How To Survive…Missing An Awards Ceremony

Having children, especially small children, can often mean missing functions and events. This has happened to me these last few years more times that I can count. I’ve missed hen parties, weddings, you name it I’ve probably missed it, but that’s just a part of motherhood.

So, when the opportunity to attend an awards ceremony presented itself and I knew I couldn’t go, thanks to a little one with an affinity for boob-on-draught and limited childcare options, I already had plenty of coping mechanisms in my arsenal to deal with the inevitable case of ‘Fear Of Missing Out’, most commonly referred to as FOMO.

Any one of the following methods can help ease the sting of missing out:

1.      Denial: simply pretend it’s not happening. Ignore all social media posts about said event. Do not discuss it with anyone. As far as you’re concerned there is nothing on that day and no one else will be doing anything more exciting than staying at home – just like you.

2.      Pretend you can go: don’t pretend to other people, that would just be weird, but it’s quite OK to pretend to yourself. Ponder every possible scenario that might make it possible; book a hotel nearby to run back and forth for boobing. Bring your baby – it’ll probably be loud and no one will notice. Convince yourself there is a possibility, it’ll make the run up to the event much easier.

3.      Go to the event – from your couch: immerse yourself in the event in every way possible. Utilise social media, use every appropriate hashtag, follow everyone you know who’s at the event, see and know so much about the event from the screen of your phone/laptop/tablet that it’s as if you are there – nothing missing!

4.      Acceptance: any of the previous techniques will work but I think it’s safe to say they may not be the healthiest of approaches to anything in life. Ultimately, the most appropriate, but possibly most difficult, coping mechanism is acceptance. Simply accept you can’t go and move on. Don’t avoid anything to do with the event but also don’t obsess and feel like you need to know absolutely everything that happened either. Carry on as normal.

 The key point to remember with any of these methods is that time is constantly moving and life is constantly changing.

There will come a time when an event, like an awards ceremony, will come up (I hope!) and I’ll simply go. I look forward to that time but I’m also acutely aware that it will probably be upon me faster than I ever thought possible so, for right now, I’m happy to watch from the side-lines cuddling my little ones.

In fact, I can already envision myself, sometime in the future, at some event wishing I was at home, snuggled up with my girls.

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