Freelancer, Neurodivergent, Mother - from the Lost Blog

As the winter winds soften and the temperatures become warmer around these parts, it feels as though somehow everything is about to change again. This winter has been a lull, a gentle shelter whilst I’ve spent it hidden away in our home; pale days and drawn out mornings playing with miniature fingers, kissing soft cotton noggins and reciprocating the sweet babbling and cooing sounds of my tiny daughter. I feel as though life falls into cycles and before Lyra was here, it was easy to feel as though I was falling into a pattern of repetition; every winter, every spring, summer and autumn the same activities, the same practices. Although technically I was getting older, ageing was a bizarre and abstract concept and somehow felt as though my life was frozen and unchanging. Now she’s here, we realise the value of every season and every minute change that we experience with her. This winter can never be repeated, for never again in my life will I ever be a mamma for the first time and experience the gentle, Cornish winter days with my firstborn.

Photographs taken at Kynance Cove during the late winter warm haze

This year has been a monumental transition in many ways, not just transitioning into motherhood and family life but this was also the first year that I took the plunge of going fully freelance. It wasn’t possible to work my part time job anymore and run a business. After four, almost five years of building up my portfolio and reputation, I had enough work that I simply didn’t have the time to have another job, especially one that paid so little and demanded so much. I was ready to cut that extra burden and finally throw myself entirely at my own venture. It was exciting, a little terrifying and in a big way felt like I was playing at a strange charade where I pretended to be a ‘grown up.’ Living with something like ADHD means that being freelance can be simultaneously the best and worst thing – for example, being hyper focused means I can while away 10 hours of editing easily and let my work entirely absorb me because I become so fixated. It also means though that organisation isn’t my strong point so I have to work twice, or three times as hard constantly checking and re-checking myself to make sure things haven’t been missed or overlooked in my manic haste to tackle fifty different projects with extreme fervour. I love my work though so it does mean that there is a tendency for the hyper focus to manifest as being a ‘workoholic’ and this can also be counterproductive at times. Having ADHD is like having ten browser tabs open in my brain at any one time, I get overexcited about several different tasks and try to tackle them all at once meaning that it takes so much longer to get anything completed in the way I want.

The blowhole at Kynance cove in action

Intentions

It’s funny how things work out though. In all honesty, I really didn’t see this life for myself at all. Family, Cornwall, my own business in something creative… I feel like somehow I picked the easy card and that I’ve cheated at ‘the game’ that is adult life.

Growing up, I was an only child in a single parent household and I had always been pushed to be an overachiever. Get good grades, excel at my hobbies, be outside learning about the world around me and read as many books as possible was the doctrine in my household. My Dad had invested a lot of one-on-one time with me as a kid and despite having social anxiety and avoiding going to school a lot, I grew used to whizzing my exams and getting A grades (in subjects that held my attention) on the rare occasion that I did turn up. When I went to college, I was coming out the other side of my anxiety, finally found my voice and confidence and an educational environment where I felt safe and inspired. My original plan had been to join the Royal Navy as an officer and travel the world but after realising how much I loved learning foreign languages, I thought maybe I’d study French and Italian at University and maybe go on to work abroad in some sort of high flying civil servants job. Kids weren’t really in the picture and for years I had my heart set on seeing the wide world the way my Dad had done. But then on a whim, at the last minute I applied at Falmouth art school to do the Foundation Diploma in Art and Design despite already being accepted for a place at the University of Bath on their French & Italian BA. To my surprise, I was accepted. Suddenly my entire life’s idea of doing something ‘sensible’ and ‘respected’ fizzled away and I felt a little lost but also bizarrely released from that obligation. Even though I didn’t enjoy that art course at all, it was pivotal in changing my path entirely for the rest of my life, away from languages and academia and towards a more Creative route.

Even when I was at Uni floundering from degree to degree, trying to understand why I was at University and what I wanted from it, I realised that I had spent my entire life with a razor sharp plan for my future and suddenly I had nothing. I felt like I had always known what I wanted; a career, success, ambition – and yet now my future felt blank and unknown stretched out before me. It wasn’t scary, it just felt exciting and full of potential for adventure. I set up the Photography business whilst at University for fun, a sort of side project and safety net for myself. Another quirk of ADHD is a love of juggling many plates at once and sometimes taking on a bit too much (I did a degree, 2 part time jobs AND set up my business… you’re right in thinking I didn’t spend Uni partying.) But I really enjoyed managing a business alongside my degree and the creative work that entailed, yet I didn’t for a moment truly think it would be the job I would be doing once I graduated. It was too much fun. Too enjoyable – this simply didn’t feel like an option.

But here I am, full time freelancer and with a husband and child at the age of 27 barely 3 years graduated from University (which by the way feels like a LIFETIME ago) and nobody is more surprised than me. I mean, I know I’m impulsive and prone to acting on my whims but this takes it to an unexpected new level for me. I really am loving this unexpected life path but I carry with me this guilt, that I ought not be allowed these luxuries; to live in the place I love that offers few career prospects, to be married to such a kind hearted person and to have a daughter to share the world with.

I had been living my life with a warped view of what motherhood was and what its associations meant to me and suffered from PTSD due to adverse childhood experiences and so I had believed that having children was a path meant for other people. I felt like I would be defective, broken and no doubt mess up my own child and let her down the way I felt I had been let down because these things seemed like unbreakable trends.

These were fears I carried with me throughout pregnancy but upon Lyra’s birth, they melted away and my outlook transformed. I was sure more than I had ever been sure of anything, that I would do EVERYTHING within my power to protect her, nurture her, treat her with empathy and compassion and stand by her. I knew that rather than any sort of overachievement and academic excellence, what I wanted most for my little girl was to be happy and have a positive and healthy outlook and relationship with her family. I didn’t want her to grow up bitter with a chip on her shoulder, to feel socially anxious and have mother issues. I knew that I wanted to raise her to be curious and bold, but also have empathy above all things. To feel safe and secure in her identity and never for a second feel like I wouldn’t accept her for all that she is. I know that it’s all too easy to blame our problems and faults on our parents and that pain and negative behaviours can be passed down from generation to generation, but that wasn’t healthy and I knew it was going to stop with me.

I spent years battling anxiety and eventually I won (I consider a victory to be when there’s more good days than bad.) In my experience, I learned that it came from cutting myself away from toxic people, not investing in friendships that were ‘high maintenance’ and ‘hurtful’ – those sorts of secondary school relationships that are hollow, unfulfilling and fill you with constant worry that you’ve not towed the line somewhere. Instead, I surrounded myself with people that inspired me, people whom I aspired to be like and people whom I was dearly proud of. People that accept me for who I am without question, people with empathy and kind hearts. This transformed my life. I also learned, that blood does not always mean family, that family is an abstract concept and nobody is entitled to your love and heart just because they think you owe it to them as you have a genetic connection. Family should always make you feel safe, they should be an unconditional haven and shelter, above all they should be friends too and shouldn’t make you feel unsafe or worthless. I stopped surrounding myself with negative and bitter people who would chastise me for seeking out the positives and choosing kindness over hate.

I also came to realise, that we live in a world where we are all so self aware and worried about what other people think about us. We become slaves to reputation and constantly seek validation through social media and crave acceptance. And if we aren’t, we feel worthless and invalid. I couldn’t bare teetering on that tightrope of intense self awareness, that tightrope woven with threads of ‘am I pretty enough?’ ‘am I clever and cool enough?’ or ‘did I say something ridiculous? Does every one think me foolish now?’ I decided to stop trying to balance all together, to just walk away from it and understand that people are all far too busy worrying about how they look and how they present that they likely aren’t paying attention to me. And if somebody is going to judge me for a misstep, for saying something a bit dorky or being a bit ‘airy fairy,’ then are they someone who’s opinion I value? The people who’s opinions I value are those of my friends, my family and my husband. There’s so much more to life than reputation, than prettiness; there’s talent, the ability to create, learn, think, to be kind and gentle and pursue wisdom. When I rearranged my priorities and made these adjustments in my life, I found that anxiety found it so much harder to find me.

Motherhood

But here I am now, I’ve still got so much to learn because I’ve no idea how my fickle behaviour and whims are going to translate into motherhood as well as retaining my identity and sense of self. One thing I’ve noticed is that it’s so easy to let being a mother become my dominant identity. It would only be too easy to let my life become completely and utterly Lyra’s and to an extent, it is. But what happens if I let that happen entirely and neglect everything else – my husband, my friends, my hobbies… when Lyra goes off to school and embraces her own social world beyond her little family nest, would I be left with nothing but drumming my fingers impatiently on the kitchen table waiting for her to get home? There’s a mother guilt that comes with wanting anything for myself or begrudging her even the smallest ounce of me and yet societal pressures demand that us women play the role of mother, worker-bee, home-maker, hobbyist and yet still find time for social endeavours and keep up with social media. Quite frankly it’s exhausting. Hence why it would be so much easier to just assume one identity and call it a day.

But I’m re-learning how to be me, or more importantly how to be a whole new version of me. Motherhood has changed my body and so none of my old clothes fit me anymore and although I’d like to think that I’m not materialistic or a follower of fashion, my clothes were a part of expressing my personality and my identity. Finding a way to feel comfortable in my new body and find new clothes that fit my evolved identity of Sarah-mother is an ongoing journey that I’m still navigating. My style over University and the last few years I had always thought as a sort of medley of country kid/fae/feminine with some relaxed and retro touches like my penchant for dungarees, high waisted denim and the occasional ‘Japanese pensioner pants.’ Now I rarely feel good in anything I wear and I know I don’t care for vanity, but I feel that we really need to distinguish between ‘vanity’ and ‘self expression in how we dress’. It’s a prickly, grey area I feel.

But as well as clothes, my identity is forged by what I do, how I live and what I create/put into the world, how I treat people and what I read. Making a conscious effort to still create, read and spend time doing what Jon & I love (beach picnics, coastal hikes, coffee shop sketchbook sessions) doesn’t need to be an onerous or difficult task just because we have a baby. I’m learning how to integrate a baby into our identities and our former lifestyle now that the dust is settling and she’s becoming easier to care for. It does still feel like we have a strange pet that smiles at us and is very needy (as is the way of babies) but it’s been surprisingly easy so far to bring her on the road with us on our travels (I might have just tempted fate there.) I mean, you still need to add an hour onto the time it takes to get out of the house each day and there are days where she’s angry and we have to cut plans short and head home but having her with us is infinitely more fun than not having her there.

When I started this blog, it was at the beginning of Uni. The start of that journey. Now, I’m at the start of a different journey altogether and hopefully my blog will find some purpose in helping navigate and document this one. Here’s to learning how to be and exploring a different version of myself, of ourselves if perhaps you reading this are also experiencing something similar. Not all adventures and explorations are in the physical environment I suppose. Some are inwards too.