Why are you so shit at everything?
On the increasing critical chatter in my mind, the urge to work out why and trying to alleviate it
Firstly, I must apologise for not getting a newsletter out last week. With all the best intentions in the world, time just got the better of me. I feel that seven years into parenting and almost three school years later, I should have worked out a formula for navigating work alongside the holidays with no childcare. But I haven’t. Maybe you have some pointers, because in all honesty I could really do with them.
I’m also acutely aware that now is the advent of my loss anniversaries, which undoubtedly makes it hard to focus and prioritise. The catalogue of memories that live rent free in my mind: Baby shower. Date of death. Date of birth. Day we registered her (still)birth. Day we organised her funeral. Last day we visited her body. Due date. Date of the funeral. Each one feels like a lifetime ago and yet no time at all. Distant memories that I can almost reach out and touch.
And smell. We don’t really talk so much about smells and grief, particularly when death coincides with the start of life. But the scent of Orla’s birth is so distinctive, I can almost smell it even now.
Eight years on my grief has taken on a different form, which I think is why I tend to miss it. Or rather, I mistake it for something else. I feel overwhelmed. Stressed. Irritable. Low. Annoyed. Prickly. Self-critical. I compare myself unfavourably to others. I don’t tend to feel sadness or longing, which in of itself elicits guilt. And shame. It just feels like a messy and chaotic time of panic and angst.