Epilogue: We All Survived

 

Hello, dear reader. Here I am popping back up to write one final blog post, more than three years after my last entry. I kept thinking that inspiration would strike and I'd keep writing here sporadically about things that inspired or moved me, but I didn't.

And now here I am, one week away from having an empty nest.

Yes, that's right - by this time next week, the last of my babies will be out in the world, standing on their own two feet, living their lives and pursuing their dreams. The youngest is heading to Wellington to study. My girl went flatting last year, and my eldest left home ages ago. So this is it - I'm closing the book on my parenting journey. I'll always be a mum, and have my door open and food or beds or help ready whenever it's needed, but my day-to-day job as a hands-on parent is done. 

So I thought you deserved an epilogue. 

Not just so I can boast a bit as a proud mum, but also because it got pretty gnarly there for a while, so I wanted to leave you with some hope that if we can survive, anyone can. 

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Reconstructing

Today, I have to write.

It’s a beautiful spring day here in Auckland. The house is peaceful, though teenagers and dogs abound. And I want to write.

Sometimes I get that urge, the need to sit down and just start pouring words out from my soul. It’s been a while. There are several deep, difficult topics I’ve been mulling over, but I’m not going to attempt those today.

Something is stirring, maybe prompted by the sunshine, and I just want to see where this goes.

The Christian faith has always loomed large in my life.

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When Christmas is Hard (Facing the Season after Loss)

Christmas was always my favourite time of the year – until I found myself facing Christmas as a sole parent in 2016.

Five years on, I can look back from a new perspective where the grief has healed and the loss no longer stings. We have settled in to our new normal, and can reminisce about our awesome Christmases as a “whole family” without an ache.

But I remember that first Christmas and my heart goes out to those of you who are facing your own first Christmas after a devastating loss.

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One Foot in Front of the Other

Right about now I'm wishing I had some Easter inspiration to share with you. Wise words or bright ideas, either one would do.
One of those posts from days-gone-by popped up in my Facebook "memories" the other day. I read it and sighed... a deep soul-weary sigh.

Breath in, breath out, I tell myself. Keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Just one more trip to football training in rush hour traffic, one more early morning drop-off to the train, one more night of worrying about bedtimes and lunchboxes and clean uniforms.
Just one more day and it's school holidays. A chance to catch our breath and pause for a few days.
Man, this tiredness is bone-deep.

By body rebelled on the weekend and I kind of crashed. Had to pull the plug on all the plans, hunker down and conserve energy, go nowhere (a fair amount of takeaways may have been consumed).

I think it was the endless going-and-going without a break for so long; holding it together for everyone, keeping all the balls and plates in the air and spinning. Sole parenting is not for the faint-hearted.
Me myself, I'll admit it - I'm knackered.

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When it feels like the World is Falling Apart...

I'm almost scared to check my news feed these days - what new soul-clenching, stomach churning madness has occurred while I was sleeping?
You probably know the feeling.
I have this urge to write, to vent, and get all the *grrrrr* off my chest, but do we really need another post like that cluttering up the interwebs? Another "this world is going to hell in a handbasket" opinion piece? I doubt it.

Sigh.
Chin up, I tell myself. This too shall pass.

I've been sitting here at the bottom of the world watching the madness unfold, feeling shocked and sickened as the fundamentalist American Church aligns itself with the most reprehensible human being we've had on the world stage in a long time. Their endorsement of him is doing irreparable harm to the name of Christ (who I love and try to follow). Making excuses for his inexcusable behaviour is painting the rest of the followers of Jesus with an awful tarnished brush. What they call Christianity, and Christian values has nothing to do with Jesus.

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Camping Solo: A Summer Adventure

There was a time not so very long ago when I stared at the blank canvas of the summer holidays and worried how on earth I would fill it for my kids this year - me, a mum on her own.
I prayed for miracles, a way to go on holiday, provision - and lo and behold, miracles happened. Somehow dollars stretched and opportunities opened up, and here we are, in the middle of a very busy un-boring summer, where the kids have had a ball and I've learned, once again, that I CAN DO HARD THINGS.

Hard things like facing New Years Eve without a party (gulp), but still managing to toast marshmallows and let off fireworks. Like driving for eight-hours-straight with a car full of kids and a dog to visit family down-country (sustained by $1 frozen McD's drinks). And like squeezing all our camping gear into the car, setting up a tent with not a bloke in sight, camping for a week and then packing it all down again and squishing it all back in the car, with only the kids to help.

This summer has been like an endurance test - a test of my mettle. Especially THE CAMPING.
I wouldn't say it was the most fun, relaxing camping trip we've ever been on but I did it. WE did it.

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Good Riddance 2016 (but Thanks for not Killing Me)

Today is the last day of this bloody awful year. It has been without a doubt the hardest year of my life - yet strangely it hasn't actually been the worst year. 

Why? Because I'm finishing the year a stronger person than I began it.

My faith in God has been tested, and strengthened, because He has not failed me yet.

I've lost friends along the way, but discovered others whose worth is pure gold. 

I've had to learn to fill the roles of both mum and dad - and have since realised how incredible single mums are.

There are so many of us out there, doing the hard yards, unseen and alone, but rocking parenting in spite of the endless challenges - in spite of incredibly tight budgets, the (unfair and untrue) judgments of others and the sheer relentlessness of doing life on our own. 

I am in awe of the strength of women, and single mums in particular.

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Surviving (and enjoying) Christmas

How are things in the Christmas trenches where you are? How's that to-do list? Got an Elf infestation? An Advent Calendar mental block? Feeling like a Grinch?

I'm just writing in solidarity to say, I feel ya. Hang in there. This too shall pass.

December 26th will dawn and we will have made it through another Christmas - hopefully without too many additional grey hairs.

This is me and the kids' first Christmas on our own, and I have been fairly dreading it. We put up the Christmas tree on December 1st as usual, because the kids wanted to - they were excited that it was nearly Christmas. Me? not so much.
I strung up lights and garlands, hung decorations and Christmas wreaths with a rock lodged in my chest - going through the motions for them. The morning we were due to have our gingerbread house decorating "party" I sat on my windowseat with a few tears leaking - this Christmas season was not feeling OK at all. The first Christmas is the hardest, they reckon.

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Twists & Turns on the Rollercoaster

Ahhh Life. We never know what it'll throw at us.

I read a guest post on Ann Voscamp's blog the other day which really resonated with me, called "When you're living a life you didn't choose". That happens sometimes - we end up in a life that wasn't what we hoped/dreamed/planned.
We have a dream for the life we want to live, and then it isn't.
Life throws us a curveball. There's an unexpected twist in the rollercoaster. And oh help, here we go again on another not-so-great-fun adventure.

Right now you could say that I'm living a life I didn't choose - in so far as I never in my wildest dreams (or nightmares) would have imagined that my marriage would end after 15 years of trying.
But, yep, there it is.
I've been separated and sole-parenting for over three months now.
That's the twist my life's rollercoaster has taken me on.

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