I’ve just got off from a 3 hour zoom call with my Cheshunt Coffee Group and I’m buzzing. I’ve known this group of women for 16 years after we were put into a group together by the NCT after we all had babies around the same time. When the babies were little we would go round to each other’s houses or meet for coffee or lunch and as they got bigger it became trips to the park, swimming lessons, birthday parties and everything else that goes along with having kids. Living in Hertfordshire when the kids were born I had no family nearby and these ladies filled that hole and became like family to me. As some of us went on to have second or third kids there could be up to 12 kids running round each other’s houses while we sat chatting trying to reassure one another that we were good enough Mums and keeping one another sane. Some of my happiest memories have these women and their kids at their centre and when we decided to move to Nottingham I was devastated to leave them behind.
When we first moved we went back to Cheshunt every couple of months but as time went on and my health began to decline the visits became less frequent. But the bond we have means it doesn’t matter if we saw each other last week or last year we just pick up exactly where we left off. And tonights catch up was long overdue. We covered all kinds of topics from lockdown and the challenges of homeschooling, heavy stuff like divorce, bereavement and stolen pets to whose ‘big birthday’ was next, the kids all turning 16 this year and choosing what to do after year 11 and everything in between. And my goodness I needed it.
Because my memory is so bad I had set an alarm to remind me 5 minutes before the zoom call was due to start. When it went off I very nearly text them to say I wasn’t feeling great and could we do it another night. But I didn’t and I’m so glad about that. It may not be real, physical interaction but it’s the most contact I’ve had with human beings for weeks and I had forgotten how much I miss seeing other people and talking about everything and nothing. I think sometimes I find it easier to shut myself away and close down emotionally to help me cope with my illness. That way I don’t get reminders of what I’m missing out on or can no longer do and it doesn’t hurt me mentally. But at the moment everyone is living a life that’s similar to mine; I’ve just had more practice at being locked down than most of you!
As we were chatting some of the kids would wander into the videos and not having seen them for over a year it’s amazing to see how they’ve all grown. It makes me sound old and feel old just saying that but I’ve seen these kids go from newborns to now being young adults and it barely seems like 5 minutes let alone 16 years. We would really like to be able to get together at some point in the summer to celebrate all their birthdays but some of the group are not as optimistic as me that the world will be ready for that.
Tonight was so much fun we’ve decided to schedule another zoom for 2 weeks time where hopefully our missing Mum will be able to join us cause we really missed her tonight. I think it’s quite unusual that you find a group of women that all get along with no bitchiness, no competitiveness, no falseness but we honestly all do. Sure, some of us are closer to certain people within the group but that’s ok cause it’s never at the detriment of someone else and nobody is ever left out or excluded. Over the years these women have been by my side during some of my biggest moments- my two kids being born, my wedding, my illness and operations and I can say, hand on heart, that without them I wouldn’t be here today. They have picked me up on my darkest days and given me the strength to keep on fighting. They have also been there on some of my happiest days and looking back on photos of these times always makes me smile.
So thank you ladies; I didn’t realise quite how much I missed you all. Tonight was just the pick me up I was in need of and if lockdown has any positives it’s that it gave us a reason to zoom and catch up when in real life we would probably all have been busy doing something else tonight. See you in a fortnight!
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