Source: The Power of Positivity
The Power of Positivity
If I was writing this blog 3 years ago, I would be writing very differently…
My background in building, designing, testing, supporting IT systems lent me to be critical, cynical in nature, looking for the worst that could happen… so that I could ensure it wouldn’t happen! This spilled out into my personal life… a complete worrier, stress monkey, negative Norma… I must have been a real barrel of laughs in the pub!
A far cry from the little girl who was always smiling, laughing and given prizes for the biggest smile, the happiest, the most positive person in the room.
What happened along the way? I had a great job, a gorgeous boyfriend who became an amazing husband and father; a wonderful circle of friends.. make that circles – the iron ring, the uni girls, the Yorkshire circles; sister and sister in law as best friends, healthy family, loved my in-laws (how lucky am I?)…
But I felt in a constant state of lack… I (we?) were always striving for something more, always wanting more, a bigger house, a faster car, another baby, more diamonds, better sofas, more money, a promotions, a more exotic holiday…
So what’s changed?
Instead of seeing the sadness in today, the misery, the lack of my mum, the boys’ Grannie Brooks, attracting the attention of pity, I was able to see this weekend as one of joy….
A day to remember with pride and gratitude for the money we raised (over £2,400 plus more coming in), for the awareness we raised to 100’s of the terrible disease that is Alzheimer’s.
A day to remember as memories of my 3 strapping men playing rugby around the 7km walk in Oxfords parks, my big man teaching our little men to spin throw and tackle safely…
A day to remember as I watch my 79 year old dad have his first experience of Zumba and stride strongly round the course to be presented with his medal.
A day to remember as I hold my sister’s teeny hand as we walk and talk….
A day to remember as we all sit around the table and laugh as we can’t keep up with Willy’s ‘I spy’ games and how easily I lose the ‘Yes / No’ game…
I don’t remember when the shift from negative to positive happened… not exactly anyway… But I know how. It dawned on me as I got in the car to drive north, the boys slept and I put on one of my favourite audiobooks – The Power By Rhonda Byrne…
The Power of Positive Thoughts.
The Power of Positive Feelings.
The Power of Good Vibrations.
The Power of Love.
Today was about Love – a love for my Mum and for so many others on the walk today and the love that they have for someone who has suffered a disease you wouldn’t wish on anyone. A day to make happy, joyful memories… no one needs more sad ones.
The Glass Ceiling and the Brick Wall
Allelujah! There are others out there that have never heard of the Sandwich Years! I shared this concept with some wonderful new friends I have made at the new school my son has started and they were as fascinated as I was…
I was with a group of highly talented, educated professional Mums… A lawyer, interior designer from London, fashion designer/marketer and academic all with glowing careers… all married to highly successful men – professor, consultant, director, etc.
So what do I mean by professional Mum’s… they are professionals both in their field and as a Mum. And here is the sandwich again… Can you be the whole sandwich – the professional and the Mum? Where does the wife bit come in? Friend? It is sounding now more like a club sandwich?
Can you be the club sandwich all at once? Can a woman have it all is the cliché question? I heard one clever answer ‘yes – but not all at the same time’.
And here is the dilemma – the discussion point over countless posh coffees and herbal teas. The brave pioneering women in history before us, fought for women to have the same rights to work, be successful, have a voice, a say on how we wish society to be… to stand alongside men in the church, in business as equals.
We are highly educated in physics, maths, languages, business and everything we need to be at the top of the corporate ladder. Told we can do anything, be anything and smash through the ‘glass ceiling’ that has been talked about and theorized in so many of the books I read at university.
We leave having children until later and later in to our 30’s and sometimes 40’s, focused on the top levels of leadership to prove we are the equals of men. We leave our children with nannies and after school clubs…. Glued to a blackberry, android or apple device ensuring we respond within a nanosecond to any crisis, text, email or joke… wafting away a small child desperate for our attention. We socialize and network, for we can’t feel like we can say we have children at home to kiss good night, husbands to nuture and cook for, for fear of missing out, missing out on that connection, that opportunity for a discussion with someone who could mean a promotion, a step up to that dizzy height where we will feel accomplished and prove our teachers/parents proud.
I am guilty of this.
Or I was.
It took a few wake up calls before I made a choice. A decision.
A wonderful friend, mentor and boss with cancer to make me realize that if that happened to me I would regret the time in the office rather than time with my boys. There are other triggers, still too painful to write about…
I am no 50’s housewife… but I made a decision to put my family first. Let my corporate career take a back seat. And so have these wonderful women I sip coffee with. We have all found new ways in which to feel a challenge, have a purpose, give value, fill our time so that we do have an identity (rather than Mrs ‘X’, wife to Mr ‘X’), so that we can still tip our hats at the women who gave us our ‘freedom from the kitchen sink’ rights. At the same time, provide a calm, safe, loving environment for both children and our men. Is this the new sense of accomplishment… ?
In the words of Oprah, ‘what I know for sure’, there is only one life for us all and it can be cut short by physical or mental illness… our children mature, age, grow up quickly… so quickly. We only have a few summers before our boys will no longer want to be seen with us! So the time I have here will be with the ones I love, the ones I cherish… not in a boardroom or a fancy restaurant… but being Mrs Taxi to and from school, swimming, football, rugby… being a wife that’s good, caring, attentive and interested…
But I will be more too, my 1970’s and 80’s programming is still in tact… Along with countless other successful women, I will find new ways to prove that I continue to be man’s equal, find new flexible ways to feel accomplished outside of corporate environments and outside of the home….
Are we a new band of women who will change the shape of society, improve on it once again… Are we the generation that will show the future generations how to have balance between creating harmony between earning a living and living a life? Is there such a thing or will we learn to be at peace living in a beautiful chaos of all the different threads of life?
Another thing I know for sure, is that women of today are lucky. Incredibly lucky to have the choice. The choice to decide their future, their success, their happiness… to make their own club sandwich with whatever filling they want it in….
But I have never seen a sophisticated, elegant women put a big club sandwich in their mouth all at once..
PS…The brick wall….It seems that once someone goes in to the NHS mental health care scheme, they go behind one. Thinking of you Mumbo… Please know I keep ringing to ask about you…. But no one can give me answers.
My favourite bit
James is home. And with his arrival, it feels like someone turned off the power switch. It honestly felt like the energy just flowed from my body as I saw him at the train station, I could barely drive the car the last few yards. Thank goodness he is the driver in this family.
I had a whole topic I wanted to write about today, whizzing around in my head following conversations this morning with some wonderful new friends… maybe it needs to mature a bit? roll around in my head a bit more… maybe I just don’t have the energy to write out the discussion, debate that is playing out in my head…. maybe I am just exhausted, emotionally, physically, mentally?
Maybe I set myself too tough a challenge… a blog a day? what was I thinking? as if I need more to do… But I am a tenacious soul and if I say I will do something, I will… even if the excitement of the initial moment has gone. The definition of commitment. But that’s a whole new topic and don’t get me started… It’s far to easy to not be these days…
I always end the day with my boys in bed, asking them what their favourite bit of the day was… Willy always answers ‘this bit’ as he throws his arms around my neck and kisses me. Tom always says ‘dunno’… followed by ‘which player do you like best out of my football cards’ or ‘Mummy.. did you know…’
My favourite bit today was watching the interaction of the boys with their weekend Dad… as if no days had passed, chatting, laughing..hearing the joy in their voices, singing silly songs and pulling hair. I loved the family movie time as we all snuggle in a heap on the sofa, tangled legs, bony elbows and knees… I loved hearing a sleepy boy creep down the stairs to give Daddy a note… ‘I love my Dad a lot’.
Bookends
Source: Bookends
Bookends
A very wise person I know, once said that successful people bookend their day with the same routine… Now I thought I had cracked that… pilates at 6am, journalling and gratitudes before I sleep.
Today was bookended with crap. (Can I say that on a blog? I would rather say a stronger word but not sure whether it would publish…)
This morning I crept down the stairs, as usual… looking forward to my time, my peaceful moments in the soft light of the early morning, stretching out my aches and stresses, breathing in quiet. This morning as I breathed in, I gagged…
It was definitely cat….
10 minutes of hunting, I found it. And the cat who had been shut in the utility room overnight ( I blame the red wine haze for disguising a grey cat in the dark)…. No cat should be able to produce a length that long… Marigolds, detol and a peg on my nose, in my pj’s, a handful of pooh… I am so glad no one is around to see me.
Now the middle of the day is ok: yep it was pretty rubbish – crappy to keep with the theme but I distracted myself from the day’s mournful events with a fierce waxing, a fiercer PT session (I am trying to impress a new trainer…), a parents evening and a bowl of delicious stew in my friends fabulous new bar with honest, good friends.
As I leave the bar, I look forward to my other bookend – kisses and snuffles with my boys, burying my face in to their softness, counting my blessings as I slide in to bed to finish my day with reflection, journalling and gratitudes before falling asleep to Rhonda Byrne’s ‘The Secret’.
The universe has other plans.. The lights to the house are off and a I trip over a pair of shoes at the door… I pick them up… and for the second time, I gag.
It is definitely dog.
Tonight, I am grateful for marigolds, detol and a peg.
The Ali Sandwiches & the 365 day challenge
17th September 2015
The Ali Sandwich…
So apparently I am in what is known as ‘the Sandwich Years’…. Or part of the ‘Sandwich Generation’. Am I the only one to have missed this phrase?!
The definition according to the font of all knowledge that is Wikipedia, is ‘a generation of people who care for their aging parents while supporting their own children’. Apparently the term has been around since 1981 and there is lots of advice on ‘how to handle it’ by giving X amount of time / money to Y, to have family meetings to discuss tasks to make sure everyone is cared for and praised appropriately as well as advice on ‘how to care for yourself’ by making sure you are mindful, meditative, eating well, sleeping and laughing… not forgetting to take spontaneous breaks.
I am not sure I recall anything about the 80’s being meditative or mindful – I was only young but all the films about that era were people chemically fueled, everyone out for themselves and jousting with their shoulder pads… Who needed sleep?
Sweeping generalisations aside…
I suppose I am in the middle of a sandwich.
Today my beautiful, elegant, loving Mum is being sectioned by the local authority and moved by ambulance to a Mental Hospital where she is likely to live for the remains of her days, being looked after by a team of medical doctors and nurses who ascertain her perfect cocktail of drugs to prevent her from smashing doors and faces as she battles with her brain riddled with Alzheimer’s.
My lovely, kind, stoical, brave Dad is now alone after over 40 years with the love of his life, with the last 10 or so as my Mum’s sole carer. He has a new lease of life, refinding old friends, going for lunches and dinners, overjoyed that he can now listen to the radio, watch TV, play with his grandchildren…
I worry about my ‘parent’ slice of bread (or is it a bun? Ciabatta? Seeded cobb?)…
Will my Mum be ok as she is escorted by doctors and nurses? Will she freak out at the police waiting and watching closely by to keep the peace. Will she panic and lash out or will she go quietly, shuffling and crying sadly as she did when we moved her in to her first home? How will she be feeling? Does she feel anything but scared, anxious? Or does she feel lonely, left, abandoned by us, her daughters and husband? Does she remember us? I hope not.
And my Dad… did he do his grieving already? Or is he bottling it all up and suppressing it… too scared to open up the emotional pandora’s box? Will it come out later? Will he ring me if he feels sad, lonely, scared, guilty? I do hope so.
This side occupies a lot of my mind lately…. But my reality and day to day life is about my other side of the sandwich… (is it the bottom half or the top?…..)
My babies… my biggest pride and joy, my most successful creation. My sons Tom and Willy who are 7 and 6…. Gorgeous, blond, energetic, funny, loving… one of them stubborn, strong willed and headstrong… the other so giving and generous. The days speed by in a flurry of school runs, feeding frenzies, homework, tantrums, football, lego and sweaty kisses…
Does this side include the dog, the cat, the household chores… oh and my handsome, absent husband? My wonderful weekend, husband who has taken the opportunity to further his career in London for the sake of our finances…So that we can have the best life for this one life we are given on earth and give the same for our sons.
Are they the lettuce, cucumber, tomato? Does that mean James is the meat?! I have to laugh at that – for those of you that know him – he is a 6’5’’ strapping Yorkshire man… very keen on sport, the gym and a big hunk of a piece of meat himself!
And so where am I? What am I? The cling film that holds it all together or the butter that ensure the bread doesn’t go soggy…? That is quite egotistical… the world wouldn’t fall apart without me… or am I the bit of gherkin or pickle that some people love and some people hate? Am I the insignificant filling that’s there but no one realizes? That makes me sound like a total martyr… so what am I?
That is the biggest bit I struggle with. Who am I?
My past has a fantastic resume of top grades and scholarships, good schools, university, fast track promotions through a top blue chip management consultancy and an exciting role in industry while the boys were babies. I can command a fantastic salary and day rate for the skills and experience I have ramped up, for the credentials on my CV. Most people want me to stick to it…
But that’s not my future.
So is this another sandwich? The slice of my past as a corporate professional and the slice of my future identity as a brilliant mum, home-maker, coach & mentor, owner of a health, wellness and wellbeing business.
What’s in the middle? The transition? Time for me?
As I unravel this question, I am challenging myself to document the transition… 365 days of a blog about me…. My transition from slice to slice… Call it a diary, journaling or even therapy… but it will be my time to work out who I am.
Who is Ali in the sandwich of this life?
And are there others out there struggling with the same juggling, thoughts, fears? Perhaps what I do will help them? Perhaps the content will invite a discussion, a topic of conversation… Perhaps it will just make a good read…
Day 1 complete.
thealisandwichesdotcom 
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