After everything that happened with NaNoWriMo, the original, there have been a few of us who have been pretty vocal about the impact it has had on both our mental health and also our ability or motivation to write. Personally I have really struggled with motivation to keep writing, because it all felt a little too emotional. Some things over the last few months have made it a lot easier, but writing novels has remained at least a little challenging. I've struggled with the sharing of blog posts even when I have been able to write them, but I am trying to get past that, and there is a big reason for that.
One of the biggest fears I have now, one of the biggest fears I think most parents have, is not being there for my boy. It may be partly because of all of the stories we have from my grandparents that are only half remembered, and the fact we can't just go back and ask them now. The little details like who people in photographs they left us are, the stories behind hierlooms like the Austrian hat with all the pin badges, or even just things like what was my great grandpa actually like. I know little things, like he had a false leg because he was shot in World War One, but I can't remember if she said he was funny or he was musical. I know he could darn his own socks... or actually that might have been my grandpa because he was in the Navy during the Second World War...
There are so many more ways now to record the stories we want to pass on to our children, and whilst I'm sure there will be things on this blog that my child or children might not be interested in, or there might be things that make them think certain things about me, as well as it not containing a lot of things like how I met their dad, how we became the couple that we became, how we found our house and everything that happened as we waited to move... there's a lot that's not in here, but there is a lot that is here and it's a side of me that I would like them to be able to see one day, even if it's solely as a reminder that I haven't always been Mum.
Don't get me wrong, I am a big believer in that parents are whole people who need time to be more than just Mum or Dad or whatever name they go by. Parents need time to be a couple (if they are in a couple) as well as be themselves, and have their interests and their passions outside of just being parents. Being parents is important, of course, and being there for your child or children, but I think there is something problematic in losing yourself completely in your children, partly because it's what then contributes to empty nest syndrome when they have grown up and are doing their own thing, because then it becomes a thing of trying to build yourself a whole new life, with new hobbies and new friends and new passions. Reddit is full of horror stories of when parents are too wrapped up in their kids, and the sort of parents that resent when their kids becomes their own person and has their own life and later their own family. I fully intend to keep writing, maybe get back into running and parkrun, and stay in Scouting, but I'm also aware of the fact that these are things my son most likely will want to get involved in (or at least the last two) so it'll be less of a me thing and more of a we thing...
I guess the important bit for me is that my son would get the chance to read things I wrote, if he wanted to, and that's one of the things that keeps me writing, because even though we are starting a new chapter by becoming parents, it's all part of the stories that we have both been writing all of our lives, and this is the best window into mine. And I'm sure I'll find another way to make sure he has the stories about me and his dad, even if I have to hand write them in a book or something ridiculous like that...
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