What Mama Did...

I have taken a break from blogging for a while, since there is something a little bit soul-destroying in it, I’ve found.  I don’t really know what I expected when I started this journey of words and feelings, I just blindly jumped into it without thinking or feeling anything much except ‘Woooooooooooooo I’m doing it!’  I didn’t think about who my audience might be, if there was any audience at all.  Then I thought I did know. Surely it was other mamas like me?  Mamas living with Boos of their own, mamas on the front line, mamas in the trenches of Autism.  Mamas covered in spaghetti sauce, bite marks on their arms, sleep deprived, depleted, yet so full of love for their kids they could burst.

Then there was the inevitable self-doubt.  Who do you think you are, Mama, to be sharing your story as if anyone cares?  What can you tell these women that they don’t already know?  I’m not an authority on this.  I’m just one of millions.  And there are thousands of amazing ladies (and gentlemen) out there, blogging about life with their Autistic children, doing it so much better than I am.  I don’t really have anything new to say, that they haven’t already said more eloquently and beautifully.

Not being much of a self-marketing maven, my readership is pretty much limited to my mum and a few kind souls who know me already and read out of interest or politeness (thank you, guys!) And a few lovely people I’ve never met out there in FaceTwit land who stumbled across my blog (and I’m so glad you did!)

I haven’t been writing at all lately, but I’ve been really busy.  Good busy.  Raring to go, motivated busy.   I’m going to take the spotlight off Boo this time; give her a break, and shine it on… ME.  Because I am a mum, living with Autism – like so many others out there – and we mums (ALL mums, and especially mums of kids with special needs) never, ever shine the spotlight on ourselves.  It is just not done or proper or heard of.  So I’m doing it now, just cuz I'm nearly 41 and I can.

For those of you who have never met me, I am 5’5” and used to weigh 240 lbs.  That was around 160 lbs of *me*, and around 80 lbs of frustration, inadequacy, depression, hopelessness, sadness, anxiety and ice-cream.  I am what you might call an emotional eater.  My weight in my 20s settled at around 160, so I have never been a skinny mini, but as I approached 30 life brought more and more challenges, and I started to eat my feelings.  I turned 40 last year and didn’t really celebrate it, in the truest sense of the word, because I wasn’t ready.  Not not ready to be 40 – I didn’t care about the age thing- no, I was not ready to be the centre of attention.  Which, if you do know me, is a joke.  I am the girl who sang, ‘Fame- I’m gonna live forever…’ at age 10, and truly believed it.  I wanted to be a star – all singing, all dancing, all daahhhling.  Limelight was what I lived for.  Anyhoo.  People change.  I have spent the last decade trying to hide, trying to avoid being noticed at all.

When my 40^th arrived and it was my chance to be the star- if only for one night- I declined the  leading role, and went for a very low key, family thing and a quiet little lunch and a few afternoon cocktails with one of my beautiful besties.  All my friends threw parties for their 40ths. I didn’t understand myself, not feeling ready to throw myself a party, I mean, what was I waiting for?  Much contemplation followed.

After rummaging around in my feelings and unpicking them, I figured it out.  My life had not turned out the way I thought it should have.  I was feeling unsettled, because at 40, my actual real life bore no resemblance to the one I had imagined years before.   I thought I’d have it all together by 40.  Er, no.  

My life had been on hold.  I had been so busy with the kids lives that I had stopped living my own.  I had been exhausted for years.  I hadn’t been looking after myself.  I was out of shape physically and spiritually.  I was totally depleted.  My idea of fun was a Chinese takeaway and early to bed.  I had no career, no job.  I couldn’t (and wouldn’t, even if I could!) call myself a housewife, since I did no housework, and  some days, I wasn’t even sure if I was a wife, since I had very little to offer that he seemed to value.  Even worse, I found I didn’t really care whether he valued me or not.  There was a lot of resentment, that I had the shitty end of the stick in our marriage.  When all your energy (hardly any at that) is used up just getting your kids up and off to school in the morning, there’s nothing left for anyone else.  I felt underappreciated and angry.  More on that another time maybe.   I just wanted to get through my day, with the kids fed and in one piece, so that I could get to sleep.  This was not living.

Shortly after my 40^th birthday, we cleared out the loft at our old house.  Amongst many treasures, we found lots of photos.  BooHooPapa and I have been together since 6^th form, so he had lots of photos of a younger, thinner me.  Looking at those photos, I was struck by how gorgeous I was.  I’m not saying that in a vain way – I’m really not.  Go right now and look at a photo of yourself aged 18, and I promise, you were gorgeous.  Because *ALL* 18 year olds are gorgeous, they just are.  And so was I.  

 And yet, when I was 18, I thought I wasn’t thin enough, or pretty enough, or anything enough.  At 18, I looked to the future with hope that one day (and definitely by the time I was 40!) I’d grow up into the person I thought I should be.  I felt sad, remembering this not-enoughness.  If only there was a way to get a message from your 40 year old self to your 18 year old self – DAMN, would I give that  bitch a talking to!  And I realised this: that one day, twenty-odd years from now, I will look at photos of myself at 40 years old, and think I was gorgeous.  As I am right now.  And it suddenly dawned on me, OH MY GOOD GOD, I have just spent my entire life not doing things that could have been fun, because I thought I wasn’t this enough or that enough – what a RIDICULOUS waste.

So I thought about the things I had always wanted to do, and set about doing them.  Not major things to anyone else, maybe, but exciting for me.  I wrote my articles for the freebie mag, started my blog, went to see Adam Ant (it was like I was 9 years old all over again!)  I started volunteering at my kids’ school, which I love.  And I got busy looking after myself.  Eating better, sleeping earlier (if not all night!), getting some exercise and chilling out.  Listening to ‘Love Action’ by The Human League really loud on my ipod.  Singing in my kitchen.  Pinteresting.  Reading.  Listening to podcasts.  Meditating.  Power-walking around my neighbourhood like a loon.  Smiling at dogs and waving at babies.  Planting sunflowers.  Tweeting under an alias.  Humming in the supermarket.  Living my life!  I’m fortunate to have had the time to do these things this year.  After being at home with the girls for these past nine years, I decided that I deserved a year off to do whatever I wanted to do, even if that was only napping.

Have the kids suffered because I put myself back onto the to do list?  No, of course not.  Is life now perfect?  Is it chuff.  In many ways life is as shite as ever.  Money-wise, we have had an awful year.  And recently there have been extra challenges to overcome, in that I am now a single parent Monday-Friday.  I have to make my own tea and everything.  But it’s a healthy tea.  While the kids are in school, the house still doesn’t get cleaned, but that’s because I am busy pounding the streets of my neighbourhood, working up a sweat and a good few endorphins, blasting my ears with fabulous 80s grooves and feeling like I am in the video.  I feel so much better for it.  And I lost some weight too. Win-win.

Mamas, put on your own oxygen mask first, before helping others.  If we diminish ourselves by ignoring our own needs, there’ll be nothing left of us worth having by the time we are in a position to really give back.  Fill your own cup first, so that you can nourish others from the overflow.  Just go, ‘Wooooooooooooooooo!!!  I’m doing it!!!’  Not everyone will like it, some people will slag you off behind your back or even to your face – so what???  You might make an arse of yourself - again, so what???

In the words of Hunter S. Thompson, “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow! What a ride!’”

If your question is 'Shall I?'  Then let the answer be a resounding YES.

What are you doing for yourself today?