Tag: family life

…..thoughts on that interview

How dare she make a fuss,

Rock the boat

When she must bathe in bubbles of

The very best champagne?

Try being just like one of us,

The ones with problems that are ‘real’.

But what is real when families

Are called upon and fail?

Everyone can feel that pain,

The sort that money cannot soothe.

So, I could write for about six weeks on the theme of that interview and I haven’t even seen it yet. From what we have seen here in the UK, there is so much that we can have an opinion on, whether we should be airing those opinions or not.

I love all royals and I love Harry and Meghan so I’m not on a side. I hope that all of them find happiness so it makes me really sad to see people dig in. I might write about the Kate vs Meghan issue later, but I want to touch on people’s negative attitudes towards Meghan and the pain that she has felt.

She brought up a lot about mental health and most people were very sympathetic to her in the Twitterverse. But I did notice that there was a little bit of backlash because she has money, and I’d seen it months ago when they did the documentary before they left the royal family.

It seems that for some people, if you have money, you are not allowed to feel pain. Money should get rid of all that, apparently.

I saw one person write something along the lines of ‘try being a single mum in Birmingham, and then tell me about having a hard time’. I thought that was such a horrible thing to say. This woman has been dragged through the mud VERY publicly and she has lost family and friends as it has played out.

If we work on the theory that money solves all problems, we can safely say that here in the UK nobody has the right to experience any mental health issues because we are a lot richer than people in developing countries. We all know that’s a load of twaddle, so why would people even suggest that’s the case?

I just hope that the family can find peace somewhere in this mess that they have become tangled up in. Their pain is just as real as the pain us ‘commoners’ experience. It’s unfortunately a part of being a human being.

Much Love

Rachel xx

the bedtime story

It rained outside, incessantly,

Beating hard against the window pane

Making music magic for our story time

As we hold each other tight in arms

Under covers with the lamplight on,

Dappled on the pages that we hope

To lose ourselves within each night.

His body’s warm to touch, a cheek

That’s rosy with a fever pitch

He caught between the Christmas walks

And the fireworks in the midnight sky

To see the New Year in with love.

But stories are our great escape

From this week where dates all blend

Into a fairground coloured haze

And his heavy little body is

The only anchor to this crazy world.

last chance saloon

old building facade with creative letters behind mount in mist
Photo by Julia Sakelli on Pexels.com

There’s nothing for another hundred miles or so

And we will cling to social life

With such ferocious hope and faith,

A wish that it will swing again

Into view, to fill our lives with Christmas joy,

But we cannot be sure of this,

We make the most of what we have

As doors will close one final time.

I went out to Nandos with Noah and my dad tonight, and unsurprisingly, there were lots of other people who had the same idea. Of course, we are going into lockdown tonight so this was the last chance for a lot of us to eat out for at least a month.

I just find it funny that humans can go for months without visiting a restaurant and then when we are told we can’t go out anymore we suddenly can’t imagine life without it.

I feel like we are the same with so many things. It’s probably why we all stocked up on enough toilet paper to last five years last time around. We have some sort of scarcity issue; a real fear that we will run out of everything, including fun and connection.

I think we are all a bit frightened that this might be the last time for a while that we get to share time with loved ones. It could be the last time before Christmas which is scary.

I hope that you are not panicking too much as we go into this new uncertain time. None of us know how this is going to pan out, but we will get our lives back. One day, this will all be over.

Much Love

Rachel xx

would i have been a better mother?

If I’d have let the years roll by

Like silver boules on verdant lawns

Would I have been a little better than I was?

Would the speed on letting go

Have been the key to being good?

Or would the gentle petering

Of forward motion as I reached

My target make the perfect mother out of me?

I had my son when I was 20. That’s not scarily young, but it is much younger than most of my friends have been when having their children. And over all this time the question that has been rattling around my brain is ‘was I too young?’

I know that I’ve done a pretty good job but I wonder about all the variables that could have made things easier or better. And then I start to think that maybe I made mistakes and maybe I’ve screwed it all up.

On the one hand, being young meant that I never got my career started before I had my son. I’m now in my mid thirties and I’m only thinking about this now as most women have that all wrapped up before they get pregnant. I think of all the money that I could have earned, and if I had waited would that mean that I could have given him a better life with better ‘stuff’?

I also think about the patience that I have now in comparison to when I was 20. It was hard to keep my cool with a demanding toddler that needed all of my attention when I still didn’t even know what I needed as a person. If I had waited, would I have been a kinder mother?

There is also the fact that it was still early days in my relationship with the father and that didn’t work out so I had to bring up my son on my own. I envy women who have several kids with a loving partner and a nice house and car. But once again, I only have myself to blame.

However, I look at Noah and I know that even though I was young and in some ways I could have done things better, I still gave him all the love that he needed to feel safe and secure. And that seems to be the thing that most kids remember and need. There are pros and cons to having kids early or waiting and just because somebody is forty and has a great job, doesn’t mean they’ll be great parents.

I didn’t write this to slate anyone’s choices in life, but rather I wanted to say that we all take our own paths and normally it all works out for the best. If we all waited for the perfect life there would be no fun stories or adventures out there in the world because we’d all have the same life.

So even if you think you might have made a mistake and released the ball a bit quick, just enjoy the ride. Even if you end up miles off target, you’re going to end up somewhere!

Much Love,

Rachel xx

i wish i’d never listened to my parents

They told me that I had good grades

So it would be a shame to see them go to waste.

‘Be a doctor,’ they trilled at me.

They pushed, coerced and drilled

The dream of money as a doctor in

A private hospital with a waiting room

Full of comfy chairs and coffee and biscuits,

Complimentary for those who can afford

The astronomical fee that I would charge.

But I was shy and sensitive,

A bookish girl who loved to write

And disappear into another world.

What was I to do with all that money?

All that stress? No creative source?

They set me up for a fail but

It was my fault for listening, of course.

Now, even though I’m having a bit of a rocky situation with my mother at the moment, I’ve always loved my parents and valued their opinion. However, as I was growing up, I was a straight A student and they did start to nudge me in the direction of a career in medicine. And I followed their advice without question.

The problem is that once you leave secondary education you really have to love what you are studying if you have any chance of succeeding in it. And I was an arty, creative kid so all that science and maths suddenly became very overwhelming.

I ultimately failed and it has taken me until my mid thirties to come to the realisation that earning huge amounts of money really isn’t necessary, you do what you want because you enjoy it. I’m sure that many writers out there will agree with me that you don’t write for the money. You fit it around a crappy job that you don’t like so that you can feel creatively fulfilled.

What I’m really trying to say is that I wish I had had the confidence when I was younger to just go with my gut instinct. My parents’ advice always came from a place of love, but perhaps I should have listened to my own inner voice too.

If you’re struggling to make a decision in your life, by all means, ask people for advice, but check with yourself too!

Much Love

Rachel xx