life

Not before time, drawing a line, this next year is mine

~ nicoladonnelly ~ Leave a comment

It’s late February and I finally feel a change in the season. I have woken up to blue skies and a calm mind. Something has shifted and I feel that the trust I had in better days ahead is revealing its promise. I have been floating over the surface but now I feel present. Which is handy, because I turn 40 in less than six months and I plan on having a good time for my big birthday. I want to make changes and so I really hope my luck is changing too. Even if I don’t really know if I believe in luck.

Prelude to a (probably not ancient, or indeed existent) curse

It has been a bit of a year, if a year was 18 months long, and felt like a decade. In the summer of 2022, we reluctantly put our house on the market. With sadness at the circumstances but certain we were doing the best thing for a positive future for our family and they kind of home we now needed. At this point some kind of ancient curse, as old as the local Property Centre’s operating system, seeped into our unsuspecting lives. It might have been a hex, bad karma, poor manifesting… or just a series of unfortunate events on a personal, regional, national and international level.

We were teetering about on the closest we get to an even keel at that point.

Following two years of pandemic-related stress and disruption. Within a period of professional abandonment of statutory provisions for our boy. On a foundation of much worked family wellbeing as we recovered from a myriad of trauma that comes with having a child with a rocky start to life and profund and multiple additional needs. We were getting by so we chose thatmoment.

The decision to sell our home was the starting gun on a period of such unlikely disruptions, that are not individually remarkable, but collectively a massive headfuck (and I really did look for an alternative word here but nothing else works).

A note on sharing stories

I won’t share all of our challenges, they are not all my stories to tell. Not all of the things that impact us are our own troubles, but are often the side effects of loving others, having the courage to be vulnerable and existing in a society that lacks compassion. We cannot always understand or control what hurts us, we just know that we feel hurt.  

I always share stories when I am on the up. When I have the energy. But also when I have a message of hope. When I have found the positive. I wonder if that is a disservice to how I practice writing. I wonder if I feel too vulnerable in the moment, too overwhelmed, too worthless. Maybe my next step is to tell the stories when I don’t know how it ends. I don’t know what the point or the learning is. Not that we ever do really. We can close chapters but there is always more story. I do know I am compelled to share this one now.

Getting on with my ‘annus horriblis’. A term often associated with the late Queen Elizabeth II. It’s interesting she pops into my mind because her truly terrible year was absolutely cushioned by privilege, but not without pain. And sometimes we are guilty of not feeling compassion when we don’t like someone’s circumstances. Like there is some kind of criteria for compassion.

The annus horriblis

Events include:

Successfully completing the sale on our home on the third set of buyers after two failed to settle, one week and then one day before the deadline.

Not knowing whether we would have funds to complete the purchase of our next house.

Which was then delayed by seven months in a process where we were never given a clear timeline of events or any kind of accountability/ recompense/ acknowledgement of the challenge.

Some devastating personal news that broke my heart and foundations, while I did not have my own home but did have somewhere I was loved and welcome.

Rebuilding my fragile but spiralling self-esteem.

Dealing with painful abdominal symptoms while awaiting surgery.

Having surgery and not being primary caregiver for a while.

Battling with services to access statutory provision on two fronts – short breaks and wraparound care.

Completing the purchase of a house and discovering it was far from ready and needed a fair amount of investment, while recovering from surgery.

A long wait and anticipation for my son’s major, essential and potentially life-changing surgery.

Supporting an incredibly vulnerable and necessarily resilient child through surgery and supporting afterwards to lead a life even more restricted than usual.

Dealing with the painful aftermath of restriction and then rehabilitation.

Learning

Throughout that period that has been joy too. And we are better placed now to soar. We have rebuilt our nest, we have secured our home and our family, we have plans in place for productive and HAPPY events. I have been learning too. I have learned about not needing a reason to find something hard. Not needing permission to be sad and sit with the sadness. Not finding the bright side straightaway. Being compassionate to yourself, feeling all the feelings and when you are ready, taking action. Not leaping up so quickly you risk more injury. I can be pragmatic. I can take decisions in stages. I can lower my standards. I can hold myself accountable but still summon self-compassion. This is my big old ugly cry.

I know there will also be challenges. I believe there will always be learning too. I have been pulled apart, my pieces are laid out in front of me and i am going put them back together again with new skills and insight, hoping that my new form is malleable to however I want to shape it in future. When I am in flow. Because I am molten. Golden. I want to shine. It’s time to hit my prime.  

‘rona’ rage – losing my rag and my empathy

~ nicoladonnelly ~ 4 Comments

I think we have all discovered new things that annoy us this year. Change has been imposed on us and many of us do not feel the same control over our lives as we are used to. It’s no wonder that we are all feeling a bit more irritable. 

Mostly I have stayed calm with all the changes. I started wearing a face covering before it became mandatory to get used to it, and I am now. I have followed the lockdown guidance and do my best to maintain social distancing. I leave my details when eating out for track and trace and I am fastidious about hand-washing/sanitising. I don’t like home working much but I have learned how to stay connected and motivated. 

I see others around me struggling – either being uncomfortable or reluctant, or just being overwhelmed by the volume and speed of changes. Many are still too frightened or vulnerable to venture out. I can understand that, Coronavirus may have been suppressed, but it is still very much around. We can see that by all the restrictions still around us. 

Continue reading →

Parent or friend: can we be responsible parents and liked by our toddlers?

~ nicoladonnelly ~ Leave a comment

It was Sunday afternoon and I was stressed out. I was overwhelmed, and Leo was crying. He was looking at me like I had utterly betrayed him. I cuddled him and told him I was sorry, I was just trying to help him, but I had got it wrong. How had this dramatic scene come about? I had taken him to a baby swimming class.

Leo had not been swimming this year until we went to the hotel pool last month. He had been ill, and we had been busy at weekends. He hadn’t enjoyed the hotel pool – it was cold and noisy. I knew swimming was very good for him – the water would support him, and he would enjoy greater physical freedom than he is used to. I was determined that we would get back into swimming with him.

A visit to our local leisure pool went better and I was looking forward to the swimming class. It takes place in a hydrotherapy pool which is great for his muscle tone and there would be no older kids jumping around and shrieking. I had a vision of a lovely mother and son bonding moment in a cosy pool while Leo grew confident in the water.

The reality was 30 minutes of fast-paced activities, feeling like I didn’t have enough hands and a very upset Leo. I felt quite stressed trying to keep up and I felt very guilty that Leo was having such a rotten time. At the end of the class, the stress subsided, and I felt very upset. First of all, I felt very bad that I had put Leo through such a miserable time. Then I felt disappointed that I had failed to find the right class for him. Finally, I felt demoralised. I had acted with the best of intentions and I had upset my son.

Continue reading →

Autumn: reflecting on summer and looking to the months ahead

~ nicoladonnelly ~ Leave a comment

I am what you might call a ‘summer person’. I love light nights and going out without a coat. I used to feel dragged into autumn kicking and screaming. Wishing for one more day dashing about in flip-flops. But not this year. While autumn always felt like the end, this year it feels like a new start. Like a new term, but for family life. While I used to crave excitement, now I like order, routine and knowing my plan from one week to the next.

Our transition from spring to summer was sheer relief. Leo spent eight weeks of spring in hospital and he was discharged in May. He had been gravely ill – more so than I would allow myself to reconcile with at the time – and were just so grateful that he was well enough to go home. I looked up and noticed that the trees were full and green, the sun was higher in the sky and the grass was regularly overgrown.

Continue reading →

Say after me, “I’m doing the best that I can”

~ nicoladonnelly ~ 3 Comments

I was feeling a bit frazzled this morning. I don’t know how getting two humans out the house feels like such an ordeal, but most parents would agree it’s a challenge. Leo was up too early, and he had to entertain himself just a little bit too long when I did unreasonable things like having a shower, drying my hair, tidying up, putting the washing on, getting all his stuff together for nursery and packing the car. His little toy giraffe was shouted at and the poor wee wooden animals were decanted from their ark. I do a lot of singing in the morning to keep the entertainment going while I try and sort things out. Leo’s little applause at the end of each song keeps me going.

Despite being up for more than two hours, I left without time for breakfast. That wee emoji with the steam coming out, that was me. As usual, once we are in the car, we both calm down. We chat about our day, sing songs and practice animal noises and arrive at the nursery. We are always greeted with a cheery welcome and Leo brightens further when he realises a fun morning awaits.

Continue reading →

You always get a cold during the holidays

~ nicoladonnelly ~ Leave a comment

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that when your family gets a week off to spend together, at least one of you will get ill. That’s what happened to our family this week. Ross and I both took the week off work and Leo came down with a cold. I put on my out of office last Thursday evening and by Friday morning I had Leo at the GP surgery to get checked over. He is fine, and it really is just a cold, but the poor wee guy is out of sorts. On Monday, I woke up with a blocked nose and scratchy throat, and so it continued.

Just like the physical strains begin to show when you get some downtime, so do the psychological effects of needing a break. I found myself a bit tetchy this week. Not feeling 100% and looking after Leo who is less contented than usual was taking its toll and something else had upset me. Something that might not usually make me react emotionally, but I was more vulnerable than usual.

I took a course of action when I realised this. I cancelled a non-essential event I had planned – it needed me to be in a positive frame of mind and I wasn’t. I invited a friend around. We had a takeaway for dinner and a great conversation with plenty of laughs. I continued with my plans for Leo.  I made sure I got to the gym. The what, now?

Continue reading →

Cerebral Palsy

~ nicoladonnelly ~ 1 Comment

I have had this post in draft for a couple of months. I was waiting for the right time for our family to share it. Lately, Leo has been doing so well and we are feeling positive. We don’t shout about Leo’s disability but we don’t hide it either. It’s just something about him. I have encountered ignorance about disability (and confronted it) for almost my whole life and I think the only way to counter it is to be open about the realities. If you understand someone’s journey then you will have more empathy. This morning I learned it was World Cerebral Palsy Day and I felt that it was the time to share this post. I am a lot less angry now than I was when I wrote it.

I know that people reading this will be from all walks of life, will do lots of different types of jobs and will have their own challenges to deal with. I hope that reading this will make them mindful that they don’t know what people are dealing with in life and that kindness should always be the default response when faced with someone different from you.

***

This summer, exactly a year to the day we were given the devastating news that our son’s brain scan was showing evidence of a brain haemorrhage, it was confirmed that he has Hemiplegic Cerebral Palsy. That means the right side of his body is impaired by the damage done to his brain. We knew this was a possible outcome but had remained optimistic. The signs over the last few months had been hard to ignore and my fears of these two words were realised.

Leo, the boy who had overcome all the odds to be born at 25 weeks and 5 days and not only survive, but thrive, breathing independently and requiring only dietary supplements on discharge from hospital three weeks before his due date. Leo, our baby who one week before his due date was undergoing surgery so a neurosurgeon could fit a shunt that would drain excess fluid that wasn’t been absorbed in the ventricles – another side effect brought about the bleeding on his brain. Leo, the amazing child who got through his first winter without a single bug. Fate was not yet done with Leo.

Continue reading →

2017 – The year I don’t give anything up

~ nicoladonnelly ~ Leave a comment

I don’t remember enjoying the period between Christmas and New Year so much for a long time. I was working parts of it for the last two years but even before that, I didn’t seem to count it as a proper holiday. I’ve really gotten into it this year. We haven’t made plans – no travelling, no nights out, no shopping sprees, no madcap schemes for self-improvement. We have embarked on absolutely guilt-free resting, listening and reading. I’m not entirely sure we should feel guilty about those activities anyway. Rest, listening and reading being essential ingredients for curing the modern mania of 24/7 living and connectivity.

Continue reading →

Moving on from Time – Small Business Saturday was bittersweet this year but more important than ever

~ nicoladonnelly ~ Leave a comment

This Saturday was Small Business Saturday in the UK. This annual non-commercial campaign does good work highlighting the contribution small businesses make to the economy and the character of our town centres. Held on the first Saturday of December, it’s also a key day in the retail calendar. The day many people flock to the shops to do Christmas shopping after the all-important November payday.

This time last year, I was running a small business, Time Lifestyle Boutique. It was a gift shop in Dundee city centre, on the street that connects the civic centre of the City Square to McManus, the city’s current star museum ahead of V&A Dundee opening in 2018. I closed the business for good in March this year after a whirlwind adventure where I chased my dream, achieved what I always wanted to do and learned very valuable and hard lessons. Ultimately the business was not to be sustainable one but it was the start of a new chapter for me where I faced fears and made things happen in life. It’s in this spirit I have continued on my journey.

The reason I bring up Time this week is because I thought about the shop more this weekend than I had for the last few months. Small Business Saturday was the day we would take the most money each year. I did a lot of promotion of the event and wrote and spoke a lot about how important it was. In 2014, I also coordinated a campaign for other city centre businesses to get involved with. We offered discounts and shared information about the other participating businesses in the spirit of collaboration, rather than competition. I hope that this awareness campaign has at least resonated with a few people who include small businesses in their buying habits to this day. It might just save other small businesses from the same fate as my own.

Continue reading →

Time – I don’t have enough

~ nicoladonnelly ~ Leave a comment

My Dad has a saying, ‘time solves everything’. When I am feeling cynical I think that’s because I will probably die before I get to the end of my to-do list and then I won’t have the to-do list anymore. When I am feeling more optimistic, I get it. The thing that is causing you to worry today will probably worry you less in six months’ time. The exception to this is DIY. Putting off a small leak will not be less of a worry in six months. It will lead you to the event that happened to me earlier today… getting a joiner in to replace the part-rotten bathroom floor.

Continue reading →