It would be so nice to have the time to finish something; the cup of tea I made half an hour ago, the idea for a story I want to outline before it evaporates, the incessant pile of ironing. My priorities have a strange way of becoming lost amidst the chaos. Even bathroom privacy becomes a limited (by which I mean non-existent) commodity with a three year old in the house.
Ah...and here he comes now...
So far today we’ve had the ‘I’ve kicked the skin off my big toe and there’s blood’ crisis, the ‘He’s wearing my hat and won’t give it back’ meltdown, only to be topped by the ‘I didn’t quite make it to the toilet with that no#2’ catastrophe at morning tea. (Those of you who don’t have children can all stop being smug...your toilet training time will come).
What would my life look like with some space? I try to explore that idea occasionally by locking myself away when my husband’s at home, giving strict ‘do not disturb’ instructions. I think the record is about 15 minutes and 23 seconds. About the same as my uninterrupted sleep record.
It’s a weird thing to merge your personal priorities with someone else’s when you get married, and then to trade it all for the needs of consecutive screaming masses of flesh (some would call ‘bundles of joy’) as the years pass. Sometimes I feel that I’ve been divided, and then divided again, until I wonder just how much of me is actually left.
As I sit here and type, watching child number three draw on my new twenty six dollar novel with a red texta (sometimes it’s just easier...), I wonder at the sense of it all. As much as I long to be done with this stage of my life, what lies beyond it? Maybe there is more satisfaction to be had in the messy here and now than in the wrapped-in-brown-paper-and-neatly-tied-with-string existence that I anticipate.
I suspect that I don’t actually know what I’ve got ‘til it’s grown...
Oh no, he’s just had another accident. How about, I can’t see the forest for the pees...
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