Today is International Women’s Day. It is also the day that children in the UK are able to go back into school after, roughly, a year in lockdown home-schooling. I don’t think it’s a wild stretch to say that women have felt the brunt of life in lockdown more than men. In fact, we’ve held it all together – the home, the balance of work, the nursing of mental health, and the home-schooling. In my family it could not have been otherwise. My husband, a key worker, is gone from 7am to 9pm. This has been an extraordinarily difficult year for us all. There are many meaningful things that I could say about how I’ve changed and what I’ve learnt, but the point of this blog is usefulness, and the most useful skill I embraced is that of mediocrity.
Over the last year, I’ve made a point of being mediocre at pursuits that will survive without me so I could attend pursuits that couldn’t survive without my conception, namely, my work. Obviously, the mediocrity included things like cooking, cleaning, taxes, etc., but it also extended to the non-vital aspects of parenting, marriage, and friendship. Now, the people that love me know that, unless it’s vital, I’m not always available. Sometimes, I just need to close the door, so that when I emerge, I’m present. I know it sounds like an obvious thing to say, yet I wrote my first two books being constantly available, and still felt the guilt of not being available enough, which is exhausting to the point of depletion.
My relationships have improved tenfold since I’ve embraced mediocrity because being present is so much more valuable to a relationship than being available. Other perks? My teenagers have learned how to cook tagine, sushi, (hello, we live in Brighton) fish pie, and a mean spag bol (oh phew, they’re normal (ish)). Practical self-reliance, sincere gratitude, flexibility, and the skill to live with a bit of mess have arisen from the ashes of my on-tap availability. Aren’t these qualities key to a happy adulthood? Plus, draining acquaintances and colleagues have un-dramatically vanished because I’m no longer engaged in their self-absorption. Don’t wait as long as I did to adopt selective negligence. Mediocrity is a gift! Give it to yourself and be present to the people and the work that nourishes you.
“Done is better than perfect,” Sheryl Sandberg.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Be well and show your gratitude to an amazing woman today.
Gret x
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Gret Heffernan is the Editor-in-Chief of www.backlashpress.com and author of The Sculptor and Dark Ansley, Book One and Book Two
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