The Quest To Be Free

I was talking to a girlfriend recently about our feelings around feeling stagnant when some kind of loose plan isn’t in place. Ever since I can remember, I’ve invariably been an adventurer, a planner, a saver and a goal setter. These self-taught skills have meant that i’ve always been great at holiday planning, saving money and being an optimist with a solid vision for the future. For the past 18 months, however, life has taken a sharp turn as I entered the realm of motherhood and have found myself with virtually no direction, no plans, none of my own income for most of the time and having to rely on my partner to agree to plans and goals. This is all fine and dandy in theory, however, my partner’s goals and aspirations involve growing his business, staying close to his family and a very loose idea of ‘providing for his family’. He is more traditional in the sense that he likes the idea of being the breadwinner with the stay at home wife. My vision is of the colourful kind. Full of adventure, play and souls to love. I also love to work. I see hard earned holidays, weekend activities, music festivals, camping, vegetable growing, animal rearing and hours and hours dedicated to creative pursuits at home, all surrounded by a purposeful job with a good income that stimulates my brain. This is where my current struggle resides.

For me, having a clear vision is paramount to my happiness. I am a dreamer and for most of the part an optimist. I love knowing where I’m heading- where I’ll be sipping my next cocktail, how much money I’m putting aside and where it’s going (ie a deposit on property, new car, next holiday) and so on. I have always had a job with a salary in fear of not being able to plan to save a specific sum of money. I love making my own money too!. My husband is more ‘live in the now’. I don’t know if it’s the fact that he came from a very fortunate upbringing and never had to plan due to money and resources being more readily available to him or if it’s a personality trait. Perhaps my ability to plan and save come from being from a less fortunate background where we relied on child support and were of the ‘asset rich’, ‘income poor’ demographic. Ie, nice house and car but our shopping was everything homebrand and our clothes were from op-shops. Or perhaps it just resides in my soul and my archetype is that of a dreamer and future planner.

For a long time, I used to push and push to get my partner to make plans for the weekend. The weekend would arrive, and time and time again, we would be without direction. The result of this was that there would be conflict. I would be craving plans and adventure. I wanted to do things like hiking, dancing at festivals and having romantic weekends away. He, on the other hand, felt frustrated by the lack of ‘doing’ , yet also held a strong resistance towards having too much of a plan because he wanted the safety of repetition. For him, knowing that he can do his regular exercise, eat his regular dinner in the comfort of his own home is usually all he needs. My soul craves more. I am an extravert. I love to mix things up, invite couples over for entertaining (gosh how i love entertaining). I love a drink or two or three and even better if they are consumed at a winery. I love nothing more than to dance freely in the sunshine at festivals like Womad and Bluesfest. And the most important thing? I love having these things on my radar. I crave adventure. It keeps me sane. Now that we have a daughter, things have shifted. I stopped pushing. There is less resistance. There is less sleep, less planning and more tailoring our plans towards our baby girl’s needs and not ours. I am bored. I am understimulated. I am even unhappy at times. Holidays are not holidays when you are running around after a young child and up at all hours of the night because there is a time difference and they don’t adapt well to porta-cots and I don’t remember what it feels like to get on an aeroplane with my love with the world at our fingertips. Call it adulthood, but I am really grieving this and so much more.

There is no doubt that transitioning into parenthood is more difficult for some people. No, I don’t deserve a pat on the back for giving it a go and I do not want you to say “poor you” or “harden up, welcome to parenthood”. I am simply pointing out that I believe some humans are homebodies happy with the mundane repetitive life in the suburbs. Some people love predictability, being able to get in their car and drive three minutes to the supermarket, having their families nearby and visiting the same local cafes followed by their annual holiday to Noosa or Bali. My husband thrives on predictability. Hell, I even thrive on it when it comes to some things. But some of us inherently crave more soul and adventure in our lives and we need a clear vision of all the wonderful soul filling and wild adventures to come. We need to know that if life is going to be repetitive and predictable as it often is with a child, that there are still adventures on the horizon, something big to work towards and a tangible sense of ‘freedom’. As I explained to my girlfriend the other day, I like to live with my cup filled to the brim with my next cup on standby so that I don’t end up with the possibility of a half empty cup. And I need to have the power to make my own decisions and plan my own life. I need to feel free. I often feel as though I am walking on a treadmill with no end in sight -like I am a participant in the lives of my daughter and husband and I do not feel free. In the beautiful words of Nokwethemba Nkosi, “Your happiness doesn’t come free, but you need to be free to be happy.” And so it begins.. The quest to be ‘free’. Here. Now. In the future.

Until Next Time….

xoxo H.V.G.

Would You Like Seconds With That?

Photo by Vidal Balielo Jr. on Pexels.com

Nothing irritates me more than being asked if I would like anything else when I’ve only just taken the first bite of my meal. Let me taste my food, chew, swallow, take a moment to digest, and THEN you can ask me if I would like ‘contorni’, ‘secondi’ or ‘dolci’. Nothing chokes me up more than being abruptly asked when am I having a second child.

Like so many women these days, I chose to put certain priorities ahead in my twenties and early thirties such as career and travel. I was never the ‘motherly’ type by definition and for most of my teenage and adult life, I envisaged a future of work, travel and fur babies. In fact, for a long time, having children was a hard no. If someone asked me the dreaded ‘do you want children?’ question, I would swiftly brush it off. All around me though, I am surrounded by what I call ‘superwomen’. By my definition, ‘Superwomen’ are not those working mums who step out of the house five days a week and drop their bub at daycare. Let’s be honest here mums, what’s more challenging on the soul and psyche? Eight hours of mothering or eight hours of work? Yes- ‘Superwomen’ are those mum’s who are fully- and I mean FULLY immersed in motherhood. They are there all day every day every day and they do not need to ‘escape’. They are there. Just like our mum’s, they don’t work because motherhood is their life, their job and their soul purpose. There is no Au Pair- they are home bodies and they do it all. In fact, many I know don’t even own gym memberships and Instead they squat at home with their baby’s held to their chest, followed by the proud Instagram post. These women always dreamed of a life filled with multiple dimpled butts and gummy smiles. While I was busy planning the next trip, changing my career for the third time and dancing until 4am, some of my closest women- the ‘superwomen’ of my world were growing humans and leading a life that I could never imagine myself living. I guess I kind of assumed that I wouldn’t take the path to motherhood ever, because as I passed the age of 30, my priorities didn’t shift and while I had always been a romantic, getting married was a given, but having children was not.

Becoming a mum did happen for me- it was a huge decision, and even then, I never really fully ‘made the decision’. In my early thirties, I developed mixed thoughts and feelings around ‘potential’ motherhood. After a visit with a very abrupt gynaecologist at 33 to get an IUD, I was told my egg count was ‘low’. For a 33 year old, this is a confronting statement, and because I wasn’t ‘there’ yet, I just accepted the comments and trusted that the universe would give me what I needed. Being someone who prefers the natural approach to so many things in life, freezing my eggs was not an option. As I also believe in the old adage ‘things happen for a reason’, it was easy to develop the mindset that if I wasn’t cut out to be a mum, then I wasn’t cut out to be a mum.

When I fell pregnant at 35 after only one month off the pill, it was a shock. And while I had decided that I was excited to take the next step with my partner, I didn’t exactly feel ecstatic to be pregnant. My first words were ‘oh fuck’ followed by tipping out the bottle of wine on the kitchen bench and a phonecall to my best girlfriend where I proceeded to say ‘fuck fuck fuck fuck i’m fucking pregnant’. But I promptly accepted the gift that is life and immersed myself in the journey of motherhood. I treasured that tiny soul inside of me like she was my universe and I even enjoyed the journey of pregnancy. Yes, I was finally at a stage in my life and relationship where I felt comfortable in all aspects of my life. My career was established, I was fit and healthy and I had done the work.

Fast forward eighteen months into my motherhood journey, and the question of number two lingers, heightened by the external nudges. I am so aware of my age and my mental note to self to have a cut-off age for motherhood. My body still feels in 15% recovery mode and in between feelings of groundhog day, partial longing for my previous life, sense of discipline (and body), I am more than filled to the brim. My daughter continues to surprise me every day and I am falling more and more in love and awe as I watch her evolve and grow. As for number two though, unless you are a ‘superwoman’, how does one decide that two is the right path? Maybe if I had the gift of time, that is, if I were in my early thirties, I could grapple more with this concept, but between the on and off sleep deprivation and feelings of overwhelm, I feel like the moments where I desire to have a newborn again are fleeting. Get it out of the way? Ha. Occasionally (usually when I am ovulating), I get intense feelings of wanting to be pregnant again and to add to our family, but then it’s like I snap out of it and reality kicks in. With the growing chaos in the world and the small feats that make me identify as ‘me’ again, I am truly torn. There is so much that I want to do. So much. The things that make me happy to my core include hiking, yoga, travel, attending music festivals and having a job that I enjoy. Not exactly the perfect list of core interests to accessorise with a baby. And when I dream of the future, there is no concrete vision of what family looks like. I have only the examples portrayed by my beautiful mumma and my sister, who both chose to have tribes.

One? Two? It’s a constant game of tennis and I feel like I am stuck in the net. This is not a light decision for me and as many of you reading this probably know, this pivotal decision changes lives- for better or for worse. For some, embarking on the second child journey leads to a complete loss of self, loss of intimacy, life purpose and even failed marriages. For others, they wouldn’t have it any other way. Their children complete them. Whichever way you look at it, this decision forces me to assess two different identities and the prospect of two completely different life paths. If I could program my ovaries to procreate the cutest little blonde boy with bulging blue eyes and the gentlest of personalities to replace my late brother Henry, then maybe, just maybe I’d go again. But for now, life challenges me. I am a deer in the headlights and eventually, the decision may just be made- FOR me and not BY me.

Until Next Time….

xoxoxo H.V.G.

High Value In The Lowest Times

For some time i have been toying with the concept of the ‘High Value Woman’. I had this concept mapped out in my head perfectly like the chronological pages in a novel. Then at 33, for the third time in a year, the love of my life left me again. All of a sudden I was faced with this downward spiral – a crash of intense emotions and pain that I had built up over a lifetime. Me. 33. Alone. But what about the ‘High Value Woman’?! How am I supposed to be ‘High Value’ and write about strength and being a great partner if I am on my own, rock bottom and my life is not in order? Then it dawned on me. Whilst listening to audio messages of support from a best male friend of more than 15 years, I realised that being a woman of worth – someone who has their life in order, does not require ticking off life’s ‘duties’ and being everything. Being ‘High Value’ is much deeper than this. It’s accepting that no matter what life throws your way and no matter who chooses to be – or not be in your life, that you continue to grow and evolve maintain the best version of yourself.

The purpose of this? So that you can provide your “higher self” to yourself as well within other avenues of life. Being “High Value” is more about knowing that your actions are driven by the right motivations and that you are so aware of your story that you can carry it high above your head and not on your shoulders . You do not have to be married, partnered, a mother or a business woman… or, you can be all of the above. Sound cliche? The message that I have finally began to process in my thirties is that you can’t rely on anyone else for your happiness. When you are truly happy within yourself and have reached that level of pure comfort, confidence and self esteem – AND can maintain this, the natural result is becoming a High Value Woman.

So what does this look like? I’ve met a handful of women in my life that really stood out to me. Not because these women were the most intelligent, most attractive, or most successful in their business ventures, but because they each exuded a sense of balance and confidence in all facets of life. You know who I am talking about. It’s that woman who has her eggs distributed nicely across all her baskets. Regardless of what this woman has going on in her life, she values her self-worth to such a degree that she is able to be confident within herself without the need for reassurance from external sources. The result? Being able to trust in herself and the decisions she makes for herself and her loved ones generates self esteem that is immeasurable. In here lies the key to true contentment and the ability to function at your true ‘best’, thus offering the best of yourself to the world around you.

For me, personally, amongst the most trying and challenging hardships, I have finally been faced with that “Who Am I?” question. And believe me, it’s never too late to have to answer this question. Yes, it’s a fundamentally vulnerable moment of realisation when you acknowledge that for most of your adult years, you have been running full steam ahead in a different direction to where you thought you were headed. This is particularly uncomfortable given that this moment of self-realisation for me has arisen amongst the haze of loss, grief and a true sense of rock bottom. After months of journaling my life, my experiences and my turmoil, I grudgingly realised that in my rush to grow up, I had missed the step of becoming an independent woman that values herself in ALL facets of life. And so here I am taking an honest look in the mirror – realising what and who has shaped me into who I am today, asking the question “what is my value beyond my physical and egocentric self?”

Looking back at me is a raw, rough-edged diamond covered in dirt. But a diamond nonetheless… A diamond that just needs to be polished and placed in the right setting.

And so the journey begins….

Until Next Time.

x H.V.G

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I Am The Strongest Woman I Know

This is my Journey.

My name is Millie Kate. I’m 33, relatively successful and come with a smile on my face. I am fit, healthy and attractive. From an outsiders perspective, I am like most women my age. The truth is, I have experienced great loss, trauma and grief. More than most.
My story is complex. It is painful. I have baggage. I come from a family of 6. Out of 4 kids, we are now two. I had two brothers and two lovers. I am divorced, come from dysfunctional family and have suffered my fair share of adversity in life. Through pain and suffering, I discovered the importance of building real, raw self awareness and taught myself the art of true resilience.
I do not feel sorry for myself. I am the strongest woman I know.

My self discovery journey started late.
Through life’s events and various traumas, I developed the attitude of “keep on keeping on”. I didn’t stop. Oh god it hurt to stop. I thought I was strong, but I was merely ‘coping’. Through pain, i discovered fitness, eating, writing, sex and drinking. I also built the biggest guard to protect myself and an ego that is both my vice and virtue. While I have always lived on the premise of growing through continual self improvement, it took my body physically failing me to stop and begin to truly begin to rebuild myself .

My story may be more complex than yours. It may not. I may have suffered more pain and trauma than most women my age, or perhaps not. Maybe you are hurting more than I am. I’m not here to compare. I am here on a journey of self discovery and personal growth. I am here to share my experiences and to demonstrate that life’s adversities do not have to break you – they can refine you. My quest is to become a High Value Woman – the strongest version of myself so that I can provide the best value as a partner, sister, daughter, friend and one day, mother. If my words can resonate and I can connect with one person on this journey, then I am a success.

I look forward to sharing me.

xox H.V.G

In The Words Of Charles Darwin…