The First Day of Maternity Leave

I've had a secret almost throughout the year - we're having a baby! The due date is October 18th 2019 so in exactly five weeks today. In other words, today marks 35 weeks of pregnancy.

Unlike I had always imagined, I haven't actually wanted to talk about the pregnancy online at all up until now. To be honest, I wouldn't have wanted to talk about it with anyone in real life, either. The main reason for this is that I've spent the vast majority of this pregnancy panicking and worrying about all the things that could go wrong. Will everything go okay for sure? Will we really get to have this baby? Will both me and the baby survive the labour alive? This child is such a big dream that my fear of things going wrong is massive.

However, avoiding talking about the pregnancy has led to me having felt quite dishonest for several months now, so now that the due date is so close, I might as well be brave and spill the beans. After all, we're getting prepared for a whole new phase in our lives! Basically everything will change!

With the maternity leave starting today, I've also decided to start blogging actively both here and on my Finnish blog to document it all, so welcome aboard to follow the life of a Finnish-Hungarian rainbow family and two first-time mums!

For anyone that doesn't know us yet, we are a two-mum rainbow family - Emilia, 37, a secondary school English and Swedish subject teacher and my wife Julcsi (pronounced as Yul-chee), 33, a class teacher of an English class (and an English and Italian subject teacher). We also have a 12-year-old tomcat Nessu, who's very talkative and very fluffy. Our home is in Hämeenlinna, Finland but I'm from Tampere and Julcsi from Gyula, Hungary. We speak English with each other but both of us will speak our mother tongue to the baby. Like I already mentioned, this baby is our first child.

So yes, today is the first day of my maternity leave. I survived my six weeks back at work after the summer holiday surprisingly well and didn't need to go on sick leave or anything even if I've had back pain and essentially walked like a duck for many months now. It's all thanks to my lovely language teacher colleagues as well as team teaching as this is what's enabled me to take it easy in our learning space, and I've got to sit as much as possible during all the lessons. On the summer break, I was quite worried about how safe or unsafe it would be for me to go back to work for these six weeks because I work in a school with all open learning spaces and desks and chairs with wheels so someone bumping into me was a real possibility. Thankfully everything went well and the only one who got knocked down was the Queen of England standing on the teacher's desk, waving at the students.

It was so strange to go on maternity leave after my last day of work yesterday! I somehow wasn't prepared for these feelings of nostalgia at all, but they really struck me when my dear colleagues gave us a baby present and some wise words about me worrying too much about everything. I had never realised just how important these people are to me and just how much I've taken it for granted that I have got to spend my days specifically with them for almost 10 years now. I will miss them SO MUCH!

I was also so surprised to receive baby presents from four girls in my class - baby clothes, mittens and socks they'd knitted themselves, chocolate...I can't take it! Just how thoughtful and lovely are these teens?! Not to mention the number of hugs and beautiful words I received from so many students...I really appreciate it! How can anyone think secondary school students are horrible?! I mean obviously there are all kinds of students but most of them are so adorable I don't have the words to describe them.

28 weeks and 1 day pregnant in July

Today I've felt a little bit puzzled as to what I'm supposed to do. I'm always happy to go on holiday, but this time the school year has only just begun so it feels strange that I can suddenly just stay at home again with nowhere to go. I kicked the day off by writing a massive To Do list and I've already managed to tick off dishes, laundry, taking the bins out, sorting out the study (we've just moved - more about that in a separate post), recycling cardboard and some old clothes and bed linen, writing to my Swedish friend, as well as writing this blog post in both Finnish and English. On the list I still have stuff like mowing the overgrown lawn, signing slams, reading, a couple of IG posts...Luckily it's only 2:45 pm!

So yeah, this is where it begins! Wish me luck! And by the way, if you're on IG, come and follow me over on helloemiliax!

About Self-Esteem

Long time no speak! As my summer holiday is coming to an end, I'm disappointed to note that I haven't managed to write anything much even if I've had all these weeks off. After all, my goal was to reply to all of my letters, update all of my blogs (in case you didn't know, I also run a travel blog called Emilia on the Road and a couples blog together with my wife called Life According to Em & J), and also get started on a YA book that I've been planning forever. Somehow, though, this summer has just flown by even if I've mostly only been at home with nowhere to go. Big things have happened, too, but I'll save them for one or more blog posts in the future.

Anyway, today I'd like to talk a little bit more about self-esteem. As I've mentioned before, mine is not of the best variety, which is the result of many things including life experiences with family, a previous relationship and school as well as my own personality type. As a result, it's safe to say that I only ever feel confident when I'm completely alone (mostly meaning home alone - if I actually go and do something on my own, I feel anxiety) or if I have someone that is very close to me with me. I'm also highly sensitive as well as an empath, which leads to me aiming to please everyone around me and making sure everyone else is feeling comfortable in their own skin at the expense of my own well-being.

I'm affected by what everyone says and thinks, and so instead of saying what I think, I hide who I am and suffer in silence. It goes without saying that this doesn't feel good. In fact, this is the very reason why I don't like seeing people and prefer being in touch with everyone online. Definitely not on the phone as it leads to the same vicious cycle of pleasing the person I'm talking to as I'm sensing their moods and opinions and functioning according to what I feel is best for them.

I'm also afraid of things before they even happen and exceptionally skillful at conjuring up all kinds of horror scenarios that will happen to me if I talk about my private things. My being afraid of things beforehand also goes for meeting people, especially new people, as the fear leads to anxiety and the anxiety leads to crazy stress and me wanting to cancel the whole thing. The crazy thing here is that I come across as quite sociable because I've developed survival techniques to make it through these stressful situations. Therefore, the person you'll see when you meet me is far, far away from the very stressed out and anxious person that I am inside, even in that moment.

A massive part of the problem is also that I come from a very different world than most people. First of all, I'm an LGBTQ+ individual while the world that I have to function in on a daily basis is pretty much straight. Even if some straight people can be considered allies and I've been blessed with several friends who see sexual minorities as completely natural, most straight people only see the world from their own perspective and through their straight culture experiences. While I recognise the chance that this gives me to educate people on LGBTQ+ things, no one's every-day life should be only about that. I want to just exist as myself and have people understand me without me constantly needing to explain everything to whoever it is that I'm talking to.

People in general have a tendency to misunderstand me and it is one of the reasons that has led to my extremely poor self-esteem. Because there's more of them, they often seem to think that I am the idiot in the situation because I happen to be the only one with different experiences from what they know. This is unbearable to me because I'm quite an emotionally intelligent person and it's degrading that people see me as the dummy in many situations. I have quite big problems with always being "the only one" in many situations, too. There's power in unity, yet for example I'm the only LGBTQ+ individual at my work place so my power is non-existent and my voice is easily silenced, and has constantly been this year, too.

And by the way, being emotionally intelligent seems to be a taboo topic as well as especially where I live, you're supposed to be just average because it seems to be the safest option for everyone. If you voice it that you're intelligent in any way, people will think you're an elitist even if these two things have nothing to do with each other. From my perspective, it's tiring to constantly have to lower myself to someone else's level in conversations and to always have to skip the conversations that I would like to have just because the person I'm talking to has no clue where I'm coming from. I'm not trying to say that I'm the only intelligent person in the village, but the sad truth is that I don't get to see the people I'm able to have intelligent conversations with often enough. Not getting the kind of mental stimulation from socialising that I would need is frustrating to say the least, once again because then just because the people I'm talking to don't understand me, I'm thought of as weird or stupid, which in turn has a direct effect on my self-esteem.

Also, because I don't have any self confidence, I avoid doing the very things that I love the most, including singing, talking about music,  and nowadays also writing. It feels like doing these things equals baring my soul completely, and it makes me too vulnerable. I do the same with my private things, and to me, everything is private - my thoughts, my opinions, my feelings, what's going on with me, big life decisions and events. You name it, I'll hide it from you. And yes, my body is private, too, so you're not allowed to touch me when talking to me, for example. I do this because no one ever understands me or even tries to understand me, and I just can't have my heart and soul misunderstood or laughed at.

I also avoid trying to learn the skills that I'd like to have, including digital skills such as using cameras and doing photo and video editing, building a pretty website, having a YouTube channel or having my own company, because I just don't know how I could learn on my own (I need a teacher, YouTube tutorials are not enough) and I feel like I don't deserve all the expensive gadgets and software you'd need to have to be able to do these things.  In general I feel quite worthless and feel like it's stupid to even dream of having a YouTube channel or a blog that anyone actually reads. Somehow all the 20-somethings of the world seem to possess these gadgets and skills as well as the confidence to match them - what's in their water?!

There's a TV show here called Vain elämää where several well-known musicians get together for a week. Each one of them gets their own day when the other musicians perform their (as in the person whose day it is) songs for them and everyone celebrates the one whose day it is and talks about their life events and stories behind the songs. Whenever I watch it, I can identify with the artists as they seem to be people like me with very sensitive personalities, periods of depression, the need to create touching art...And those who watch this TV show here love it! They love the artists in the show, they love crying with them and experiencing artistic personalities through a TV show. However, it seems that it's only okay to be a person like that if you're famous. If you're just a regular somebody like me, you're considered weird, stupid or an outsider because you don't conform to normative values, thoughts or experiences. It's sad!

I'm not really happy or pleased with anything I do or try to produce. I'm not a visual person, but the world around me is, especially nowadays with Instagram and YouTube, and it gets to me that my pictures aren't what I'd want them to be. Some people might disagree, but once again it's about how I feel, and I don't feel like I have any skills and then end up posting things I don't like myself.

Talking about esthetics, I also genuinely think that I'm super ugly. I don't like seeing myself in a picture because I think it's shocking to realise time and time again that that is actually my face and that people can see it every day. I think I'm one of the ugliest people you'll ever see, and it doesn't help that the world is all about posting your face here and there, posing, and gaining followers through your appearances or visual skills. So yes, Instagram does get to me. And with the ugliness, it doesn't help if people say "you're not ugly" or "your pictures are good". It doesn't really matter what other people think with these things if it's not what I think myself. Isn't it interesting how with anything negative, it's so easy to be affected by what others say while with anything positive, it's simply impossible? These feelings come partly from my childhood and partly from my own personality. No one has ever told me I'm pretty or encouraged me in anything appearance-related that I've tried in the past. Instead, the focus has been on "you're ugly, why did you do that?" and "you should exercise" and "why are you wearing those ugly clothes" and "your braces are ugly" and "you don't need those ugly glasses". These are things I've had to listen to as a child and unfortunately they've remained edged upon my memory all too vividly. People really are mean and they don't understand the harm their words can cause in a sensitive person.

As for work, I'm liked as a teacher, but the thing is that's not who I really am, it' a role. I'm extremely good at hiding who I really am. Then I go home and feel absolutely miserable. Teaching is such an exhausting job for a person like me. I don't enjoy going to work, and teachers are a particularly normative bunch that I don't identify at all with, especially class teachers (thankfully I'm a subject teacher!). In addition, my work environment has changed into one with no personal privacy, which makes me suffer so, so, so much. My self-esteem is not good enough to be team teaching groups of 46 on a daily basis, and it shouldn't have to be. We're different, and all kinds of people should be allowed to exist in this world as themselves. Work takes up a massive chunk of my day every day when I'm not on holiday and it's not good for my mental well-being that it's an environment that makes me feel horrible about myself.

So yeah, this post doesn't really have a conclusion as I don't know what to do with these things. I think what I should do, though, is keep pushing to be a little bit braver every day, and to make a To Do list for myself for every day so as not to avoid doing the things that I'd like to be doing. At the moment, I'm really suffering with my self-esteem issues and feel quite helpless as to how to break out of this vicious cycle of not doing anything and just watching other people do the things I'd like to achieve in my life as well. Therefore, as scary as it is, I will try to start being active with this blog and hopefully I'll manage to develop a routine with it.

If you got all the way down here, thanks for listening! Talk to you again soon!

My Goals for 2019

Hello, and Happy New Year 2019!

This year, I'm determined to turn this blog into an active platform for sharing my thoughts, feelings and stories. I tend to plan and imagine things in my head so actively that I don't even realise I've actually done nothing to make my dreams come true in real life. This goes for blogging, writing letters, reading, Instagram, exercising - you name it, I've planned it and not done anything about it. This will change this year, which is why my first post of the year is all about my goals for 2019!

Family

My number one goal is to start a family. We've been trying for quite a while now and will continue to do so until we get pregnant and have a baby. It's a draining process both mentally and financially, and while I'm not really the type to feel comfortable about blogging or vlogging the whole TTC journey, I promise to report about everything in retrospect once we finally get that long awaited plus.

Travel

I haven't really been into travelling for a while now. I feel like I've seen all the places I want to see and now it's time to settle down and focus on other things. However, I'd love to do smaller weekend trips within Finland and/or Hungary, and I've been wanting to go back to England for a while now so it'd be great to do that at some point as well. I'm especially into visiting Cornwall and the Cotswolds as well as Bath, Oxford and basically any place I haven't been to before. I definitely don't want to go anywhere far away, and I want to fly as little as possible as my fear of flying is getting worse and worse by the year.

Books

I've set myself the goal of reading 50 books this year. It might be an unrealistic goal but I want to at least try! So far, I've finished two books this year, which is quite exceptional for me, so there is hope!

Work

I continue to struggle with finding out what it is I want to do for a living. I love my students, but in the long run, I don't think teaching is really my thing. People always tell me that I'm a good and inspiring teacher, which obviously feels great, but when you don't feel good about doing something yourself, chances are that thing is not for you. But what would I want to do then? That's a damn good question. I think I would just like to write write write, and do something with social media, or maybe even with travel. The dream is to work together with Julcsi and have our own company that organises trainings on LGBTQ+ inclusivity within the fields of education and travel. I want to get our LGBTQ+ in Schools website up and running! I also want to write my own LGBTQ+ YA novel, and become a published author in general. So many dreams and goals that I simply don't know how to realise on my own. Send help!


Blogs

I want to get into a routine of updating all of my blogs regularly. This includes this blog, my travel blog, as well as our couples blog. I definitely want to focus on lifestyle blogging, though, unless I can come up with a way of making travel blogging more inspiring for myself. By the end of 2019, I want to be able to say that I am an active blogger with readers and connections all over the world.

Penpalling

My dear hobby that I've been neglecting for years! I miss my friends so much and want to be back in touch with everyone! In 2019, I'll get back to writing and will make sure to find the time for it. Friendships need to be cherished, and a lot of mine happen to be of the snail mail kind.

Personal

In addition to all of the above, I have some personal goals. First of all, I want to develop better time management skills. I tend to waste my time doing nothing productive, just lying on the sofa, liking posts on Instagram, and watching YouTube videos. Now don't get me wrong, I LOVE YouTube, and actually see it as a way of getting to know new people, especially other lesbians, but some of the time I spend watching videos could definitely be spent doing something else as well. Secondly, I want to do things according to my own values and interests. This means not eating chicken and red meat, eating more veggies, not wasting my time on idiots, listening to a lot of music, singing more, watching more meaningful films, taking all the time I need for myself instead of meeting people just to please them when what I would actually need is alone time. Finally, I want to be active in exposing discrimination of any kind and in making LGBTQ+ people and themes more visible, at schools and in general.


So yeah, those are some of my main goals for the year. What are yours? Let me know in the comments below!

August Plans

Hello hello! It's finally time to start writing this blog properly. I've had it for a couple of months by this point, but have so far mainly focused on setting everything up and updating Instagram a little bit. Having this blog is extremely important to me, and starting it right now is crucial.

Over the past couple of years, I feel like I've lost myself a little bit, mainly because of work stress, but also because I'm the type of person who stops doing their own things when they're in a relationship and really invests in doing stuff together as a couple instead. As a result, I feel a bit disconnected from myself and my personal interests at the moment, and I haven't really felt excited about or inspired by anything for a while. This blog is my attempt to restore myself by talking about the things that I love, such as music, reading, penpalling, TV and films, cats and food. However, I also want to document my life with my wife in our multicultural marriage as well as include other people I care about in my posts, too. I'm also desperately trying to go for a healthier lifestyle and would really like to write about that as well.

I've now been back to work for three days after a nine-week summer holiday and this really is the moment to start this blog - if I don't do it now, before you know it, I'll be buried under a crazy workload, having lost all motivation to do anything other than sleep and watch Instagram stories. So, without further ado, here are my...

AUGUST PLANS

Madonna 60
I can't believe that Madonna is turning 60 next week! I've had an amazing 26 years as a fan, and I'm planning to turn August into a Madonna Month with her music playing non-stop! I've already started by blasting Vogue in our new learning space at work yesterday...

Join a Gym
This is one part of my plan to live a healthier life. For me to go to the gym, it needs to be somewhere very close to our home or I'll never go. It also needs to be cheap. Therefore, we're planning to join Fitness24Seven as soon as possible. It's right around the corner from us, only has gym equipment, and you can go whenever you want!

Low Carb Diet
Also, I've decided to try and be on a low carb diet. I don't want to leave carbs completely (I want to have a slice of rye bread every now and then, and fruit as well) but I want to try and bring my sugar levels down as I have a feeling they're soaring sky high...

KotHam Adventure
In two weeks, we'll take part in something called KotHam Adventure, organised by Visit Kotka Hamina. We got selected out of quite a few applicants, apparently, and we'll get to try river yoga! Should be a fun weekend!

Launch our LGBTQ+ in Schools Website
Julcsi and I have been working on our website for quite a while now, and it's time to make it available for teachers, students and parents across the globe. There will still be a lot of blood, sweat and tears before we can launch the website, but it will SO be worth it!

"Work Is Just Work"
This will be my motto from now on. Work will NOT take over, and I'm willing to do absolutely anything to make sure my life's more about my free time than being stressed out because of work.

So there you have it, my first blog post! Let me know what you think in the comments below!