Words: Clare Dwyer Hogg
Image: Barney Beech

I absolutely would have preferred something more soft- focussed for Mother’s Day this year. I did get beautiful flowers and presents, and a card that included a careful drawing of two butterflies doing tricks inside a sausage. There was also spontaneous vomiting from one small child, rising temperature from another, and two adults (me included) suffering from various ailments. There was an oasis when a friend fed us delicious treats, but that was just before half our party fled to be sick elsewhere. All in all, the day was pretty much lethargically celebrated amidst the chaos we were too tired to tidy up.

I was thinking about the day while lying awake that night. It turns out that despite it all, I’d felt loved. More surprising, I’d had that thought even in the midst of it. And that all of it – the love, sickness, cuteness, lethargy, mess – is what makes up being a mother. It’s the true Mother’s Day, as opposed to the one you get on cards. And it’s actually OK.

I know there’s a good chance that these words will sound pious. So believe me when I say I didn’t feel happy trailing my feet around a messy home at 6am. But, afterwards, thinking about my mindset did surprise me. I think it’s connected to my mission over the last seven months or so. I wrote about it in the first column, but my plan, in a nutshell, is this: to think to myself – what if this was “it”? To imagine that all I have now is all I’ll ever have. That what I’m doing is all I’d ever be doing. Of course everything changes. But what does it look like not to wish the present away? If it was the case that this was it, how would I look at where I am? Wouldn’t I dig in and make it as good as I could?

I suppose it’s about deliberately appreciating that the tiny things make up the big picture.  And the very first psychological step, that question – what if this was it? – has done a lot to change my approach to things. No, I wasn’t actually meditating on the question on Sunday. Yes, I was completely over the weekend by 7am. But I think that trying to cultivate a habit of living fully in the small things has made my thoughts different than they might have been.

I wasn’t thinking that everything was fantastic, or that this was my ideal experience. I did not, in any way, feel super. There was no glamour. But neither was I thinking that my life had reached a new low. Or wishing I was three years down the line. At the time, I wasn’t really thinking much. But that, with hindsight, really feels like a positive.

I suppose I was subsumed in the moment, in the circumstance. Much like – if I’m to continue the metaphor of digging into life – if you’re digging your own plot of ground, and come across a sludgy stony difficult patch. It would be strange to feel like somehow I’d reached a new level of drudgery by having to dig through it. Or that my garden and I had less worth because of this time and effort. It’s all part of the dig, isn’t it? To get through those parts, hands dirty, involved. Not enjoyable, as such. But a small vital part of the bigger picture.

Of course, days like those have to be done no matter what the feeling. It makes a difference feeling like it’s worth something, though. This isn’t anything to do with raising children, it’s anything: difficult relational times, sluggish work, days when nothing seems big, just small.

It’s been a lesson long in the learning for me, but I’ve realised that doing the small messy things well makes a difference physically and psychologically. Physically because those little things are actually steps forward, or deeper. Psychologically: while you’re doing those little things, they feel more valid.

What’s strange and interesting about the process, too, is that it kicks perfectionism off its pedestal. I used to be big on trying to make things perfect. I haven’t completely knocked that on the head. But now I think perfectionism either tries to stage-manage a big picture without appreciating the tiny things that make it up, or mistakes singular small details for the big picture.

Now I’m trying to look at all the ingredients (sometimes this is not voluntary – I’m just there, with the ingredients thrust at me), and trying to make them as good as possible. The trust is that if I do my part with all of them, they’ll form the big picture themselves. Much like a garden, really, in the way that a garden is a big picture – with many components, and variations in light and shade.

So that I’m not wishing it away, but trying to do my best in the mess I find myself in.

@claredwyerh