Category: Life Story

Numbness and being alive

alenaroo1 Comment

What do you do when you struggle to find enjoyment in anything? When every day feels like a never ending stream of chores to be followed by another day of chores, with responsibilities and other people’s expectations shaping up your every day?

I tend to numb myself when not working: listening to audiobooks, cleaning, ticking off other chores, staring at social media, not allowing myself to pause to avoid being overwhelmed by wondering why is this life that I built for myself – in fact worked very hard to build – can feel so miserable, like there is no space for myself in it. But that numbness only makes it worse, I feel like I disappear into nothing and lose all sense of myself as a person, my inner light completely lost as I retreat, dull eyed, after a moment of joy with one of the girls. I sleep dreaming of being abandoned over and over or being stuck in a place I cannot leave – that’s my brain’s revenge for not giving it any breathing space to chew on that question.

This happens to me from time to time, especially when the weather is miserable and I don’t have enough sleep. I remember a couple of years ago I took a single day off work to revel in reading, having a slow, lazy lunch and walking along the beach. Three hours into it I got a call that one of the twins was sick and that I had to go home and look after her. That feeling of utter defeat – I don’t know how you avoid it. No matter how many times you tell yourself to be grateful (and I am truly grateful for so many things in my life), not having any control of your life for even one day can be soul crushing.

I do eventually snap out of that feeling of being completely depleted. One morning I wake up and feel warmth in myself; I don’t rush to look at my phone, I suddenly feel enjoyment in my cup of tea, my comfortable seat on the couch. I start writing again. Suddenly, I don’t just notice the cuteness of my girls in an abstract, remote way, I notice how they react to me as I tickle them and breathe in their smells. I see warmth in my husband’s eyes. I return to myself and wonder how I can treasure my little humans so much but never seem to apply the same love and acceptance to myself. But I can never arrive at that moment by sheer willpower. You can understand certain things intellectually and yet it does not help you to feel better at all.

Where does that numbness, that grim feeling of overwhelm comes from to begin with? It’s tempting to blame it all on the stress of modern lives, with ridiculous property prices and expectations of being able to work as if we don’t have kids and parent as if we don’t have jobs. I know for me it’s much more than that, it’s the perpetual feeling of being unseen when I lose connection with the outside world and myself.

I am fortunate enough to have friends who I connect with on a deeper level, despite all of us having hectic, overwhelming lives. We might not see each other often but being able to be completely open with each other is priceless. I remember talking to a friend while eating chilli crab in Singapore. We hadn’t seen each other for several years, she moved countries, we both had more children and many other changes and some setbacks in life – and yet we felt so close in that conversation, no need to guard ourselves from being misinterpreted and misunderstood.

That’s not going to happen with every single person in our lives, I understand it intellectually; yet I try sometimes and then that openness makes me vulnerable. Being open turns into exposing weakness to someone who will not reciprocate. I cringe at how uncool it is to try to be friends who is always guarded against you.

Yet the best things in my life came from risk – risk of leaping into unknown and risk of opening up instead of keeping up appearances. I shudder to think what my life would be like if I contorted myself into a cooler version of myself who pretends to always be in control, who isolates different parts of her life completely. That version would be much less me – and I want to be more me and stop losing the sense of myself when I am overwhelmed and doubt everything. Eventually I find my own way back to myself – that’s when enjoyment creeps slowly back into my life, even when there is still way too much to do.

The Road Not Taken

alenaroo2 Comments

I was watching surfers last night. We had epic surf on Good Friday to the point there was practically no beach left at Avoca where we are spending the long weekend. It settled a bit on Saturday, waves came in clear sets and there was an occasional gleam of green in contrast to the day before when the wave tops were immediately blown off to churn white all the way to the beach. Surfers were everywhere. They get so close to the rocks it seems way too dangerous. Then one of them pops up on a wave and takes off, down the wave then up and no matter how many times I see it, I never get tired of it and it never stops being, well, magic. Witchery.

I grew up in Siberia and apart from doing ballet as a 6 year old, cross country skiing in the forest across the road from our apartment block and mandatory PE in school, I was not an athletic child. I wore glasses and I always had a book to read, long before it was known that distracting yourself from the world around you is unhealthy (but I was doing it with books not devices so I guess it was ok). And yet when I first got access to satellite TV I was mesmerised by the channel that was showing skateboarding and surfing. The persistence and skill required to do those things seemed way cooler than anything that I could do (a sad poem, anyone?). If I could transport my conscience into someone else’s body for an hour I’d choose an experienced surfer on a good surfing day, for the experience of that high of mastery over your own body and the ocean that can so easily kill you.

I did try surfing after I moved to Australia. It was way before I got into sailing and I took many lessons with a community college and got to know a few people, mostly surfing instructors. I lacked the upper body strength but my balance was fine. I had tremendous fun even in white water and I did manage to catch a few waves, mostly with the instructor’s help. It was pretty clear though that I’d have to basically live on the beach and practice every day, not once a week if I wanted to get serious about it. I would also need to either keep paying an instructor or somehow find someone who’d be ok to at least go surfing with me which seemed impossible with all the other things happening in my life.

I haven’t surfed in ages.

It’s interesting to think what could have been though if I made different choices in life and surfing is one of them. And if I was born in Australia to someone who sent me to nippers, would I be a completely different person, ripping down and up the waves, would that be something so natural and easy for me that I’d take it for granted? What would that life feel like? Somehow I am convinced I’d still find a way to be anxious and questioning my choices. There would be different worries (my friend circle? Source of income? A very vague feeling that I could’ve learned to write better? Maybe they wouldn’t be all that different after all) but I doubt I’d escape unscathed. It is a fun exercise to indulge in right before your birthday though, considering all the lives you could’ve had.

Life with three kids can be intense and sometimes James and I joke about what our lives could be like if we remained childfree (lots of spare cash, probably a seaside apartment instead of a house, much travel and delicious food and should I mention loads of uninterrupted sleep) but ultimately we both agree that it would’ve come with a sense of loss even if we didn’t exactly know what that loss was about. I’m sure there are people who don’t long for children but I struggle to imagine being one of them. It’s one of those choices in life I can’t imagine not making and it seems inevitable, just like moving from my hometown to St Petersburg and then to Australia, maybe because I imagine the kind of regret I’d have had very clearly.

And then there are choices in life that seem a bit less clear cut. Choosing one job over another (I nearly went to Ireland instead of Australia). Choosing sailing over surfing. Ending or continuing a friendship. While some of them seem more important than the other, do we really know which ones are true bifurcation points?

I am still fairly sure I’d arrive at some version of me that might be physically slightly different but fundamentally the same. Somehow I cannot imagine a version of me who doesn’t overthink or who is more confident than sensitive. I’d probably be tortured by different things. I might fight joy in different things, too. Yet it appears to me that through any circumstances my own self would inevitably crystallise and if all those versions of me ever met they would all enjoy a conversation about what it means to be me, just like I’m enjoying writing this post right now.

Then again, it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t add that I could be completely wrong about all of it.

Annual Reflections

alenarooLeave a comment

Last year as I was writing my reflections on the year that just went past, I felt totally exhausted, morally and physically. You can probably read it between the lines in the post. As I was planning to write this post (and I’ve been meaning to do it for at least two weeks), I was thinking that this year I have been in a much better place mentally but it’s probably the present moment that feels more manageable, not the whole year.

It was a year of ups and downs. I changed jobs again, joining yet another tech company, I went to Vegas for the company kick-off then to Singapore for onboarding, doing more travel and time away from home that I’ve had in a while. I was reluctant to go and yet both trips rejuvenated me despite the jet lag and packed schedules. It felts like I rediscovered myself again outside my role as a mother. I was drunk on all the conversations I had with new and familiar people and my whole self felt suddenly much more interesting and deep than I’ve felt for a very long time. Then an inevitable hangover happened as I had to readjust back to the life where nothing really is about me or my needs, it’s all about the children and wider family, the customers and management at work.

I’ve grappled with questions about my own identity for a while. To some extent it seems like an inevitable part of becoming a parent and adjusting to the change in lifestyle (it’s only been 8 years). I am also an immigrant (speaking with an accent), an introvert (who needs time alone to feel normal), I enjoy reading some difficult texts (who I have no one to discuss with). I tend to dwell on things and struggle to stop when too much thinking ceases to bring any new insights and becomes a pointless and disquieting loop in my head. I’ve always longed to do something out of the ordinary, something to lift me up from the everyday existence, not because I don’t like or appreciate that existence but because that elevation lights me up inside. I sometimes feel truly alive while researching a topic or while writing. I chased the same high while sailing. Sometimes I feel it as I spend time with my children. It’s a combination of awe and being truly present in the world. And while there is some time and space for chasing that feeling even when you have several children and a full time job, it definitely shrinks to the point you have to be extremely determined to still chase that feeling while doing something on top of your responsibilities and I’m afraid I might not have that determination. Where does it leave me? Who am I as a person?

What I realised this year though is that concentrating too much on myself does not help answer that question. In fact, thinking and talking too much about myself leaves me with an emotional hangover. I read a book about chatter after hearing about it on my favourite podcast then read another book after hearing about it on the same podcast and that was extremely helpful to quieten the restless voice in my head. I am not sure I answered the question of who I am but I’ve learned to focus on other things instead.

The children have been flourishing this year – they play with each other much more and it doesn’t always end in tears although they still require an intervention at times, not of a parental referee but a guide who helps resolve arguments without physical force. I. continues to be the most athletic of our girls, easily balancing on her bike and starting to swim without any swimming lessons (the twins are starting their swimming lessons next year, thanks to their grandparents). R. made some progress in gymnastics, made a great friend at school, started going to a dancing class with her friend and had her first dancing concert – it was a great performance which left me strangely emotional. She started riding her bike this year, tying her shoelaces, getting more into maths. She still struggles with writing and I have been deep diving into different approaches to education trying to help her.

W. has much more patience than the other two for listening to books, drawing and doing other quiet activities – finally a stereotypical girl, the only one out of our three. She loves being a little princess and the contrast between her and I., her twin sister who is a total tomboy, is sometimes comical.

This year I probably went to the gym a bit less than I wanted to, not just because of the usual winter sicknesses and commitments but also from fatigue. I tried other approaches to physical activity, too – got into mobility work and explored some combinations of gymnastics and calisthenics. I still feel the best when I regularly go to the gym and do strength training.

We are planning to buy our own place if everything goes well.

What I am hoping for in the new year is payoff for some of the things that I’ve been doing for years now, at work and in personal life. I still don’t feel like I’m getting enough sleep. I still wish I played the piano more, painted more, wrote more. I want to read with the girls more, learn more new things. And I think if I do more of these things I will be more myself, too.

Why so serious?

alenarooLeave a comment

R has been going to gymnastics for over a year. She goes to a fairly small club that emphasises fun over competition which is probably the healthiest approach to children’s sport. Yet we almost didn’t rejoin this term, and the main reason was that I didn’t see much improvement in what R was doing. She also often lost interest by the end of the class and instead of practicing she’d do absolute minimum and make faces at me, in her usual monkey manner.

I talked to a few parents while sitting on the bench waiting for R to finish her classes. One girl who used to be friendly with R dropped out after Christmas because her Mum didn’t see results (and it was inconvenient for the whole family to do sports on Saturday morning). A couple of people I knew from my previous jobs brought their kids – and then I didn’t see them anymore. Both of the parents echoed my secret desire to see their kids doing perfect cartwheels and flips when we chatted. I am not sure what happened after – all I know I don’t see them at gymnastics anymore.

In the end, I was talked into continuing by another mother whose daughter has been doing gymnastics with R for a while. I look forward to talking to her every Saturday and that was probably the biggest reason why I signed R up again. That, and R actually telling me she enjoys gymnastics.

By the middle of the term R’s cartwheels suddenly improved. She now pays attention at the end of class. And come to think of it, she’s generally far less clumsy than she used to be.

Somehow she still mostly just enjoys the class, sometimes getting things right, sometimes not. I can imagine myself if I was somehow transported into a child’s body without losing the tendencies of my own age and experience – I would try to get the most value out of each class, do everything just right, constantly increase complexity and compete with myself. In other words, I would probably take all the fun out of it. I’d take it too seriously and get frustrated. I’m pretty stubborn so I as that imaginary child would probably not quit – but I probably wouldn’t get any joy out of it either, too focussed on results.

Needless to say, when I was an actual child I did not have that mindset. I did quit ballet after two years and I didn’t finish music school. The approach towards children education both in sport and in music back in Russia had nothing to do with fun and recreation – you were expected to work hard to get results. And I know that a lot of my enjoyment of music was lost in my childhood because learning music was all hard work and very little fun. Only now, many years later, I allowed myself to play the piano very casually, occasionally, for my own enjoyment – although I suspect if I didn’t have the excuse of having three children, a full time job and too many hobbies, I’d probably start trying to get more serious about improvisations and all the other skills that were not covered in my childhood education, possibly getting to the place when playing the piano is not enjoyable once again.

Yet R who can be pretty resistant to any kind of pressure somehow, almost by magic, managed to acquire skills just by sticking to weekly lessons and not taking them too seriously. Yes, it took a long time – a very long time by the standards of our impatient times. But the big plus is, she’s still enjoying it, too.

I had a dream that my children would do nippers (train to be lifesavers) – who wouldn’t enjoy running around on the beach, training to be safe in the ocean? R, that’s who. She started just before she turned 5 and she hated it then and the next term when we tried again. She hated being last while running, she hated how sand hit her bare legs when it was windy, she was clingy and miserable and so we quit. And a voice in my head told me for years and years that R didn’t enjoy anything all that much and maybe it was worth persisting despite her wishes. I know that voice is not really an enemy, it’s the same voice that urged me to practice reading and writing with R and researching the best ways to learn spelling and maths. Yet in the end what often works best with R is just giving her time and agency to decide how she engages with whatever she’s doing.

And as it often happens in parenting, I am not sure who learns more in all this – the child who acquires a skill of doing cartwheels and writing complex sentences, or the parent who learns to let go sometimes and trust the process and their child. I know I am currently trying to apply whatever I learned in my own life: hold my desires very lightly and don’t take them too seriously, invest time in following my interests and slowly build skills without fixating on it. Maybe one day I’ll be able to do a cartwheel too.

Drifting to music

alenarooLeave a comment

First time I listened to music to help me fall asleep was after my sister died. I was 19. My sister and I used to have identical beds pushed against opposite walls but after the funeral, when all the visitors left and we returned to somewhat normal life, my parents helped me move things around and drag my bed close to the window.

We lived on the ground floor of a typical Soviet apartment block with its thin walls and loud neighbours. At night, when everyone settled to sleep, there were noises coming from the outside, scuffling and scratching, that kept me on edge. I tried to convince myself that they were from cats or dogs until the central heating’s pipe started shaking – I am still not sure if there was a person in the basement underneath our apartment at nighttime. I don’t think I ever saw a homeless person on our street during the day but there were definitely rumours of them, at least among children. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to hear any of it and I also didn’t want to hear my parents through the wall so I would put music on, playing on the lowest volume setting. It created a presence in the room that settled me. Nobody talked to me about my sister’s death which seems weird in retrospect but felt natural at the time. Having Zemfira whisper her songs to me at nighttime was the closest thing to an intimate conversation available to me.

Next time I remember using music as my sleep crutch was in Moscow, during my first business trip. By then I moved to Saint Petersburg, got a second degree and was beyond myself with excitement about having a real business trip staying in my own room at a hotel. My coworkers and I spent the days in instructor-led training at the Microsoft office (my first experience with free lunches at a tech company). It was a trip I’ll never forget and as I was lying on my hotel bed I went through all of it in my head, the metro stations, the grumpy passersby I asked for directions, the never ending sleet and the tall buildings disappearing into grey clouds. My brain still does it after a day that is somewhat unusual, trying to process it all and not letting me sleep. I remember listening to Morcheeba and I still love that song and listen to it sometimes.

Years later I was in hospital after giving birth to twins. 2020, height of COVID, no visitors are allowed in the hospital and the midwives are run off their feet. A room in a maternity room is almost never quiet. Newborns always grunt even while asleep, there is medical equipment everywhere and you can hear people outside. The inside of my head was even noisier, as usual, and I found myself unable to sleep despite being exhausted. So I got my AirPods and listened to a Spotify playlist: Zero 7 and Thievery Corporation and all the other dreamy, trip-hoppy stuff with gentle voices that feel like comforting presence when I need someone to whisper in my ear to settle my restless mind. I kept up listening to that playlist for a while after getting home until it was no longer needed as I was dropping off to sleep whenever I could, no external help needed.

I traveled for work recently, to Vegas and then to Singapore and once again I was shutting down my brain at the end of the day by listening to music. I didn’t realise it was an unusual thing to do until I mentioned it to someone. Maybe people find other ways to wind down – they do body scans or count sheep or take melatonin – I’ve tried all those things myself, too. Yet I find nothing as effective and as comforting as music mumbling into my ear, just at the edge of my consciousness. It never crossed my mind to think why, until now. And now that it did it’s tempting to wrap all these little anecdotes together in a neat narrative. Interpretations come to me easily, unbidden. Maybe I need a voice from outside of my head to relax the inner voice? Maybe the gentleness of that outside voice compensates for the harshness of the voice inside of me? Or perhaps I’ve been so lonely throughout different periods of my life that music bringing an illusion of closeness was what I needed?

I know an explanation would make for a more compelling story. Yet more and more in my life I tell the part of me that tries to analyse everything to shut up. Explanations inevitably reduce things to the very basics and that’s not what I’m looking for in life. Besides, things closely examined tend to lose some of their magic and do I really want to use my mind on something that helps shut my mind off?

It’s good advice that you just didn’t take

alenarooLeave a comment

The other day I overhead R giving W advice in a sweet patient voice reserved exclusively for her sisters when they haven’t annoyed her yet: “Don’t say that you can’t do it. You can if you keep trying! You already learned to do so many things so just keep going and you’ll get there”.

Excellent advice. It’s always uncanny to hear your words repeated by your kids to someone else. And when I tell her the same thing (R tends to say she can’t do something a lot) it doesn’t help much in the moment and I sometimes wonder if she can even hear me. Apparently she can.

Kids love giving others wise advice, at least mine do. Before the twins were fully toilet trained, my parents who were visiting at the time took them to a playground and W had an accident in her undies. The entire way home I. was lecturing W that she should be using the toilet. Should I mention that she herself was wearing a nappy at the time?

So kids are little hypocrites. But so am I and I don’t claim to be little anymore. I tell R to stop striving for perfection and just start doing whatever she is afraid to do instead, step by step. I try to encourage her to try different things (with various success). I tell her how much I love writing (she hates it to the point I sometimes wonder if she is my child). But do I listen to my own advice? I am exhausted all the time so instead of writing or even reading I stare at my phone even though reading Reddit makes me feel slightly nauseous, like eating too much cake. Sometimes I catch myself watching meaningless videos on Facebook, it’s my way of disassociating and numbing myself (especially when I’m overwhelmed by noise, both inside and outside my own head).

We are all told that the best way to encourage kids to do something is modelling. It doesn’t always work in a straightforward way but we definitely normalise whatever we do in front of them. So I better model not being a hypocrite. And when I tell R I love writing I should probably back it up by actually writing. And when I say there are many fun things to do, I can point out to her that I play the piano at least occasionally and sometimes I crochet. Maybe one day I’ll even have time for sailing again. One can dream! Most importantly though, I’m learning to be kind to myself so they at least know that it’s the best (and normal) thing to do.

Another year has flown by

alenaroo3 Comments

I often think about being a little numb to life; how a monumental tantrum or some unexpected mini-disaster takes over my life for an evening / a day / a week and then it’s gone and I move on very quickly, returning to my morning walk, my customer meetings, my school pickup and I have no time to mull it over, to obsess over it, to think of better way to handle certain things. I am still not sure this is what people talk about when they advice against rumination. To me, it seems like I also lost the mental space to consider and digest, not just ruminate. A friend asked me, to my delight, if I was going to write another yearly reflection and I have been writing in my head in little spurts ever since, hoping I’d be able to fit in at least another blog post before then, and yet here I am. I am still grateful for this quiet, rainy day when I can sit by myself and think about a year it has been.

It’s a year when the world felt broken again, with the continuing war in Ukraine and many civilian victims in Israel and Gaza. Interest rates are going up and everything is getting more expensive. The tech world was obsessed with AI and Chat GPT. In an attempt to control what I can I started going to the gym and managed to finish a strength training program I heard a lot about but had never done before. Then I started another one. At times going to the gym felt amazing, and sometimes it was just a pain, another thing that I had to do. I had some business travel this year and the girls were sick during winter a lot so my workout routine was interrupted quite a few times – yet I got back into it and even when it wasn’t perfect it was much, much better than not doing it at all. I probably won’t go back to the body I had pre-kids but I am determined to have strong muscles even when I am in my 60s and 70s.

Work was challenging this year, with a hard economic climate and constant changes and me finding my stride in a deeply technical field. I’ve worked, laughed and ranted with some fantastic people (some of them became good friends) and I have learned so much. And at the end of the year I am finally taking substantial time off – my parents are coming tomorrow!

Around my birthday this year I had arguably the biggest freakout about my age I’ve ever had. A friend casually dropped a comment about the importance and my lack of social life when we were catching up and it clearly resonated and awoke something dark in me as I cried on a morning walk thinking how I don’t have any friends anymore. Thankfully, another friend talked me off the ledge (in hindsight, it is a little strange to complain about lack of friends to an actual friend).

I. and W turned 3 and their personalities continue to be very different. R and I. are now in a semi-constant state of bickering mixed with sisterly love. They are now playing together more – but also fight much more. Willow mostly prefers her own path, either quietly chilling, angrily demanding something or giggling her head off. All three like playing “The floor is lava”. I remember R’s early years so vividly and it seemed like they lasted for so long – yet the twin’s first 3 years feel much more like a blur. I also remember R getting progressively easier each year – yet it sometimes seems to be the opposite with the twins. I have now braved the playground by myself with all three and everyone survived even if it wasn’t an easy (or particularly enjoyable) experience for me.

After a conversation with R’s teacher I started obsessing over helping her with writing and, to a lesser degree, maths. The education system is quite different in Australia to the one I went through and both have their strength and shortcomings. I am now reading books about better spelling / math instruction – or rather those books look at me forlornly from the overflowing bookshelves as I stare at my phone, overwhelmed. I did manage to help R improve her handwriting and some of her general writing skills but not nearly enough (she asked me how to spell “if” yesterday…). She also seems to be enjoying reading much more. Last year she attempted to sign cards to everyone in her class – but ran out of steam pretty quickly. This year she completed all of them and another one for her teacher, she’s done it in batches and 99% by herself – all I did after buying the cards was making her a list in the middle of the process so she could see who she’s done the cards for already.

It feels like I’ve done at least 300 loads of laundry this year (I am tempted to start counting and put it in a dashboard somewhere). I caught thousands of Pokemon on my phone (I installed the game to play with R but instead it made me go for walks more often – I walk more than 50 km each week including a 2 hour walk on most Saturdays). I changed loads of nappies (then the twins seemingly toilet trained themselves… at least partially). I’ve been thrown up on more times than I care for to remember. I managed to read some books. I felt awe while looking at a sleeping child almost every night (some nights I was way too exhausted). I went to Las Vegas and Auckland for the first time in my life. James and I went to a wedding in New Zealand by ourselves. I finally bought myself a piano and played the entirety of “Fur Elise” and not just the easy part. I feel like I worked hard all year in all areas of my life and I felt like little changes overtime added up to something significant if modest, even when it’s not all that noticeable from the outside.

My wish for next year is for more peace, more creativity, less sickness for the entire family (and more fishing for James). And if you got to this paragraph, I hope you have a wonderful holiday break and a great year ahead.

Goodbye 2022

alenarooLeave a comment

This year, 2022:

  1. After some beautiful weather in early January, it started raining. It rained so much that sewage and dirt ran off into the sea spreading brown patches of pollution along the shore. It was too dangerous to swim in the ocean or in the rock pool for months – and then the winter came. It rained so much that cars were trapped in flood water on major roads. It rained so much that Riley’s school was closed and we were asked to pick our kids up as soon as possible and as I was driving back in the rain the tires were sliding on the wet road, the car beeping in alarm. It rained so much that one day it took James two hours to get the twins home from daycare (as opposed to usual 20 minutes) because so many roads were closed due to flooding. We were lucky – we live on a hill so our place didn’t flood apart from a small leak from the roof on the day it was raining particularly hard. It’s impressive, considering there are little trees growing out of our gutters (we have been waiting for several months now for the real estate to organise them to be cleaned).
  2. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24 and I lived in a state of disbelief, anger and sorrow for months. The war in Ukraine is the main reason I haven’t been updating my blog(s) this year as nothing felt good enough. The general horror about this war was interspersed with personal worries: would I ever see my parents again (after two years of COVID when they couldn’t visit)? What do I say to my Ukrainian friends here in Sydney (one of which brought comforting homemade food to me when I was struggling with tiny twins)? What do I say to my friends in Russia? The anti-Russian sentiment online was overwhelming and I struggled to deal with it, too. This year made me feel more Russian that I have felt my entire life as I grieved for all the good things about the country, my childhood, my friends and relatives. It’s been immense relief that my parents got a visa and are coming for a visit just before Christmas (in two days!).
  3. Our family had a new virus seemingly every other week. We all had gastro (it’s real fun with 3 kids) and numerous unidentified viruses where kids (and James) vomited occasionally and had awfully upset stomachs. James ended up in emergency with dehydration once because he couldn’t hold any water. Willow spent a week in hospital again, this time not with pneumonia but with RSV. James was looking after her during the night in the hospital and I wrangled the other two kids, getting them to sleep then making sure that Riley goes to school before handing Ivy off to James and spending the day with Willow. Later in the year one of my teeth got infected under the crown and I had the worst toothache of my life. It eventually got extracted and local anaesthesia didn’t quite work so for the first time ever I had to run to GP in tears begging for strong painkillers. James was out of town at the time so after getting the painkillers, still uncontrollably crying at the pharmacy, I had to rearrange my face and go pick up Riley from her after school care. We also got COVID-19 for the first time, and I copped it the worst in our family even though it was fairly mild. We treated the entire family for nits – twice – and I am not keen to repeat that particular experience although at least we got rid of them. On the plus side, after much anxiety I got started on a tooth implant and had a consultation with a much better eye specialist than the one I saw previously. The eye doctor said I probably wouldn’t go blind in one eye, after all, and my future surgery might have much better recovery than previously expected.
  4. We bit the bullet and bought an investment property in Brisbane, a house much better than the one we are renting in Sydney. The interest rates immediately went up, property prices in theory went down but in reality there are now fewer houses for sale and fewer again for rent. We dream of owning a house and never having to rent again, not dealing with landlords and owners who can kick you out at any point but that dream won’t come true for at least a few more years while we have two kids in daycare.
  5. I changed jobs twice this year and each decision had merit at the time even though in hindsight I might have done some things differently. I learned a lot and not just in tech. By the end of the year I started feeling so burned out I promised myself I wouldn’t change jobs again for at least a couple of years.
  6. Riley started and finished kindy this year, her first year in “big school” with its own challenges. By the end of the year she started doing some team work with other girls but I was still unable to urge her to say “Hello” to the lovely lollipop lady. At times I felt like tracking sports uniform / library books / news day / reading folder days was a full-time job in itself, plus drop offs, pick ups, lunches and fruito-vego boxes, birthdays and trying not to feel like a total weirdo while talking to other parents. James and I were both too exhausted this year to organise a birthday party with friends for her this year and she didn’t seem to care much so instead we went to her grandparents’ house with its pool and the jumping castle hired by her Nana. She can read now but doesn’t particularly like it. We also established that while she’s physically active she hates organised sports so we gave up on nippers and she started swimming lessons again.
  7. The twins turned two and Ivy is speaking in sentences. Willow talks quite a bit too but she’s generally quieter (although she tends to complain more). All our kids are quite strong willed in their own ways but the twins are somewhat less intense than Riley used to be at that age as in they still destroy the house very quickly but are not as prone to extended meltdowns. Sometimes all three children even cuddle and comfort each other instead of fighting. All three probably use screens too much but we are still in survival mode and I am slowly trying to guide them towards books instead.
  8. I started drawing on my iPad and privately writing for myself a little, tried a dancing app and routinely dedicate time to walking in the wetlands nearby as much as I can. I managed to catch up with a friend for dinner for the first time since Riley was born. We also travelled to a wedding in New Zealand leaving kids at the grandparents for 3 days, something we had never done before. It was glorious. James managed to get one twilight sail in (I do still miss sailing…).

It’s been a difficult year with a lot of changes and challenges and I don’t expect 2023 to be much easier although I am hoping for less sickness next year and no more job changes. More laughter, more creativity, more time with the family and friends, less weather surprises and dare I dream of no more wars?..

Zoom zoom

alenaroo1 Comment

I started driving fairly late in life, and learning to drive will be forever entangled with the early years of immigration for me. The theory was easy but the practical skill of driving turned out not to be. It’s hard to separate my own lack of confidence and skill from the culture shock I was feeling, and the ever present shadow of a dysfunctional relationship with the boyfriend who taught me to drive.

After I got my license (and eventually broke up with the boyfriend) I drove quite a bit for a while. But the moment I didn’t have to, I stopped. It was never quite relaxing. I always preferred to walk if I could. We bought better cars for our growing family. Riley, our first, was a fireball of a baby in many ways, and she hated the car. I attempted taking her to a few places by myself and ended up on the verge of tears as she worked herself up into a screaming mess of pure distress and anger. After a few times I almost completely gave up driving, even by myself. I still haven’t driven our car with all three children in it.

These days my life is very different from those early years in Australia when I was learning to drive and tried desperately to fit in, it’s better in almost every possible way. I’ve got a family who keeps me grounded even when I feel like I’m losing my mind. I have deep friendships. Better job. Better job prospects. And today, probably for the first time in my life, I realised that driving to a shop well and truly felt easier than walking even though it’s not a long walk. There was no struggle in my head over it. No “everyone is doing it so you should be too!”, no “don’t be a chicken and just do it”, no “oh well I know I can do it and I will”. Just getting into a car, driving there, parking, getting the ice cream and driving back.

It truly felt like amazing progress, even after over 10 years of driving.

For most people in Australia it probably is nothing. They might have not moved to another country by themselves with no money to speak of or rebuilt their life from scratch by themselves; they might have not mastered another language or got two degrees or had twins; but driving – that’s a given for most people, more natural than walking in many cases. But it is significant for me.

These days Riley loves being in a car and we go to the beach together. We got a second car so I could drop her off at school (she’s starting “big school” in a week!) and she enjoys the simple little car even more than our big fancy car with reverse camera and leather seats. In some ways, so do I.

It’s the little things that strike me sometimes when I look at my past achievements. Being able to make small talk and joke around in English. Being comfortable with phone conversations and meeting new people (a double bummer for introverts who speak a second language). Hopping into a car and just driving wherever you need to go. We concentrate so much on bigger things: our relationships, our jobs, our bank balance but the little things can be such a struggle precisely because it’s something that is seemingly effortless for everyone else but you. I might strike another little thing off my list now and that’s a great start to a new year.

The Monster

alenarooLeave a comment

We nearly didn’t go to the inspection of the house. I was pregnant with twins and nauseated by the drive; Riley wasn’t that interested in the places we looked at. And James was about ready to give up after both houses we had seen that day turned out to be not what we were looking for. We had some time before the third, the final inspection for the day and we sat on a bench gazing at the lake and considering just going home but then eventually James said, well, we might as well have a look since we are so close anyway.

The house was huge and it appeared even larger to us after our cramped two bed unit. There were a lot of people looking but what I remember the most is the garden: the lemon tree full of ripe lemons and a mandarin tree and flowers everywhere; and a tiny golf area behind the house. I remember white walls and white shutters and the fireplace which I knew would excite James (and – secretly – myself) but probably would be a hazard to the unborn babies in my belly. The back room would be good when my parents came to stay with us, the whole COVID business hopefully behind us soon enough. The huge amount of space and the lemon tree; relatively close to the beach and the lake but not so close that floods would be a threat. We started calling it a beach house before we even put in our application.

Only after we got approved we realised that the place didn’t have a dishwasher. “I’ll just do the washing up myself in the sink”, James said, ever an optimist, but I knew we’d struggle, especially once the twins were born. So we talked to the agent and then directly to the landlady who didn’t hesitate to just drop in at any point of the day; she sent a handyman in who cut a hole under the sink to put the dishwasher in. “I don’t mind,” – she said. “When I move in I can just slide my own dishwasher in there!”

That gave us pause. Our lease was for a year but we assumed we’d be staying far longer that that; I was slightly panicked at the thought that we’d have to move when the babies were so little. It was too late to cancel on the move. We paid for the installation and bought a slimline dishwasher as a bigger one wouldn’t fit in the provided hole; the plumber commented that the pipes were very old and would cause trouble eventually and I told him we were renting and wouldn’t be replacing the pipes.

The house was ancient, minimal repairs done for a quick sale. The gardens around it were majestic and covered in spider webs. The bathrooms smelled of mould and we immediately changed the old toilet seat which stank of urine no matter how much bleach I put into the toilet bowl. It was a stark contrast to our previous place with a fully renovated bathroom and the beautiful deep bath I spent hours in while pregnant with Riley. We told ourselves we could make the place our own though; I had a cleaning schedule going and got a cleaning appliance specifically for the ancient wooden floors. When I got too pregnant to move too much, James kept up with the cleaning as best he could. I put removable stickers in Riley’s room and got her a star projector; she finally started sleeping through in her own bed. It was getting cold and we had the fire going making the whole place cozy and welcoming and as much as I missed our old neighbourhood sometimes I also started to enjoy my daily walks to the waterfall and looking out in the garden and the clothesline outside that made laundry so much easier. We found a tiny playground just around the corner and Riley was always excited to go there on her bike as I tried to keep up, huffing and puffing and holding on to my giant pregnant belly.

James investigated and it turned out that the landlady’s other property was for sale. He called her and she said she was going to move in to the house once it sold. That made us anxious once again but our neighbours told us not to worry too much – the place had been for sale for ages so who knows when it would sell. We had no choice but stay and we chose not to think too much about it for the time being.

We had enough on our minds regardless – first preparation for the arrival of the twins and then their actual arrival. Life became a blur of feeding, newborn naps and cuddles, Riley’s adjustment to being a big sister. Christmas and New Year were strange that year, with our neighbourhood the only area in the whole country to be in lockdown. We ordered Christmas takeaway (Riley, the pickiest of eaters, had none of it). When James went back to work after the holidays I was all consumed with caring for the twins, a never ending, overwhelming task, as the house fell into a messier state.

And then one day our landlady showed up, as was her custom, unannounced, and told me that she sold her other place and that she’d be most obliged if we moved out by the end of March.

It was a shock. Not only because it was barely 10 months since we moved in (the agent told us we were actually safe in the house until the end of May), not just because the market suddenly went crazy and it was insanely hard to find a family house to rent. We were struggling to keep afloat with our everyday life caring for three little kids, how on earth could we possibly find a new place, pack and move? And who rents a place to people expecting twins only to yank it away with barely a thought while the babies are so young?

Despite all that, we started looking straight away – the house was poisoned to us and all the little things that we shrugged off or laughed about before turned into massive sources of irritation growing into something reminding hatred. The ancient cupboards and pantry with doors that never stayed closed. The creaky floors and lack of any sound proofing so you couldn’t clean up the kitchen after the kids were asleep as it was too noisy. The spiders everywhere you look, outside and inside. The mould in bathrooms and seemingly starting to grow everywhere. It seemed like the house was suddenly possessed by a monster who spread its mouldy tentacles around everything. The landlady kept calling me suggesting we move to an apartment with a view or a two bedroom house (she told the gardener I was too picky when we declined).

The citrus trees were still there; and so was the space. Riley still played outside in the yard sometimes. But I couldn’t wait to leave. And we were lucky enough to find a different house a few weeks later despite the crazy market. We even moved out in time to make it easy for the landlady who moved in the moment cleaners left. We now live a 5 minute walk away from the house and I walk past it with the pram daily. James told me he felt weird when he looked inside one last time: it was our place and we were booted out of it. But when I think of it I only remember the monster tentacles; the stink and the mould and the feeling of dread while the wonderful memories of the cozy fire and the tiny twins we brought there from the hospital belong to us only and are fully divorced from the place that was once our home. The new place is smaller and it doesn’t have a garden, just a small backyard but it’s full of light and it has newer bathrooms and kitchen. And while we are not enchanted with it we also expect no monsters to show up.