It's BratBitch Summer

Or is it?

June has been a LOT. It’s been full on, intense, busy. Every week there has been another train journey, another suitcase, another pile of washing. There has been planning, packing, washing, drying and packing again. This makes me sound jet set but rather than drinking in airports I’ve been going up and down the country on the Avanti west coast. I know London Euston train station like the back of my hand.

It began with a trip to Wolverhampton. My Nan is 91 and god willing will go on forever but just in case, we decided she should meet Elliot sooner rather than later. I packed our bag and planned our outfits the night before. We left the house at 8:30AM and travelled on a bus, two trains and a taxi to arrive for lunch. I got back to the station in the pouring rain to stand for two and a half hours on a packed train all the way home. Elliot in his buggy pressed up against the door. It might sound nothing but that’s the sort of thing that can wipe me out for a week. And it did.

It’s wedding season so my evening chats with couples to plan their ceremonies has begun. On the Monday evening I travelled for an hour up to North London on a Monday evening to sit in a nice garden and hear about how they met. When I came out at the Piccadilly line had been suspended so I sat on the bus listening to the Miss Me podcast and watched the sun go down.

On Thursday is was Louis’ birthday so we went up to Tate Modern. Determined not to be stressed we had a gentle morning opening cards and playing with his train set before packing for every kind of weather and heading out. By the time we got to Tate and were finally settled (nappy changes, water bottle refill, the cloakroom) we realised it was 3PM and everyone was ravenous. We had pizza and got the boat home along the Thames.

That weekend was my first wedding ceremony of the year in Ramsgate. I drove down, found some excellent parking and ate my lunch on a bench overlooking the sea. On Sunday we hosted Louis’ family birthday party with cake and bacon sandwiches.

Then it was my mother, June’s 70th. My sister and I surprised her by getting the train up with Elliot and walking into the kitchen with huge silver 70 balloons. I bought the balloons up from London and took them on the bus and tube in 8AM rush hour, Elliot nodding along in the buggy. Once again we travelled from London Euston and I spent the 2 hour journey rocking Elliot in the vestibule and trying to keep the balloons from escaping.

That weekend our whole family went away for the weekend in a country pile. Once again we packed for every kind of weather as well as meals for Elliot, formula and a whole tote bag of snacks. Friday night was a 70s theme. I bought glitter and flares for the babies, lent my Mum my sequinned kaftan, ordered gold safety pins to hold it in place and borrowed a pink jumpsuit from my friend Selina. We drove down on Friday, swam in the pool on Saturday and drove back on Sunday.

Elliot’s wheezing had become a little too loud so Jon dropped us off at A&E on the way home. He was fine but they said we should stay overnight to keep an eye on him. I slept on a zed bed under a ceiling light. At 6:20AM they said we could go home. I was in Lidl at 8:20AM for a big shop.

On Tuesday it was nursery photos, which I forgot so had to take photoshoot clothes down there. On Wednesday I left the house before 7AM to go a climate action in the city, then spent the rest of the day producing content about it. In the evening I packed to go back up north the next day to look after Ruby the Labrador at Mum’s while my parents were in London. I messaged my Dad a shopping list of pitta and cucumber and packed two cases: one for me to take on the train and one for Jon to bring when he drove up on Friday.

Jon delivered me, three babies, a buggy and a case to Euston at 8:30AM and I asked travel assistance if they could put us on the train, which they did but not without me almost having a breakdown that they had forgotten about us. We arrived, ate macaroni cheese and I went to bed at 10:30. At 11:30 Nancy was sick on the landing. She was sick again, twice and I got back into bed at 2AM to hear Louis’ wailing. I lay with him and fell asleep before going back to my bed at 5AM. Elliot woke up for the day at 6:15. We had a weekend in the country, playing in the garden and picking raspberries before Nancy and I got the train home on Monday afternoon.

I know what you’re thinking, my diamond shoes are too tight. Parties, weekends away, pizza, weddings, birthdays.

But as with all parenting ever, it’s not the nice bits which drain you, it’s the unseen mental load. It’s the planning, the packing, the getting ahead. The food prep, the banana buying, the don’t-wear-that-because-I-might-want-you-to-wear-it-this-weekend. The ‘pack these pyjamas and also those pyjamas in case those ones get wet through.’ And take the wellies, just in case. It’s the bargaining on Vinted for a sparkly jumpsuit for Nancy to wear to 70s night. Pinning up Louis’ flares. Planning where you’ll need a stranger to help you on the tube. It’s the washing, the lists, the never ending lists.

Even as I’m writing this I’m thinking, ‘get over it Sarah! You’re not down the pit!’ But where is the sense in comparing myself to someone down a pit? It’s hard. There I’ve said it. Call me ungrateful, call me unappreciative but anything which detours from the routine, no matter how gorgeous, is exhausting. It calls for more capacity, which is often in short supply.

So did she put the things in place to help her handle it, dear reader? Did she go to bed early? Meditate and make sure she took her meds? Did she ease the pressure on herself? Let some perfectionism go? No, no she did not.

I did not handle it well. I was bad tempered, I was unpleasant. I screamed at Jon. I swore under my breath when Louis dropped a blackcurrant down my new white top at the buffet breakfast. I rolled my eyes continuously. I shouted at the babies. I slammed the door, stamped my feet. Nancy said “you’ve got your grumps Mummy.”

I then apologised to Jon for the 75th time and told him I knew I was being a bitch. He felt it was more of a brat so we settled on brat bitch. It’s a BratBitch summer.

70s night, birthday cake and The Washing

At the start of the year a survey found that seven in ten NHS GPs suffer from compassion fatigue. It says they are so emotionally and physically exhausted that they can struggle to empathise with colleagues and patients. Other studies have found that burnout can significantly impair empathy and “lead to a diminished capacity to understand and share the feelings of others.” I’m no doctor but I do know this month has been hard and I have been vile to live with.

There are still two months of summer left. Wimbledon hasn’t even happened yet. Legends will be born, records will be broken, memories will be made. And it will be the summer where I continue to burn out or I choose again. The summer I give myself grace. The summer I make better choices. The summer of regulation. The summer of peace. It’s BratBitch vs SoftBitch summer.