Constance Hall just shared a beautiful post, so why am I sobbing like a lunatic?

Constance Hall may not be loved by everyone, but she certainly has a heart of gold. Her latest post proves she wants nothing but goodness for the world.

Sharing on Facebook Constance wrote, “Yesterday at the park, with my laptop so I didn’t look like a loser with no friends.

It was glorious and sunny and the park was filled with babes being fabulous with their bubs.

One other chick was a loner like me, toddler was doing runners while her newbie screamed. That torn feeling is pretty stressful, do I chase my toddler and thus make the little turd run faster or do I answer that primal instinct telling me to go to the newbies screams?

I know that feeling. It’s over whelming.

Once when Arlo was born and Billie-Violet was 2 Bill called and me to race into freo and pick up his prescription from his dentist.
I was pissed, I had purposely gotten all the shopping I Needed so that I didn’t have to leave the house again.

But I agreed, his tooth ache was killing him.
It all went well, I parked, picked up the script, had a chat to the lovely ladies at reception, until I went to put them both back in the car, Arlo started cracking the shits and giving me that skin crawling scream that only newborns can give, Billie-Violet sniffed my weakness and saw it as an opportunity to bolt, I was holding Arlo as she ran out and onto the road, a car was burning down the street, I screamed, shoved Arlo into the car seat and ran to grab Billie-Violet, the panic made me yell at her and forcefully shove her into her car seat before I burst into tears.

At that very moment a women in her office was standing at the window staring at me and shaking her head.

I wanted to die.

I felt so inadequate and ashamed, for losing my shit, for endangering my children, I felt so angry that my fucking husband couldn’t leave work to get his own prescription and as I sat there in tears I had the thought that I must be depressed.

So I did what I always do when I’m overwhelmed, I called my aunty.
She works with new mums in child development and I asked her if she thought that I was depressed, she responded with this,

“No I don’t think you are, I think your just lacking support. Do you realise that your not supposed to be doing this on your own? We are all supposed to be doing this together, we need to bring the village back, if that women had have come and strapped Arlo in while you went to grab Billie-Violet you wouldn’t be feeling like a failure at all you would be feeling like a member of a community, an extended family that all have each other. I don’t think your depressed, I think you just need your village.”

And I have been collecting my village ever since, most days I leave school with someone else’s kids, someone always has some of mine. I stop by a friends house and she will scoop some of the curry from her pot into a container for my family while I’m changing her babies nappy.
And that has been the only way I’ve healed. By finding a village.

I kept creepily watching her, now her toddler had poo’d and it was pretty obvious by the fact that she mouthed the words ‘fucking hell’ that she didn’t have a nappy of a nappy wipe.

I did.
I approached her and asked if I could help.
She told me that she doesn’t know why she bothers leaving the house she feels so unorganised, I was like
“please, I was about to ask someone for a spare pare of undies and a tampon, compared to me your on top of the game”

Her name is Jess, we sat together and de-loner’d for the morning and are even catching up again tomorrow.
So just like that… Our village is growing.”

Why the tears you ask?

I have read many posts from Constance talking about her village. I have often envied her courage and balls. But this post, this post right here, made me realise I lost my village, my mum, a few years ago and I have never wanted anyone else to replace that, until today. Noone can ever replace your mum, but that village of people is what everyone needs to survive and I pushed them all away pretty fiercely. Grief does that.

I guess I just wanted to prove to myself that I would be OK and I didn’t need anyone else. I would survive.

I was an “older” mum compared to my friends, so they had all moved on well past the baby/toddler years when my two arrived. I was pretty much alone in a sea of unknown.

The comment her aunt made, “I think your just lacking support. Do you realise that your not supposed to be doing this on your own? We are all supposed to be doing this together.” That right there is what midwives, doctors, OBGYN’s need to be drumming into all parents so it is not such a long and lonely road.

My “baby” is now seven, so the days of mothers group and play group are well behind us.

Mum’s (and dad’s), go out and surround yourself with that village. You will be so thankful once you make that first move.

I know it’s not too late for me, but I have struggled through the hardest part, and looking back I wished I had done a few things differently.

Do you have your own village?

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