Defrosting: thawing out and growing up after motherhood
The push & pull of opposing beliefs
Dear reader,
I wanted to write a specific essay this week, but I’m still catching up with emails and clients after time off to integrate back into the UK from Vietnam, and I just haven’t had the time.
What a luxury to be able to let go of any guilt about this. This wouldn’t have been the case a few years ago, and is one of the many reasons I ended up seriously burned out and unable to work, or even walk.
Unable to let anything go, never able to not do things ‘perfectly’, all stemming from a deep-seated core wound of I’m not good enough and the desire to be a good girl.
Well, no more. Not saying I feel like a queen every day (I certainly don’t), or that I don’t get triggered and revert to temporary feelings of unworthiness sometimes, but generally, those days are far fewer than they were.
And over the past year, since I moved to Asia in search of a new life for myself, I've found a flavour of contentment I’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing before.
It’s interesting to be back in Hebden Bridge, my Yorkshire hometown, after such a long time away. Nothing at all has changed. Well, apart from groceries, they are even more expensive, and almost every item on the supermarket shelf now seems to be labelled ‘high protein’.
But I have changed.
I’m not the same woman who left. I could tell you I’m more confident, more at peace, more content, less reactive, more grateful, and all of these things would be true, but there is something else. I just feel different inside.
I’m not talking about my nervous system, this is purring nicely after early morning walks in the woods, no, I think it’s a feeling of being more grown up. Matured somehow.
I’ve talked before about understanding that I only started to ‘grow up’ properly once my daughter left home, when I was 40 years old. I’d been frozen in the role of mother, of single parent, of breadwinner, and when we’re frozen, we’re unable to grow.
When she left, I could finally focus on myself. Not that I wanted to, I’d rather have continued caring for someone else, so I didn’t have to face myself. But what ya gonna do? You HAVE to create a new life and a new identity - something other than mother, or you shrivel up and possibly die. That’s how it felt anyway.
Autism played its role. I don’t like endings and I don’t like change, so to suddenly, after 19 years, be expected to live a completely different life, without the person you love the most, is nothing short of devastating. The emotional pain was unbearable, and it added another layer of freeze I had to thaw.
So the last seven years have been about defrosting—discovering who I am underneath the ice. What do I want? How do I want to live? Where do I want to live? Now I am free to do so in any way I choose.
On Saturday, returning from a family wedding with an Aunt I hadn’t seen for years, she said: But it’s a very scary thing to do, moving to the other side of the world on your own, how do you think you managed to find the courage?
And it made me pause. Because yes, it was terrifying, and it was also difficult. Extreme weather events, sickness, isolation, and just a general lack of routine accumulated to create a challenging overall experience, and this isn’t even considering that I’m an ND woman who does have support needs.
As I said to my Aunt, I don’t understand where I found the courage from. All I can think of is that my dad instilled in me a very specific and powerful message, which I absorbed from being a little girl.
You go out into the world, Hannah, and you do whatever you want. You be whoever you want. Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
He said it to me repeatedly throughout my childhood and teens, even when I didn’t know what it meant. And so I do have this belief, within me, even among the I’m not good enough, that I do have power and autonomy over my destiny and that I can do and be whoever I choose.
It’s these higher beliefs, instilled by my father, I believe, that enabled me to drag myself out of alcohol and drug addiction and away from toxic relationships, where others are unable.
Besides acknowledging what a special father I have, my Aunt said: I’m so proud of you. Seriously, I’m so proud of you. It’s a massive achievement. Well done, Hannah.
I’m not sure it’s socially acceptable for a woman to feel so good about herself and so maybe I should hide it, but in that moment, driving back at dusk among country roads as the light faded and the midges came out in swarms, I took a breath to acknowledge my courage and my growth. Pride hummed within me.
I was also bathed in gratitude; my Aunt’s generosity and acknowledgement, the union of family, two women in a car talking deeply, my adventures abroad, and my beloved father.
It’s fascinating to watch my daughter, now 26, instilled with the same message (you can do and be anything), move about in the world with the same push and pull of power and lack I have always experienced.
I’m no longer prepared to strive to be a good girl, and I revel in role modelling this to her. I see her eyes thrill with appreciation when I speak my mind, when others expect I will tow a line I either can’t see or don’t believe in. I suspect she thinks I’m eccentric, but I know she admires and respects my choices and my way of being in the world.
I’m proud of this, and I’m proud to be a role model for female autonomy. Three things I’m proud of now, will I spontaneously combust?
I was absolutely, completely, and totally unmasked in Vietnam. If I reflect on some of the things I said to people I’d just met, just being honest, just being me, they would be viewed as absolutely outrageous by UK polite society standards.
I didn’t care how I was perceived and/or there was nobody to judge me anyway. There are barely any rules about anything, and you can generally do whatever you like. For example, drive down the freeway on the wrong side of the road (not joking), start a bonfire in the street, take your own food to a restaurant—nobody will bat an eyelid. Not that I wanted to do any of these things, but understanding that almost anything is available created a unique sense of freedom. There are just no expectations and nothing to conform to. It was such a relief, I can hardly comprehend it.
When I returned home this time, I got to experience a new feeling, which took me a few days to work through before I knew what it was. When I visited my dad’s house and chatted in his doorway as he fixed one of his five bicycles (one for every occasion) in his kitchen, I realised: This place is no longer my home.
I’m no longer emotionally chained to the tiny town I’ve lived in most of my life. I can finally be free.
Again, at the wedding, my Uncle asked: So have you found your spot yet, Hannah?
To which I replied: No, not yet, but I’m getting closer.
After the summer, I’ll return to Asia armed with more knowledge, both geographical and personal, and this new sense of freedom, and I’ll try again.
Right now, I do have the confidence and energy to try again. And after decades of giving myself a hard time, I also finally have the confidence not to do things.
Such as not writing the Substack essay I intended. Instead, I just sit down and know that whatever I write, or even if I don’t write, or whatever I do or don’t do, is good enough.
I hope you have a week filled with freedom ❤️
Love Hannah xoxo
My dad died in 2019. He was young, only 65, so I figured I’d have a lot more time with him (as a practicing Buddhist, I can see the glaring flaw in that thought). We were really close and while I miss him on the big days - holidays, his birthday, his and my mom’s wedding anniversary - I miss him the most in random, unexpected moments. One of those moments was reading this essay, which isn’t a bad thing. I love being reminded of him. I love the opportunity to more clearly see the void, created by his absence, that hasn’t healed the last six years. So thank you for that gift on this random Tuesday morning.
This one made me tear up. Blessings, Hannah! <3