Autumn in Technicolour

Nova Dacosta - 16 Oct 17

I’ve always been a tad melancholic. Growing up as the middle child it felt the most obvious way to stand out, having a daily ‘depths of despair’ moment seemed romantic, as if I was the female lead in my own ‘so called life.’

As I got older that matured into being the truthful one. If anyone asked me what an experience was like I’d head straight into a long story not sparing any detail ‘a bikini wax?! Like being plucked out every inch of your life-chickens have more dignity”. An all-night bender on After Shock? Leaves you feeling as though you’ve turned yourself inside out and soaked in mouthwash for 24 hours. Any truth you’re after I’d share it, because isn’t that what life is all about after all? Sharing, learning and growing from all these experiences we face?

So you can imagine when it came to having my first child, I was not the one glowing with how magical the birthing experience was. I was a hypno-birther gone wrong and I was angry…. well, more bitterly disappointed with how my experience went. It wasn’t until a year down the line when I found myself still crying about that experience that I realised that disappointment had sunk into a deep depression.

My survival tactic at time was to always have a self-deprecating, funny story about my inability to cope. Expectant mama friends would look round eyes and I filled them in about their woes ahead; sleep deprivation so intense, that if someone would just allow me to sleep there and then I would be able to and never wake up! The cracks around your nipples in those first weeks of breastfeeding only beaten by the acute sense of failure you’d feel when the baby would throw an entire meal beautifully prepared (in a way that you would never prepare for yourself!) over the high chair- weaning really is a labour of love. And don’t get me started on the anxiety over whether they’re reaching the right milestone at that the right time.

I wasn’t trying to suck the joy out their experiences, I just felt it was my duty to counteract every positive image, every face book post of cheerful babies, every book that says not only is it possible to have your 8 week old sleeping through the night, it should be expected. These were not my truths and I felt that not hearing the real experiences had left me feeling like I wasn’t good enough.

However, what I hadn’t realised until recently as my children are a little older now, 6 & 3 is that I’ve carried this mentality through with me like a heavy, weighty, burdensome shield. It’s become my armour to protect myself from any perceived failure, but not just with my children but my whole life.

Granted some of this is down to the depression I still fight every day, but I think also it’s just become a habit, a negative perception all of the time. It was when I was having a coffee one morning with a very darling and dear friend and I sighed a long, weighty, Eyore type sigh. “I hate the change in season, Autumn, it’s so deceptive, these beautiful colours belie the fact that death is upon us…. the nights are drawing in, the clocks will be going back soon and then things really will be truly hideous.’ And she turned and looked at me with her lovely eyes and said “I’ve never ever seen it like that, I think Autumn is so beautiful because nature is coming to a rest. It’s slowing down not out of sadness but out of self-care, restoring, pausing. If only we listened to our bodies and slowed down when our natural energy asked us to, I think we’d all be much happier.”

Now she is a particularly special person, as you can tell, she’s always been an old soul, but her perspective shook me, because I realised the last 6 years haven’t necessarily been as I’ve seen it. In fact the inconvenient truth is that maybe my quest to be the deliverer of the truth has actually trapped me into a sad life experience. I realise now I have the power to see my world in what-ever colours I like, that doesn’t have to mean rose tint but it doesn’t have to be black and white either, there is the scope for a touch of technicolour and my hope now is that I can find a hint of it in my every day.

Nova Dacosta

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