Farewell 2014

Farewell 2014 and welcome 2015. Farewell sleepless nights and being shoved down to one corner of our small double bed by fierce, kicking, wriggling 16 month old beauty. Farewell to sitting through 9am meetings feeling like I'm living in a human experiment to see how one can exist without the fundamental sleep that so many take for granted. 

Ah...2014. It was a tough one. Not without it's beauty and it's joys mind, but nevertheless a tough one.  And it got to the stage where even I was fed up of hearing myself saying to everyone how tired I was. So I just stopped saying and realised that no-one really cared - except for me of course. I was the one struggling under the weight of exhaustion - martyr to the cause of child rearing - too soft to ignore the cries of the now just over 1 year old in the middle of the night and too scared to wonder at what might happen if I did ignore them .  

And so, two weeks ago when the world of work stood still at 12.30pm on the Friday before Christmas, I stopped all pieces of my life that I could stop, and I endeavoured to stop myself. That meant - no more hauling weary legs carried by weakened lower back over miles of soggy bogland, no more over-active mind, no more martyr, no more nothing. And I let the man take over the nighttime stuff - with a break every now and then of course (need to ease him into it). 

I pretty much took a minute to bury my 'schoolbag' in the closet and at the same time I consciously buried all associated thoughts of work with it. And surprisingly enough, I did. 

And I lay on my back on our little daughter's play mat. And I let it all happen and I've pretty much being doing that for two weeks ;) (until today). Sure we had to venture out to let families know that we were still alive, and sure there were the post-christmas bargains to be had...but just that was enough. 

Lying on that playmat, no pen, no laptop, no phone, no diary. Just sweet and full o'boldness Alannah climbing and jumping and crawling over us as we watched the saddest of Christmas movies - why are kids' movies the ones that always make you melt?!! - and ate the finest of food and shared the tastiest seasonal treats that you never, never feel guilty about at this time of year. 

Oh sweet restful, decadent, lying on the floor in a heap doing nothing. I recommend it. Because now I actually feel near to normal. And when the 'schoolbag' was dusted off this morning on my return to work, I had the strength and the power to say - bring it on 2015. If 2014 didn't kill me, then don't you even bother trying. 

Happy 2015!

Holly racing into 2015