How I sucked my stomach in to do up my pants this morning...

This was the post I wanted to write. Or one post of many that I start drafting in my head in anticipation of getting some keyboard under my fingers. The others have blown clear away because I had my hands full or my courage empty. I long to put my opinions out into the world. As if it legitimises me. I exist. I have thoughts. Surely everyone wants to know my rating for local restaurants or what I thought of the hunger games, among other fascinating random things I might have posted lately. Or my strong feelings on small topics. The ones that don't have hipster cache. Like the sanctity of the infant gut. Or my lay understanding of feminism. The one that peeks around my Cinderalla skirt upbringing. I played with barbies and now I am horribly conflicted. And one day soon you might read all about it. When I blog, or birth the writer within. Or just have my hands free and my pants on.

Encore

It has been a good week and a bit since I completed my internship.

I'll be back to spill my soul about finishing up. When I'm a bit clearer about it. A good friend described the feeling as a non event and i have to say yes! It is a strange non ness of reaching a goal.

However this is being painstakingly typed on phone key pad. And like all good endings it is as much a beginning.

I am still here. And if not here...on pinterest ...stay tuned :)

Serious and Sad

I am nearly at the end of my study journey. So much has happened. I am on the verge of finishing with the title of student. I am maybe on the verge of finishing with the title of single mother too. I am on the verges of my own sanity. University has been a myriad. A myriad of all sorts of ups and downs. I owned up to the realness of depression. Something that has nipped at my heels all my life. First through watching my own mother battle with it and having no concept of what was wrong for her. I blamed myself, and my 'unloveability' on her not being there for me - then I blamed her very angrily, and for a long time. Then I ignored my own diagnosed depression after the grief and loss of losing the father of my children. I ignored it by sweating it out at 6am in the community hall aerobics class. The great surge of feel good endorphins buoyed me enough that I ignored the moodiness and got on with life. Then last year, it caught up to me. I couldn't run. The exercise was wonderful but a fast tracked uni degree was leaving me no time. No time. No time. I took the old prescription. I filled it. I went to my doctor a week later and told her I had medicated myself. She didn't berate me for that - she supported me. I had found one of those outcrops of rock that you hit. A rock bottom. I jumped off the fast track. I tried to repair my family. I took some time off of study. What happened next was that in the happy blur of coming up from rock bottom. I met someone. I met someone and had a lovelyhoneymoon phase. It lasted until I realised that something was not quite right. Despite the birth control pill I had managed to fall pregnant. It couldn't be worse timing, or better. I was now due to have a baby right around the time that I would be finishing my studies. I was due to have a baby with this young single man who I didn't live with. Who had been a fun lover for a matter of months. Who had no responsibilities at all. Who was now facing a huge raft of decisions that stood between me, him, impending fatherhood and my 3 children. And in the midst of this I chose to come off of my anti depressants in consideration of my unborn child. This was a personal decision. I realise that many anti depressants are safe and that all mothers must (with their health advisors) weigh up the risks and benefits of medication use vs non use for their individual considerations. I was planning a home birth. I was concerned that the small risks may have been too much risk. It is months later now. As happens to many women, my depression has relapsed. Whether it is the shift in hormones, the stress I feel coming to the end of my degree or something that just doesn't work right in my emotional make up...I don't know. What I know is that I am not right. I am all sorts of wrong. I don't know what I will do, or where I will go from here. I have some ideas. None of them include self harm. Although the emotional pain is unbelievable. I feel like I have been transported back into those weeks of grief and loss, where my heart was ripped out of my body, where my throat bled from howling, where my body collapsed and I could not go on. The difference is that this time it is more mystifying. I have not lost anyone. except myself. I may be losing my children. This huge sadness has turned me into a horrible person. I am spiky and angry and rude. People have abandoned me in droves, and I don't blame them but I miss them. I wish they were still here next to me. I wish they could push through my spikes and just tell me that everything will be ok. I wish they could see that I am lost and scared and do NOT mean the angry words. I just want to be stroked and held and loved. Most of all I want to know that I still deserve to be loved. I am not a monster. I am being consumed by something monstrous. It is not me. In ten days I will be finished with assignments. I will be finished with due dates. I will be finished with the mother guilt of putting my children's needs aside because university takes priority. I will probably still have depression. Here's me hoping that I will know then how to start the journey out of this dark place. Celebrating the end of my studies, I never imagined it would take me to the ends of myself.

For those who came in late...

http://mummameme.blogspot.com.au/2010_01_01_archive.html After the last post, I thought it may be handy to have a link back to the auspicious beginnings of my solo mumma blogging. Post one at the link...and a few more over on that address :)

The Tail

I started blogging once upon a time, thinking my voice could be added to the channel, the wide river, the raging torrent, that is the blogoshpere. I've never found my own tributary, but I can play pooh sticks with myself. Posting in my quiet mind, if not online, and savouring the times I log in and speak 'out loud' in this hall of echoes. My original idea was that this was my place to discuss being a studying single mumma. What I didn't factor in was that the hard grind of that pulled me away from friviolities like blog posts. At best online pursuits became a procrastination, and at worst a mind numbing addiction. What I mean is, I didn't do anything worth while with blogging. I did not share hints or tips. I did not even really learn how to share myself. and my own journey. It is less a measured recollection than it is an online jump of fits and spurts of times when assignments were due or I otherwise managed to think of blogging. This time I am at the tail end while I sit here in procrastination. I am still eating the elephant. and it is tasting as you imagine an elephant would, all chewy gristle and laboured swallowings. I'm not sure if I have learnt anything something, along the way. I am still terrified. I am still coming head to head with who I am, my own shortcomings and the way they hobble me, so sometimes I crawl instead of walking or walk instead of running. My big tips regarding study would be go slowly, but do not stop. Failure is not failure, it is feedback. Similarly mistakes can be embraced, they can be learnt from and they do not speak about you as a person. Breathe, Just Breathe. Break the elephant down into its parts, today the nose, tomorrow the tail - if all you can manage is a tiny elephant whisker, do that and celebrate that added whisker. As for family. I"m working on that. My family has suffered in some ways through this journey. Man is not an island and indeed studying mothers are probably even less suited to being a lone outcrop in wild seas - although it can feel like this is your position. (kudos if you do not - I certainly did many times). I will be grateful for so many things that have added to my family being in such good shape. the help of friends and family for juggling schedules. The available childcare services. The financial support that allowed me to survive without the added stress of a job outside the home. Mother's little helpers like the dryer. in my time at uni I developed a fitness plan for almost an entire year that kept me same and healthy for that time. I also need to give special mention to a part of the journey that I may never have spoken about, my decision to drop back on some subjects and see my GP about anti depressant medication. Alongside some therapy this was something that really got me through a rough patch where I felt I had little options. I'm not done yet and it occurs as I type that this sounds like the ending speech. I'm terrified of starting the tail ( did I mention that?!). One big fear for me is the fear of giving up. I'm so close that the real probability of falling before the last hurdle looms. I don't know how to avoid the fear that something will go wrong. I suppose looking back and seeing how far I have come counts for something at this point...I suppose this long blog post has held me back from the first bite for long enough. 'how do you eat an elephant? - One bite at a time'. Here I come tail...

organise the shit outta your life

I'm on an organising jag. Not out of place in blog land at all but sigh- so actually overwhelming in real life. I'm reading a million books, blogs and addicted to pinterest which makes it all look fun, cute, and um, expensive! ( matching storage solutions surely don't come cheap). I love the books that encourage me to monetise my organising ( or should that be moneyise? ) whatev's a garage sale, gumtree, ebay - make cash for those new matching baskets...but so far I am finding that the pile of growing sellables is looking more like a pile of 'I just can't be fucked, op shop instead' . I've just about finished clearing out my wardrobe. As is typical of me I still own many frocks that don't fit me and I will never wear but as any good organiser worth their salt will tell you you have to "love it" and I actually do love some of them too much to part with - either that or a cbf trying to find them a home they deserve ( see above). Interestingly I did manage to pull out about 5 garbage bags full of other stuff that did not meet the love it/use it category. Also I happened to find the most ginormous spider behind my bag/spare towel storage on the top shelf. This has caused an organising dilemma...ok, that is an exaggeration. What it has caused is me to slow down ( avoid) going into the wardrobe. I think this is a positive. Now that the space is 'organised' I will never use it again and therefore it will be allowed to stay in pristine condition giving me years of joy. So what if I have to wear these tracksuit pants (already stained) and t-shirt for the rest of my days...I did mention it was a HUGE spider!!

For what it is worth...an update!

My third attempt at blogging has now begun. Enforced by the university book learning stuff I do. It is a reminder that I have always wanted to blog and yet I rarely do.
So an update from me is to be made, but what to say now that I have a 'proper' uni blog happening and unsure if that will filter uni peeps over here to my more personal musings.
Here it is... I am still studying, and still mothering. My puppy has grown and despite my initial reservations about getting her actually clipped to show off her poodleness, she does now sport poodle bows on occasion.

I am still a procrastinator extraordinaire who had to allow the computer to even spell that word for me...

and I have decided that the ellipses (?)is my favourite punctuation mark this year. It allows me to express the way my mind wanders off...