At the time I was a Stay At Home Mother of two primary-school-aged children at the same time as being a Business Owner working 30+ hours/week from home caring for preschoolers for $10/hour each. If I had had four in care, that would have been $40/hour, but my hours stretched from 6am to 11pm and I almost never had more than two in care at a time. Oh, I was also a Wife, a Daughter, a Sister, with In-Laws, and a Friend.
My friend’s response surprised me was because although I was under immense pressure, I was feeling very strong. I was feeling good about keeping all the balls in the air. I was feeling competent and adequate.
I wrote:
My house – I know pretty much where everyone is and what they’re doing most of the time;
Get to spend the day with some of the most funny, interesting human beings;
I’m not scared. I do my work well. The children I care for are well looked after and educated
.
. . . . .
I hold my house in my head.
I am intimate with every spider web,
streak of grime across the kickboard of the kitchen cupboards,
dirty windows, from when Wizard threw mud on them that never got washed off,
despite the hours and hours of playing firefighters and squirting water on said muddy windows.
I know when the toilet paper is about to run out and it’s time to place an order with
Who Gives a Crap. I keep track of light bulbs, refillable bottles of shampoo,
the need for socks without holes to wear to school, and clean uniform items.
The pressures exerted on me by the Family Day Care Scheme were massive and, in the end, insurmountable, especially combined with the pressures of family life and a partnership in which I felt my paid work was of far less value and not recognized as a contribution to our family.
I wrote:
When I’ve been up since 5am working, and the last child leaves at 6pm
and
my wife has just got home from work and I need to feed my family,
when am I supposed to vacuum and mop, and scrub the cupboard doors?
When do I reflect on what I offer the children the next day?
When do I write up my reflections and my programming?
And why? So I can keep working for $10 an hour?
Also:
The twinge of guilt and exasperation that pinches me
at the words
“There’s no bread?”
at 7:25am on Wednesday morning
when Brown Owl needs to make her lunch and leave
for work in the next
five minutes because
there are not enough leftovers
from the night before,
is soon buried beneath
the multiple other strands of need
that
I juggle and weave and manage so
deftly all of the bloody time.
(Except when I don’t. And there are so many times I make mistakes, times I am just unable to add one more complexity to the list of responsibilities, times when I cannot be in more than one place at one time, times when the guilt, resentment, envy and exhaustion turn me into a robotic martyr.)
The story I carry in my head from such years is of me as an unloved drudge, invisible so long as I perform to standard, and unworthy of attention or affection. Each time one of my children hurts me or feels hurt, feels like it is a punishment I earned and deserve because of my imperfection.
Each time I am deprived of something I’ve been longing for, miss out on an opportunity to give some time to myself, let go of another connection with someone feels like if I don’t further compress my being, the cracks will start to show and the whole thing might fall apart, and where will that leave my children, my partner, my business, my garden, my home, my animals?
I was busy, yes – too busy to give anything much for myself, and too busy to gain any perspective on the aspects of my life that I had orchestrated and created, those I had taken on because there didn’t seem to be anyone else to fill the void, and those that were placed on my shoulders because I accepted them without question.
I remember vividly, the dread I have carried in my heart for years, knowing it would be years before my children are no longer at home full-time and I can finally give voice to the yearning to create. The stories I created in my head at these dread-filled times were joyous, colourful, light-filled and wonderful. I couldn’t wait to express what was being compressed and repressed inside my being.
These were not stories I could talk about freely with anyone in my life. These were not stories co-constructed with the viewpoints and experiences of anyone else. They were vicious open secrets; wounds that repeatedly tore jagged holes in the doggedly darned and meticulous weaving that represents my life.
These stories are mediated by my inability and unwillingness, because of the shame I bear, to place responsibility on anyone else. At least this way, only I can be at fault. It wouldn’t be fair to blame somebody else.
Of course, some people know me better than that.
Some people do not remain oblivious to my pain.
Some people say – you choose to see your life in such a negative light. Actually, your life is great! Just look at the good bits instead of focusing on the bad bits.
Some people say – let me help you refocus your ideas about your life. There may be ways to change things so that you are not so overburdened.
Some people attribute my behaviour to the circumstances I construct around myself.
Some people tell me that I am making choices to write my story the way I am writing it.
Some people said – hey Melina, this is not your fault; give yourself a break – let in some freedom chinks. It’s not all up to you.
See, I am not an idiot. I have been trained in Deep and Active Listening. I have had therapy, worked on myself. I am not ignorant or incognizant of my tendencies to render myself so alone, so special and so Rock Rose Water Violet remote as to be unreachable.#
I quote the out-of-favour J.K.Rowling:
”Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real?
Or has this been happening inside my head?”
. . . . .
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry,
but why on earth should that mean that it is not real? *
My life is not a fiction. I do not dwell between the pages of a novel. When I summoned the courage to speak my truth in the hope that such a radical gesture might initiate a cataclysmic change in the paradigm of my life, and my truth was relegated to “stories inside my head”, the shock and shame of this judgment silenced me instantaneously. The somatic effect was shakiness, queasiness, shortness of breath. And I wanted to die. Of course. Or at least disappear, permanently.
Perhaps I was foolish to harbour the hope that the truth of my lived experience holds any value if not for myself, than for those I share my life with? Trouble was, I naively mistook my opponent for my ally. I understand that, now.
#Bach Flower Therapy: Theory and Practice, Mechtild Scheffer (1988)
*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K.Rowling (2007)
