Keep Calm...

When I decided not to go back to work after my maternity leave, I knew that it would mean some changes in our lifestyle – although, not that many more than if I had gone back, given how much of my salary childcare would have swallowed up.

So I expected that we’d have to tighten our belts, watch the pennies a little closer, and that we wouldn’t be able to go out so much, which we were too tired to bother with anyway. And I knew, intellectually at least, that I’d have less contact with other people than when I worked in a busy office.

Still, I’m quite a solitary soul, so it didn’t bother me too much in principle. But my husband started to get a little concerned when in answer to the question, “What have you been up to today?” I started saying things like, “Well, I had a long chat with the man who came to read the gas meter about his holiday in France,” and, “I’ve changed our electricity supplier again. Claire who rang from Scottish Power is from Wales too, you know.” He’s still a little concerned that I welcome the Jehovah’s Witnesses in every week, even though I’ve made it clear that my religious priorities are already set. It’s just nice to have someone round for a cup of tea now and then.

Regardless, my mother in law staged an intervention, and insisted I do something to get out of the house. Something besides the occasional toddler group I force myself to attend, even though I don’t think my daughter even likes it all that much. Something away from screaming children. Something with actual adults who aren’t trying to sell me something.

So, after some consideration, I joined a choir.

This isn’t as abstract as it might seem. My whole family has always been very musical, and I sang in a very successful girls’ choir in school. I chose a ladies choir, because I already know how to sing in parts with other women, and men just make this sort of thing messy, anyway. And I’ve been loving it. For two hours once a week, while my husband babysits, I focus on notes and rhythms and tempo, and forget about nappies and nursery rhymes and tantrums.

And tonight is my first concert with the choir. I’ve got my long black skirt (hemmed by my husband) and my black top, and my pink corsage. I’m hopeful that I’ll manage to remember the words, and maybe even the tune, to all our songs.

But to be honest, the concert is the least of it. I’ve got two hours a week where I’m something other than a mother, to other people. And that is very valuable indeed.

In a wonderful twist of metaphor, we’re having new doors put in today.

This is fantastic, because in the five years we’ve lived in this house, we’ve never been able to enter through the front door, and now the patio doors at the back are sticking so badly that you have to cross your fingers, turn around three times and spit before you attempt to lock or unlock them.

But it’s also very fitting for the first day of this new blog, and the stage of my writing life I currently find myself at.

I’ll post more tomorrow about how I reached this point, but for now, suffice to say that the last couple of years have felt like I’ve been wandering lost in a long, eerily lit corridor of doors and windows. And every time I cautiously approach an ajar door, it slams in my face, just as all the other doors and windows around me also bang shut.

So, I’ve decided to make my own doors, in my own corridor, all with perfectly oiled hinges and no locks. And I’m going off in search of other corridors, and other doors, to see if they could use a spot of oil too. Or even a key.

I’m making my own opportunities. I’m chasing every possibility. I’m writing what I love, making what makes me happy, and working damn hard at it too. I’m not giving up on my dream of being a writer, and of staying at home with my daughter while she’s very young.

I’m keeping calm and writing on.