Why I Write Whiney Posts.

The other day, I had a proper miserable day.

That particular mood tantrum was probably caused by the piece in Mother & Baby Magazine that featured a little bit about me. I am pleased to be in the UK's number 1 parenting magazine, and incredibly grateful that Eleanor Tucker both thought of me for the piece, and also persuaded them to print my blog address in the intro to the piece.

But seeing it there in black and white made me pretty miserable. I began to feel quite sorry for myself, and fed up with my current state of affairs. My inner toddler was on the floor, kicking and screaming: "but why can't I have a knight in shining armour on a white horse? Why do I have to take my own bins out?"

I sat down, and wrote a fairly whine, miserable, self-pitying post all about how depressing it was to be a single mother, especially at Christmas. Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, I think I'll go and eat worms. Only I used a fair few more words than that.

I scheduled the post for the next morning, and went to bed... And woke up feeling fantastic. The Cold of Doom that had been stopping me sleeping for over a week had lifted; S and I had both slept well, and I'd had that joyous experience of waking just before her, so that I heard her wake up next to me. I was in a great mood, and downstairs cooking breakfast, singing to my beautiful girl before the post had even gone live.

I don't often write about how I feel right now. If you take a look back over the blog, you'll see that the posts about the most difficult times in my life have been written with the benefit of a lot of hindsight. It took me three years to write about my breakdown. I think that's because I know so many of my readers personally, and am in contact with even more of you on Facebook or Twitter. I can't stand the thought of opening myself up and saying "this is how it is, right now" and then risking seeing someone in the street, and having them know. Or - worse - seeing someone in the street and having them bring it up in conversation! Better to say "this is how I felt a couple of weeks ago, but I'm ok now!"

Also, as I discovered this week, writing it down tends to resolve most of my problems. I write a post about whatever's pissing me off, go to bed, and feel a million times better in the morning. For me, writing about a problem helps me to sort through it in my head, to put things into perspective, and to simply remove the negativity from my brain by translating it onto the screen.

So basically, the point of this post is: by the time you get to read anything I've written, it's all past tense. Unless you see me on social media moaning about how miserable/stressed/hungry I am, always assume it is very much over and done with.