6/52

A portrait of my daughter, once a week, every week, in 2014.

First trip to the zoo. Her favourite thing was not an animal; it was the waterfall in the snow leopard enclosure. Always marching to the beat of her own drum.

RETURNING HOME

I haven't been back home - to my childhood home, the house my parents still live in - for the best part of a year, which is strange considering it's only about fifteen minutes' drive away from where I live. Today I went back to retrieve some stuff, and in the process got caught up in a giant wave of nostalgia. Browsing through the hundreds of CDs in my room, there were more than a handful that I literally had no idea I even owned, let alone have ever listened to; funny that at a time in my life when I had pretty much zero responsibility and all the free time in the world, I couldn't even make the time to listen to all my music.

But what to do with all the sentimental, but otherwise obsolete, relics of the past? I could never bring myself to throw all those hundreds of CDs away (despite having copied all the files to my computer long ago). Not to mention the compilations made by friends, the old handwritten letters (remember when you used to do that?), the various knick-knacks, diaries, sketch books. I have always been sentimental but have become even more so since becoming a parent - entering that phase seemed to push my childhood and adolescence even further into the past, and those souvenirs of a more carefree, hedonistic time in my life have become affirmations of my identity at times when it seems to be lost to the throes of motherhood.

On the other hand, there is something quietly heartwarming about revisiting your childhood in the context of having a child yourself. Toys, baby clothes and picture books all get new life breathed into them, and through the joy that they bring your child, you also experience a renewed passion for all those once-beloved childhood relics. It's nice to see things come full circle in a very tangible way.

And just to illustrate that point, here are some photos of me and Miss S, at around a similar age, both taken at Christmas with our identical favourite toy.

LIFE WILL GET YOU DOWN, IF YOU LET IT

Let me say it again: life will get you down, if you let it. Maybe not if you're an eternal optimist but truth be told, I don't really know people like that. And I don't see any shame in starting to feel your resolve weaken when you're out of work, gaining no tangible or personal sense of accomplishment from your studies, having to deal with petty office politics, wanting more time with your kid then struggling to be patient and engaging when you do, feeling generally tired, unmotivated, listless... only to receive a bill for $3000 during a particularly broke period.

As someone who has a susceptibility to depression, many milder stresses have caused me much greater grief in the past, but these days I am really trying to direct my focus away from the difficulties I'm experiencing (or think I'm experiencing) and more importantly, trying not to inflate and magnify these difficulties into overwhelming and unmanageable proportions. I don't mean for this to turn into some condescending Zen self-help dogma. Life can be really fucking difficult at times.

But I am finding more and more this desire from within to swim against the current, and not just let myself get washed away like I so often used to do.

5/52

A portrait of my daughter, once a week, every week, in 2014.

They play together more and more these days. The dynamic swings between the big sister - more knowledgeable, more worldly - taking charge and leading the game play, and the little sister - smaller, but the more bossy, opinionated and outgoing of the two - dictating precisely how things should be done. It's a complex, beautiful relationship that seems to deepen each day.

4/52

A portrait of my daughter, once a week, every week, in 2014.

In anticipation of tickles.

SEEING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES

I have recently revived this blog (albeit in the most basic of ways), and I happened to read through an old draft post that for whatever reason never saw the light of day. It was a timely discovery, coinciding with the very recent and very unexpected realisation that I had postnatal depression in the early months of motherhood.

I had written the skeleton of a post while at a cafe alone with the babe, in the midst of severe sleep deprivation and stormy times on the domestic front. Reflective of my mood at the time, it was rather negative, and reading back I can hear a lost, helpless voice underlying the cynicism, crying out for some help or, more crucially, some understanding. A feeling, I am almost entirely certain, that all mothers experience at one point or another - whether due to an extended bout of little sleep, illness, low mood, or any other affliction that sneaks in with the predominantly joyful exploits of motherhood.

Doctors, nurses, early childhood workers all eagerly thrust copies of the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale toward me at every visit, after I answered in response to, "Is the sleep deprivation you're experiencing interfering with your sense of wellbeing?" a confused, "Well, yes, of course...". I was feeling down - of that I am certain - but I question whether it is possible not to feel down after over a month of surviving on two-hourly snatches of sleep.

I had written this rant on my phone, and when I went to transcribe its contents onto here, I realised that magically, mysteriously and almost imperceptibly, the air had cleared, my mood had lifted, and I no longer felt lost.

It makes me sad to think of how the difficulties I went through warped my perception of things. No one likes to talk of such dark times, but there were times when I longed for my old life, where I thought I regretted decisions I had made, where I looked upon my sweet babe as a terrible burden who I just wanted to get away from for a bit of peace and sanity. It is hard for me to write this and make these thoughts concrete. But I am not ashamed of them.

What is strange about reading this old post is my insistence that this was not actually postnatal depression. And I can tell you honestly that it was not because I was in denial, but because I truly believed this was a normal side effect of sleep deprivation. The irony is that, as someone with a background in psychology, I could not see that what I was going through was clinically significant. Sometimes you really can't see the forest for the trees.

It was only one morning about a week ago, when I was watching a morning chat show, that a woman spoke about her experiences with postnatal depression (and more specifically, the anxiety component of it) that I realised not everyone went through it and that the symptoms she spoke of were an exact reflection of my early motherhood experiences. It is almost laughable to consider how shocked I was at this realisation, a year on from the actual event, and how this realisation had eluded me for so long.

While feeling like a bit of an idiot for not seeing it sooner, I do also understand why. How the hell is one supposed to know what is normal or not normal? So often we only see these things clearly after the event, when it's too late or not really an issue anymore. And is there anything to be gained from this realisation, so far down the track after everything has resolved and life has moved on? I think all along, a small part of me has been looking for a way to absolve myself for something I know I have no logical reason to feel guilty about.

3/52

A portrait of my daughter, once a week, every week, in 2014.

My little yogi.

2/52

A portrait of my daughter, once a week, every week, in 2014.

Marvelling at her mastery of the spoon.

THE 52 PROJECT 2014 - 1/52

A portrait of my daughter, once a week, every week, in 2014.

A photo in which I can see the baby still there in my toddler - a rare and precious event.

AT LONG LAST

As some of you have pointed out, I have been rather quiet on the blogging front for some time now. Strangely enough, this is not really due to a lack of free time to write; there are several draft entries (a couple of which are fully formed) on standby that will most likely never see the light of day. As time post-baby has elapsed, I find that I am increasingly self-critical, and for some topics - missing my pre-baby life and my excitement on returning to work, to name a couple - I have been hesitant to voice my thoughts for fear of coming across as heartless and cold.

I've started to realise that this may be an insecurity of mine in this whole motherhood journey. I suppose it stems from my feelings during pregnancy. If I'm perfectly honest, my feelings were definitely more toward the apathetic/anxious side of the emotional spectrum, rather than the more common (or at least, more widely voiced) feelings of jubilation. Needless to say, I surprised myself with the pure unbridled joy that M, in her deliciously chubby flesh-and-blood existence, has evoked - but the guilt and doubt from my limited maternal feelings prior to her birth have obviously stuck around and become magnified over time. Why else would it be so important to me for everyone to know that I do love my baby and I am happy being a mother? It's the beast that is holding my lips tight at the times when I want to talk about how I do love my baby but by god she can be trying, and I am happy being a mother but by god I do miss my carefree childless days.

Undoubtedly all mothers feel these conflicting emotions to some degree (though I'm sure many would never admit it, perhaps due to a similar fear). After all, motherhood is about having a baby, not a lobotomy. I disagree that motherhood changes you - I think you are still the same person, much as you are the same person after you have sex for the first time. But you have another dimension of experience, another colour of yarn weaved into the tapestry of your life. And that's certainly not to diminish the power and majesty of that experience, but at the same time it's not to detract from the person you are. Not you as a mother, but you as a person, in the fullest extent.