Last Monday morning, like most mornings, I followed the kids and my partner downstairs for breakfast. When they all seemed settled in the living room, the boys eating nicely at their tiny table and chairs, I ventured into the kitchen to put the kettle on.
The first cup of tea for me is the most important. I allow myself one caffeinated drink a day, any more and I struggle to sleep. This is the fuel that keeps me going, I look forward to it and as much as I hate to say it, it tastes far better than decaf tea.
Whilst the kettle boils, I often busy myself with any washing up that needs doing or unloading the dishwasher, things like that. I can’t remember exactly what I was doing, but I know I was over by the sink when it happened. Just as the kettle reached its boil, there was a loud noise, a spark jumped out of the kettle and all the lights turned off. I could hear moans from the living room, that the Minions on the television had disappeared.
The kettle blowing a fuse was no surprise. We have had it a few years now, since we moved in and actually, I had been meaning to replace it for some time. We have been using it without a filter for almost as long as we have had it, something I was reminded of just last week when I drank a shard of limescale with my tea.
I realised that I had ignored the fact that the filter needed to be replaced for so long that I had forgotten it even needed one at all. It had been marked off the to-do list, a job that no longer needed doing, except the problem hadn’t gone away.
I saw myself in the kettle that morning. The way it popped and smoked. The way it had had enough. It didn’t just hand in its resignation as a politely written letter and wait out the one month’s notice one might in another form of employment. No, it threw itself on the floor kicking and screaming, “I’ve had enough,” it cried, at least internally.
I thought of all the times my fuse has blown after I had suppressed some other issue. The absence of a filter didn’t cause the fuse to blow, but it is a reflection of it being neglected, not taken care of, of me not keeping on top of it.
I thought of how the kettle is needed, used multiple times a day with certainty and it is because it is needed that it was never replaced. It functioned, not optimally but well enough for me to have forgotten that there was a problem in the first place. We got by without it, because that’s what we do.
I think of the days with the boys where I am the boiling kettle. How often I can contain my rage and my anger, how sometimes I can resist shouting and I can opt for a more gentler form of parenting, but there are days that follow where it doesn’t stay inside, and I am not the parent I want to be.
I have written before about Mum rage and how my management of those situations with my kids has a lot to do with my menstrual cycle. I am much more able to contain extreme feelings when I am in a kinder part of my cycle, but when I am vulnerable and my hormones play havoc, I have no chance. Similarly I have a better chance too if I am well-rested, nourished and dehydrated - things that I am guilty of letting go by the wayside when I am busy - and this week has been busy.
I know that self-care is important too in times of busyness and that week in my cycle, but it is hard to find the time.
In a way I excuse my behaviours with my cycle. It’s cyclical nature means it comes and goes and for most of the month I function well, like the kettle without the filter, I forget there is an issue. But when I am sensitive, sluggish and feeling down with the combined effects of the rising progesterone and plummeting oestrogen, the issues rise again and I am not so well functioning. I think, I should replace the filter, but I don’t and I keep going, month after month.
The kettle, if it could talk would have asked me for help perhaps. Perhaps it would let me know that there was some faulty wiring internally or that it was just old now, it couldn’t keep up with the demand that has been placed on it. It may have reminded me about the filter and maybe that would have helped. It didn’t obviously, it’s an inanimate object, but I could. I could ask for help. I could prevent it maybe, from all getting too much.
It is hard to lean into the natural cycles and ebbs and flows of life when it feels like life is constantly going at maximum speed.
So why am I telling you all this?
Why do we need to know about your kettle, Kylie?
It’s not really about the kettle. When the kettle’s fuse blew it had been a busy week of balancing work, children, illnesses and not a lot of sleep (which I can’t even blame my kids for). I hadn’t written anything for my newsletter and I was getting worried I wouldn’t get chance. I often write a couple or get a few started when I’m in that productive phase of my cycle, but I didn’t this month and it shows.
I could have just not written anything, of course, I have no obligation to show up really, but I want to. Writing keeps me going it informs my creativity and nourishes parts of myself that get forgotten when I am at home with the kids. I have been journalling more recently and have found it to be a great form of self-care. Even if I only manage a line of writing it is a few words more out of my head and onto the page. It is vital to my mental wellbeing, yet when I am busy, when there is literally no time, it can be the first thing to go.
So I guess in a way the kettle was a warning. Just as I was thinking I wouldn’t have it in me to write something for you this week, or time to sit and journal and in the same way I didn’t have time to change the filter, or even replace the kettle, I was reminded that I should have, that I could really, find the time - you have to when things are important. Writing is important, it is my self-care and I need it.
I will leave you with these beautiful words from
whose article about returning to writing this week resonated well with me.“Writing gives me connection. Integration. A space to express and dance with words on a page, to turn the rambles of my messy mind into something cohesive for me.
It is an embodied creative outlet and one that - without it - I feel like my feet aren’t quite touching the ground.”
"Writing as my medicine”
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Is there a job in your household that you have put off doing?
How do you manage self-care when you are busy?
How important is writing to you?
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Honestly, I am that kettle a good number of times. This was a good read!🙌🏽
I honestly feel I have no control over myself and my mum rage in the week leading up to my period. I actually feel out of control, 'taken over' by a red mist. The power our hormones have over us sometimes terrifies me! I'm also starting to get my peri-menopausal hell kicking in, which heightens everything. Everything gets neglected! By the end of last year it was getting quite bad: breaking down in tears all day, feeling really depressed, self loathing, all of it. I had to do something. This is what has helped me:
- I focus on whats happening for the coming 2 weeks only. As a useful external marker, I use the New Moon and Full Moon, useful for being every two weeks, to stop, write down and plan what needs attention and don't even try to look beyond it. Journalling every two weeks correlates nicely with my hormone fluctuations and seems to calm me down a bit.
- I started lifting weights. I found an online PT who focusses on mums and since turning up to her live sessions, its changed my life.
I'm still a nightmare before my period but it seems I'm a bit less of a nightmare, and certainly hate myself less!!!
As for household tasks: its all an utter mess!!! Maybe it always will be!
Also: Caffeine & Concealer: the holy combination that I can't live without!!!