Northerly

Am pretending to be a soccer mum
Had the week off work last week. Yes I took annual leave- figured I’d better when the automated HR system at work sent me an email telling me I was a giant leave-hoarding loser and that if I didn’t take some holidays I would become glued to my desk in an incredibly unattractive manner, with synthetic navy blue fabric weave imprinted into my buttocks for all of time, and that I would have no friends and no exotic holiday memories and would never achieve the nirvana of work life balance. Or did it just say that they could instruct me to take leave once I reached the maximum accumulateable limit and therefore I was encouraged to take some before it got to that point? One of the two, I forget.

Anyway, I went up north to the town my mum lives in and spent the week with her and my little brother last week. I went because we had agreed that I would go back up to visit at some time when it wasn’t the very busy Christmas lead up – which often comes just after the busiest part of my year, when I am really in need of a rest, and therefore feeling particularly intolerant of visiting crowded supermarkets to do giant food shops, and hear about broken games that need replacing and lining up in postoffice queues for sending parcels hastily wrapped, and conjecturing on who would really like what for Christmas. So it was on the cards. Plus mum has been unwell and thought she might need a hand minding my little brother while she got some tests done. As it turns out she didn’t get them done and instead we hung out, took my little brother to all his sporty bits and pieces, to kindy 2 days, and one day off to an ice skating rink for his first try of ice skating. He was amazed by the cold, his pale pale skin going pink, and clinging extra tight as we accompanied him around the indoor rink.

It was a nice visit, we got along pretty well. We are close but have had our share of ‘difficult’ times over the years. I tend to think of it now as just the intergenerational ripples of some bad shit that’s happened to some of the people in our family a few generations ago working itself through. Like a big rock dropped whose ripples are felt at the edges of the pond, but by then lack much force. I can see how one experience created another and another – how situations shaped people, and how people acted out of what they knew, or didn’t know. And how we each are trying to work through the ripples, the kinks, and even ourselves up a bit. In actuality I think that’s what happens in most (all?) families, it’s just that in ones with abuse it’s more obvious how people work through or pass on their shortcomings through their children or immediate family, and how it can influence generations, and take a lot of effort over a lot of years, or periodic episodes of growth to work through. I think for mum and me now, the periodic times we see each other (because we live interstate) are good – each time it kind of gets easier, and we bring back the slightly more worldly and more open versions of ourselves to the relationship. We have both tried hard to stay in touch and be there for each other, so I think knowing that we each have that good intention (despite sometimes being cranky and defensive with each other) has helped us both persevere over the years even when things weren’t easy between us.

Anyway, it was fun, we did some crafty stuff and both really enjoyed watching my little brother do his funny little kid things, and talking. One day we went to my little brother’s soccer practice and he got a certificate for best effort. He kissed it so many times in the back seat on the drive home that he kissed a little hole in the paper. One of the many times we had to suppress laughter at his antics. He is at that phase of saying things are ‘biggest IN THE WORLD’ earnestly, with no irony at all. Or ‘fastest IN THE WORLD’ or ‘strongest IN THE WORLD’. And saying ‘maybe!’ and ‘almost!’ in answer to questions to buy himself time to decide on what he wants, or to delay the necessary ills – like bath, dinner, bed or anything else that requires him to stop playing or doing what he’s doing.

Oh, and one time, we went to a sports game and there was a decidedly single looking youngish soccer dad on the bleachers (don’t ask, I could just tell- seriously), with a bit of an exposed tat on an arm (tribal and funky not prison style) who made eye contact and I was suddenly thinking ‘aah, imagine this unusual source of potential mates if I lived closer and went to more kids sporting games.’ Super lame huh?