New Year: raising my game

Everywhere I look there are people setting goals, making resolutions and girding their loins as, inexorably, the New Year rolls in once more. The New Year's apathy of the old familiar days where the mood came down with the Christmas decorations doesn't seem to prevail any more; there is purpose and determination and energetic insight right, left and centre.

I've been asked a couple of times what the New Year looks like for me. What does 2015 have in store?

Well. On one level, I wish I knew. As usual, the New Year stretches ahead of me like a blank page, pristine in its unsullied whiteness, waiting for my footprints, scufflings and scribblings. I have hopes and dreams and fears and expectations, but ultimately there is only One person who has already familiar with this year and all the others and knows how the plot unfolds, and it's not His way to give too many clues. I have a tendency to want to know things up front so that I can prepare myself, but even that's all a bit of a fallacy; a grappling for control over things that are in nobody's control but His. But - He has never let me down.

Last year was a vintage year for me - one that I'll remember as a Great Year. Not easy by any means, but I have changed more profoundly in the last twelve months, I think, than in any similar period in the whole of the rest of my life. I have done things that I never would have had the courage to have done because I have chosen to trust that God will never let me down; and He didn't. I have asked Him to make changes in me that I have, all my life, been unable to make in myself, and then trusted Him to do it, and He has begun a process that is making a fundamental difference to who I am.

I didn't see any of it coming. This time last year I was doing the 'blank page' bit and bemoaning that I couldn't see what was ahead and God smiled and said, 'All in good time,' and so I am learning, slowly, that it's better that I don't know. Things unfold in their own time - His - and He knows what I can handle and when.

So, I don't have the first idea of what might happen this year, and for that it turns out that I'm grateful.

However, I can see a couple of things coming in my direction this new year; thundering ominously toward me like oncoming trains.

My eldest daughter, Elizabeth, is a talented swimmer. She dives in, starts swimming, and quite often gets to the other end of the pool a way ahead of everyone else. She loves being in the water and in training can often be found doing a somersault in the middle of a lap just because she's happy. We have had a fantastic year watching her begin her transformation from swimming lessons to competitive swimming and the inevitable has happened a little earlier than we anticipated.

She's been promoted to the next squad. This is brilliant!  Her hard work, commitment and talent have been recognised and it is indeed time for a new challenge as her current squad had little left to offer her. Time to move on. Time to raise her game.

And mine.

Time to move on to a much more rigorous training schedule that involves five sessions of swimming a week plus land-training, plus travelling to different pools to train, plus weekend galas, to say nothing of the hours spent rinsing swimsuits, drying towels and producing bananas and muesli bars from handbags and glove compartments.

The piece de resistance? Two of these sessions (mercifully only two - the next squad up has five of these) are scheduled for 5.30am. AM meaning 'in the morning'. Five o'clock. Oh-five-hundred hours.

Most people grimace when I tell them this, but I have met nobody who has reacted with the same unbridled panic that I did on first hearing that this was imminent.

There is nobody in the world who likes their sleep more than I do. Nobody. Not a soul. So, I think it is with some amusement that God has put me in this position, and I think I know why.

I am afraid of not getting enough sleep. 

I never used to be; back in the pre-children days I was like anyone else in that occasionally I had a late night, went to work the next day and the world didn't end. I got tired, I carried on, I had an early night, it was all ok. But then I had a baby and found that first year as a mother so, so difficult.

I don't know why exactly - probably many reasons. Elizabeth was a baby who wanted to be held constantly, not the self-sufficient kind that could be placed in a cot to gurgle contentedly.  I was freshly bereaved (my Dad died the week before she was born) and deeply depressed; I am the kind of person to make heavy weather of everything... all these things and the completely normal new baby stuff make tiredness inevitable - but I reached a level of exhaustion that I hadn't dreamed of in my wildest nightmares.

I don't make any claims to being the only person in the world ever to have been tired, and it slowly improved a little only to happen again when Katy was born. Crippling exhaustion that took control of me and made the world a hostile place and me incapable of functioning properly in it. Now that the girls are nine and seven respectively I have a deeply held conviction that I am in possession of a ten-year sleep deficit that may not be corrected until the kids have left home.

Joking apart, I live in fear of ever getting that tired again.

So does my husband, and by that I mean that he lives in fear of me ever getting that tired again. I was horrible to live with, and even now, if I'm in need of sleep, he is careful to give me opportunities to nap rather than turn into the miserable, brittle, despairing, snarling woman that I can be when I've had insufficient sleep.

I was mulling this over with a friend a few months ago and I concluded in hushed tones (so that God wouldn't hear) that there was a chance that I had put sleep in such a position of importance in my life that  I'd elevated it to the status of god.

I'd made a god of sleep. Oh, shush.

So here I am, mother of a nine-year-old who wants to be a swimmer, and so I need to get her to the pool at silly o'clock twice a week. Do I think God heard that conversation?

God, are you smiling? Are you planning something?  Last year, with your help, I conquered several lifelong fears. Is this next on the agenda?

I'm really not looking forward to it, but I can see that from your point of view, it's necessary.

I'd love to be unafraid of being tired. Seriously, it has a hold over me, the fear of insufficient sleep. I lie awake sometimes watching the clock and worrying that there are not enough hours left before morning and there's no chance of tomorrow being a Good Day; it's already too late. There are things that I don't do because it would mean a late night or an early morning. Sleep isn't just something necessary that happens at the end of the day; I spend far too much time thinking about it, planning it, and probably too much time doing it, though it rarely feels like it.

Tomorrow morning, I'll be climbing out of bed at 5am to wake my slumbering nine-year old, cajole her to eat a banana and a muesli bar while being unable to stomach anything myself, drag my hands through my hair before scraping ice from the windscreen to get her on the poolside for 5.20am to do her thing with her team-mates. 5am holds no fear for her - indeed she's beside herself with excitement and can't wait to start the new programme.

The cafe isn't open until 8am so I'll have to take my own coffee.

We said that as long as she's enjoying herself, win or lose, we'd get her where she needs to be, when she needs to be there.

She needs to be there early.

So, that's one of the things that this year holds.

Last year I trusted God and He did amazing things. I'm still trusting Him.

The queue for haloes

Katy, then aged five, was getting dressed in her costume for the school Christmas play. In reception, most of the girls were making up the heavenly host of angels, and most of the boys were a fairly rowdy bunch of shepherds. Everyone wanted to be Mary, or Joseph, or (for some reason, that year) the Innkeeper, but no, the main characters were selected from the older classes. 

I remember clearly arriving at school and entering the classroom to find a scrum of harassed parents all struggling to shoehorn their excited children into their costumes. 

Teatowels abounded, as did satin, glitter and tinsel.  Katy's angel costume (Sainsbury's, £5.99; I am no seamstress) was on the desk and we were expected to get our little angels dressed for the last rehearsal before the Main Performance later that day. 

Katy was distracted by the classroom decorations and was more interested in pointing out her moose - or reindeer, or whatever - among the herd on the wall. A little boy next to her began to cry because his tea towel had a mysterious stain on it, and his mother was mortified. Someone else's wings had come un-velcroed and there was some stamping going on until Mummy could find them in the crush and stick them back on. Nobody noticed that they were now upside down. 

Katy attempted to put her white tights on over the top of her outdoor shoes and I was getting hot and bothered in my jacket and woolly hat. It was quite stressful. Things were said, and I know that you know what I mean. 

And then, all of a sudden, she turns around and there is my five year old girl in a white and gold angel costume, standing on tiptoe for a cuddle. Well, I had difficulty letting her go. 

One more hurdle - she had to fetch a halo from the teacher who was doling them out and she needed me to help her put it on. Katy has very silky, slippery hair, and so a headband with a lump of wire and tinsel attached was a bit of a balancing act. 

She sashayed off for her halo. Minutes later she returned with a small thundercloud where the halo should have been. And then it came:

(Accusingly) 'Mummy, how come I'm always last in the queue when they're giving out haloes?' 

There's one to write down and repeat in a wedding speech one day. My gorgeous little girl stood there  with a scowl and her halo all lopsided. She wanted one of the newer haloes; one that wasn't slightly battered from being fetched out every December for the last few years, but the shiny ones had already gone by the time she got to the front of the queue. 

Her halo was not what she wanted it to be. 

I think I was also at the back of the queue when they gave out haloes. I don't know anyone who was at the front, to be honest, though I suspect I know a few who were further up than I was. From where I'm standing, other people's haloes seem much more highly polished than mine.

Katy's five and I was impatient, frustrated and irritated; ready to shout at her (and indeed, probably would have done had we been at home and not in a sea of other, more rational, patient Mummies and Daddies). She was wriggly when I wanted her to be still. She was excited when I wanted her to be calm. She was happy and distracted and I was narked about having to get her into her white tights and then realised that they were on the wrong way round and the heels were in front. I snapped at her. 

She was an angel in the school play but her halo wasn't quite right. 

My halo is a bit battered too, Lord God. It droops quite often and I'm sure that it should shine a bit brighter than it does. But you love me anyway. 

She stood there, my little angel, looking disgruntled and disappointed and I pulled her into my arms for a hug and we cuddled for a long few minutes, right there in the middle of the busy hustle and bustle of pre-dress rehearsal preparations in the reception class at school. 

Two of us with less than perfect haloes. 

Cubes of carrot cake

I cried today, in a cafe. 

It took me completely by surprise. Two ladies came in and sat down at a table not far away from me. One was elderly and frail, and the other, I think, was her daughter.  

She settled her mother at a table, helping her into her seat, tucking her walking frame out of the way behind her chair, and then she went to fetch coffee and cake. 

I watched the old lady as she breathed out the exertion of the walk across the cafe from the lift and looked around her. She hadn't put in her teeth today, and so the lower half of her face was soft and misshapen. Her hair was thin and wispy and her skin translucent and spotted with age. Her eyes were pale and vague. 

Her daughter came back and unloaded a tray onto the table. She placed a milky coffee in front of her mother and sat down heavily as if she was weary. Then she reached over and cut the older lady's slice of carrot cake into cubes with the side of a fork. The old lady smiled and said something and began to eat her cake with a trembling hand.

I found I had tears on my face. It wasn't just the tenderness of a daughter for her mother, and it wasn't just the frailty of the old lady. It wasn't the obvious enjoyment of a slice of cake, an outing with her daughter. It was something more.

It sounds obvious, but it hit me powerfully. 

That old lady was young, once. 

She was fit and vital and energetic and on the ball. She had all her teeth, all her hair and all her faculties. She cut up cake for her daughter. 

And now she's old; now the world sees her walking with assistance, hesitant and frail. The world sees a walking frame and a hand on the elbow and a mouth of gums. It sees dryness and transparency and confusion. It sees not-yet-but-soon. It sees and it assesses and it discards. 

I know an elderly lady with a pacemaker and a history of cancer surgery and a limp who's out of breath with a bag of groceries, and she used to be a speed skater. I heard that for the first time and I raised my eyebrows and laughed. Why?  Because I see an old lady. 

We look at people and we think that we see them. I looked at the lady in the cafe and I saw dependency, difficulty, age and infirmity. I have no idea what else there was. That lady might have been an acrobat, an actress, a solicitor, a campaigner. She might have written bestselling books, or painted pictures, or made stained glass. She might have walked the country to raise money for charity, or jumped from a plane with a parachute, or been in the running for a Nobel prize, but I saw that her daughter cut up her cake for her and that her hand trembled as she raised a bite to her mouth. 

We think we know what we see. What do people see when they look at me? They see an overweight middle aged woman who doesn't want to be looked at. They see a woman who hurriedly brushes her hair and puts on some make up in the morning then rarely checks it until she takes it off at night - and yes, she wonders how long it's been smudged. They see my shape, my clothes, my expression, and they think they know who I am. They don't see what's inside.

They see a harassed mum, rushing round the supermarket, waiting at the school gates, frumpy in jeans and cardi. They see the heavy woman in the queue favouring her left leg because her right hip hurts, if indeed they see me at all. Why should they? I don't have arresting beauty or youth or really anything that catches the eye. Why should anyone even notice me?

They don't see a heart that burns for you, Lord. They don't see the ideas, the hopes, the dreams, the intensely important things that only you see. They don't see the essence of me. 

I am full of protestations that there is more to me than meets the eye. And I saw that old lady and wondered who she was, who she used to be, and then realised that I'd done exactly that thing: she is still the lady she used to be. She's still the girl who walked down the aisle with that young man. She's the mother who rocked her baby all night. She's the woman who cooked and worked and laughed and loved. 

And dreamed dreams. I'm sure she still does. I hope she still does.

We think we know who people are, and we make our instant judgements based on the little we see. We accept or reject with so little information. We look and look away.

But there's so much more. Everything that's important is invisible. 

In this world, we decay. Lips get thinner, waistlines fatter. Eyesight fades, hearing declines and soft, smooth skin discolours, dries and wrinkles. In this world we shrink as we age, and our value diminishes until our worth is negligible. Not so with you. 

What comfort that is. What a comfort to know that you see beyond the obvious; you know the soul deep inside. We are not defined by the world's assessment of us. That when the outside of us lets us down, as it always, inevitably will, we are still precious. Still valued. Still seen. 

I am so much more than the woman surreptitiously wiping away tears in a cafe. That lady is so much more than a walking frame and a tremor. 

I hope it was good carrot cake. I bet it was not as good as the one she used to make. 

A letter to tuck in your pocket

One and a half more weeks of holiday and school starts again. You can tell that my two girls' minds are beginning to turn to the new term because sometimes out of nowhere comes a little remark that reveals a hidden iceberg of thoughts and worries.

Katy is going back into year two, her last year at the little local infant school just around the corner. Her year one class has been split into two and she isn't with any of her friends. I held my breath as she handed me the paper, waiting for anguish and gnashing of teeth, but she was philosophical. 

'Mummy, there'll be all those new friends to make.'

What about that. 

I can't tell you how much I admire her. Six years old and fearless in the face of a daunting situation. Of course, she has her insecurities, but in the playground she's relaxed and confident of her own welcome and as a result the other kids want to play with her. How wonderful that is. I would love to be more like that. 

Her big sister, on the other hand, has moments of excitement about going back into year four, but mostly she's apprehensive and as September draws closer I can feel her happy holiday mood slipping a little. Last term didn't go particularly well and the troubles and tears multiplied until we were just nursing her through the last days before the long holiday. It's all been on the back burner but now it's time to turn up the heat again...

I encourage and reassure and comfort and advise, but the bottom line is that they both need to work out what to do to get through school and friendships and so on for themselves. What works for Katy might not work for Elizabeth, and what has worked all along might not always go so well. They are unique little bodies and personalities and neither of them is me. They're not going to handle it as I did (and that's probably a good thing; I made a complete hash of friendships for much of my school career). 

So, I will walk them to school and I'll buoy them up with words of encouragement. I shall tell them that they are warm, kind, beautiful, clever, interesting and fun to be with. I shall advise them on letting others go first, winning and losing with grace and happily playing games suggested by other children even if they feel they have a better idea.  

They have new school uniforms, (rats, socks. Forgot socks) and shiny new shoes. They'll have new haircuts and pencil cases. They'll be as ready as I can make them, but when I've waved goodbye, they'll pretty much have to sort it out for themselves.

Here's what I'd like them to remember:

Beautiful daughter of mine,

You are loved. 

More than you know, you are loved. You are loved by all your family back here at home; by me, watching the clock for school pick up time and anxiously searching out your face in the exodus of children passing through the school doors, and you are loved beyond imagination by your heavenly Father. 

He made you just as you are. He made you deliberately, not accidentally. You were designed by a Master craftsman who never, ever makes mistakes. When He finished making you, my little one, He sat back and smiled, delighted with the little girl He had made. He knows every hair on your head and He sees every breath that you take. He promised a long, long time ago that He would never leave you, and He is always at your side. Even when Mummy goes back home, He walks through those doors right next to you. He sits by you and cheers you on, and He puts His arms around you when things are tough. 

He is so proud of you. We all are, my lovely, but your heavenly Daddy knows the things that we can't know. He knows how fearful you are of new situations and He sees how difficult you find school, sometimes. He understands that now and again things go wrong and He smiles with pride when you don't give up; when you say sorry, when you try again.

You are loved. Let that sink in really deep, my darling, so that you can find that knowledge quickly when you need it. Try to understand those three little words so that they build you up. Things knock you down, sometimes, and I know that you feel fragile and vulnerable at school. It hasn't been easy so far and I know that you're sometimes overwhelmed and uncertain how to handle things. When you're feeling left out or insignificant, remember those three words: you are loved. Remember that you are loved just for who you are, not for anything you can do. That love doesn't falter when things go wrong, or you make a mistake. 

You are loved, all the time, no matter what. Just think: the Creator of the world loves you. He loves you so much that he smiles as He thinks of you. He is delighted with you, just as I am. 

I want to say it again, because I know how easy it is to listen to things but not to really hear them.

Those other girls? The ones that say mean things and hurt your feelings?  Oh, my love, there will always be girls like that. I'm forty-two and still they're around, only now they're at the school gates instead of whispering at the back of the classroom. It's not going to change because you're a year older. It's something that has always been, will always be.

Don't be one of them. I know there will be times when you'll be tempted to try to fit in by laughing with the mean girls; how membership of their circle seems a coveted prize, but don't do it. Friendship acquired at someone else's expense isn't friendship at all, and all too soon it'll be you on the outside again, for truth and companionship aren't built on secrets and sneering, but on compassion and honesty. 

And when you've been rejected or hurt and you want to lash out and hit back; don't. Close your eyes and count to ten, or breathe deeply and walk away, but don't play their game. Jesus taught us to love those that are not our friends. It's hard - even for grown ups - but He told us that we must be kind to those who aren't kind to us. And that means her, my lovely girl. Yes, you know who I mean. The one that you don't see to eye to eye with, and yet part of you longs to be part of her crowd.

Time and time again you've left school with her spiteful words ringing in your ears and before we've even walked home you've had tears on your cheeks because of this girl and her friends. Don't return meanness with meanness, because the momentary satisfaction that it brings quickly evaporates and leaves a guilty residue that only damages you. Better to return spite with kindness. Then you keep your integrity and the whole of heaven rejoices, because it's not an easy thing to do. 

I'm doing my best with that one myself, love, because I hate to see you hurt. Forgiving those that hurt you, even if they're only little themselves - well, I'm doing my best with that too. And one day, when you have children of your own and you know the fierceness of the love that you feel for your baby, you'll know how hard it is.  

Be brave, my little one; the world has plenty of people like her, but more that are not. Don't judge the whole world by the standards of the mean kids.

Seek out the children who are kind to you, who make you laugh, who make you feel happy, and do the same for them. Be a good friend, and you'll find good friends. I pray every day that you will find someone lovely to do life with; a girl who will link arms with you in good times and bad, who'll encourage and comfort and cheer you on. But until you find her, sweetheart, don't give up. Don't give up on friendship, or on the other girls, or on yourself. When you find that precious girlfriend who understands you, who accepts you and loves you it will be worth all the troubles. 

Remember, you are loveable. You are precious and unique and special. You are beautiful, inside and out, and you are loved. 

There is no-one like you. Don't compare yourself with anyone, because you don't know what it feels like to be them. Just be yourself. You were created to be you, just where you are right now, surrounded by the people you're with. There is no mistake. It's all in His hands. He's watching over you so, so carefully, and He will keep you safe. 

And I'll help. I'll be there in the morning, waiting by the gates in case you turn around for another wave. I'll be there when you come out, negotiating my own way among the grown up girls who chat and gossip in groups just as they did in this same playground when I was in your shoes. All day my mind will return to you, my lovely, and I'll wonder who you're sitting with in class, whether there'll be anything you like for lunch, who you're playing with in the playground. 

I'll be talking to Jesus about you and asking Him to hold you close, to help you, and He'll be saying to me, 'Don't worry. I've got her.' 

He's got you.  

With love

Mummy

 Linking up with Sabrina and Ruth at 'Letters To...' 

This time we're at Learning (one day at a time) and the prompt was: 'A letter to tuck in your pocket'.