What to do?

Really I feel like I am in a space where I need to just be happy that I am a full time mum and carer of a beautifully intelligent little boy. The truth is that I feel like I am in a slump. I feel like I need a change, like a big holiday away, or overall changing up the scene I’m in, or leaving it altogether with my family of course. Since I’ve been sick for the last week and half it certainly has not helped anything. Topping it off that bub is also sick which means that I’ve had to not really rest myself because I have to make sure my baby is okay. I understand that this is how it goes being a mum.

It just makes me feel a bit overwhelmed and with a thirst for doing something more. When I am healthy again I’ll be returning to the gym and having my son in the kids care area for two hours at a time, and that will help, to get out of my head and into my body. Hopefully clarity will come with sweat and time alone.

I guess that’s it, I don’t have the freedom to just go out and do what I want right now because I chose to be a mom and a full time stay at home one at that. It’s strange because I also want that, but I want freedom too. I want both and I am not balancing it very well right now. It’s like my own ambitions and self care are on a back seat. By self care, I don’t just mean body work and grooming, I mean like spending time alone just being creative not just at home, and not just during nap times because at that moment I just want to rest. Again, all of this is inflamed because I am sick and have been for a week. I know that, I see that, I feel it too.

Also financially things have been very tight this year, even though we did make a trip overseas, our day to day life is limited to an extent of doing more things because there isn’t money to do it. I can’t help but notice a big part of that is that we have another person to look after plus only one income. I get it. I just don’t know how to balance it all out yet.

Lottery Dreams

How many people get caught up in the dream of winning the lottery? Millions obviously since so much money is spent on them each day. It’s a slippery track. To think that one fell swoop will solve all the problems.

I honestly don’t think that my life would change that much if I won the lottery. I would just have more to give and my lifestyle would be better, but overall, I am still at the core who I am and that isn’t going to change.

The best way is to keep progressing, to keep working on projects, on life, and not put anything on hold in the hopes of winning the lottery. However, if I just start doing what I want if I did have that amount of money, then my life will transform into that anyway.

So for instance, if I want to have fresh healthy foods, then I will start my own garden. If I want to feel a bit of luxury, I will exchange the soft goods in my house so that they are of a better quality. If I want to feel more sophisticated in my clothes, I can either go out and buy something new, or I can do my best to create a dress myself with fabric that makes me feel good. If I am looking for more time to create, then I need to schedule it and ask someone else to watch bub while I do what I need. If I am looking to give back to others, then I need to create a program to help them, even if I don’t have the money to donate, I can offer a way to help their lives improve. All of this is within my reach. All of it. It’s only that winning the lottery would fast track it.

Also I really need to let go of the idea of buying the farm, it only frustrates me and that does nothing positive for my attitude nor my mental health right now due to the feeling of being so limited. I need to work through this and just accept that it’s not going to happen and move on to continuing with my own life that I have created with my own family.

Not Meant as a Single Parent

Seriously I am not meant to be a single parent. Specifically, I am certainly not meant to be a person who has to solely look after another person who is dependent upon them. It is too much. Add to that the additional tasks of looking after elderly people and I am at a breaking point. I literally broke down in tears as I just couldn’t do any more. There’s a thing where I can hold it all together to a point. Then it will be something minor that is the straw that breaks the camels back. Today it was the criticism of too much salt in the meals I have been making after I was some how given the task of being the meal creator for everyone else along with myself and my little person. I am stretched too thin as it is. Not having family support due to geographic location and the rest of the family not being so family oriented, leaves the whole raising of the child to the parents. Then when one parent is away, it’s just that one person. Then to add more to that workload, it’s too much. Too much.

Also people forget what it’s like to have their first child. They also forget what it’s like to have only one child. It’s a big freaking deal. No one else occupies their time, no one else plays with them, it’s all left to me. It’s all, every thing, left to me. We have had a demi pair in the past and that has helped to alleviate that, but at the farm that isn’t the case. Everyone is so stretched here, and that is just the way of land, but now, for me at this stage of my life, it’s more than I can handle.

Exhale. This is me venting. It’s okay. It’s all okay. I’m also so frustrated that I can’t fix the issues here, I don’t have the money right now to afford a million dollar property to help everyone out. I don’t have the means and it’s so frustrating. I feel like it’s all slipping away and I’m too taxed personally to do anything about it. Also being at the beginning stages of making a family it’s at odds with being at the beginning stages of building a grand fortune. I chose to have a baby with intention. I chose to have a baby so that I can experience this, so that I am there with the child. I don’t want to give that experience away to someone else, that isn’t what I want in my life. The solution isn’t just to send the baby to daycare so that I can work a full time job and bring in income and then see my baby for maximum 3 hours of wake time a day. It’s fucking bullshit. I am not doing that, I am not doing it that way and it makes me feel so frustrated that I can’t seem to find another way. Sure getting another demi pair will help. that will alleviate some time, but for christ sakes, when I don’t have the money to pay the freaking person, then i get someone who isn’t really qualified and I don’t trust them. So I have to be on hand, with my ear out all the time anyway. I don’t know how to win at this right now without having the financial resources.

This post isn’t really about being a single parent, it’s really about being frustrated with the limitations in my life, the lack of income, and the additional load of looking after others. That’s what it’s about. It’s that I feel this life is out of our reach. It’s that I need to just let go of the idea of buying the farm because it’s not going to happen. How on earth would I magically get 1 million dollars and then how would I then have money to do anything with that land after that? It’s too much and I can’t do it.

My husband is away at the moment and looking after bub full time all day every day and night, when he is not sleeping, is really wearing on me. I need help and if I do have another person in looking after bub, i want them to be an actual au pair, and one that I don’t then also have to clean up after, because that’s bullshit too, exchanging looking after one person to then look after another. This doesn’t make sense.

Additional thought after venting and 15 minutes:

Now that I’ve had a moment, the thing is that the farm needs help. They need help to maintain the farm, to maintain the egg business, to maintain the processing business, and to maintain the animals. On top of that my husband’s parents also need help. They need help by someone cleaning up the house. They need help by someone cooking meals. They need help for my mother in law who will likely have to have a heart operation. They need help to look after my father in law who has parkinson’s. They need help anyway because they are in their 80s. I also need help as I have a small child and that seems so minor when looking at everything else here that needs help, but I need help too. I need to realise that the farm is not mine to fix. It is my mother in laws, and she always says that it is a family company so it’s everyone’s even though no one else seems to really care other than my husband and I. It’s not enough. I am not the superhero and I need to understand that my position in life right now is as a mother to a toddler and as a wife to a husband who works non-stop. This is what it is. This is where we are, this is where I am, and somehow I just need to accept this so i don’t get into these big emotional meltdowns about it all. I am too attached to it and without help myself I certainly cannot help the rest.

I guess selling the farm is the right move. Then my parents in law can afford the help they need. They can stop doing the egg business and just focus on this small property. They can have a single woofer to help them maintain the yards and garden, and then it’s done. Maybe it really is for the best. Sure the person who buys the rest of the land may very well build their new house directly in front of this house, and that would be there right and then the view would be lost, and in turn this last part of the land would lose its’ value, and you know what, that would suck, but it would have to be fine too. Sure the person who buys the land might protest about having a chicken farm next to them, and it would be there right, and all of the money we have put into it would be for naught, and that would suck, but it would have to be fine too. Maybe all of this has to be let go after all.

Indulgence

Some days are simply meant for indulging. Today has been one of those glorious days. I have pampered myself with a soak in the bath, eaten delicious food that is usually considered my some times food which included an amazing baked camembert and garlic tiger bread loaf, romped around and had an amazing time with my husband, and generally had a low key, lazy day and it’s been fabulous.

The beauty of this day in particular is that it happens to fall on a weekend. It just so happens that my husband is home. It just so happens that the weather was grey and not inviting for hanging outside. It was a lovely inside autumn day and I am so thankful that we were able to take advantage of it.

When working with someone else’s schedule, it’s a lot harder to go with the feeling of the day. When deadlines are looming or you have to be inside the office like most people working 8 to 5, Monday through Friday, you don’t get to indulge in how you feel very often. It’s interesting, it’s like we have to squish it down and put on the hard hat and go in no matter how we feel, unless of course you are really sick, you are there. The days of indulgence are partial, a short 4 hour window after work ends and bed time begins, or the 2 days on the weekend, but that is it.

Somehow we’ve all agreed that this way of working 5 days on and 2 days off is okay. That it’s more important to work for someone else doing what they want, than to spend time building your own family and your own business. I see it as freedom, and the lifestyle of the truly rich who are able to have the flexibility to work when they want.

Hedonism always comes to mind when I think of indulging, and being a bit hedonistic is fine, everything in moderation. Perhaps if we didn’t have these obligations in place where we are expected to be someplace and need to go in order to have money to live and provide for others, then maybe people would just waste away. I’d like to think that if people didn’t have that obligation, then instead they would use their time and creativity to solve problems in the world, to learn how to love more deeply, and give back in other ways.

If learning to listen to ourselves is a big block in being self directed, it would make sense because we have been taught and have learned so well to fit into a schedule created by someone else. It starts from school, and then goes into the labour force, all Monday through Friday from about 8am until 4 or 5pm. This is the life schedule of working for someone else for most people in the western world.

I have a strong feeling, based on my own experience, that once that habit of fitting into someone else’s schedule has been broken, a new thought pattern will arise, naturally. Then it’s a prime opportunity to create a better, more empowered version of life that one can take ownership. Perhaps this would simply be because it’s easier to listen to your own wants and needs when the other is no longer being enforced.

These indulgent days are so needed. Time to recharge, reenergise, and rest always brings about new energy to keep moving forward and pursuing what is important in life.

How to Live Fully

It wasn’t always easy. I come from a family who were technically entrepreneurs but not in a legal way, if you get my drift. Somewhere in me was a drive to know I was different and a drive to help others. I’ve always known I was meant to help others. I have tried on various ways of helping others like working in hotels for many years, or volunteering for different philantrophic causes. I have most recently formed a tight circle of new mothers and together we all help one another.

 

I still ask myself questions all the time about what my focus will be, should be, needs to be. I’ve been all over the board. I have meditated a lot in my life, I have reinvented myself numerous times, I have tried just about every style of yoga that exists, along with Pilates, I have a University education, I was a career woman who worked for a corporation for a good nine years, I have lived in National Parks, I have been vegan for more than a year, I had years where I drank and tried various drugs, I have most recently not drank alcohol for the last 4+ years, and somehow married a chicken farmer and had a child. I have been super naïve and gave away everything I owned and moved to a foreign country, technically twice. I’ve been in a major car accident and have broken my face requiring a handful of surgeries and countless hours of physio and pilates to get my body back in order. I have been a total loner, I have been in a group of friends, I have been in total love, I have had despairing heartbreak, I have been mentored on astrology and numerology. I love learning about the chakras and how energy works. I rise to the top in whatever field I am in, I am an enthusiastic learner and with a mentor or guide I become a super bright and shining star. I definitely dance like no one is watching, I sing out loud, I make handmade cards, I sew my own dresses from time to time, I paint, I make really tasty healthy home cooked meals, I do people’s hair and makeup, I really just live life as fully as I can all the time.

 

How to live fully? Always do what feels the best. Period. That’s it. Tune in, listen to your body and go with it. I know my body tells me what it likes and doesn’t. I keep a clean diet so I can hear and feel it easily. Always love. Take int eh details. If you get too far distracted in some monkey thought, when you realize it, bring your attention back to right now, feel the air on your skin, feel the keys under your fingers, taste the saliva in your mouth, listen in around you to the breeze, the birds, the rain, whatever is around. When you notice that you are getting distracted again, just do the same thing, bring your senses back to now, again and again and again. It’s a form of meditation, a form of meditation that will eventually train your mind to focus on what is happening right now, to focus on the present situation, which alleviates and worrying about the future, or any lamenting over the past. Its in this moment right now that everything is just fine, everything is actually quite perfect. It’s all about feeling what feels the best, staying focused in the moment right now and that is how to live life fully. Engage with what is in front of you at this moment right now. It sounds super simple, because honestly it is. Be happy and grateful for where you are right now. If that’s hard and not easily coming to you, of course, reflect on a memory, or visualize something better, as long as it feels good, feels joyous. Do this until you come to realize that the moment you are in is that, it is good, it is joyous. It’s all about patterns. All of life is about patterns. It just takes one moment at a time, with all the moments strewn together to really transform life. You don’t have to do a major bold move like I did, you can be more subtle, learn from how I’ve operated and choose perhaps an easier path.

 

I wouldn’t’ change my path for anything though. I have had an incredible journey in life thus far. It’s been crazy, and I’ve met all kinds of beautiful souls along the way. Thankfully I have the ability to wear rosy glasses most of the time and that helps to taint my view in a positive way. It’s all good. That’s the thing, it’s all always good.