Tracey Richardson - Tracey Richardson: Going the Distance

T HE DARKNESS WAS back. It had seeped in like an eerie fog and was threatening to envelop me entirely. The tears welled up as I again realised that, despite another year of effort, I was still at the place I called the bottom.

We were on holiday I was supposed to be happy. But instead, I had had enough. Six kids and two adults in one bach in early spring weather was too much. This wasnt rest and relaxation this was just parenting in a different place.

No, actually, the kids were fine. The problem was me. I felt bleak, Id lost all my spark I was a frumpy blob. Size 23, completely worn out and totally overwhelmed. I was also scared; I had been like this before and I knew where I had ended up.

Kevin was being fantastically supportive, but I still felt he could leave me at any time. He would reassure me that he wouldnt do that, but I felt that this was just man-speak. Id heard it all from males before, and got stung for believing it. I was turning on myself, speaking negatively, telling myself I couldnt cope, that there was no hope, that things were only going to get worse. That was easy to believe. In fact, given Cameron and Makenas illness, it was inevitable.

We were all meant to be going to Kevins sisters thirtieth birthday, but the last thing I felt like doing was going to a party and pretending everything was okay. Kevin was disappointed he would have to explain to his family why I wasnt with him. But he recognised that I was struggling, so he hauled off all six children in the car. I watched them go. Finally, I was alone.

I walked back into the house to be confronted by emptiness not only the stillness of an empty house but also the yawning emptiness that was inside me.

What was I going to do? Not just tonight, but tomorrow and the next day and the week, month, year after that?

I ran a hot bath. Ever since I was young being in water soothed me, and I hoped it might do so this time, too. It wouldnt get rid of the ache but it was a small treat that might calm me. As the water poured out of the taps, I thought about the book I had been reading, Chronic Sorrow. The title referred to a grief that is never over because the reason for the pain is always in front of you. My pain and grieving were for my two older children who would almost certainly die before me. I was trying as hard as I could to do all the things that the doctors told me I needed to do for them but nothing, absolutely nothing, would change the end result. They had been born with a terminal condition, and that was that. The familiar pain of hopelessness rose up. Helplessness and powerlessness. Nothing I could do would make a difference.

I got into the bath, the hot water soaking my limbs. I could just slide under the water and go to sleep and not wake up. I would never have to feel anything ever again. But as soon as I thought this, an image of my children without a mother flashed through my head. I instinctively clutched my throat at the horror. I had a six-month-old baby, a toddler and two older children whose lives would be decimated if that happened.

What were my other options? I considered getting into my car and driving away, leaving them all behind me forever. No one would ever know where Id gone; I could start all over again. I could run away like I had when I was 16. But, again, that thought was fleeting because it made no sense the reason I was feeling so awful was because I loved my kids, and because I loved them, how could I abandon them?

My third choice was to continue soldiering on as I had been doing for years, to try to keep pace in the whirlpool of hospitals and medicines that was spinning me faster and faster. But I knew from experience I was putting myself in mortal danger the longer I did that. Life as I knew it never giving myself time off as a full-time mum to four children was unsustainable. Id already woken up once in the psychiatric unit because I had crashed and burned and I never, ever wanted to do that again. I knew I was close, even now, to that point of no return.

But there was a fourth choice.

I had to change the way I lived my life. That was easier said than done; even thinking about the concept was confusing. I had no idea how to go about it everything that affected me was out of my control. But my other options were only mirages, unattractive ones at that. I was in a maze, and everywhere I turned I was bumping into walls and reaching dead ends. There had to be an exit somewhere, if only I could find it. I needed a road out.

I got out of the bath, dried my tears and grabbed the notebook by my bedside. I sat at the kitchen table and pondered. I didnt know where to start. I reflected back to my corporate life, a time when I had been trained to think about goals and the process of achieving them. So I imagined what I wanted my life to be like. I shut my eyes and fantasised about the way I would like my life to be, the emotions and feelings I wanted to experience. As fast as they came into my head, I wrote them down they poured out of me.

I need to change the way I feel about my life, I wrote. I may not be able to change the things that happen to me but maybe I can change how they affect me. I want to feel alive, loved, needed; that I have a purpose; passionate, successful; that I have a reason for being not doing; appreciated, achieving; that I count; that I make a difference; attractive slimmer and fitter; content, focused, lighter not so weighed down, not depressed; insightful and wise, not guilty; proactive not reactive; vivacious, in control, happy.

Phew! Nobody could ever say that I was not ambitious.

I wanted to make a difference, somehow, for my children. I had no idea what, but I was going to do something. I added to my list that I wanted my kids to be happy and for people to understand their illness and its effects. I wanted to stop being a hedgehog curled up, prickles out and become a bird, aware of the beautiful scenery I was flying over.

When the intensity of the moment passed, I looked at my list and felt drained but enlightened. Id defined what I had to work towards. In big letters in the middle of the page, I penned the word how?? and circled it several times in heavy ink. That was not a question I could answer tonight.