DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

When I hostessed at fancy-schmancy restaurants in LA, people wanting a table at 7.30pm on a Saturday night without a reservation used to say to me ‘don’t you know who I am?’

Last night that’s exactly what I wanted to say to the woman next to me as we f-lap ball changed our way through a tap class.

I would continue…

‘Don’t you know? I’m the mother of Little Miss Q and right now she’s not with me and I have two arms all to myself and I am using my brain for my thoughts and even though I miss her and I’m still thinking about her, imagining her sleeping (I hope) at home with her father, it feels absolutely fabulous to be doing this.

Is that wrong?

I’ve never had a real job, so I didn’t have to contemplate the transition from 9-5-er to SAHM (stay at home mum for those not in the know). I imagine that could be quite confronting – corporate world, corporate outfit, corporate credit card, corporate respect – to the jeans and spew-proof, breastfeeding capable t-shirt, no time for makeup, no one to talk to but a human that can’t speak English, spending the income you no longer earn on take away decaf coffees just to get out of the house and have an adult to converse with.

Yes I can see how it would be confronting indeed.

Mine was a different conflict. 

I’ve never had a real job, and when I’m not working I like to write at home. Writing I thought I’d be able to continue doing while my new human slumbered peacefully in her cot.

Yeah right.

But the truth of it is, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I don’t want to be away from Miss Q right now. (At least not for longer than a couple of hours).

But it was very nice just to hang out with myself.

It wasn’t much, but it did the trick. Reset the monitor, recharged the fast-approaching-flat batteries.

That’s all I needed. Ninety minutes of me-time, once a week on a Tuesday night.

Reclaiming my sense of self. One tap class at a time.