Tagged: me
Guilt
Parenting. Such a MAGICAL experience. Along with all the fear, desperation, exhaustion, irritation, frustration and total absolute dicking bollocks of parenting, comes guilt. GUILT. I feel it ALL THE COCKING TIME. I can’t escape it. I’m afraid to say, people, that when you spawn a tiny person you instantly and violently sign up for a LIFETIME of this emotional headfucking stuff. It’s overwhelming, and gives me heartburn. Yeesh.
I feel guilty…
that I don’t do enough ‘educational’ stuff with Moo
that I don’t spend enough time outdoors with Moo
that I let her watch too much TV
that I spend too much time on Twitter while she watches TV
that I don’t feed her enough food
that she eats too much junk food
that she doesn’t socialise with other children enough
that I don’t socialise with other parents enough
that sometimes I just want a break from the parenting stuff
that I should be looking for work even though it wouldn’t mean I was any better off right now
that I should be writing a novel/a screenplay/a play instead of blogging
that I should eat more healthily
that I should be a better sister/daughter/friend
that all this internal gibbering makes me a bad mother
that I’m not more proactive about a LOT of things
that I shout at Moo when I really don’t mean to
that sometimes I only really want some time on my own
that I’ve just spent fifteen quid in the supermarket on crap when I could budget properly and save cash
that I resent a lot of people who have what I don’t have even though I know that’s a horrid thing to do
that I know it could be a lot worse for me and I hate moaning
that I feel guilty about most of this stuff when I should just QUIT IT, FUCKSAKE – and man up…
You see? It’s a convoluted nightmare of epic proportions. And I’m only being a tiny bit dramatic there. Which I feel guilty about. Obvs.
What do you feel guilty about?
The Gallery – Self Portrait
I’m such a farking narcissist I couldn’t resist joining in The Gallery with this theme.
But lest you think I do ACTUALLY love myself , I really do not. I just wanted to show off the new Snapseed photo editing app I have on my phone. It is great and awesome. Lots of retro/grubby/dramatic filters and frames, and nice blurring tools. So. You can totally mess with your face. Which is fun.
I took a shot of myself and had a play. This is what happened:
I like to think I am GLOWING with some sort of supernatural evanescence. Spooky me.
I also like that my features have been almost obliterated by the filter. You can’t see what my mouth is doing. Am I smiling? Am I poking out my tongue? Am I mouthing something obscene? (probably)
If you would like to join in with The Gallery, or view the other entries, then please click the link below and spread the warm blog loving. Cheerio.
Sadness
Funny how there’s no limit to a sadness. How you can be smiling, and calm, and about your day like no one’s business, when all of a sudden, there’s your sadness, sitting in your neck like a nausea. This, my sadness, makes me feel somehow more than completely sad. A way of life. An enveloping fog. Like I’m being cuddled by a vapour which pricks my eyes. Will I ever not be sad? I don’t know. Too many sad things have happened lately, I suspect I’m primed for sadness now.
Anger thrusts and then dissipates. Jealousy itches, and is soothed away. Anxiety comes and goes, blue and heady. Denial sneaks a cheeky grin your way. Frustration prickles. Bravado barks the loudest, oh, it covers up a multitude of less forceful feelings, but it has no stamina, no sticking power. I admit, that public bluster is fun, I do it cos leaves me pink-cheeked and rocking with laughter, but too soon, it’s away.
Faithful sadness. Curled up on my chest, its tail around my throat.
No limit to a sadness.
Five Nights
Five nights. FIVE NIGHTS. Next week I will have FIVE MOO-LESS NIGHTS. That’s five whole nights and six whole days without my toddler. SHRIEK! And also, YAY! I mean, OBVS I will miss her like mentalissimo, and will probably spend the first few hours wandering round my house and making Marmite sandwiches for teddy bears and mournfully watching Cbeebies and sniffing her clothes, but THEN I reckon all the headiness of freedom will kick in and I’ll go out and, like, DO stuff.
The question is: WHAT the crap DO I DO with all that free time?
What do I ACTUALLY do?
And I am SERIOUSLY asking you here. See, this is my serious face: *does serious face*
I need suggestions. Obvs I want to make the most of such rare, precious, parental-duty-free time, and not just meld into my sofa watching the DVD box sets of Game of Thrones and The Killing (both on my to do list, natch) but I don’t really know WHAT I could do.
So far I’ve come up with:
- have a manicure (never had one before)
- go out and get drunk a lot
- triple bill at the cinema
- maybe overnight stay at the cinema
- go out and get drunk a lot
- a trip somewhere to see some people
- a trip somewhere to see some stuff
- a trip somewhere to see, erm, other stuff
Doing well, yeah? I know, right. I have NO IMAGINATION and I’m PANICKING.
C’mon, helpmehelpmehelpmehelpme. I need THINGS to do which will distract me from having no Moo, but which won’t cost a small fortune, and don’t require removing any body hair or injections.
Who knows, I may even blog about my escapades, if y’all give me some good stuff to do 
By the way, Moo is going to stay with her daddy for the week, I haven’t packed her off to the Foreign Legion or anyfink. Ahem.
Now I am very impressionable so keep your ideas clean, please. Oh fuck it who am I kidding, I want to feel like myself again. TELL ME WHAT TO DO. You know you want to…
*waits with bated breath*
Help
I am rrrrrrrrubbish at maths. Me and numbers, we don’t get along. They push all up in my face and make me itch and CONFUSE me with their fiddly-diddly numbering and multiplications and fancy-shmancy divisionals. Bleargh. Simply, I don’t do maths. Nope. This is why CALCULATORS were born, innit? And occasionally, if I need to do some urgent mathematicals, I just ask. I ask for help. I have no qualms about admitting I don’t do maths. ‘I can do WORDS,’ I intone, ‘words are MUCH FRIENDLIER and more comfortable and don’t SPIKE me so much.’ And then I get loads of sympathy and people absolutely do my maths for me. Hoopla!
See, no trouble asking for help with maths. None at all. I’ll do it right now – HELP ME HEEEEEELP MEEEEEE WITH THE EVIL SOUL-DESTROYING MATHS! Tada! Nice and clear intent, simple message, good emphasis. You got it, yeah?
Good. Go me!
Huh.
So why can’t I do it for other areas of my life?
Why can’t I say to someone, anyone, ‘Help, I need help, I’m struggling, I feel sad and alone, I’m so bored and freaking out, please help me, please just talk to me, or check I’m OK, please’?
And the STUPID THING IS, I deleted that sentence and rewrote it a few times to make it sound less needy. Fucksake.
I’m an idiot, essentially. I have excellent friends and a totes shawesomeballs family. They rock. I luff them lots. I KNOW I can rely on them for all the support, love, advice, and company I may need. I know this, and I’ve received a lot of that good stuff in the past. I just can’t ASK for it. I hate bothering people. I worry that they’ll feel obliged to help me, while muttering under their breath about how self-involved I am, and then I worry that they think I don’t appreciate them enough, when I do, I really absolutely totally do, and I am so grateful to everyone who ever helps me, ever. I feel, sometimes, like I have to persevere, and endure, because that’s what life is, and I should just quit moaning, get on and do it.
I’m a single mum. I do the parenting thing, on my own, for the best part of the week. It’s difficult and tiring and, haha, sometimes, almost as bad as doing maths. The relentlessness of playgroups, toddler groups, the supermarket, tidying up felt-tip fucking pens, wiping clean a shit-encrusted arse, feeding, bath time, pushing the buggy, hoovering up bits of crushed chalk, finding stickers in my knickers, having Cbeebies on for what feels like forever, finding fridge magnets in my bed, putting away, washing, hoovering, wiping, tidying, carrying, pushing, fucking-shitting-hula-hooping, why the fuck did I buy her a hula hoop… yeah. It’s full on. Sure, it’s not dodging bullets or fighting off sea monsters, but y’know.
The rewards are obvious. I have a beautiful, funny, gregarious daughter. I would do all the above, and more, and even more, and backwards, blindfolded, if it meant she was happy and healthy and having fun. Just sometimes, y’know, I need to acknowledge that it’s HARD on my own.
Despite me writing all this, I am not likely ever to admit to needing help. And I’d like to reiterate, I am NOT asking for help right now. The last few days I’ve needed to, badly, but I made it through. I’ve been busy, kept occupied, distracted my stupid brain and had a fucking good cry when I’ve needed to. I’ve set myself some personal goals. I’ve listened to the advice of some sage and learned people. I’ve managed to keep on top of the housework WHICH IS A FUCKING MIRACLE. See? Me no need help. Unless it’s for maths. Can anyone do my maths?
What I’m TRYING to say, in a roundabout-ish sorta way, is, don’t be a dumbarse like me. If you think you need help, ASK for some. There’s no shame in asking. Ever. If you have people around you who care, then ask them for help. It could be all they need to do is listen as you admit to feeling scared, or sad, or lonely. I told someone today that I felt like shite and, funnily enough, felt better for it. Once the words had crept past my lips it was like I’d expelled them. Magic. Sure, it doesn’t solve everything but at least it’s not bottled up inside me where the most damage is done. Admission counts. Fo sho.
Please do my maths.
Do you find it difficult asking for help? What stops you? What would you never ask for help with?
On It
Can’t think of the last time I was on it. And in this instance, I mean ON IT LIKE A CAR BONNET. A phrase which conjures up colourful images of doing THINGS on car bonnets. But hang on a mother-picking minute – when was the last time I was ON a car bonnet? Have I EVER been on a car bonnet? And, are you actually ALLOWED on car bonnets? Like, recreationally? Or is it something attempted under the cover of darkness and incognito? In which case, that means there are A LOT of people currently bandying around the phrase ‘Yeah! I am on it like a car bonnet!’ who have NO INTENTION of getting on a car bonnet and doing the thing they are supposed to be doing, for fear of being caught and detained and possibly made to apologise to the owner of the car bonnet for violating such a personal place. How fucking disingenuous! Innit.
So here I am, openly admitting that, yeah, I am not on it. Not even near a car bonnet right now. There’s one over there *points out of the window* but it looks a bit damp. So I’m not getting on it. I wish I was on it. Not that car bonnet, not literally, just… oh YOU KNOW. Figuratively on it. Just for once I’d like to feel capable, organised, and IN CONTROL. How does that happen? Is there a button I press? Which bastard hid my button? Bastards.
On the surface, I have fuck all to complain about. There are worse things happening in the world and I am uber-grateful none of them are happening to me. But I’m an introspective and overthinking kind of gal so these are my demons, y’see. Haunting me. Waking me in the night and making me think the awful things about myself that, ordinarily, I can subdue. I convince myself that I’m a horrid, mean little person, undeserving of love and affection. I tell myself that Moo would be better off without me, as I am pretty sure I’m not doing this parenting stuff properly. I think, deep down, that all the evil, dark, gluey stuff that I want no one to know about me just surfaces and spills from my orifices and then everyone will see me for who I really am, or think I’m someone that I really really hope I’m not. And, turns out, I’m obsessed. Obsessed with MYSELF. Which is STUPID, as this post is all about me, so I’m kind of perpetuating the obsession, and yeah, I kind of hate myself for it. Sucks, huh?
We all have off days. Some days, we are so off, we end up standing over there, by ourselves, looking maudlin and picking the skin from our lips. Oh, just me? Shit. Anyway, what I’m saying is, I know this cycle of spurious self-flagellation will peter out eventually (hopefully, desperately) soon. I know that at some point, I will wake up and think ‘Yeah! I am ON IT like a MOTHERFUCKING CAR BONNET’ and do a little victory dance, in my pants, by the side of the bed, like people who are winning at life do. That’s worth waiting for, so I believe. And in the meantime, I’m trying not to beat myself up and vomit self-pity everywhere. Oh, what? I already did? Oops.
Having a blog gives a voice to these feelings. No one is obliged to reply or comment. I’m not fishing for reassurance. This is CATHARTIC. It’s like, I feel BAD, I write it all down, feel a bit silly, then feel better and get on with my day. You may recognise yourself in my words, or you might be thinking, ‘Shut your whining, bitch, and blog about periods or muff or something’. Whatevs. There’s space here for thoughts and I just filled it, innit. If you’re brave enough, you can be one of those people who give me a virtual slap and yell at me to pull myself together. Be brave, mind. Very brave.
So, on with my day. I’ve got a wild toddler to corral, a bodacious play to perform in, and a sweaty pair of fishnets to slip into.
On it.
How do you stay on it? Literally? No, ha ha, I mean figuratively. No, I do mean literally. Maybe.
The Little Book of motherventing
*sings* Shiny, shiny new book for you! Who wants a new book? Is it you? Oh please do! *stops singing*
OK so I’m no Gary farking Barlow, it took me TEN MINUTES to compose that jolly ditty and I’m farking PROUD, yeah? Joy does strange things to your mind and, absolutely totally for a moment there I thought I was capable of producing song. Well, turns out I am shit at that, but what I am good at it is blogging and stuff, and to prove it, I’ve published a little ebook which you might purchase for your good selves, called…
*drumroll*
The Little Book of motherventing
YAY!
That’s it, that’s my blog post book, all the good stuff from motherventing compiled and compacted into uber-shminky digital form, without any guff or nonsense to distract you from the quality spaff.
And all for the princely sum of £1.02!
That is LITERALLY the best £1.02 you will EVER spend. I guarantee you. And if it’s not, just let me know, and I’ll refund* you. (*I won’t. I’ll hex you instead)
S’all I have to say for now. If you have ever read any of my blog posts and thought they were all right/awesome/like the bible only better, then please do reach into your capacious bank accounts and download my book to carry with you forever. It might give me the impetus to write mooooooore.
If you don’t have an Kindle or other electronic reading device, you can download a reading app for your computer or whatever, and that is free. And THEN you can buy my book. Aha.
Instructions, for the bewildered and overwhelmed:
- buy book
- read book
- laugh, cry, vomit, whatevs
- leave a five star review
- read book again
- send me biscuits
That’s pretty much it. Easy, mais non?
£1.02. You know it makes sense.
I loves y’all. Thank you.
*exits, mounted on a unicorn*
Happy New Year
Oh hello! Hi. HELLO YOU LOVELY LOT. Hey, how are you doin’?
Me, yeah I’m OK. Bit weird this, isn’t it? I mean, I stopped blogging, and I haven’t really missed it, and I did a few guest posts for people, and I promised myself to even more people and I haven’t delivered yet oops sorry about that, and now, here I am, surreptitiously raising my head over the parapet to blog something here and now AND, actually, to wish y’all a Happy New Year and felicitations for 2013.
So. Happy New Year. And felicitations. For, well, 2013. Innit.
*twiddles thumbs*
Hmm? Oh, no, no, I’m not going to do a review of the year or any of that bollocks. Mostly cos some parts would be me just going ‘AAAAAARRRRGGNNNGHHHHHH’ and crying into a tea towel, other bits would be too saucy for your discerning eyes, and everything else was just farking mundane. Let’s just say, 2012 could have been better, BUT, technically, it could have been A LOT worse, and I am thankful, as ever, that it wasn’t.
Then what’s this all about? Why this sudden break in hiatus? Why the early retirement from the, erm, early retirement?
Well, my little Movotians, I have two tiny pieces of news for you. Teeny tiny. Minuscule. Barely relevant. You might even want to look away now, and go do something else. What? Oh, I’m being a tease? Yeah but you love it. You so do. Stop dribbling on me.
Seriously. I am trying to be serious. Here’s some news. Firstly, very soon, you will be able to download me. YEAH THAT’S RIGHT. There’s a book being made out of motherventing as we speak. All the best bits, with none of that meme crap or acres of Silent Sunday photos of Moo. But with most of the swearing, all of the naked photos and lots of the muff. Y’know, the bits you really like.
Hoorah! That’s good, mais non? Excited? Excellent. Please make sure you buy it when it’s available, and then maybe I can afford some food. KIDDING. We don’t need food. Moo and I, however, would like to build a helter-skelter in our backyard. All funds from The Little Book of MoVo will go towards that. IT’S A WORTHY CAUSE, PEOPLE. You know it makes sense.
Helter-skelters aside, what’s the other news, you may be asking yourself. Well… turns out I may have told a little white lie at the beginning of this post. Y’see, I stopped blogging as motherventing. But I didn’t stop blogging. Nope. I’ve been blogging since October. As someone else.
And that’s where I’ll leave that, I think.
Ooohhhhh I’m such a TEASE.
Unless it’s really obvious anyway and now I just seem like a complete tit.
Ack, who cares. It’s New Year’s Day, the start of a brand new year. Obvs. Time for, um, stuff to happen. Kind of. Maybe.
I’m rambling. I’ll stop. Oh it’s been WONDERFUL seeing y’all again, do drop by soon! Watch this space.
*disappears in a puff of smoke* *cough cough*
Goodbye
Hello! And, erm, goodbye.
This is going to be my last post, on this blog, for a long while, maybe forever. I’ve been agonising a while about blogging and asking myself why I’m doing it, and I can’t answer that any more without feeling like I’m forcing something that isn’t there, or isn’t happening easily any more, and is becoming a chore, and is kind of leaving me empty rather than full of yay-woop-woop-wahoooooo-a-go-go like it used to. Does that make sense? No? Shit.
Look, I love blogging. I love motherventing. It’s been a total blast. I’ve met some great people. Had some good times. Posted some awesome stuff, even if I do say so myself, and I want to clarify now that I am NOT deleting the blog, it will remain passive but online till I can work out how to utilise my blogging skillz and take over the world. So if you’re lonely one night and really, really want to read about my periods, or my dubious solo dildo-based personal lovemaking, or gaze rapturously at my naked photos, or make yourself feel better by recalling how shit my life got at some points, then by all means, do. I ain’t gonna stop you. Be my guest!
Readers, I love y’all. I am so insanely pleased that I managed to acquire and maintain an actual readership, and if it wasn’t for you lot, I’d have farked off ages ago. I hope no one thinks I’m a noob for bowing out so gracelessly but I feel motherventing has reached an end and it really absolutely totally is time to go. Once I’d made the decision all I felt was relief and I think that’s a pretty good indication that I’ve made the correct choice.
It will be uber-hard to let go, I have no illusions about that. Consequently, I am offering myself as a guest blogger, should anyone wish to have me thrust myself upon their blog every now and again. I am a writer, and a blogger, at heart, and I NEED to keep my creative juices spaffing, without the enormous task of keeping my own blog running. And it IS an enormous task – at my peak, I was blogging at least once a day, as well as replying to comments, reading and commenting on other people’s blogs, and promoting myself on Twitter – and yes, talking crap on Twitter is promoting oneself, innit – and it all got a bit otherworldly. It’s not my living, it’s a hobby. Hobbies should be fun. Sadly, motherventing stopped being fun. This way, I can free myself up to work on other projects which might end up being more fruitful.
One thing I will say – it could be advice, but never let it be said that I know anything about something – is that in retrospect, I made this blog too personal. I wrote about people and relationships that should have been kept private. At the time I believed I had a right to record situations and their effect on me with impunity. I kinda wish I hadn’t now. It’s not fair. The fallout has been deeper and more lasting than I could’ve thought. Conversely, and rather meanly, I don’t think I can be true to myself if I DON’T write about such things. It’s a vicious circle, and one I’ve been caught in for a long while. It’s time for me to look after myself emotionally for a change. Gawd knows I need to.
Ack, here I am rambling on, you’re probably waiting for me to shut the fark up. OK. Look. I’m still on Twitter, I’ll still read and comment on my favourite blogs, I’ll still write things for other bloggy folk, and who knows, one day, I might come back in a new, improved guise, and blow y’all away with my shmexy rhetoric and insightful witticisms. Ahem. Maybe.
Readers. From the bottom of my bottom, thank you. For everything.
My beautiful daughter, the incomparable Moo, is awake, and demands my attention. And as you know, she is VERY demanding. So I’ll say goodbye.
I will miss you loads.
*blows kisses*
*retreats into castle*
*lowers portcullis*
All Change
I’ve not been around much lately. This is not because – as some of you may suspect – I have been holed up in my lair with only a dildo for company. It’s good, but it’s not THAT good. Nope.
Not been around cos of Moo, innit. The little minx has dropped her afternoon nap, and decided that bedtime is for losers. I’ve been battling on an epic scale to get her into her cot each evening, and despite me throwing everything in my arsenal at her, it has been a proper clash of wills and a few times, it felt like she was winning. Moo – WINNING. And I hate losing. Hate it. I don’t lose, if I can help it. But to be bested by my 22 month old daughter feels particularly galling. I think, sometimes, just the fact that she was utterly exhausted meant that I triumphed. It is a bittersweet victory though, cos I’m farking knackered too, all the bloody time, innit.
So it’s all change here, I’m afraid. My current strategy of Do A Lot Of Physical Activity During The Day So That The Rambunctious Toddler Is Farking Shattered By Dinnertime seems to be working so far. Sadly it leaves me very little room for blogging and other online shenanigans, especially as my evenings will be taken up with play rehearsals as well, the further into September/October we go. Previous to this evening, I had not checked my emails since Saturday. SATURDAY! FFS. This is alien to me. And I’d barely surfaced on Twitter. My stats for motherventing are abysmal. Which irks me. A bit. Sigh.
But, y’know. Life is life, as someone wise once said. Maybe this is a wake up call and I need to accept that I can’t commit to an online existence of such scale (and really, if I’m honest, compared to some bloggers, I hardly scratch the surface) while my daughter is this young and needs my attention. Maybe I’ve immersed myself within this medium to such an extent that I’m losing sight of what matters. What is this blog, anyway? It’s not a job, it’s not furthering a career – it’s a hobby, an online diary, that I use for myself, and yeah, I get great page views if I blog on a daily basis, but now I no longer have the opportunity to do that, is it worth it me castigating myself about this? Nah. Not so much.
I love blogging. I do. It’s a form of expression which suits me greatly. I may not be everyone’s cup of hot chocolate and to be honest, I don’t really care what the haters think of me, they can suck on it and fark off while they’re there. And then fark off a little bit further. Yet as much as I love blogging, I’m backing off a bit. Just a smidge. I have a toddler to tame and she’s feisty. Once I’ve worked out what makes her tick, and I can deal with her, I’ll be back on it like a car bonnet. You wait and see.
All change, then. Change is good. Change is healthy. *sweats a bit* So I don’t blog every day, yeah? *twitches*
Oh fark.
How often is enough for you? Can blogging get stale if done every day?
