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.