Trying...to write while things are going wrong

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed the actor, writer and comedian Miranda Hart. In her hotel room in London. We started on the chairs and ended up on the bed - a la Big Breakfast of the Channel 4 nineties fame. It was a memorable and meaningful exchange - not because I found myself in her (newly) marital bed - although that will live long in the memory. Nor because of her exquisitely timed tea burp - not long before I tell her how she has changed my social life for the better. (She texts an end-time to her friends before they come over - game changer for the sleep deprived.)

No I shall remember it for the warmth and generosity of spirit and how vulnerable she allowed herself to be when talking about the pursuit of answers about her health; a quest that has dogged her for most of her life and came to a head when she collapsed and became bed bound at the peak of her career.

Lyme disease, and the post viral complications that have left her broken to varying degrees since and living with chronic fatigue syndrome. Finally she got there and found some answers. It’s all in her new book and our full chat is here. 

But it was something I read about her decision to share all after our interview had aired that I wanted to focus on here, today.

There has been some conversation about whether Miranda talking about what has been happening to her only now she feels a lot better and after her recent marriage, adds to the unhelpful idea that people can only talk about tough stuff, health or otherwise, once they are better, healed or somehow on the other side.

And that that, in itself, is unhealthy. Because what about those suffering now? 

How do we remember those struggling at the moment? And what if you cannot be fixed. Ever?

What I would say on Miranda specifically is that she doesn’t claim to be fully better - more that she is in a healthier place and has acquired more tools to help her cope and measure out her energy with care and experience. She also would like to help those in the position she had been in.

But broadening it out further: when to talk about something difficult - has long been a subject that fascinates me.

I grappled with this exact issue when I set up this very newsletter.

It occurred to me that the first time we tried to have a baby that I only spoke about IVF, our infertility and my endometriosis diagnosis - once our boy was here.

But that pregnancy happened after two and half years of trying naturally and a single round of IVF. By stark contrast our daughter took six rounds to conceive and by round 5, I was broken and so annoyed and upset by our miscarriage - and how life had become - I decided to write about how this new underworld of needles and false hope felt. Live. As it was happening. Long before things were ‘right’. The story poured out of me in one sitting, was given a bloody decent edit and duly went onto the front page of The Times. And spawned this newsletter. 

I wrote it to avoid what happened last time - and without the knowledge that our quest for a second child would work out. It was raw and still has people coming up to me in the street, nearly three years on.

Writing contemporaneously as things are going wrong is not easy. Nor is it advisable for everyone in all situations. Or even possible. But sometimes it’s vital; a lifeline. As it was for me. Enough was enough. I needed it all out. And that’s what I wanted to say here. 

I have recently done it again. I have written live before the detail of something specific, tough, loving and unique escapes me: maternity leave. 

A period of time when women put their lives in the deep freeze, abandon most of what they know, and become experts in delayed gratification - while learning a new job and identity.

And yet, despite having completed a previous tour of duty - I had somehow forgotten it; this parallel universe that goes on all around us. We seem programmed to. 

I also wrote of my conviction that it should be called maternity service and of how service and duty is useful way of framing such an experience. 

My writing happened when my husband went away for a business course over a period of five days and during a heatwave. Three bottles of wine were bought, alongside decent anti-chafe shorts and some excellent snacks. Fifteen thousand words poured out of me - as I snatched time like a hungry thief between naps, school pick ups and wine drinking. 

It’s now a (shortish) book, called Maternity Service: A Love Letter to Mothers From the Front Line of Maternity Leave. I locked it down before it escaped me. And I hope it is of service for those lucky enough to have a child and a meaningful maternity leave. (It’s not out until next March but for more info - it would be lovely of you to have a look here at our pre-order page).

As a predominantly live broadcaster, I know how moments can just pass. Things can’t always be captured again. Articulation in the moment of how life feels and what people think about something is one of my main goals and I hope, skills.

And yet, I will be honest with you. There is something right now I can’t share live. My health. It is bad. My endometriosis and adenomyosis is kicking my ass. Hard. I have a new treatment pathway and a new doctor - and it will take around two months or so to know if the proposed route will work for me. I am struggling.

Then, maybe then, I might be able to share more about what has been the hardest year of my life. But who knows? I might never. 

Writing this right now; looking after our children; going to work and trying to be person, is taking more than it should.

And that’s the point the people who criticise Miranda Hart for coming out only when things seem better, miss. Sometimes you just aren’t well enough to share when things are bad. You are simply too ill. End of. And that is more than OK. It’s life.