love

The end of an era?

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My daughter hasn’t breastfed all day.  She refused this mornings feed although, she still wanted to sit with my nipple in her mouth and the same has happened this evening.  I’m both heartbroken and hopeful.  Why does parenting always seem to result in such a dichotomy of emotions?  No wonder we’re all a wee bit barmy!

I mean, for anyone who has practised baby led breastfeeding and gentle parenting, self-weaning is the dream we hope for.  It’s the thing that many people tell you is impossible… ‘Oh, you’ll still be feeding her when she’s at school’ and ‘she’ll never stop by herself’ and ‘you’re babying her’ and other such choice parenting titbits from the wankers who always proclaim to know better.  Well, my just turned 2 year old seems to have decided that she’s done.  She clearly still wants the closeness and was insistent upon cuddling up to my naked torso.

5 days further in and she now calls them boob snuggles.  Still no actual feeding though.  I do wonder if this is one of those ‘feeding strikes’ that one reads about and in a few days she’ll want to restart.  I guess time will tell.  I’d have thought the milk will remain for a while.  From my perspective, I’m finding parenting a wee bit of a struggle without the defined 20 minutes of breastfeeding that used to bookend my day.  I miss the closeness and the warmth and the feeling of her relaxing into my body as she nursed.  I miss knowing that I could settle her from trauma with my breasts.  Like the time she fell down the stairs and was pale and scared and I just breastfed her for a few minutes and it was as if it had never happened.  Magic boobs!

I miss my baby.  I love my toddler.  She’s getting so grown up already.

If I had a husband, I’d be trying for another baby right about now.

Wanting to breastfeed again can’t be the worst reason anyone has ever had another kid, surely?

But, as a 38 year old very single parent, I am trying to come to terms with the fact that this may be it for me.  I’m so grateful for how easy it was for us and for every moment of special bonding that we got to enjoy together and for the feelings of overwhelming love when she made her little happy dinosaur noises as she fed, which way surpassed the pain of engorgement in those early days.  The frozen cabbage leaves were still vital and I did remain topless for 2 weeks (my postie still can’t look me in the eye!). I’ll tell her all about it when she’s older and hopefully one day, this will be a joy that she can experience with her own children and I will reminisce with pride.

Exposed

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It’s been a long time since I’ve been held by anyone.  Just held and stroked and allowed to relax into a warm body and strong pair of arms.  And yesterday, it finally happened for me again.  I allowed myself to be held, to snuggle, to give and receive reassurance, to murmur whatever the semi-platonic version of sweet nothings are and it was so lovely.

The last time someone held me was when my daughter was around 2 weeks old. She’s just turned 2. The last person to hold me was my daughter’s father before he decided he really couldn’t bear to be around us any more.  So it’s been nearly 2 years in which I have been the giver of many hugs, have held and soothed and reassured and loved my daughter over and over again.

I wouldn’t change those years but the truth that remains is that I haven’t been able to let go in that time.  I’m never off duty.  Always there, always listening, always loving and at the end of the day it’s still just me, alone, listening to her breathe over the baby monitor as I watch netflix until I feel myself pass again into a numbness from which I could potentially sleep.

And always accepting that loneliness was a part of single parenting but never really allowing myself to feel it as a burden or indeed engaging with it in any way other than in passing. But after yesterdays cuddles with a man of whom I think highly, today has been filled with tears and longing and a real sense of exactly what it is that I’m missing and with no real idea of whether this will ever change.

So this evening for me is about watching a sad movie and doing the ugly crying and allowing myself to feel as utterly alone as I am.  Then I’ll wash my face, get some sleep and wake with gratitude for my daughter, I’ll resume pretending to myself that I’m not lonely and the show will go on.  And maybe, hopefully, someday soon, I’ll be lucky enough again to have a moment or three with someone who can throw light into the darkest corners and remind me where my edges are.

 

Still me, still standing

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Sometimes, being a single mother is gut-wrenchingly lonely.

I sit here, alone of course,  with face dripping as I finally release and let the tears flow.

Mostly, I just don’t find the space in which I can allow myself to fall into sadness, I have a baby to take care of and her needs come first and I don’t have the time to indulge in my own emotions.  But today, today has been different.  Today I realised that I was developing feelings for a man who has been messaging me daily for a matter of months.  Real feelings, real hopes, real me, real future.

So, the question that I have been avoiding because I didn’t want to pop the bubble, ‘how is tinder life going?’ I asked and he replied ‘Well, I went on a date last night and she’s still messaging me so I must have done ok’, I nearly threw up on the floor in Waitrose.  Spontaneous physical response to emotion is not a sensation I have experienced for a long time.  And despite the sensation of my insides heaving, even then, I found gratitude for experiencing such a real feeling that was just mine to breathe through.

Thing is, having a baby rips down all your barriers.  You are so in love with this little person that everywhere you go and in everything you do there is love emanating from you and you are free.  Free in the oddest sense really as on a daily basis my routine completely revolves around my child.  But free in the sense that there is a little person who needs you so completely and whose needs you fulfil so completely, that there is no need for the sort of barriers and walls that we all tend to create around ourselves when it comes to fully experiencing love.

And yes, obviously, the love one has for their child is of a different sort to the kind that one might experience with a significant other but there is a commonality.  And I found that I let this man in, which is not something I do as a general rule, in my entire adult life I can only think of one relationship in which I ever allowed myself to need.  It ended horribly.  Anyway, the point being is that I’m finding myself to be more open than ever before, because of the depth and nuance of the relationship with my child.  And what that means is that my barriers seem to be gone.

And so I’m hurt, a little deflated and lonely again.  But actually, I’m still happy, I still have an amazing child and somehow, I’m still able to experience all the joys and all the heartache involved in letting someone in.  I’m so unbelievably grateful for that.

I am grateful that I met this amazing guy who ticks so many of my boxes and I am grateful that he has let me down somewhat and I am grateful that I still miss him and I am grateful that this journey has led me to crying in my meditation practise on the living room floor.

I know that I’m alive.  I’m fucking buzzing with life.  And I’m excited to know which sensations this new me can experience next.

It’s now the next night and yes, I’m still fucking grateful for this experience.  I do, however, feel as if I’ve experienced a break up and so duly got round one of my oldest friends and drank two and a half beers and smoked three whole cigarettes.  Which was also fucking amazing.

I guess what’s really happened is that I’ve realised that I do still have feelings that are just mine and that don’t relate to my child.  I’m still me.

And that’s just the best revelation I could have asked for.

The circle of love

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I have had my faith in humanity restored so many times over since having a child and today was no exception.

I have probably dwelled on the somewhat cynical side of life ever since first researching acid rain for a school paper when I was 10.  That sense of pervading despair at humanity only heightened when going through puberty, and a lifetime spent working in the environmental sector is enough to sometimes make even the most hopeful feel like there is little point.

I would have called myself a pragmatic realist if you had challenged me on my cynical ways a few years ago.  Probably because it sounds kind of cool and probably because I felt in many ways that cynicism as a word seemed to have connotations of falsities not backed up by rational thought with depressed tinfoil hat wearers lurking at the extreme end of the spectrum.

Anyway…

Since then I have found yoga and had a baby.  Both of these have profoundly affected my state of mind.

I attended yoga classes sporadically for years but it wasn’t until an abusive relationship sent me pretty close to the edge that I came to rely on it for sanity.   But my practice gives me more than just sanity.  It gives me hope.  And clarity.  And peace.  Even when I was smoking a spliff on the way to class, listening to metal at high volume and then chowing on a mars bar before class began, I always found peace in the asanas and the harmony between breath and movement soothed my soul and gave me light in a a very dark place.

And it still does.  On the worst days, being on my mat for even just a couple of sun salutations brings that lightness of being.  Even if it feels as if it disappears the second the mat is rolled up, I know that it doesn’t.  Because I am different now.  I find hope everywhere.  Sure, I’m still cynical about politics but that really is pragmatic realism!

Sometimes trying to maintain a daily practice is difficult but I read a quote from someone that has helped me ever since I read it.  It went something along the lines of;

“It’s still yoga if all you do is sit in child’s pose for 10 minutes”

When I read that, my life changed.  Sure, some mornings I go all power vinyasa and break out the arm balances and feel all kinds of awesome but, I have learned to not judge myself for the days where I really can’t be fucking arsed and instead, to thank myself for getting on the mat in my pj’s and snuggling into child’s pose.

Which leads me to my child.  She brings me into the present all day, every day.  I have been shown such kindnesses from total strangers since having her that my formerly cynical heart is being cracked open in a way that no relationship has ever managed. Nobody told me that having a baby could make life this wonderful.  I know that sounds all Disney and like I don’t ever cry in the shower whilst manically rocking the pram because the baby just won’t sleep, but honestly, life has never been so good.  I have never been so good.

Today, after a long walk around town, I was weak on my feet and stepped into a cafe to sit and recuperate and feed the baby.  This cafe had two booths with benches ideal for allowing the baby to lie on and several small tables with stools.  The booths were both taken and I looked around despairingly as I knew that the small tables wouldn’t work for us.  I turned to leave and a woman called after me “excuse me, take my booth, I’ll sit at the bar”, I asked if she was sure but she was already on the way to the bar.  She just smiled at me, said that she was a mother herself and she understood and not to worry at all.  I will be forever grateful to that woman.  And if I am ever in the same situation a couple of years from now, then I will do the same and I will pass the gift of understanding and appreciation to the next mother.  The circle of love.

A few weeks ago, whilst I was sat in a beer garden drinking a half pint of ale and breastfeeding my baby, I felt a little like I should be being judged.  Perhaps I was judging myself, I always was my own worst critic.  Anyway, just as I was getting ready to leave, I saw an elderly lady approaching me.  My stomach kind of dropped, I was expecting judgement.  This lady came up to me and said “Dear, I just wanted to tell you well done for being brave and breastfeeding in public.  When I had my children 56 years ago I used to get told it was disgusting to be feeding my babies and that I should be doing it behind closed doors” she paused and then said “I was discreet just as you are and it was a shame for me and my children but I wanted to tell you how proud I am of you for doing it here”.  And she walked off.  Leaving me with tears pricking the corners of my eyes as I felt that somehow seeing me feeding had helped her put some demons to bed and by speaking to me she had helped me to feel proud of myself even in a beer garden.  It’s the circle of love.

Two ladies who I couldn’t pick out of a line-up even now and yet, they have both touched my soul and I will be eternally grateful for the kindnesses they showed me.

Show kindness to strangers.

Grow the circle of love.

 

Samprati Hum

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I am gratitude and I am grace.

I really am.

I am in such an imperfect situation yet every single day I find myself counting my blessings.

My daughter laughs and I am happy and I am grateful.

My daughter smiles at a stranger and engages me inescapably in the outer world and I am happy.

I walk under trees wearing my daughter and as she gazes up through sun-dappled leaves with an expression of pure wonderment in the moment, I am happy.

She brings me to the present in every moment.

And I have never felt so at peace.

I find time for yoga twice a day and for that I am grateful. In the morning I do a few rounds of surya namaskar b with my daughter on her playmat beside me. My expression of downward dog is apparently hilarious for her, which makes me giggle and somehow, being forced to giggle through my morning practice allows me to relax into asanas in a deeper way than the morning practice would normally allow.

Because I’m happy?

Because I’m grateful?

Either way, by the time I have put her to bed in the evening and find myself back on my mat, I am so filled with love that my practice seems to flow deeper than ever before.  I find my mind is far more in sync with my body and as breath and flow combine I am grateful for all that I have and for all that I haven’t and for all that I am in that moment.

And when she cries mid-flow and I have to attend to her needs before mine, I realise that somehow, her needs have become mine and I am humbled.

And I am happy.

And I am grateful.

I am love.

Where is he?

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So, after all the dramas of the previous week, last weekend I finally went on my date.  We went for a walk along a beautiful beach and then went for lunch in a village pub.  Sounds good right?  It was.  Mostly.  I mean, from the second I saw him walking towards my car in the passenger side mirror, I knew he was a slightly broken shadow of his former self. Something in the walk gave it away.  Like someone who was trying to remember how to swagger when once it would have come without thought.  But, I still felt a wee bit excited, was still intrigued to know more and was just looking forward to a lovely afternoon with a man who wasn’t my Dad.

We got on fine, he’s good company, conversation was easy but it became really clear that he’s just lost his mojo since his wife left him for a woman.  I don’t know if any of you have ever had to embark on the mojo hunt for yourselves but it is an intensely personal journey and one that to some extent no one can help you along.  Once you have been on that journey yourself, you can always see when others are going through it.  I hunted out my mojo a few years ago, it took me several years of intense therapy, facing myself and going on adventures to get where I am.  He’s at the start of that mojo hunt, having self-medicated with drink for a while, he’s starting to realise that booze isn’t the answer, or so he said. And so before we had even walked back along the beach I knew we could never be more than friends.

And then to lunch.  He drank three pints over lunch.  The first he met like an absent lover. Like he had been longing for it, like there was no other taste that could satisfy.  He had drunk half the second pint before food even arrived.  Now, I may well have drunk three pints over lunch before but certainly not with a date who wasn’t drinking. In those circumstances, one is perfectly acceptable but any more than that seems a little rude at best.  And he changed, as the alcohol caressed his brain, flashes of the cocksure man he used to be re-emerged.  And I remembered why I had first liked him.  And I realised that I liked him much more now when he was sober and vulnerable and honest and a little bit broken.  But now, I didn’t fancy him at all.

Anyway, I figured we could be friends.  We kept messaging.  And then we broached politics.  I told him I would be voting Green.  He told me IN SHOUTY CAPITALS that I had to vote Scottish National Party.  I told him shouting like a crazed nationalist and refusing to discuss anything only made me surer.  He unfriended me!!  And that’s where we still are.  I’m sure we’ll meet again sometime and I hope that he will be further down the road of his mojo hunt.

Anyway, that all aside, it was really lovely to spend an afternoon with a man who is definitely a man’s man.  He was chivalrous, he bought me lunch, he helped me fasten the baby carrier, he held doors open, he held the baby while I went to the loo.  I’m so accustomed to single parenting at this stage and so ferociously independent that allowing anyone to be ‘the man’ was both a surprise and a treat.  It made me yearn for a partner in crime.  For someone to lean on.  For someone with a big hand to hold.  For someone to mock me.  For someone to help me even when I don’t need it.  For someone else to take charge for a change.

And then that evening, my travel husband came to visit.  I loved this man from the moment I met him in Johannesburg bus station.  I loved him all through our crazy Mozambique adventure.  And I love him now.  I told him to leave his girlfriend and come and play baby daddy and I was only half joking.  He told me it was beautiful to see me as a mother which still makes me well up just to type it.  And he told me he was proud of me. We played backgammon as we always did.  And I won as I always did (that bit might not be strictly true, he claims he won more, but perspective is an odd thing).  But mostly, why I fell in a heap and cried my little eyes out when he left was because he walked into my house, picked up my baby and other than one feed I gave her, he held her all night and she fell asleep in his arms.

I want for my baby girl to grow up knowing a man with arms that she can feel safe enough in to just fall asleep.  I want that for me as well.  It’s not that I need him.  I don’t.  We’re doing just fine without this man figure.  And women do it all the time.  And women cope. Because that’s what you have to do.  But oh, I would love for these circumstances to be different.  I would love for my baby daddy to have tried to at least be a friend to me and a father figure to her.  I would love to have someone to talk to in these long evenings after my baby has gone to bed.  I want to feel desirable.

And so, a date with a broken man and a reunion with an old lover, all in the same day, made me face these things and realise certain inalienable truths.

I want a husband.

Where is he?

Tinder?!

I guess anything is worth a shot…

Always forward, never straight.

It's life Jim, but not as we know it, , , , , Leave a comment

I read something this week that really resonated.

‘You can’t force someone to fall in love with you’

That is, I think, what I have been trying to do with my baby daddy.  Because, without sounding arrogant, I just couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t want to at least try to make a go of a relationship with me.  But maybe, just maybe, in this instance he is wiser than me because he knows he could never love me.

I feel like this realisation has set me free.

I will always have a kind of love for him, despite his failings, simply because we have made the most beautiful little person together and it is far easier and healthier to just accept that than it is to keep trying to hate him.

So onwards. Upwards. Forward and twirling in the springtime.

I am slowly getting back to my yoga routines.  As my stomach muscles have rejoined, I am able to lift into Bakasana (crow) for a few seconds and I can almost chaturanga (plank) all the way to the floor.  My head is a long way from resting on my knees in paschimottanasana (seated forward fold) and somehow, despite pushing a baby out through my pelvis, my hips are as tight as ever! Kapotasana (pigeon pose) is still a long way off being a pretty bird and the full expression into mermaid even further away. But, just breathing through my whole body, saying my mantra and feeling an awareness return to my muscles is bringing life back into that corner of my soul.

And I have a date! An actual date. To be fair it is with someone I slept with about a decade ago, so not a complete leap into the unknown. He is still my only ever one night stand. I mean, I’ve had naked cuddles with a few guys for one night only but I never usually fucked them.  Anyway, thanks to the joys of tinder (more on that another time!), we have arranged to meet up this week. And I’m excited about it. I’m trying to not do the usual projecting my life fantasy land onto him before we’ve even met…is it normal to still imagine how your last names would work together when you’re this old?! Anyway, I’m putting that down to being a girl. At least I’m not scrawling it on my notebooks, or a bus stop for that matter!

I’ve told him I’m not just looking for a fuck, he says he isn’t either, although some would say he’s sort of duty bound to say that in response. I’m not that cynical. We’ve spoken on the phone a couple of times and it’s easy, he’s good company, funny and engaging so at the very least we’ll have a good time. It will take a wee while for me to feel physically ready to have sex again though. I’m doing my pelvic floor exercises as I type!

The attention of a man makes you feel a certain kind of beautiful. I feel so beautiful on the inside at the moment. And when I see myself in the mirror holding my baby girl, I have the glow of love radiating from me and I feel beautiful in a very grounded, earth mother way. But to feel desirable is a different thing altogether. And to feel desired by someone that you have an attraction towards makes you feel beautiful in a more existential way. The ideal, I guess, is to have all three kinds at once. Love for yourself, love for your child and love from another. I’m using the words love and beauty somewhat interchangeably because at the very least, in their truest senses, they are two sides to the same coin.

There is an interview in the Guardian magazine this weekend with a woman who had acid thrown in her face by her partner.  She suffered horribly. But at the end of the piece, she writes;

‘But the one thing he was trying to destroy – my beauty – had nothing to do with my face. You can’t burn integrity, character or courage. What he thought he would destroy, he never even touched.’

Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that love?

I’m typing this in bed next to my daughter who is farting loudly in her sleep and making me giggle a lot.

Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that love?