Mother in Law: Things that make me happy

It has only been a fortnight but, as promised, I have been thinking about what makes me happy. If you didn’t read my last column, this is because I had literally forgotten what does, in fact, makes me happy.

I should probably start by saying that I know people have it worse than me- I am well aware of that. I am not hard done-by, rather I am running so fast on the treadmill of life that not only have I been forgetting to smell the metaphorical roses, but the actual roses and, in fact, all the plants in our garden are dead, the weeds are thriving and the majority of my time outside of work is spent looking for different PE kits. At the end of my life, if a pie chart is created setting out the time I spent doing different things like sleeping, working and socialising, I don’t want there to be a visible segment of time spent looking for PE kits. That would be rubbish.

I want to assure you that this article is not going to be like the articles that have been curated for me in an email from Substack today, which include titles such as “5 Ways to Make Your Weekdays as Beautiful as Your Weekends” and “How to Autumn Like the French Do”. These little things that make me happy aren’t worthy, or life changing, or beautiful/French. They are a reminder of the things that I like to do- or did before I was exclusively working as a mum and a lawyer. 

Reading is definitely something I like doing. It doesn’t make me as happy as it should, because I’m either reading something because I think I should (currently Jacinda Ardern’s memoir) or because it is a page-turner (next up is Richard Osman’s new book). The problem with the page-turners is that the desire to turn the pages is uncontrollable and, when I give into the desire at times when I should be sorting out PE kits, I feel dirty and guilty. As if I’ve not only eaten way too much chocolate, but the chocolate belonged to my children in the first place. My resolution? It has to be, surely, to read just as much but not feel guilty. Tips welcome. 

Writing is, of course, something I love doing. The problems here are more practical and, to an extent, of my own making. Firstly my laptop screen is cracked because I trod on it. This makes writing measurably less enjoyable. Also, for the last two years I have been making notes for a potential book in a real notebook, and I have been using a light grey pencil rather than a pen so that if someone opens it, it will take them a few seconds to focus by which time I will have realised and snatched it out of their hands. By “someone” I mean DALC1, who thinks she knows everything about me, and has a right to do so, but doesn’t know I write. Sucker. But to make the notes I have to have the notebook to hand, and to be honest I find writing with a pencil too slow these days. My resolution is to treat myself to a new laptop screen and, I hate to say it, start making my notes on the notes app on my phone. After all, that’s what Tay Tay does when she has an idea for a song.

I like spending time with my husband. When the kids were tiny my father in law told us that we should accept that we didn't get to go out on our own for the next decade. I nearly cried. Anyway, we are through that decade now and we can leave them for short periods. In September we went to the village garden club. It was exactly what you would expect. We were the youngest people by 30 years. We won the raffle and they all joked that we must have fixed it. The speaker, inexplicably, made an inappropriate joke about his wife. I couldn’t have asked for more. The kids were also really affectionate when we got home, as if we had been away for weeks. My resolution- go again next month, and look for more of these little opportunities to spend time with my husband.

I always used to like making lists. I make more lists than ever, but they are not fun. Some mornings I feel so discombobulated that I have to make a list of basic tasks like breakfast, showering and getting food out of the freezer- things I thought I would have nailed at this point in my life. On the drive to work I usually remember 5 urgent work tasks that go straight on a list when I get to my desk. These aren’t the lists I’m talking about. I’m talking about sitting in traffic and making a list of our favourite songs of all time, and then making another list of our favourite lines in songs. Since the last time we did this, not only have I had two children but the younger child and I have learned all the words to the ten minute version of All Too Well so we definitely have some new contenders for the second list. We definitely need to make some new lists.

Being honest with myself, I like shopping. I told you this wasn’t a “worthy” list. Wandering around a department store early on a Saturday morning, the make-up ladies trying things out on you, treating yourself to an item of clothing, having a coffee and a cake half-way to keep your strength up for the remaining floors. How lovely. I think I could definitely start roaming around department stores again, as long as I give the kids £20 and send them in the direction of Primark.

I love cooking, and eating, but recently I’ve fallen out of love with both. Feeding people is a love language, but two of the three people I feed like only about ten different foodstuffs each. DALC2 doesn’t even like cake. Cake! My grandmother would turn in her grave. So that’s why I’ve fallen out of love with cooking- I live with ungrateful, ungreedy wretches. I’ve fallen out of love with eating because I’ve been trying hard to be healthy, eating nutritionally dense food that I see more as fuel than anything else. This must all stop. I am going to cook things that I like to eat. I’ve been craving a frangipane tart for ages so I think I will start with that.

So here we have my first list and some simple, non-life changing, things I can do to make myself happy and stay in touch with the “me” beneath my various hats. My next challenge is to see if I can work out what makes me happy at work, and do more of that.