Confessions of a Single Mother: Instagram, Acting and Unicorn Moments

I have been posting a lot on Instagram recently.
Good for you, I hear you remark.
Well no, not odd photos with a bunch of two-word witty captions – although I do love a minimal-but-still-highly-amusing-because-the-photo-does-all-the-work caption.
No, see I have actually been pouring my heart out on Instagram of late.
I’ve been celebrating my highs, finding humour in my lows, and generally using the app as a bit of a show-and-tell-tool. –So basically just like everyone else on there. I’ve embraced the culture and it’s become a true online-journal; although I like to think it’s a little more punchy than my actual journal.
It’s strangely rewarding, summarising your day in less than 2200 characters (including hash-tags, of which I milk all the way to #30).

Because I’ve shared so much on Instagram that I’ve failed to bring over to the blog itself, I decided that instead of forcing myself to stay up till midnight tonight and do any actual thought/word processing, I would just share a few short words I wrote a few days ago – ON INSTAGRAM – about an afternoon I spent doing an R&D at the National Theatre, and, well, the feelings that arose.

Last Sunday evening, composed weary-eyed and bloated on the train home from Waterloo:
Sooo I don’t want to brag.
But I’m going to brag.
Because I am feeling very fulfilled and happy today.
Today was a very good day.
Today I did an R&D at the National Theatre.
I stood on the Olivier Theatre stage, with a bunch of actors and had the good thoughts.
Probably much like most of the room, I had the good thoughts.
I had the “one day” thoughts. I also had the good conversations. The “you should DEFINITELY apply for this…” “you’d be GREAT at that…” “AM I DOING ENOUGH YES I AM” conversations.
Oh the feelings.
Good feelings.
Moments of excitement.
Moments of hope.
Moments of “Oh this is real, this is real life – or at least an exciting snapshot of it- and I get to spend time with some really fucking awesome people, creating something really great…”
This is…yeh this is not bad is it really.
So when I find myself feeling shit, complaining about X,Y,Z / single-parent life in general… I’m going to remember the Olivier Theatre.
The unicorn moment.
I’m going to remember how lucky I am.
I’m going to recall my thoughts and the many conversations of today.
I’m going to bring to mind, this feeling.
And of course I’m going to seek out more Unicorn Moments.
Just sort of..build them into my day to day Mummy Life.
Because no, today was not easy, this morning was all a bit of a cafuzzle with Mum driving me to the station as I rushed to catch a train I wasn’t even late for whilst feeling bad I hadn’t really seen Maia properly all weekend.
I am slowly accepting I am always going to feel torn down the middle.