four weeks without sport. She will of course. She has food and warmth and love. And is ok. Shifting down the Maslow hierarchy of needs is never fun though. In fact it’s shit.
Although I am glad school is open learning without any of the fun bits could be quite shit, especially with all the windows open. I pray for mild, unseasonable weather.
My second child looks increasingly likely to miss his GCSEs as well. And no, no one wants to not take them to avoid them. It’s stealing; the experience, the opportunity, the hard work to date, the sense of achievement, or failure.
I need to get my Christmas mojo on and actually order some gifts. It is going to be shit enough as it is I cannot give into despondency and not buy thoughtful and welcome gifts for my loved ones. Especially my kids, who need whatever magic we can wring from the festive season this year.
I am bit low on loo roll. Which would be literally shit.
I might read some of those books I meant to read last time; after I have finished re-reading Riders. Which is all my shit for brains brain seems able to cope with currently.
It could be worse. Could it?
It occurs to me that I have used the word shit a lot. Whatever your position in all this I think we can all agree that that is highly appropriate.
musingsponderingsandrants 
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