Even when I am not there…

I have been away. Not just from blogging, Twitter and the internet but away from my children and husband too. For the first time in seventeen years I managed to have a long weekend away from my immediate family. I didn’t go far, just went to be with my twin sister and to spend a couple of days with my youngest sister who has a new baby.

I had been looking forward to it for months. For years, I have felt that I needed a complete break from the responsibility of home and family, just some time out where the only one I had to look after was me. As I do all the childcare and housework, and for many years worked outside the home too, I felt I deserved that much. My husband has a week away by himself every June and several weekends throughout the year. I have planned time away before now but at the last minute my husband has always announced plans to be away at the same time so I have had to give in and cancel my plans as I have never had enough notice to arrange for someone else to look after the children. He tried his best to jeopardise my plans by organising a business trip to coincide with my visit to my sisters. However, this time I stood my ground and informed him in no uncertain terms that he was to be back before I left.

To my surprise and joy, several of my friends told me that whether he was back or not I would be going, they had arranged their schedules so that they could step into the breach if the worst happened. I feel very lucky to have such wonderfully kind and supportive friends, especially those who have children of their own as I know how much having to do so would disrupt their family lives.

Thankfully, they didn’t have to keep their promise as he came back the night before I left. I had misgivings about leaving the children as I have never done so before but left long detailed lists of what they were to cook for dinner and what I had bought in for packed lunches each day, what time the little one needed to be in bed at and what inhalers she needed to take and how often. They assured me they would be fine so off I went.

I enjoyed my visit to my sisters and we had a nice time catching up, chatting and spending time with my newest niece, who is just adorable. The downside though was I never got the much needed break from responsibility for my own children. I had expected to miss them, to perhaps have the odd tearful phone call from them or text messages telling me they missed me what I had not anticipated was their constant need for reassurance, or to talk through their day, to ask questions about homework or housework.

I had brought my Kindle Fire with me, and it has Skype loaded on it, I told them I would talk to them the first evening just so they would know I had arrived safely. That I think was my first mistake because from then on, every hour or so they would Skype me with questions or to sort out an argument, often squabbling about who should be talking to me.

On the third day, in sheer frustration I switched off the wireless on the Kindle and my mobile phone, I had already spoken to them about six times that day. A few minutes later my sister’s land line rang, it was my eldest looking for me, she thought there was something wrong with the wireless as I had gone off Skype.

Each time I spoke to the children, I asked them where their father was, told them to ask him whatever it was they needed to know. I got the same answers every time, either he had gone out and left them on their own or he was in bed, he was grumpy, they didn’t want to ask him or he told them to ask me.

So instead of having a complete break I ended up feeling guilty that I had left them to cope on their own, frustrated because I had not managed to have the break that I needed, and wondered how it is that they can have two parents yet feel that I am the only one they can turn to. Even when I am not there I still end up taking  responsibility.

 

Compassion 2

If you read and liked my post titled Compassion the other day, then thank you.

I have decided to take it down because I realised that to write about someone in that manner is neither compassionate or loving.

While venting can sometimes be good for the soul it did not reflect what I am trying to achieve right now, which is to be more loving, understanding and forgiving of those around me.

Obviously that is going  take a lot of practice but practise I shall.

 

Noise …

I  was typing a post today about how sleep deprived I am and how my husband contributes to this by his insistence on rising early each day (5.30 am) and the noise he makes in doing so. I left the piece half written to attend to the children as they came in from school and my laptop froze and somehow lost most of the it.

The piece really was just a long moan anyway, and I must admit it did me good to get it out of my system. It also got me wondering about how much noise we put up with in modern life and the effects it has on us.

Noise, I am afraid is one my bugbears, I grew up effectively in the middle of nowhere, the only noise were natural noises, birdsong, cows or sheep. It was a busy day if three cars passed down our road. Living now as we do in suburbia with constant traffic noise and almost constant building noise is enough to drive me insane. If I am awake in the early hours of the morning I like to lie and listen to the relative silence before the rest of the world gets up and goes about its noisy business.

This however, is usually not feasible due to the amount of noise my husband makes in the mornings when he is getting up and again in the evening when retiring. Not only does he seem to have a constant need for external noise such as radio and TV, he makes a phenomenal amount of noise himself. Perhaps it is because he has the radio on from the moment he wakes up and in every room he enters that he does not realise the amount of noise he is making.

I hear his every movement, from going to the toilet, showering, shaving, making his breakfast until finally half an hour before I have to get up I hear the front door slam and I can breathe a sigh of relief and know that I have thirty minutes of relative peace and quiet before I get the children up and ready for school.

This morning, I was so exhausted and overwhelmed by the noise around our house I was trembling, I couldn’t get away from it, I needed to stay in for a delivery. Four houses near us are currently having building work done  and today I felt as if I was in the middle of a war zone.

The builders have thankfully packed up and left for the day so it is relatively quiet, even still as I sit and type this I can hear music from my son’s bedroom, the neighbour’s TV, the susurration of constant traffic, children playing in the street. So quiet here is by no means quiet. I can’t help but think what effect all this noise must have on my elderly housebound neighbour, on those with young children, those who work nights and need to sleep during the day.

My nerves are shattered and I feel physically ill, my whole being craves silence. Unfortunately, living here means I will never find it, even in the dead of night there is still traffic noise, sirens, our neighbours run their washing machine at three in the morning, the last bus is at 1 a.m. the first bus of the day at 5.30 a.m. and they run every 10 minutes. Sometimes when I meditate I can successfully block out the external sounds and find some peace but I when I am feeling the way I do now they only serve to distract me, to annoy me and I cannot achieve even a sense of quietness in body let alone my mind.

I am running on empty and need desperately to recharge and know the only way for me to do that is to find somewhere totally and utterly silent, a seemingly impossible task around here, but tomorrow I am going to try.

 

Breaking the rules…

Once again, I am struggling with making myself heard. It seems sometimes as if my family have all gone deaf, I speak,and get no acknowledgement. I ask for something to be done and am ignored. Yet, if I do not answer one of their questions immediately (and with the correct response!) I am accused of not caring.They have yet to understand that it works both ways. I do care about them and spend my life caring for them but they see it as interference or worse nagging.

I don’t believe that my job as a mother and homemaker should extend to clearing up messes they have made. I won’t always be there so they need to learn to take responsibility for themselves. I try to encourage this by gently reminding them that of the need to clear the table so I can serve dinner, or to pick their shoes up off the floor because someone is going to trip over them. When they refuse I just plonk the plates on top of the school books, but then I am shouted at angrily because sauce has spilled onto their work. If I have to pick shoes up I will place them on top of the bin or outside the door where they will get wet if it rains, which of course will be my fault too. I tell them I wouldn’t need to take such drastic actions if they just listened to what I was asking and complied with my requests, which are not unreasonable.

Yes, I live in a house of teenagers, what more can I expect? They are striving for independence, wanting to do things their way, breaking the rules, pushing the boundaries where it is safe to do so. While I understand and can tolerate this, just every now and again I would like one of them to just do what I am asking immediately rather than on the third or fourth request when I am accused of nagging. Perhaps I need to speak more slowly and give them more time to understand the request.

To preserve my sanity in this house, where all are fighting for that strange mixture of dominance and equality that comes with adult responsibility, I am relaxing some of the rules. They want more freedom, so I am being a little more lax on bedtimes, I am allowing them a little more computer time, not questioning quite so much where they are going when out with friends. The rules I am sticking rigidly to are the ones related to mess and curfews.

Mess, because I cannot live in a untidy space, I hate piles of paper, books, clothes, shoes, coats to be just discarded and left. If they want to live with me they need to understand that that is just how I am and deal with it. (Apart from the fact that they all prefer the place tidy too, they just can’t be bothered to make the effort.)

Curfews, because I don’t want them out late in the evenings when it is dark and older kids are out looking for trouble. If they are later than expected then I expect a text at the very least telling me when they will be home.

We have discussed this and all have agreed, so today we will put it to the test. Wish us luck!

 

A success – of sorts…

It has been two weeks since my last post, part of the reason for this is taking a holiday in a remote area with limited internet access. I enjoyed my week away and must admit that I did not miss my laptop or having instant access to my emails, Facebook or Twitter accounts and was surprised on my return how little interest I actually had in what had been posted in my absence.

What I did miss though was finishing off the 21 Day Meditation Challenge, as I had only reached day 18 when we left but was very pleasantly surprised to discover that I could still access the last few days and so, will be able to finish it.

It was only during my week away and my the two days since I have been home that I realised how much I had come to rely on this quiet time to myself. It is only 15 minutes a day but I would come to it at times feeling stressed and overwhelmed and leave the room feeling refreshed, peaceful and more able to deal with the children’s squabbles, help with homework etc.

Many of you who follow this blog will know that I have been searching unsuccessfully for a job and will be pleased to hear that my efforts resulted in a interview on the Wednesday before Easter. Normally I get very nervous and tongue tied during an interview and fail to get the job because I seem to be inarticulate and at times downright incoherent. The morning of the interview I decided to take some time out to sit quietly and meditate. I left for the interview feeling calm and peaceful and remained so for most of the interview.

Unfortunately, I received a call later that day telling me I had been unsuccessful, they had appointed someone with more experience than I had but gave me excellent feedback on my interview. I believe the interview went well  not only because I was calm before going in but also because I had decided that if they wanted me badly enough they would agree to me working to a schedule that would fit around my yoga, I had let go of the outcome, it didn’t matter to me whether I got the job or not, yes I wanted it of course, was enthusiastic in my interview but I knew that if I didn’t get it, it would be because it wasn’t the job for me.

So while I did not get the job I still view the interview as successful, I learnt that I can give good interviews when I detach from the outcome, when I do this I can remain calm and in control yet still show my enthusiasm and passion for education.

I have only a few days of the Meditation Challenge to go but fully intend to keep up the practice once I have finished. Fifteen to thirty minutes is not a lot of time to find in the day but is enough to keep the daily struggles in perspective.

 

Digging my heels in…

The weeks seem to fly by and I realise that I have not posted in a while. Although compared to my friends, all of whom hold down jobs and look after the home and children, I seem to have little to do the days pass in a blur, sometimes I can’t even tell you what I have done between waving the children off to school and greeting them again in the afternoon.

The house is clean and reasonably tidy, dinner is cooked fresh every day, these things take up far more time than I actually think. I will allow, say, an hour for housework in the morning than find two hours later that I am still cleaning. Like life, I suppose once you have sorted one area you see others that need doing.

The problem is knowing when to stop. There is only so much cleaning and dusting you can do, before you are either exhausted or run out of dirt. Like wise with self-improvement, there are only so many books you can read, affirmations you can say, hours spent meditating. Unlike housework though there is no physical boundary that stops you from continuing the search. Who am I? What is my purpose? Why am I here? How can I improve my life, my relationships, my job prospects etc.? The endless questions that can get us bogged down in a never-ending search. A search that may prove fruitless.

For although it is good to seek improvement, to acknowledge the areas of your life that need changing, unless you actually change then all the reading, meditating and questioning will be of no use. I am guilty of hopping from one self-improvement website to the next in the vain hope that I will find enlightenment there, something that speaks to me directly and tells me exactly what I need to do or who I should be.

Part of that is conditioning, growing up I was very aware of where I was lacking, I sought approval all the time, tried very hard to be what others wanted me to be to gain that approval. I did it not only with my parents but in other relationships too, always hanging back waiting for others to make decisions and then following along whether or not my heart was in it. I never gave myself a chance to find out what I enjoyed doing, what made me tick, in essence who I am, I was too busy pretending to enjoy what everyone else enjoyed because I thought people would like me better.

The last two years out of work have given me a real sense of who I am, what I believe in and more importantly the things I enjoy doing. Some of those things, my yoga for instance, I am not prepared to give up for anyone or anything, not even for paid employment, any job I get will have to fit around my yoga schedule. My husband has real difficulty in understanding this, I have never dug my heels in before in such a way. I have always gone along with the things he wanted, holidays or activities, even when I have not wanted to, he has always overridden my views and choices and we did what he wanted to.

Now I have a choice, I am the one who is unemployed, the one looking for a job. He thinks I should just take the first job that I am offered, but I have been there before which is how I got into the mess I was in. This time the job has to be right, it has to fit in with my needs. Others may consider me selfish in this but for me it is just self-preservation, having found who I am and what I want and I am not prepared to lose it again in frantic busyness for the sake of a few extra pounds in the bank. I am worth more than that.

Are you? Is it time you took time out, slowed down, looked at what is not working in your life?

 

Not quite right…

That describes me, “not quite right”. I am not sure in what way I am not quite right, or even how I may be wrong.  But it seems that there is something about me or the work I produce that is “not quite right”.

This is what I get told constantly. I submit work for publishing, I apply for jobs. And all I ever get back is the response sorry not this time we don’t feel “you are quite right” or “not what we are looking for at the moment”. Apart from what dealing with constant rejection does to me mentally and emotionally, I am sick of this response.

This morning I had yet another rejection from a magazine, yesterday it was a job application. I suppose with the job application I can at least be grateful that I got a response at all, so often these days unless you are called to interview you hear nothing at all.

To me this smacks of laziness. I know everyone is madly busy, that magazines and publishers get huge numbers of submissions, that the jobs I have applied for have also had large numbers of applicants. With regard to job applications, you are nearly always asked for an email address, so how long would it actually take for them to email people who have applied and thank them for their interest and tell them politely that this time they are not being called to interview. A job application can take hours, by the time you have researched the employer and written your two page personal statement showing how you match their person specification and how and what you could contribute to their community.

I am aware that with a lot of the jobs I apply for they probably consider me too old but can’t actually say this because that would be discrimination, I wonder though do they read past my date of birth on the application form? I have a wealth of experience I could bring to these jobs but rarely even make the interview stage. I know my personal statement is good, well written, succinct and to the point as l have been told this by several acquaintances who are in a position to judge such things, they hire people and have said that if they received my application they would definitely short list me for interview.

As for my writing, all I ever get told is that it is not quite right for them. There is no suggestion of what could be wrong, what I need to do to improve. I do read the publications I am aiming to get published in, I read a lot of modern poetry and short stories, and while I do not try to emulate what I read I only submit pieces that I think might fit the style of writing in that particular publication. Yet mine is never quite right. I just wish that someone would tell me why.

How can I improve or get it right if I do not know what is wrong in the first place?

Maybe, it is me, maybe I just need to accept that I am not quite right, but if I do that means I will get nowhere that I am accepting others flawed view of who I am. For the moment I will keep plugging away and perhaps one day I will be the right fit, or if not someone can me tell me why and then I can make the decision to either change or quit.

 

Arrogance…

or self-confidence?

Over the last few days I have spent time helping my son write his CV in order to get a work experience placement for September. He had no problem listing his grades and achievements at school but when it came to the personal statement he was at a loss. During lessons they were told that it only needed to be four or five lines and they should include attributes that would make an employer want to employ them and also to make themselves stand out from the crowd. They had been given lists of words like, committed, loyal, reliable, responsible, hard-working, good team member. So my son had duly written I am followed by the words he thought best described him.

I told him that this was not enough, he needed to explain why he was loyal, reliable or how he had shown commitment and responsibility. He had a Commendation for Teamwork in his list of achievements, I advised him to use this, to expand on it, say why and how he had achieved it as this was real proof that he could work successfully as part of a team. I explained how he could use the fact that he has done a paper round for a couple of years to demonstrate other desirable characteristics.

At this point in the process, my husband came into the room and asked what we were doing. My son explained and said he was having difficulty with the personal statement. My husband started to berate our son for his lack of confidence. He was almost shouting at him, saying unhelpful things like “big yourself up” and “lie, everyone does.” Not very useful advice for a fifteen year old, yet he could not come up with one single thing to put on the resume that would make our son feel more confident about himself. We asked for specifics, what would he say were our son’s strengths but again got the reply ” For God’s sake, just big yourself up, have some confidence in yourself.”

How though is a fifteen year old meant to develop self-confidence if those around him cannot tell him even one thing he is good at, give him just one example of where he has shown desirable qualities to put on his CV?

My husband tells the children quite frequently that they lack confidence yet fails to praise the things they do well. I do not share his opinion of the children, yes they lack confidence in some areas of their lives (who doesn’t?) but for the most part they know their own strengths and weaknesses pretty well, they know what they like and dislike, they are able to make their opinions known and hold  their own in adult conversations.

His own self-confidence borders on arrogance, only his opinion counts, we have pictures on the walls at home that only he likes, we do things that he wants to do because despite constantly seeking our opinions nothing we suggest is ever right or good enough for him. He dismisses outright any ideas I may have yet blames me for the children’s perceived lack of confidence. He tells me that it is my own low self-esteem that feeds their lack. While he may have a point there, I have always tried my best to build the children up, to praise the things they do well and help where they feel they need it.

What my husband does not understand is that part of my own lack of confidence stems from his overbearing arrogance, from the constant dismissing of my opinions (in front of the children), berating me for things I have or have not done, belittling what I do for our family (I don’t work outside the home therefore I don’t work is one of his latest little barbs). How and what are the children supposed to gain from this?

I would rather that my children stay as they as are, quietly confident in their abilities, willing to try new things and fail than to have so much self belief that they believe they are above or better than everyone else, that is not confidence but arrogance.

 

Sometimes…

a little bit of peace and quiet does wonders.

The children have returned to school after a week off. The husband also took a few days off last week. The weekend was busy, the usual to and froing and a visit to see my newest nephew on Sunday.

Today, I have had the house to myself for a few hours. I went to yoga this morning and then had a quick coffee with a friend, and came home. It was bliss to put my key in the door and know there would be no one home. No noise from the TV or radio, just the cat’s gentle snoring to keep me company.

Don’t get me wrong, I love having the children home but as the weather has been bitterly cold they have been indoors far more during this holiday than usual. Their friends seem always to choose to come here.  On Friday afternoon there were five teenage boys in the house. While they are all pleasant, polite and well-behaved boys they do make huge levels of noise. Their voices are deep and they have yet to learn to modulate them and so can be heard throughout the house. Apart from the noise they make themselves, talking, laughing and general tomfoolery they seem always to need the background noise of TVs, music or games consoles.

The little one is also fond of her music and has developed an attachment to one particular song which she plays over and over again. When she is not playing it aloud on her iPod or phone she is singing it herself and making up dance moves, all of which seem to involve lots of thumps and bangs and jumping around.

My husband also seems to like to be surrounded by external sounds and always has either the radio or the TV on. I find the noise levels when they are all home, with different music coming from every room in the house rather overwhelming. I find to hard to think or indeed accomplish anything in such an environment but am reluctant to ask them to switch off as this is their home too.

So, I relish these hours alone, when I can choose silence, peace and quiet. I feel refreshed and when the children come home know I will be able to greet them with a smile and tolerate their choice of music or TV program for a few hours.

 

Equal portions

Last week my son made a cheesecake at school. He proudly presented it to us after dinner and said we could all have a slice. The slicing was a bit uneven, it is difficult to cut a circle into five equal pieces, one slice was much smaller than the others. I noticed my son plate this slice up and hand it to me.

I queried this and was greeted with the reply that I always have the smallest portion or slice of whatever is going, be it cake or dinner. I couldn’t argue with that point as it is in fact true, what saddened me was that my son had noticed and just took it for granted that the smallest slice should be mine.

I do it for a number of reasons, one being that as I am no longer growing up (just outwards!) I don’t need the extra calories. The second reason is that I am usually the one who has prepared the meal so if I have not made enough to go around then it is my fault and seems unfair that anyone else should suffer from my mistake.

Occasionally one of the children will unexpectedly have a friend over to play and will ask if he/she can stay for dinner. My answer usually depends on how late they have left this request, but if I am about to serve dinner then I feel I have no choice but to say yes as it seems rude to sit my children down to eat while the friend is still here. In such circumstances I will normally only have cooked enough for the family but will give the friend my portion and just leave them to it at the dining room table. If they ask I will just say that I had my dinner in the kitchen, and maybe have some toast when they have gone to bed.

So yes, I will give myself smaller portions and do without when it means others would have less or not enough. It is something I learnt growing up. Frequently as a child there was barely enough food to go around, we filled up  on bread or potatoes, meat was in short supply as were extra treats, when we did have them my mother always had less than everyone else with my father and brother having the lion’s share. Being men, they needed it more than we mere girls and women did.I have noticed that it is the same in my sisters’ houses, they too serve the men first and make do with nothing or smaller portions.

It is true that women do indeed need fewer calories than men, but it makes me wonder what sort of message I am giving to my children, my son in particular. Does he think from my behaviour that women are some how less deserving than men? My husband is hardly an enlightened man, hovering in his beliefs somewhere between cavemen and Victorian, and so sees nothing wrong with putting himself first and foremost in all situations including helping himself to large portions of food before anyone else has even reached the table.

My children are growing up in a world that is on so many ways completely different to the world I inhabited as a child. Women were not equal then, they were seen as inferior, things that men owned and had power over. So much has changed since then that my daughters have as good a chance of achieving their life’s dreams as my son. What I don’t want is some ingrained attitude that women are somehow less than men to hold them back, nor do I want it to colour my son’s judgement of women and how he treats them.

So from now on I think I shall cook extra food, ensure that all get equal portions to start with and those who require seconds can have them. Perhaps if we all start equal the message will sink in that although I may not want as large a slice of cake as anyone else, I am still entitled to have it. That just because I am a woman does  not mean I should have less, of anything.