The Last Post

from here

I started my blog in May 2011, when Moses, my eldest child, was almost 9 months old. I called it Belle’s Elbows, because I found that all of the song lyrics and quotes I thought would make me seem deep and interesting were taken on Blogger already, and my childhood nickname plus a random body part seemed like as good a name as anything else I’d ever come up with (I originally settled on, and started a page called, Belle’s Ankles before realising, approximately 4 seconds later, that ‘elbows’ sounded seven hundred times better). (My second challenge was the blog address, for which I decided on theelbowsofbelle.blogspot.com because the idea of mysterious future readers of my blog ever seeing belleselbows and thinking I was a-okay with the lack of apostrophe made me hyperventilate).

I was spending an awful lot of my time breastfeeding back in those days, and I wanted to make the most of the hours I was required to sit on the couch while Moses worked at sucking the perkiness out of my youthful boobs (and nourishing himself, I guess). I decided I’d use this regular couch time for reading the Christian theology books I’d made no time for before Mo arrived, to grapple further with the strict gender roles I’d been taught in church up to that point. I figured a blog could be an easily-accessible home to the reviews of these books which would allow my similarly-passionate but more time-poor friends to follow along with my research without having to read everything for themselves. (It’s strange now to think that none of this reading and blogging would have happened if I had access back then to either Netflix or Twitter.) I hadn’t considered that in writing I’d find a much-needed creative outlet I hadn’t realised I’d been muchly-needing, and a safe space in which I could process my thoughts and fears and doubts and joys as I adjusted to marriage and motherhood and tried to better understand who I was in light of these as well as my Christian faith.

It's weird having publicly documented almost 8 years of my life, particularly as I’ve changed so dramatically in that time. In 2011, I was a new mum, trying very hard to be perfect in all the possible ways a mum could be perfect, so that my son would always think I was the bestest person ever and would definitely never end up in therapy. I was also extremely Christian, the eager type, who’d always try to invite you – her openly-not-Christian-but-extraordinarily-polite workmate – to her church, and who enthusiastically gifted you a small, leather-bound Bible because you’d once listened to me talking about reading it and made a passing comment, probably in the hopes that it would bring a nice end to our conversation, about how you thought you’d maybe read some of it yourself one day. (Guess what, friend? That day could be TODAY, because HERE’S A BIBLE FOR YOU!! You’re WELCOME!!!!) The type who had earnest conversations with her oldest and most loyal friend about how sad I was that she wouldn’t be joining me in heaven, given her blatantly unchristian behaviour and beliefs (she was – and remains – a superlative human being, it was just she was having sex without being married, and thought that was fine, so… pretty evil). THAT TYPE. That was 2011 me.

Nowadays, my son spends quite a bit of his life convinced I’m the worstest person ever (“Literally everyone in the world has an Xbox except me, and Huon has a TV bigger than ours IN HIS BEDROOM”) and will certainly need therapy when he’s older (everyone does). I feel zero pressure to act like the sweet, playful, always-happy mother who regularly shows up in movies (often running through meadows in slow-motion, dress billowing behind her); I’m done with acting any roles, whether it’s Good Mother or Good Christian Woman. 2020-me has now apologised to both my ex-workmate and my still-loyal-friend about the things past-me said when she was drunk on evangelical Christianity. Since 2011, I’ve been pregnant three more times, two of which ended in miscarriage, and one of which produced Hazel. I’ve finished one degree (Divinity) and am on the final leg of another (Psychology). I’m trying to find new purpose now that what lies ahead is my own to figure out the directions to, where before I could merely follow those handed to me by church leaders.

I cringe when I read my early posts on this blog; the Christian-ness, for one thing, but it’s also clear to now-me that I was trying too hard to sound like someone I wasn’t. (It struck me as I wrote that last line that it was Rachel Held Evans. I was trying to sound like Rachel Held Evans. She was my favourite blogger/person in 2011, and her writing was one of the reasons I started wanting to try my own hand at it. My heart is still broken over her sudden death last year.) As the years went by, I found my voice. I started writing more for me than for an imaginary audience. I used to write and edit in my head while my children played at the park, repeating lines to myself so that I wouldn’t forget them before I got home, put them to bed for a nap, then raced to my laptop to madly bash out fully-formed paragraphs. Blogging got me through the difficult days of caring for small humans.

I discovered how much I loved the process of constructing sentences and editing them and making myself laugh or think or rethink. I also practised vulnerability through writing; I wrote about my miscarriages, the unsettling feeling of not knowing what to do with my life, pregnancy (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3), sleep, evangelical Christianity, things that made me cranky, study, marriage, post-natal depression, mothering, anxiety, moving, mothering, mothering, and random things that happened/occurred to me while going about my days with two young children and a bazillion assignments due. I made a few friends through my writing, only one of whom I’ve met in person. I raged at Blogger a lot (its random formatting changes that I could find no way of overriding frequently made me feel stabby; for a stunning example, please see the unnecessary space added between points 5 and 6 in the list below). I figured out how to embed gifs and find and edit photos and play around with HTML and solve technological issues I’d have given up on pre-blog. Blogging also showed me that I was able to integrate information and explain it in a readable way, which, I realised, was a key part of research. I grew more confident in my ability to study as a result of blogging; I’m not sure I’d have had the courage to start my psychology degree when I did if I hadn’t learned this about myself through writing for Belle’s Elbows.

I know that blogging – particularly “mummy-blogging” – was/is seen as an embarrassingly low art form, but I still love it, mostly because I’m deeply grateful for everything it gave me: a chance to express and challenge myself, meaningful conversations with others I’d have otherwise missed, a way to meet new people and find community, a way to meet myself and figure out my values and desires, and a space to store 8 years’ worth of memories.

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For a long time, I was trying to make sure I was in bed by 9:30pm, but I’d always be in bed at 10pm, and then, after feeling guilty about it for a while, I thought, “Why bother trying so hard to be in bed earlier when 10pm is obviously the time I naturally make it to bed?“ So I changed my bedtime to 10pm and now I go to bed at 11pm.

From Sick and Tired 

from here

I’ve decided to take Belle’s Elbows down partly because of the cringey posts and partly because all of the pictures disappeared from the posts once I changed my surname and moved the blog over to my new email address (I started adding some back in, but I gave up). Partly, as well, I plan to make writing more of a priority in my life again this year, but the thought of adding to Belle’s Elbows feels wrong somehow; if I’m still going to blog (is that a thing anymore? I don’t even know), I’d prefer a fresh, new space where I can start over.

Over the 8 years since beginning Belle’s Elbows, I’ve written 430 posts (including this one). I spent one of my holidays last year copying each one into a Word document, which now contains 717 pages and 241,339 words. 8 years, 430 posts and 241,339 words of comment, confession, confusion, family updates, book and movie reviews, book/movie reviews mixed with family updates, and cracking myself up.

I’ll be keeping the blog up until my birthday in early March, to give anyone who wants it time to read through the ‘Best Of’ list that I compiled while copying and pasting each post from blog to computer. Many of the links are in the text above, but I’ve listed others below (I updated the photos on some but not all of these posts. You’re welcome/sorry).

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I borrowed You Should Have Known from the library thanks to Swistle’s review. When I picked it up I noticed that on the cover the book’s described as a 'psychological thriller' which made my heart pound and panic, until my head said, “Calm down, Heart. What’s your favourite book of all time?” and my heart said, “We Need to Talk about Kevin,” and my head said, “…?” and my heart said, “?!” and my head said, “And how do you think that book would be described?” and my heart was like, “Hey! Maybe I actually like reading psychological thrillers! Thanks, Head!” and my head said “No worries” and then there was an awkward silence until I stepped in and asked, “So, do I read You Should Have Known?” and my head and heart both said “Yes.” So I read it over the weekend.

from You Should Have Known by Jean Hanff Korelitz  

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Highlights from Belle's Elbows

1. This is one of my favourite posts from the early days of the blog, most probably because it was the first time I wrote something that felt scarily honest and worked up the courage to throw it out into the world: What Uralla taught me about myself.
2. This story still makes me smile; I was not expecting it to end the way it did: Phone. (This post is linked to in the previous one, but I’m putting it here separately, purely for the adorably smooshy photo of Hazel: Slobber.)
3. There are many posts, mostly kid-related, detailing situations I’d have completely forgotten about if it weren’t for the fact that I documented them at the time for my blog. This is an example of such a post: Holiday 2013.
   
4. These posts – covering my 2017 surname change – had the highest number of readers of all of my blog posts, almost certainly because they were among the few I posted to social media: Surnames #2 and Surnames#3.
5. My 2019 series on why I’m no longer a Christian (the only thing I’ve posted since September 2017), which begins here: The Deconstruction: Introduction.
   
   
6. These two perfectly demonstrate the levels of my dedication to procrastinating, and also make me very happy I no longer live in Sydney: The Massacre and There's a Cockroach In My Kitchen.
7. Finally, these posts from 2014 were extremely fun to write and still make me laugh every time I reread them:

• Knots.
• The gym and the gifs.

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Thank you, thank you, thank you and goodbye, Belle's Elbows.

And thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone came along for the ride, for all or part of the time I hung out here.

Love, Belle/Annelise.

x

from here

The aftermath

from here

My anxiety has recently grown from a low-level, easily ignorable hum to a deafening, intolerable buzzing that comes in increasingly regular but unpredictable waves and feels like it could very well kill me. My psychiatrist told me that in the same way I took a tablet twice daily to function like a normal adult human being, I also needed to incorporate some kind of practice into my weeks that involved “being present in the here and now” rather than preparing for every possible thing that could go wrong in both the near and distant futures and thinking of the various things I was constantly failing to do that needed to be done.

“What does ‘being present’ even meeeeeean?!” I wailed at him, to which he replied that Paula, my psychologist, would probably have some good tips for me, and that would be $270 for today thank you very much. (He didn’t say this exactly, and we had run out of time, having spent far too long bonding over our shared views on same-sex marriage [pro], but still: seeing a psychiatrist is super expensive and therefore such a marker of privilege, and does not help with the intense guilt I feel over how grossly privileged I am. We also have a cleaner now, in part because our house has three toilets. THREE. *hyperventilates into paper bag*)

Anyway, Paula very kindly reminded me that a key way I used to cope with all the thoughts and feelings that clogged up my brain and heart was to write, at which point I wailed, “But I don’t have tiiiiiiime to write!” She then performed her regular magic, which leaves me feeling that she is absolutely right and I should do what she says immediately, despite her never having suggested such things to me; I left the appointment with a couple of writing sessions booked into my diary so that it was scheduled and therefore felt more official and slightly less time-wastey than if I was just to sit down and do it spontaneously. (I KNOW.) So I’m writing. Because my psychologist and then my calendar told me to. Dammit.

And I’m writing specifically about the move, because Paula also suggested I needed to allow myself to express all of my feelings about it, in the same way I’d allowed Mo and Hazel to, without judging or dismissing them. So.

Finding a place to live ended up being okay – as in the past, Alan and I agreed on The One as soon as we saw it. We decided on renting rather than buying, which was the right decision (thank you, past me, for stressing so ridiculously hard about this it became clear we needed to postpone). And then we moved, and remembered with horror that the front door of the house we’d chosen (we signed an 18 month contract for it after a 15 minute “inspection”) was down two narrow flights of stairs (it’s on a steep hill), and that there was an extra flight of stairs within the house, down which all of our beds needed to go. Previous moves (with the same amount of furniture) have been over and done with by lunchtime; this one took eight hours. We felt so sorry for the removalists we ended up leaving pots and furniture in the garage at the top of the hill, deciding we’d move them down ourselves once our legs had regained feeling. 

Also, our new fridge – bought when we were sure we’d live in Oatley forever – didn’t fit in the fridge cavity in the kitchen (yay renting!), which meant that for the next couple of weeks we were trekking up and down two flights of stairs (sometimes twice if you forgot to grab the coriander) for every snack and meal. A friend arrived with three blocks of chocolate (she didn’t know which flavour we preferred), and there were a couple of times I weighed it up and decided to eat large chunks of them for lunch rather than tackling the fricking steps yet a-fricking-gain to find a more protein-filled option. I’ve found there’s also something weirdly depressing about forced stair-climbing, especially in the morning; it feels like one is living out a metaphor about uphill battles, and all the puffing and pain doesn’t leave one feeling much hope for one’s ability to conquer in said battles, so WHY BOTHER. (I went through this thought process every morning around 8:40 for at least the first month.) 

During the inspection, we noticed all the cool things about the house: the spacious garage (which would be Alan’s office), the spectacular view from the upstairs windows, the green house outside the main bedroom, the veggie patch at the bottom of the yard. After moving in we noticed all the things that didn’t work for us at all: most notably, there’s no bath, and Hazel (it turns out) passionately hates showers. Also, the two storeys mean that if we’re upstairs, the backyard basically feels like another planet to the kids (“nearby” now means “same number of metres above sea level”), and so they were less inclined to entertain themselves outside as they’d done at the old place. 

So. Hazel was screaming whenever anyone suggested a wash, Moses kept getting teary while talking about missing our old house with its climbable trees and Chloe, the young girl who lived next door, with whom Moses had spent hours chatting and writing stories. Both kids were messes at school drop offs, which I wanted to cope fine with (knowing from last year that it would pass) but did not; it’s a sucky and draining way to start the day, even if you’re fairly sure it’ll be temporary.

Alan knew his way around Penrith when we moved out that way so I was the only one feeling lost that time; this time neither of us were at all enthusiastic about our new surroundings. The whole decision and move had happened so quickly (with uni and work always chugging along in the background) that we hadn’t had time to process the bigness of leaving Sydney with all its routines and comforts; the general vibe for the first month or so was a steaming combination of “HOLY SHIT,” “WHAT HAVE WE DONE,” “AAAAAAAAARGH,” and

via GIPHY

On top of all of this, I’ve been battling my expectations of what I can and should be providing for my children. One of these (quite high on the list, I’ve now discovered) is constant stability, and choosing upheaval for Mo and Hazel for a bit brought on an unexpected storm of guilt and feelings of failure. It’s not been much fun here.

BUT. We’re heading to a birthday party this weekend, at which we’ll hopefully meet some school families. Moses is mentioning names which suggest new friendships are blossoming, and he’s talking less about the things he misses about Sydney. Alan has prepared the plots for our future veggie patch, and the green house has brought our fern back from the dead. We bought a trampoline, which seems to have (somewhat) solved the kids-playing-outside problem (for now), and we’re no longer using maps to get to and from the school and shops. Things are slowly becoming normal, and it’s easier to imagine ourselves feeling settled and well at some point in future. Also, we have a cleaner now. *reaches for paper bag*

And I’m writing again.

2017

I promised an update before the end of 2016 without realising quite how quickly it’d roll around. (It rolled around very quickly.)

Tomatoes from our plant. We're tired of tomatoes now.

This time last year I noticed that my medication was more anti-hair than anti-depression; both my forehead and my despair were growing. The yukkiness must have lasted until at least early March (I remember feeling suicidal on my birthday) but not long after that my new medication kicked in, and then, a few months later, the new dose of the new medication kicked in, and now, at the start of a new year, I am both happy and hairy. It’s the third medication I’ve tried – the first left me unable to drive or reach orgasm and the second seemed to wear off awfully quickly (as well as making my hair fall out).

It’s been incredibly helpful having depression stuff sorted out, because last year was a difficult one marriage-wise. Alan and I are opposite in so many ways: when conflict arises, Alan withdraws, while I pursue. Alan likes talking about mundane things at exactly the moments I want nothing but a dark room and silence (he’s an extrovert, so working alone leaves him craving people and conversation at the end of the day, which is precisely the time I - the introvert - long for zero interaction). Alan’s motto is “Near enough is good enough” while my motto is “Do it right or don’t do it at all.” (Actually, now that I’ve written it down, I realise it’s just “Do it right.” Or maybe: “Do it right. Preferably the first time.”) Our oppositeness makes us terrible housemates. Our relationship would be far cruisier if we lived in different suburbs and didn’t share children.

I’ve been enjoying paying more attention to who each of us actually is (we’ve fallen into the unhelpful habit of filtering everything the other does through set lenses – Alan’s the thoughtless, incompetent one and I’m the cranky, impatient, perfectionist) and what we each need. Strangely, the Enneagram, which I learned about through this episode from The Liturgists, has helped a LOT, as has remembering Elaine Aron’s Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) theory, which captures very well my experience of the world. With these in mind, I’ve been doing a better job of looking after myself (avoiding caffeine, for example, or choosing quiet over listening to the radio or a podcast), and Alan (thinking of him as a Type Nine rather than a Defective Fool has done wonders for my view of our relationship). (Come to think of it, thinking of myself as a Type One rather than as a Defective Neurotic has done wonders for my view of myself.)

Flopsy with the fam bam*

I’ve known for a long time that Moses is an HSP as well, which is one of the reasons last year was also a difficult one parenting-wise. We started seeing an Occupational Therapist in December to talk about Mo’s sensitivities and difficulties with emotion regulation, and it’s been a huge relief to feel supported and be given tools to help him feel slightly less overwhelmed by the world, and us feel slightly less overwhelmed by his overwhelmedness. I’ve also been appreciating the upside of his sensitivity: my grandfather died in January, and Mo kept a close eye on me at the funeral and wrapped his arms tightly around my neck whenever he noticed tears welling up.

So Grandad’s gone, which hurts even to write. We found out at the end of December that he was unwell, and then, days later, that he was really unwell, and then, two weeks later, he was gone. He’d stayed with us early in December and seemed exhausted but well; he said he felt old, and was frustrated by the fact that his body wasn’t as young as his brain felt. I took more photos of him than usual, pictures of him playing Boggle and showing Moses and Hazel a gyroscope he’d brought along for them, and I recorded a few conversations so I’d have his voice nearby forever, not realising how soon after his visit these would become precious. I also got to see him a week before he died; I fought off my fears of seeming overdramatic and flew to Ballina to visit him in hospital, where he was chirpy and keen to talk of his life. He, Mum and I played word games and made each other laugh (he was happy to talk of dying, but he wanted us joking rather than sombre). Ridiculous things are reminding me of him (“Grandad was one of the last people to use this toilet!” *cries*), as well as not-so-ridiculous things (“Grandad loved camembert!” *eats cheese while crying*), which means he’s not far from my thoughts at the moment. I miss him. 

I’m glad, though, to feel grief over his death and to have felt sadness/frustration/hopelessness over marriage and parenting struggles; to me, being able to differentiate these emotions is a sign of my wellness. I’m not sure I have specific emotions when I’m depressed, just an overwhelming sense of pointlessness and mental exhaustion and wanting to not be around anymore. I love my antidepressants SO. MUCH.

I start my honours course in February. Bring on 2017.

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* Flopsy’s the preschool rabbit we were petsitting over the summer break. I loved having a pet for a month or so, despite the fact he made my nose itch and my eyes run. I also loved dropping him back to his owner again, and no longer having to worry whether the kids were at that moment torturing him somewhere with their over-enthusiastic cuddles.