The Prayer Unanswered (Jenny)

I needed a few moments just to be alone. A small thing to ask, you would think, a minor blessing compared with the big stuff, the health, wealth, and relationships type of requests that undoubtedly flood the Heavenly inbox on a daily basis. But maybe it's true that size doesn't matter ... because my prayer wasn't getting an affirmative answer any time soon.

It's incredible how each teenager explodes into a mob of three or four on a weekend afternoon. And they are perpetually hungry, chaotically messy, and loud. Not unpleasant - some of them can string together an entire sentence if you lift the fringe and get eye contact - but in their own world.

Of course, if I only had teenagers, the weekend mornings of blissful peace would compensate in some way for the rowdy afternoons. But I don't only have teenagers. And I can't really plead, after having the first two, that I didn't know how it happens.

But when your new partner wants their own children, and won't take "no" for an answer, then you end up with coinciding toddlers and teens.

The toddlers take the morning shift. As the sky shades to a slightly less black shade of black, and the first insane bird starts its monotonous predawn series of "poop" noises, the older toddler bounces out of bed, ready for action, and cannot understand that everyone else is in a somewhat different state. The younger toddler, hearing the kerfuffle as the older one hauls the blankets off Mummy and Daddy, starts banging on the bars of the cot - and the day begins.

Some time around 9.30 am, the toddlers are finally fed and cleaned up and dressed and can be plonked in front of the TV long enough for me to have a shower. Don't start with me on the whole "TV as babysitter" discussion - I resolutely refused to use it that way with the oldest, until number two came along ... and my only alternative was a total nervous breakdown.

We have to take the toddlers somewhere outside in the morning. The alternative is an unbearable whining that needles into the brain until the thoughts can't quite make it to the surface of the custard.

When we get home, it's the lunch routine for the toddlers, and the emerging teens do their own unique form of breakfast. I'll draw a veil of decency over that, apart from saying that it's a very good idea to have leftovers readily available to be microwaved.

Just as the toddlers are ready for a nap, the teens are gearing up for Guitar Hero or a bit of a jam on the keyboard. All comments about the niceness of the day and the need for fresh air are met with blank looks and grunts.

And when something happens, on a weekend afternoon, as it did this day, there is nowhere to breathe.

It doesn't even matter what it was that happened. Maybe my mother died. Maybe my lover died - although when I'd find time to have a lover, I don't really know. Maybe I lost my job or the company went broke. Maybe I finally opened the letter that said yes, that lump was malignant.

Whatever it was that happened that day, nobody knew, or cared. I needed a few moments just to be alone, but I didn't get them. I sat there, in the middle of the demands and noise and weight of human presence, wanting those few precious moments just with myself, but as much as I tried, I couldn't find myself anywhere.