It has been too long since I’ve written anything proper or decent. I know this because I’ve begun narrating my life to myself, and stewing on things as I try and fall asleep. Mumbling under my breath as I make soap and fill animal waterers and collect eggs. Dreaming of words as I fold washing, hang washing, lay on the couch trying not to die of exhaustion.
There are excuses (there are always excuses). My hands hurt, the computer is hard work, my children won’t stop talking at me and needing engagement – particularly when I’m sitting at the computer. You think things will get easier as they get older, but instead the challenges just change, because Sarah kissed Jessica’s boyfriend and Annalise got suspended from school for swearing at a teacher and Alice is lying to her mother about smoking cigarettes and Emily has anxiety so crippling I’m not sure what to do to help….
I am not qualified for teenagers, but here we are. My eldest turned thirteen and my house is now full of a steady stream of teenage children, whom I actually like. Baby teenagers are kind of amazing.
And my littlest is seven, which feels very small, but is actually all kinds of sass and grown up, and don’t you even KNOW what I’m TALKING ABOUT? No I do not, because I’m not following the latest story line of her favourite Youtube soap opera, OMG MUM.
There is the love affair and subsequent break up with Fortnite and online gaming with friends, of anger and shouting and reminders than Online Is Still Real and You Cannot Speak To People Like That and Would You Like Me To Ring Your Mother?
Life, man. Kids. Time moves on and I’m just here, swimming, not drowning – not quite, but almost. Almost drowning often enough that toddlers seem such a very long time ago. And I do not miss it (I DO NOT) but christ, it’s so much easier to be worrying about whether you’re going to accidentally cut their sandwich into the wrong shape rather than worrying about whether Susie is being pressured into sex with her boyfriend.
And if you think thirteen, fourteen, fifteen is too young for all of these problems, then I applaud you, laud you, good luck to you.
But. It’s good. They’re good. Even if they did just get home from school and all three are having various forms of meltdown with the transition to home. Poor kids, transitions suck.
(There’s a lot of fighting right now. A giant red stuffed bird is the Most Sought After Object EVER.)
Yeah, that’s it. Kids are home. Brain is dead. Sorry, I was going somewhere with this, but I’ve lost it. Time is fluid, it keeps vanishing. I need to write, before I do something stupid like sign up for NaNoWriMo in my busiest month of the year.
Help.
