Its been a while. The blog was what kept me relatively sane through the latter stages of my IVF journey from 2019 onwards, through to successfully having my daughter in 2021.
And, since then, as any parent will attest, having time to do anything more than chuck yourself through each day as it presents itself trying to hang onto your life and keep your child alive too is pretty much all you have the energy to do.
But… my daughter is now five (!!), and in the last couple of years things have definitely become easier overall. To the extent that I even have time now to rediscover the creative side I partly buried since school under decades of hurling myself at work, with ever increasing levels of responsibility until I burnt myself out. More than once.
This year was a milestone birthday however, and honestly, I don’t feel like doing that anymore. To be honest, most parents, and especially mums, are looking for their exit strategies too, whether that means a new job, or exploring art, or praying to every potential deity for a successful lottery win (I’m not greedy, 10K a month for life would be fab).
Its funny that we spend years of our lives trading the time when we are most fertile / fit / active / energetic to companies who pay us to help them succeed, and then as we get older, or have young kids we’d quite like some of that time back actually, and no, working longer hours or travelling more isn’t something which appeals that much anymore. Is there a good pension plan and a 4 day working week with lots of holiday though and a 9-5 schedule? Sold.
I’m not saying parents aren’t ambitious, we are, we just understand the value of our time, and it doesn’t just equate to euros/dollars/pounds etc in the bank. I would rather work less hours, and have more time to spend with my child, my friends, and creating wonky pots at the ceramic studio where I now have a membership.
Of course, I would probably also trade this extra time to not have to have the same bedtime arguments every night, or to not constantly have to repeat the same words at different parts of the day: “teeth!”, “shoes!”, “coat!” and so on.
But, I also know that even in just a few short years, I might even miss that. Seems unlikely though.