Open Parenthesis

One woman's perspective of (twin) parenting (and other thoughts about things)

Requiem for a (blogging) dream

(Or "The best laid plans of a woman who wanted to write and remember")

Once upon a time, there was a woman. She had newborn twins and she was really confused as to why Other People Who Had Been Through This couldn’t remember any of it. Not only was this baffling from the point of view of how Horrendous it was (and therefore surely forever etched in her - and everybody else’s - memory) but also really frustrating because sometimes she wanted specific encouragement and/or advice about how to deal with A Problem and often she got the same response: “Hmm, I can’t really remember…”

“I shall be different!”, she cried, to nobody in particular. “I shall WRITE, and DOCUMENT, and my writings shall be a reminder to myself to NEVER HAVE ANY MORE CHILDREN and also a Handy Guide To Other Women (for she will be famous by this point) so that they don’t have to deal with their friends not remembering anything!”

And then, suddenly, it was 15 months later, and she had not done much writing. And this made her sad. Partly because she could feel that book deal slipping away, but partly because she really did want to document as much as possible so that she remembered everything, even (especially?) the really bad bits.

OK, enough third personing. My counselling tutor would be shouting at me for externalising right now.

You know that feeling when you woke up the morning after a Big Night and you realised that your memory was a bit patchy because you probably shouldn’t have had that 5th vodka red bull? And all that’s left is a bunch of photos you 100% don’t remember taking/being taken?

This is like that. Only MUCH bigger.

I hated that feeling then, and I hate that feeling now.

I have realised that it feels a lot like grief.

First off, I have lost a whole bunch of Really Important And Life Changing Experiences because I didn’t get the chance to write about them. To write, one needs time, headspace and energy. Such a holy trinity is a very rare occurrence these days. I know we are all a product of our experiences, and so they are preserved somehow in the person I am today, but I wanted something a little more concrete than that.

Then there’s the other side of things. I remember telling somebody that early days parenting is such an amazingly rich source of psychological and sociological development, it seemed intensely unfair that one was generally way too shattered/mentally absent to take advantage of that. Writing is one of the ways I process, reflect, and develop. I guess it makes sense that not being able to do it has left me feeling so shitty.

So I am grieving. I’m grieving memories forever lost and personal development opportunities missed.

And it hurts.

I think, having managed to reflect on this for a few days now (hooray! Headspace!) that what I wanted to get out of this blog was a kind of index of All The People I Have Been Since Becoming A Mum. A window into my own personal development. I wanted to point at Me From Seven Months In and go “oof, she was having a tough time of it, oh and look, she writes about this particular thing that is no longer a problem, oh and this other post was from the moment she realised how to fix it!”

I don’t know why I wanted those things, when others are perfectly happy to go with the flow. That’s one for my counsellor, I think.

But for now, all I’ve got is this impending feeling that I have to let go.

Because that’s what grief is, isn’t it? There’s denial (“I can totally write about this Big Thing next week and then it will not be Lost Forever!”), there’s anger (“Screw you, universe, for this combination of things that has made these early months So Much Harder than they needed to be.”), there’s bargaining (“Maybe I can backdate a bunch of things and then I’ll basically have what I set out to achieve if you squint hard enough?”), then depression (I think I’ve covered that one in depth).

And then there’s letting go and moving on.

Maybe that’s what we are meant to do. Maybe we are meant to forget, because that’s how the human race survives.

Hurts, though.

xx