…you know, i knew it would happen…

I wish I could capture for you, each moment where you made my heart sing. Each moment where I felt bereft and you lifted me straight out of it.

It’s Wednesday evening and I’ve fast realised I’ve become a bad blogger. Sorry. Fuck. It’s been a crazy time. I have new boundaries and I realised something today. I realised that these boundaries I’ve created are actually good for me. Stop the shit-ass press because I never, in a million squillion years would ever have thought that I would say that. I’m re-teaching myself how to sleep, slaying that insomnia dragon. It’s doing me a world of good. It’s doing every aspect of my life a world of good. It’s healing, I’m dreaming and my word I feel more capable.

Fuck, I have to be right now. Work is insane. Busy is too short a word to cut it. It’s probably more like multitaskingisnotenoughandfourteencloneswillnotcutitsohowaboutyoujustdivideyourselfintoseventeen…

andthenwecanseehowthatpansout.

Yeah, that busy. I love this being busy though. It stops me from the abyss of too much self-involvement and trying to make sense of the unsensible that used to drive me mad…

But, I’ve been thinking about an approach to all of it. You see, there’s all these hats I wear – the mama one, the worker one, the family one, the sister one, the friend one, the girlfriend one and the just-me one. And, weirdly, somehow, they all work together to create this life I have. This life I am blessed with. Some days, one or two of those hats goes skew. That’s okay. It happens and that’s life. Here’s the thing though…I think I’m learning how not to rush it. True, I’m always trying to be organised. Or, as Sheena and I would say, whoreganised. In my head, I keep those little hats in their boxes, and when it’s their time to be my focus, I wear it. So, at work, it’s work. At home, it’s mama. It’s hard to do though, when I have spent so much time in my life trying to be everything, all at once. (Hat-tip to the person who called me that, once).

And then, then there is love. The love that knows each of these hats upon my head and is with me through all of them.

So, I’m here. I’m writing. I’m guessing you want an update…

Cath…Cath is good. Busy. Good. Thinking. Writing little notes in her notebook every day of things I must write. And I will, and I am. I have my really crap days. I won’t lie. But I have someone to tell them to. Wow, how liberating. I just call and vent and feel better. I have my safe space and it’s without condition. Where the two busy lives intersect, the space that is warm and loving. I love that space. That space of knowing. I’ve not travelled this year. It’s been weird for me a bit but, at the same time, I finally feel like I’m laying good foundations to live the life I know I deserve. And to share it. I love sharing my life.

Cam…Cam is amazing. She’s so tall now. So tall I just know I’ll be walking her into school one day and they’ll ask “who’s the kid and who’s the parent here?”. Heh. So full of amazing vocabulary, so full of absolute love. Our daily talk in the bath (yes, we still do it, every night), she tells me her favourite part of her day, and her worst part of her day. Perhaps the most awe-inspiring part for me is not that she segments her day but that she can tell me exactly how she feels about a day. To look at this beautiful child and know that she feels capable of expressing her emotions, naming them and knowing them…I just feel so honoured that she chose me to be her mama. She got full marks in her ballet report this term and is swimming like a fish. Some of you know why, to me, that’s one of the greatest victories I will ever witness. She loves our friends. She just loves them. Her confidence is catapulting and I feel so proud of her. So much mamapride overwhelms me some days that I spill over and just smilecry. My heart.

Shmooshy…he’s fantastic. He’s fantastic with me, he’s fantastic with Cam. He reminds me that my loneliness is a thing of the past and with him, with him I am wonderful, no matter what the day brings to my door. He makes my heart feel safe. He makes my heart feel home.

Loss…Yes. This year. Alot of it. But there is good loss and bad loss. Bad loss? My mother. You never really know it until you cannot phone her anymore. You never really know until you go to do cards and gifts for grandparents day and suddenly you realise that they don’t deliver to Heaven. I was talking with my brother a few weeks back and it came down to this one statement – I don’t have my parents anymore. There’s a loss and a liberation in that. A loss of childhood, a liberation into independence. It’s strange really and I’m still feeling my way around it, through it, towards it and beyond it. I don’t think there is a beyond it, there is only I don’t have my parents anymore.

In my life. In my life I see courage and beauty. I see strength and I see weakness. I see them both as beautiful, for what they are. I feel the feeling of being thirty, and suddenly I’m not as afraid as I once thought I was.

Sheena always said I was fearless. I’m starting to believe her.