09/11/2024
Ha ha, oops - did I really not post here for a whole decade?
Blame two little blokes that I gave birth to.
Through the bleary years of early parenthood, I jumped at the chance to take on retainer contracts, and work for just a couple of clients. It gave me the steady part-time income and flexibility in my working life that I would wish for anyone, and especially for new parents. I worked with truly lovely people, and felt I had become more or less part of their teams.
I also did some travel writing - including two editions of a guidebook, Slow Travel: Shropshire, for Bradt Travel Guides. We spent so much time in Shropshire when my eldest son was tiny that for a while he thought the months of the year ran January, February, Shrewsbury, March ...
So alongside those two or three projects I was mainly being a mum. Learning sleep deprivation survival techniques, parental teamwork, house-leaving logistics, toddler negotiation skills, meal preparation agility, muddy welly processing, friendship conflict resolution and household chaos recovery.
I failed horribly at the unexpected Covid-19 home learning component.
I'm currently up against the Tween and Pre-Teen modules, which in our household consist of homework motivational speeches, pitch-side football analysis, mess disposal, active listening (with bonus credits for responding appropriately to 'funny things that happened in Fortnite'), and often tricky decision making about phones, friendships, bedtimes, freedom.
It sounds hard - and it is. But I'm savouring it all (or most of it) because once you get to the Pre-Teen stage you realise the next modules have a strong emphasis on letting go. Parental redundancy. Post-empty nest reconfiguration.
What's that saying about when your children are small they break your arm, and when they grow up they break your heart?! I wouldn't wish to go back in time, but sometimes I wish I could pause it.
There is never enough time. I feel as though I was silly to neglect my website and social media for all those years but, truthfully, I didn't want anyone to find me and send me more things to do. Becoming invisible online was one way to ease the pressure on myself, and focus on the urgent and important.
Now I'm back! Maybe not on social media that much, but in the working world.
Budget cuts and culture changes within my main client's organisation meant that several of my contracts came to an end recently. This was scary at first but now I'm feeling liberated. It seems right that this happened just as I've emerged from the new-mum years - a bit older (if not wiser), a little more sure of my own self, and excited to build my business. My children still need me lots, but the baby years are behind us, and if one of them happens to glance up from FA24 one hallowed afternoon, I want them to see me achieving things, and making a difference even in a small way. After I've fetched them a snack, obviously.
I'm doing a digital bootcamp to refresh my knowledge and expand my networks, and I'm excited about learning new skills, meeting new people and starting new collaborations. I'm also working on the third edition of Slow Travel: Shropshire, which will come out in October 2025.
I've been developing my website too. It's a work in progress, but I hope it gives you an idea about me and my writing: https://www.goodasgoldws.co.uk/
Like I said, I'm not sure what I'll do about social media yet; whether I'll have the capacity to post content very often. I've pretty much ditched X/Twitter because it's changed for the worse lately. I might lurk on LinkedIn a bit more, even though logging on currently makes my eyes feel hot. I have exactly one picture on Instagram, posted in 2013. And TikTok is a foreign country, where I still can't dance.
But I just wanted to thank you for liking this page (even after a decade of tumbleweed) and for reading all the way to the end of this very long post. Please do drop me a line if you're interested in working with me - or tell me your own stories of emerging from the bleary years.
Marie x
