Sometimes the grind of life can get you down. That’s where I am as we reach spring 2014. The birds are singing again, the walks between childcare and home become a lovely opportunity to be together. Each day a little brighter than the last. But I’m tired. Always tired. I struggle to find my role again in the shifting landscape at work, and the role of work in the shifting landscape of my life. I have a dull ache in a tooth. Later. I’ll deal with it later.

Three years. It’s taken me three years to deal with that tooth. I put it off until I couldn’t anymore. It was stupid to leave it, but I have been lucky, again.

With the pain in my head came nights of insomnia, a racing heart and anxiety. It was about more than the tooth. It was about the money, the podcast, the moths, the feeling that life was beating me.

We moved back home last month to a moth infestation. I don’t know what’s wrong with me that I can’t just rise above it, sort it out. It won’t go away by itself! Just like the tooth.

Then, as it is since you came along, in the middle of my little crisis, an oasis. You turn four!

During the celebrations, I take my dad aside. Enough of living in denial.

It’s a year since I started making this podcast. 20 episodes. I haven’t wanted to let anyone down so I haven’t allowed myself to take a real break, and making this podcast, all alone, is hard. It’s hard work, and it’s emotionally hard.

It’s time to rest, take stock, get life under control, live a little, make some money, try to be a better than usual mother, daughter, sister, friend. I’ll read, watch and listen to other people’s stories, and slowly make my way back to ours. With all my heart, passion, energy and focus, the way I started a year ago. Sometimes the grind of life can get you down, and sometimes that means adjusting course.

This production is made by me, Sophie Harper, in partnership with Wondery. I’m supported by generous listeners and the Australian Cultural Fund.

Thanks to my colleagues, my family, my friends and my daughter for your support, in life and with this podcast.

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Protect Me and Global Culture Collision by Candlegravity; Cylinder Six by Chris Zabriskie.

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