I think it must be something to do with the age I am at but there seems to be significance in everything currently. Significance doesn’t mean good nor bad – it probably just means that I’m reading into things more. The point of this, the meaning of that, the past, the future…. I had hoped that by the time I was half a hundred, I’d be sweating the small stuff less, but that doesn’t seem to have happened. In fact, the situation has got worse.
It’s not an issue. It’s simply the realisation that we are who we are and whatever life phase we are in, our personality traits are mostly going to stay consistent. If you’re anxious, you’re anxious. if you’re an over-thinker, that’s the way you’ll probably always be. If you’re a stress head – it’s in the genes.
It’s the nature or nurture idea – that omnipresent question: which is it? Why are we the way we are?
Funnily enough, I have had cause to discuss this very thing professionally recently, as I’ve joined the Psychology Team at work. This is very exciting, and something I am pleased and proud about. The fact that I won’t actually be able to use my current training in the foreseeable future is another matter, and one that I am trying to work through mentally (Am I not good enough? Why have I been sidelined? Those kind of insecure thoughts) but to be able to think like a psychologist in my job at all has been a breath of fresh air. And ultimately, what I have concluded so far is that nature and nurture both play a role.
So yes, I may be genetically predisposed to over-thinking, catastrophising and owning a certain amount of inner angst, but that fact that there is a hole in the back of my house, there are Roman ruins where my patio should be and a living room floor that is permanently WET is probably not helping to calm my brain down. There’s the 18 year old driver to worry about, the post-GCSE boy who refuses to read, Big Seymour’s “pop-in, pop-out” knee and the apparently very real prospect of AI wars bringing the world’s banking system (and therefore society as we know it) to a halt. I was legit* told to stockpile tins and buy a crossbow last week.
But once again, I remind myself that THIS IS LIFE. It’s all normal. The Roman ruins maybe not so much, but they are simply representative of the fact that we are, yet again, renovating an old house and it takes time. My stress barometer that is Big Seymour has not yet alarmed me, and so we push on. IT’S FUN. It’s fun. Honest.
In addition to the recent advice re: the crossbow, I gleaned all sorts of other useful tips: how to self-refer for ADHD (could be interesting), how to be a teacher without taking it all too seriously and most importantly how not to add extra stress to your life by accidentally volunteering to lead a trip to Central London with 77 thirteen year-olds during a heatwave.
It’s that time in the term when we teachers are becoming excited about the impending break, whilst at the same time appreciating that there is a heck of a lot still to do. And the end of the summer term is a busy one! My Year 7s finally managed to perform The Odyssey (ambitious, I know!) and I’m pleased to report, thank goodness, that I returned back from The Natural History Museum last week with all the children and most of the staff I left with. This was a massive win. Yay me.
This week’s concern, upon which I am now hyper-focussed (until I get sidetracked) is Boy Seymour’s use of his plentiful, post GCSE free time. He is growing up, but he seems incapable of limiting himself on his phone at all. The only way that I can get him to do anything else is by confiscation, and you can imagine the arguments that follow. I have drawn up lists, scrawled motivational messages on the walls, pleaded and begged but very little seems to make a difference.
Today, for the umpteenth time, I have told him to READ A f@cking BOOK and in the absence of his devices and despite false protestations of dyslexia, he actually chose a book from the shelf. I was suspicious, and keen to know what he’d picked and when he emerged from the toilet, it transpired that he was in there reading a silly little novel that I wrote when he was a baby. He claims he was enjoying it, and I became excited that finally, not only had he found a book he would actually finish, but I was the one to write it! What a coup. For a brief moment I believed that I was the answer, that I would simply write books for my son to read, and he would suddenly be cured of all his vices! How marvellous that all these wasted hours toiling away over unpublished works might now solve one of the issues on my list! My work! My son! Oh how serendipitous…
But no. It was a brief epiphany, and then he realised that his phone is far more interesting. Of course it is. The poor child is a victim of The Algorithms, but even so, all I want to see is an element of self-control and regulation. I tell him all the time. I AM LITERALLY LIKE A BROKEN RECORD. I bore myself.
So where are we? Nearly at the end of another academic year, by gosh. An academic year that has seen Boy leave school, and Little Seymour Number One graduate with a FIRST, no less! A year when I have inched tantalisingly close to an exciting new job, still just out of reach, and a year when all of my children are as tall as me or nearly so. I swear Boy has grown six inches in six months.
This year has been notable also because for the first time in twenty three years, I am without a single guinea pig owing to a rather catastrophic event last month, and a year when our brief spell of cat ownership came to an end when our lovely boy Gomez was stolen 🙁
But back on a positive note, here, at the Funny Little Bungalow on the Hill, something mega has just happened.
We. Have. New. Windows!
New, upvc, double glazed beauties. Nothing artisan, nothing fancy, but windows that open! Windows without cracks! Windows that bloody well work.
Yes, despite his “pop-in, pop-out” knee situation, Big Seymour has been like a machine these last few months, and the progress is significant. The reason why the living room was sitting in water has been discovered, and the water pressure mystery has almost been solved. The tiles are back on the roof and part of the garage has a level floor for the first time ever. Now that is significant.
The end of the summer term brings with it a year-end feel, more so even than December 31st. It signifies achievement, but also, for over thinkers like me, it brings about trepidation. What will next year bring? Will we survive in Devon without Wi-Fi? Tempus fugit! And let’s not forget that the longest day is way behind us now, and we still haven’t sorted out the heating…
#keepitpositive
#legallyblondementality
(*I’ve given in to Gen Z language now. Sod it.)
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