Statute of Limitations

I’ve been a bit fed up in recent weeks.  I heard once in film I think, that if your dreams aren’t working out, get some new ones!

Is there a statute of limitations on our dreams?

Now my gripes are small for the most part, but one or two are insurmountable: 1. I can never have another child of my own; 2. Any childless man who wants children is not an option for me.  Yes, there is adoption but the hoops you have to jump through are daunting.  And yes, a childless man might say I mean more than the gift of children but life has shown me that if somebody really wants to have children, that feeling never goes away and it would be wrong to deny it and end up feeling unfulfilled or worse, resentful of your partner. Someone in my family thought his current relationship would be his only relationship but he is young, younger than me, his partner is much older and has children already.  He spent years saying not having his own kids was fine, but now as he approaches his forties the climate has changed and their relationship is in trouble.  He wants children. She doesn’t and is now too old (in her eyes) to have a baby with him.

I saw on the news a couple of years ago that a woman without a womb had a baby via a womb transplant and I thought, “There’s hope…”.  But not for me.  It is a dream I have applied a limitation to, but honestly have a bit if trouble accepting  almost 2 years after the hysterectomy.  I still feel a twinge of anger towards my ex-husband for refusing to have another child with me when our son was six.  In retrospect he was right because of the hell that was our “family” but it still hurts, that I could have had a beautiful daughter or another lovely son.  I would have loved to have known a girl version of the two of us and our son is so wonderful that I know he would have made a brilliant big brother.  But it was not and is not to be.  I know I am lucky to have been able to have one child before my womb waged all out war on me.  I was lucky to get pregnant at all and carry my son to 8 1/2 months as it was.

What else am I fed up about?  I’ll share a few of things here.  My weight for starters which is something I can act upon and have begun to do more about.  I lost quite a bit of weight last month but recently, through being fed up, I put almost half of it back on.  Damn it…  I’m making a more concerted effort now because being in my forties I need to take even better care of myself if I’m to avoid a miserable, illness ridden old age.  If you want to be well in your 60’s and beyond, your 40’s are the Last Chance Saloon.

I’m fed up with the cracks in the house that the developer and property owners are still doing zero about more than a decade on.  My neighbour and I keep fighting them and they make one step forward then ten steps back.  She got rid of her carpets, put in wood floors but because the wall we share keeps bloody moving (hence the cracks) the edge of the flooring is being pushed in and up gradually.  It is so frustrating.  So many promises have been made, some effort was put in a couple of years ago but because of the high turnover of staff, any permanent resolution is nigh on impossible to achieve.  We’ve sent shitty emails, we’ve complained nicely, had people in and out of our homes checking, umming and aaahing and promising and agreeing there is a fault in the construction, to still come to nothing.  They are taking the piss because they think we know nothing.  Unfortunately for them we do and we’re not going away but without a solicitor we are severely limited in our actions and neither of us can afford legal representation.  It’s a fucking joke.

I’m fed up that I don’t have enough money to have a break in the sun, say Italy or Greece with my son before he heads to Uni.  I’m fed up that my ex husband (who never has any money and took out a loan to revamp the garden at my sister’s house, where he now lives) has been able to go on an expensive summer holiday every year without fail with my sister and their daughter and sometimes with my mum.  Great way to make your son feel wanted…  Now he could have chosen to holiday closer to home – or not at all – these past few years and I could have afforded to pay for our son to go away with him and them. This year that was never going to happen because son and father are barely on speaking terms after the Christmas incident, conjured up by my sister and which put the final nail in the coffin.  My ex keeps trying to mend fences but our son is having none of it.  Sad thing is, my son told me the other day that last year, things were actually improving but now, there’s no hope of a good relationship between them because of what his Dad did. It still makes me sad and I am limited in what I can do here.  I worked furiously behind the scenes to get them to a good place and then my ex fucked up large.  I can only counsel my son to not pick up the phone to tell his Dad to go to hell and even that is not so easy to do, particularly if he’s pissed about something.

The second part of my life looms large and I think maybe this is what we call the mid-life crisis.  Trouble is, I have plenty on my plate but don’t want any of it!  I’d like another menu please – send this shit back to the kitchen!!

The reality of living alone doesn’t exactly fill me with joy and it could go one of three ways:

1. I get very fat watching movies and documentaries whilst snacking on the sofa.
2. I plough into all the crap I have to do but don’t want to and feel a sense of achievement as I tick each miserable, boring, soul destroying task off my list.
3. I change what I don’t like, do something new, get fit, meet new people and enjoy my freedom.

Perhaps what will occur is a combo of all three and potentially in that very order.  It’s all such a cliche though isn’t it?

I’ve watched movies (yes sometimes whilst snacking so shoot me) with divorced men and women waving good bye to their kids, then joining an art or foreign language class, moving to Tuscany, falling in love and having a fabulous life after a few hilarious hiccups along the way. A friend of mine actually suggested I join a book club,. get back into swimming, etc – and so the cliche is complete! I groaned inwardly and gave myself indigestion. I’d never join a book club for a couple of reasons:  My attention span is such that I read several books at once and it would take a really good one for me to read it in a week or two so the pressure would be too much and I’d be tempted to skim it and likely miss something vital.  Secondly, the idea of discussing in a group setting what made a particular scene a stand-out in the story just makes me cringe. If you’ve watched “Date Night” with Tina Fey, the book club scene is exactly why I don’t want to join a book club!

I have good friends and family, great people in my life who love me, I have a job, a roof over my head, food on the table, I am not being attacked by my womb anymore to the point of death… But the bald truth is that I am alone. In fact I feel very alone sometimes.

And I don’t like it.

Not. One. Little. Bit.

I need to engage myself more in looking up and out and less on looking down and in.  I can do it, I have done it but something is different this time.  It’s harder to see a happier future for my lone self right now and perhaps it is because of the stage of life I have arrived at presently.  I’m not alone in that – one thing I can be confident of – but where do similar souls go?  Is it really art classes, the gym or book clubs?  If so, nothing will change anytime soon!  I like taking long walks and going to museums and galleries.  I can strike up a conversation with a stranger but real life is nothing like the movies . You don’t end up in a bar together realising you have everything in common and wanting your life to begin right there and then.  I can flirt but I lack the confidence it takes to chat someone into a date.  I want to be found and swept off my feet.  Yes, ironically, just like the movies…

Is there a statute of limitations on my attaining lasting happiness?

Quite frankly, time is against me at this point.

History repeats itself

So the love of my life doesn’t want to be the love of my life.  I knew this was coming before we even got started.

He’s an alcoholic.  He’s depressed. He’s suicidal. He hates this life, his life. He loves me but doesn’t want me to love him. He doesn’t want to be important to me. I guess that way he can slope off to die quietly, and without my knowledge.

He pursued me knowing all the while he shouldn’t. He isn’t capable right now (maybe he never will be) of functioning well enough to support himself, let alone in relationships.  I let him in, again, and hoped for a better outcome this time even whilst having this nagging feeling that we’d just end up disappointed.

Doubt thou the stars are fire,

Doubt that the sun doth move,

Doubt truth to be a liar,

But never doubt I love.

So said him to me a year ago when I expressed doubts – and he was stone cold sober.

I want to shake him…

Shake him out of his depression, free him from his prison and drag his sorry arse into the light.

I have suffered from depression and sometimes it returns – everybody has been there and goes back again in their lifetime, to highly varied degrees.  It is not the same experience for everyone.  You can’t be talked out of it amongst friends, you can’t be drugged out of it. I talked to my GP and that was the extent of the professional help I got; the rest of the heavy lifting I did alone for the most part.  I have sought solace in a few drinks to numb the pain over the years and I still do, but not to the extremes that he does.  I have felt suicidal several times and in fact just a few months ago.  I survived a life threatening operation to return to a life that continues to hit me.  But that is life.  It isn’t pretty most of the time, it can be bloody boring too much of the time but there are bright spots and I seek them out.

He sought me out: “…the only and one bright thing in (his) life…”.

He said: “…I need you in my life…”.

But here I am, covered up again, filed away under what exactly…?

Am I an idiot?  Don’t think so.  I didn’t fall for a line/s, my eyes were wide open, he wanted to marry me and I knew within a few short weeks that it would never happen.  He lacks the courage and will and force to make a change that will benefit him and those around him. It is easier to hide behind your pain than to get out in front of it.  To do that takes effort, it is a monumental shift in the brain that sadly, some never rise to.  I want him to rise, and he simply cannot.  I’ve been there and fought through.  It took me such a long time… But all my experience comes to naught here. The arrows miss their target, the seeds lack fertile ground…

I hope he reads this, I hope against hope that it breaks through.  I want my friend to be well but I can’t tell him that in a text or email and he is avoiding a face to face. I get it.  The last thing you want when you feel like this is to be told there’s a better way. And yet he has said he didn’t want me to stop trying.  The man is a walking, talking contradiction in terms:  “Don’t wait for me, move on, I’d hate that you did but you should, I love you, I need you, I have no right to want you for myself or feel jealousy, I love hearing from you and then I don’t, I want to hear from you, be with you but I can’t handle how you or I feel.”.

I don’t want to be your all and all…

What a mind fuck, you say – except it isn’t because I was prepared.  The defences were much better this time around.

Dark soul that he is, messed up as he is, he is and always will be one of my bright spots. We shall, I hope, maintain a friendship but that is up to him.  He has hidden behind texts and has not seen me in months, yet a year ago we were in one another’s pockets.  I do not apportion any blame.  He is a sick man who needs professional help and isn’t seeking it beyond drugs that utterly fail to control the extreme low cycles he experiences.  He is barely clinging to life and it is a crying shame as he has much to give.  The state of his mind does not allow him to see this or believe it. He is locked in a prison largely of his own making and the depression makes that worse, a condition he simply cannot control without help and support.

So what do I do?

What I’ve always done with anyone I love and care for:  be a friend, watch, wait.  I’d like to see him but he probably can’t handle it.  As his friend, I am involved and care for him like really true friends do.  The fact that I do love him more than a friend is secondary.  All along I made it clear that if he couldn’t handle “us”, our friendship mattered more to me and I was not willing to lose it again.  He agreed but I do wonder if my greatest kindness to him would be to disappear for a while with little or no contact.  Hard to know what to do for the best really…  I must just keep working on loving him less but enough to keep us both sane and stay friends.  We don’t do so well apart and the friendship is important to us both.

I sent him this poem today.  I came across it earlier in the week and it’s by Adam Lindsay Gordon:

Life is mostly froth and bubble,

Two things stand like stone:

Kindness in another’s trouble;

Courage in your own.

He didn’t respond and I didn’t expect he would.  We all have troubles and heaven knows I have mine.  I was struggling with something yesterday. I wanted to put the past few weeks behind me for so many reasons and meet up, shoot the breeze, not talk about problems. He couldn’t meet up but when he texted me later and at the end of it, said that he didn’t want to be important to me (after I had said how much he mattered not just to me but because he is so intelligent, etc), he knew I was not in a great place. Timing is everything. It’s never going to be a good time to be negative but it didn’t exactly brighten my mood. That’s not his problem though and it’s not as if I wasn’t expecting it.  Still, it wasn’t fair was it.  I only said it (again) because he told me 2 weeks ago quite out of the blue that he came close to ending his life.  I have no idea what stopped him and he typically didn’t elaborate.  All I can say is that I knew it was coming because I know him and his family didn’t and still don’t have a clue.  He won’t tell them.

He has so much to say and is so intelligent which only makes his illness all the more frustrating because it blocks him.  I almost always get a lift when I hear from him and there is a word that I came across a few months ago:  Sapiosexual.  I am a sapiosexual person – the mind is more attractive to me, than the physical.  A much younger man has shown an interest but I find myself having to explain the simplest of words/phrases and I feel like an English teacher!  I want conversations to flow, not to stop every 10 minutes to explain the vernacular.  He isn’t available and although he might be in future I just can’t see myself as anything but a good friend. We have a giggle, there’s great chemistry and he’s lovely but that’s it. I have a best friend just like him. If I could feel more that would be great as he ticks most of the boxes, but I just don’t – and it is not because my heart is elsewhere.  Head and heart need to be engaged: the physical tale is told in the first kiss, which seals or breaks the union.

Ah life…  I shall plod on with my projects, fun and not so fun, keep up with my growing circle of friends and not expect anything to happen in the realm of the heart.

Perhaps I shall be taken by surprise.

We live in hope…

 

 

Rebel with a Cause

1. Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviours aimed at destroying or taking over the position of an established authority such as a government, governor, president, political leader, financial institution, or person in charge.

Don’t tow the line if the line begins to twine around ones’ throat, thereby causing suffocation and death….

Change is inevitable.

Growth is profitable.

Stagnation kills off the boldest heart if no-one or no thing stirs it up.

We rebel on a daily basis:  Why should I do this…?  I don’t want to go there and won’t….   I’ll do it in my own time  – not because you said to….

And we acquiesce on a daily basis also:  Ok, but only to shut you up…  Alright, alright, anything for a quiet life…  Well if it means you’ll leave me be…

The internal struggle is a thing of terror and of beauty; without it we’d just be animals.

Being human is the easiest or hardest form of existence that we alone make hard or easy by the way in which we tackle what life puts in our way.  I have seen very poor, put upon people who exude sunshine and wealthy people who lack spirit and direction.  The wealthy always want more of they don’t quite know what and envy those who lead simpler lives, whilst not wishing to lead the simple life themselves! And giving to charity does not fill the hole for them either…

The poor (in spirit, body or mind) have the capacity to elevate themselves above the dross.  The poor suffer, no doubt about it, but are stoical as well as long-suffering.  The poor grieve but appreciate all the more, the best that life can offer – and their view of the best life has to give is quite different to what you would expect.  I have seen both sides and it may be too facile to say that an emotionally and materially poor person with beautiful, healthy, intelligent children is more wealthy than an emotionally redundant person with money and means, but of the two I know who would be happier, certainly stronger.

Money can buy an awful lot and yes, we need it.  But people are worth more than gold and a heart cannot be weighed in the same way.

I’m not entirely sure where I’m headed with this suffice to say, don’t settle.  Rebel.  With every fibre of your being, kick out against the accepted norms and breathe in what life can give you when you push back and say:  This is what I want. Not that. This.

It is possible to shake loose from a lifetime of regret and to do so at any stage of life.  As I head relatively comfortably into my Autumn years, as my body heads gradually downhill and my mind grows up, I’ve realised that this is the golden time of life.  I haven’t got it sussed by any stretch of the mark, but I am more grounded because I finally know who I am. I have a much more relaxed attitude and approach to life and I am told that it shows.  Apparently I have a light around and about me.  Those who’ve known me for years said it hadn’t quite gone out but acknowledged I was a sad sight to behold during the years that I had folded in on myself.  My son likes this version of me and is glad I struck out and stopped labouring under the banner of “duty” – duty to all but myself.  It frustrated him for years and the irony was that I laboured so for his sake, for the family ideal that I wanted for him – the ideal that never actually existed.  And therein lies the joke at the heart of it all!  Only nobody was laughing….

Rebellions don’t always amount to anything though….  There were times I (semi) boldly sallied forth and was promptly put back in what “the enemy” felt was my proper place  – and I don’t just mean my marital situation here.  The point is to keep pushing because what’s the use of living if you’re living for anyone but you?  We are creative, loving, emotional creatures, light and dark, reasonable and unreasonable by equal and often unequal measure.  We are filled with passion and dispassion that by turns takes us up so high the light blinds us and then brings us so low we cannot fathom any way out.  Then there is the grey but we are not meant to merely exist in the grey, that shadow land of life.  We are meant to challenge ourselves in order to the reach the peak of who we are since that not only benefits us but the people around us too.  Seeing it and achieving it are not easy, believing it one stretch further.  And too many don’t get that far….

How many lights have been dimmed or snuffed out altogether by normality, banality, drudgery, misplaced duty or (the most feared) control?  Mine almost was and on more than one occasion, yet I kept getting back up and smacked back down again (sometimes by my own hand).  I don’t know why or how I kept getting up but I did.  My mother is a strong role model and the support of two very good friends and one of my cousins went a long way towards keeping my head above water when I wanted to drown.

My situation improved and changed dramatically when I listened to my heart and moreover, used my head to get there.

So I say be a rebel, especially if the cause is “you”.