A haircut is as good as a holiday and the loneliness of mummyhood

So this is me at my computer. I cut my hair the other day. So cathartic.  It was in order to get rid of:

a) the dead weight of long hair, both physically, and metaphorically, as if the long hair fashion was just another rediculous fad I had become a slave to. I cut it off, and instantly felt lighter, in all of the above mentioned ways also.

b) A weird feeling of other journo folk not taking me seriously with a long mane. I swear to God, when I went in for a job interview at 3AW, the journalists surrounding me like vultures sniggered at my long blonde ponytail and eyeshadow, as if a long swishy ponytail was sinful. As if wearing ANY makeup rendered me useless and not wearing a Carlton uniform and flat shoes made me an intern who wanted to fuck the Editor.

Get stuffed, is what I say to that. But hey, I cut it off in the end so maybe I am just soft.  I don't even care anymore, all I can say is that it is SO MUCH easier to look after above the shoulders, and since it looks like I may never work again in my chosen profession, lets just say it, fuck it. When I cut it off, I didn't even care if it didn't look good.  It was a rebellion, from my mother telling me to keep my hair long, to me for growing it for so many years, to society and the yummy mummy bullshit.  Seriously, it was my version of a Britney Spears experience, and if I had of been drinking then maybe I might have whipped Husband's beard trimmer.  No, I'm probablly too vain for that, but you get the idea.

I am just so sick of the lack of control in the interview process.  I have a killer resume. I am ualified God damn it.  So why don't they pick me?
 
...and that leads me to ....

This morning, after being sick with the plague that has swept Melbourne for the past few weeks, I finally ventured outside the house for the first time in two weeks. Xavie my little man, was as sick as me, well he and his day care got me sick to be fair, and after drugs perscribed that shouldn't have been, a trip to the hospital and a viral diagnosis later, we were finally feeling better this morning., After Xavie's lunch, I ran out of that house with stroller packed, faster than you can say Thomas the Tank Engine.

Down at the Hall Street shops, whilst paying for my newspaper bill, I bumped into a forming-friend.

It was like all mummy accidental catch-up situations, you end up chatting for ages because you are dying for conversation and interaction, and well, to talk to someone who knows what it is like, in all of its emotional contraditions, being a stay at home mum.

We were both like flys to fly paper, each attracted and stuck to the other for a good half-hour, standing in the walkway and annoying passers by with our strollers and Henry the dog of course.

This is Henry the doggie. He's a standard poodle who is sad because I didn't give him more bacon earlier. (Poodles hold onto things like cranky old women)

Anyway, this forming-friend of mine I met when she was working for my husband when he was working in a cafe on my insistance because I crumbled looking after a four month old baby basically solo while he worked days and nights as a restaurant manager.Get all that?

He is back in the restaurant trade again, but I guess I scored a new freind in the process, well forming friend (I think we need to get drunk and talk about old boyfreinds together to bond).

THing is, we don't really see each other very often ... you know what making news friends can be like, well, having a social life can be like.

But anyway, we bumped into each other and chatted about her new job--just two days a week, but in her professional field and I was so envious.  She looked so relieved to be working, while telling me about other mothers that uestion her motives, you know, the old thing that I still can't believe is around.  Bitchy suburban mothers making other mothers feel bad for wanting a little balance in their lives.  Honestly.

It really is lonely being a Mummy, and as forming-friend said herself:  'no one talks about it'. It's true.  You read about it, social commnetators the globe around talk about it till the cows come home but locally, in a day-to-day way, not many people do.

The moral of todays post guys? Get a haircut if you feel like it because a change really is as good as a holiday (and the ooh-ahh feeling lasts about the same ammount of time) and it is ok to admit that you're lonely. No one tells us this is the REAL reality of being a mummy. And may I please reiterate... if you are thinking of getting pregnant, make sure you're in a long term job when you do, don't mind the long-term relationship:).

 If you are where I'm at, well, I'm another soul in the world who knows just how you feel.

Bye for now,  Sam x

Have a baby, lose your career, that is, of course, unless you have maternity leave

Hi there,

I am a mother to one very cute 16 month old but today, as my first blog entry, I am talking about going back to work. 

You see, I used to be a journalist. My mother-in-law would clarify "are" but it just seems arbitary at this point. You see, I have had a few interviews, where the death bell always seems to be "you don't have enough recent experience". 

Well DAHH, I had a child.  Do you want civilisation to continue?  I think to myself. The system is what needs to change, but that is for another entry.

The reality is a sad and true symptom of being a women. It is competely un-fair and has made me lost and sad because of it.  I feel this way because I have been unwillingly thrown into a situation that is mostly out of my control.

In conclusion, because of this sly trip-step of modern society, I can't seem to find any work.

I have decided to start this blog as a way of not completey loosing my mind out of frustration. After looking for work for about six months solid, I hit a wall last night and screamed and cried the walls down in my house late at night when husband came home from work.
"It's not fair", I cried. "I am being descriminated against for having had a child," I lamented. "I am stuck and I am treated as an idiot because I now have a son, which makes absolutely no sense to me," I wept.

My husband just sat there with an open mouth and a burning cigarette in his hand not knowing what to do with this  bunch of un-ravelled wool before him. He knew platitiudes would make me even more upset so he sat speechless and watched me cry.  He knew what I was saying was true.  Everyone does.  It is the sly underbelly of manhood.  They, on a vauge almost undetectable level, seem to enjoy the power in the achilles heel of motherhood, one we have to bear alone.

I screamed and cried for a good 20 minutes and at the end of it felt that most of the melencholy had vacated my sad mummy body.

I lit a cigarette. Had a cup of tea. Wept softly this time, without the drama, as if for the first time in a long time I had said exactly what was on my forever furreging mind and the truth resinated with me, as if I'd watched a film about someone just like me and identified with the character. 

That poor girl, I would have thought in the cinema. Laws really need to change to support women who are 50 percent of the workforce if we are to have a balanced democracy, I would have chatted about to my companion over coffee after the film had ended.

But, alas, the story was just my life and back at my patio I sat there with my tea and felt resigned a little. Resigned is, after all, much better than being blinded by grief.