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Nope, nothing. Now she was wide awake.
‘Bugger, bugger, bugger!’ She rolled over to the other side. The notepad on her bedside table caught her eye in themoonlight, and she went over in her mind what she’d written on it:
To Do List:
1. Put on a load of washing before taking kids to school.
2. Make sure Jacob brings his show-and-tell item to pre-school.
3. Buy more eczema cream for Toby on the way back from school drop-off.
4. Hang out the washed clothes.
5. Sort out the overflowing kitchen drawers.
6. Open Facebook and let my friends know I still exist.
7. Try not to get distracted by memes, mindless quizzes, and predictive text games on Facebook.
8. Figure out how to clean Jacob’s drawing of ‘Mummy Flying in Space’ off the bedroom wall. Or, find a convenient piece of furniture to hide it.
9. Write the shopping list.
10. Go to the supermarket before getting the kids from school, and don’t forget the toilet paper this time.
11. Remember to –
At that point, Cara’s list writing had been interrupted by one of the children. She’d returned to her list a few minutes later and forgot what she was supposed to remember. Just thinking about the list exhausted her.
But there was another list that excited her.
She reached over and withdrew her makeshift bookmark from a novel she’d been trying to read for the last eight months, and replaced it with a Band-Aid that was for some reason on the bedside table. With the light from the moon and the street lamp outside filtering through the venetian blinds, she could just make out the words she’d written on her passion card.
Cara’s Top Five Passions:
When my life is ideal, I am...
1. Enjoying a loving, fun relationship with my husband and children.
2. Expressing my talents and receiving positive recognition for my artwork.
3. Experiencing fantastic health and great sleep throughout my life.
4. Living in a beautiful, well organised home with a purpose-built art studio.
5. Having regular weekends away with friends.
Cara held the card to her heart as she rolled onto her back, and a tiny tear slid down the outside of her cheek. She didn’t know if that tear held happiness and hope for a future that could be hers, or sadness for the fact that she wasn’t quite there yet. She wiped the tear away before it reached her ear, and re-read the card.
Yes. This was the life she wanted. Nothing extravagant, just a happy family life, nice home, good health, time with friends, and to make use of her artistic talents. Wanting to spend child-free weekends away with friends had seemed extravagant at first, but when she’d agreed to Liz taking her through The Passion Test as a volunteer in the Hot Seat, she’d realised that having time away without her family didn’t make her a bad mother. In fact, she knew she’d be a better mother for it. Liz had encouraged her not to rationalise the prioritisation of her passions, but to go with whatfeltbest.
Right now though, as Cara yawned for probably the forty-seventh time that day, she felt like moving her passion for good sleep up to number one, bumping Pete and the kids further down the list. Surely they’d understand?
An hour or so passed and she finally drifted off to sleep, waking another three times for rescue duty throughout the night. At a quarter to six, a warm body plonked next to her and a light kiss tickled her cheek.
‘Hi, honey,’ Cara mumbled.
