Apologies for the Radio Silence
Forgive me, but for the last few months I have been failing at life...
You may or may not have noticed, but I have been quiet. Very very quiet. With no notice and no out of office. I’ve been quiet since shock, horror - 2023.
I’ve been quiet on my newsletter, quiet on my social media and quiet in person. The end of last year was filled with all of the things and a desperate push to Christmas and I’m now left at the end of January, no sorry the 1st of February, wondering how I got here. Because while I have been quiet my world has decidedly been as loud as it can get.
My days have been crammed with setting up the minion with school (yes she is now a pre-schooler), hitting the ground running with a new work project and trying to get the house back up to post-holiday speed. To this end my energy to expend on myself has been limited. In all honesty, it has been non-existent. And this is not like me. Because I like to create. I like to read and share and produce. I like to spew rattling around in my brain or comment on pop culture’s latest viral trend, like Maison Margiela’s human hair pube dresses. Yes for real.
I like to be heard and listen and connect. But right now I have nothing. There is a buzzing in my ears that comes with no related substance. My newsletter is very much a happy extension of myself and this too has become a chore because I’m too busy with actual chores to focus on the things that really matter. I don’t even know what matters anymore and so I cannot write because I don’t have the space to think about what interests might me or what I might want to share.
I’m not sharing this because I want some sympathy (although if you fancy crowd funding a lifetime of massages or self care shopping I won’t turn you away). I am sharing because I’ve realised that something has to give. Because at this stage I am the one giving and giving and giving to everyone and everything but myself.
I respond to messages, phone calls and emails. I organise plumbers and make sure there are bananas and dishwashing tablets in the house. I remind the Hubster to make payments and confirm attendance at birthday parties. I agree to play tennis league and go to dinner plans without really knowing what I’m confirming and for when. I have conversations and then cannot remember what the person has said. I’m never excited to do anything because I’m too busy worrying about the next thing. I bought a gigantic year planner which I cracked open, only to snap it shut with the overwhelming anxiety of knowing that I need to add it to my list of to dos. WOW it feels good to offload all of that baggage. Is it just me? Is anybody else feeling the same?
Towards the end of last year the standard line at all social gatherings was,”I’m just soooooo tired, could this year end already? Like no really, I’m done.” This was shouted by parents and non-parents alike, by friends and family both old and young. By drunk work colleagues and receptionists in the dentists’s office.
I heard it from groups of suntanning teenagers at Clifton 4 and Tuesday pensioners at the Checkers deli counter. “Okay so it’s everyone,” I thought to myself. 2023 has been a royal shit show and must end. We all just need to push through to that awkward black hole between Christmas and New Year where nobody needs anything from anyone and drinking rosé can commence at 11:42 with zero judgement, ‘cos ‘I’m on holiday.’ But now here we are - January the 30th - sorry February the 1st and I don’t know which way is up. Where did the month go? And did I even have a December vaycay? When are the Oscars? Did I watch Saltburn? Fashion week has started but I can’t keep up because I’m too busy worrying about the Gaza Strip and the fact that 5% of Conde Nast’s staff has been laid off and have I bought my share of products for the Minion’s school charity drive and wait did I just miss my mom’s birthday. LORD IN HEAVEN I DEFINITELY DO NOT HAVE THE SAME HOURS IN THE DAY AS BEYONCE.
When did life become SO MUCH? I was on the phone with my mom a while ago moaning about the fact that the Minion is nearly 2 and I still haven’t stuck a single photo in her beautiful, instagrammable Stellarize photo album. “I just don’t understand it,” I cried, “ You made the most beautiful albums for us kids and you didn’t have a nanny or help and there were three of us!”
My ever diplomatic mother cooed in sympathy, “ But things were different then.”
BUT HOW? How can I not keep up. I am in the fortunate position of having childcare and a loving husband who parents rather than ‘babysits’ and a child who is actually not a terrorist and there is only one of her. I work a fairly normal amount of hours and I’m at an age where I shouldn’t feel like I’m a 100 going on 125. Why do I feel so overwhelmed all of the time? I know its the phone and the doom scrolling and the constant messages. But its not just me - I feel like this is a general life affliction at the moment. I observe the humans around me - both loved ones and strangers alike and I’m amazed we are all still managing to stand up in the morning. We multi-task at the traffic lights, we push our kids on the swings while making online payments, we catch up with a friend over coffee while booking in our next girly dinner date in our calendars rather than connecting in person in that very moment.
A while ago I did the wheel of life exercise with a friend who was training to become a life coach. You map out a big circle, split it into pie portions and label each portion with the different life ‘segments’ that are important to you. Family, friendships, career, partner, health, etc. etc. Anything that you feel you give energy and airtime to. And then on a scale of one to ten you map out how well you feel you are living each quadrant. Objectively. There is no right answer here and this is not a once off exercise so you things could change. Hopefully when you join all your dots you will have a constellation that looks quite asymmetric as you excel in some quadrants and sadly don’t dedicate enough time and energy to others. This is NORMAL.
Well mine looked like a teeny tiny a**hole of nothing. I had no happy zone. No area where I thought - yaaaaaaas I’m really giving here. Did I feel fit? No. Was I slaying it in my career? No. And not ‘no’ in a self depreciating way where I am actually dominating but modestly saying, “Well there’s always room to grow,” while I stir my decaf, matcha, zero foam bubble tea. I just felt like my entire life circle was a failure. Because when you don’t have actual priorities, when everything feels like a priority, you are destined to fail. In every piece of the pie.
And because we are operating at a million miles an hour all of the time, the minute something goes wrong - a loss of income, a sick nanny, a fender bender, or even just a migraine, it feels like the world is coming to an end. We cannot cope. We don’t know what to do with ourselves. Because we are living in constant fight or flight. And before you know it, you will be reduced to just a name on a bench because you had a heart attack early when you realised that there were-no-Airbnb’s-left-in-the-whole-of-South-Africa-for-an-Easter-holiday-with-your-family-that-you-don’t-even-want-to-go-on-because-you-haven’t-even-managed-to-wrap-your-head-around-Valentines-Day, never-mind-the-fact-that-there-are-already-easter-eggs-in-the-supermarket. Deep Breath.
So all of this rambling is really to say that I haven’t had the headspace to write or comment or even post a picture of my breakfast never mind a semi-coherent commentary about anything worth commenting on. I’m racing from one thing to the next without stopping. Because apparently it’s all important. And before you chastise me in the comments I know it’s bad. I KNOW I need to prioritise and keep a gratitude journal and lay off and simplify, but I’m so tightly wound I don’t know how to, Because between my phone, the chaos at my house, my kid and the lovely but (some) demanding people in my life, I have no silent space for my own thoughts. Do I sound like I’m moaning? I am. I am moaning.
So today I have taken myself off for a walk. I unapologetically (okay with minor pangs of new year, new you guilt) ate a chocolate croissant and stared at the ocean. I messaged a friend who lives far away and then put my phone away. I breathed.
I also came across an old quote that jumped out at me in bold comic sans (shudder), “ The way we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” Read that again.
Do I want to reach the end of my life having done 12 367 loads of washing, 298 435 grocery orders, 7 890 years of online doom scrolling and nothing meaningful for myself? Why is the pace of life overwhelming me? Is it because I’m doing too much? Is it because what I’m doing amounts to not very much? What am I actually flitting between? No really could someone care to share because I’m not sure anymore? What I do know is that something has got to give.
So new month, new me. It’s time to commit to myself. So after all that moaning I thought I would sharesome things that I hope to prioritise in the coming weeks. Because life is meant to be lived rather than endured. Here’s me trying to focus on the fun….
Supper Club - Yes I am adding to my to do list. But in a fun way. A week from now I will be hosting a Supper Club. And my guests have requested traditional Polish cuisine (that of my ancestral heritage). In my panic of meal time perfectionism, I roped my sister in to help and we spent a delightful evening making 76 dumplings without electricity (yes we are back to the ole blackout situation in South Africa). It’s a mindless task involving rolling dough and trying to stuff tiny little half moon doughballs with delicious mushroom filling. We gossiped and ate dinner by candlelight and then prepped up a storm. I treated the prep as a treat. And it was special. So I’m hopeful that the evening itself will be a success. And if not, I will move onto…
Under the Tuscan Sun - One of my closest friends is getting married in the birthplace of wine and excessive hand gestures. The idea of travelling internationally with a toddler, organising the world’s most epic bachelorette, juggling a wedding and said Minion, fitting into my exquisite bridesmaid dress and then having a ‘great holiday’ has been a stress on the brain. But I am reframing it as a grand adventure that could serve as inspiration for future newsie posts. The stories will be charged with drama - the plane ride where the minion vomits on a stranger, the forgotten bridesmaid (my school friends and I have a knack of managing to leave someone behind at many an event), the illegal turn onto oncoming scooter traffic. It’s time to book that travel!
Oscars Fashion - I have of late been ignoring the world of fashion because my Insta feed is a battle ground between Dsquared’s crazy anti-Hollywood campaign, right next to potential calls to arms for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Anna Wintour is laying off staff with her sunglasses on and farmers are throwing eggs at parliament in Europe. Eggs? Thrown by farmers? You know its bad when farmers are throwing their livelihoods at politicians…
Actual Work - I’ve come off a really bad period of not having full time work. I’m either hamster wheeling or not moving at all. There is no happy balance and its not doing very much for my self worth. Happily, I’ve just started work on a new project with a friend that I’m cautiously optimistic about. Firstly, its lovely working within a team again. Being a freelancer can get lonely and I’m enjoying the Zoom call banter and AI backgrounds. Two, its fabulous going into an office. In my case this office is my friend’s home which is a 20 minute drive away. The drive has become my meditation. I stare at the ocean. I listen to podcasts. Working with my friend also comes with all sorts of the fun. It’s such a breath of fresh air to work with someone who is so on your wavelength, that you don’t even need to finish your sentences. It’s all going to ramp up in the next few weeks so you might get a post slating the world of work or I’ll be singing the praises of focused work pressure on the human psyche. Stay tuned…
A trick from across the miles…..compartmentalise as much as possible…..when at swings with Minion enjoy the moment soon she will be a teenager…..at work enjoy it and switch off from household chores bills …..set a time for chores and then leave it it can wait……so what if house a little dusty….clear your messages from people who really are not important in your life and focus on those that are. Take care of you Hubster and Minion …..the rest can wait and if they don’t understand then too bad. One thing and one day at a time. 😘
Same. To. Everything. And literally this morning, 2 Feb, I took myself for a walk, had a swim in the ocean, and got a coffee and croissant and texted my friend who I used to do this with but she has moved far away. Thank you for writing exactly what I have been feeling! Now I can just share far and wide and be like "hey friends and family, this."