In Time

I am very fat these days but like to think I am a soft cushion for my babies. None of those waist training things. I am also in the stage of life where I have no time for what my generation like to call ‘self care’.

Now if I were from another era, I would be going to the salon weekly to do my hair. I would have a manicure and a pedicure, and leave my children with the nanny. Maybe. Or family. If they lived closer. I would spend time on my wardrobe and have a select number of outfits which complement my hair and handbags. And shoes.

I would have all the time in the world to figure out how to wash the clothes properly in the machine so they don’t lose their softness and don’t develop nasty little balls on them. Or feel stiff when they should be slinky.

I would figure out how to utilise vinegar and soda crystals to ensure my oven was sparking, my sink smelled fresh and my washing machine was a happy little Larry.

As it stands, I find myself in a constant state of disrepair. I look like I have been dragged through a bush by my toes. My hair is a mess, my feet are so embarrassingly rough, my hands look dry and rough and …. not feminine and soft. My fingertips are all peeling. My nails are jagged and weird. My laundry gets done but always comes out wrong, even though I research the right way to do things. Sometimes they get left in the machine overnight because I am too exhausted to remember to hang them out and my husband is…. a forgetful annoying person.

No sooner do I clean than things get messy again.

And daily

Daily..

DAILY…

I find myself musing on the precious thing we call time.

Time and hours.

If I spend time working out I have to then spend time showering. If I want to look good I have to spend time doing things to my hair and skin and selecting a nice outfit and making sure my eyebrows are trimmed and my feet aren’t rough. All that takes time. Hours.

I also have to have my babies in clean nappies, clean outfits, and have them have a good sense of hygiene. That means hair and teeth brushed, nails clipped, feet clean, socks on, and all that shabang.

iI have to educate them and talk to them and read to them and teach them good life hacks and how to be healthy members of society. I have to take them out and expose them to things and give them experiences.

They must also be fed and not packet food. Broths and vegetables and wholesome grains. THAT TAKES TIME. I can no longer shove any old thing in the oven. I do that sometimes but I do feel guilty because I KNOW what is good for their growth.

So what is a priority?

I also have work to do and research for a literature review. I have to put in hours after the kids are asleep, and the house also needs cleaning? Mopping? Dusting? Fridge cleaned? Oven cleaned?

You see what i mean?

You can’t have a spick and span house, a well-groomed good looking persona, healthy, happy, clean kids and a steady job and good education all in one go.

Lord knows I try every single goddamn day.

THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH HOURS IN THE DAY.

So I end up wearing the same uniform daily. T shirt, shorts, slippers. Hair back in a bun. Time for perfume? Maybe. Always a sports bra. I end up prioritising dressing my kids over myself. Feeding them healthy foods over myself. Educating them and taking them to places. Drinking coffee and coffee and coffee. Strong and black and in a huge mug. Only hygiene is brushing teeth and MAYBE hair. Washing face. Quick shower after they sleep. No creams anymore. No makeup anymore. No nice shoes and cute dresses.

I wish I could look like those mums. YOU know those mums? With the nice outfits and matchy matchy with their little girls. But I really don’t know how they do it? I wake up groggy and feeling like I haven’t slept enough (spoiler alert: I have not). I have to sort the babies out and feed them asap because if I don’t… they suffer and show me. Can’t put mascara on while they wail at me for their porridge.

I don’t know why I write this.

It’s just a reflection I guess.

Just some thoughts I am having about time and what to do with it.

Like right now I could be at the gym right? It’s 8:45pm and my babies have gone to sleep.

But here I sit writing this.

Priorities, ey?

On 7 Years

Happy WordPress-i-versary to me!

It’s been 7 years since I started a blog on WordPress.

This was my first ever post.

This was my second ever post.

I was a little old 19 year old back then, I had a very messy bedroom and fancied myself quite… well I don’t know. I remember feeling happy and comfortable in my skin and rather excited about life – I think it was because I had just met my husband-to-be and that was a Very Exciting Time.

It was better than being 18 and being manipulated by a psychopath but that’s another story.

I am now 26, and look back on those times wistfully. They were simpler times. I am glad to have lived them.

In seven years I have moved 5 times, got married, had a baby with another on the way, had six jobs, travelled 10 times, lost a lot of friends, gained some very special friends, and jolly well grew up.

I did not write a book, although do have three or four in various stages of being written.

I still love this blog, and blogging, and I don’t anticipate that I will stop blogging for a while.

It’s not a long time, 7 years, but a lot can happen in 7 years.

How long have you been blogging for?

Running

I am challenging myself to write a post every single day in May, to kickstart my writing again. I will be following some prompt words that I ‘stole’ from somebody on instagram. Here is my first post.

I am always running, I think.

Running from the past, because I didn’t want to be there. Bitter memories, silly mistakes. Teenagehood for me was not a good space. I wasted too much time being sad. I wasted too much time staring at doors that wouldn’t open because I was too afraid to reach out and pull the handle.

Running to the future, wishing the hours away.

Enjoy your time now, they said.

But now was too painful. Too shy. Too slow. Too impatient.

Enjoy your pregnancy, they said. I stared at them. How could I, when I was exhausted every second and heaving my guts out.

Now I am wistful a lot and miss the old days when my husband and I had a relationship. Now, how do I enjoy now when we never get a moment together? How to enjoy the now when I am sleep deprived?

Enjoy it now, they grow so fast!

Two months and already features are solidifying, face less squished, character appearing from a pair of bright, eager eyes. I can’t believe I am going to say, this, I miss the newborn days.

Stop running from the past. Stop running, wishing for the future.

Enjoy it now. I know the words mean something momentous, but the meaning escapes me until time has whipped it out of my grasp.

Stop running. Stand still. Breath. Feel. Savour.

Running with the Hare by Trudy Doyle

 

Snapshot

I took a snapshot in my memory the other day. It was a brilliant moment. A flash, if you will. A photograph seared in time.

Perhaps my brain has already changed it. I remember it so vividly, and it is an incredible and saddening thought to me that my brain edits the things I remember. Do you ever wonder if your memories are real, or just mere constructions of your psych?

 

The moment the sun gave its last kiss to her part of the earth as it sunk below the horizon. Its last hurrah, she thought, watching as the bellies of the clouds illuminated from below. The sky in stunning shades, so vibrant. The silhouettes of the trees and houses just before. The lake, still and silent. The gentle breath of wind on her cheek, caressing her skin so softly.

It was a moment come and a moment gone. A moment in which her very heartbeat stilled, and the world around her ceased to turn. A moment through which clarity beckoned, so fleeting that she missed its soft call, before the sun disappeared and the world began to turn again. Heavily, slowly, like ancient cogs on a vast machine.

The sun vanished, and the cold settled in, and she wrapped her wrappers tightly about her shoulders and made her way back home in the increasing darkness.

 

Time Soars

Just finished reading the Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon for my next assignment. When I logged onto the university website I realised it was due in five days, and my 4k word assignment in seven.

Where did time go? WHERE?

The book was mighty eye opening, and I didn’t understand why they didn’t go home even though they were lonely and unhappy. I mean, sure the money was an issue, but even those who raised it didn’t go home.

That is curious, see? It’s the idea of an illusion that they are still chasing, even after ten years (in the case of Moses). And I was suddenly gripped with the fear that what if I end up like that, always chasing my dreams but never quite getting there.

Well, the first step would be, of course, to ace this assignment, and then ace my exam.

‘Tis a sweltering day, folks, and the masses have left their humble abodes to parade about the city slowly peeling off their layers to reveal the pasty skin they have kept under wraps for the majority of this confusing season. But the temperatures have soared, and roofed places are stuffy, so sitting in this glass library which is acting like a green house is punishment enough.

Although I have to say I am enjoying dissecting Lonely Londoners.

Adieu, and happy Saturday, and Happy Mother’s Day to those celebrating today. We had ours back in March 🙂

 

Time Flies

February

Imagine an hourglass, filled with jade crystals the size of sand grains, glittering in yellow candle light. Ten crystals or so fall through at haphazard intervals, tinkling against the glass as they tumble over each other, creating a small, gleaming emerald mound.

Those are my seconds, so small and so precious, falling away from me, just as this month fell away from me. It slipped off my shoulders like a delicate, silk wrap, and I only noticed it was gone because my shoulders started to shiver. We are promised some Arctic winds for March, folks.

This month I worked my butt off on an assignment about Wuthering Heights. The essay question asked me to discuss how Emily Bronte’s work overlaps gothic and domestic themes, and I discovered a few satirical themes on femininity and Victorian ideals hidden away in Wuthering Heights. Wasn’t I pleased with myself.

I got my paints out on the 29th of February. Time to get those rusty, cricky fingers working again.

February was alright. I gained some weight this month. I know, right? Took one selfie, in which I wore some makeup and a red and black scarf. I fancied I looked quite alright. Looking at the selfie now, I’m not too sure. Chub chub on my cheeks, hair that doesn’t look quite 21 years old.

I met up with friends several times this month. Went to Birmingham for a day out, too. Goals to be more social? Tick that box please!

I felt like I connected more with my siblings this month. It’s a goal I have been struggling to achieve. We aren’t so touchy feely in this family. It’s nice to open up and hear each other out.

I didn’t call my father this month. I texted him a lot though. I should have called him. I feel horrendously guilty. He’s all alone, working hard abroad and I can’t grace him with a single phone call? Horrible child that I am. I cried myself to sleep because of it last weekend.

My husband and I didn’t do anything together this month. Last year in February we went to Venice. The year before in Feb we went to the Lake District. I dunno, I thought we might do something this year.

It was a combination of being broke and overworked, I think, that stopped us. Also since we barely talk anymore, I feel like we are disconnected. We really need to sort our life out, get our own place. But it’s not possible if he is constantly travelling and working, where is the time to talk?

Hopefully we are going somewhere nice in March. D is going to rummage in the attic to see if he can sell his old playstation or perhaps the old stereo. See, he is resourceful.

We both wanted to go to March in March because we are both born in March. March is a small town in Cambridgeshire, around forty minutes drive from the beautiful city of Cambridge. March doesn’t sound so great in theory, though, so I planned that we pass through March and explore a little before settling for a night in the almost-seaside town of King’s Lynn, which is known to be quite stunning and full of fun things to do.

I said, “We can’t go to March, our funds won’t allow it”

But he said, “We’ll find the money, and we will go.” He had so much conviction, and I believed him because he has never let me down before. He knows how to squeeze the pennies out of dry rags, does my husband.

You see the difference between us? I see obstacles, he sees problems that can be solved. When will I learn, huh?

How was your February?

The Month of February by Able Grimmer

The Temporal Length of the Universe

Hello.

Today the sun is out. We were promised an Arctic Blast this week. The wind as it blows is icy, but my legs were warm as I pumped them in the sunshine this morning on my way to the Glass Library. I needed to get there quick, to make the most of the shorter opening hours for New Year’s Eve.

I forgot it was New Year’s Eve. It’s just like any other day to me. Nothing remarkably special. We are celebrating another revolution of our planet around the sun. The moon will carry on controlling the tides, the winds will carry on blowing across the marshes, cows will continue to graze, blinking their eyes lazily, unknowing.

The world doesn’t know that it is entering a ‘new year’. It just hurtles towards it, carrying on as it always does.

The only reason we celebrate it is because we have a meticulous time-keeping system. But I like to think that time doesn’t particularly care for our recording of it. It plunges ever on, nonchalant. It glances it through the window at the party, gives a little smirk, and on it rushes.

We, of course, in our own little planets of life, are oblivious. Putting our make-up on, combing our hair, showering, writing lists of resolutions because 2016 is IT. It is the year we take charge of our lives and lose weight (or gain it) and become successful entrepreneurs and become the perfect versions of ourselves because 2016 is a new ‘beginning’.

But it isn’t really. Time is older than any of us. Time is older than the universe. To Time, 2016 is another year to add on to the billions. Another weary revolution, another flash through someone’s life.

Time will continue to hurtle and plunge and soar and sail, growing ever faster as the years are packed on to our ages.

Those are my thoughts for today. I hope your day today is time-worthy. I hope mine is too!

Some Thoughts

I have a most peculiar headache, dears. I had two tablets of sugar coated ibuprofen about an hour and a half ago but it just seems to be getting worse. Nothing a good night’s sleep and a herbal tea won’t cure, I expect.

Damian has either tonsillitis or strep throat and I have been playing nurse, plumping up pillows and making teas and I made a chicken broth today. It had green things floating in it and little pieces of vegetables and strips of shredded chicken. It was flavourful, despite the lack of bones.

I know a lot of things that would seem highly unlikely if I spoke them aloud, but I do earnestly believe that magic exists. It isn’t like the magic that we speak of in books. It is more surreal, and well out of our grasp. I think it is more beautiful and exquisite than our brains can comprehend. It exists in the seas and the trees, in the harmony of the sun and the moon, in the way everything on earth is connected, as though by fine threads that our plain eyes cannot see. It turns the cogs that the universe runs upon.

This world cannot be a happening, folks. The probability is too high, the detail too intricate for it to be the work of pure chance.

The magic is that we exist in this wondrous beauty, and when the world is enveloped in the cold darkness of the universe, one’s eyes are opened to the vastness of it all. One feels so incredibly small and powerless.

Sometimes I wish the veil would lift.

I can’t wait for a clear summer night, when the world is illuminated by moonlight and the stars twinkle merrily in the sky. That way I will be able to go for walks in the fields. It’s so dark otherwise. One wants to see what they are walking into. I want to see how changed the world seems in the absence of sunlight.

Sometimes I grieve for people who haven’t died yet, as though they have. My imagination runs away with me and I start to worry and feel anxious. Sometimes I find a frown on my face, and it is a surprise, and I wonder how long it has been sitting there for. Like right now for example. Other times I stop myself when I realise I am rocking back and forth, like somebody from a mental institute.

I think I have far too much time on my hands.

You know what they say, though. Time to occupy oneself with things that will move one forward and better one’s mind and improve one’s knowledge. When I am busy, I shall look back on all this free time wistfully and wish I had done something better with it. We make our own lives, dear folks.

I keep telling myself that, you know. I fear my words speak louder than my actions these days. Must rectify that as soon as possible.

Goodnight dears. I wish you all very well.