THE Wait

I hate it. You probably do too. I think I hate the wait more than the requisite pissing on the stick. You know the wait I am talking about. It is the oh-god-I-think-my-life-might-change-in-a-millisecond-once-this-5-minute-wait-is-up wait. If you are a sexually active woman, you have probably experienced this wait at least once. I mean, no contraception is foolproof, right?

Patience really isn’t one of my virtues. Dealing with whatever happens, when it happens I’m great at. It is the damned limbo style wait between the ‘Hmmm something isn’t right here’ feeling and the little blue line appearing, or not, that I don’t cope well with. I find this wait utterly excruciating. I mean I only ever experience this wait IF:

1. My period is absent
2. I am feeling ‘off’ AND
3. My body is doing something else weird like say making my breasts super tender or falling asleep in the middle of the day for no reason at all AND
4. I have suffered the indignity squatting over the toilet trying to catch my suitably concentrated urine in a cup or on a teeny-tiny super absorbent strip

Worse than the list of crap that actually goes into making you consider the possibility that you might be pregnant (whether this is a shocking surprise or eagerly awaited news) your life flashes before your eyes in those 5 minutes in a way that the potential baby-daddy can never imagine. He doesn’t think about stretch marks and mentally say goodbye to his body ( a survey found that 86% of new mums felt more attractive before pregnancy than after), he doesn’t immediately panic about his career, cringe at the thousands of nappies he might have to change or lament the nights out he will miss and the alcohol he will have to abstain from. His life gets more complicated but, generally, also more respected. Other than the potential changes to his sex life (which I guarantee you he isn’t thinking about yet) he skips out on most of the sacrifice.

Being that I am one child down and one child to go in my childbearing plans, I expect that I will experience this wait again many a time. (A prospect I am only willing to face because I know how amazing motherhood can be.) To those who experience the dreaded wait only to find the test negative, my advice is to have a drink. Have a few actually to wash down the sushi and soft cheese you will be eating before you do something physical like paint-ball or rock-climbing, then have a great nights sleep and a sleep-in followed by a double espresso. You may not know it yet, but you will miss these when the line does go blue.

Lets talk about…Housework

Ironic that of all the unspoken ‘women’s business’ to discuss I begin with one of the backbones of the Feminine  Mystique. I can see the eyes roll – she thinks housework is more important to discuss than maternity leave?!? You may think that housework is not a real issue for women these days.  Well, the research says otherwise. Somehow housework as made it onto the list of things that aren’t discussed and our relationship to our domestic chores have gone largely unexamined.

Did you know that in a recent study women responded that 24% of all arguments with their live-in significant other are about housework? Did you know that multiple studies have shown that the level of love, affection and equitable division of household chores is the single best indicator of whether a committed woman will feel satisfied in her relationship?* And after 7 years of marriage those couples with high levels of egalitarianism also had high levels of sexual desire.**

So whilst housework itself might not be important, happy relationships and sexual fulfillment are. As corny as it sounds every new mother knows the easiest way into her pants is by doing the dishes and every smart man knows he has far more chance of a happy woman when he isn’t leaving his shit around and not lifting a finger to help. I am not saying that household chores need to be divided down the middle. I know a lot of households where that simply wouldn’t work. I also know a few women who, by choice or necessity, have help around the house. Ironically, justifying and accepting domestic help was difficult for these women (and not their partner’s).

I know the state of my house, be that immaculate or not, has a direct effect on how I feel about myself as a woman. Crazy I know, but it’s true. I will actually race around and tidy the baby’s toys when I get the call that surprise company will be arriving in 10 minutes, as opposed to putting on makeup. That doesn’t sound right to me, but I just can’t help it. I feel more affection for my partner when he is tidying the kitchen or ironing (and that isn’t just because I ruin everything I iron).

I am not advocating any particular arrangement or judging how anybody keeps their house in order (or not). I just think it is about time that we put housework back on the agenda. So, what is your domestic experience? How have you tackled housework in your life? Do your domestic duties hold you back? Do you feel judged by the state of your house? Are you happily house-proud? Do you judge your girlfriends by how tidy their place is when you drop over? I would love to hear your thoughts.

* ** Sexual Satisfaction in Committed Relationships

The laundry list of unspoken topics

By nature these experiences fly in the face of the accepted bounds of womanhood. They aren’t expected of the innocent maiden, the loving wife or the nurturing mother. And let’s face it, society at large still has some difficulty dealing with femininity outside of those roles. These experiences have often been ascribed to the ‘undesirable’ facets of womanhood; the unmarried, the lecherous, the wild and the mysteries of our reproductive organs. In reality making these experiences taboo or unspoken is destructive, riddling our female psyche with guilt, shame, inadequacy and fear.

So in the interest of catharsis, inspired by a few honest and relieving conversations recently with my girlfriends, here are some experiences I think belong in a guide-book for women;

1. Foreplay isn’t optional.
2. Masturbation isn’t wrong. Getting to know what feels good is incredibly important.
3. Using a vibrator too often can actually desensitise you to orgasm with a real penis.
4. Watching porn isn’t just for guys. Well maybe porn is, erotica isn’t.
5. Despite the foreplay and knowing what feels good, sometimes your juices simply wont flow. And that’s ok.
6. You may hate your period, but trust me you will miss it when it is gone.
7. Breasts can leak. And not only when you are pregnant or breastfeeding.
8. Rape is never, ever your fault.
9. Your body and emotions are intricately linked. Emotions (and the hormones they release) change your skin, hair, breasts, vagina and more.
10. Many women get very amorous during their period.
11. Just because you are in a relationship doesn’t mean you aren’t attracted to people other than your partner.
12. As wild as your youth is, you probably wont regret it as you get older.
13. Women have a ‘hens’ or ‘bachelotette’ party for a reason; it is scary to think of farewelling your singledom and loving only one person forever more.
14. It takes work to keep the fire alive in a long-term relationship.
15. Labour can be a sensual experience, some woman reach orgasm giving birth.
16. Labour involves blood, a number of people looking closely at and physically inspecting your vagina.
17. Motherhood doesn’t automatically bestow infinite patience.
18. Bonding isn’t instant. It is a process. Postnatal depression isn’t a choice or your fault.
19. Breastfeeding isn’t always easy and bottle-feeding isn’t wrong.
20. Breastfeeding in public is simply feeding a child. Nothing more, nothing less.
21. Sometime mothers resent, dislike and tire of their children.
22. Sometimes mothers love one child more than the other/s.
23. It isn’t easy to consistently put the needs of a child before your own. At times it is soul crushing and gut wrenching.
24. Peri-menopause typically lasts 7 to 10 years. So can post-menopause. It can be a 15 year ride ladies!
25. Menopause is supposedly the single day where you haven’t had a period of 12 months.  Sometimes your cycle will resume even after a break of more than a year.
26. Menopause can actually cause ‘shrinkage’ of the vulvar and vagina, which can lead to painful sex.
27. The first thing the Dr will ask you when you go to see them about menopause is “tell me about your mother’s experience…” So… go talk to your Mum!
28. After Menopause your vagina is considered a ‘use it or lose it’ situation. Sex increases blood flow to the area and keeps your vagina healthy, and boots your immune system.

So what have I forgotten? What do you wish was talked about before you discovered it the hard way?? I would love to hear your experience.

Unspoken

There are a number of things that we, as women, were never really told. The list of things we don’t discuss is longer still. Some relatively universal experiences (that could easily be compiled into a handbook if you are looking for a business idea) are thrust upon us without so much as a warning. Worse still is that there is no clear lifeline to help us understand what we experienced or how we feel. Any woman over 15 knows, to some degree, what I am talking about. Every woman struggles with some aspect of her womanly experience until she is about to burst and finally confides in a girlfriend, who opposed to being outraged, relates to her experience with great relief.

This phenomena is all around us for one reason. Nobody is talking about the things that actually affect women on a daily basis.

We discuss paid maternity leave (which I support by the way) as though it will, upon implementation, magically make motherhood valued in society. We discuss equal pay in the workforce as though a woman in her child bearing years is hired as easily as a fertile man. We discuss the new models of marriage, where the man knows how to turn on the vacuum, as though such changes magically help us deal with the daily grind of partnership. They don’t. They won’t. And for the most part these grand ideals and overarching themes don’t effect us nearly as much as knowing how to have a proper discussion with your partner about money. Or sex.

On the subject of sex, why is it that once taboo sexual practices such as spanking (which rests firmly under the banner of BDSM by the way), are considered appropriate fodder for radio add campaigns, when taboos covering femininity are still firmly in place?

I for one am sick of bitching about it to my partner and friends. I am irreverent, but my heart is true and my skin sufficiently thick enough. Watch this space, because I will be speaking about the unspoken. I don’t mean to offend, I am just tired of my experience being classified as offensive.

Three Reluctant Cinderellas

I grew up very cynical about love, and men in general I guess. Marriage to me was an outdated institution that held no real meaning or value any more (I mean women can own property now and all). Most people exchange their ‘I do’s’ oblivious to the irony that family or familia originally meant ‘the totality of slaves belonging to any one man’. Without dredging up the old revolutionary rhetoric of my youth it suffices to say that a marriage certificate was never on my to do list.

It seems that about 6 months ago the world turned on it’s axis. And pigs flew. And hell froze over. Cupid took control and wreaked his special kind of havoc in our lives. Not just mine, but the lives of my best friends as well. Under cupid’s rule we were thrust into the center of a delicious kind of chaos that we each dreaded and relish at the same time; Love. Romantic love.

None of us are particularly sappy women. I would happily walk through the valley of death with these two women because I am confident that the three of us would be the baddest crew in the valley. None of us are untouched by tragedy or sacrifice. We don’t play the fool, the damsel or the victim and none of us ever believed the hallmark ideal or in happy endings. But it seems as though we will play Cinderella despite ourselves.

Six months ago I set a wedding date. No need for congratulations, I had already been engaged for over 3 years at that point, I just finally bit the bullet and decided to go through with it. Around the same time one of my best friends walked away from an AMAZING career and chose another path, which has led her though a whirlwind romance with a wonderful man. I mean she has been hired twice, sight unseen, on the strength of her resumé alone and yet has flourished despite her career being demoted in her list of priorities. And just last week my other BFF replaced her 10 year title as ‘Girlfriend’ with the shiny new one ‘Fiance’ despite never expecting to marry her wonderful beau.

I don’t know where cupid is going with all this, and I can’t speak for the others, but I hope that I manage to make my wedding something meaningful to me. Something that reflects my relationship with myself and my partner. I won’t be saying ‘I do’ but instead agreeing to kick his sorry ass when he needs a reality check and promising not to walk away when our ugliness comes out, which it inevitably will in a long-term relationship. I hope in those few minutes before we walk down the aisle (my friends are also bridesmaids, of course) that I don’t feel alien in my Ivory dress and my Cinderella moment, but instead feel the dawning of a new age; where fulfilled women choose evolved relationships with worthy men.

Musings on Grace

I firmly believe that it takes a village to raise a child. In a ‘village’ children grow up at the feet of elders, learning vital lessons. Adults in a ‘village’ mentor and teach adolescents, instructing them in the skills and knowledge that they will need to contribute to the village in adulthood. Sadly I feel that my generation grew up largely without that village. This is not a criticism of our for-mothers; they were focused on creating a society where we (as women) would be valued as equals. It is because of them that we have an opportunity now to instruct the daughters of our new ‘village’ in all the skills of an adult and not just half of them.

As a result of growing up without the village microcosm we are drastically short of role models we can aspire to emulate, again not because our mothers are not ‘role models’ but because our paths are likely to be very different to theirs. Young women are in search of mentors and are coming up short. The ‘self help’ genre is growing exponentially as women reach out for help, desperately craving guidance and support.

I am fortunate in that I have had the loving guidance of mentors throughout my journey thus far. There is no substitute for experience; lessons only become permanent when one has lived them and been transformed by the experience. But the transformation isn’t automatic, the generation of women who repeatedly turn to inappropriate relationships, emotional eating and ‘retail therapy’ are a testament to that. The disconnect is that the skills necessary to courageously face life, walk towards our dreams and learn from adversity were the ones we never learnt at the feet of our elders.

We identify women of grace that we wish to grow like, but lack the vocabulary to identify what it is about their person that we value. The closest words we have to describe what it is we want are; beauty, respect, success and charisma. So we blindly stumble in search of what we think will bring us these; physical ‘perfection’, celebrity and the adoration of men. But we have the cart before the horse. Celebrity (lasting celebrity and not infamy) and adoration are the by-products of a life lived gracefully with purpose.

The deceptive nature of grace is that it ‘appears’ effortless. It seems as though it is a gift bestowed at birth when it is an attitude and a set of skills. Grace is a carriage, a way of being, that has nothing to do with external beauty. Though a graceful woman does possess a ‘glow’ that is often mistaken for, or perceived as beauty. There are guidelines, tools and secrets that graceful women live by and demonstrate, that when applied to our lives, transform them as though they have been bewitched by a fairy godmother’s wand.

This year I am working on embodying grace a little more… what about you?

The damsel’s lesson

I am the first to criticize the ridiculous  Hollywood view of romance and love. It is out of control and totally unrealistic. The idea that a woman needs a man to rescue her from a ‘loveless’ existence is insulting and dare I say it well-meaning.

Stories are powerful. Very powerful. And there is a reason we are re-telling the same stories now that were told hundreds of years ago.

Oral history was once the way we learned of the world. Parables and allegories have been guiding us since our childhood. Since humanities childhood. Some stories are so powerful that almost every culture has a variation of the same theme. Stories and the players in these stories are so ancient, so integral to our lives, that they have become archetypes that we unconsciously breathe life into every day.

The nursery rhymes of today were warnings of yester-year. The  fairy tales of our childhood once taught what it meant to be a man and a woman. The stories of the Princess marrying the Knight that rescued her have some merit. Hold on. Before you take off my head with one bite, let me remind you that I am a (albeit failed) feminist at heart. There are literally hundreds of versions of this story, but they all boil down to this; his ability to remain unfaltering in the face of obstacles freed her, and in return her love sets him free. That sounds rather equal and honouring to me.

The age old drama doesn’t sound quite so ridiculous any more does it? It sounds almost evolved to me…

Lets look closer. The man of the story invariably demonstrates equanimity. THE most attractive quality in a man. You may say you look for a man who can make you laugh, or someone who is honest with you, and maybe you are right. But I say you would pick the man who holds the ground solid beneath your feet so you can dance to the beat of your own drum over a goofball or the guy who tells you your bum really does look big in those pants, any day of the week. I know I did. Not sure? Check out this song and tell me if you would not be drawn in by this level of dedication.

The man in this story is tested and is proved to be worthy. He has demonstrated, beyond the shadow of a doubt that he honours the lady, by setting about the quest. He has proven to be strong and grounded by achieving the quest and he didn’t have time to visit the whorehouse when he was slaying dragons or vanquishing the witches, so it’s a safe bet that he is a one woman kinda guy.

As for the woman she is essentially feminine. No by that I don’t mean weak, or feeble or a victim. I mean that she is magnetic. The rescuer is drawn to her, not for her achievements or actions, but for who she is. She is allowing and gracious and loving. Her heart is the rescuers prize and her love soothes the battle weary warrior.

The story of the damsel in distress is important and powerful. It is a way our fore-mothers reach out to us instructing us to shine our true self forth and to test the men who are drawn to it. And their advice is when we do find a partner who is as strong as we want to be free, that we love him with all we have.

So, Hollywood may bastardise it and hide its worth beneath makeup, special effects and poor story lines, but we continue to be transfixed because the integrity of the tale remains.

5 steps to feeling great in your skin

What has been niggling at you for months? Is it an item on your ‘to-do’ list that gets transferred from list to list when everything else has been checked off? It it something you haven’t dared to even put on the list? Something that you haven’t even admitted that you want?

I want a new wardrobe. Not the structure to put clothes in, but the fashions to fill it with. I have clothes, tonnes of clothes in fact, but I don’t wear many of them. My wardrobe consists predominately of clothes I can breastfeed in or the crap that I haven’t sent to charity that I was wearing over 2 years ago, before I fell pregnant. So as you can imagine my wardrobe is full of stunning dresses, silks, delicate embroidery, tailored pants, flirty skirts and fitted jackets – NOT! My wardrobe has way more stretch cotton than should belong to one woman and is mostly a few basic colours that wash well and work with tan skirts or jeans.

To make my wardrobe woes worse, my body is alien. The pants I wore pre-pregnancy are too big now and the tops from the same era and way too small. (Pretty much everything else stretches, so it still fits). My hips and thighs need a L, my waist is a M and my bust is somewhere between an XL and an XXL, depending on the store and the cut. So most of the time I aim for ‘presentable’ or ‘good’ and try to avoid looking like Betty Boop.

I would really like a wardrobe that is classic, effortless, comfortable and flattering. Clothes I can wear to a café, to see a client and take the baby to the park all in a day. Why does this blog find a home in the category of personal development I hear you ask? Because I deserve clothes that make me feel good. So do you. There is nothing wrong with wanting your clothes, and indeed your style, to reflect your personality. There is no hard and fast rule, despite the glossies telling us otherwise, that says that you must be a size 0 or even a size 4 to look and feel good. Our bodies are wonderful pieces of kit – we will never own anything as versatile, useful and fun as our bodies so lets celebrate them.

As a coach I feel it is important to follow-up each epiphany with action steps. So here are my steps that I think would work for just about anybody:

1. Make a rough list of what I wear from my wardrobe (DONE)
2. Make a list of what is missing to mix and match with existing pieces to make desired wardrobe (DONE)
3. Go through existing clothes, sort out what the keep, what to throw out, what to pass to charity and what to gift to friends (like the stunning designer gown my bust no longer fits in)
4. Book an appointment (in the new year) with a stylist to do my colours and styles. (I am desperate to work with Coby from Stylewish and if you are a Sydney local you should check her out too.)
5. Go shopping! Gradually….

We might even save money by avoiding purchases that we won’t wear more than once, time in looking for clothes because we know what we are looking for and avoid horrifying fashion mistakes. That is my justification and I am sticking to it

*This blog was not a paid recommendation

Gender

I said in my very first post that ‘I am not saying all women are the same, but that more often than not we are alike.’ I honestly believe that. There are a few universal female experiences that can bond strange women together in an instant. I have listed a few of them below. *Male readers may wish to think of something decidedly ‘blokey’ for the next few lines. I’ll let you know when its safe to read again.*

• An early period and the embarrassment of asking a friend (or stranger) for some feminine hygiene products.
• All mothers are bonded through the experience of pregnancy and labour. Trust me it not something you ever forget.
• Wardrobe malfunctions. Namely breasts popping out where they shouldn’t be seen. We have all been there.
• Inappropriate tears. Most women have cried despite silently threatening their body with grievous harm should it betray her.
• Complete and utter confusion with the males of the species. I am yet to meet a woman who hasn’t been left scratching her head at how he could have missed the toilet bowl and not seen it.
• Speaking of toilets every woman has been stuck in a line 10 miles long for the ladies room while there isn’t anybody in the men’s toilets because they are busy pissing on a tree at a music festival. That line is like an express bonding session and if you are brave enough to march into the men’s room the women who you meet there are like your soul sisters for life.

*Male readers can tune in now. No more talk about periods, breasts or toilets. I promise*

On a less superficial level than periods and bathroom queues women have a lot in common. We are all daughters, most of us are loving partners, some are mothers, many are sisters and aunties too. We all experience heartbreak, we birth the new (for some the new generation for other new companies and new ideas) & we work damn hard (in fact it is estimated that women are responsible for 70% of the hours worked globally – much of that unpaid). We think differently to men, we lead differently to men, we experience the world differently and we have a different, not better or worse, contributions to make to the world than men.

So why is so so frowned upon to bond with other women? Why is it such a social crime to refer to ones gender? I seems totally insane to me for it to be ok for us to talk about our womanhood in context of lip gloss and tampons (Sorry guys. I promised didn’t I?) but not in context of the number of women who are abused by their spouses, of our rights around how and where we birth our children and the consistent statistics that women earn less than men in the industrialised workplace to the tune of around 80c in the dollar.

I am tired of hiding from the term ‘Feminist’. I am tired of being told the glass ceiling no longer exists. I am tired of study after study identifying new prejudices against women in the workforce. It is time to discuss gender again, not so we can use it as a weapon to beat men up with or beat women down with, but to understand and encourage the complementary contribution of both genders.

Are you woman enough to put your gender on the agenda? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The female connection

When I moved back to Sydney I had a dream about a kitchen table. And a couch. But the table was the important part. I desperately wanted a table that people [read female friends] would gather around and share, connect, eat and laugh.

It didn’t quite happen that way.

I am persistant and determined, some may even say stubborn. So I tried to artifically create my dream by holding ‘women’s circles’. It didn’t work becase it wasn’t the spontaneous, authentic connection I (I’d like to think we) wanted. So I gave up for a while.

I believe there is something immesurably powerful in women connecting with other women. Sharing, teaching, supporting eachother. In times gone by this kind of connection and support was inherent in the way our societies were organised. The gathering of women was vital to the passing down of wisdom; about womens bodies, cycles, birthing, childraising, relationships. Femininity was respected, honoured, revered and even feared. It was fear that drove the religious aristocracy to foster competition amoung women  & stamp out  women’s gatherings.

We may have been out in the wilderness for hundreds of years, but we are coming back. Instead of gathering in ceremony we attned conferences and womens networking events. Instead of cooking over the hearth we are meeting for coffee. We are bringing birth back into our homes and entursting our babies to midwives. We gather. We connect. We harness the power of Web 2.0.

Yes we are women of a new millennium, but we have ancient bones. We still deeply yearn for female connection and the power we generate when together is a force to be reckoned with.

Bras

Our bras, ladies say a lot about us. Any male readers already know this. And, no, I don’t mean that a red bra says  that you’re sexy and a tan bra means your boring or safe. The print, colour and material of your bras are a personal choice – that’s not what I’m talking about.

Your bra supports your breasts. Yes, thank you captain obvious. Our breasts are, for most women, integral to their sense of femininity. You disagree? Speak to a women who has undergone a mastectomy or women who has had a breast reduction about how the operation has affected their femininity. Our breasts are a sensual, integral part of our womanhood.

Just writing those words I feel the wave of resistance and objections flying at me through the web. But, I honestly believe it is true. I hated my breasts for as long as I can remember. They were always too big, too saggy, too heavy. That was even before I fell pregnant and then they were too sensitive, too sore and downright enormous – no stores would stock bras in my size (Yes my partner was stoked, I on the other hand broke down in tears right there in the store). Breastfeeding is another saga altogether. All I am saying is that I hear your objections, but accepting my breasts feels better.

We are taught that our breasts are only beautiful if they look plastic. We are not taught how to appreciate our breasts. They are soft and warm, regardless of the weather your breasts radiate heat. The skin is some of the softest on our bodies. They are capable of pleasure and adorned with our glamest top and stunning beads they can be hypnotizing – regardless of their size. There is so much to love about our breasts aside from their size and shape, but alas, they are most womens’ hang-ups.

I was buying new bras on the weekend and can vouch that a great bra can boost your self esteem and totally change your figure. But what shocked me were the conversations I was overhearing in the change room. 3 women were being properly fitted by professionals. Each of the women was recommended a bra and a size that would fit them perfectly. Each woman chose a different bra to the recommendations. Why? Because they were planning on losing weight and so preferred to squish their breasts into a too small bra than to have a bra that was too big if and when they lost weight.

Isn’t that insane? To me it’s like saying ‘no’ to a date with the man of your dreams today, because you are planning on snagging the perpetual bachelor George Clooney next month! The likelihood that these women (none of whom looked at all overweight) would ever be truly happy with their weight and body shape is arguably slim. I mean, are you? But still they, and indeed so many of ‘us’, would prefer to continue to strive and punish ourselves trying to fit into an imaginary ideal than to work what we have.

What I am really trying to say: Give up the need for it to be different to what it is. Love what you have got, work what you have got. You will loose it one day and wish you had treated it better and enjoyed it more.

Mother crafting

Motherhood is an interesting word for an indescribable experience. I prefer the term mother crafting for its accuracy. Mother crafting suggests that it is a skill to be developed and not simply a gift bestowed when a child is born. Mother crafting suggests a uniqueness; that each relationship is one off and hand made with love. Mother crafting suggests a beauty in the imperfection.

Mother crafting to me is about a swelling of the heart, the heart opens and swells and encompasses so much more. The pain and tears of your child become excruciating, to witness their smile becomes euphoric, to watch them contentedly sleeping or reaching for rattles becomes a deep meditation. The emotions are so strong that they bring with them tears; tears of joy, sorrow, pain, helplessness, bliss, love, laughter.

Mother crafting is not a skill belonging only to a child’s birth mother. I have known adopted mothers and childless women perfect this skill so beautifully that they elevate it to the level of art. I know young women who have birthed their lives and tended to their dreams the same way I tend to my son. This perhaps is a no less beautiful but more difficult calling, because realised dreams can’t say ‘Thanks mum I love you’.