Navigating ageing.
‘Hello poisons hotline, my son swallowed 99 melatonin tablets’
It took 3 decades of living to utter that sentence.
I had my fingers so far down his throat I brushed his soul when they suggested I take him to hospital.
The next 8 hours I was instructed to forcibly keep him conscuous which was ineffectual considering he spent the majority bolting to the geriatrics ward and licking the hazard bins.
We left after 7 runny shits and a liver check.
It was those 8 hours I realised I was actually a Mother.
That may sound bizarre, but for the most part I lived in a parallel universe. My mind hadn’t caught up with my body and my resistance to accept this life stage made me so disconnected from reality I was almost numb.
But this awoke me, as any sudden trauma does.
We spend an awful lot of time romanticising the past.
Like we really enjoyed growing boobs, asking a parent for a $25 mobile top up card or waiting for a guy called Dogsy to call you back knowing farewell he was unconscious in a field.
For me I always retreat to a day when a storm had swept through. I sat by my open window engraving Dogsy’s initials. My Dad had James Taylor blasting and the smell of the rain and the heat and hopeful love consumed me.
I often cogityate about this moment - I felt safe.
On the tube last week I watched a Mother board with 2 in a stroller and 2 walking. Each of them had a balloon. Till this moment in her life nothing had ever been more important than keeping those intact.
Only a few years earlier this woman held a conversation without interrupting to yell ‘get off the roof of the car’, didn’t find hardened egg in her hair from 2 days earlier and knew that a large brown blob under her nail was definitely Nutella and nothing else.
There’s a true callousness in hindsight. We glorify the days we had a social life more intense than unlocking a folded stroller with one hand, stomach skin tighter than the grip hold your 6 year old has around your 5 years olds neck and $24 in your savings.
Because suddenly all that matters in your world are those 4 balloons.
Seeing someone in the same precipice as you helps. An unspoken camaraderie that only needs a seconds glance to feel at home with one another.
For the next 12 stops in-between helping save 2 out of 4 balloons, I thought of all the things I have changed, sacrificed, modified since turning 30 and all the things I would say to my younger self.
And it made me realise that my desperate pursuit for my old life was delaying my new one.
I never could have fathomed the repercussions of breaking free of the societal stereotypes of a Mother though. That finding your own version of happiness is often considered madness!
To change friendship groups, to eat differently, prioritise exercise and wellness. To yearn for the kind of risks that are pigeonholed for the younger generations.
It’s so offending to the mediocrity that you sink so far into obscurity that your only friend is a ginger and kale smoothie. You become either an inspiration or an enemy!
Because, as it seems, people tend to gravitate, support and befriend self-sabotages more than self-helpers.
For me, it all happened rather flippantly.
I was breathless carrying the washing up a flight of stairs. I was breathless eating Roman’s left over, semi-chewed, room temperature, cheese on toast. I was breathless looking at my reflection in the mirror, torn somewhere between pride for the wounds that had been inflicted birthing miracles and also a body I no longer recognised!
It wasn’t strong, it wasn’t tough. It was tired, it was defeated.
And too many times I’d made excuses, reasons why I couldn’t better things for myself. I had become invisible, irrelevant. A work horse in a career that society still doesn’t really appreciate or understand and I was sick of writing my own sick notes.
So it began. Not subtle changes, a complete fucking overhaul of everything I knew.
I wasn’t even finding myself, I was creating myself. A person I didn’t know before kids or during kids, a brand new woman.
I set my alarm for 4.30am. I knew the pinch of this considering my kids only entered their deep sleep faze from 3am to 6am. Before those hours, they were minors on acid.
I did this for the next 2 years.
One of the most empowering moments of my life was hopping into that car at 4.45am. Alone, clean, blood pressure stable. Driving somewhere for myself that didn’t have sticky floors and flashing lights. Just me on a dark empty street with some sort of ‘too-early-for-this-kind-of-blasphemy’ RnB playing, on that reformer machine pushing this sore body in and out, which became less sore each day.
I scoured the web for information on vegan eating, vegetarian, pescatarian. I knew all the good things never agreed with me anyway but up with the agony for the small amount of happiness is brought upon my tongue.
But the 30 second thrill no longer cut it. So I stopped, cold turkey. Booze too.
Because what did it give me? Recklessness. A hangover. Heart palpitations?
Were my friends my friends because of my heart and my love or were they my friends because we got drunk together?! Enabled each other. And a revelation? If you’re in unhappiness together then you can’t be happy together. And this new lifestyle wasn’t enabling, it wasn’t a collective misery.
It was hopeful and acutely positive and many weren’t ready for that journey.
It cost a social life for a while, a backlash of bitchy comments and internet trolls.
It saw many tears and much paranoia for a while. Until it didn’t.
No one willing to crawl through the trenches doesn’t come out with an appreciation for the grass on the other side.
And I think of the questions I often get asked, “how did you stop drinking?” And, “how did you start exercising?” And my answer remains the same - I just did. No excuses anymore. Knowing that the cost of it is worth any loss.
And back to those archaic societal stereotypes of a Mother. A Mother is expected to be strong but soft, present and attentive without reprieve. We are applauded for being superwoman but without the acknowledgement of the cost.
We are not selfish for wanting more. Nor are we shallow for wishing to look, or feel a certain way. My outer strength is nothing compared to the inner strength it’s taken me 5 years to accrue. I am an example to my kids to look after yourself - your mind, your body. To try and find the balance despite sometimes failing. But getting back up again.
The clouds part. The rain stops. You have a chance to reinvent yourself. With the utter privilege of having been to hell and back with happy healthy babies to show for it and a grounded, mentally healthy mother right behind them.
It’s easy to remain inert, to not surrender for your desire for more.
To crave a life where where the height entertainment isn’t which tooth just fell out or finding new places to hide the elves.
Our hesitance to do hard things doesn’t override our capability. You just have to take that first step.