Not a good day

Today has been a difficult day for me in many ways.

Not least that I'm feeling overwhelmed with my studies and with being busy 5 days a week.

It is that sense that I have no time.

No time for homework or my assignments.

No time for house work or chores.

And no real time to be a mummy with my daughter.

Child had spent the day with her grandma, they had gone to a matinee and had a lovely time. I had picked them up, brought them home and now was busy making risotto.  The idea was that we would eat and watch Strictly Come Dancing together.  This started off well but then disintegrated.  My daughter wouldn't eat because she was watching the telly.  I told her I'd turn it off if she didn't eat.  The telly went off and she became hysterical.  Shouting at me to turn it back on.  She knows that she can always watch it on catch up in the morning.  But she spiraled and worked herself up, shouting 'I hate you mummy' and hitting me.  Finally sobbing in my arms, I managed to calm her down.  My mum went home at that point and we did the bed time routine.  She lay quietly in bed, while I read a few pages of her story and then the lights went out.  She is so far sleeping peacefully.

What bothers me is that when I rang mum to apologise, she berated me for going on at my child to eat her food and she asked me how often this sort of outbreak happens.  Am I doing something wrong here?  I feel like this all comes down to being a 'good enough' mother again and the self-doubt about whether I am doing the best that I can do and not being supported with what I am able to do.  The other thing about it was that there were two of telling my daughter what to do.  Instead of supporting me, my mother was doing her own 'parenting' and yet this is my home.  Isn't that sending out mixed signals?  I usually defer to her as being in charge when at her home, so why can't she do that at my house?

But it is not just that, it's also how low I'm feeling about me.

I am very aware that I do not have a very positive personal view of how I look.  That my image of my physical self is poor.  I'm also aware that this is my view, subjectively mine.  This is not necessarily the view that other people see.  For most of the time, I can wake up and put on clothes, knowing that they work as an outfit and that I look ok.  Sometimes I even feel that I look good and on occasion, that I look 'fab'.  But there are certain times where my vision of myself is that of 'you cannot go out looking like that', or that I look like the size of a house and 'who am I kidding wearing that outfit'.  Now the clothes are the same size and style that I was wearing a few months ago, but my perception is different.

And so my rational side takes over and tells me to stop being silly and that I have to get my child to school and me to work.  

The rational side wins, but the feelings, these particular feelings are still there.  They do fade away for a while, but invariably they return.

Today, it felt like all my negative feelings were compounded.

I was incredibly grateful to my dear friend Nicola for being less than 2 minutes away and for plying me with coffee and a shoulder to lean on.  She sat and listened to me, again.  This is something she has listened to before, but she didn't complain, she just listened.

These days come and go and life goes on.

Tomorrow will be better, until the next time. 

But that next time, might now be for another year.