I’m sure I’m not pronouncing
anything revelatory to the world here (and especially not to most working mothers),
but hot damn, I beat myself up a lot and god, it’s just shit isn’t it?
This is the Little
Voice inside my brain which, on a day to day basis, berates me about my life
and my perceived failing(s) - my patchy gym attendance, my not-so-patchy wine and
coffee consumption, my lack of creativity in the kitchen of late (my child was
just given a piece of toast for lunch), the state of of the fridge (scientifically
promising for perhaps a CSIRO team looking to name new strains of bacteria, not
promising for the purposes of sustaining human life). That’s before I get on to
the actual problems of the world – the grim state of life for most of the world’s
women, the rise of populism, lack of independent media, and the fact that the
planet will be dead by the time that my daughter considers bearing children of
her own.
Now, I’m going to park
(for now) what I know is the obvious theme here – the low level shit listed
about are primarily the concerns of women, and that men don’t worry about this
stuff. I know – I KNOW - that I could
(and should) ignore that Little Voice that whispers about my lack of underarm
muscle tone whilst I jiggle the bit under my arm in my the mirror and think
sadly that swimsuit season is almost upon us.
And most of the time, I
try to. But sometimes that Little Voice hooks into something touchy – from my
past, for example - and hey presto, I’m
on a full on felling-shit spiral.
Today I was hanging
photographs from a recent family portrait. Now, that sounds lovely doesn’t it?
Yep, sure. But said hanging was the result of months of the Little Voice in my
brain (why did you even get the portraits
done if you weren’t going to use them? They’ve been patiently waiting to be
hung for weeks! And your walls are so bare. It looks like no one even lives
here. What about creating hygge, you idiot? That’s it – it needs to be done now. Not
tomorrow or in five minutes. NOW. Yes, now even though it’s 10 minutes until
toddler lunch time and you are actually in the middle of five other tasks).
So of course, I hang
the portraits and then realise that one isn’t quite where I want to be (because
I was in a hurry, you see). And so I rip it down from the wall, and in doing
so, rip a chunk of paint of the wall (we are in a rental. YES!). Not a large
chunk of paint, you understand, but enough to leave a mark on the wall and a
scream in my head.
Now, the thing this
has touched on for me…. My mother used to criticise me (not unfairly) for
lacking patience. She had/has this theory that once I had decided something needed
to be done, I would do it immediately (or nag others until I was done
immediately) and in doing so, often do a shitty job.
And that’s exactly
what happened today. I’m impatient because I fight the nagging voice in my
head, and then finally, angrily, give into it, only to do a slap dash job of
said task, and then feel angry and frustrated for doing it wrong, hence
fuelling the voice even further.
And so what did I do
after ripping the paint off? Did I sit back, and have a little chuckle and a
cup of tea, only to think ‘oh well, I guess that’ll just come out of the bond.’
Of course not. I berated
myself, whilst trying to appease the Little Voice (which was becoming a rather
large voice) by making a salad, putting on a load of washing, trying to type
some work emails, and vacuuming the floor. All at once.
Because there’s
nothing like running to avoid any feeling of disappointment or vulnerability,
eh?
Fuck that little voice
inside my head.
