Documenting some life experiences is a primary motivation for beginning this blog and perusing cause and effect will have to be another. I find myself constantly being in the middle of a cause (of happiness, satisfaction, frustration, sadness, disappointment....and so on) and this has its effects on me, my family, my friends, my neighbours, colleagues and students in many different ways.
But first, I must introduce myself.
I cannot decide whether to be open or hide behind a pseudonym. Perhaps to begin, I will remain somewhat hidden. There is always that fear of being judged. There is also the risk that I could hurt somebody's feelings, though this would never be a goal. The list to follow is not necessarily in order of importance though its sequence will inevitably reveal some priorities.
I am a working wife and mother. Being married was an important life goal for me and I was lucky that I found someone with whom I could live happily. We are not perfect and have had our ups and downs but we work well together and mostly sing from the same hymn sheet. His job takes him away a lot from home which, in the past, gave me a lot of time to do my own thing. Even when we had one or two small children, there were compensations to having periods apart. However, since the third baby came along I have to admit to a certain struggle to juggling the children, the job and our life. I work as a secondary school teacher in a local school and I have had varying degrees of satisfaction with that.
My two sons (10 and 6) and daughter (3) are my pride and joy. I will never tire of looking at them and admiring who they are. I would not be unusual in recording that the days they were born were the best of my life...the days I realised I was carrying them was the start of the most important time of our lives.
I am very close to my mother. She lost her husband only eight years into her marriage, by which time she had three children and was six months pregnant with my youngest sister. As the eldest child and only six going on seven, I assumed a role of trying to protect my mother from memories of my father. This was a ridiculous and impossible goal but it shows me that we should never underestimate what a child can think. My mother is a very strong woman and she ruled the roost with a degree of certainty that I do not think I will ever have. When I have to parent my children without my husband for long periods, her tenacity and endurance are the greatest inspiration to me....and her reasons for being who she was, become all the clearer to me.
We live amongst a good extended family both mine and my husband's and reap many benefits from their influence. I love to cook and I enjoy having family to eat with us. I glow in my childrens' joy at knowing and interacting with their cousins and I hope that those children remember times spent with us and remember them with love.
Defining oneself can be such tiring work ... and I have a terrible cold so for now it is..
time to go time.
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