2011 – a very mad year

This year has been a year of extremes. I have been so happy I was walking on air and so miserable I never wanted to get out of bed and speak to another person again.

My little boy was born on 1st March and I learned that to have two children didn’t mean sharing the same amount of love between two but meant being filled with twice as much love. I thought I might burst with it all: twice as much love, twice as much pride, twice as much worry, twice as much fear, twice as much joy.

I was diagnosed with post-natal depression and had some pretty rough times with it. Days where it took every ounce of energy in my being to respond to the tears of my baby and go change his nappy. Days where it took everything I had to just get dressed and venture out to the shop to get food for the family. Days where I was ready to give up feeding Arthur myself because for reasons I couldn’t explain to myself I didn’t want him that close to me.

My concentration and drive deserted me.

I no longer wanted to play my guitar, I forgot how to write and I forgot how to read. I forgot how to be myself. I forgot who I was.

My relationship wobbled. I tried. He tried. We tried and tried. But it wasn’t enough.

A multitude of things all came together and I realised that the only way I was ever going to get better, the only way I was going to drag myself back to a state where I could deal with the world, was to leave. It broke my heart to admit that I wanted, needed, to pull my family apart but if I didn’t, I fear I would have fallen apart irreparably. I would have reached a point that the mere concept of frightens me.

The worst thing of all was that I could tell how we were and how I felt was affecting the children. They might not understand what is going on but the strain is showing on them too in a million tiny ways and I can’t deal with that. I won’t have that.

2012 starts at midnight. I am determined that it is going to be a better year. A new start. There are lots of things I am looking forward to for next year, the Olympics being just one of them, but the thing I am looking forward to most? Remembering who I am, learning how to love myself again and watching my children grow and thrive.

It might not be the 2012 I was picturing back in March when Artie was placed in my arms but that’s okay. Things change and change, quite often, is good – even when it’s unexpected and difficult.

Life has a way of working things out – it might take a while and it might not be how you planned but it will work out. Just give it time.

So farewell 2011 and hello 2012 – I don’t know for certain what’s in store for me and my family but I am going to make it good.

I promise.

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