Sunday 15 May 2016

The Extraordinary Ordinary (Life Is Not a Movie)

This evening I went out for a jog. When I say ‘out for a jog’ I mean I walked around the park at the end of my road at a pace slightly faster than my usual stride, which is hardly a challenge given that my usual stride is one step forwards and five steps into somebody else’s garden chasing a feral toddler.

How fast I was bumbling around the park tonight is kind of irrelevant to this post, I’m just setting the scene, as it was during this uninterrupted walking time that I started thinking about life. Life in general. Everyday life. And how all too often there is build up and expectation attached to daily events, moments and milestones which can leave us feeling under pressure to feel a certain way. Feelings are not like that. By their very nature you can’t create feelings or build up to ‘a moment’. Something either gets you in the feels or it doesn’t.

I need to rewind to this morning for this to make any sense. First though, I need to tell you how years of watching sentimental films and TV dramas has set me up to fail on the feelings front. Real-life is nothing like film-life. Of course we all know that movies are not real life but once you’ve internalised a whole catalogue of film ‘moments’ it’s hardly surprising if you start to expect life to play out like a script every now and again. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if I sit at home every night hoping the knock on the door is Andrew Lincoln instructing me to pretend it’s carol singers and declaring his undying love for me on handwritten cue cards. James has never once dressed up as a fighter pilot and serenaded me with You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling but I fell for him nonetheless.

Films have simply left me expecting emotional moments that just haven’t happened. Parenthood has brought about the absolute worst of this disappointment because parenting moments are so well-documented on the big screen. Moments like childbirth, where the parents always share a cuddle and a cry when the baby is born. My boys were delightful and I was over the moon to hold them against me but I didn’t cry. I can remember thinking, ‘Should I be crying now?’ No tears came.
More generally, there are all those scenes in films where motherhood looks amazing. Even when it’s portrayed as chaotic it looks like fun chaos – cereal spillages on floors, lots of noise and laughter, the odd slamming of a door that is later resolved by an emotional chat over fresh coffee and lots of meaningful eye contact. The chaos in my life can be fun too but milk on the floor generally results in a head injury and we tend to save all meaningful eye contact for our smartphones.

This morning, however, something special happened. A special feeling.

I had taken Henry to his first ever gymnastics class and after waiting awkwardly outside, not really knowing what was expected of me in this environment, it was time for him to go in. I have taken him to other classes before – music, drama etc. but these have always been things I have joined in with (to be honest, by the time we stopped the music classes I had found myself running around in a circle doing the animal actions while he tried to climb the chair stacks and steal other people’s shoes). This morning was different, though, because he is four and has joined a group where you just leave them to it. No big deal.

Only it became a big deal for me as I stood there and watched him through the glass. Watched him trot in with zero fear, confidently taking a seat on the mat amongst the other boys and girls and proceeding to follow them around in a gym circuit, stretching his arms out as he balanced on the beam and joining in with floor exercises (where he was understandably two steps behind everybody else but persevered with such a happy face). He was in his element, and when I saw his eyes searching for me I jumped and waved and mouthed, ‘Well done!’ with a huge thumbs up from the other side of the door. He returned my thumbs up with a long-distance fist pump and then, just as quickly as he had looked for me, he looked away and slotted straight back into the class.

It was nothing like anything you would see in a film. There was no moving soundtrack, no pep talk from me telling him I knew he could do it, no slow-motion shot of him leaping off a balance beam and landing gracefully on the mat to rapturous applause from the rest of the gymnasium. Nobody else noticed anything remarkable.

But I did.

To me, it was extraordinary. My boy was extraordinary. I fought back a lump in my throat as I stood there in a sweaty-smelling gym corridor and realised, with mild amusement, that it was the most proud I have ever felt about anything.

So this evening, as I found myself out walking and contemplating life-in-general, I realised that I have been looking for the wrong moments. Or at the very least looking in the wrong places. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been looking at all.

Feelings aren’t like that. Feeling just are.
Like pride just was for me, today.

The Unmumsy Mum

25 comments:

  1. I love this. So often as parents our lives are so busy 'looking' for the perfect moment or photo op but they're happening right in front of us. Just not Insta-worthy as they're nothing but that child's parent will understand.

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  2. In the midst of a most prolific bout of insomnia, your post has just brought a tear to my eye. Being a mum has been ....well, not what I expected, as you say, we expect every day to be magical and it's not (far from it some days). My daughter will turn three next week and I am just beginning to feel those heart melting moments creep in here and there. The other day I was feeling particularly crappy- sore throat, tired as usual, looked a bit like zelda from terror hawks, then my daughter turned around to me and said 'mummy, aren't you feeling well? You look tired. I'll give you a special hug to make you better'. Boy was that a special hug. It melted my heart. My girl was growing up and although mostly acting like Kevin the teenager, I could see she was a beautiful, caring being, that I had nurtured. So thank you for sharing your experience here. Like everyone else says about you, you make us feel like we're not alone. X

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  3. I had one of these at my sisters wedding. It was all about the girls getting ready in their beautiful dresses & my Noah just looked at me with one glance during the ceremony and my heart almost burst with pride. He looked so handsome & grown up in that moment. Not expected, but so lovely x

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  4. @mccbuckandthegaps15 May 2016 at 01:13

    Perfect post! Kids are unpredictable and never are the moments you hope will be your extraordinary moments extraordinary moments! I have always thought it was their way of sticking the middle finger up at us mums (metaphorically speaking!)

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  5. Well I'm reading this at almost 5 in the morning yes there is 2 in a day LOL and it gave me so much to think about until you think of it like that your right and I suppose when your life is playing out like a real life movie it's nice to know the script was your own and the actors did it their way and when you have them moments of pride and great sense of achievement its yours and the Oscar will go to you ����

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  6. I'm glad you mentioned the not crying at birth thing.I didn't cry with either of my two yet I cried when Leicester won the league. does that mean I love football more than my children ? Absolutely not ! X

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  7. You just made me cry on my morning coffee!
    I felt the same with my 3 yr old son at his first football class (not that I'm into football); he was just this little independent being and it was great to witness.
    Life is all about the little things isn't it?
    Thx for your posts, always spot on and hilarious

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  9. I'm too busy running around like a headless chicken or shouting at my kids to stop maiming each other to get these moments often, but yeah, every so often one gives your heart a little squeeze. I wish I could bottle that and access it when my kids are being complete shits and I'm wondering where I went so wrong...
    My oldest boy is nearly 4 and starting school in Sept; no doubt I'll be struck down by "the feels" more and more often.

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  10. This is so lovely. I am definitely guilty of expecting film script moments but real life ones are just so much better. You can see the film ones coming a mile off but the real life ones hit you and take you by surprise which makes them so much more powerful. Thanks for sharing this X

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  11. Your understanding of what goes through my mind is scarily accurate.stuff the movies,time to live in my moment!

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  12. I don't normally comment but this exact same thing just happened last week with my three year old. I stood behind the curtain in the gym hall listening to him laughing and giving the other children encouragement and it melted my heart!

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  13. This was so timely as my little girl had her first ballet lesson yesterday and I was doing exactly the same - peering through the glass, watching her being all grown up and independent yet reassuring her with a wave when she looked around for me!

    Mind, she was an absolute shit last night having an hour long mega tantrum, but it's all about the highs and lows 😊 🍷🍷🍷

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  14. So very, very true. I don't think I've ever felt the way Hollywood suggested I should during the major moments of my life, not even on my wedding day. The best bits always seems to arise when you least expect it, in totally mundane places and at really random times. Like in Sainsbury's today, when my two year old shared his hula hoops with me when I said I was hungry...

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  15. As always, you say it perfectly. We are always desperate for them to gain some independence but then it's such a shock to not be needed like before!
    You have inspired me to write a blog. Even if no one reads it, it's proving a very therapeutic outlet.
    Keep writing!

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  16. Bloody hell Sarah you nearly made me cry with this one. SO lovely. I can relate to that feeling well. I felt much like it the first day I dropped F off at school. I expected some big moment of engulfing emotion and to cry but it was all very calm and ordinary - until the walk home when it hit me that I'd just left my baby girl at school for the first time. You've hit the nail on the head, as ever. x

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  17. I remember building up anticipation at my 2 boys christmas in which I had gone to town. We were so excited we had to wake them up. I soon crashed when i saw they were so tired they could barely open their eyes and didnt seem overly excited about their stocking as i had imagined. Let down or what!

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  18. What a beaut of a post. Ethan is five and the milestones and achievements had all pretty much stopped. Until I witnessed him swimming freely in his swimming lesson last week. I too was behind the glass and thought I saw the instructor lower him into the deep pool with no arm bands. To my amazement he swam to the ladder and got out the pool looking for me and so so proud, giving me the thumbs up. I stood up and waved like a loony, with happy tears rolling. Just amazing! No back ground music, no sloppy "I knew you could do it" just me and my boy in our own little moment together. A core moment I will never forget xx

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  19. Sounds like you had a beautiful moment. There are lots of pressures that seem to map out how you should feel as a Mum and I've definitely felt them as a first-time Mum. It's hard to just let life happen and not worry about them! I had a similar moment with my little one who is just over two a few weeks ago. We were at a toddler group and it was storytime. She went and sat all on her own with the other children, legs crossed, all polite and listened to the story and I felt like I was watching her in school! It was such a tiny thing but it made me realise how she is growing up! She too turned around a couple of times for a bit of reassurance that I was still there but most of the time she was just fully engaged in the story whilst I was welling up in the background!xx

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  20. What a lovely post and so true. I have experienced the exact same thing with my little girl at ballet. She started when she was just 20 months old which was a little younger than the two years that the teacher suggested. But I knew she could do it. Until recently I've been allowed to sit in the class although they prefer parents to wait outside. Last week I waited outside and watched her through the glass in the door. My heart nearly exploded it was so full of pride. My little baby was amazing, following instructions and copying the teacher. The focus on her little face was just wonderful. I couldn't stop smiling. Then with 10 mins to go she lost interest and decided that rolling on the floor was much more fun. For for those first twenty minutes I was on cloud nine. So proud that she had the confidence to stay in the class without me and that she could actually take part properly. I'm sure there will be many more of these occasions in the coming years. Not quite like the movies but still amazing.

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  21. I know the feeling :-) My son could do the smallest things and I have never ever been so proud in my entire life <3

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  22. same here, im amazed what they can do. Thats why i started my own little blog since i feel otherwise i just cant get it all out =)

    https://www.facebook.com/stubbornmummy/

    children are so amazing and frustrating at the same time

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