He amazes me

a story of my kid being tenacious af

👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 Hi! Long story short: I’m a bestselling novelist who started investigating how to build a life in August 2024, because despite my supposed dream career I wasn’t ~vibing~ in the way I wanted to be. I felt like something was missing? Unpicking what it takes to build a life (like, a good one) led me to taking a job in a high school, just to see. Turns out books light up my brain but pastoral work with teenagers feeds my soul, so now I might be in the middle of a career change. I don’t know. I’m currently studying children and young people’s mental health, whilst also promoting my latest rom-com Love at First Sight. Apparently I contain multitudes. Don’t we all?

I’m proud to say that Grazia magazine once declared that I am a ‘general all-round-speaker of what-is-in-our-heads’, Stylist said my honesty and voice are unique, I was Marie Claire’s #BreakFree from Fear Ambassador many moons ago, and I’m a ‘Happiness Expert’ according to The Independent. I’m almost 40, a solo parent by choice, I truly believe on going all in on the adventure of your own life. Knowing all this means you’re all caught up. WELCOME!!

We were in the car when my kid said, there’s this sports event school are putting a team together for. You’re going to get an email about it. Can you put my name forward?

I thought, urgh, I don’t know how I’m going to wrangle that. My plan had been to show him a list of all the end-of-school-year activities he’s going to be doing (sports day! drums concert! piano concert! school fete! and on, and on!) and ask him to pick the one that was most important for me to be there for. Because I have a boss now! I need permission to not be at work! So signing him up would be adding another thing on that list of Things I Mostly Will Not Be Able To Attend (but hopefully, grandma and grandad will).

Anyway, before I could manage his expectations in any meaningful way he added: I know that some of it involves a lot of running, and I’m not the best at running. But I’d like to give it a try.

I’m! Not! The! Best! But! I’d! Like! To! Give! It! A! Try!

And look, it’s true: he is not a fast runner. Physically he developed differently to other children, because most other children were not neglected in their early life. He was strapped into a pushchair for two years, basically. The family fairies don’t say you have to find a new family to live with if you’re looked after well, the family fairies say you have to go into foster care and find a new family through adoption because every child deserves to be looked after properly, and you were not. So when he said he knew he wasn’t fast and wanted to crack on anyway, what was I to say except yes, I will put your name forward, you brave boy.