My Mummy's Pennies: Feeling lost…

I have a terrible sense of direction and I get lost in the big wide world on a regular basis.

 Just the other week I managed to fall asleep on the bus and end up on the wrong side of Manchester with twenty minutes to get to my office, I managed it, just, but not before finding myself starting to hyperventilate a little in the middle of China Town. I realised just how little I know the city that I’ve called my home for the last nine years. 

When it comes to being lost in the physical sense I usually find my way… eventually.

Recently though I’ve been feeling a different kind of lost.

Lost in myself.

Lost in my life.

Lost in my family. 

Lost in myself

I went to Britmums this year and I was inspired, not just by the ‘celebrity’ speakers (although I am a Kirstie ‘wannabe’ so was delighted to see hear speak and listening to Katie Piper had me in floods of tears, wanting to run up on stage to give her a hug). I was mostly inspired by my fellow bloggers, those amazing men and women who I chat to on social media and whose lives I follow through their blogs. Some of these women, I feel like I know a little bit, but am in complete awe of them. Some of them have been through so much in their lives, things that would tear me apart, but they seem to still have their paths in life, a purpose, when I feel that I have wandered from mine, that’s if I ever had a true path?

Do we all have a purpose or is it something that you forge through experience?

My recent trip to London made me realise that I have lost some of my identity, my sense of self. On the Friday night I sat in a room full of amazing writers who were chatting away having fun, drinking, eating and catching up with old buddies or forging new friendships, while I sat in the corner feeling unworthy and to be frank, unwanted.

What was I doing here? Really? These women write words that move me to tears or make me spit my coffee out with laughter where as I write about nappies and the latest offers, I run competitions and I write reviews. I sat there feeling so sick with self doubt that I couldn’t eat. I want to write like that, I know I CAN write like that but those posts sit unfinished in my drafts as life gets in the way. Can I even call myself a blogger?

Lost In My Life

Looking in from the outside my life isn’t that bad. I have a job that pays relatively well for the industry I’m in and level i’m at, I have a gorgeous husband and we live in a nice area and have two happy and healthy children. However, when you look closer the cracks start to show… my job makes me unhappy on a daily basis, tears of so many kinds fall from my eyes as I travel the emotional road trip of my working week. It’s not what I want to do any more and yet I feel trapped. I am the main wage earner, the ‘breadwinner’ of our family and we only just cover our bills and childcare as it is, the only way out for me would be to get something better paid but after months of trying I don’t know how much more rejection I can cope with. As it is, working full time is taking it’s toll, the housework seems to mount up in front of my eyes, rather that wanting to get home to spend time with my family I find myself dreading getting home to the mountains of washing, last nights dishes and piles of paperwork to sort. I am so tired in the evening that the long lists of new recipes I was to experiment with turn to a quick pasta dish that we’ve had twice that week already…

I love my family, my children are amazing and I would do anything for them. But I feel like I am loosing their childhood. As we both have to work full time to cover our living costs, our children are in childcare during the week. If I’m lucky I see them for an hour on a weekday, the last hour before bed, when they are tired and grumpy. Rather that cherishing that hour as I should I often find myself so tired I start snapping unnecessarily at them, scolding them for minor issues that result from them being overtired too.

I always maintain that being a working parent is setting a good example to my children, demonstrating a strong work ethic and an ideal to look up to. Showing them that everything they value in life is down to hard work and nothing is handed to us on a plate.

 It makes me angry when I hear people talking negatively about working parents, blaming so many things on a parent CHOOSING to put a baby in nursery at a young age. But for me it wasn’t a choice, I had to go back to work before my children’s first birthday or how would we survive financially? How would we afford to pay the rent? Even though childcare takes up such a big portion of our wages most of the time I believe we are doing the right thing. What is the alternative? Giving up? Living off the state? Showing my children that they don’t need to try hard in school if they don’t want to, as the the government will take care of them. But then I have my doubts, I believe we would probably be financially better off without me working, and I would get to experience my children growing up, I would get to spend the summer holidays taking them places and teaching them things rather than getting just two days a week with then and learning about their other’s in a five minute hand over from a relative or nursery staff. So why am I writing this down? Why am I sharing such personal things with the world?

Well quite frankly because I want your support.

I want to find myself and I want to be happy with my lot in life which I know is so much better than many others’ but I just don’t know where to start…