Big Dreams

We were sitting in the garden having one of those perfect days - friends, sunshine, flapjack, muffins and a huge pot of coffee.
We chatted and laughed, shared memories and dreams, talked politics and women's rights.
And then one of my friends said:
" The thing is, when I look back on my life, it feels as though I haven't really achieved anything."
I watched the shadow of sadness and failure flit across her face.
This friend of mine who is kind, thoughtful, generous, caring and fills every moment with " distance run."
She has brought up a daughter with Down's Syndrome who is so confident and so popular that walking through town with her is like accompanying a minor celebrity.
She has supported her son and her husband, chaired a local charity and through it all, she has never stopped working.
If those aren't achievements, what are?
What makes us believe that a popstar or TV presenter or famous author has achieved more than those of us who live ordinary lives, caring about ordinary things?
When did the sense of whether or not we have achieved something become inextricably linked with something outside of ourselves?
When did the measurement of achievement stop being something small and become something big?
When did it stop being something personal and become something public?
We tried to reassure my friend that she had achieved so much, that no one in her family would be where they were today without her, that the charity she chaired for all those years wouldn't be doing so well today if it hadn't been for her, of the difference she has made to her workplace.
She listened and nodded and I could tell she was trying to believe us.
" It's kind of you to say so," she said.
But we weren't being kind, we were being honest.
It was just that she didn't believe us.
Somehow, today, being good at your job, being the best parent you can be, creating a home, having lots of friends and a busy social life, isn't enough.
These days, a sense of achievement has to be fuelled by something greater than daily accomplishments and small successes.
And it makes me worry for our kids.
I worry that they are confusing unattainable dreams ( always good to have ) with attainable goals.
X Factor and Britain's Got Talent and the mind-blowingly rich celebrity lifestyles of football players and sports personalities make them believe that anyone can be anything and that all things are possible.

Ask teenagers today what they want to so when they grow up and they say "to be rich or famous." 
And why not? They see the " from rags to riches," stories all the time on television and social media.
With all the " Big Brother," style programmes they watch nobodies become somebodies overnight.
But the trouble is, while many of them believe it's very likely that it can happen to them, the truth is, that it's extremely unlikely.
Most of us will become neither very rich nor very famous. 
Most of us will just carry on living our every-day-lives in our every-day-worlds with our every-day achievements.
Dreams are good, false hope is dangerous.
Because when reality bites, it really hurts.
Studying, going to work, spending time with your friends, falling in love, creating a life for yourself, working out where you fit in this unpredictable world......all that means nothing.
What used to make us feel proud now makes us feel like failures.
We are beginning to forget that the smallest of things can often be the biggest of achievements.

Outside I  meet our next door neighbour, bent double, the result of a crumbling spine. 
He walks painfully slowly using two walking sticks.
With difficulty he lifts his head and smiles at me.
"I walked all the way to the end of the road today," he says,  " I couldn't do that last week." 
I watch him shuffle into his house, each step a success story, radiating a sense of achievement that is almost tangible.
And I think perhaps that's  how we should all of us measure our achievements -  one small, completed step at a time.

From the other side of our garden fence, a newer neighbour grins at me.
" I've been waiting to tell you Becky," she says, " I did it! "
" Did what?" I ask.
"The ultra-marathon," she says, " 50 miles up and down a mountain, non-stop." 
I remember how exhausted I feel when I  run to the corner shop.
" Did someone make you do it?" I ask.
She laughs.
" Of course not.  I wanted to."
" Did you?" I say "Why?"
She shrugs
" To see if I could."
I think of all the things I try doing, just to see if I can.
Going a whole day without eating any chocolate - maybe.
Going  a whole morning without shouting at the kids - sometimes.
Spend a whole day in my pyjamas - definitely.
But running an ultra-marathon - never.
I am full of incomprehension.
" So now you know you can do it," I say, "that's enough right? I mean, it's a once in a lifetime thing really isn't it? If that.."
But already I can see the glimmer in her eye.
" Well....." she says, " there's another one in September and it would have been better if 
I'd trained more....and it took me 22 hours.  I think I could do it faster."

And that's the thing about achievement - the sense of it is so often fleeting.
What we achieve today can often seem like nothing tomorrow.
Today's mountain is tomorrow's hill.
Today's end of the road is tomorrow's corner to turn.
But even if that's true, we haven't failed, we've still won.
Because for one day at least, we know that we did it.
The problem is that we often don't let ourselves bask in a sense of achievement. 
We feel that it's wrong to congratulate ourselves.
Instead we convince ourselves that what we've achieved isn't enough, that the goal we set ourselves wasn't hard enough, that we haven't dreamed big enough, that no one else has even noticed.
And often they haven't
But that shouldn't lessen our sense of achievements.
When our neighbour puts down his walking sticks and sinks into an armchair, all that matters is that he knows what he has achieved.
When an ultra-marathon runner wakes up the next day with aching knees, the victory is all theirs.
And that's all that matters.
The knowledge that you did it.
It's easy to have regrets in life, easy to remember all things we haven't done rather than to celebrate all the things we have.
It's easy to minimise our achievements and diminish their importance. 
Walking to the end of the road, running up a mountain, making your Down's Syndrome daughter believe she has the world at her fingertips - they are all greater, more personal and more long-lasting achievements than any transitory fame brought to you by one electronically enhanced pop song.
So forget winning X-Factor or Britain's Got Talent.
Forget making millions or writing a masterpiece.
Instead, start celebrating the every day achievements, however small or personal.
They are what keeps our ordinary worlds turning.
And I'm thinking....today's bar of chocolate will be tomorrow's delicious memory.

Empty nesting

Last week I visited Manchester University with our 17 year old daughter, MIa.
While Mia went to a " student-life," talk, I went to a " help for soon-to-be-bereft parents," lecture.
 After we had been told about applying for loans, setting up bank accounts, filling in forms, teaching our chilldren how to cook, turn on washing-machines and do-all-thosa-other-things-we-never-actually-make-them-do-at-home lessons, a picture of an empty bird's nest was flashed up on the screen in front of us.

Lowering her voice to one that was calming and soothing, rather  than chatty and informative, the speaker gave us  empathetically meaningful looks and said:
" Last of all,  I want to talk about, empty nest syndrome."
Around me parents shifted uncomfortably in their seats as though their secret had been discovered.
Next to me a mum turned and stared wistfully out of the grey-sky filled window.
And for the first time in the hypnotically tedious talk ( and mostly due to the words "last of all,") I woke up.
Empty nest syndrome is not something that  I"ve ever seriously considered.
I've dreamt of a day when our house is not scattered with teenage clutter - used make-up wipes, discarded clothes, half-drunk smoothies, unattached phone chargers, sweaty socks
I've imagined a house that is as tidy when I get home from work in the evening as it was when I left for work in the morning.
I've fantasised about not being constantly asked what's for dinner or why there is never anything good to eat in our house.
I've let my mind wander to a time when I can  go a whole day without someone demanding where their T-shirt, new jeans, PE kit, lip stainer,  homework or anything-else-that-belongs-to-them, is.
But I've never actually thought about how I will feel when the house is teenagerless and empty.t
For years, my husband Ninesh and I, have been making plans about what we will do when we are free.
How we will spend our time when our days are no longer shaped around parenthood,.
 What we would do with the days when the hours belong to us...
We are already thinking about which camper van we will buy.
Ninesh has already started pouring over maps, planning the route of our carefree future.
But as I sat in that university lecture room in Manchester, I began to worry.
Not so much at the sense of emptiness I would obviously soon be feeling, but at the thought that I might not feel empty enough.
From the moment our children take their first steps, they are walking away from us.
As a parent, it's hard  to watch them fall and even harder to watch them struggling to pull themselves up again.
With every bone in your body, you are aching to do it for them, to pick them up, give them a comforting hug and set them back on their feet,  heading in the right direction.
But deep down inside, we know we have to let them do it by themselves.
Being a parent is never easy.
You never stop feeling guilty, never stop believing you're doing it wrong, never stop wishing you had more  
patience, more time, more energy, more understanding of text speak.
The best gifts we can give our children are a sense of self-worth and self-belief and help them to become independent thinkers.
Washing and cleaning they can learn the hard way, knowing they can manage without you is not so easy.
Life is full of false-starts and obstacles that trip us up and holes that we fall down.
As a parent we can't make sure that the path to our children's future is completely smooth, we won' always be there to pick them up and it's not our job to make their decisions for them.
All we can do is be the safety net that is always there to catch them when they fall and give them the courage to keep on trying.
All we can do is be there when they need us and step back when they don't.

" It's strange," said one of my friends whose son is just finishing his second year at university, " I've only just realised that he has his own life now, that we are no longer the centre of his life, that when he plans his Summer, his holidays, his future, we are not what he thinks about.. It's odd not knowing what he' s doing. But when I think about it, once I left home, I never told my parents anything."
And I think, maybe, more than an empty nest,,a tidy house (in my dreams!), that's what I will find strange.
Up until now it's always felt like Ninesh and I are the roots and our children are the shoots.
It's hard to think of them growing completely separate from us with shoots of their own, hard to imagine completely disentangled lives.
Of course my kids don't tell me everything, probably they mostly tell me nothing, but I know where they are, how they  spend their time, what's important to them.
It's hard to think of them out in the world on their own with friends we've never met, with people who are more important to them than us,dreams we might not understand, living in worlds that are part of a different universe.
It's hard to imagine.
But it's life.
And we have to let them go.
Even if it's not quite far enough away for them.
Because even if they are inhabiting other universes, escape is almost impossible in this modern hyper-connected world.
There's  Facebook and Snapchat and Instant Messenger and Instagram and sos and lol and tybtw
Sometimes I feel almost sorry for today's teenagers. 
Where can they hide?

"Being Facebook "unfriended" by both your children: it's like the 21st century equivalent of empty nest syndrome."
wrote my friend Cath the other day.
And she's right. 
Empty cyber-space is beginning to feel more like an empty nest than an unused bedroom.

But truthfully, I don't think it's knowing that social media is making the world a smaller place or that mobile phones mean that our children are hardly ever out of contactable reach, that's is stopping me from feeling sad.
Life is a big adventure and  standing on it's very edge, our children are just beginning to spread their wings.
I'm excited and happy ( and just a little bit jealous) that they have it all before them.
And our job is not to clip their wings but to help them fly.
And whether they like it or not, a little piece of my heart will always be flying with them! 

So while our kids get ready to pack their bags and flee the nest,  Ninesh and I are off to look at camper vans because I can't help feeling that the future's just about to catch up with us ...and it's always best to be prepared.

Exam Fever

I will be glad when this year's exam epidemic is over.
Glad when every  surface in our house is not covered by an untidy carpet of revision books, coloured paper, broken pens and biscuit wrappers.

Glad when our 15 year old son can stop spending his evenings revisionally reclining on the sofa and return to spending them in the park with friends, playing euphamistic football in the dark. 
Glad when our 17 year old daughter can return to worrying about boys-parties-clothes--bad hair days  (am I really saying this?!) rather than French vocabulary and psychology case studies.
But most of all, I will be glad to stop pretending that exams are the most important things in the world.
Because I really don't believe they are.
I don't believe that they are a fair test of what we know. or a way of making us care about what we learn.

We've all been there, feverishly filling every last minute with exam-cramming, spending sleepless nights worrying about all the things we don't know, trying to remember what we've forgotten, turning our brains into bloated sponges, dripping  with too many temporary facts and too much unnecessary information.
I'm not sure exactly what it is that our exam system tests: memory.....mostly, 
will power,,, perhaps, the ability to make your writing legible under pressure.. maybe.
But with GCSE's in particular, I'm not sure how much students actually learn.
Having to revise for so many different subjects, so close together, (our son is taking 21 exams in the space of 4 weeks) makes it hard to retain anything for longer than the length of the exam.  You don't just leave the hall when you  have finished your exam, you also leave behind everything you have learnt for that subject, otherwise there just won't be enough space in your brain for the next one.
May and June seem to just be " one bloody exam after another."
And what exactly will the students have achieved at the end of it all.
Have they been  inspired with  a love of learning? A thirst for knowledge? The desire to find out more?
Mostly, completely the opposite..

" Son sat English Lit. GCSE today," wrote one of my very good friends on Facebook " told me that he now never has to read another book, So proud" 

And she's not alone, many of us are feeling proud in the same way.
Somehow we are managing to make our kids despise learning rather than love it.
It's not that what they are learning isn't important or interesting, 
 it's just that sitting all day, learning things off-by-heart, never stops being boring and in the end, what you remember is the boredom, not the subject.
How often do books that we love turn into books that we hate because we have analysed every sentence to death?
 Language that once seemed beautiful becomes the stuff of nightmares.
Subjects that we once loved become a series of boring, unspiring facts which in our desperate desire to simply remember them.
" Can you test me on my French sentences," asks our son, before his spoken French exam.
And I test him and he's pretty good, he's learnt them really well.
" There's just one bit," I say, " you got the tense wrong, think about what it means."
He rolls his eyes at me.
" It doesn't matter if I don't know what it means," he says, "  I just have to remember it right." 
That's what our exam system is doing to our kids. 
 Making them learn things "right," so that they can pass exams, not so that they can understand what they mean or gain an insight to their wider significance. 
I understand and remember nothing of the physics or chemistry I crammed for my GCSEs.
 I still believe I am rubbish at maths and although I loved geography, all I can remember about it, is drawing bad pictures of animals in Polar landscapes and that rocks have different layers, although all these years on, I'm not really sure why.
Like rocks, the acquisition of knowledge should be a layering process.
Each layer providing firm foundations for the next.
Learning shouldn't be a lot of temporary,, flimsy structures designed only to last until we have got the required grades.
We need to help children understand that learning things, finding out more about what they see or hear, gives their world a depth and beauty it wouldn't otherwise have.
We want to make them excited about the fact that everything they do is an opportunity to learn something new.
We need to inspire a hunger for knowledge, an interest in the world around them, a belief that finding out more about " things," makes those "things," more interesting, meaningful and useful.
Somehow our education system has lost its direction and as a result, our children have lost their way.
And we need to help them find their way back to a place where they are proud of what they know, eager to learn more because they are inspired by the potential of all they do not know.
I'm not sure how it can be done but I am sure that our exam system is not the way to do it.
Socrates said: 

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” 

 I wish we'd listened because our exam system seems to be all about temporary vessel -filling and very little about permanently flame-lighting.

I turn back to the revision chaos that used to be our living room.
And with all my heart, i hope our kids do well in their exams.
They deserve to, they've worked really hard (if that is what helps you pass).
But most of all I hope they realise that there are things you can't figure out from a revision book, that life is too small to fit between the walls of a classroom, that learning doesn't end with a full stop and handing in an exam paper.
The world is out there waiting for them, full of beauty and pain and unanswered questions.
I hope, that when they have finished their last exam, they will still want to step into it full of awe and wonder and a desire to try and find the answers.

True Values

These post-election days have left many in the country feeling blue in every way and have set me to wondering about  "values."
About how much value politicians give to what their voters say. 
About what is truly valued in our society.
About individual value.
About how some people seem to have a distorted sense of self-value while others seem to believe they have no value at all..
About how, if we are not careful, people will begin to believe that there is little value or point in anything they do.
These days,  value seems to be measured in purely economic terms.
Decisions are made about our future by estimating how much we will each cost, not what we are each worth.
Value is defined by distant politicians who know nothing about us, have no interest in what we actually do and appear to care very little about what we truly value.
We live in a  topsy-turvy world of underpaid  "hands-on,"workers  and overpaid " hands-off," managers.
We live in an impersonal world where success is based on generic data analysis rather than on individual, personal triumphs.
We live in a fearful world where people are constantly worried that they will soon be unemployed.
We live in an austere world where government cuts are tearing apart what we value  most.
It's not surprising that there is an overriding sense of disillusionment and detachment.
It's not surprising that morale is low.
It's not surprising that we are beginning to believe that no one cares about what we do or what we say.
It's not surprising that people feel personally and professionally undervalued.
Our government chips away at our public services, at our National Health System, at our education system, at our social services, at our youth services, at the heart and soul of what we have always valued as unique and special.
Everything becomes an economic statistic.
It doesn't matter how hard you work, how many extra hours you give, if you don't reach your targets you are not good value for money.
It doesn't matter how many people you help  or what you actually achieve, if you don't meet your agreed goals, you have failed. 
If there is no value to individual achievement, then what do we have left to value.
Immigrants are an economic drain, illness is an economic drain, old-age is an economic drain, disability is an economic drain.
No matter that immigrants are broadening our horizons and doing jobs none of us want to do, no matter how much people gave and did before they became ill, no matter how hard or for how long or with what sense of pride people worked until they reached pensionable age, no matter that those with disabilities can often make us see life in a different and  better way.
Chances are that at some point in the future, we will, all of us,  be seen as a drain on society rather than valued for what we have done and achieved.
If everything is a financial problem and the only solution is to cut costs, whatever the consequences, it gets harder and harder to value or be valued.
And anyway, who decides how much we are worth.
Who decides that a paramedic, driving the ambulance, first on the scene of an accident or emergency, should earn in a year what some surgeons earn in a month?
Who decides that cleaners, removing the dirt and scum we create, earn in a week what some footballers earn in 10 minutes? 
Who decides that the nursery assistants we leave our children ( our most treasured possessions) with each day earn on average, half as much as the parents whose children they are looking after? 
We live in confusing, unappreciative, undervaluing times.
Thank goodness human nature is such a wonderful  thing.
Our indefatigable desire to survive, to make the best of things, to live, love and laugh despite it all is a constantly inspiring. 
In the end, the only way to navigate our way through this economically fragile world world of natural disasters and ridiculously unfair financial distribution, is to hold on tightly to the personal, emotional and moral values we have always tried to live by.
I was listening on the radio this week, to the story told by someone who had flown to Katmandu to bring aid to the earthquake victims in Nepal.

As he stepped out of the plane, the aid worker, was immediately invited to drink tea by some of the  exhausted, shell-shocked survivors.
Even when faced with such extreme devastation and despair, the Nepalese people clung on to their core values, finding the strength to be welcoming and extend the hand of friendship, however little they have to offer.
Sometimes values are all we have left.
Sometimes the values of others are truly humbling.
Our core values give us hope, they form the essence of who we are and what we believe, they are a solid scaffold of certainty in a fragile, unpredictable world.
They are where we turn to when we are searching for inner strength, looking for a reason to do what we do.
True value is not something that can be decided by politicians or business men or world leaders.
What we truly value is based on what we learn from our parents, from our friends, from the world around us, from our own experience and emotional responses.
Even if we sometimes need reminding of what those values are.

This year, I have been working with an autistic boy.
Together his family and I have been trying to help him find his voice.
Last September he could make a few sounds, sometimes say " no."
One evening, last week,  his mum phoned me, her voice was shaking.
" I just had to tell you,Becky," she said, " before he went to bed, I asked him to say "night night," to dad. I ask him to say it every night and he can do it if I walk over to his dad with him and he repeats the words after me.  But today, when I said it, he didn't wait for me.  He just ran and found his dad, gave him a hug, said " night night dad," and went up to his room."
Her voice was shaking.
" I never thought this day would come," she said.
His dad had waited ten years for those words and that hug.

There are some moments we value so much, they almost hurt.

In the end true value cannot be measured by the way others perceive us.
Instead, it should be measured by what we believe to be good, true and right.
And if we dare to live our lives with those true values at its heart, we will always, always be proud of what we achieve.
And no political party, however big their majority, can take that away from us.

Election Burnout Bitch

Since I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment, I vowed that this would be the election when I listen carefully to everything the politicians have to say.
This would be the election when I would  become extremely politically motivated and aware.
I promised myself that I would be open-minded, non-judgemental, unbiased and, most definitely, uncynical. 
And I do try.
I try to stop my mind from wandering while I listen to live debates on the radio.
I try to concentrate on what is being said by the party leaders on the television and not on their ( in some cases lack of) fashion sense.
But every time the speeches and arguments comes to an end. I find that I can't remember a single thing anyone has said.
" It's not them, it's you," says my husband Ninesh, " You can't blame the politicians for your inability to concentrate. You've been like it all your life. That's why I've found the jar of mustard in the bathroom cabinet, our credit cards at the bottom of the recycling bin and why most of our sharp knives have been thrown into the compost bin.
And, in many ways, ( most ways in fact ) he's right. 
I can't blame this one on the politicians. 
My attention span is small and my ability to day dream is big. 
But almost one hundred days of political campaigning has left me with pre-election burnout. 
I long for the day when I can turn on the radio without having to listen to any more lies, when I can switch on the television without having to watch  sycophantic politicians  telling me what their opponent  can't or won't do and why nothing is their fault.
I've yet to hear them tell me what their own parties can and will do or take actual responsibility for anything.
All these days and weeks and words on, I still haven't heard a politician who can create a vision I want to believe in.
Most of the time it feels as though they don't really have a vision themselves.
Most of the time it feels as though they are on a journey that will end with their egos being boosted and a lot of personal power being gained.
Where has all the colour and the passion gone?
Politics used to be exciting.
Politicians used to be able to make their voters believe in something. 
Now it feels as though they are delivering their speeches from ivory towers, untouched by the dirt and grind of normal, everyday living.
Where are the sparks and the battles?
There is so little to choose between the main parties now, that it's hard to know where one grey suit ends and another begins ( lucky they wear different coloured ties).

And all of this is probably why the nationalist parties are doing so well.
At least the flags they are waving separate them from each other.
We may not understand the nitty-gritty details of what they would actually do if they were in power, but we know what they stand for.
Their message is clear:
UKIP doesn't like foreigners- but isn't racist ( yeah, right! )
The SNP wants Scotland to be independent.
Plaid Cymru wants an independent Wales.
Easy.
And if we know nothing else about the Green Party, we know that it wants us to care more about the environment.
Cameron, Clegg and Miliband, on the other hand, want whatever their voters want them to want. 
Their messages seem to change with the popularity wind..
I find that instead of becoming more knowledgable and politically aware, I have become more confused and turned into a pre-election bitch.
I watch debates and all I can do is judge the women on how they dress: hot-dresser, power-dresser, sack- wearer.
I listen on the radio and all I can do is judge the men by how their voices sound: boring, revolting, panicked, better-when-drunk.

I see a canvasser at the door and I hide behind the sofa.
I'm horrified at the superficial person I have become. 
What's happened? 
Where have I gone?
I'm sure I used to care.
I'm sure I used to believe in something.
I'm sure the politicians did too.
But 95 days of mostly meaningless pre-election banter is slowly killing me.
I've lost the political will to live.

I challenge our politicians to sum up in one word, what their party believes in.
I bet they couldn't do it.
I bet they couldn't use just one word where hundreds would do. 
I bet they couldn't be concise and clear when they could be waffly and confusing.
Come on, give us just one word!

I can't wait for the 7th of May.
I can't wait to put my cross on the ballot paper and walk out of that poling station.
Because however disillusioned I might feel, voting is the only voice I have.
If you don't vote, you sacrifice your right to moan.
Those who do nothing, do not have the right to complain about those who do something, however little it is.
But I can't wait for it to be over.
I can't wait to shed my superficial pre-election bitchiness.
I can't wait to stop pretending to listen.
I can't wait to go back to being the caring, deep-thinking, Gogglebox-watching, pizza-eating  person that I truly am.
And just think, on Friday 8th May, it will only be 1460 days to the next election...and I can't wait.

Perfectly Imperfect

The older I get, the more I realise something about perfection.
I hate it.
I hate those flawlessly skinned, beautifully coiffeured , perfectly manicured " made-in-Chelsea," types.
I hate those homes where every piece of furniture is matched and completely co-ordinated without a scrap of clutter in sight.
I hate graffitiless streets where all the flowers in the symmetrical window boxes grow to exactly the same height.
I hate perfectly rolled, velvet green lawns and spotlessly shiny cars.
Perfection makes me feel uncomfortable.
Perfection reminds me of all the things I'm not.
I've wondered if it's jealousy.  
Standing next to someone with seemingly perfect looks or an apparently perfect life can make you feel like an extremely flawed and inadequate failure. 
But I don't think that it's jealousy ( well not just jealousy) that fuels my dislike of perfection.
For a start, perfect people are usually self-adulatingly boring.
Our tortoise has more character than some of the best looking people I know.
It seems somehow that there is a natural pay-off: looks for personality.
Perhaps it's just that perfect people don't need to bother with be interesting, they get attention anyway. Or perhaps it's that they spend so much time and money working on their physical perfection, that they don't actually have anything else to talk about. 
How tiring  must it  be to constantly worry that someone might find a flaw, a spot a crack in your perfect veneer?
Perhaps it's not surprising they don't have time to learn things or listen to people.
I don't trust physical perfection. It's a dangerous aspiration for our teenagers in a world that is already full of unrealistic demands and frightening challenges.
Why dye your hair blonde when it's rich and brown, why straighten your wild curls?
Perfection is about conformity not standing out.
Perfection is about following not leading, about external not internal beauty.
Perfection is dangerous.
I have sat in glossy, magazine-perfect houses.
Surfaces are shiny and clear, furniture is clean and matching and sparse, Ffoorboards are stripped and varnished to a burnished smoothness. Not a pen out of place.  Not a piece of un-filed paper in sight. Not an ounce of character to be seen..
They are soulless and impersonal and exhausting to be in.
I find myself constantly worrying about where to put my glass, what to do about the crumbs that have fallen on the dust-free floors.
I worry that the kids might touch something, might leave an unwanted fingerprint.
" Don't touch anything," I say,
 " Don't move.
 Don't play with anything. 
Don't be you, just for half an hour." 
They are not homes, thoee perfect houses.
They are frightening.
They are airless vacuums of " don'ts," and " stops," and "not- being."
I find myself leaving them and taking big gulps of polluted air while the children run, screaming and free towards the messy car.
Give me mismatched furniture and food-stained floors.
Give me random pieces of meaningful ( to someone ) clutter and rickety old chairs and tables.
Perfection is stressful.
It's the same when you wander through the streets of idyllic country villages or picture-perfect towns and cities. 
There's something about the empty walls that make me want to rush out and buy a can of spray paint ( and then find someone who is artistic and knows how to use it) 
It must be hard to be "different," in a place that is externally so perfect.
You must permanently feel like an unwanted and unnecessary outsider who will never fit in.
There are no down-and-outs sleeping in the doorways or unkempt teenagers shouting to each other in the parks in those places..
Where are they? 
Where is the space for individuality in such a perfect world?
Those places have an expectation of calm and order that could so easily break the spirt and make you feel trapped.
Perfection controls us.
And it starts so young.
Children are no longer given a bucket of lego and told to make whatever they want which means that whatever they make is just right.
Instead, lego comes in kits with a picture of what the finished product should look like on the box, a perfect model of a spaceship or a dinosaur or a city. 

Before they start piecing together the tiny blocks of bumpy coloured plastic, children are already worrying that their model won't look like it does on the box, won't look perfect. 
Perfection is setting us all up for failure.
And the other thing about perfection, is that once it is achieved, there is nowhere else to go.
You look perfect or live in the perfect house or town or city....then what do you do?
Wait for a perfect crisis?
Perhaps that's why perfectly beautiful people are often boring. They've got nothing left to aim for or talk about.
They have attained perfection, their world is complete. 
And that;s a dangerous feeling to have.
I remember, when I was doing my teacher training, one of my tutors said:
" If you ever think you have taught the perfect lesson, you have to give up teaching."
And she's right.
There is always something we could do better or differently.
And if we don't think there is, we have become a bad teacher.
If you believe that how you look or live or what you do is perfect, you have become complacent  and complacency prevents progress. 
Give me imperfect lego models and lessons that need improvement.
Give me imperfection in all it's real life glory.
Because at least I know that tomorrow I might do better.

It was in a tiny jewellery store in the crazlyy, colourful chaotic " Las Ramblas" in Barcelona that I found the ring I had always dreamed of finding. 
It wasn't perfectly round, it wasn't shiny, no part was the same thickness or width in any part. The perfectly imperfect ring.

A tower of perfectly imperfect rings by ginnypuzeydesigns.co.uk

!0 years on, I still wear it ( and the matching one my jewellery- maker friend  made me for my birthday)
And every time I feel the threat of perfection looming, I touch it to remind myself that it is not perfection we should be aiming for.
Instead we should be using our imperfections to make the world a better place.
And don't worry about what other people think.
Perfection is subjective, overrated and usually unattainable.
We have far more important things to worry about than how others perceive us and whether we are almost-perfect-enough.

So here's to driving battered second-hand cars so you don't have to worry when they get scratched.
Here's to wearing old, comfortable clothes and living in messy houses.
Here's to bad-hair-days and slobbing-in-pyjama-days.
Here's to  graffitied walls and mismatched window-boxes.
Here's to believing that being interesting is more important than being perfect.
Here's to reminding ourselves that perfection is boring and characterless and that our flaws are what make us human ( especially when you've run out of spot-coverer).
Here's to remembering that it is our imperfections that keep the world turning.
Here's to forgetting about aspirations of perfection and striving instead to be brave and different and true-to-ourselves.
Here's to imperfect jewellery and wild curly hair.

Here's to making the world a perfectly imperfect place to be.

Dear Ceylan...a letter

Dear Ceylan
It's hard to believe that it's been five years since you left us.
Five years since I last saw your smile. 
Five years since you were part of this world.
Five years since your heart stopped beating so suddenly.
Still, there are moments when, in a busy street, I look up and am sure that I  have glimpsed you hurrying around a corner just ahead of me or slipping into a shop before I can catch up with you.
I know now, that it's just a trick of memory, a vision made almost real by the desire for it to be true.
But for just an instant, I allow myself to believe it's you.
"It's been five years," people say, " Time heals all wounds. At least the grieving is over now."
But that's not true.
Grief is not that convenient.
It's not time-limited,
it has no beginning or end.
It becomes a constant companion..
And true, it's no longer all-consuming the way it was those first few days, weeks, months.
It no longer engulfs me like a black fog, turning everything it touches into shadows of inconsequence.
Instead, now, grief has become the emotion that fills the empty space where you should be.
Five years on Ceylan, we have not stopped grieving the loss of you, but we have learnt to live with grief.

We went to Germany to see Torsten and the kids a few months ago.
They're doing ok.
Selma is so beautiful.  
Tall for her 9 years, he hair a mass of tight, unruly curls. 
She still hates having it brushed but Torsten doesn't give up.  
He knows you would never have let her go to school with messy hair.
Her favourite colour isn't purple anymore, she thinks it's blue, and she loves playing " it," and climbing as high as she can .
We climbed to the top of the goal post in their school playground, Selma and Mia and me.
She's an amazing climber. 
She was already scrambled to the top before Mia and I had taken our first step.
We sat watching the sun set over the fields and woods that surround their village.
I watched Selma absorbing the peace.
She tries so hard to be brave, to fold away her cloak of sadness and hide it in her pocket.
But there are still times when the lack of you is too unbearable, when all she can do is curl up and cry.
" When that happens she tells me that she is just sad because the world was more beautiful when her mum was in it," Torsten sats, " And all I can say, is that I know it was. But I think things are slowly getting better.  The other day we were buying her some shoes.  She has quite big feet and the woman in the shop smiled and said- it won't be long until you can wear your mum's shoes- and for the first time, Selma didn't say anything.  Didn't say my mum is dead or start crying. She just nodded. When I asked her why afterwards, she  shrugged and said it's just not  worth explaining it to everyone dad. That's an improvement, isn't it? A sign that she is beginning to cope better?"
And it probably is Ceylan, she's probably learning to cope without you.
But it made me feel guilty.
Made me wonder how many times  we, all of us, unknowingly, say careless things.
How many times in the course of a normal day, children who have lost a parent, are reminded of their pain.
I see it in Selma's clear, blue eyes as she watches the sun set,  searching the horizon for something she will never find.
I see it in the calm independence of Luis who has grown up not knowing that some of the things he does himself are things his mum would have done for him.
He was so young when you died Ceylan, still so unformed.
He looks like you.
His 7 year old eyes are so dark and deep you feel as though you are falling into them.
His gentle, thoughtful smile is heart-breakingly beautiful.
And he's a perfectionist, just like you.
Dividing sweets precisely between two boxes and very exactly cutting the crust from his bread.
His hair falls dark over his face, just like yours.
You would be so proud of him.
He's self-contained and definite.
There's a "just-so-ness," to his world, that holds his life together.
He seems to possess an inner strength way beyond his years.
He loves cooking.
We made chocolate chip cookies with him and Selma.
Luis knew where everything was and measured out exactly the right quantities.
He's as delicately determined as you were.
And he's amazing at ice-skating.
Were you?
I think you must have been
Because I stood at the edge of the ice rink and every time he flashed past, I could imagine it was you.
Sometimes the three of them, Torsten and Selma and Luis, glided across the rink together, holding hands, laughing, watching Mia and Joss and Ninesh as they wobbled uncertainly near the edge ( I was too cowardly to try! ).
Selma and Luis tried to help them.
Selma held Mia's hand.
Luis hovered near Joss.
But in the end the joy of gliding smoothly across the clear, white ice was too tempting.
They were just two kids having fun on the ice with their dad.

The house is lovely Ceylan.
Torsten has done such a good job making it into a home.
It's much bigger than your house in England.
I think you'd like it.  
Big and airy and full of light with just the right amount of furniture.
There is a tree in the garden that is your tree.
The kids bring things to show to you there: feathers and special stones they have found.
You can see the garden from every room but it looks best from the living room.
In the living room, 
Joss was lying there on the sofa when I walked in...
" Mum," he whispered, " Selma just said Mama."
I looked at Selma.
She was sitting on the floor, behind a chair, trying to fold a picture she has made in a special way.
It wasn't folding right.
Silently I sat down next to her.
She kept trying to fold and re-fold the paper but it wouldn't work.
Suddenly she looked up at me, tears streaming down her face.
" You can't help me," she said.
And the words stabbed me because I know she's right.
5 years on and her grief is still so huge and so raw, there is no pocket big enough to hide it in, no one who can help her enough.
Torsten tries so hard Ceylan.
He tries so hard to do the impossible, to be a mum and a dad to them.
And he does everything he can to make your dreams for them come true.
He's so proud of them.
So worried about them.
And he reads to them all the time- remember how you told me he wasn't so good at that?
He wears your wedding ring on his little finger so that it touches his.
And he carries your memory with him everywhere he goes.
It's not always easy for him.
There are times when the children cling to him, clambering over him when he is sitting down, hanging round his neck, as though they need every ounce of his soul to make them feel complete.
And he is endlessly calm and kind and patient.
His love for them shines so bright and is so strong, it's almost tangible.
They are surrounded by love, Selma and Luis.
His parents and your parents still come and look after them every few weeks.
They still spend every Summer in Turkey with your mum and dad..
The children would like it if Torsten stayed there longer but he says he can't, not yet.
He's still not ready for that.
I think that, In Turkey, everything he sees or touches or hears is a memory of you so that there, your absence doesn't lessen, it grows.

And so, you see, Ceylan, life has somehow muddled on without you.
Mia and Joss are growing up, standing on the gritty beach of teenagehood, occassionaly dipping their toes into the adult life beyond.. 
Ninesh and I are getting older, with all the grey hairs and wrinkles that come with age.
At least you were spared that.
After you died Ninesh bought a convertible and took up paragliding.
He never said it, but I think it was because of you.
I think he realised that life is too short and unpredictable and fragile to put off doing the things you have always wanted to do. 
And me.
I gave up work to spend time with the people I really care about.
I keep thinking of you, how you had given up work for that first year in England.
How you spent it with Selma and Luis.
How that year is their most precious memory.
If the loss of you has taught me anything, it is to have no regrets and to have the courage to do only what I believe is right.
And so that is how I live my life.
It makes me happy.
From even the saddest places, hope can grow.
I talk to you often.
Do you hear me?
If you do, I hope it's not too annoying.
You always were a good listener.

So you see Ceylan, you are only out of reach, never out of mind.
Today the skies are blue and cloudless, not raging with rain and thunder like the days after you died.
I hope it's because you have found peace.

As I write this, our garden is bathed in sunshine.
I imagine looking up and seeing the outline of you, your gentle, half-shy smile mingling with the sunlight, your words a whisper on the breeze.
And I think, perhaps,I know what you are telling us.
That five years on, it's time to stop crying.
We will try Ceylan.
Life has this way of forcing us to live it and even if our tears have dried, we, all of us who knew you, live it a little more sadly for the lack of you.
I'll never stop missing you.
Love always
Becky x

Your family