Keeping it all in

I have been thinking about writing on and off for the past four years. I basically stopped when I fell pregnant with the twins. I felt totally overwhelmed, shocked and more than a little bit stupid. Pregnant by accident at my age! Duh... I blogged about it in my head but never wrote it down. I let my shame and embarrassment censor me, I feel sad about that.

By the time I was ready to let that go and get back to writing another road block appeared. The biological father of the twins made it abundantly clear that I should shut up about it. I received pretty clear instructions that he did not want me to talk about my pregnancy on any social media platform. I was so vaunerable I meekly complied, I didn't rock the boat, I stayed low key. The whole time silently seething and continuing to blog in my head

By the time the twins arrived I had lost my mojo with writing and my sense of frustration was overridden by my lack of time to shower/dress/feed myself etc..twins have a tendency to de-rail even the most prepared parent. Little did I know that the biggest obsticle was yet to come and when it came I was so blindsided and consumed by it that any hope I had of writing again had vanished. This time my censorship was neither self imposed nor from any fear of upsetting anyone. This time it was legal.

When the papers were served I went in to fight or flight mode. Flight was not an option as I would be charged with kidnapping my own kids so I chose to fight. I fought the court case that came with every last bit of energy that I could muster it took every moment of my time that was not spent tending to my 2 month old babies and a then 4 year old Dora. When I say every last moment I mean just that, the babies napped, I made phone calls to lawyers, the kids with grandparents, I was making notes, documenting researching and making sure I had everything in place. In the meantime I was not allowed to talk publicly about what I was put through. I kept it all in.

Keeping it all in has its own special price. I knew that I was going to pay physically for it sooner or later. At the time I just put one foot in front of the other with the aim of getting home to Thailand with my children and back to the life I had worked hard to build for them. And come home we did. After 9 months of fighting I won and we left the U.K with the correct papers and permissions in hand. But by then keeping it in was so ingrained in me that it was impossible to write. I would write more about that whole experience but I'm still not ready and I'm still working out how and where to start. I don't hold the U.K authorities in very high esteem for the way they treat women..and that is in my polite public blogging voice. So as not to offend! Those of you who know me in real life can fill in the expletive blanks..

The physical price has come and been a hard one to pay. Autoimmune illness is often triggered by extreme stress and I had that by the bucket load. Symptoms are so sneaky they can be fobbed off...fatigue..I've got 3 kids! Skin is dry/spotty...it's the weather or your feeling low...joint pain..see fatigue above! Oh and I'm getting older! One infection followed another and then the fear kicks in. What's wrong here? Why do I sleep from 8pm and still feel like I ran a marathon? Must mention to the hairdresser that my hair is falling out..hmm maybe I should see the doctor. But life with kids takes first place and as so many before me have done I put my health down the to do list and fobbed myself off.

That has stopped I'm not keeping anything in anymore. I'm looking after myself. I'm taking back my voice, my blog, my power. I am writing this to remind myself what keeping it in does and to anybody who isn't keen on me writing what I think or feel..DON'T read it! But I will not allow fear or censorship to have a place in my life anymore and I won't be shamed or hide. Social media! I'm back. Instagram. Facebook. Periscope. Twitter..nobody puts Beki in a corner.

Sorry couldn't resist the cheese xx

 

Posted with Blogsy

Moving Drama

Fate stepped in and over my morning coffee I saw the bulldozer roll in and rip out the few trees that surrounded our house. It was time for us to get out of town. The traffic noise, pollution and total lack of trees in the garden had finally worn me down. What was the point of living in the tropics if you can't sit outside and enjoy it? Having a moment of quiet disbelief that they were truly turning the plot next door into a building site my phone rang.

After the bulldozer

Do you want to move and live up the mountain? My friend was calling to give me the heads up that the perfect house for us was soon to be available. I wasn't prepared at all...dates were horrible, other half away at work..school holidays..rainy season. My health was dreadful but staying next to a building site was never going to help. So I thought about it and followed my gut. We were moving.
Fast forward to the move and note that I between I was diagnosed with an auto immune disease that attacks my thyroid..fun hey. Our landlord in the house was totally unsympathetic about the need for us to move and despite giving notice and leaving the house immaculate he refused to return the deposit..joy..he warrants a whole post to himself that one! I was growing more stressed by the day.
My mum flew to the rescue and worked like a Trojan. She is a machine. I would never have managed by myself. Day by day she packed and worked tirelessly to get the job done. I managed to hold it together and drive up and down the mountain one car load at a time. It was all coming together and the current tenants moving date was drawing close, plain sailing we thought. Wrong. It seemed we had vastly different approaches to our domestic arrangements aka living in a rodent infested filth hole!!!! I'm not being melodramatic.

Unwanted guests ate the beds

Really it was horrible and we had one week to make it a hygienic habitable place for my family to move into. At this point I questioned the wisdom of my decision but it was too late to turn back.
Many phone calls to the rather upset landlord and a team of cleaners drafted in. New beds in every room and a deep cleaning plan in place it was just about done in time. To be fair we gave the housekeeper a second chance but this ended abruptly when mum found her napping an hour into her working day!
So after all this am I glad we moved? Was the drama worth it? Totally. Now I have the fun job of making the house our home and the not so fun job of evicting the wildlife...

Worth it

Posted with Blogsy