Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer
It’s as if writer and funny person Catherine Deveny designed her Gunnas course with me in mind, I’m a classic Gunna, all talk and very little action, in all aspects of my life. I don’t tell people I’m a writer, mainly because I’m not one, oh and also because I figure to be a writer you probably should be putting pen to paper at some point, to write more than tea leaves, coconut oil, AAA batteries, I mean. So Gunnas is a writing workshop for people like me who are always gunna write but never quite get round to it. I have a house to clean, for goodness sake. I signed up for inspiration, and it worked. Among others, Catherine quoted Carl Jung who observed that “The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parents,” which I have to say struck a chord. Part of why I am exploring writing is because I feel like I’ve spent a fair proportion of the past five years consumed by parenting small children and now I’m furiously grabbing back some of the more important bits of me that were left by the wayside, and trying to figure out my own future at the same time.
It pains me to admit it but in some ways I feel like I’ve wasted the time I had before kids. I mean, it was fun, of course. I developed somewhat of a career, travelled, saw plays, learnt a language and forgot it again, but it’s not like I really achieved all that much, more than the odd spectacular hangover. Perhaps that’s when I should have been writing more, because I had the time, but, and I’m cutting myself a major break here, maybe I was waiting until something – or someone – worth writing about – or for – came along.
These two little people, at once so vulnerable and so strong, have turned my world upside down and inside out and back to front and every which-way and forced me to look at who I am, who I was and who I would like to be.
They have brought out the best of me and absolutely also the worst, I never knew I was capable of giving so much, I never realised I could be so tired, so happy, so angry, so content. They have heightened my emotional range and they challenge me every day. But I do sometimes wonder if I should have fulfilled some kind of potential before they were born, before they enriched and depleted me, before I was too tired to think.
But why worry about that? What I don’t want is for my kids to be burdened with my frustrations of a life unlived so – guess what? – I’m gunna live it. Today I was asked what I would do if I had six months left to live. For starters, I would find joy in the everyday. I wouldn’t waste precious time on the boring bits, if I could help it, and I would definitely employ a cleaner, possibly full time, but even so some of life’s boring bits would still need to be done by me so I would do them with joy. I WILL do them with joy. Remind me of that next time I am on hold negotiating a better insurance deal.
So often, at home with squabbling under fives, I find myself just going through the motions, some less-than-inspired afternoons I catch myself watching the clock, calculating the hours until the kids’ bedtime or, gulp, until I can drop them off at childcare the next day. Surviving but hardly thriving. I’ve realised I need to use our time better, get off Facebook, give my kids more positive experiences and to hell with the mess! Keep them busy, run them ragged and stop beating myself up for occasionally letting them be bored (while I quickly check Facebook). I will enjoy the time we have at home together because soon, whether I have six months to live or sixty years, it will be gone. I will stop killing time and start spending it wisely. Because the next six months could be my last, and if they’re not I’m gunna do my best to live them like they are.
Roshan Sahukar is not a writer and doesn’t have a website. Or a blog. Yet. Find her on Twitter, but not tweeting much @mrsyeo