A Difficult Year

2017 has been very not great.

There were the two failed driving tests, tests 3 & 4, which were probably worse than tests 1 & 2.

I sliced through my finger cutting a bread roll, managing to sever the tendon, nerve and artery. I had surgery, and six weeks off work. My finger is still numb and doesn't completely straighten.

My father has become a conspiracy theorist.

We didn't get pregnant for the whole year. This may have fulfilled the criteria for "please, no more miscarriages" but no, thank you. This was more annoying somehow.

My husband struggled with his new job role. The one we were so excited to get. Then he broke his foot, spent 8 weeks recovering, and still hasn't really regained full mobility.

We all fell in love with a dog, and then were told that we couldn't adopt her after all.

My father in law was diagnosed with aggressive throat cancer.

A good and wonderful friend died, suddenly, unexpectedly, and through no fault of his own.

It's been a tough year - and so many things all together, all at once, testing us, I suppose.

But 2018 appears to be on the up. Some little things which have happened in December just seem to be hinting that we might be doing okay after all.

First, we found a new flat which we love, which is available, in our budget and in a perfect location. There was some uncertainty over the financing but in the end we got it - signed and paid, it's ours.

Father in law got the all-clear, almost miraculously fast. God bless the NHS. Unfortunately nobody can convince him to stop chain smoking.

We have a budget which should work for us. Working to make that more manageable and get on with our lives without panicking about money.

And then this. Just a little piece of hope. Our first step. We don't normally get far, so we're trying hard not to get to attached to this idea, but oh, I hope so, and so far the signs are good. I've never had such a strong line before, and certainly not so early. Every day since then I've been sick and tired. I haven't had any bleeding. We have an appointment tomorrow which should hopefully clarify status, after which we may tell family, but for now it's our family secret and hope into 2018.

Happy new year, everyone.

Optimism

The situation in the last post sort of resolved itself. Or got worse. Or didn't? I don't really know. Is it important?

Yeah, probably.

I should probably explain a bit more. I took on some extra classes back in the late spring. I was just covering another teacher but it meant I had a late morning through to evening schedule, and it was amazing. It just worked for me. Far better than the early morning + late evening with mass gap in the middle I had been dealing with.

So I asked my husband if he minded me doing more of this. He said it was a great idea, so I went to my employer, who also thought it was great.

EVERYTHING IS GREAT. YAY.

So, the problem here, was that they set me an impossible task, and I agreed to it, because I'm endlessly optimistic and don't seem to notice that this often goes quite badly for me. The impossible task was learning to drive in two months. They basically told me that it was difficult. I knew that I didn't have enough time. What I also knew but didn't tell them was that I have ADHD and, um, there are actual trends that show driving is harder for people with ADHD, so that two months which was difficult for a normal person is basically extra hard for me. But I was optimistic, so I said okay, sure!

The other problem. I somehow assumed that during the conversation about my working more late morning through to evening days, that my husband got the memo that he was agreeing (in my head) to then cover the gap after school when our son comes home. This was completely clear to me because late morning through to evening also includes the early afternoon, and also because as part of this deal I promised to deal with the mornings, and also, why the F was I asking his permission to work, if I wasn't asking him if he was OK with going to work early and doing the extra childcare?

But yeah, OK, to be fair, I probably didn't spell it out exactly that this was what I wanted.

So - now it is much longer than two months later. I have failed two tests. I did pass theory the first time - memory, yay! But I am not doing well at the practical tests. Husband is straining to cover the childcare. I am paying aaaall the money to the tram system. Hoping optimistically that the driving school just let me keep driving until I pass and pay them later. Hoping optimistically that my employer doesn't just get fed up and give my job to someone else. Basically just smiling manically and hoping for the best in all scenarios while totally failing to plan.

You know when you plan? Can you see the plan in your head? Can you hold it there while you work out what happens on the next step? Because I can't do that. I have to write it down and even that in itself is hard. I start writing. I get several steps in. And it feels like the cogs in my brain are jammed, like they are buffering, or turning so slowly. I can't focus on anything and it all just swims and it's hard. I can plan... but it takes me a huge amount of effort and several sessions because one session producing the first step is exhausting.

Out of Sync

Do other people feel as though their wishes and hopes and reality are often jarringly out of touch?

Ever since I was a little girl I always wanted to "be a Mummy". I cycled through career options just as erratically as I have as an adult - artist, teacher, computer games designer, cat sanctuary owner. But I always wanted children, that never ever wavered.

It came to a head in my early teens when my half brother was born. The broodiness hit so hard that sometimes I'd cradle my raincoat as though it was a newborn, pretend I was pushing a pram to school when nobody was looking. Most teenagers are past the point of playing pretend, but I wasn't. I became fascinated with the topic of teenage pregnancy. It's probably why I was so easy to persuade to not-try, not-prevent a baby at nineteen years old.

I'm still fascinated by teenage pregnancy even though I'm grown up and responsible and married now. Furthermore even though I'm actually informed about what it's all like now, we have actually decided to do the grown up married thing and decide to have another baby. I had some weird conflicting feelings about that, but I'll write about them another time. That initial confusion was quickly surpassed by excitement and curiosity about the great process known online as "TTC" - trying to conceive, but of course with the vast amount of information available on the internet, it actually translates to something of an elaborate research project with the subject being your own body. I love a good research project, so this is right up my alley. I didn't want to get into all of the specifically timed sex and such like that, but things like working out when you've last ovulated and what position your cervix is in and all of that, it might not appeal to everyone but I find it fascinating.

So, I was somewhat surprised and felt slightly short-changed to find I was pregnant on the first cycle.

It was a short lived pregnancy, unfortunately, and what I am left with is a taste of what it would have been like. For those two weeks I felt constantly hungry, forcing me to eat properly for the first time in years, and tired, body-exhausted, the kind of tired when you feel like you've earned it. I slept. I ate. I felt my body stretching and making space and preparing and I was struck by how happy, calm, peaceful and normal I felt, in a way that I haven't felt in years. My body just seems to work properly when it is pregnant, like my faulty brain doesn't get to control the basics any more. I'm not sad about the miscarriage, it was the best outcome of some really shitty outcomes, but I do miss being pregnant and feel impatient to get back to the TTC cycle if not to be there already.

So I am also currently on a hormone rollercoaster. The websites warn that if I try any kind of tracking right now it will literally be all over the place, and that my body is flooding with mass doses of different hormones as a kind of flushing effect to get my cycle back to normal. I may be a little more maudlin than usual. In some ways I'm weirdly enjoying the opportunity to observe what is happening.

But anyway, to get back to the topic I originally intended to address. I always wanted to be a mother. My body, as well, seems to crave that state, and I know for a fact that if I hadn't done it, I would always be hanging on the sidelines wishing that I could, waiting, and it would have inevitably happened. I love being part of the "club" of parents, I love knowing what it is like to be there. I like having a topic of conversation with anybody else with children. If I can take my experience with my son as a given, which I suppose I can't, but if I do just for a moment, I know that childbirth makes me feel like a warrior and that I love the newborn time because I can completely follow my instincts and everything just works. Unlike the rest of the time.

I miss that, and I am looking forward to all of it again. But today I took my seven year old to the park and I just wanted to sit there on my phone. (To be fair, he was quite happy with that). He asks me to play board games and I just feel my face dropping as I reject this again. We did read a book in bed this morning. It was boring. Sometimes I wonder why everything is so out of sync here? I have this image of what having a family is like and I don't actually do any of it right anyway. We rarely if ever eat dinner together. In fact our usual routine is three completely different cobbled together offerings based on speed eaten in front of our respective screens. My lovingly crafted menu plans (when I remember/bother to make them) fall apart immediately.

I don't know. I mean, our family works for us and it looks the way that it does and obviously nobody has the chocolate box lifestyle in real life. I just wish that I was more on top of the things that I think matter sometimes and it confuses me when I want this so much and yet I dislike it a lot of the time. I would be completely miserable if I was childfree but the lifestyle would suit me so much better. It just doesn't seem to make any sense.

I fell into some kind of...

I wish I was a rock person, with tattoos and piercings and unnaturally coloured hair.

Oh, I could get tattoos, and piercings, and dye my hair (it's been blue, and the only reason for the lack of the others is my chronic indecision and puny fear of stabby kinds of pain.) I could listen exclusively to rock and metal.

And it would all be stupid because it's not me. It never has been me. My favourite kind of music is the kind which starts with an acoustic guitar amongst silence and has delicious melty kinds of harmonies in the singing and emotion in the voice and usually sings about something which is surreal or metaphorical at best and nonsensical at worst. I like rock. I love rock. But I always come back to the indie guitars, because they speak to my soul.

I'm not confident. I'm not a risk taker. I'm rubbish at make up, and anyway, I'm too lazy. I like smoking but I'm too scared of the health risks for "looking cool" to be a factor any more, and so it just doesn't seem worth it.

I want to be a hippy, a free-spirit running free, living in some kind of nomadic camp with seven half-related children and braided hair and bare feet and some kind of livestock, which we'd name and never be able to kill. Eschewing everything and throwing out the rules and just leaving. This isn't me either. I love technology, medicine and science. I am not overly comfortable with getting too close to nature. I am actually not a natural mother. I dislike wearing skirts. I get antsy holed up in a small space with other people for too long and I can sometimes explode in frustration.

I literally want to be a freaking punk rocker with flowers in my hair. Even though that is not a thing I somehow simultaneously want both. How inconveniently uncool and ridiculous of me.

I don't know why I so obsess over having some kind of tribe and instead don't just accept that I am who I am - indie guitar, unbrushed mousy hair, stripes and hoodies and comfortable clothes in non flashy colours and lack of accessories to boot. I read too much (mostly online, these days) and I will forget random things that you tell me, and give you information that you already know because I'm totally incapable of resisting the urge to be helpful, especially when it isn't needed, apparently. When I'm at home, I play Sims. No, I don't want to play a game that is cooler. I don't say the right thing at the right time. I'm much better at translating my thoughts to type than to speech. I guess I don't need a tribe, because I'm actually fine. I just wish I didn't feel this huge irrational jealousy at anybody I perceive has things way more together than I do.

Oh my god just literally click any moment of this and tell me how anybody could not find it hauntingly beautiful. (Except I actually don't think the first song is a great starting point.)




(I have set an alarm to at least work on a post once every three days, so we'll see where that takes me.)