It's a small, small world

With the recent arrival of my daughter, many things in my world seem to have suddenly shrunk. My life is looking very different. It now revolves around twenty weeny fingers and toes, piles and piles of miniature clothing too cute to be believed, and short, snatched bursts of activity or sleep (it's taken two sittings to complete this post, and guess what - it's shorter than my usual offerings!)

And I believe God is teaching me something kind of big through all this small-ness (of course it's a word - you know what it means don't you?) 

I am someone who tends to measure my worth by my achievements. I can't count the number of wise and helpful spiritual friends who have tried to help me see that I am a human "being" not a human "doing" and that it's ok to sit still sometimes and just "be". That if I can't "do" or if what I "do" doesn't meet expectations, my value does not decrease. I know all of that to be true. It's just that I've never quite managed to apply it to my life.

When I was suffering with depression, I was unable to do what I was used to doing or wanted to do. I was so blessed to find that the people around me in general, and God in particular, didn't reject me, forget about me, or punish me for my lack of achievement. But that didn't change my focus on getting better so I could go back to "doing".

Now what I am "doing" is looking after my baby girl. Some days I don't see anyone except for her and my husband. I find I have little to add to a conversation that doesn't revolve around the wonders of cloth nappies (they do look lovely on my washing line!), cleaning up sick (you get significantly less thorough as time goes on...) or the trials of breastfeeding (this probably isn't the arena for that though, right?) And I am surprisingly unbothered (also a word) by the fact that my contribution to wider society is currently - well - small. That's not the lesson I'm learning, though. 

Here's the lesson:

I can (and absolutely do) sit for hours holding my child or watching her and I am blown away by how amazing she is, how precious, how I would literally do anything for her. And what has she done? Nothing. Nothing anyone would call an achievement, anyway. She sleeps, eats, cries, smiles, poos, coos, cwtches, wriggles and sneezes and yet she is the most utterly priceless thing in the universe.

And maybe so am I.

Thoughts about Thinking (aka An Exercise in Avoidance)

So there has been a LONG gap between posts. I feel as though I should apologise, although I'm pretty sure no-one has been on tenterhooks for the last 9 months waiting for an update. I'm sorry anyway though, mostly to myself, as this is more proof (as if I needed it) that I can be inconsistent and hugely lacking in discipline - even when the task at hand is something that is both good for me and that I enjoy.

9 months is a pretty significant time-lapse don't you think? Not least because as I sit here typing, I am 4 days away from my EDD (that's Estimated Due Date, for those of you who don't spend half your current existence lurking on pregnancy and birth forums), and mostly trying to convince myself that hubby and I are completely ready to welcome Baby Girl Dobbo into our lives! (Which we're almost certainly not. But that's ok - it will just happen anyway and we'll figure it out as we go. Right?)

It's been an interesting journey. One of the more difficult aspects was coming off my antidepressants when I discovered I was pregnant (something I was hoping do a little later and rather more slowly than ended up being the case). Although that was by no means an easy process, and the aftermath was pretty tough, I am through it, and today I'm in a better place than I've been for a long time - a much better place than I would have imagined if I'd thought about it beforehand.

But I didn't. Think about it beforehand. And that is a theme of my life. I don't think. Well, obviously I think. I don't think there's anyone who actually doesn't think. The name of this blog is an admission that I think. But it's that pre-thinking, thinking-about-the-future, that I find a struggle. I am generally focused on the present. My mind is taken up with whatever is in front of me at a given time. I find it difficult to reflect internally (hence blogging is a useful tool for me) and even more difficult to consider the future in any meaningful way. So, if you don't mind indulging me, I would like to spend a little time thinking about that now. Thinking about how I think.

 How the way I think can be helpful:

• I can usually focus on the task at hand regardless of potential distractions from other areas.
• I don't find decision-making particularly hard, I'm generally happy to think of a way forward that is "good enough" and go for it, figuring that I'll deal with any problems if/when they present themselves.
• I don't worry as much as some others I know who are deeper thinkers (when I'm well, anyway).
• I am rarely disappointed when things don't go the way I imagined/wanted/expected, because I never thought that far ahead anyway!

How the way I think can be harmful:

• I can stick my head in the sand and ignore something, even something major, incredibly effectively. Sadly, this does not mean the major thing goes away and at various times I have found myself left woefully unprepared.
• If I don't write things down I will usually forget them and never think of them again. To-do lists and phone reminders are a matter of survival in my day-to-day life. (In the same vein; if I don't reply to a text immediately, I am very unlikely to ever reply at all. I know that's really rude and that I've probably done it to you and if so, I am genuinely sorry).
• I often find myself unable to express why I do what I do, or believe what I believe, because although I know I have reasons, I usually haven't taken enough time to examine them.
• I tend to take things and people at face value and hardly ever question the motives of others, which can make me quite vulnerable.

Well, there you go, all that first-rate thinking has thoroughly tired me out now, so I will stop there. I would imagine that the next time I post, I will be a Mum (but let's not think about that now, not when dinner needs cooking and I need to renew my tax disc and I should probably put some laundry on......)

Thanks very much for reading this rather existential post - I would be interested to hear how you relate to any of this - how do you think, and how does that help/hinder you?