Motherhood

It’s not about the socks…

by findingmyhummingbird

My littlest is currently battling through another croup flare up, the nights are long, the sleep is scarce and the tensions are high!

Tonight I am writing this while lying in my sons bed, listening to the ins and outs of his breath, the pauses that are a bit too long and the inevitable coughing fit that follows. This is the second night in a row I’ve taken up post in his room, my husband thankfully, no longer questioning or arguing with me about it, but not exactly happy either.

Whenever my children are sick with croup or asthma, my anxiety gets the better of me. The black cloud hovers closer than usual and lightening bolts of fear course through me. A few years ago my eldest ended up in hospital after a very bad asthma attack that saw her unresponsive upon admission into ER, I now have the same panic and helplessness haunt me with every cough that my kids have.

My husband and I have had our fair share of arguments surrounding my need to sleep in the kids rooms when they are sick, his case always being that they’d sleep better if I wasn’t there, that I’d sleep better in my own bed, that I’m being paranoid. Last year my son was admitted into ER during a croup attack in the middle of the night, I heard the early signs in his breathing and was able to get him to hospital before his oxygen sat levels got too low. All arguments about me sleeping in their rooms were officially over, well, until now.

In the early hours of this morning my husband came into my sons room after one of his coughing fits woke him, he told me to go to our bed and that he’d take over for awhile. Despite longing for sleep I declined his offer, he insisted again that I get some sleep as apparently I didn’t look so crash hot (a zombie is actually what he called me). The cocktail of tiredness and anxiety kicked in and I firmly said, “NO, he needs me here”, my anxiety turning my need to be there into the assumption that it was best for him too. My husband unfortunately, well, he took this to mean… he needs ME and NOT him and spat out “sounds about right, I can’t do anything, you don’t even trust me with him” and skulked back off to bed!

Any chance of falling back to sleep was now officially obliterated, my anxiety over our son had now been joined with the turbulence in the gut knowing that I’ve just gone and royally pissed my hubby off too. I lied awake for hours replaying my words and moved through every emotion from indignation to regret, I always seem to choose the wrong words, to pick the wrong battles even when I didn’t plan to fight. Somewhere in amongst my chaotic thoughts I realised that my words could of course be hurtful when not given context, I realised that maybe deep down I didn’t trust my husband to lie with our son, not because he wouldn’t do it right but because it would threaten my identity as being the carer. In a moment where I had absolutely no control, the anxiety clouded my judgement and my presence became the one thing I could control!

And so, it’s not about how the socks are folded, it’s about gaining control in a chaotic world. When we feel threatened, trapped, out of control, we fight for what we value, we regain control of the variables that are ours to decide, we push back against anything that stands in our way, we choose words that have sharp edges and use them as our weapons.

My goal is to face my anxiety blob head on, to acknowledge its presence and not let my need for control hurt others. Firstly however, I will talk to my husband, let him in, let him know that it’s not about the socks or who lies with our son, it’s about my anxiety and how that shapes a big part of who I am.

Until then…

I’ll be out there….

Finding my hummingbird

Why is “Goodbye” so hard and is it really the end?

by findingmyhummingbird

I’m no stranger to losing one’s that I love, I have lost 2 Grandfathers’s, my father-in-law and a very dear friend. I have seen lives that have been lived with great adventure and passion, and lives that have been filled with inner torment and pain, all end before I was ready for them to go. Today, faced with loss again, I had to say goodbye, words that are never easy to say and will stay with you for your lifetime. Words that despite my best efforts I couldn’t plan, practice or rehearse.

My Nan turned 90 this year, she has lived through pain and hardship but she has also experienced the love of fairytales and had a companion by her side everyday for the past 77years!! My grandparents met when she was just 13, despite her not being allowed to date until she was 15 (his age at the time), my grandfather knew she was the one, he waited until she was 15 and upon her fathers permission asked her to a dance. At 20 years of age she married him and has lived her life by his side, if he was going fishing then so was she! They, like my other grandparents (I’m especially lucky to have 3 sets with my mother remarrying when I was still young), were the benchmarks for what I hoped for in a marriage. Now, sadly, my Nans health is failing her and we are forced to say yet another goodbye we were not ready to say.

Several years ago a very close friend died of suicide after a long battle with mental ill health, a battle that I wish I could have fought for him. When I was pregnant with my youngest, our joyous celebrations came with sadness as we lost my husband’s father to a long battle with illness. My father in law lived overseas and my husband could not get back in time to say his goodbyes. Not long before I was due, my Pop experienced an aneurysm that took him from us without notice.

With all of these passings, our goodbyes were taken away from us, there were no warnings, we had to say goodbye as we laid them to rest, we had to live with regret for not getting the opportunity to say one more I love you.

Three months after my son was born, we were faced with death again when my second grandfather lost his battle with dementia. Our goodbyes to him came long before his passing, they were said after each brief recollection of who we were, after visit we thought we would be our last. Despite having the warning and time to say goodbye, it did not make the words come any easier or take away the hurt.

Today as I sat there beside my grandmother, holding her hand for the last time, I was left with only the words that came into my heart. I told her how I was proud of her and how strong she has fought, I told her that I loved her and will always cherish the memories I have growing up beside her, I told her that I would take care of pop until he was ready to join her once again, I told her that it was okay for her to go.

Why do we leave our feelings unsaid, why do we wait until the last moment to speak our truth? We have hours upon hours in each and every day and yet we fill them with the hustle of work and waste them living through others highlight reels on social media. Today has taught me, and it’s something I should have learnt sooner, do not wait until that final goodbye! Treat every conversation like it might be your last, don’t leave word’s unspoken, hug a little longer, say I love you when you mean it!

Make memories while you can, love with your heart and soul, so that in the end, goodbye is not final, your love will keep them alive within you!

Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for love who love with their heart and soul, there is no separation.

Rumi

Today was hard…

Until next time…

I’ll be out there….

Finding my Hummingbird

Intuition, Happiness & Honesty … The stalemate

by findingmyhummingbird

The time finally came for our heart to heart, we managed to get a child free night with no work or social commitments… a night to commit only to each other’s questions and feelings.

Neither of us knew where to start so I went straight back to the question where it all began. “What wrong? Do you even want to be here?”, that was the question he had asked me and I had answered so quickly and without time to think through my my response that I never asked him what led him to even ask me that. We had up until that point had a seemingly good weekend. He told me that I was detached, that I was too often looking off into another world, I was watching Instagram videos rather than being present, and then he said the words that truly fed his question whether he even knew it or not.. My priorities didn’t make sense.

I tried not to react, again I’m quick to defender, fight or flight so to speak. I carefully processed his opinions and tried to tackle them one by one.

I’m detached and looking into another world– could it be that I’m actually too attached I’m burnt out and that is displayed as my detachment? I certainly don’t feel detached, I feel connected to every minute of every person inside this house, every “mummy” and “hey Hun”, I’m attached to the to do lists and emotional roller coasters of the kids, I’m attached the image of the mother and wife society expects. My only words to explain this to him was to say; “I’m sorry if I appear to be detached and staring off into another world, sometimes I am so engrossed in the mental checklists and my own thoughts that my physical being detaches from my mental state, like I can’t be both present and in my head all at once”.

Instagram versus being present – my husband hates social media so this one wasn’t a surprise and I know retrospectively I should have explained that I use social media to unwind, to escape the black clouds in my mind, to turn off the noises and voices reminding me of what I have and haven’t done. Instead, I said: “you can hardly talk, I flick through social media but you can’t seem to go a minute without checking if any new work emails have come through or texting one of the guys from work, I hardly think having my phone out is a problem but I’ll work on it if it’s that bothering to you”. I told you, my go to is defensive.

My priorities don’t make sense – now this point was the kicker for me! I knew it was where his “resentment and frustration” truly lied, I knew it was fuelled by the same focal point as most of our arguments… he was no longer my number 1 priority! My priority first and foremost is our kids well-being, that is reflected in my dropping everything if they are in need, it’s why I insist on structure in amongst the chaos, and why I strive for perfection. I asked him to explain how my priorities differed from his, how do they not make sense? He explained that I focus too much on the small stuff like housework and pandering to the kids, that instead of prioritising our relationship I’m too busy cleaning. I was reading between the lines at this point, I was not focusing on him and his needs! I was not showing him love in the ways he expected. For this I had no response, no defence just silence. He wasn’t wrong, but he wasn’t right either. My priorities were as he described but I think he forgets that I am a mum now not just his wife.

I tried hard to explain my standpoint, to address his concerns with respect and not dismissal, we went around in circles for awhile, voices went up and down and finally the tears came! I could see his love and exhaustion written all over the look of concern now taking over from the frustration, I could only hope he saw mine. “I’m tired”, were the only words I could manage, tired of it all, the fighting, the expectations, the juggle of motherhood, wife, employee and manager. I’m tired of trying to please, be better, do more, give more. I’m tired of waking up not knowing which clouds will enter my thoughts and cast shadows over my day.

I told him that sometimes the noise is just too much, sometimes there are clouds that smother me. I told him that sometimes I scream, cry or get angry because I’m in fight or flight. I told him that I love him but sometimes I don’t like him. I told him that sometimes I let the noise win, I turn off from the world around me and let the clouds envelop me.

Sometimes despite our best efforts words just cannot convey the desired meaning. My words will never be able to explain my thoughts, my fears, my anxieties… how can you explain something in which you can’t even understand yourself? How can you begin to describe all of this to someone who doesn’t understand… how do you move forward knowing that they’ll never truly understand you?

I don’t know the answers but I’ll be looking for them and until then we will continue to dance around this subject with trepidation.

Until then…

I’ll be out there….

Finding my hummingbird

Intuition, honesty and happiness… The interlude

by findingmyhummingbird

It’s been just over a week since the “are you happy” conversation and the elephant is still following us around, in and out of every room, hiding in the silence between our words…out of sight but not out of mind. We have had fleeting moments and opportunities to discuss everything that was said but never enough time to truly unpack the emotions, feelings and fears that came out with them. Whilst I desperately want to clear the air and explain why my answer was no and why that’s ok, I have no idea where to even start! How do you explain to someone something that you don’t fully understand yourself? How do you tell someone who puts you at the centre of their universe that it’s not enough?

Intuition, honesty & happiness… Part 1

by findingmyhummingbird

Intuition, it’s a wonderful thing, according to Albert Einstein, it’s a sacred gift. Intuition, in essence, is derived from past experiences and deliberate thought, it is not an instinct which is more innate and knee-jerk reactionary, rather it’s a feeling that leads to an intentional response. So, if it is our past experiences guiding our intuition should we not be more accepting and trusting of the feeling? Why is it that so many people will ignore their intuition and wait for instincts to kick in and react instead of deliberately acting? Are we afraid of our own intuition? Perhaps we are too scared to follow a hunch in case we are wrong. Or what’s more accurate in my case, are we afraid that we are opening Pandora’s box if we follow that gut feeling?

This past weekend, my intuitive warning bell was ringing louder than that of a white bellbirds call, something was eating away at my husband and I knew it was something I had done! I cannot tell you if it was the words he was saying, or how they were being said, it was like I was hearing words in the silence and they were taunting me to respond. Again, intuition, ‘I cannot pinpoint what it was but I could feel it’, and trust me, I felt it! I could have ignored my gut, it probably would have been easier, but I’m trying to listen to my body and my mind. Be proactive in finding my hummingbird so to speak, so with that came my decision to address that gut feeling and open Pandora’s box, a box that is not as simple to close as it is to open.

“What’s wrong?” I said as I was at the stove prepping dinner and he sat at the bar stool, “and dont say nothing because clearly something is up!” Admittedly, my tone held more hostility than I would have liked. The weekend had, up until this point, been nothing different than any other weekend. Groceries, housework, a few games with the kids, more than a few episodes of conflict resolution between two fighting siblings, and a nice afternoon movie with all four of us on the lounge. “Are you happy? Do you even want to be here?” he said and I knew straight away that my intuition was bang on…. what I didn’t know however, was just how blindsighted I would be by the words that came out of my very own mouth!

“Am I happy, somedays no. Do I want to be here, sometimes no, but does it mean that i’d rather be anywhere else in the world, no”. I could tell that even he was shocked by the words that came out of my mouth, it isn’t the first time we have had this discussion, the discussion most couples have once they become mother and father and forget who they were as husband and wife. In owning who I am, I know I can be very defensive, in the past these conversations have ended up heated with accusations and blame being thrown back and forth so quickly that an onlooker could get whiplash. There is the usual response of “of course I am happy, I am just tired because I am the only one who does anything around here” and the rebutal of “that is because everything I do doesn’t meet your standards”, inevitably what transpires is two people in foul moods holding grudges and regrets about what was said but moving on until the next time we get into the arena.

For the first time, I had actually admitted to my husband that I was not happy, an alarm bell that i’m sure his intuition had already rang. To him, happiness is an absolute, it is an all or nothing. To me, happiness can be fleeting, it can go just as quickly as it came and it can be mixed with a myriad of other emotions. To say that I am not happy isn’t true, nor is it true to say that I am, can I not be both? On paper, I “should” be happy, I have a husband, a home, 2 healthy kids, a stable job, all the boxes on his happiness checklist are ticked. Here within the silence, with the elephant entering the room, I could see my husband start to recoil, start to question and immediatly assume HE was the problem. I knew I had to keep talking, to try to explain my answer but the words I needed to speak could not be found and sure enough before I could articulate my thoughts, “Do you not love me anymore?” fell from his lips with such fear that I wish I could rewind and take it all back.

For the next hour or so we went and back forth, trying to understand each other’s perspectives. Why am I not “showing” him that I love him? Why doesn’t he understand that I show him my love in every other way but physically? Is it enough that we love each other, can we both live with the expectations we have of one another? Before our wedding we had to attend marriage classes, at the time we laughed and didn’t take it seriously, the naivety of a young couple who thought love was the answer to it all! I still remember many focal points from those classes, the love languages and loving your partner once you become a parent, all sounding so commonsense to us at the time yet now lessons we which had learnt.

By the end of the evening, both absolutely exhausted from trying to give the conversation our everything and still carry out the parenting responsibilities for the night, we agreed to revisit the discussion on our next child free night. Hopefully we will be able to talk about expectations of ourselves and of each other, our goals and common ground. Maybe this time the words I were looking for will be found, can I articulate my fears and anxieties to him? Will he understand that we are not responsible for each other’s happinesses and feelings?

Wish me luck… wish us luck…

Until next time, I’ll be out there….

Finding my hummingbird

Why so long?

by findingmyhummingbird

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything, and whilst many reasons spring to mind, one sits at the very forefront…. anxiety!

My anxiety isn’t always a bad thing, I’ve come to realise that many unique parts of me exist purely based upon it, but more often than not, this anxiety is what’s holding me back, causing me to recoil and react to figments of my own creation.

Writing is my cathartic response to life and all the ups and downs, my anxiety however, is the black cloud that sprawls through my thoughts gripping onto, twisting and rewriting every word that tries to make the page. I’m no stranger to overthinking things, I replay conversations critiquing what I said and didn’t say, the difference with writing is that the cursor blinks in front of me taunting me to think deeper, strive for better before committing to the page. Once spoken words leave your mouth they are no longer your private thoughts, they’re out there to be heard and interpreted. The written word on the other hand can be erased, rewritten and carefully constructed to cause the desired impact, the ink stains the page and can be reread, analysed and critiqued.

I’m striving for an honest, raw, and open blog, a blog that isn’t carefully curated like so many Insta feeds of perfect moments. In order to achieve that though, I must accept the imperfections of my writing and of my thoughts, I must let them reach the page without filter… can I be that vulnerable? Can I open myself up to the criticism that comes with that, not the criticism from others but rather the criticism that I’ll have of myself? Can I be open and honest with myself in order to accept the rawness of what I may discover? Is my anxiety over the perfect sentence actually concealing what I truly fear, owing my thoughts? To be truthful, I don’t know but I’m as sure about the sun rising tomorrow as I am that I will try.

That’s all we can ever do isn’t it? Try!

We shouldn’t be defined by our successes and failures but by the attempts we make in between.

So, in order to find my way forward I’m going to commit to vulnerable moments, uncertain feelings and delve without hesitation into my thoughts. I may not always like where my thoughts take me and I’m scared that beneath the surface there is a version of me I’ve kept hidden for too long, a version who avoids growing from the pain.

A hummingbird is said to focus on the beautiful things, in trying to find my hummingbird, I feel I must first accept the things which may not be so pretty to truly appreciate the beautiful moments that surround us!

And so, with that I’ll sign off, before my words get rewritten and the black clouds take over.

Until next time, I’ll be out there….

Finding my hummingbird

Welcome to my journey…

by findingmyhummingbird

Thank you for joining me on this journey to find my inner joy, my happiness within, my strength, my…Hummingbird!

Hummingbirds are incredible creatures, they persevere and endure through long flights to reach their destination, their wings beat up to 80 times per second and yet they remain still and composed in flight, they symbolise happiness and joy, they are a sign of resilience and teach us to appreciate the smaller things in life. To many cultures, these tiny birds represent a ‘lightness of being’ that bring good luck and lift us up from the negativity.

Life, especially now more than ever, is filled with moments that overwhelm us, scare us, force us to react or question who we are. As a mother of 2 small children, my life has recently undergone many of these moments, I have had more ups and downs in the last 5 years than in my 33 years of living. Many new mothers will relate to the emotional roller coaster that is parenthood and unfortunately for so many of us, it can be a time where the feeling of isolation is so overwhelming that we begin to internalise, shut down, and withdraw from everything that makes us who we are or who we were.

During a recent conversation with my psychologist (yes, I see a psychologist and I now have the ability to own this, it does not define me, but more on this another time) I had an Aha! moment where I was able to finally accept that my ‘self‘ is not predestined, it is not a fixed state of existence, I can choose how I react, how I perceive and what I want and if I change my mind that it is okay. The choices and events of my past may have influenced who I am today but they do not need to define me. Stevie Wonder said, “You can’t base your life on other people’s expectations”, without ever really knowing it, this was the sum of my existence, but today I understand that the only expectations I can truly live by are the expectations I have for myself.

I have the ability to shift my mindset, to learn from my mistakes and make the choices that align with who I am now and what I need in that moment. Our future can be influenced by our present but we cannot control it, we must therefore live in the present, we must learn to identify our expectations and separate them from our perceived expectations of others.

This blog is about the lessons I have learnt, the lessons I am learning, the mistakes I am making and sharing with the world the ‘rawness’ of living. I cannot promise to post every day, or detail every moment, but I do promise to be real, to share the Aha! moments and the moments that set me back. I hope somewhere along the way I can help someone, whether they simply identify with a post and recognise that they are not alone or they are inspired to adopt some of my learning into their life, if one person reads this post and makes one positive change for themselves than I will consider this a success.

Until next time, I’ll be out there…

Finding My Hummingbird