EXPECT 0%, ACCEPT 100% (Part 2)
This tale follows part 1. If you missed that article you can access it here:
Mr & Mrs Hedgehog Squirrel
After marriage life was good. The hedgehog and squirrel genuinely loved one another. They both bought their respective ‘colours’ to the daily grind. If the squirrel was a colour/s she could be classified as a rainbow, the hedgehog bringing the comforting muted tones of browns, greys, black and white to the party.
They were a complete palette.
The hedgehog had a fine coat of fur needles, which the squirrel loved. She would gaze lovingly at each glossy needle, marvelling at the different tones of chocolate brown marvelled with snowy white at the tips.
The hedgehog liked her soft bushy tail, and would enjoy wrapping it around himself. She talked a lot, but he found her interesting.
She bought a certain creativity and belief to his life, whilst he bought dependability (when he wasn’t hibernating) and steadiness to hers.
One could say the union was a win/win
Daily grind
The squirrel worked hard to find new sources of berries and nuts. She had ideas on where she could find new food banks, and wouldn’t be scared to try different routes. She would ask the hedgehog to join her on her adventures, then make all the preparations, and organise whatever they needed for the trips.
The hedgehog would sometimes join her for a distance and surprisingly he would have a lot of fun too. Although these constant adventures would tire him somewhat. He was a creature of certainty and preferred to stay around his locale. Nevertheless he indulged his squirrel wife where he could, and other times he just let her do her thing.
The squirrel became good at catching bugs for her hedgehog hub too (despite hating the smell of them). It would bring her great joy to bring the critters to her love. The hedgehog was initially surprised at the gesture, but soon grew accustomed to having his food found and prepared for him (an expectation was born….more on that later).
Life was pretty easy for the hedgehog with a productive and efficient wife around the place.
Most of the time, the squirrel would go off on her own, and return with the fruits of her labour and new wise tales. She would share abundantly with the hedgehog, whilst the hedgehog laboured on home turf.
Whilst she was off figuring out new sources of food, the hedgehog stuck to what he knew best, he had perfected the art of timing. He knew where to find bugs, and what time they would come out. He had nailed weather forecasting and timed his foraging around the rains and nocturnal silence.
Both the squirrel and hedgehogs methods worked, and both contributed to their joint asset pools.
They joined their food piles of insects and bugs, mixed with seeds and nuts to create one big happy joint pile of resources. Initially the hedgehog had more bugs than the squirrels had nuts, but they piled it all together anyway, not counting who had bought what to the pile.
They would both then work hard to add to the pile, working to their own strengths, taking on different tasks, working to different paces, and working different hours. Slowly their asset pool increased.
They would take whatever they needed from the pile to nourish themselves, never questioning one another on the amounts contributed in and taken out. They trusted one another.
When tired, the hedgehog would curl into a ball and settle its needles down to sleep, and the squirrel would wrap her bushy tail around them both. And both would fall asleep in a bliss of warm security.
As winter drew closer, the hedgehog’s need for sleep took priority as both prepared for his hibernation. Life would pause and resume some months later. The squirrel mentally prepared herself for these lonesome months.
The squirrel asked the hedgehog how long he would be gone for, to which he nonchalantly replied:
“However long I need”
Somehow this irked the squirrel, who started to wonder why the hedgehog couldn’t commit to leaving for shorter monthly cycles. After all she had seen other hedgehogs out and about months earlier than her hedgie hub would awaken (a comparison was born……….more on that later).
ALONE
As the squirrel spent these months alone, she grew more and more withdrawn and lonely. She missed her hedgie hubby. Her heart ached for his company. But she waited for him nonetheless, since she had accepted her fate when she had married him. But she began to notice his absence and started to dwell on the ‘hole’ in their leafy marital bed (a ‘belief’ started to develop……..more on that later).
She filled the vacant months with being creative, studying maps to find new trees to explore, and sharing her food with more needy forest friends who were struggling in the winter.
She would meet her she-squirrel buddies for catch ups and keep herself busy filling her lonely days. Time would pass quickly in the day, but at night she would miss her spiky companion, and count down the days till spring.
On the hedgehog’s part, he looked forward to his hibernation. He had spent a busy summer working hard and keeping up with his squirrel wife’s energy levels. He didn’t want to disappoint her, so he did his best to keep up and accompany her where he could, but he would tire easily. And longed for the peace and solitude of hibernation.
He ‘could’ hibernate for a few short months, but he found himself stretching out his hibernation for longer periods as years went past. He knew his wife was resourceful and she could feed herself and had lots of company etc, So he placed his own needs first (an assumption was born…..more on that later).
After all a rested hedgie is a much happier and healthier hedgie.
YEARS LATER
The squirrel and hedgehog ebbed and flowed through the years. They were ambitious and set up a little stall selling honey-roasted fruits and nuts, and maple syrup coated bugs. Their stall was a hit with the forest community. They worked hard to add more produce to their stall, and eventually hired some other bugs to help cater to the demand.
The squirrel was a jack of all trades, at first she would be ‘front of house’, using her natural social talents to build relationships with the customers. However she found she was pulled to other mundane yet critical back-of-stall tasks, like sourcing produce, paying the honey and maple syrup suppliers, expanding their stall and ensuring their buggy team were paid on time etc.
Although she preferred to be socialising and networking, she didn’t mind doing the tasks that needed to be done back end. Someone had to do it, so she was happy to muck in.
The hedgehog found he had a new talent for front of house sales. He found he was a hit amongst the hedgehog community, who trusted him and would always come by his stall instead of others. He stuck to his specialism and established a consistent trade with his spiky friends.
The squirrel managed the rest of the buggy team members, ensuring they had the skills and motivation to grow the stall business.
For many years their food stall was thriving. The hedgehog was happy to let his wife run around front and back, and manage their home, grocery shopping, bill paying, trips away etc.
He sat back and allowed his wife to make the critical decisions as he knew she would ‘get things done’. This allowed him to relax to some degree as he knew everything would work like clockwork with his wife at the helm (an expectation was born……more on that later).
Burnout
However the squirrel was getting burned out with wearing so many hats. Indeed it seemed to her that she was all over the place and she missed her hedgie hubbie. They were not spending quality time together. All their energy was thrown into running their stall.
The squirrel suggested to the hedgehog that they should take long weekend breaks every so often to recharge and spend quality time together. The hedgehog agreed. So the squirrel would go off and make all the plans and preparations, and the hedgehog would simply turn up on his holidays with everything arranged and thought out for him (An expectation was born ……more on that later).
Squirehog babies
One day the squirrel announced that she was having a baby. She was delighted as nothing meant more to her than family. The hedgehog seemed happy too. The squirrel spent her pregnancy researching and reading and practicing healthy habits etc. She organised a space in their home and decorated it in anticipation of their squirehog baby.
During the pregnancy, she began to feel lonely. She noticed her hedgie hub was not as excited as she was about the baby. She also noticed that he was not helping her with her myriad of chores, despite her trying to keep the pace she was accustomed with.
She became fatigued and uncomfortable and couldn’t help notice other husbands nurturing their pregnant wives (a comparison was born……more on that later).
Squirrel yearned for her hedgie hub to comfort her, show affection, and reassure her during the pregnancy. He wouldn’t even accompany her to all the visits to Dr Dear’s clinic, instead choosing to mind the stall.
This would hurt the squirrel, who would turn up for her appointments on her own and watch other forest couples coo over their baby scans (expectation was born…..more on that later).
Parents
The hedgehog and squirrel welcomed their first squirehog baby to their nest. The squirrel was in love, and did her best to feed her squirehog on demand, through the night for well over a year.
During this time, she continued to work on the stall business, but had decided to operate from the nest so she could attend to her baby. And so began the juggle struggle known to all working mothers.
The hedgehog continued to run front of house operations from the stall itself.
The hedgehog and the squirrel saw less of one another as each tended to their respective tasks from different locations. The squirrel tried to ignore the fact that she felt lonely and fatigued. The hedgehog felt he was providing for his family, and knew his wife could handle the baby just fine so didn’t want to interfere much (an assumption was made…..more on that later).
Squirehog no 2
After some time, Mr and Mrs Hedgehog Squirrel welcomed another squirehog to their nest. Once again, the squirrel took charge with her young, splicing her manic day with tasks related to running the business and caring for her young.
The hedgehog stayed at the stall.
The squirrel began feeling more and more isolated and burned out, since her hedgehog husband did not notice she was struggling, and would pile more work onto her plate, unknowingly.
The squirrel raised her concerns over the years, asking for a fairer distribution of the chores at work and at home. The hedgehog was a good listener and agreed to help more. He would make a grand gesture in the immediate aftermath of such discussions, but would eventually slip to his usual hedgie ways.
Hedgehog hobbies
The hedgie was good at sports. He had a love for a particular game called ‘acornby’. He had managed to continue with his acorn sporting hobby. It was his release from the weight of running the stall. The squirrel would go and watch him play his acornby, and bring the babies along.
Whilst she was happy her hub had a hobby, she began to yearn for a hobby herself. She wanted to become active again, or make lace. But there never seemed to be time. Any ‘gaps’ in the day were filled with business related tasks, baby related tasks or home chores. And between that muddle of mental overload, she would grab much needed sleep.
Juggle Struggle
Wisely she had hired a bug to help her with house chores, which released her to focus more on the business and squirehogs. However she now had one more bug to manage, on top of her team of 35 bugs at the now 2 x stalls they had.
The squirrel was working around the clock and with extreme sleep deprivation. Her youngest squirehog would still wake up for feeds during the night, and sadly her older squirehog was not such a great sleeper either. So between them, the squirehog bubs kept their fatigued mummy awake every couple of hours for a long period of time.
The squirrel was running on empty. The hedgehog remained blissfully unaware.
Find out what happened to the hedgehog and squirrel in PART 3 of ‘EXPECT 0%, ACCEPT 100%’. Follow me now to be notified. Like/Comment/Share if you like learning new perspectives.
Written by Dee Allan-The Gritty Girl, International Speaker, Writer and Entrepreneur. Dee runs an employment agency, blogs on the Medium platform, and lives in Singapore with her husband and two cheeky kids.