The Glorious Silence

By Bronwyn Lewis - 29/05/2015

The time that only demons like.

I started the day with a gorgeous sleep in – wait, no sleep in, scrap that, I woke with the all-encompassing dread that Olive, my mental one-year-old would be waking any second and I would have to be at her service all over again. I thought that this day would be no exception to the usual – the clock would read 4-something-am and as I allowed that revolting time sink in, I would start to hear her demands for my attention get louder and louder.

I slowly and reluctantly opened my eyes and came to the foreign realisation that it wasn’t 4-something-am - it was 5:45-fucking-am and Olive was not making a sound. There was silence in my house and I was awake and Old Mate wasn’t. What the fuck was happening? I slammed my eyes shut again, buried my head into my pillow and hoped to return to the wonderful depths of sleep, but alas, the sheer excitement and disbelief that I was awake before her, combined with the prospect that that bloody whinge would fill my ears any moment kept me wide awake. I may as well have just sucked on a fired up, filthy crack pipe, because my eyes were darting around my scrunched up eye lids and my heart was racing faster than every Hill Song member’s as they watched Guy Sebastian on Eurovision. It was in that perplexed and ecstatic moment that I wouldn’t have been surprised if my face exploded in the most aggressive nose bleed that ever existed.

Admitting defeat that sleep was gone forever, I reluctantly picked up my phone from my bedside table and scrolled through emails that I can’t for the life of me care about regarding some patronising baby club I accidentally signed up to in a moment of sleep deprivation and desperation. I then found myself navigating my way through the mindlessness of Facebook – through the lives of high school acquaintances that I didn’t give a fuck about ten years ago, but ironically find myself clicking on photos to see what they named their new fox terrier or what shit Canberra café they just went to. Eggs Florentine? Is that making a comeback?

How do I even pretend to care about this? What has become of me? In the comfort of my own bed, I found myself embarrassed in front of myself – a feeling that is becoming more and more frequent these days.

I pulled myself out of bed and dragged myself to the bathroom, stepping over the exploded box of bulk tampons Olive has recently become obsessed with. A smile appears on my face as I remember that when bathing her last night she sat triumphantly in the water with three tampons wedged in her fat fingers and one unwrapped and bulging one in her mouth. I sat on the toilet and I pissed as quietly as I could hoping to prolong the moments of solitude I had amazingly scored. As I pondered whether it was gross not to flush a consuming thought dawned upon me - the silence could actually mean that she was dead. Finally, I heard the tiny snores seep through the bathroom wall and I started to breathe again, but stood there completely frozen.

As I stood over the toilet bowl of my own piss, I wondered what my life would be like without her. What would I stay silent for then? It was an isolating, deafening thought that made me realise that the silence that I found myself in was a silence like no other. It may not be a silence where I am solving the world, or even thinking about anything productive – it’s the place where I can hear myself, even over the niggling noises of Facebook shit and baby product emails. This was the silence I loved, but find myself always searching for it to end.

This silence reminded me that I am alive, but even better, it reminded me that someone else is. 

Eating From The Floor Never Tasted So Good.

"Who hates daycare with the fire of a thousand suns?"

I just ate an entire family bag of Maltesers and I am awash in nausea, guilt and accomplishment. Whilst the imminent diabetic ulcers that will appear on my ankles will be a new experience to me, this confusing combination of emotions is not.

About eight weeks ago I sent my wild haired one-year-old daughter to day care and it is fair to say I was not prepared for what I can only compare to the irrational post-sugar rush that makes one wish Mr and Mrs Maltesers died in a house fire because they are the creators of delicious, evil bastards.

Whilst pregnant, I had my unborn child on a number of day care waiting lists. Most of you will probably know from one of my previous soap-box moments that these day care waiting lists are about as long as Mel Gibson’s hit list and the slack-jawed people who organise the placements are about as useful as tits on a bull. Needless to say, I spent months fantasising about getting my bat-shit crazy baby into a day care and returning to my working self where I could luxuriously eat food from a plate and not from the floor. Well, eventually the call came. She got into a day care that was halfway between home and work and it didn’t even stink of piss and shit. Win!

When taking her in, her tiny mind was blown! There were so many colours, sparkles and squishy things from the floor to the ceiling that it looked like Dame Edna, you know, if she were a room. I sat there watching her smash some other, smaller, dumber baby in the face and it dawned upon me that I couldn’t explain to her what the hell was going on and that I was going to leave her there all day three times a week. It also dawned upon me that I probably should teach her not to be so psychotically violent, but Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Leaving her there that day was the worst. Nope, scratch that, the seven weeks after the first day were the worst. Whilst other babies sat on their ridiculously small chairs and swung their tiny feet as they sucked obliviously on their toast, they stared at the free entertainment that we will refer to as ‘The Bron and Olive Massive Meltdown Show’.  Olive would cling to me and scream like a banshee, I would have to pry her mini hands off me and give her to an underpaid, assumedly half-deaf day care lady who would unconvincingly assure me she would be fine and I should go.

Closing the door behind me I would self-punishingly look one more time at her bright red, devastated face with her chubby, little arms stretched out in my direction. How can a mother walk away from that and feel okay? With an uncontrollably and unashamedly quivering chin I would walk down the hall and stand at the painfully slow elevator all the while listening to her supernaturally loud scream and wonder whether food actually tastes better from a plate. It would take all of my might not to storm back in and do a rendition of the scene from The Bodyguard. The little rat is my Whitney.

People at work would assure me it would “get easier” and “soon she will love it”. For weeks I reluctantly ate food from plates and counted down the minutes until I could run from the building to go and pick her up. It took an exceptionally long time for it to “get easier” and it wasn’t only the morning drop-offs that made my life hell, it was the fact that she was terrified every time I left the room and her ability to put herself to sleep was completely shot as she was convinced I had dropped dead, or even worse, willingly abandoned her and she would be alone forever. This is the bleak narrative I bestowed upon her thoughts, which resulted in a bout of pretty unsavoury depression that I was certainly unprepared for.

Seven weeks it took for her to not cry when I dropped her off. Seven weeks it took me to even contemplate writing about this because it made me feel sick. Seven weeks it took me to forgive myself for the decision I made to return to work. Seven weeks it took me to realise that the twenty-odd cents I make a week (roughly) after day care is insignificant, but reclaiming a part of my own life is not.  

When I think about her feeling confused or lonely, I definitely revisit the all too consuming and seemingly more frequently visited sense of guilt and nausea. However, after seven weeks of fucked up and shitty self-punishment, I have realised my daughter now knows that I will always come back for her and that makes her brave. That, my friends, is a fucking accomplishment if I have ever seen one.

Malteser anyone? Just joking, they’re all gone.

Lord of The Un-Ringed

Lord of The Un-Ringed

By Bronwyn Lewis

02/01/2015

Because Jesus.

I may not know everything, but I do know a tit load of things. I know I hate sticky, humid weather that makes my moustache feel more luscious than Baby John Burgo Burgess’ entire face and head combined. I know I love seeing people fall over and hit their melons really hard and pretend it didn’t happen whilst walking off clumsily in the wrong direction, like Karl Stefanovic at any event after 8am. I know I hate when people eat so loudly that I question whether they are deaf, raised by wolves - or both. I know I love when people are uncomfortable by weird things I say or do that they laugh awkwardly and frantically search for an understanding look in the crowd of ‘she doesn’t mean it, please don’t leave’. I know I hate when people overestimate how long I should stay awake at a dinner party and force me to fall asleep and drool all over a stranger’s shoulder. I love how I think I know exactly what I love and hate when I these two categories are confused and I forget what I hate and misconstrue what the fuck I really believe in. Here’s an example…

Recently I went on a holiday with my handsome boyfriend and our angry baby daughter. We went to Noosa, in Queensland: ‘The Smart State’ – according to their number plates. Whist it was lovely and scenic, it is arguably the most Anglo-upper-middle-class place in the whole wide world. The ladies that frequent Noosa look like they have fallen out of a Lorna Jane catalogue and I on the other hand was born in Wagga Wagga, NSW. It goes without saying that at times I felt like that enormous Kardashian sister trying desperately to gracefully and unsuccessfully fit in.

After conversations on the mammoth amount of young adults in Queensland getting married, a person from a different era to me mentioned that they “felt sorry” for my lovely, bastard daughter. I immediately asked why and they responded with, “Because she will be embarrassed at school when her friends ask if her mum and dad are married.” This conversation carried on to them stating that they do not consider us a “proper family” until we are married and justifying their point of view with it merely being “their opinion”. Unfortunately this opinion is not as rare as one would think.

I was outraged. Frankly, I still am. Surprisingly, my fury wasn’t catalysed by this person’s point of view, but more so at my unbridled reaction to it. I hate that I care what people of this opinion think. I hate that my decision to not be married before bringing a baby into this world is fragile enough to be penetrated by the dusty, out-dated perception that sin exists and decency is measured by the Bible. Whilst I understand people have read this mother-flippin’ book, I haven’t and I refuse to live my life by it.

What I would love is for my daughter to grow up and see that I am a woman of self-worth, with or without a husband. I want her to see me as someone rejecting society’s expectations of me as a woman, a mother, a girlfriend and most importantly, a person and carrying on as if they didn’t matter. This is what I care about the most.

I haven’t ruled out marriage completely, because it seems to be exceptionally important to my wonderful boyfriend, and I secretly/not so secretly would love to see how many marital traditions I can piss on one foul swoop. I also want a party that tells this said man that I love the fucking shit out of him, but if this party doesn’t happen, I will just be bloody stoked that I am happy as fuck and not searching to appease people who hold different values to me.

Honesty, I don’t care if it never happens. What I DO know is that I love my small, proper family more than Charlie Sheen loves cocaine and that whatever happens, I will show my daughter that it doesn’t actually matter what the fuck anyone thinks – all that matters that her heart is as full as that fat Kardashian’s pants.