Lately I’ve been disliking meditation intensely. I’ve been doing it anyway, but I’ve developed a feeling that there is no point to it. No endgame. I’ve been putting off doing it in the morning, trying to squeeze it in later in the day. Come evening, a glass of wine has been far more alluring than […]
The X-files
Today I came across the term ‘emotional bandwidth’. Jessica Grose wrote a piece in the New York Times parenting magazine about why she is resisting having a third child. She has reached her limits with two. Everyone, she posits, has a different emotional bandwidth when it comes to raising children. How she puts it: In […]
Growing pains
Yesterday my son came back from the park, mortified. Something which he found really embarrassing happened to him (I won’t say what), and it was in front of the older kids, who all laughed at him. He felt hurt and ashamed. It was the first time I had seen him like this. It was like […]
Blinkered
This morning, I was thinking that the cruellest side-effect of depression is that it robs you of your interest in life. There are many other things that it does: envelops you in darkness, makes you cry, makes you numb; makes you sleep too much or not sleep at all – and these are just a […]
Party tricks
Yesterday my five-year-old picked me out an enormous black ‘crystal’ necklace from the local discount shop. It is hideous, and one of the most beautiful presents I have ever received because he is beside himself with the joy of giving. The three of them were taken out to buy me a birthday present last night, […]
And the years go by (if you are lucky)
It’s my last day of being 42 today. I had a friend who died at this age, of a brain haemorrhage. He was on holiday with his beloved wife and their three small children. They went to bed, and only his wife woke up in the morning. Why does it take horrific happenings like these […]
Good morning
This morning, as I stretched out, a small boy lying fidgeting either side of me, I let out one of those grunting, half-yawning questions. Out it popped. I must have been having a heavy dream or something. ‘What is the meaning of life?’ Jesus. What a thing to slip out of your mouth at 6.30am. […]
Fist fight
I had a not-so-lovely dance with rage this morning. It doesn’t really matter what set me off, I’m telling you about it because each time it happens, I am freshly shocked as to where the anger comes from and how it can be so powerful as an emotion. It’s horrible. It is absolute monkey brain […]
Irritating, resplendent truth
One of my favourite blogs to read is Cup Of Jo; Joanna Goddard is a champion of womanhood and love, and I basically want to be her best friend. I came across a piece on it last night, What If You Can’t Have a Baby?, featuring Mara Kofoed talking about her journey from trying desperately […]
Out of the darkness arrives the sweet dawn
I read this last night in a brilliant collection of essays by Parker J Palmer. ‘Many young people today journey in the dark, as the young always have, and we elders do them a disservice when we withhold the shadowy parts of our lives.’ He goes on to say that when he got depressed in […]