It’s hard to know why, but some days, despite having a glorious toddler who is great company, a loving husband and a great family, I feel alone, isolated and sad. Perhaps it’s a shade of depression, and if that’s all I’m left with, that’s pretty damn good. On those days, I miss my mum (Hi Mum!). That’s an inside joke. I never call her mum, I have always called her by her first name. And we keep in touch most days on the phone, and we skype. But it’s not …

Reading this post at Three Ring Circus today I could relate.
I never made friends easily, in part because we moved around a lot and at school, everyone seemed to have known one another since Kindergarten. It was hard to break into cliques. Especially as a naturally shy person. One time I did push past the shyness to make friends, because I was lonely, and for a time the loneliness outweighed my reticence. A few weeks later I was sat down by the group of friends and told, very matter of …

I never thought I’d be one to particularly enjoy the toddler years. The tantrums, the not having a clue what they’re saying half the time, the wilfullness. But in true, biased parent style, every age is my favourite.
And there’s a lot to love about the toddler stage. The beginning of words (even if I can only decipher some of them), the emergence of a little person with distinct ideas and preferences and the way sheer joy that they demonstrate on any given day.
Today, I loved that even though I was …

That’s how I choose to think about it. An old friend. Not because I particularly like its company, but because I would struggle to know who I was without it. You don’t get over it so much as manage it. Managing it is probably not an accurate term. It makes it sound like you are in control, when really a good management strategy just gives you enough momentum to survive a trough.
I don’t see much of it anymore because I climbed back from the abyss through a combination of bad …