Friday 30 October 2015

Inner Parent

My inner parent is a bitch.  She just yelled at me "Step Up".  Which, although good advice, was not delivered in a nice way.  Parents have a lot to answer for.

It is said, in psycho babble terms, that your inner voice echoes the kind of parenting you received as a kid.  I sometimes think I do quite well to function in spite of it all.

Childhood seemed quite nice, but now when I say things to friends which were insignificant and seemed normal to me, I get that look.  The WTF look.

Apparently some of these things are not considered to be normal or kind.


  • making me learn piano even though I wanted to learn drums or guitar - on the grounds that I could not be trusted, aged 10, to remember to take my musical instrument to school on the days I had lessons.  
  • not allowing me to ride my bike to school, despite my younger sibling being allowed to ride his. I wasn't considered safe.
  • telling me I didn't deserve to have nice things.  I still have a doll in a box which my nan brought back from China.  I wasn't allowed to actually play with it because mum thought I'd break it.


My inner parent is a bit wayward, and I try to remind her that being a parent is about nurturing your child not destroying all confidence it ever had.  Sometimes, though, the strength of her upbringing can't help but break through.

Wednesday 14 October 2015

No woman

You know, I never saw myself getting married.  I didn't have those little girl dreams of white dresses, or any of the other paraphernalia I see going on around weddings.  All those flowers, those thingies you give the guests, the seating plans, the gift list, the choices of desserts, the fastidious designing of cakes.  I can honestly say I didn't give it a thought.  And now, watching a wedding on TV, I'm utterly bemused by the pageantry.  There are speeches and some, frankly, dreadful singing.  There are parents, there are, just so many things.  I'm not a proper girl, I just don't get it.

At work, they're more likely to ask one of the blokes his opinions on cocktails and me my opinion on beer.

I think it's acceptable in late 40s to become that weird androgynous mix, to be neither male nor female, but just a person who, you know, breathes.  Maybe I've grown into me.  I think at 18 I and the same male characteristics I have now, the seeing in straight lines thing, and not really understanding fripperies around the sides.  Nearing 50, maybe I'm finally socially acceptable?

Friday 2 October 2015

Get to know you

Howard Jones, remember him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6-KW3Tp4W8

Sometimes that's just where I'm stuck.  1984, with all the haircuts, the clothes and the way we lived before the internet.  If the city centres look somewhat dreary, I suspect it's because they were.  Even looking back with the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia, it feels all a bit, well, sepia.  Colours weren't as bright back then.  Beige was where it was at.

Somehow, 1984 has become 20 years ago (let's not nit pick about the maths, eh).  Things are worse and better now.  Being, let's say 16 in 1984, as opposed to being 16 now, well, it's hard to say - there were a lot more restrictions and rules I think, back then.  There was less freedom to communicate, there was more pressure to be conventional.  There were definitely women's roles and men's roles, back in suburban middle class.  It didn't feel just middle class, it was middle everything.  But at 16 you were also allowed to make mistakes, allowed to be a child, learning, you weren't expected to be a small grown up with under sized grown up choices and decisions to manage.  Protected, perhaps.

I look at myself now, not just as middle aged, but somehow something else crept up on me.  Nearly 50.  How extraordinary is that?  It creeps up on me at odd times.  Those times when I wonder as I scamper along on the bike (these days do occasionally happen).  The technical descent I did on the rigid cross bike following two youngsters (these days that means under 40) down, holding my own.  Got to the bottom and thought, not bad for a woman pushing 50, eh?  I like to think I offer hope for the future.

I accept slowing down.  Not in the way of giving up or giving in or stopping trying.  Recovery is slow, from illness and from injury and there's a world where you suddenly need to adjust to making allowances for yourself and doing things differently in recuperation because otherwise, you simply don't recuperate.  Pushing through the pain, battling on, fighting it.  All that stuff is mostly on a collision course to a week in bed these days.  It's no longer logical.  So we accept, and embrace the slow times while we get ready for the time we can see in the distance, that time when we'll be pedalling madly again.