Sorry, but I ain’t buying the crap you’re selling!
Now, I’m not saying we all need to start posting Facebook pics of our 6am pre-coffee faces or the pile of washing that by Friday is easily the height of the kitchen table. But, seriously, ‘Fakebook’ is getting out of hand, and, from what I can see, it is putting undue stress on other down to earth ‘normal’ mums who are being bombarded with these unattainable, staged snapshots of other people’s lives.
Of course everything looks magnificent in the selfie you posted (three weeks after giving birth) whilst jogging along the promenade with your perfectly done make-up, bugaboo, and pristine pink Adidas (which clearly have never seen a muddy puddle in their life…). But those of us who know a thing or two about having young kids will know that, before you set off on your run, you just spent forty minutes in the carpark trying to feed your child - then, you had to somehow hoist out and assemble your pram from the boot one-handed because ‘said’ child would not go back into their car seat for all of two minutes without screaming so loud the nearby seagulls decided to set off on early migration! Then… once you eventually got the opportunity to prance off down the busy promenade (to get the all important selfie) you were restricted to a snails’ pace for fear of knocking over an OAP (probably resulting in you having burned off the equivalent of half a digestive biscuit…). Then you eventually get back to the car only to realise that the child’s nappy is at bursting point, and your pram has dog poo on the wheels!
So that’s the reality of motherhood! Anything else should be considered ‘false advertising’. Of course, this is a hypothetical example and its not all bad but it’s certainly not easy! In actual fact, I think I would go so far as to say that, if you are a mum and your life is in fact a breeze, you are doing something seriously wrong…!
Sorry folks…rant over…ha. Back to the story.
So, I was working away in my nice little job in the city, but starting to regret that I hadn’t pursued my dream. But with a young family and all the responsibilities that that entails, I had long since said goodbye to my now unfeasible pursuit of happiness. Until…
One very average day I was dealing with a customer who had come in to discuss a faulty product. It just so happened that her son was heavily involved with rugby, and, as my husband also played, we got chatting, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something I really liked about her. We somehow ended up chatting about her daughter’s horse, which then lead to the following discussion.
“Actually I always wanted to be an equine vet… guess we don’t always get what we want,” I said.
“Why didn’t you” she replied immediately.
“Well, you see, I had a little boy instead!”
“Ah, I see.”
I nodded in agreement, but then unexpectedly she fired back with;
“Well I wouldn’t let that stop you! Would you not think about going back to study?”
“What now?”
“Yes!”
At which point I thought either A) this woman hasn’t heard me properly or B) she’s a sandwich short of a picnic.
“No, no, I left that notion behind a long time ago.” I laughed
“Ah well. Fair enough, as long as you are happy” she said, with a sympathetic smile.
Once she had left a member of staff came scurrying over to me and said, you know the lady you where just with? Well she is one of the top paediatric surgeons in NI, she looked after my nephew a number of years back.
Really?? I though she just seamed like a very nice, inconspicuous ‘mumsie’ sort of lady, definitely not the type I would have expected to find wielding a scalpel in her day job (I know, I know, idiot for stereotyping)!
On the way home I couldn’t stop churning over what she had said.
I kept asking myself, am I happy here? Like, actually happy? Is this my life for the next forty-five years?
It’s not like I’m very unhappy, I thought, but then again I wouldn’t say that I’m happy either. Maybe you could call it subclinical unhappiness or something like that.
Anyway, a week or so went by when, totally out of the blue, I arrived into work, and one of the girls handed me a parcel. It was wrapped with brown paper and tied with twine. I opened it and it was a book (DISCLAIMER: I’m not on commission nor do offer any guarantees that it actually works). It was the much talked about (and often controversial) book called “The Secret”. My name was scribbled on the inside but no name left or suggestion of whom it might be from, on quizzing the messenger, the description matched the lady’s to a T.
How very odd, I thought.
I guess I’m a bit of a skeptic, and the idea of a book that could actually change your entire outlook on life seemed ridiculous. The only other book I’ve heard of with that effect is the Bible, and that seemed like a lot to live up to…!
Anyway, since someone went to the bother of giving it to me, I felt duty bound to read it. That weekend, I curled up on the sofa with a cuppa and began; but, oddly for me, I couldn’t put it down. Some of the stuff I thought a bit far-fetched, but mostly I quite liked the principle behind it the idea ‘a positive mind-set will attract positivity to your life’ (I suppose its not an entirely new concept).
I guess it could be argued the events which were to follow may have happened anyway, but I can say it did give me an unusual sense of empowerment over my fate. It was almost as if I had been sitting in the passenger-seat while the car was freewheeling, when suddenly I realised I could take the wheel and drive wherever I wanted…
