amsmcg

[amsmcg]

Doing right by others

I have found myself in a position that I never thought possible. I have gotten a job that pays me way too much for what it is, I am incredibly fortunate, but am using this as an opportunity to not only make my life better (savings, credit card debt, new house etc) I am also helping those that I love.  I have picked up the slack on the bills and food expenses, so that my husband has more disposable income. I buy any extras that are needed and don’t ask him for a penny. 

And today, well today has made me feel blessed.  My best friend, who I have known for almost 20 years - at the age of 30 cannot drive. She has never had lessons and can’t afford them. So I added her to the insurance of one of my cars (the small one) and now I can take her out for lessons. It wasn’t cheap but you can’t put a price on making a difference to someones life.  When the time comes, I will pay for her lessons too. 

This woman has picked me up from the floor, she has been there for me through every major life event. EVERY SINGLE ONE. 

This is the least I could do and I am so blessed to be in a position to help her like this. 

If you don’t raise up those around you, you are going to be mighty lonely. 

[amsmcg]

Honesty

I am ‘too honest’. I am one of those people that will literally tell you everything about myself from day one if I had the chance. 

It’s like a sonar, to seek out enemy’s. The stab in the back, judgemental ones.

You see, I need someone to be honest with me if I am going to let them into my life. I don’t want to spend my time around those that can’t get real.  I don’t skim the surface. I like to get to the heart of shit.  If you don’t, that’s cool.  

I want to feel a connection with those that I invest in, cause that is what spending time with someone is, an investment.  I am literally spending time on you and you on me, let’s make it worth it! We aren’t getting this time back, gone forever. 

So when someone, like me, is completely honest with you... Take a chance, see how it feels to open up to someone and reap the reward of connection in this connection-less world. You never know, it might be worth the time spent. 

Oh and FYI if you open up to someone and you feel nothing, fuck it, they weren’t your person. Try again!

[amsmcg]

Making Changes

Making changes is something that I really struggle with. I can’t be alone?

Every week I tell myself that I will do better; with food, with the kids, with work, with exercise, with money.  And then I go back on almost all of it. 

I can’t get to the point that a new routine becomes habit. I just fall back to the same shit different day bullshit, achieving nothing. 

Please tell me that I am not alone!?

[amsmcg]

Admitting you’re to blame

I think that I always suffered with some sort of mental health issue. I have come to realise that when you grow up in a home where you do not feel loved, or even seen, you doubt your own worth for a very long time, all the way through your life until something or someone happens to make you realise that you need to change.

It isn’t about someone else helping you, or fixing you; it is about you putting in the hard work to fix what you can see is broken, as long as you are aware enough to be able to see what is broken.  It is the hardest thing in the world to take a look at your behaviour and admit that it is wrong. That it needs to change. 

Adults are stubborn and from my experience are very happy to blame everyone else for the their shitty behaviour, particularly their parents. 

I went through a stage of blaming my parents for my behaviour, I blamed my parents for my anger issues and my inability to open up about my feelings. Only when these issues were causing me real trouble not only as a parent but as a wife and a human, did I realise that I needed to make the change to become a better person. 

My marriage was the catalyst for the change that took place. I wish that it was my children in a way, I wish that I had looked at their innocent little faces and I saw something that was a lightbulb moment, instead it was my Husband telling me that he was leaving. 

Nothing has ever broken me the way my Husband did that day. I was forever changed. 

[amsmcg]

Three Day Weekend...

Yesterday was a day off from it all, except being a wife, which in reality; isn’t a bad thing.  The kids are with their father for a long weekend, I pretty much had the day off of work except for a quick 10 minute meeting in the morning.  I had a doctor appointment as well, I have an ear infection. It started as an outer ear infection that spread to my inner ear, I have had sprays and antibiotics but it still feels blocked and I still have tinnitus in my right ear... I now have an outer ear infection in the left ear, have been given more ear spray as well as a nasal spray, oh the joy! I just want it over with now. 

Apart from the above, I am in high spirits I feel as though the stress of the kids being at home and work are on the back burner and I can seriously relax and concentrate on me.  I actually got out of the house for something other than a doctors appointment, the hubby and I went for walk. We live in a beautiful part of the U.K, across the road from a canal surrounded by woodland to explore.  We regularly go for walks during spring and summer, but during winter I prefer to hibernate. But the weather is warming up slightly and I needed to move my achy bones.  I feel a little sore today after yesterday’s walk, I went full pelt as I wanted to make it count. 

When we got home from our walk we played some Wii together. Wii sports is the Husbands jam and Mario Kart is my jam, I beat him every time. He gets so frustrated! It’s all about the drift!

We got up a little later this morning and went for a drive, you see when you have a diesel car that has a DPF, you have to take it for a somewhat long drive on the motorway otherwise it all gets clogged up, and considering I have only been using my car to do quick trips to the school and back it had to be done... that is classed as an essential journey, right?

We have no other plans today, I pick up the knitting again... it’s been a long time. Might help with the stress?! Apparently that is a thing. 

I wish that all parents got to have the time that the Husband and I are so fortunate to have.

[amsmcg]

You have to hurt in order to know, fall in order to grow, lose in order to gain - Because most of life's lessons are learned in pain.

Unknown

[amsmcg]

Today is one of those rare days that I am home alone.  Before this lockdown I was home alone mon-fri while the husband was at work and the kids were at school.  It was bliss, I was able to get the kids to the taxi, have half an hour to myself and log on to work.  Work was enjoyable, I was learning and succeeding.  Then lockdown happened and there was no respite from being someone that everyone needed. Constant noise was the new normal.  Both kids needing support with their learning, printing work sheets, logging in to the kids zoom calls, work meetings, emails coming out of my ass.  I wasn’t sleeping properly, I wasn’t eating properly, I was snapping at my husband and kids, getting snowed under entirely. I couldn’t cope with the expectations on me.  Being a mother is hard enough when you can palm your kids off to a teacher for 6+ hours a day, let alone working fulltime with them at home, trying to keep on top of housework, bills, shopping etc. 

I snapped. I embarrassed myself totally by having a breakdown and calling the school. I felt humiliated, but you know what... the deputy headteacher was incredibly nice about the situation, she was so understanding and immediately offered my son a place at school until lockdown ends.  I don’t think that I would have made it, I think that I would have spiralled back in to my deep dark depression that I believed I had overcome.  I could feel it, I could feel the sadness and despair returning, encouraging me to lay in bed and do nothing, to run away from everything and everyone.  It has been almost three years since my last episode, and I am doing well.  So I guess what I am saying is that in this day and age, we are incredibly lucky to be able to reach out and not be shot down, but instead feel supported and listened too, sometimes that really is all it takes to change someones life. 

So today is filled with work, Netflix in the background and lots of tea, all without the little people needing me, instead they are with their father winding him up, not me. The husband is at work and I can enjoy being me, not wife me, not mother me, but the real me the me that is the one person who’s expectations of me matter.  All mothers deserve to have days like this. 

[amsmcg]

I’ve come to realise during this pandemic that I have a yearning for silence. I worked from home for a period from 2018 to 2019 before moving in to an office, where I worked mostly alone.  I noticed that when a colleague was in the office with me I wasn’t able to concentrate as much as when I was alone. Any noise would distract me and I would begin to feel overwhelmed. My senses were on overload and I would begin to feel enraged. It was almost panic-attack territory.  I started working from home again during November of last year. The kids were still in school and I was alone for most of the day and I was able to really concentrate and get stuck in to my new job. The moment that I found out that the schools were closing and I would be expected to home-school as well as work full time the dread overwhelmed me.  My son needs so much help with his school work there is no way that he can work independently, so every 2 minutes I would be interrupted with either questions or meltdowns. He is 7, he is not suited to working from home with the only support from his teacher being a video or two.  It wasn’t long before I snapped and turned in to the parent of nightmares, angry, stressed, mean. I wasn’t understanding in any way of how he might be feeling, I was consumed by my own work and the pressure of a new job.  It went south pretty quickly and now... My son is going to school as I snapped and rang the school sobbing as he had just ripped the banister off of the wall during a meltdown. They immediately offered him a keyworker place, I am a financial worker and my husband works in food manufacturing, so we are key workers but as I am working from home I thought that it would be wrong to take a space or two at the school. But there comes a time where you have to be somewhat selfish. I was genuinely worried that I was going to do something that I would regret and turn to violence with my son.  That is where we are at now, my daughter is still at home with me and my son is at school. I have a nanny that comes one day a week, on my busiest work days, she is there to support my daughter when I am completely unavailable due to meetings that last more than 3 hours at a time.  This is what is working for my family, and I am beginning to realise that I shouldn’t feel guilty about needing the additional support.