Christmas wreaths, gales and the beach, always the beach

So, dear reader, we did it. We moved to Broadstairs. 

It inched up on us: the convenience to London; the price of property; the ability to walk or bike places rather than take a car; but perhaps most of all, we just love the sea. 

I still wonder if it is the right decision. And yet, when I walk on the cliffs - which is every day, as I drop the kids at nursery, or collect them - I feel grounded in the joy of the wild, intoxicating beauty of rock pools, chalky cliffs and the glittering, glowing, drama of the sea. We have a connection here. It feels like home. And yes, I miss my parents, and the reprieve they offer from the gruelling, beautiful boredom of small children, but they visit frequently, and even in the Cotswolds, we would not have been close enough for regular, weekly contact. 

It's a Saturday evening. This is the last one before we leave for Christmas. Our little man is close to four and we're contemplating primary schools. Number two is 18-months and now runs and is learning to jump and climb and talk. He is also always coughing, wheezing and teething - his cheeks red and inflamed and "Mama" constantly on his lips. 

Yet, here we are. 

After 18-months in Cardiff, leaning into the comfort and safety of my parents, we are once again just us - a small family of four. We are complete. The four of us. I'm relieved that I will never be pregnant again, never breastfeed again, never feel the urge of labour again. As the shortest day of the year beckons I feel grateful for Christmas and a holiday. We moved here in September. It's a trial - a rental house two minutes from a lovely sandy beach. And we have fallen in love with this particular beach and this particular area. Or maybe we're just sick of moving and long to put down roots, plant trees and stop the endless questioning of where we should be. 

Our little man still usually wakes once a night, often around 2 or 3am to crawl into our bed. Number two wakes at 5.30 - slightly later than number one used to at the same age, but somehow still as debilitating, because we're already exhausted from number one. 

Lack of sleep is debilitating. It is the hardest thing about children: It is the thing I dream about; The thing I long for. In my Wyld Women multimedia club this month (a club I cannot go to, because it lands on a Tuesday, when Da Berg has to be in London) we're reading a book about women's erotic fantasties. I find myself feeling so removed from the fantasy of the erotic. Instead, I long for a night of uninterrupted sleep. I fantasise about how my brain might finally be able to focus, how my heart might expand, how my body might unfurl, how good it would feel to sleep properly. Or perhaps, I muse, what would it feel like to wake naturally, not because a little voice is shouting "Mummy?" Since we moved here we have had one blissful night where we all slept straight through til 5.30am without interruption. It felt like some kind of miracle. But, three months in, that has not been repeated. 

Amongst the sleeplessness, my office has restructured, leaving me feeling insecure, worthless and bereft. I find myself constantly asking, "What is my place?" "What is my value?" "Why did they let so many of my colleagues go?" I feel like a hollowed out version of my professional self. I don't recognise who this person is. She seems so unlike me and yet, I don't have the energy to find another professional self. I drag myself through my working days. 

Some days as I change another pooy nappy, or wipe up another meal that one of my son's has thrown on the floor, or bite my tongue to stop myself answering back at a toddler's unreasnoble deamnds, I feel nostalgia so strong it makes me wince. I see myself in Rwanda, Myanmar, New York, Berkeley, Tunis, Kenya, South Africa. I sense the competence I felt, my sense of certainty about my professional self, the sense that it made a difference if I showed up. Me becoming a parent has happened in parallel with localisation, and with that, has been a shift in international development. I feel ashamed of being white, ashamed of being British. I feel like there isn't a place for someone like me. My boss recently told me that the organisation sees me and people like me as "liabilities." And that, from now on, British people won't be eligable for jobs, or promotions. It makes me feel less than unwanted. It makes me feel like a burden. I want decisions and power to rest in the hands of people with lived experiences of the issues that we try to tackle, but I still hope there might be a place for me to work on global poverty and injustice alongside and in support of a wider movement of change. 

I miss my pre-children identity, but more than that, I miss feeling like I worked with people who wanted me there. 

Yet, I don't feel able to leave this job. I feel like Da Berg and I are holding it together by a thread and until we have a real home and the kids are settled and we're covering our costs and able to manage the pick ups and drop offs and bedtimes, all of my energy is devoted to keeping our family going. I had hoped that maybe at this age I might feel like I was crawling out of the trenches and catching glimpses of the horizon, but I still feel up to my eyes in mud. 

And, of course, the down side of moving here, is that Da Berg has to spend a night a week in London, and that means I must be home two days a week to keep two little boys fed, watered and safe. In between I squeeze in work and wonder at how I am functioning with such little sleep. How can I apply for a full time job when my flexibility is so limited? When my brain is only half present? When I need an office to give me the flexibility of finishing at 4.45pm and only being in London once a month?

The season mirrors my mood. Or perhaps I am following the season. It is dark at 4'clock - barely light before 8am. My walks by the sea keep me sane, alongside my dear Da Berg. And, of course, the moments when the boys floor me with their sweetness, their playfulness, their delight at the world. 

These last months Da Berg and I have had Fridays to ourselves. The kids have both been at nursery (ridiculusly, insanely expensive though it is). It has meant we have been able to visit houses. And, here, as the year ends, we are trying to decide whether to put in an offer on one. Da Berg is unsure. I long to get off the fence, to put down roots, to make space in my head for finding my professional self, as opposed to wondering where we're going to live. I want to close the chapter of "Searching for home". 

May Spring come soon. May we hop off this fence.