Welcome to the pages of Minutes & Moments,
I’m Ness. Mother to three, living in the margins of life, studying, business life and doing family amongst it all. These are honest thoughts in the minutes of my day to share. Hope it resonates as you read. xx
It’s the first week of August, so let me ask—how are you *really* doing? The first half of the year often feels like a fresh spark—full of motivation and big plans. We say “yes” to the things that matter, “no” to the things that don’t, and try to find balance with everything in between. But as the month winds down, reality shakes it all up again.
Excuse me while we cycle back to some “January speak”.
Resolutions come into our world every January. Let’s settle on some linguistics here Root words, prefixes and derived meanings are the key to unpack what it is I want to understand. 1
If you haven’t googled resolution is a while - let me give you the lowdown. It is the noun form of the verb resolve. Noun - person, place, thing. Verb - doing word (in case English studies really are a distant memory).
Resolve is derived from the Latin resolvere, "to loosen, undo, settle."
It makes me think of laces being undone, or a stubborn knot in a bag, the kind you gnaw at with your teeth just to get it loose.
As words do when they move through centuries, this meaning has evolved. Today, we wear 'resolution' like armour — bracing ourselves to become more, do more, prove more. On the placard of "New Year Resolution” it seems fit that the meaning we think it refers to is to tighten up an area - finances, fitness, family, friendships or teeter on rigid assessments of our own frivolous pursuits and frugal mindsets in order to feel satisfied we have zipped up the self-control into a neat little bundle that takes care of our mental, spiritual, emotional and physical wellbeing.
Friends, if this is why you avoid New Year Resolutions - me too. We are drinking the same tea here.
The concept of goals fade, and by August.. well it makes sense that the end of the year is closer to than the beginning. Let’s just wait out the next five months — like a queue in the grocery store — and let our turn roll around again to pay our goal-dues come January 2026
But cautiously and ever so gently, rather than throwing it all to the curb and rebelling like a teen in the face of rules and regulations, perhaps a part whispers - old is new.
Old is new.
Parenting has been on my report card since 2018 and when I think I’m *actually* getting it, the triple tandem tantrum humbly reminds me in fact that box remains very unchecked .
The unchecked box.
“Willow”, the plunket2 nurse says as she opens the door.
We file into the room, Willow hanging on my side. Florie - although this has nothing to do with her, is first in the door and at the table.
We are at Willow’s before school check - because in a few short months, she will turn 5 and start school. This check is very routine.
Does Willow know her numbers & letters.
Can she write her name.
Label shapes, draw a person.
The external indicators that Willow is heading in the right direction.
All of her checkboxes are easy ones to cross. Is this jealousy that I sense rising up at her neat checkboxes while my own mental list remains unchecked?
How will she go at drop offs?
Will she find friends easily?
Will she suck her thumb at school ?
How will I manage her meltdowns afterschool
We leave the appointment, Florie and Willow holding their shape pictures, because the youngest is always as ready as the oldest.
All the official boxes are checked, but my own are very much not.
What does she need from me?
This role of motherhood continually remains unchecked as I constantly sit in the seat of “not yet there”.
And if you’re a friend IRL or here, you’ll know from my writing that I love to “get there”. Give me lists to a goal and that’s my lane.
But as new milestones creep in — school starts, sleepovers, longer goodbyes — I find myself more willing to leave this motherhood box unchecked.
If I could tick the box, I wouldn’t cycle back to continual readjustment, learning, perspective, humility and grace.
The “resolve” as a mother, working out the juggle of home, work, study, time for self, fun, holidays, and just simply providing food has become less about checked boxes and more about undoing some of the expectations that try and fight their way back in.
Having moved house 12 days ago, I have resolved two things about the process of unboxing.
The urgent boxes get unpacked in the first two weeks — the essentials.
The rest? They wait. Sometimes for months.
I found a kitchen box a week after we moved - had I missed the contents? Not really. Turns out, if something doesn’t make itself known in that first week, it probably wasn’t urgent.
Some goals are urgent, easy to quantify and unpack. Work and university fit these packages. They form deadlines and are anchored to a much bigger picture. Our brain needs certain end-goal-resolutions. 3
There are waves of these boxes being unpacked, the goals that fit neatly into “tick - done”, alongside the second wave of boxes — never fully unpacked, the resolutions that shift from “done” to “ always there”.
What has shifted in my resolutions for motherhood is grace to notice what’s urgent, and what can wait.
What can remain loose around the edges of “What do they need from me"?” because it is ever changing,
The ache of completion, that sits alongside the grace of becoming.
As soon as the wheels of the day start to unravel, the tears at 3;00pm the demands and the mess I want to find a list to get it all done. But what matters mostly at 3:00 and anytime is to leave the contents, and just ask “What do they need from me”. Not
What can I do?
What needs doing?
What is next in line?
Little people always need something — that part doesn’t change. But the complication arises when I feel like I have nothing left to give. When demands feel endless and all I want is to be left alone.
Yet the more I sit with this question, the less it feels like an added tax on my time.
Instead, it becomes permission — for me.
Because I’m not asking, What more can I give?
I’m asking, What is within my capacity right now that they need?
Sometimes it’s just a hug.
A pause.
A drink.
A story.
I often realise they’re not asking for much — even when it sounds like they’re demanding everything.
It’s just that I’ve been so busy doing — ticking boxes, completing tasks — that I haven’t really been with them.
And they know it.
And so I return — not to the checklist, but to the moment. To the little things that don’t get written down, but matter more than anything.
Remaining in this unpacked mode of motherhood can feel off-centre. I still long to arrive at that place of getting it. But this ongoing untying — this loosening — feels like a more honest fit. One that leaves space to grow, to understand, and to move forward while constantly in the mess of not getting it right.
Hello Dear Reader, whether this is your first time or a subsequent visit , welcome to these pages of Minutes & Moments. This is the week edition - Hello August
With so much content available to read, thank you for choosing to spend time with these words. My hope is that these stories spark meaningful thoughts—as if we are chatting over a beverage together.
Ness x
Can I squeeze in some teaching here - if you have a child, even an adolescent who struggles with with spelling or reading incorporate this approach. Show them how words are made up - syllables, prefixes, suffixes, endings, beginnings. This unlocks a lot of meaning for them.
Nurses here in New Zealand that check in on wellbeing and development all the way through early childhood.
I’ve said it before, but goal -orientated thinking exists in our frontal lobe and it is part of who we are.