Not my 300th post

from here

This is my 306th post. 

The PND’s gone. Disappeared. Skedaddled. And good riddance to him! I don’t know what happened; I was at my lowest, desperate for relief, looking into medication options, wondering why no one had stepped in to remove my children from my care when I was so clearly doing a terrible job of looking after them, and then, one day, I was me again – no need for a way out, no need for meds, no need for DOCS. The discouraging mantra (Ican’tdothisIcan’tdothisIcan’tdothis) that had been playing relentlessly in my brain stopped. It was as quick and as surprising as that. 

I’ve been enjoying having me back since then, although I’m still feeling cautious, like I could switch back just as suddenly at any moment (though that fear is subsiding with every passing week). In the middle of stressful or exhausting or sad situations now I watch myself and say, “Look at you, coping with this!” knowing that only a few months ago I couldn’t have, and I feel proud and excited and free. All of me laughs when I laugh now. I no longer panic when people ask how I’m going. It’s awesome. 

The most obvious then-now comparison is my reaction to Katy Perry’s Roar. There was an afternoon earlier this year when I listened to the lyrics and felt the exact opposite of everything she was singing: I was zero rather than hero, I was not a fighter, nor was I lion-like. I was down, and getting up sounded like far too much effort. I was weary and weak and I’d probably never amount to anything and I’d be miserable for the rest of my life. I turned the song up, closed the blind so that my neighbours wouldn’t see me, dropped my head into my hands, and sobbed. 

Not too long ago I put the song on again, and that time it stirred up all the empowered, do-some-martial-arts-moves feelings it’s meant to. I cried then, too, but only because it was such a clear example of how much my head had changed since the last listen.  

Also, late last year when I first wrote this post, I ended the first paragraph with “Alan continued to pursue his dreams, and I gave mine up.” It was with some effort that I forced myself to change it to “and I put mine on hold” a few months later when I put it up on my blog, but even then I didn’t fully believe myself. Life felt full enough just helping Alan, Mo and Hazel do their thing; it felt like there was no space left for me to even think about what my thing might be, let alone do it. 

But I had enough mental energy to see this wasn’t a healthy way of thinking and most certainly wouldn’t be a healthy way to plan my future, so I forced myself to test Parkinson’s Law (“work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”) to see if everything else of everyone else’s could shrink if I jammed some study into the mix and it turns out it could. And I love studying. I remember that now. Especially theology. And hopefully psychology, too: once this class is over and I graduate, I’m planning (with some apprehension but also a good dose of yayness) to apply for a Grad Dip in Psychology, and (assuming they want me) finally start the process of becoming better equipped at one of my favourite pastimes (psychoanalysing everyone). (My other favourite pastime is using brackets.) 

I’ve no idea where that’ll end me up, but I’ll work that out when I get closer to needing to; for now it’s just nice to have a path ahead, a direction to travel in, and to know that this time it’s my dreams I’m following, and that it’s possible for our family to dream-chase alongside one another. It’ll be hard work, I know, but I think I’ll be okay (because I am a champion, and you’re gonna hear me roar).

Cowabunga, dude

The other day I found myself thinking about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and, though I’ve known about the show for over 20 years and can still remember and sing a worrying amount of the theme song, for the first time ever I noticed every single word in the title. The show is about turtles. Ninja turtles. Mutant ninja turtles. Teenage mutant ninja turtles.

No matter where I put the emphasis, I simply cannot understand what about the show appealed to the younger version of me who watched it religiously.

Whining about being sick | Book reviews

Hello. I’ve been doing nothing much this week besides willing time to pass (4 hours until Alan gets home. 2 and a half hours until Alan gets home. 17 minutes until Alan gets home, etc.) and reading books. I’m still feeling terrible, and have taken more painkillers over the last 5 days than I took in all of the preceding 12 months combined; I kind of expected the antibiotics to charge in (chanting “WE ARE AGAINST LIFE”) and indiscriminately murder all the ‘biotics’ they came across in my head, but so far they seem to just be laying low and planning their strategy. All that’s been killed so far is my desire to get out of bed and take care of anyone besides myself.

I read a stupid number of books when Moses was a baby. This year I’ve read far less, partly because I’m studying, partly because I have a preschooler as well as a baby, and partly because after some analysis I’ve concluded that I seem to watch TV rather than reading when I’m depressed, and it’s only since the depression’s lifted (a couple of months ago; I’ll write about that soon) that I’ve had any desire to plow through novels again. Being sick has also helped; there’s something about reading a novel that makes me feel like I’m being kind and comforty to myself.

So I read Me Before You by Jojo Moyes on Monday (Alan took time off work to look after Hazel so that I could spend the day in bed), which I quite enjoyed (7.9/10). The writing reminded me of Jodi Picoult’s, which may not be a helpful thing to say since I’ve only read one Picoult novel and that was three years ago (how do you pronounce her surname? Is it French [pi-koo] or not [pi-kolt]? I’m sure I could google this but I’m sleepy and my face hurts and therefore I won’t). I keep thinking about the things that vaguely irritated me about Me Before You, rather than the fact that I was hooked while reading it and desperate to know how it ended. It was good. I liked it.

And then I read What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty over the rest of the week (which I counted as the spread-across-four-days extra sick day the doctor prescribed that I’d have had if I was not a mother and didn’t have to rely on someone else taking leave from their work in order for me to be able to take leave from my work) and I LOVED it (9.7/10). I borrowed this one after Sarah Bessey said it was one of her “favourite novels to recommend to women in the tired thirties” with her. I’m choosing to ignore how sad it is that I related to this description and instead be thankful for the fact that it led me to such an enjoyable book. 

The story’s about a woman named Alice who wakes up from a concussion believing she’s 29, happily married, and pregnant, when actually that was her 10 years ago and her life has changed dramatically since then. It’s mostly told from Alice’s perspective, but there are letters written by her sister Elisabeth and blog posts from her grandmother that pop up throughout the book too. Elisabeth is going through IVF and writes about infertility and childlessness in a way that made me cry more than once. I really liked this book. Like, wow.

I found the characters relatable and lovable, and I didn’t want to put the book down; I read it as I made toast and I read it as I peed and I read it as I walked from one end of our apartment to the other to find socks. And it’s Australian! Which is always a pleasant surprise. I start all novels assuming they’ll be American, and I get terribly excited when something comes up that makes me realise it’s set in a context I know far more about (JOHN HOWARD?! He was MY Prime Minister!!!!!). Me Before You is set in the UK, which was also a surprise that required some brain readjustments before I could continue with the story. I highly recommend What Alice Forgot, even if you’re not tired or in your thirties.

I’ve been planning to write a big update on everything, seeing as I’ve just passed my 300th post and was wanting to follow the tradition I’d started, but I’ll wait until I’m taking fewer drugs and feeling less grumpy and lethargic. Until then, I’ll be sneakily reading more of Liane Moriarty’s novels (I’ve just placed holds on three of them at my library), and whinging a lot about my head.

Sick and tired

from here

Moses, Hazel and I have been sick multiple times over the last few months, and I’ve HAD. ENOUGH. We should now be immune to approximately 18 strains of Sydney cold virus, as well as 1 from Adelaide (unless Moses carried the Sydney bug down to Adelaide and then got sick there, in which case, SORRY ADELAIDE FRIENDS). I think it’s happening because early this year, when it was Alan catching everything, I may have said, “I’m never sick! Sickness is a luxury I can’t afford!” or something equally self-righteous. Turns out I’m actually rolling in sickness dollars, and I can afford a whole lotta germs. (Alan hasn’t had a full-on cold since then, I don’t think.) So Mo, Hazel and I have been keeping Kleenex in business all by ourselves. Moses had his first cold when he was 10 months old; poor Hazel could practically blow her own nose by that age.

I currently have no voice, gunky eyes and two blocked ears, which means I whisper at people and they say, “Pardon?“ and then they whisper back (it’s weird to talk at a normal volume when someone's whispering to you, I’ve been told), and I say “Pardon?“ My conversations last for hours at the moment.

///

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.

I think I’ll aim for 9:30pm again. I need the sleep.