So, this is my second 'blog' - go me! Here I am, trying to rebuild myself into a fully functioning grown up (a bit like all the Lego models I have built over the years, except they always came with instructions and a picture of the end product). I have spent so many years being a talking clock or a sergeant major, shouting the time or instructions up the stairs or cooking food nobody wanted to eat ('Can't we have chicken nuggets?') or being a taxi driver, rushing between football pitches and community halls, with unfeasibly short time scales and always in rush hour.
I need to fill all that time that was previously taken up with waiting outside ballet classes or testing spellings (or, more recently, working through the amazing BBC Bitesize science modules with a reluctant GCSE student), in some sort of meaningful way. The surprisingly large gulfs of time didn't seem so enormous when I was rushing to get fish pie into people who didn't like fish that day, apparently, before driving around collecting small people and large instruments, depositing them all at band and then refilling the car with most of the sweaty 6-a-side football team who were furious about some decision the ref had made: usually with a baby (bathed and ready for bed) crying from somewhere at the back of the car because she had dropped her bottle.
There is a strange contradiction here. Life was so hectic. I was always rushing around in a panic and yet I have a longing to have these days back. I suppose I had a purpose then. I was important (if not exhausted!). But did I enjoy those days enough? I'm not sure. I was so caught up in the 'doing' that I missed out on some of the 'feeling'. Sure, we had some lovely bedtime stories, bath times, cuddles etc, but am I hankering after a life I did not lead but would like to have led? I watched a mother and her three young children on the beach this morning, throwing stones into the sea. I felt my pang of sadness as I watched them all laughing and running around. What I didn't think about was the fights she had probably had to get everyone fed and dressed and out, the overwhelming tiredness she was probably feeling and that awful feeling of just wanting to have a rest from it all (and have large gulfs of time she didn't know how to fill).
I miss the little people, their laughs, their company, their love, their hectic lives.
So, what does this fully functional grown up, who no longer needs to do any of the above (except cook meals that nobody wants to eat), and has a lot of time on her hands, look like? Well, I am starting to look a little like an author. The publication of my first book, This is the Home that Mum Built, (http://amzn.to/2zYlSTL ) , was a huge shove along that road. But the book is not on the best seller list! - Yet.
I try to write Children's Picture Books to stave off the sadness that those crazy days are gone. It gives me a purpose and I quite like it! I send them off, with hope in my heart, to publishers and Literary Agents. Waiting for a reply is a little like waiting for the baby to reach the next milestone. Except at least the babies did! Sadly, although most publishers/literary agents, are grateful that I have given them the opportunity to read my work, it is never right for their lists! However, I keep going and the whole process has certainly been successful in filling in lots of time. Result!