Split personality

I’m starting to feel like I have a split personality – I don’t mean to joke about a serious disorder, merely that I’m feeling like I am three different people. When I’m with the kids, I’m ‘Mummy’ – rushing around, pandering to the needs of my three energetic boys – I rarely sit down and feel like I’m constantly feeding/preparing food for at least one of them.

When I’m at work, I’m Ceris – Fundraising Manager for Macmillan – and I take my role very seriously! I’m a professional and want to do a fantastic job and somehow this means that I don’t act like a mum, if that makes any sense. I am calm and I sit still and drink hot coffee. I try to be neat and tidy and professionally dressed, avoiding grubby hands as best I can before I leave the house and hiding dribble/bogey stains that I can’t avoid!

Then there is Ceris with my friends, who is neither of the above. Someone who tries to be young, free and carefree like ‘the old days’ and fails terribly. The great things is, my best friends are trying to do the same things so I’m in good company!

It’s quite exhausting trying to fulfil all these roles and remembering who I’m supposed to be each day, especially when you have to fulfil three roles in a day – I need a ten minute change over between each one to get into character… But playing these roles (I say playing, it’s very serious), you get to learn more about yourself and develop your character. Being a mum, you are taught about love, patience, sacrifice, heartbreak, real, true hard-work, resilience, strength. Being a working mum, in a job I love, you learn to appreciate working in a way you never could before, learn how work is an escape, an excuse to use your brain again and learn how it feels to be valued in a different way from ‘mum value’. And only having time for your real, true friends (however little or often I see/speak to you!) means you appreciate them so much more, you value the time you have together and you tell them how much they mean to you. You become more giving in your relationship because you have found true value in your friendship.

Being all these different Ceris’ may be exhausting – this last year has truly worn me out – but it’s when life asks so much of you, that you can get so much back.