Full Bodied

Today I’m having a fat day, a lazy day

A day where I can loll around

In my dressing gown

I love having a fat day

It is full bodied, full of self- love and indulgence

It starts with a lay in bed, reading

Eating breakfast and not minding if the crumbs fall onto the sheets

After a while I nod off for another snooze

I awake again, put on my dressing gown and head downstairs

I have a cuppa and maybe a biscuit or two

And wrap my hands around the warmth of the cup and my dressing gown

Tightly around me

I read some more of my book, curled up on the sofa and put the fire on

Cosy in my living room, soaking up the fullness of just ‘being’…

Later I will turn on the TV and flick through the channels until something

Grabs my attention.  I may watch it for an hour or two or for the rest

Of the day until it is time, to go to bed again

In between, I will head into the kitchen and eat and nibble and pick at

Whatever I choose to eat, whatever, takes my fancy

And I won’t feel one bit guilty

Why?

I won’t feel guilty because I have spent my days, working, fetching and carrying

Raising children, keeping house, putting other people first, putting myself to the back of the queue

Except for the occasional treat.

Mums, all over the world are on the marathon of motherhood and it is exhausting, exhilarating, heartfelt and heart breaking.  We fight, we fix, we do.  We just do.  We get on with it and we get lost in it.  The girl you were, that carefree girl, before motherhood, she is gone.  She is hiding in the body of the mad woman working from morning ‘til night, full of sleep deprivation, spinning plates and trying to please EVERYONE and in the process there is no time or very very little time, for her to please herself.

So now, now that my nest is empty, 33 years later, of getting lost in motherhood, I can, without guilt or remorse, please myself and have a great big fat day to myself and enjoy it wrapped up in the warmth of my dressing gown, and in the knowledge, that the job I did of being mother, was a success.  My Children are a success, they are wonderful human beings getting on in the world on their own journeys, full of their own adventures, and I couldn’t be happier for them….. or me!