Posts Tagged "doubt"
I have confidence in… erm… something?
Picture if you will.
I am sat here in my jeans and over-sized sweater and my messy boy hair, wearing novelty socks and eating too many chocolate digestives. I haven’t brushed my teeth yet. Unlike most mornings, today I did manage a whole fifteen minutes under a hot shower while Kai emptied the bathroom rubbish bin of tissues (don’t judge me – I’m strengthening his immune system), but absorbed in my hot-shower bliss I may have absent mindedly shampooed three times and conditioned twice so the messy boy hair is slightly lank. The over-sized sweater despite being clean on this morning already has some banana on one sleeve and what I think may be snot on the other. In the last 24 hours I have burst into tears a record number of five times and kicked two inanimate objects. I have had four hours sleep.
There are many things this scene screams. Confident, secure, fully-functioning grown-up is not one of them.
I have been struggling especially with the C word lately. No, not THAT C word. Confidence.
You see I seem to have mislaid mine. It’s not down the back of the sofa with the half-eaten rice cake. It’s not in the overflowing washing basket (hell it wouldn’t fit in there). It is not hidden behind the pile of clever books I can’t bring myself to read.
In fact, I don’t know where the frick it is. I haven’t seen it in quite a while.
More and more I envy those people who seem to ooze it from every perfect blemish-free pore. Those people that manage to combine motherhood with work and successful careers, with exciting projects coming out of their every orifice . Managing to fit deadlines around school runs, gym sessions and skin care regimes.
It’s like they are privy to a secret I have no idea about, passed about in hushed whispers while I was in the loo.
Around you – yes you accomplished people, I am left feeling so ineffective. So immature.
Why do I feel like this? Where on earth was I when the confidence ticket was handed out? (in the loo again probably – really should have worked harder on my pelvic floor).
I am 27. But I look kind of young for my age. I have a tendency to get written off by people, spoken to by strangers with that unique mix of patronising sympathy and instant dismissal. Old ladies can never believe it when I mention a husband, “but my, you’re too young to be married surely?!” and act surprised when I manage to come out with a vaguely intelligent or articulate comment. I always get asked for ID – once when I was buying PETROL which was more than insulting (surely I look older than 17? Don’t I??!!) My brother is two and half years younger then me and I look like his scruffy kid sister.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m sure when I’m 40 I will be grateful of this fact but right now it’s not really helping in the confidence department.
Social situations? Oh god where do I start. The stuttering? The complete brain freezes that make me incapable of speech? The completely irrational habit of coming away from all social encounters feeling dreadfully insecure and convinced I am the most scorned and despised person on the face of this planet?? I’ll stop there.
And then there’s work. Or ‘work’ as it should probably be referred to. Finding your way as a fledgling writer is not easy I can tell you. One of my opening exercises with my writing course was to free-write about your doubts about becoming a successful writer. I wrote six pages without even blinking. The thought of me ‘making it’ seems laughable. Successful writing seems to require a breeziness and articulate confidence that I can only imagine.
(Oh god. This is turning into a whiney post isn’t it. I apologise – there is a point I promise.)
It’s just I’ve been wondering what it is I’m missing? The right hair cut? The right clothes? The right pen? An ability to speak in whole sentences?
It’s easy to feel like those things would make all the difference but somehow I doubt it.
It’s also easy to feel like I’m the only one in the world left feeling so small, so insignificant.
But I’m not. I know I’m not.
I casually mention on Twitter about feeling like this and all of sudden I’m met with dozens of responses. All from women who say they feel the same. Many of them successful, accomplished women whom I admire.
And I’m left wondering… maybe the idea of a mysterious, innate secret to confidence is a misnomer? Perhaps, actually, none of us are the secure, confident people we imagine each other to be.
Maybe it’s not about FINDING confidence at all but actually just about FAKING it? And some people are just much better fakers than others?
So do you know what? That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to give up trying to find it and settle for faking it instead.
And we’ll see what happens.
Now where’s that guitar case? I need to go swing it round on a mountain top.
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Taking a bit of a breather from the Sleep Carnival today – but do keep your submissions coming in, especially if you want to get your hands on the prize of all prizes which still seems to be causing a ridiculous amount of hysteria (not that I can blame you).
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Writer’s (Starting) Block
So here I am. About to take my metaphorical first steps. My feet are poised hesitantly behind a thick line in the dirt and I am waiting for the whistle. It’s bit like at sports day – ever so often the excitement, the sense of forward momentum pushing me forward makes my toes creep over the line, only to be swiftly shuffled back again quick. No. Not yet toes. Wait.
My creative writing course materials arrived on Friday. Shiny new textbooks and crisp timetables and study planners giving me that lovely new-term feeling. Right, time for action then. Time to get this baby STARTED!
But first off? Well, I’m going to need some new stationary. Obviously! Can’t be a writer without the right stationary.
Kai needs a nap so off I trundle to Partners, timing it so he’ll fall asleep in the pushchair before I get there to give me extra browsing time. I have such a weakness for stationary. I spend a good twenty minutes deciding on the right pens, testing them out on the little pads of paper. Nope, too scratchy. Nope, too thick and splodgy. Ahh, perfect. This is a writer’s pen. Smooth, flowing, black ink making thin, deliberate lines. I leave a few swirly loops on the pad as demonstration of my obvious writing potential. I’ll need six. Obviously. In case one runs out mid-creative outpouring. And a red one and a blue one too. For contrast. And underlining.
What’s next? Notebook. Hmm. Lined or blank? Oh god. I can’t decide. Blank seems… scary, daunting. That’s a lot of space to fill. A lot of blank pages. And what if I start writing something and my writing starts slanting upwards? How on earth would that look? How on earth could I dare to call myself a writer if I couldn’t even write in a straight line?? It’s going to have to be lined. I like lines – they make me feel… safe. Besides, the lines fill up some of blankness. That means I’ll have to do less writing to fill it. Quick thinking Josie. It’s that kind of creative thinking that’s going to make you a GREAT writer.
Hmm. There’s a lot of different colours. Which is more writery do you think? Winnie the Pooh? No – not quite the serious image I’m looking for. Plain black? Mysterious and elusive - I like it. I picture myself seated at small table in a cafe, steaming cup of coffee at hand, gazing wistfully and agonisingly out of the window and making frantic (but perfectly straight) scribbles in my beautiful (black?) notebook. Ooh wait! A red and black swirly one. I like it – says mature and yet wildly creative. Dangerous even. Perfect.
Next up. Pencil case. Well, where else am I going to keep all my beautiful pens? Oh and my highlighter. And ruler. And surgically sharp HB pencil with pencil sharpener (in case I want to do some whimsical sketches to accompany my hard hitting literary observations). I am seriously tempted by a Charlie and Lola one (“I am too extremely very busy”) but it is pink. I don’t do pink (unless it’s milk). No serious writer would be seen dead with a pink pencil case. Black and unassuming it is (with a few anarchic spots).
Right I think that will do – Kai’s awake and I promised him we could sit on the grass and eat leaves for a bit. Ooh wait! A dictionary and thesaurus are on sale! Well that’s a must have. God only knows, I don’t know how to spell. And I am almost certainly going to need to know the various synonyms for important words like “very” and “nice” and “awesome”.
Home now. Kai’s in bed. It’s time to get going.
Oh but I think I better just cover my text books first. You know, in that sticky plastic stuff, because you just know that Kai is going to get banana or flapjack or dribble on them. And proper writers can’t be working from text books that have grubby baby finger marks all over them. And I have to get all the bubbles out. Obviously. No point doing a job if I’m not going to do it well.
Phew I think I better go to bed! Hard work this writing business…
Right then. Finally some free time. Stationary bought, books covered, timetable stuck up in a obvious place with blue-tack. Study guide read. Assessment guide read.
I flick through the workbook. Scary phrases like “writing schedule”, “drafting”, “dialogue” jump out at me.
Oh god. I’m going to to have to do some writing now aren’t I?
What do you mean there’s no whistle? You mean I can just go? Whenever I want?
But I’m scared.
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Read MoreWhy I am not a supermom
First of all I have to ask. Which one of you has cursed my house? Because, as is fast becoming an almost weekly occurance in our family, we have been struck down by the illness fairy once again. And by ‘we’ I mean ‘me’. A throat infection, a low-grade fever and the weak-and-wobblies have meant Kai has once again had to be subjected to the bare minimum of parenting and opened the doors to my usual guilt-ridden worries that I am not doing ENOUGH.
Why is it a few days of feeling under the weather causes me to doubt every single one of my parenting choices, life choices and pretty much every other aspect of my self in one fell swoop? All I have been able to do this last couple of days is curl up in a ball on the sofa and moan faintly while Kai looked on bemused and tried to feed me various bits of half-eaten rice cake that he had squirrelled away in his toy box.
The killing blow (and ultimate salvation) came in the form of The Mom Blog. Not mine but other moms’. You see I’m fairly new to the world of blogging and although I didn’t think for a second my contributions to the bloggosphere were in any way different or special, I hadn’t quite realised just what a teeny tiny insignificant speck I was in the vast universe of the Mommy Bloggers until I started looking. There’s frickin millions of them. Which isn’t in itself a bad thing, until I started reading and found that the vast majority of the ones I came across were very obviously the work of neat, ordered self-congratulatory, self-important, taking-everything-far-too-seriously SUPERMOMS.
And reading them I was suddenly left feeling very small, very immature, very incompetent and completely unqualified to be a mother (or a blogger).
Because I am NOT, in any way, shape, or form a supermom. Not even close.
For starters I do not bake. I am in fact a dreadful cook. I have never made home-made soup or pasta sauce. My son often eats frozen fishfingers and ravioli from a can. My crowning culinary achievement lately was to mash pre-bought roast potatoes with a fork and grill them with sprinkled spring onion and cheese (was yum though). My cupboards contain tinned mince and dry spaghetti. I don’t know what a ‘caper’ is. I don’t frequent deli’s, or buy organic unless it’s on sale (because I’m broke). I often eat chocolate for breakfast. Or biscuits.
I do not own a shining stainless-steel bedecked kitchen in which I wear an apron or from which waft the delightful smells of cookie dough or roast dinners. My kitchen is in fact this:
Two square metres of cramped appliances and this morning’s washing up all of which smells of catfood and damp and may or may not have previously undiscovered forms of life making a cosy home behind the fridge.
I do not pray with my child, or at my child, or about my child (preferring to talk to said child himself, and my husband, and other REAL people when I have a problem). I do not attend a bible study group, or go to church, unless you count the very excellent church-run playgroup I attend but even then I have a tendency to mysteriously disappear when they start with the inevitable baby Jesus songs.
I do not have a ‘good’ child. He does not sleep on demand or without assistance. He is, I fear, a very long way from ‘sleeping through the night’. He is often lively, noisy, demanding and extremely separation-sensitive. If you are male and not in his immediate family you WILL make him scream just by looking at him. He probably watches too much tv. When tired, frustrated or over excited he bites and scratches. He is not particularly fond of vegetables.
My (mostly second hand) clothes don’t fit well and are not particular fashionable. I don’t have a personal style or have a skincare regime. I prefer to buy groceries than pay for expensive hair styles so my hair leaves rather a lot to be desired. If you were being kind you would call it ‘tousselled’. I don’t own a single pair of heels (given my tendency to fall down even when wearing flats) but do own several pairs of well-loved trainers. I have yet to figure out how to make it through the day without getting covered in food, sick, poo or wee. I could count on one hand the number of times I have worn make-up in the last year.
I am not the social epi-centre of a trendy group of friends. I tend to be the one sitting in the corner looking tired, dishevelled, and coming across a little weird. I either talk too much or not at all. I laugh too loud, have a tendency to mix my words up and the awful habit of not finishing my sentences. In the last twelve months I have had two evenings out without the baby. Neither of which involved drinking cocktails or dancing. Both of which involved knitting and drinking tea at my best friend’s house 100 metres away.
I am not a measured oasis of calm. I do not bend in the wind. I have a tendency to be selfish and resentful. I frequently neglect my husband in favour of a little extra stolen ‘me’ time. I often fall apart, have meltdowns, cry, scream and then hurriedly put myself back together again before anyone notices.
I swear too much.
So no. Definitely not a supermom.
So bombarded as I was with tales of bible camp, and bake sales, and endless photos of shining, clean, perfect babies (who I’m positive slept like angels, the little sh*ts) and their shining, clean, perfect moms, I was left feeling pretty much like crap.
And there I probably would have stayed. Feeling like crap. Except thankfully I didn’t. Because I kept looking and I kept reading. And hidden in amongst the endless drivel I found my salvation.
Other not-supermoms. Yep. Thank the sweet Lord.
Other moms that swear and struggle and take the piss out of themselves and their lives and laugh at everything (that kind of slightly hysterical laughter that sounds a little like sobbing). Who have equally grubby, wild children and equally grubby, unkempt houses. Who choose blogging over housework and say that if you’re child is playing happily it’s perfectly acceptable to steal a little extra writing time.
I love these moms. Suddenly, being given free reign to eavesdrop on their lives and their mistakes and their mini-meltdowns, I felt sane again. It was ok to not be perfect. In fact, it was pretty cool. For all their shortcomings these moms were obviously intelligent, accomplished, successful, witty, and despite all their self-deprecation, completely and utterly awesome mommies.
I was happy to be in their camp. Well, happy to in the anonymous periphery of their camp. If I can ever manage to be even half as good a writer, comedian, social commentator or creative free-spirit as most of these women I will consider myself to have done very well indeed.
Screw you supermoms.
So here it is, for your enjoyment: my honour blogroll of the moment. Thank you ladies for restoring my sanity and giving me some much needed reassurance this week. For telling me it’s ok to find motherhood impossibly hard and ok not to take it all too seriously.
I love you. Please keep writing.
