Category: Before it all

Dreading the empty nest, too early

The thought of my empty nest and of a less intense life began to trouble me. Everything was suddenly becoming easier than it had ever been – my children were older and needed less supervision, they were spending more time with friends or doing activities without me. My husband...

A lack of contentment in my 30s

Sometimes I think that when I got pregnant at 17 I pressed pause on my brain. I think that I was on some kind of autopilot through the studying and the parenting and the first years of being married. I don’t mean that I wasn’t present, not that I...

Teen mum: fitting in, at last

It’s a wryly funny and notable thing that sometimes, within a phase of my life, I have become suddenly and almost poignantly aware that I am living through a time that will become one of my best memories. I don’t mean a day or a week, like a wedding...

Twenties, and living for motherhood

I moved through my 20s ferociously and at a speed which is at once blurry-fast and treacle-slow in my memory. With my husband by my side I finished university, got my degree, got a better job. My husband was promoted.   We bought a little house we could barely afford...

Twenties, and real love

I still think of my early 20s as a genuinely happy time in my life. I had made the break from the toxic relationship that had defined the previous 4 years and without that controlling, panicky knowledge of constant disapproval haunting my days I finally had some friends, real...