Discoveries Underground

One ordinary day last spring, I was making my way across London. I couldn’t tell you where I was going or why, but I do remember it was stifling on the Underground and I just wanted get back to the surface as quickly as I could. As I stared off into space like so many of the other passengers, I noticed an advertisement for a working mothers’ blog that had just started. I have probably read thousands of posters throughout London in the eight years I have been living here so why this one stuck with me, I will never know. But it did. 
 
Days later I found myself surfing the web at work and suddenly remembered the mummy blog advert. I typed in the web address and read a few entries. Some were funny, others more serious. The comments varied too – from mothers who were content with their new lives and the offspring they had produced to those who felt bitter that they had been relegated from positions of corporate power to changing nappies. I wasn’t exactly sure where I fit in on this scale but I knew that I wasn't really enjoying life as a working mother.

One afternoon I was up to my usual lunchtime surfing and was startled by the reaction to a posting on the mummy blog. Instead of the usual dozen or so comments, this one had well over 50 and the number was growing. Clearly, the content had touched a nerve. I had to read on.

The description was brief but grabbing. It linked to a blog written by a mother and an adulteress. The two words clashed in my mind. How could any women have time for an affair when she had children to manage? And besides, what man would be interested in her? The comments were scathing and the attacks were fierce. At first, I agreed with the other mothers who seethed with disgust but then I began to read Anna Pavlov's blog and realised something that surprised me. I expected her to be cold and brazen, but she wasn’t. She was human. She was full of self-doubt and frustration. She knew her actions could destroy her family and yet she couldn’t stop.

Day after day, I would faithfully check her blog. Initially, I didn’t dare venture off of Anna’s page. I kept waiting for a call or an email from our technical support group reminding me of the company policy on web surfing. But the call never came and my curiosity got the better of me. Gradually I found my way to other blogs – each with a different story to tell. I was fascinated by them. I found people just like me with respectable jobs and devoted families but somehow they were different. They had experienced life in ways that I could only dream about. They had lived through the deepest of heartaches and enjoyed the most indulgent pleasures.

And so I made my way through the secret underground network of stories waiting to be read. It never occurred to me that my new fascination was going to lead me in a whole new direction, that my interest would go far beyond my lunchtime reading and change everything I knew about myself.

Cate xxx