DEAR GRACE

 Dear Grace,  It's November and around this time your Mum becomes rather reflective. I have just enjoyed 14 days without you my baby, and I didn enjoy them. I don't feel guilty about that, I need to be alone with my thoughts sometime. I need moments to recalibrate.  The last 2 years have been the most challenging of my life. I feel regret about that. Mostly that you did'nt get the best of me. I am ready for this to change.  I found this quote that made me feel clarity.  “Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.” – Daphne Rose Kingma There is so much about letting go of my past that makes me feel torn, sad, and guilty. Your feelings are the ones I care about the most. Will letting go of the past be letting go of your childhood in some way? Will letting go of your Dad result in bad feelings for you now or later? But, I can't hold on to the past any longer. I need to let go, or else I won't be the Mum you deserv...

 Dear Grace,  The details of how your Dad and I seperated have confused my own heart for a long time. This week when I found out your Dad was confirmed seeing someone else, my heart broke in a new and small way I did not expect.  It's making me recycle my decisions and calibrate the way I felt when I left and how I feel now.  I always felt undervalued loving your Dad, I did alot, like most women. But I didn't just do what the women "normally" do, I did it all. I did the finances, I organised the daycare, I cleaned, cooked, shopped, dug, gardened, organised birthdays, Christmases... the list goes on and I loved it. He has never been an overly motivated man and his mental health didn't help. I don't think my overcompensating helped either. I liked that role though, I was used to being the caretaker of everything, it suited me.  All I needed from your Dad was for him to adore and appreciate me for what I did. I wanted him to walk in the door kiss me and say ...

Dear Grace,  The sun is setting a little later this month, so we stole the hour after daycare to go for a walk along the water. I always find doing something outside after daycare fills our cup. I asked if you wanted to go for a bike ride or a walk in your pram, you're always tired after daycare, so you said you wanted to go in the pram.  As we walked, I played the Frozen soundtrack and you ate crackers and sang the whole way down the boulevarde. You sang quietly in the dramatic parts and screamed at the top of your lungs for the big notes. "Let it gooooooooo". Unahamedly screaming your heart out.  Everyone walking by could not help but smile, you were gleefully happy, not a care in the world. The feeling of pure hapiness was palpable and contagious. I looked on in awe that you could still be that way knowing that one day you'll be too self concious to do that. Knowing one day when you're an adult, doing that will no longer be socially acceptable. What a sad reali...

Dear Grace, Every season of my life has been met with change. But the last 3 years have seen immense personal change. I can pinoint one thing that did change and that was you my sweet girl - my pint sized party handbrake! But maybe I was just getting old. I am 37 now, I don't feel the same fire in my belly I once did. I don't have the energy to blast people for not staying last at the party. I don't think I even want to be at the party anymore.  I don't argue my points with as much passion and arrogance. I am more curious to know what other people think and why. I am less offended about other peoples decisions to live their lives differently to me, I embrace their differences even if I still don't agree.   So the 20 year old Madeleine is (thankfully) missing in action, But one thing has NOT changed and it fills me with curiosity to understand why... My gospel. My gospel has acted as my guiding light since 2008. My personal mantra, my affirmations. Thats 14 years I h...

Dear Grace, Today on a podcast I heard this term called ‘pruning’. The theory goes that you prune back elements of your life, people, meetings, commitments, bills, whatever. I heard about it and decided immediately that I need to do some pruning at work. As the boss, I have this amazing flexibility to be able to create my work reality. I don’t work if I don’t want to, or so that used to be the case. Over time, I have in my over-achiever, type a personality who only find success in doing, managed to overcommit myself, and I am burnt out and angry. I put a freeze on all meetings for 2 weeks, I am not doing any meetings till after 11am. I am not hosting meetings no one cares about for my own personal desire to be needed. I am going to spend from 9:30-11am every single day writing, reading, walking, planning, thinking, listening, painting, climbing, riding, kayaking and enjoying before I start my work day. At 11am. Once I have experienced some amazing time operating in my flow ...

  Dear Grace, Last night I went to a yoga retreat and it was a very amazing circuit breaker. The last 12 months have been the heaviest, hardest and most challenging of my life. During the evening yoga I cried when the teacher told us to be grateful for being there. I cried during a heartfelt conversation about you and your Dad at dinner. I cried this morning during the manifestation workshop when I tried to speak out loud about my vision for the future. I am carrying a heavy heavy load at the moment, and it’s like last night was the egg that cracked and I simply can’t speak without the egg spilling out and everywhere. This chapter is called Stolen Focus because I am reading a book about how technology is killing us. Killing our creativity, our relationships, our work, our sleep, our brains. It’s not great. But what it also means to me is that through having you and becoming a mum, you have stolen my focus… in the best way possible. When you are around I can easily forget my...