I am at a stage in life when my child is old enough to happily cook us lunch on a summer’s day and have opinions about family decisions – where we should go on holiday, where we should live and how we should spend our time. Yet they are still young enough to need me and want to be with me every day. At home, everyday life revolves around cooking, vacuuming, laundry and driving them to practice, carrying on without pause all year round.
I am also at a stage in life when my remaining parent has moved into the place where they will spend the rest of their life, receiving round-the-clock care. It is now my responsibility to keep in touch and take care of the practical matters, the finances and the empty flat, which I have not really known what to do with since the move. The flat simply sits there, and I can only hope that everything remains all right despite no one living there permanently.
Trying to be there for both generations constantly leaves me feeling inadequate. Giving my attention, time or finding a solution for one person always seems to mean taking something away from someone else. And some things simply remain as they are, going nowhere.
I simply am, too.
Savonian tattoo artist and visual artist Leena Lumilampi once said, while describing the process of creating one of her works, that she thinks “*everything is always somehow.*” I have found immense comfort in those words. Everything is always somehow, and I am simply part of it all.
There are wonderful days when I do something enjoyable with family or friends and feel wrapped in a blanket of love.
There are glorious celebrations when we dress in our finest and rejoice together.
There are ordinary Tuesdays when the checkout queue at Prisma is long and, at the last moment, I remember that I forgot the buttermilk.
> As a woman in my forties, have I learned to listen closely enough to the voice that tells me when I am allowed to do something purely for myself? Have I fought hard enough to break free from the role of the good girl that was assigned to me?
There are terrible days when I feel crushed beneath the weight of responsibility and have to struggle to make my own voice heard amid everything else – above all, by myself.
Sometimes I wonder whether I recognise my own needs quickly and clearly enough. As a woman in my forties, have I learned to listen closely enough to the voice that tells me when I am allowed to do something purely for myself? Have I fought hard enough to break free from the role of the good girl that was assigned to me?
As I write this, I am sitting in a bedroom darkened by blackout curtains in the middle of a sunny July day. It is already afternoon, and I have done nothing useful.
I am on holiday, and I do not enjoy scorching-hot days, so sitting here in the dark and writing is the best thing I can imagine doing right now. Why does it feel so radical?
The writer is a mother and daughter in her forties who is learning to be enough, first and foremost, for herself.