A Jigsaw Puzzle In Motion

It suddenly clicked the other day: my life is a jigsaw puzzle in motion. Every day I fit pieces together as much as I can, wake up, get kids to school, shop, work, make lunch, clean, pick kids up from school, doctor appointments, dentist appointments, park time, school enrollments, laundry, paperwork, work, work, bedtime, clean, write, work. It’s a full life where everything has to go into a calendar because otherwise it is forgotten. I have to schedule everything, even my job, around the kids’ school schedule and Cesar’s double job schedule, with no outside help: it’s just Cesar and me and three small children. I still haven’t got any better at asking for help, but at the same time there aren’t really many people I can ask here, so we make it work. And it’s fine, even when the kids all get sick every other week from picking up something at school. We make it work quite well, this full life. I’m lucky to have a job that allows me to work when I can, as long as I make the hours up during the week. But it is a jigsaw puzzle, and sometimes when I have a down day I find myself at a loss: what am I supposed to do with myself right now?  Shouldn’t I be running while eating and putting toddler shoes back on for the 20th time while figuring out how on earth I am going to fit wrist surgery into all this?

Should I play with the kids? Write something? Scrub a floor or two? Watch TV? Read some more? Why do I constantly feel the need to find something to do instead of relaxing and enjoying the moment? I don’t know, it’s always been this way though, well before kids. I have so much nervous energy and constantly need to be on the move, doing two or three things at once. Sometimes I crave the quiet of a more peaceful life, and then I am flooded with ideas for the future: restaurants, new careers, places to visit, things to write, more laundry to do. But I enjoy this full life, I embrace it, even those moments when I want to stand under the shower and scream silently.

It also suddenly dawned on me the other day: there is still room to dream, there is still room to accomplish dreams. I spent so many years convinced that I didn’t have the right to dream, to do everything that I ever wanted to do. I always thought that I didn’t have the right aspirations, or the drive to succeed that others do. That something was wrong with me, because I would consistently work so hard at something just to sabotage it in the end, mainly because I worked too hard at it. It wasn’t until I started reading more about adult children of alcoholics, and read through some of the typical traits that I realized I wasn’t abnormal: my brain had just wired itself a little differently based on circumstance. I have always had dreams and aspirations, so why not actually make them come true? Life is too short, way too short, to just dream. Life has never been easy, but I am lucky because nowadays I have true love, a family, a home, a job, and a future ahead of me. I’m lucky that I can cast off the reluctance to create roots, life, a home for myself.

I can’t stop this evil administration from what they are doing, and I can’t stop wars and conflicts happening all over the world. I can only write my truth, and hope that others care as much as I do to create change. But I can learn, and I can use my overflowing well of empathy to effectively help others, here, there, everywhere, so that is what I will do. I’ve never given myself a path to follow before: everything I used to start may have had a future, but I couldn’t see it, or didn’t dare to contemplate it. But now I have children, and they have futures ahead of them that are still as clear as the summer skies of Northern California… So I have to accept that I have a future too, and one that will continue even when the children have gone off on their own journeys as adults. So now, instead of living life and experiences as if they will end abruptly at any time, I shall plan ahead. I have wasted too much time on edge, afraid to let myself enjoy something fully, I don’t have to fear that it will be ruined anymore. It isn’t my fault that I feel that way, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take control of it and throw it away. Away with you feelings of inadequacy and fear, be gone!

In the meantime, I continue to try to fit funny shaped jigsaw pieces together, and while my list never gets smaller, I have to keep telling myself that I am accomplishing tasks. My eldest is now registered in the only Kindergarten we wanted her to go to (we took a huge chance and it luckily paid off), and my middle child is luckily able to stay in the same school for her last year of preschool, even though our preschool program was cut in half. I never realized how stressful, competitive, and tedious the public school system is, how each school is different even though they are all in the same city and district, and run by the same people. How many hoops you have to jump through to make sure your child is registered correctly in the right school… But all the pieces somehow fit together this year, and while the two and a half months of summer are looming up ahead, I will find ways to make other pieces fit too. It’s just what I do.

There are days when my brain melts from the bickering, the whining, the yelling, and the constant demands, and I wonder how I am going to make it through the evening without shouting, or drowning myself in whiskey, but I do. When you have been sober for quite a while it becomes your norm, but it remains a fight, and never an easy one. Never, ever assume that someone’s sobriety is easy, even if they make it look that way. Words help, losing myself in words, my own, other peoples’ words. I block out the nagging voices, the failures of others I feel the need to soften, the past, and dive into a story, an essay, a poem. There are no excuses left anyway: I can only truly function as a person in the life I have created as a sober person. They are my personal boundaries, and the ones that I will not let anyone else attempt to distort them. I’m much stronger this way. And happier.

Being a mother is hard. Being myself is hard, the lightning bolts of ideas, questions, stories, and needs of others all colliding into each other in my brain. The formation of thunderous clouds on some days, or cleansed blue skies on other: I’m always digging for a solution, a more-than-acceptable outcome, but have to make do these days with non-answers or a Band-Aid solution. It’s not settling though, it’s navigating, accepting that life has many branches and not one simple way forward. A maze of branches. Some of us never find what we were looking for, but end up with a long line of stories with an ending that that is a lot more satisfying. An accomplishment. Each step is an accomplishment in its own right: standing up, speaking out, reaching out, listening, setting up boundaries, and pulling down borders. Some days just getting out of bed, other days walking 100 miles: I set the bar too high, but have finally stopped beating myself up when I don’t meet even the bottom rung.

41 is already upon me, and spring has firmly settled its roots for 2019. I love the feeling of the sun on my skin, on my newly shaved head, and I feel hopeful. No need to hide, to secretly hope, or to wish on distant stars anymore: it is all in reach, as long as I continue to fight for myself, for us. I’m not a fan of odd numbered years, but nowadays I am a fan of looking ahead rather than behind me.

Mother to Mother

My Grandma used to sing a song to my sister and I when we were little, and I sang that same song to Luna on her first night home when I was at a loss on how to help her sleep. As soon as the words fell out of my mouth she calmed down, and from that moment onwards it worked without fail. Whether it was the words, or the sound of my voice softly singing to her, or a bit of both, I will never know. But our lullaby is made of golden sleepy dust, a blanket of comfort: our lullaby is the softest of hugs. My Grandma was told that her mother sang the lullaby to her when she was born, and while she sadly died only two weeks afterwards, her powerful voice still carries through the generations thanks to the song (amongst other things of course).

When I ask my mother and Grandma to give me one happy memory of a time when they were young mothers with their children, they both tell me the seaside, Norfolk in England. My mother says East Runton, my Grandma Sheringham. Some of my own favorite memories are from the beach in England, hunting for crabs in pools in the sand, watching for the tide to come in. My mother now lives in Norfolk, where she always dreamed of living back when she was a child. Norfolk by way of France and California. My Grandma remembers dressing her four girls in matching swimming costumes and proudly walking along the beach with them, and having fun when the torrential rain tried to ruin a holiday… My Grandad would lift each girl up and down so they could see the waves pounding on the sand during a storm. I can totally imagine him doing that too, and my mother and aunts having a great time despite being wet through and cold! My mother remembers a holiday in East Runton when we were little, with my father and a family friend, and she would chase after us pretending to be a lobster or a crab. I also remember my sister pretending to be a teapot, as in “I’m a little teapot, short and stout”. We were so little and my parents were so young…

My Nana would tell me all kinds of stories of her mother, and her sisters (I know, there are more women than men in my family, on all sides), of daredevil bike rides down hills without brakes, and flying over handlebars into ditches, and how they all looked out for one another, as children, teens, adults, and well into old age. Some of my earliest memories are with my Nana, and I still hear her voice in my head when I worry too much, because she would always talk me through things in a way that made them always seem less gigantic to me. I lived most of my life far away from my grandmothers, and then many years far away from my mother (and now do again), but it never felt like I was missing out on something, because they were always there. Even before the internet and immediate contact: we wrote letters and called, and visited, and I cherished all of these moments.

And now I am a mother too, and I often find it comforting to think that years before, my mother, my grandmothers, my great grandmothers, they were all holding their little babies and singing them back to sleep, and running after their toddlers on the beach, laughing so much that it hurt in a good way, worrying about the future, but still enjoying every second, even the ones when it was too much. It’s not Mother’s Day in the US until May, but my mother and Grandmother are in England where today is Mothering Sunday, and that is also where my Nana was laid to rest, in the same village I was christened in. You all know how much I love you.

Here are some words that I put together while cuddling Aurora to sleep last night…

Mother to Mother

Mother, Mama, Mummy, Maman,

The one who birthed you,

The one(s) who raised you

(Not always one and the same);

Sleepless nights – endless days, unconditional

Love and worry; heartache and joy.

We sing the same song, a lullaby,

A cadence that soothes a path

Through generations. The words fell

From my mouth naturally, the stars

Will run away with you: my voice, your voice,

Her voice, all of our voices as one.

We live on through each other,

Learning, falling, leaning, climbing:

Mother, Grandma, Nana, Mama.

I Will Be Enough

Love came before we even knew each other. Love came before we could even speak the same language together. Love happened when we both didn’t want it to happen. I was broken. He was broken. Sometimes I still feel very, very broken. We are just broken together. We didn’t heal each other as real life isn’t a fairytale. But I feel comfortable being broken around him, all my pieces face up, breathing in the clean air. Broken is OK, we are all somewhat broken.

Our first child sealed our fate: we now had an excuse to be together, to talk about forevers, to believe in each other. We watched her little heart beating, this tiny little being only visible to us, and we made a silent pact. It would always be us and her together. Things that others considered important such as age, culture, language, immigration status, all that didn’t matter to me. None of that ever mattered to me. Honesty, love, laughter, and strength matter to me. I liked running around, drinking myself into an oblivion; I liked hiding and running, but somehow we ended up together and I became a mother, and as long as we were a team I wasn’t worried. All that running around ended there. From that heartbeat came sobriety and a heavy sense of responsibility that acts as both burden and liberation.

We are still a team, 5 years and three children later. We still say “forever” and we still pinch each other’s butts and run away laughing. I don’t think about life without him because my old age is his old age and nothing will stop that. We didn’t both lose our fathers so early for that cycle to continue. But every day I stay up to make sure he comes home safe, especially in these times when people don’t like our types very much. Our legitimacy seems to be constantly in the air, a ball thrown around without much consideration for those stuck on the inside, or the outside. Every day I tell myself we need a plan, every day I tell myself that if I make a plan we will then be forced to use it. I used to worry about finally being in love for real, now I worry about our safety and that of our children. But love? Love is here, deeply rooted and well fed.

Motherhood came easy to me, a love so hard and fast, overwhelmingly powerful. I lost myself there for a while. And it happened again, and then again. Two girls, and a little boy, beautiful children. A family: my home. This is us, we are better together, us against the world: the clichés hang off my lips, but I don’t care, they are all true. This really is beautiful, we made little people and every day they surprise me, and sometimes I even surprise myself.

But in this beauty lies a ton of sticky, stinky shit. Today we walked in the sun, together, and suddenly my heart dropped, no reason, and my brain wailed “where are you?? Where have you gone Jade??” I never set out on this journey looking to find myself, as I had always been found, broken, but content in shards reflecting off of each other. But I did lose some of me, parts that were ready to be discarded, but also parts I had fought so hard to keep. They melted, hid, ran away. My hard-earned confidence, my ability to get everything done no matter the mountain I would need to climb. Now I tell myself every night I will do better tomorrow, and every morning I wake up exhausted, a dull ache in my jaw, constant headache from no sleep. Writing is my haven, writing helps me lay everything out, analyze it, and piece it back together again. Writing is my puzzle, but I don’t have enough time and energy for puzzles, so I zone out amidst the pieces, frustrated with myself, guilty because I’m not good enough at the moment. It will pass, as everything does, but I wish I knew how to ask for help. I don’t. I’m embarrassed. I miss interacting but I feel like a fraud, a child hanging out in this body I don’t recognize anymore. Frumpy because I don’t take care of myself. It will pass, it always does.

I didn’t realize how stripped bare I would feel when I became a mother, and how hard it would be to reframe my life. You jump off a cliff into the unknown, and that unknown is a changeling, snakes and ladders on a board game.

No one tells you that you will get pitying glances thrown your way when you mention that your partner won’t be able to come and pick you up from the hospital because he’s working and can’t take the time off. Giving birth alone wasn’t hard, but dealing with those stares, knowing that behind them they were all congratulating themselves for being married was tough. I wasn’t imagining them, I knew. All of these loving husbands helping their wives, and me sitting there, alone. I had never worried about people knowing we weren’t married until then. He was just at work, working 80 hour shifts so I didn’t have to go back to work immediately. No one tells you that the person in charge of getting the birth certificate information will condescendingly tell you that you can’t file it without your partner signing a consent form in front of her because “you aren’t married dear”. Why should we still feel like we are doing something wrong, in this day and age? I didn’t imagine the disapproval in the eyes masked by the tight smiles. No one had ever questioned the legitimacy of our relationship, of my pregnancy, not until I gave birth.

No one tells you how you disappear. No one tells you that motherhood is often a swamp, enchanted, but still a swamp. Your feet get stuck in the mud, and even treading water becomes an insurmountable task, others waving while they swim past with the current. It’s OK, it’s not really like you actually needed to be anywhere. My first never slept unless she was in my arms. She still doesn’t really sleep, plagued by anxiety that we are working hard on conquering together, my own fears amplified in hers, my own childhood sweeping back to me in waves. I will not let them live through that, not ever. My second is fighting for her place, learning new words every day, surprising me with how she already has this amazing sense of humor. At two she has the look of a defiant teen, the same one I had when I wanted to change the world, stomping around to Nirvana in my bedroom. And my third, our last, is my calm, I worry less. Somehow I may not fail so much with this one.

No one tells you that all those childhood memories you tucked away tightly may come back to haunt you as an adult again, blowing open the windows and shining the light on them in a way that scares you but also turns you into a warrior woman. You will find the strength to work through those memories properly this time, but who will understand when you suddenly collapse in a heap at the foot of the couch wailing “I can’t do this anymore!” into the void? When will that niggling feeling that you are failing your children before you have even begun to raise them go away? My mind twists and turns those memories inside, ripping the carefully sewn scars apart stitch by stitch, wondering if that broken feeling might vanish this time. Am I doing the right thing by rehashing it all again? But if I don’t will I be like they were? Can I be different? I know that I inherently am. But still, the questions haunt me the moment the children are sleeping. I fill those moments with everything but silence, and then kick myself for not taking a breath.

The guilt is real. I feel guilty about still being traumatized by the aftermath of my firstborn’s birth, a brutal image of how I am still that small child inside, hurt, unable to speak up and push away. I feel guilty about getting angry and yelling because no one is listening to me. I feel guilty about never being enough, about being depressed but hiding it. And then I feel guilty about feeling guilty, because I shouldn’t feel guilty about the simple act of being me. I feel guilty about not following the crowd, not fitting in, about isolating myself from the world. I’m scared I will break everything, still clumsy after all these years. I feel guilty about always worrying and I feel guilty about not being spontaneous anymore. I’m sometimes scared of my anger, and afraid of my sadness, because aren’t these feelings supposed to go away once you have children? Why do they suddenly feel amplified instead? I used to say I wasn’t afraid of much, now I’m filled with trepidation every time I leave the apartment. Is it a case of circumstance, or just a feeling that I will always need to fight against?

And motherhood still scares me. These little people constantly need me and we now live our life around that, often forgetting our own. I need time with him and he needs time with me, but rarely do we have those unicorn moments; work, children, sleep, more work... We worry in tandem, irritate each other, but only because we are comfortable enough to know that it won’t change what we feel. And we know this is only a small part of the whole of us, a curvy, but tiny, passage along our road. Children grow fast. I’m so aware of that, flying towards 40 but still a child inside.

But I am still Jade. I am mother, writer, woman, dreamer, lover, immigrant, resister, reader. I am a survivor. I am Me, a broken mirror, fixed with glue and tape, strong and way too compassionate. I am Jade, I am enough. I will be enough.

From Transition into Change

Some years feel like transition years. I turn the page on November and December arrives with all of her twinkling lights and cheer, and suddenly I know that change is at the tip of my toes. I don’t usually put much stock into New Year’s resolutions, or that whole turning over a new leaf for the New Year thing, because I like organic change. But I feel that organic change is happening, unfurling its toes over this holiday period and giving me some much needed perspective for the next few months. Ever since Ludo arrived back in July I have been living in the day to day, and then in the week to week, some days a slow chug, others a rapid high speed train, but with no real regard for more than a week or a month ahead.

However, every day I have let myself be bombarded with the assaults on our civil rights and general intelligence, thinking I need to fight alone on all fronts, this strong instinct to protect what is mine, and also what is yours. I promise to channel this instinct and need more productively from now on. But I also promise to cut myself some slack too, because if I don’t care for my own needs now and again no one else will. And that caring for myself means asking for help when I need it, not an easy feat for me.

Over the past year I have been working on many different fronts, writing for clients, for myself, and for non-profits. One of the projects I have been working on over the past 6 months is an ongoing guide on how to publish and market your own work efficiently, and I have realized that in order to actually sell your own work you need to be brilliant at selling yourself. While I know that my work is worth reading I’m absolutely terrible at promoting myself, and people really don’t care. I don’t mean that in a negative way, but in general people really don’t care much about anything apart from what is going on around them, and what they need. I think this is why I’ve seen a lot of really talented people get so frustrated and upset with social media: we are taught that if we want to build our sphere of influence we need to work on getting more followers, hashtagging everything, commenting on everything, liking things we don’t always care about, following people we really don’t have any interest in. I just have never had the heart for that. I use social media in a way that I use everything else in my life: a way to share with others, make friends and discover new writers/artists/musicians, and just to keep up with my friends and family all over the world. And I’ve just found the instant access to information and the incessant scrolling in no chronological order has heightened my anxiety. So I have removed certain platforms from my phone over the past few weeks and feel a lot more balanced and ready to attack my career as a writer in a different light. Well, actually I am just going to work at marketing my work differently, in a way that works for me. I focus a lot on the mistakes I make, or on things that don’t work as well as they should when I really should look at everything I have accomplished! I wrote a book this year. I’m writing a second and a third and a fourth. I wrote some pretty amazing essays and thought pieces. I had a third child in the space of 4 years and moved to a new home. I’m nursing three children and still functioning somewhat normally. I am working, although not as much as I was before Ludo was born, still enough. I have had articles published in some awesome publications that have been read and shared many, many times. And despite my worries for the future, despite the state of this country, and despite the fact that every morning I wake up knowing that there is another hill to climb up and always more battles to fight, despite all of that, I promise to myself that I will remain positive. I’ve never been one to be complacent and accept my lot.

I have many, many stories and essays that I am writing, as well as few projects in the pipeline, and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you over the next year. If you are interested in keeping up with my ramblings and book release dates please feel free to sign up to my mailing list and/or “like” or follow my Facebook page. 2018 will be a year of words, of resistance, and of play. Drinking used to be my means of decompression, but nowadays in times of high anxiety I have to remind myself to just breathe and laugh, without my beloved Powers. Being seriously serious all of the time weighs heavy on my heart and my brain. 2018 will be the year where I focus only on what matters the most to me, and because a lot of that also matters the most to others, on what matters to you too. Thank you for all for reading, for commenting, and for buying my book this year, I’m really excited to share the next one with you in a few months!

I’ve made a list of some of my favorite pieces from 2017, the rest can be found in my Archive. Read them while listening to my playlist for this year, a playlist I made for Ludo’s birth, one that helped me through the 36 hours of active labor I was in with him, and that I have played for all of my kids over the past 5+ months (hit shuffle though).

You can find my book, With Spring Comes Hope, right HERE and HERE and HERE. If you have time I would be ever so grateful if you could write a little review for me on Amazon too. Thank you!!

Where Is Home?

The Light at the End of the Tunnel and all that…

Music Keeps the Memories Alive

Those Days, Those Weeks…

Oh Those Myths…

This is Not a New Phenomenon

An Unfinished Story of People, Places, and Music

A Lack of Collective Memory

Anxiety is a Well-Cleaned Bone

We Just Get It Done & The Hidden

A Helping Hand

Consolidating the Foundations

Home and the Heart

Firearms and the US: Will Anything Ever Change?

Peace. Love, Unity, One Blood

Mamas, We Need To Talk About Consent

Of Strikes and Personal Battles

11 Common Patterns of Verbal Abuse

Consolidating the Foundations

She suddenly says “Let me listen to your heart Mama, right there in your neck!” while she snuggles against me, all delicate little limbs and eyes soft with fatigue. Little phrases like this melt my heart, little voice growing stronger and surer every day. In the morning I wake up surrounded by these little beings, their mussed up hair comical, their big, brown eyes cloudy with sleep, endearing. Within seconds the “mamas” start rolling out of their mouths, and I close my eyes, dreaming for a split second, of moments when sleep came easily, and then I climb over their limbs and step into the bathroom.

The mirror doesn’t ever lie these days. Where once nights without sleep gave me a hollowed-eye, slightly rock chic look, now they provide a puffier, ringed with black circles stare, tiny lines sprouting from all corners. I am often swimming in seas of the past, stopping off on islands and rocks to ruminate over strings left untied, that I sometimes forget to look at myself in the now. More and more frequently I catch myself in the middle of an action, in the center of a thought process, and suddenly wonder when the last time I thought of me was. Of me here now.

My past needs to be written, and so many words left unsaid, so many phrases still hanging there, suspended in time. But my present needs to be remembered too, as a whole, more than a day to day endeavor. I live in my present so deeply, but so deeply as a mother, a friend, a daughter, a sister, a partner, that I start to use all those layers as a protective coat, forgetting that the core needs to breathe too. Is this motherhood? Do we always forget to breathe? At what point do we realize that we need to go first sometimes? Just sometimes.

This tiredness goes beyond simple children waking at night fatigue, beyond certain levels of sleep deprivation; it comes from a feeling of slight hopelessness, feet stuck in quick-drying concrete, fingers holding onto crumbling rock above an abyss. There is the everyday, the life at home which often uplifts, sometimes wearies, and is somewhat comforting in its mélange of routine and impulsive dance parties. And then there is the rest of the world, the one I need to send my children out into, where they will have to answer questions about race and religion and beliefs, where often what they will be taught will counter what we talk about at home. And then even further than down the street are the bombs and the threats, humans fighting other humans, humans massacring the planet without regard. How can we consolidate the beauty of nature and also of man-made art and creations with the heap of steaming muck that we are also to blame for? Here lies my fatigue, my sadness, my unwillingness to remove the protective layers of filler, because without them I don’t know how much strength I will have to fight the battles. My children give me so much more willpower to fight for change. I made the choice to have children and this erases my right to wallow in selfish self-doubt and aimless direction. But at the same time I must remember that strength and power are to be nurtured and given time to grow, and growth comes from the core, from within, as well as from those we let in.

I tell my little ones, especially my eldest who deals with severe anxiety, to calm down and breathe every day, something that I should probably be doing more frequently too. Head against the cold front of the refrigerator door, eyes closed for a few seconds, listen to the sound of the ocean, swish swash, in your ears and breathe. Once again, breathe. Put your hand over your heart and feel the beat slow down to a gentle cadence, a walk instead of a gallop. We don’t have anywhere to be, not right now, there is no rush. In a way we have all the time in the world. Actually I want us just to have all the time in the world. A simpler life, one rid of the constant hustle, where we can stop to listen the wind as it blows through the valley, and not hesitate to run down to the water to dip our toes into it. I don’t mind certain hardships when the background and the foundations make them easier to bear. Having little money is easier on the mind when one can cook food grown from the garden, collect eggs from the chickens clucking in the yard. Freezing winters are calming when snow covers the land and you can sit in front of the fire, hot chocolate and warm lights. Boiling summers are different when the ocean is just steps away, with cliff sides offering shelter and secret caves. And so on, there are ways to make even the simplest of lives fulfilling, an aspiration that will never leave me.

How does one consolidate the need to retire from the world we live in while still standing up for the world we believe we should all live in? How can one live an idyllic life away from most humans while still surround oneself with the world? How do we find that middle ground where we live the exact life that we dream of while still being there for those who are not there yet? How can we be both selfish and compassionate, balancing self-care while being devoted to caring for others? How do we get there, where everything falls into place, not asking for much, just for a little push in the right direction? Or are some of us just destined to dream, to hope, and to hustle along, just making do, always yearning for more. More peace, more love, more change.

I think today I will take my little three year old’s advice and just listen to my heart as it beats through my chest, a rhythm of both love and life, close my eyes and dream of what I want for us all. I believe I can have it, that we can make it happen together, but the self-doubt still reigns strong. One day it will, in the meantime we soldier on together, a community, fighting towards a better place for us all, fighting against those who want to destroy us. And I hope to remember to make time for me amidst all of the things, because a foundation needs to remain strong through the storm.

A Helping Hand...

I had to fill out many forms the other day, each one containing similar, if not the same, questions pertaining to different behaviors and mannerisms. The idea was to rate each question or statement on a scale from “not at all” to “very frequently”. I tried to do it during the day, but there were too many interruptions to really concentrate, too many kids to nurse, too many toddler fights and demands. I do love my evenings, when everyone is asleep because I mentally and physically need that quiet time where I can sort out my thoughts, lay some things to rest, and plan more work. Or sometimes just to put my feet up and watch some TV. I haven’t had enough of them recently.

I downplay a lot of things; I think this sometimes comes through in my writing: anxiety, inability to ask for help, raising a high needs child. I know I definitely downplay the latter a lot, first of all because she is my first and I had no one else to compare her behaviors to, and secondly because after a while of hearing things like “oh she will sleep soon don’t worry” or “it will pass, everyone goes through it”, I thought I was just probably over exaggerating. Looking back I think Cesar and I handled those first months of parenthood well despite the fact that he was working 80 hours a week (plus commute time), and I was literally sleeping in 20 minute increments. “She will sleep for longer soon enough” they said. “Appreciate these moments as they won’t be here for long”. Separation anxiety is supposed to be temporary, a developmental milestone so to speak, except sometimes it doesn’t pass. It’s ok, I don’t mind carrying my children everywhere, and we own enough carriers to go around. It’s easier that way. But they said it would pass, not get worse. The side eyes when I mention I am still nursing my 3.5 year old, as often as a 3 month old, if not more.

The guilt seeps through my pores, some day worse than others. Sometimes I just want to hold her so tight and never let her go, knowing that the world that already causes her so much anxiety is a lot bigger and scarier than she can imagine. Her little face looks at me, determined to be brave, but I see her hands clenched by her side, her mouth demanding to nurse, “now mama need dootie now, need dootie mama, need dootie now”, her little voice rising into high-pitched anger. Some nights she goes to sleep at 8pm, spent, and only wakes a couple of times. Other nights, quite frequently right now, it’s 10 or 11pm, just to wake up at 3am for an hour, two hours, more, demanding back rubs and foot rubs and fidgeting around, needing to nurse, then needing to watch a cartoon, needing to cuddle, then cries, a scream that often makes your brain melt, knowing that the other two will now wake, one after another, a crescendo of crying.

I’m not good with loud noises such as slamming doors, raised voices, screaming. Subconsciously I curl into a ball, closing my mind from what I seem to consider a brutal attack. It’s hard for me to not put my hands over my ears and hide under the covers when Luna has a tantrum; it’s hard for me not to yell “SHUT UP!!!!” Some days I have to dig as deep as I can to find some inner peace in order to make it through the 30, 40, 60 plus minutes of screaming. Ah tantrums. They warn you about them. Don’t give in they say. I would love these to be regular tantrums. I could deal with the occasional screaming fit in Target or stamping of feet because she wants to wear the red dress instead of the green one. No, our tantrums happen 4, 5 times a day, and are quite soul sucking, for all of us. A “meltdown” is a better description. Meltdowns.

I think a lot of the time I downplay things because I assume that I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. Luna’s pediatrician provided a referral back in July, I procrastinated for ages, writing lists so that I was ready to mention everything, wondering if I was doing the right thing. When I finally spoke to the mental health team they immediately referred us to the children’s hospital and our assessment appointment was set for the following week. I noticed the signs of anxiety a long time ago, probably because I also suffer from it myself. I often ask myself how the sweetest, smartest, and kindest little being can have so much to fear, how she can be fine one day, and crippled by worries the next. Did I do something wrong? Was I over-anxious as a new mother, over nurturing? Should I have forced her to wean before it became a crutch? Should we have stopped at one child (but I don’t care to imagine my life without Aurora and Ludo). Could I have done something differently? Should we have sucked it up and paid the extortionate amount to put Luna in daycare at 3 months old?

Luna’s therapist is amazing. She’s kind and caring, observant without judging. We have a long road ahead of us where we will work together to make life easier for our Luna, so that hopefully she won’t have to hold that world on her shoulders for much longer. Where hopefully our home life will be a little more balanced and quieter. Where everyone will get the sleep they need, and where we can leave Luna at school without worrying how her anxiety will manifest when she comes home.

We don’t have a diagnosis yet, and probably won’t for a while as Luna is only three and it takes more than a few assessment sessions to really dig into the root cause of certain behaviors. It took me a long time for me to accept that it wasn’t our fault and that there was nothing wrong with asking for help. My main concern now is that we help our daughter develop healthy coping skills and confidence. I know what it’s like to develop unhealthy coping skills and I do not want that for our daughter. Is it silly to want my children to walk through life feeling light and confident, rather than waking up, shoulders heavy and mind full of mines? Am I projecting my own fears?

I am usually a very positive person despite my moments of darkness, but these last few weeks have been tough. My own anxieties have been playing up and I know that I need to remain strong for Cesar and for my children. I always wonder what our neighbors think when they hear the tantrums, most likely cursing us for having a million children in just a few years. I feel guilty, and then I remember that we are doing the right thing. We asked for help, which is hard, but in the end will make us into better parents. I understand why Luna chose us... She knew I would get it, would understand what goes on behind those beautiful eyes, that most of the time all she needs is a hug and for us to tell her it will all be OK. It’s hard enough for an adult to express emotions, for a child who has so many of them it must be excruciating. This path into child therapy has also opened up a lot of things I have buried, childhood traumas and pain, and it does make me realize that I could probably also benefit from having someone to talk to. Sometimes writing doesn’t always help, it can also be another source of anxiety at times. I don’t know, first things first.

I do have to say though... If you see a 3 or 4 year old who isn’t potty trained yet, or a child who is watching an iPad in their stroller, or a kid who is screaming to nurse in a restaurant when they are able to talk, eat, and drink without an issue, don’t just put it down to bad or lazy parenting. Some things just don’t happen as they are “supposed” to, no matter how hard we work, and how patient we are. I am keeping my fingers crossed that by January Luna will be potty trained and weaned, so that we can send her to preschool, which I think will be beneficial for her. In the mean time we are setting a plan in place with Luna’s therapist and we will go from there. And I will try to let go of some of the guilt that has been plaguing me recently.

We are lucky to have a pediatrician who really listens to her patients and their parents, and always remembers them. She has been following Luna since she was two years old (when we moved here), and has witnessed some of the symptoms of anxiety firsthand during visits. I’m glad that she pushed me to make the call because I don’t know if I would have done it otherwise. Parenting is as tough as hell, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Happy Birthday Mum!!

Some time ago on October 24th a little girl was born and her parents named her Alison. At the young age of 19 she was already married and had a young daughter that she and her husband named Jade. Yes, Alison is my mother and today is her birthday. Happy Birthday Mum! You know, I think back to my 19 year old self and can’t imagine what kind of mother I would have been at that time, so shy, stomping around Grenoble in my Doc Martens and my long lace dresses. I sometimes think that my mother probably thought that she would have to wait a million years to be a grandmother, which she kind of did really, and then one day, out of the blue, she received a text message telling her that someone would be calling her “Grandma” in the near future. Actually I think it was something along the lines of “Are you ready to be a Grandma?!”. I know, I know, I should have called (I did pretty much immediately afterwards), but I was lying in the grass in Washington Square Park, imagining her reaction and giggling to myself, so I sent a text first. Mum was there when Luna was born, the one person who told the idiotic nurse to come back and answer my questions, the one person to tell another idiotic nurse to not take my child away before I had held her. Thankfully, because I think the lasting memories of Luna’s birth would have been much, much worse if I hadn’t got to hold her, as hazy as everything was at that point… She also arrived not long after Aurora was born. I promised to text her when I went into labor so she could purchase a ticket, from Sacramento to NYC, and I did, around 10pm her time. Ticket was booked immediately with a departure the following morning. Mum was still sleeping when Aurora arrived just a few hours later, the first notification a photo that I sent to the group text message conversation we had with my sister. (I have a photo of it somewhere… I was having a normal chat with my sister, then “She’s coming NOW”, and my sister jokingly saying “PUSH!!”, and 5 minutes later, a photo of a screaming baby). Mum was also here for Ludo’s birth, which fortunately did not require a plane ticket, looking after her two little granddaughters for the 36 plus hours I was in labor and the 24 hours I spent in hospital afterwards. I don’t know what we would have done without her, as there are still very few people Luna really trusts, and Cesar couldn’t take any time off of work. So my Mum became a Nana three times in three years, after many years of watching her eldest daughter (me if you have forgotten that through all this rambling) live in different places in the world, ending up running around NYC, still trying to figure out life.

This past weekend we watched my mother run from stage to stage over and over again, with two huge cameras and all essential necessities strapped to her, shooting bands until way after the sun went down. And this was the second time she was doing that in three weeks, AND she had just photographed Paul Weller the night before too! In all of my memories my mother has had a camera in her hand or bag, taking photos of us and of everything around us. I have photos of myself and my siblings as babies and children, photos of my father who passed away when I was 10, photos of my grandfathers and Nana, all watching over us now, of my grandmother who is still here. I have photos of all of the different places and countries we have lived in, of friends long gone from my life but never forgotten, and photos of holidays in special places. She passed this love to document via photo on to me, and it always makes me so happy to look through all of the photos that I have taken since I was about 13. Nowadays it’s easy to snap shots and selfies on our smartphones, but we just had film back when I was a teen and not everyone had a camera. I have pictures of my friends that no one else would have taken, and I am so glad of it. And I can never thank my mum enough for teaching me the importance of having a passion and pursuing it no matter what. I will never have the amazing talent my mother has in photography, but I do have her passion for creating something, and working hard to make something of myself. Even if this something is not always what society would deem to be what I “should” be. Because I was always taught that we should be what we want to be, not what someone else says we should be.

I could tell you many awesome stories about my mum. How hard she has always worked (and how I wish she could just go and retire by the sea now and live doing ONLY what she wants to do), how much she has done for Karli, Dylan, and me, and my children. I could tell stories of how she is part of the foundation of the translation and localization industry, and how it wouldn’t be what it is today without her insight and brain; stories of creating amazingly beautiful homes wherever she lays her head. I could tell other stories of putting up with wild teenagers and 20 somethings, always making sure we were safe, and our friends were safe too. I could ramble on all night about shows and Bruce Springsteen in the car, Cannibal Corpse and The Sisters of Mercy, vegetarianism, Jamaica, Poland, Holland, France, England, punk, The Jam, and our all-time favorite: Tim Buckley! I could also tell sadder stories, and annoying ones, and very, very happy stories, like a Marillion show, and jumping in the ocean on Long Island, and Christmas trees, and the same Christmas dinner I am passing along to my children. But today I just want to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM and I LOVE YOU (we all do, Cesar, Luna, Aurora, Ludo, me, and of course JoJoMone the cat). I will make you a gluten-free cake as soon as Dylan gets here.

(There are many, many more photos of mum, but everything between me being little and about 13 resides in a few boxes at my mother’s house!).

If you want to check out my mother's amazing photography you can check out here website HERE and her bog HERE. If you live in the Sacramento area and are interested in having your photo taken for an event or life event, I'm sure she would love to hear from you! 

Anxiety is a Well-Cleaned Bone

Anxiety is a well cleaned bone: sharpened over time, poking, poking, poking you all over, honing in on all of your daily worries and frustrations, hollowing them out until they are so much bigger and wider and all- consuming than they ever need to be. Anxiety changes over time, it grows with you, thriving under the weighted blanket that you create to keep it hidden.

When I was a child I thought it was normal to feel trepidation, to build protective walls around myself before I got out of bed in the morning. I thought it was normal to always worry about everything I did or said, turning it over and over in my mind for hours to make sure there wasn’t a misstep in my actions, something wrong in my words. And that was before I was 10. My anxiety became my closet pet, to be hidden at all costs because no one wants to have to deal with silly things like fear and worry. I worked very, very hard to keep my little pet inside, hiding the little quirks she had from the outside world.

But she had ways of always popping out whenever she felt like it, picking at a small crack in the wall, affecting me physically in ways that I couldn’t imagine. That Tuesday morning Maths class that gave me an upset stomach every week, ruining the history class before it and the lunch break after it. The shaking hands when I opened the front door, pulling the cloak over my inner child before facing whatever mood would prevail in the house that day. The utter fear of being asked to present an idea in class, because even though I always had hundreds of ideas and arguments inside the fear would strangle my vocal chords. I would push myself every day with internal pep talks, and then I would stand up and everything would go black behind my eyes, and stumbling through an answer or presentation, fellow students burning eyes into my body, snickering in my head. I would sit down, spent, because the amount of energy it took to get through every single day was already enough, but the added hurdles tipped me over the edge. Tired.

Anxiety has a way of changing over time, taking on new and more original forms, taking over different bodily organs. And again I developed new coping skills. One that will always stand out is the constant need to pee, a real need, even when I didn’t drink anything, even when I went to pee once, twice, three times in 20 minutes. How does the body create so much water? And then the day spent dehydrated, headache pounding as I moved from class to class, forcing my eyes to stay open. On the worst days hiding in the school nurse’s office citing period pain, because no one wants to challenge the girl with period pain. But no, I wasn’t sick, I was just anxious; although I didn’t know there was a name for it. I thought everyone had it.

Anxiety is waking up in the middle of the night and watching your brain spin stories together, stories so intricate that when you finally go back to sleep and wake up an hour later you can’t tell the difference between real life and dream life. It’s when you rush into work and check your email to make sure the project issue that was running around and around in your mind is not real. What a waste of energy, what a waste of precious sleep time. Anxiety is then beating yourself up about losing sleep, about not being able to switch your brain off for a while. Anxiety is coping skills, some healthy, most not. Alcohol and anxiety go well together, alcohol stripping away at the layers, coating frazzled nerve endings with warm candle wax, freeing your mind from the many boxes and fences you have created. Anxiety and alcohol numb each other and fuel each other, one problem hiding the other. Why would I rather admit to having an alcohol problem than finally say that I have anxiety? Why do I think that living with a constant pit in my stomach is normal?

Anxiety is also chain-smoking, and not being able to swallow food. So what happens when you take the enablers, the jailers, and the protective curtains away? You write, you think, and you deal with everything. But anxiety constantly changes and keeping up with it becomes more and more tiring. Sometimes it’s just easier to stay home and not have to face the constant pokes and prods and potholes.

Anxiety in motherhood is yet another game changer, wading through guilt and niggling terrors, knowing all the signs, building more walls. It’s all so familiar until it isn’t anymore. The mind really has its ways of throwing a few massive curveballs your way. It wasn’t until I read an article the other day that I realized why I felt so angry all the time. I’m not an angry person even though I have real license to be. I could have become angry but it just was never in my nature, I am soft-spoken and try to see the good in everything. But nowadays my temper is short and prone to flare ups, yelling, my eyes wide when I hear the sound of my voice when she unleashes herself, two seconds of sound followed by the most intense guilt I have ever felt. Nowadays anxiety is wanting to throw my phone out of the window when it doesn’t unlock fast enough, anxiety is the intense irritation I feel when yet again one of the children throws food on the floor. Anxiety is now yelling in despair when one of the children refuses to listen, something that never bothered me so much before, but now drives me insane. Anxiety is now worrying about the dishes in the sink all night because I listened to my partner for once and relaxed on the couch. Anxiety is now waking up to a messy living room, unfolded laundry, and a to do list from yesterday, not a neatly handwritten new one for today.

I don’t have PPD or even PPA, I’m doing really well in general, but this new anger was worrying me. But now I realize that it’s my old friend anxiety coming out to play again in a different form. Now I know why I was staring wistfully at the bottle of Jameson in the restaurant the other day, wondering if a shot would “take the edge off”, and then shaking my head and clenching my jaw. Anxiety now is jaw ache from clenching it so much, unconsciously. Anxiety is waking before the baby and not going back to sleep after the baby has settled down again, because anxiety and sleep hate each other. I learnt to cope with all of the different forms that my anxiety cloaks herself in; this one won’t be any different. And you know what?

Now I have figured it out again I can work on it. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. A long sip of water, eyes closed, flushing the crashing thoughts out of my mind. Water flowing, covering the cracks and the holes, ripples, one direction ahead. And the best coping skill of all: knowing it’s OK to not be OK, and that some days we are allowed to give in and let the anxiety go. Because when you unleash the beast it tends to back away, fearing what lies ahead. My kids will never know this irrational anger because I’m letting it go. I just hope they can forgive me for yelling a bit too much over the past month.

And then anxiety is a panic attack, but not your panic attack, the panic attack of a three year old. You know the signs and in addition to offering unending cuddles and patience and a safe place you also take steps to make a difference. I know now that I am not making a big deal out of nothing, because anxiety is a real monster to deal with, a changeling, the deeper you bury her the more she likes to drill to the surface. It’s all about one step at a time. I haven’t let her cripple me and I most certainly won’t let her cripple my daughter.

A Little Confession...

I don't really get jealous of others. While I get frustrated with myself for not being as good as others at something, it's rare that I feel actual jealousy. But I'm going to confess to something... I am so jealous of people who were able to have/have had/are on maternity leave. I'm even more jealous of those whose partners were also able to benefit from parental leave, or who were/are able to at least take paid time off. Every time I read about someone going back to work after 12 weeks, 6 months, a year, my stomach turns and I feel slightly defeated, alone. And then I turn it into a bit of "why the hell are they complaining, they were able to relax with their baby without worrying about money for X amount of time". (Stay with me, I know that this isn't exactly true, and I also know how some people spend precious time during their pregnancy fighting for their leave, cobbling together PTO and disability to get to 12 weeks – this is just how I rationalize my jealousy).

I took three months off with Luna, unpaid, and Cesar worked extra hours so we could make ends meet. That first month is still a blur to me, days and nights melted into one big, sleepless entity. I would wake at 6 or 7am after a night of maybe 20 minutes sleep (I'm seriously not exaggerating), and hang out with Luna in the living room... Cesar would be up around 9am, go off to work and I wouldn't see him til 2 or 3am, except for Wednesday's which was his only day off. Luna and I created our own schedule, I was completely in tune to every single one of her needs, reassessing my views of motherhood and how I was going to navigate it. Once I let go of the feeling that an utter failure magnet was stuck to my back, and accepted that Luna was not like any of my friends' children, life became a lot easier. But still, quality time with Cesar was middle of the night ice creams and a Wednesday that we would make last as long as possible, just us. The only day he took of work was the day I was induced, going back the next day on no sleep.

The second time around Cesar was working two jobs, and navigating life around a difficult pregnancy and many hospital visits was tough. But Aurora made it easy for us, she arrived fast, and when Cesar was home. He took the day off and went back to work the next. The hospital made all post partum parents watch a film before they were allowed to be discharged and told all fathers to bring the car seat the hospital and the car around to the ER entrance. I sat there, put my hand up and asked if someone would be able to help me to an Uber. Everyone stared at me, and I realized they were all judging. Who leaves the hospital by themselves? On a normal day I wouldn't have cared, but 24 hours post partum I felt like curling up and bawling. My nurse walked into my room and kindly asked what was wrong, and I mumbled something about being fat. I don't know why I lied; I just didn't think I could explain what was going through my mind. I then started stressing about Cesar signing the birth certificate papers because if you aren't married the father has to sign a proof of paternity in front of a witness. In the end Cesar managed to take the morning off and I did not leave alone with Aurora. But just the morning, he was back at work a few hours later. I started a month long project the next day, writing, writing, writing until late in the night, nursing both kids on my lap when they woke up. Aurora's first month was a blur, but a blur of work, of wondering where the next project would come from. When it ended I declined other projects, I was exhausted, Cesar and I barely saw each other, and we are both missing our kids grow, preoccupied with life worries.

This time around I was adamant Cesar would be able to take a week off and be with me, but it wasn't to be. A new apartment, rent to pay, bills, food, everything, and a second job that barely gave him the night off when I went into hospital (I honestly thought I was going to have to go over there and breathe through contractions on the floor of the restaurant). And again, he cuddled his newborn child, ran home to sleep a few hours and went back to work again. Luckily my mother was able to look after the girls for us, and when I got home the next day I just jumped into life as a mother of three, by myself. Proud that all of the children were bathed and asleep before 9pm. By a stroke of luck my main client's work slowed down considerably for the summer and I took it as a sign to slow down too, and this time remembered the rules of the fourth trimester. I didn't really slow down, I've been working on a lot of my own things, but I haven’t been looking for too much work. But that always means that Cesar just needs to work more. We just can't afford time off.

Honestly our kids aren't that expensive (yet). We buy everything from the thrift store or secondhand, we are good at grocery shopping on a budget. Since we are all vegetarian apart from Cesar we don't spend money on meat. We don't own a car and we walk or bike everywhere. But we aren't well off or rich, and as most people in this country, despite what people may think, we live paycheck to paycheck, used to hustling, working extra to make ends meet. Hourly wage jobs don't benefit from any kind of paid time off or health insurance or sick leave, so if something happens, or I have a doctor's appointment scheduled, and it can't be done on Cesar's days off (when one of his jobs actually respects his availability requests), then he has to take the day off. Its fine, we work around it. It just always annoys me that days off have to be relegated to things like doctors’ appointments rather than day trips and fun activities. Granted, I have several degrees and enough work experience under my belt that I could get an OK paying office job somewhere, and then have to pay a huge chunk of that on daycare. So I'd rather work around the kids, even though it can be super stressful at times. While I hope that I can maintain enough freelance work over the next few years to continue full time once the kids are at school, I will probably end up back in an office or a bar/restaurant for at least a few years until we have figured out how to open our own restaurant (dreams!).

I love our life. I love Cesar and I love our kids. While I miss living in NYC, California isn't so bad, and as long as we are altogether, everything is OK. I just wish that parental leave laws were on par with countries like the U.K., France, Sweden... I would gladly pay higher taxes for that (and universal healthcare), and I know Cesar would too. And when I feel those twinges of jealousy I think of all of those women who have to go back to work a week or two after they have given birth. And then my complaints don't feel so important anymore - at least I have always been able to deal with the mess that is postpartum life in the comfort of my own home. And I’m grateful that we do have a comfortable home and can pay the rent and the bills (now). I have just learnt that it’s OK to be a little sad that I didn’t have a dreamy maternity leave, and that I wasn’t able to spend time hanging out in bed with my brand new baby while Cesar took the toddlers off to fun places around the neighborhood. It’s OK to sometimes be a little jealous and admit to it. I also know that most people don’t have maternity leave in the US, so I’m definitely not alone in feeling this way!

Growing, Adapting, Living...

Every day I wake up and tell myself that today is the day that I make time to look after myself a little bit better. I tell myself I will be having a long bath after the kids go to bed, I will finally get my eyebrows done, seeing as I have been talking about it for a year now (literally), or even I will just get an extra hour of sleep. But every evening I sit down on the couch and exhale, wondering how I will ever find the energy to do all of those things, ever.

I’ve never been what one would call high-maintenance. I would sometimes put a little eye make-up on. I had a love (still do) for pretty dresses coupled with biker boots or Docs. I would go to the hairdressers a couple of times a year, just to layer my hair enough so that it framed my face and wasn’t so heavy. But I always made sure that I practiced self-care – time outs as I would call them. A long, hot bath, a good book, a movie, time away from the outside world (and that included the phone). The world is a very stressful place, especially when you have to spend a lot of time interacting with people in it.

And then I had a child. A child who was so high needs I barely had time to sleep let alone think of taking an hour in the bath or running down to the nail place to get my eyebrows waxed. All of a sudden I felt frumpy – my clothes didn’t fit right anymore, and I couldn’t merge my new body with my personal style. Nothing felt right, I didn’t feel like me anymore, and I was too tired to figure anything out. I had to succeed in being a mother before anything else, even if in the meantime I forgot to be Jade. Who was Jade anyway? Was she the girl serving drinks behind the bar, dancing away to The Cure at 5am, while sweeping the floor of cigarette butts in the haunted building? Was she the girl who was stomping up and down Ludlow St, the life of the party? Was she the girl working 14 hour endless days in the office, working on cost estimates and languages and website launch timelines? Was she the shy girl walking into a kibbutz in Israel and staying there for months? Was she the woman walking around Bushwick in the early morning light, snapping pictures on one of her old Canon SLRs? Was she the rebellious teenager, intent on being herself, even though she didn’t really know who that really was?

As always, ever since I can remember, I wrote down my feelings. I wrote about childbirth and becoming a parent. I wrote about sleepless nights and baby products, about being sober and about how much I absolutely loved my child. I posted a lot of these things on my blog, but not everything. I also took a lot of the darker parts out of anything that I made public, as always afraid of offending others, or afraid of sounding like I was depressed. Or, as usual, afraid of worrying or bothering people. Of course there were dark days, days when I had literally slept 30 minutes, and was holding my screaming three week old, bawling my eyes out because I had no clue what I was doing wrong. But there were many more better days, when I pushed myself to believe in me, to go out into the world and show my child what I loved about it. I wasn’t depressed, I knew that, I was coming to terms with the new part of myself, Jade the mother, and working out how she could fit into all of the other pieces of me. I was still me, but with another role, one that I embraced, no matter how alien it felt. A caregiver, something that I had always yearned to really be. Nurturing.

These days I don’t censor myself as much. I’m a lot less worried about what people might think or say. Those who read my words and wonder who this person is never really knew me in the first place anyway; those who managed to knock down a few brick walls over the years have a special place in my heart and are probably not surprised at where life has lead me. I’m not surprised, even though I honestly never expected it. My first child is still very much high needs, already showing signs of that crippling anxiety I learnt to hide so well. My second is so strong and determined, and my third so calm: all three are these amazing little humans that Cesar and I are hoping to raise as best as we can. These days I have relaxed the brakes a little, I don’t feel as guilty when I get frustrated, I remember to eat when I’m hungry. I think about practicing self-care… I even read a book in less than a week recently.

But I still don’t make enough time to look after myself. I told myself 5 days ago that I would find a nail salon and get my eyebrows done, and I haven’t. Every evening I go to run a bath and use a Lush bath bomb I have had for months, and I stall in front of the mirror, change into pajamas and go back to the couch, reading newspaper articles on my phone. I look at my toe nails and think that a pedicure would be amazing, maybe metallic green nails for autumn, and have no idea when I will get the time to do that. But, at the same time, I am still writing enormous amounts, I am still working, the house is tidy, the kids are fed, dressed, and entertained, and I am still me. I am exhausted, but I am still happy.

Whether you become a parent or not life is a long series of adapting to new situations, of growing, expanding, learning, accepting, and also refusing. I ended up refusing to let motherhood engulf me, but let it become a natural part of my being. I am Jade: a mother, a writer, a girlfriend, a sister, a daughter, a bartender, an account manager, a photographer, a storyteller, a fan of The Cure, a lover of music, sarcastic, funny, silly, full of dreams, and full of ideals. I still love to dance all around my home, singing at the top of my voice, and I still love to cuddle my favorite teddy bear (when the kids haven’t taken him to cuddle), and I still dream of a utopian world. I’ve always found it impossible to be anyone else than me, no matter how many times I wished to be someone else. And in the end I am quite happy to be me, overgrown eyebrows and all. There will always be a darkness, but I know that it will always be surrounded by light, because as my beloved Leonard Cohen so aptly put it: “there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”.