Is this the perfect life?

AS I drive my Citroën into the driveway, I am thrilled to see our sunflower yellow front door, the green privet hedges along our long garden, the picket fence along the front lawn and the solid Edwardian stonework of our century-old semi-detached home. Our children, 8 and 4, are jabbering away in the back, telling me about their day, what they did at school, who they played with and what they have eaten for dinner. We are so fortunate : the four-year gap between our children really works. There is no competition and they truly adore each other. Our daughter’s dearest wish, from the day she could speak until the day her brother was born, was for us to give her a sibling. To this day, if you ask her what is the greatest gift she has ever received, she will always say it was her little brother. I don’t think we’ve ever seen her smile a bigger smile than the moment she met him on day one in the hospital: he was perfect. And she’s been his friend, playmate and second mother ever since…

I am so blessed.

A loving husband by my side, a beautiful home, a daughter and a son, loyal friends in the neighbourhood and family close by.

Ten years since we got together, we both had jobs in good schools, with leadership positions and options to move up the ladder. We were still in the Cotswolds, having sold our two-bed Victorian terrace near the station for the more spacious four-bed property nearer the children’s fabulous school. We even had an incredible childminder, who cooked yummy, often home-grown meals for the kids. And, what’s more, my Mum had been living around the corner for six years – she loved to take care of the children two days a week and saw them most days. They were able to have such a close bond with her and that, for me, was priceless.

We were living the perfect life…weren’t we?

Or were we?

Something felt not quite right. It was easy to blame so many things for that deep down unsettling sense of disquiet and it seemed impossible to change any of the key components that made up our life.

Mostly we blamed work. I was working 10-hour days, dropping the children at 7.45 and collecting them at 17.45. Steve had two hours a day commuting to his school. The worst part was not being able to leave work at work; the evenings were not our own. I would have an hour with the children whilst getting some dinner, then as soon as the children were in bed, we would begin the marking, or planning, or report writing. I remember, with some degree of shame, the nights when one of the children would come downstairs, unable to sleep or after a bad dream and instead of comfort, a cuddle, or kindness from a parent, they were greeted with frustration and annoyance that they were interrupting our work time.

We were sitting in our beautifully decorated lounge, with its period fireplace, high ceilings and picture rails. But were we able to enjoy it? We regularly had discussions about our finances: how would we continue to pay for both mortgages, two cars, childcare etc etc?

Our home was situated in the cute countryside of the Cotswolds, yet how often did we find the time to don our walking boots and get out into the hills? Not often enough.

The community we lived in is among the 20% poorest in the UK and we had already been burgled twice.

And exercise. Exercise? There were very few opportunities for that.

I could see us slowly ageing, losing our youth, our health and for what? What is ‘career’ for? My childminder and my Mum were spending more time with my children than I was. When my son was little, I would not know from day to day who would see his first steps or hear his first words…what was this all for? Yes, I still loved to be in the classroom, but at that time teaching had become something else: it was all so political and complicated. I just wanted to teach teenagers to speak French!

That climate in education was making us grouchy with each other and that in turn put our relationship under stress.

And you know? The niggle underlying all of this, I had never envisaged my life like this. I didn’t plan to teach. To marry an Englishman. To live in England. The Cotswolds for goodness sake! I’m a free spirit. I was going to roam, to live in exotic places, to travel the world, speaking many languages. And NEVER have a mortgage, yet here I was with two!

I knew that from the outside we led the perfect life. Other people would dream of the life we had. But the unhappiness was creeping in, slowly but surely, spreading like an insidious mould.

We couldn’t carry on like this for much longer…