It was supposed to be a magical two-week holiday in Cape Town. You know, the kind that you dream about for months beforehand – sitting on sandy beaches while watching sun-bronzed children frolic in the waves; hours spent reading and playing games; delicious lazy meals without a single thought of calories and low-carb diets. You know, the dream holiday that looks good on Facebook.
And to be fair, it WAS a magical holiday. I just didn’t expect it to be life-changing. Or that I would come face to face with a part of myself that I actually didn’t like.
It all started on the second or third morning of our two-week Christmas holiday. Stephen had let me sleep late and had kept the children busy in the lounge of our holiday rental. The sky was that shade of brilliant blue that just seemed to scream “Get outside”, we had absolutely NO plans for the day other than a late breakfast and a few hours on the beach, and everyone was just happy to be together. Stephen had brought me a cup of coffee in bed, the children were jumping on the bed demanding to know what our plans were for the day, and I… well, I was annoyed. I was trying to balance my coffee cup in one hand while scrolling through Facebook with the other – and no-one was letting me CONCENTRATE. The more they bounced on the bed and chatted in excitement about the day ahead, the more angry I felt – I mean, couldn’t they see I was BUSY trying to catch up on what the rest of the world was doing while I had been sleeping? It had been a full ten hours since I had last checked Facebook. Something important could have happened that I didn’t yet know about.
And then I saw it. An expression on Stephen’s face that I don’t see very often. Slightly confused and not very happy. Kayla, (10) was looking close to tears, and Bella (3) was trying desperately to lean over my phone to get me to look at her. To notice her. To pay attention to her.