Fuck Luck

I live a good life. 

Though not for everyone, I recognise that it’s an enviable life for many and that many people think that I am lucky. I know this because I’m told, often. Like it’s a compliment. But it’s not.

I am a first generation Australian. I was born to two European immigrants. My French father and my Dutch-Indonesian mother met in a migrant hostel in South Australia, fell in love and something, something… had two healthy, smart and able kids.

So I AM lucky to be born in Australia. Lucky and grateful. I am lucky to be born healthy, of mind, body and spirit. Lucky and grateful. I am lucky that I was born to a family that held ‘family’ in high regard so that I was raised with love. I’m lucky that the role models in my life were good and strong. I am lucky that my mum is the woman she is and therefore the parent she is. I am lucky that the next man she chose to be her husband would turn out to be the perfect step-father.

I am also lucky that I made it to womanhood, largely unscathed and now have two healthy, smart and able sons. I thank the universe for that good fortune every day.

I do feel lucky for all these incredibly positive things in my life because I had no impact on them. They were bestowed upon me thanks to genetics and thanks to the decisions and choices of my parents, their parents and the generations before them.

What I am not lucky for is everything else that people see in my life today. And be fucked if I’m going to smile and ‘yes, you’re right’ when someone suggests that I am.

Especially about the following ‘compliments’.

You’re so lucky you have a good husband.

My husband is a great partner. He is kind and loyal and reliable. He is loving and respectful. He is generous and supportive. He is strong and present and generally shares the same values as I do. He encourages me to follow my dreams and stands strong whenever I need to weather a personal storm.

But it is not an accident that we are together. Our marriage wasn’t arranged by a third party. At the time of meeting my [now] husband I was dating several other blokes… with an indecent amount of ex-boyfriends in my wake. I was trying before I did any buying. In the time that we have known each other we have dated each other, lived together, broken up, dated other people and got back together. When I said ‘yes’ to his proposal, I already KNEW he would be a good husband. That’s WHY I said ‘yes’. In the fifteen years that we have been married we have struggled, grown, aged, argued, weathered hard times and very nearly and irrevocably separated. Luck has not kept us together. Hard work has.

When we brought our first baby home we were CLUELESS. So we carved out a plan for how we wanted our family’s life to look and we stuck to the plan together. Accountable to each other and encouraging of each other. We headed in the same direction, side by side. He decided he wanted to be the best father he could be and I wanted to be the best mother I could be. So I spend every day doing what I can to achieve that goal. He does the same. He CHOOSES to be present and engaged and invested in his sons. We fuck up a lot but we hold each other accountable to those aspirations every day. 

No luck. No accident. No magic.

You’re so lucky you live in a beautiful home.

I have a beautiful home. It’s GORGEOUS. I am illogically and unreasonably emotionally attached to it. I actually love my home. With real feelings in my heart. It’s what I call my ‘forever home’ and if I had my way I would spend the rest of my days here. After renting for years, the last home I had I built with my husband. We worked crazy hard to build it for as little as possible so we could sell it making the maximum, honest profit… which we then used as a deposit on my ‘forever home’ which we substantially renovated.

We have sacrificed holidays, new cars and extravagant life choices to live in this house. There are many days when we reevaluate and question whether it’s worth it. My answer, every time, is “it is.” Those choices are not for everyone, we know, and we have many friends who prioritise other things like international travel with their family higher than a massive real estate commitment… and we have both been envious of each other’s choices at various times of our lives. Are they lucky to be able to travel regularly? Or have they engineered their life’s decisions around their priorities?

You’re lucky you can stay home with your kids and not have to work.

When I was ‘surprised’ by the arrival of a new life in my womb I had my own menswear boutique where I sold my own-label, imported men’s shirts ties and cufflinks. Before then I had worked full-time since the age of sixteen.

Once we got over the shock of being pregnant we had many candid talks about what we thought our family would look like and we both agreed that we didn’t want our child/children to go into childcare. One of us had to stay home with them and I chose to be the one. Which meant that I had to close my business and give up earning an income to do so.

My husband also has his own business selling wine [now online] that he started when we were first together. We have both worked hard to support each other in our professional lives.

If you’ve ever run your own business you’ll know that it is incredibly taxing and I’m not just talking about tax. It takes an enormous level of commitment, sacrifice and lean living. It also takes tenacity. In business, especially, you make your own luck. When you run your own business it becomes part of the family and though I no longer have my own business, I spend many hours every week with my head in my husband’s business.

Contrary to popular belief, I’m not the good little woman at home lucky to have a man bring home the bacon. My man brings home the bacon because he doesn’t have to worry about cooking it. He also doesn’t have to worry about school commitments, sick children, grocery shopping, clean sheets on the bed or jocks in his drawer.

Of course, becoming a single-income household was not without its challenges and it meant that we had to tighten our belts.

We don’t go to stage shows that are touring or attend concerts of any artists other than our kids. We haven’t been to all the new restaurants in town [or even many of the old ones]. We don’t often go to the movies and we usually choose to have our coffee at home instead of in a café. We do A LOT of entertaining at home. In our gorgeous house. We’re prepared to sacrifice lifestyle but we will always invest in our friends and family. And there’s no point in having such a big, beautiful home if you’re not going to fill it, often, with people you love.

You’re lucky that you have such good friends.

You know now that I think about it, I think I only ever hear that from my friends :)

But I’m not alone. I hear people say ‘you’re so lucky’ to women particularly ALL.THE.TIME. And I hear good, strong and capable women take it on the chin far too often. I’ve heard people say ludicrous fucking statements like “Oh you’re LUCKY that you have a husband/partner to BABYSIT your kids” NO. One does not ‘babysit’ one’s own offspring. One parents them. And there’s nothing lucky about that. I know women who have had to defend their ‘fortunate’ lives as though they somehow don’t deserve them. My friends are sick of being called lucky for their life’s choices too. Lucky that they have such a good job, lucky that they drive such a nice car, lucky that they have such a nice partner, lucky that they have a happy family, lucky that they have a good life.

Calling someone ‘lucky’ robs people from owning their decisions. It devalues their own strategic plan and their hard work. It’s condescending and many times demeaning. It’s like the common misconception that new musical artists in the industry are ‘overnight successes’. As if the decade of training and auditions and failures prior to their emergence didn’t exist.

As with many people, the role that luck has played in my life so far is part of the picture.

But the truth is hundreds of little decisions every day and a few really momentous ones are the reasons that I live such a lucky life.

Mummy Tantrum

Do you know what sucks? 

How, once you have kids, someone's priorities come second. Sometimes it's Mum's. Sometimes it's Dad's. It doesn't really matter - it's always someone's. And in our house, it sucks, 'cause it's MY priorities that take the back seat. Like my life isn't as important as anyone else's. My goals aren't as pressing and my needs aren't as necessary. And though I don't want to seem petulant, I just feel like stamping my feet and yelling "I'm important too!" 

Yes, I chose to take time away from my career to raise our kids. Yes, I'm happy I did and I'd do it again. Yes, I know someone has to be the bread winner and at the moment I'm not winning any more than a few slices but for fuck's sake, I want to start bringing loaves home again. Except I can't because I'm the family 'go to'. I'm the one that needs to drop everything when the shit hits the fan. 

Even when it's not my fan. Or my shit.

It's 11.45pm and my eyes are hanging out of my head but it's the only quiet I've had all day to just sit and write. Which is one of MY needs that isn't as necessary as everyone else's. I couldn't when the kids were at school because I had to work and deal with some family 'shit'. I couldn't after I picked the kids up because I had to get them ready for soccer because Dad got held up at his far-more-important-job so couldn't make it home in time. I couldn't when we got home because I had to cook dinner. I couldn't after dinner because I had to finalise a year 3 homework project with a nearly 8 year old. 

I know I should be in bed. Catching on the sleep deficit I've been living with for, I don't know, eight years now. I know I should be resting but my rest isn't as important as everyone else's. Everyone else is asleep. In the beds that I keep clean with a full tummy of the dinner I cooked. 

I didn't do the bath and bedtime routine though. I was lucky tonight. I ASKED for some TIME OFF so I could get some of my stuff done. And it was granted. 

Lucky I tell ya.

My brilliant body and the Stretch-mark Swagger

Do not be fooled by this photo... it's all about the angles and the filter x

I swaggered a little

As I walked to the water’s edge

The sweet sting of the morning sun

On my shoulders

My ponytail tickling the nape of my neck

I readjusted my bikini as I sauntered

Making sure it covered as much breast

As the scant triangles could

Tucking in a few wayward pubes that I missed

In my dry-razor touch up before I left home

Families flanked my sandy path

Mums, dads, babies

Pop-up sun shelters, deck chairs, eskies

I can hear a baby screaming, a young child laughing and a helicopter overhead

I held my head high as I made my way to the shoreline

I looked down at my belly, soft and protruding

So I sucked it in... just a little bit

But then I saw my thighs

Wider than my hips, lined with stretch marks, dimpled with cellulite

And let my breath out

I stood taller as I noticed my varicose vein

Which is more like a rope, snake its way down the length of my left leg

Knowing it will be there as a reminder of my second pregnancy

Until a time in my life that will permit me to have

The 7 days off my feet

Required for the operation to remove it

When I reached the water

And the waves lapped against my calves

I realised I could see my reflection

In the joy of my sons’ faces as they laughed

At my wincing against the cold of the ocean

Through their eyes I see my body

Is soft and warm and strong and protecting

I scowled at my husband as he joked

That I was being precious

And I could see that when he looks at me

He sees a body that created his family

His legacy

A body that has grown with him

A body he still loves

I smiled as I paraded

Proud to be me

In all my womanly glory

And I remembered a time when my body

Was younger

Firmer

Tighter

I remembered when my breasts were higher

And my arse stuck out and the only lines on my thighs

Were tan lines

And for a moment I became sad

Because when my body looked its best

I did not swagger

I did not saunter

I saw no glory

When my body looked its best

I focussed on the faults and trivialised the beauty

I saw only what it wasn’t and failed to see what it was

It’s only now that my body is older

and tired

and loose

and dimpled

and plump

and spotted with age

and striped with stretch marks

and mapped with veins

and creased with laugh lines

I see brilliance

While you were sleeping

Dear Nathan and Stefan,

So much of my life as your mum goes unseen by you, as it should be but, did you know...

Before I put your clothes in the washing machine I check the pockets. I love the treasures I find in there and line them up in the laundry. Sometimes I find money and I steal it back from you.

When I check on you before I go to bed, I tidy up your covers and push the hair away from your brow and kiss your warm face. 

Sometimes I stand outside your bedroom door and listen to you two talk at night before you go to sleep. The sound of you laughing always makes me smile.

When you're upset and I open my arms for you to come for a cuddle, it's because I need it, not you.

I look at you sometimes and see me.

I remember the feel of your milky baby breath on my face and it makes me cry just a little bit.

When you come bursting in through the back door from playing outside screaming and bleeding and I pick you up and say to calm down, everything's going to be ok - I'm talking to my own panicked heart.

My heart nearly bursts out of my chest when I watch you in assembly and play sport and interact with your mates.

I have spent your whole life watching the expressions on your face and that's how I know when something has happened at school, or someone has upset you or something is on your mind without you saying a word.

I keep your notes to Father Christmas.

I have great expectations of you because I can see your enormous capacity to achieve. To succeed. To love and be loved. I will be your most staunch supporter and harshest critic forever.

Sometimes I look at you and I see my dad and that makes me happy. And sad.

You know how I get very mad at you when you argue back and are disprespectful to me? Well, one day I will tell you that I am proud that you know your own mind already and you have the balls and ability to stand up to me. One day.

Seeing you two hang out together as brothers and friends makes me feel good about the choices I've made.

At night, when you're asleep, your dad and I talk about you. We discuss your behaviour that day and what you've got on that week and what we can do together for fun and what lessons we can teach you and how we can be the best parents possible. Sometimes we fight but it's always for the same outcome. You and us as a family.

I brag about you on Facebook.

Your bodies amaze me. I watch them grow strong and see the muscles develop under your brown skin and I can already see the men you're going to be. I know my days of wrapping a towel around you and drying you off after a shower are numbered and that makes me anxious that I'm running out of time.

People will tell you that your mum is your first love but what you may never know is that you two are the greatest loves I have ever known and I will never love anyone or anything as purely as I do you. Until I take my last breath.

Love Mum xx

Go ahead... make my day

It’s probably ‘that’ time in my cycle but just lately, my kids have been annoying me. Not the usual, can’t stand that whingeing tone annoying but actually pissing me off. What have I done? Have I really spent the last 7 years raising ungrateful kids? My kids are so fortunate that it’s ridiculous. They have two parents, who live together and who love them entirely. They are extremely well-fed. They are clean. They are warm. They live in a beautiful home filled with more stuff than they could possibly need. They are paid attention. They are paid respect. They are healthy. They are fit. They are smart. They can see. They can talk. They can walk. They go to school every day with their friends and are taught by teachers who are invested in their growth and education. They have extended family who adore them and they have a broad network of family friends who enrich their lives also. They have travelled. By car. By ferry. By bus. By plane. They have a great life so it is infuriating to me when I hear them complain and I’ve had just about enough of it.

I’ve started a new regime in this house and things are gonna change. Yep, parenting is thankless, we all know it. I don’t mind so much that I’m not thanked for being a bloody fantastic mother but I do mind that I have to defend myself, that I have to beg for gratitude for the simplest things. It does not excite me to cook dinner every fucking night of my life. It doesn’t bring me joy. It doesn’t fulfill me as a person. It certainly doesn’t challenge my creative flair as I only have about 12 dishes I can choose from to ensure the entire family will eat healthily and on time. So when I am told ‘I hate this dinner’ I go a little bit Rambo.

"In town you're the law, out here it's me. Don't push it. Don't push it or I'll give you a war you won't believe."

 

When my kids complain that we do not have a Wii, Playstation, DS, Foxtel, X-Box blah, blah, blah as they’re sitting on their leather sofa, watching a DVD from their own personal library on a flatscreen tv playing a game they have downloaded onto my iPhone, my head dips down and I get a bit Dirty Harry.

 

"...you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"

And when I get home from walking them to school in their clean uniforms, with their homework done and the excursion forms signed and their money orders for book club packed neatly in their school bags next to their homemade lunches and I trip over the pyjamas I ask them to put away in their bedroom instead of leaving them on the lounge room floor every fucking morning… well that sends me a little bit Falling Down.

 

"I am not a vigilante... if everyone will just stay out of my way, nobody will get hurt."

I spoke to another mum the other day who is an awesome woman. She’s an entrepreneur and a wife and has four kids. She’s young and dynamic and confessed that she has given up cooking vegetables for her kids. GIVEN UP. What are you kids doing to us? What are we LETTING you do to us?? The nightly battle to get good food into her kids is so hard for this amazing woman that she has surrendered. Cue every other mother’s confession of letting their 5 year old into their bed every night because they’re too tired to take them back to their own bed or bribing their kids with chocolate to keep them quiet in the trolley at the supermarket so they can get 15 minutes peace to buy them good food or giving in to their toddler’s tantrum for whatever it is that they insist they need just because they don’t have the fight in them that day. Our kids are wearing us down. My kids are wearing me down. And I’m not putting up with it anymore.

 

There’s a new sheriff in town boys. And her name is Rambo Harry Down. Don’t mess with her – she’s nuts.