Loss

I've been told I can be quite cold hearted. That I don't actually *need* anyone else, and to a certain extent that's true. I've always been more than happy with my own company. In the years in my 20s when I was single I had no issue at all traveling by myself (long distance, not just within the UK), going to football games and gigs by myself and generally enjoying my own company. I am incredibly self-sufficient, I don't need anyone else in my life. Don't get me wrong, I have fabulous friends and I love hanging out with them. But I've just never been one that couldn't cope on her own. I more than cope, I thrive.

My mum I love dearly but we're very very very different people and, to be honest, the vast majority of the time she annoys the living crap out of me. I know the reasons she behaves why she does, it's to do with her childhood, so I do not blame her at all but nevertheless I'm not entirely sure I'll mourn her passing. Apologies if that sounds blunt but there you go. My father I absolutely adore, but due to his illness the man I knew as my father I said goodbye to at least a year ago - if not longer. If he had died two years ago I would have been lost, totally and utterly drowned in my own grief. But now? Now is a different story. I'm not entirely sure I'd mourn his passing either.

Therefore it has slightly sideswiped me when the mother of one of my closest friends died at the weekend. She had been ill for some time but I still refused to fully accept she was as ill as she was. I always thought she'd come back, she was a wonderful woman and so so strong. Funny, generous and I loved her desperately. In some ways I loved her more than my own mother. I have a bond with my mother that no one else can replace, I know that, but I have never had the relationship with my mother that I had with this woman. I would walk into her house and she'd treat me like one of her daughters (she had two of her own, the eldest I have been friends with for almost 20 years now). She didn't live locally, she was over 200 miles away, but I saw her as often as I could. I, obviously, now wish I had seen her more. I'd walk in and she'd just poor me a glass of wine, my own mother constantly lectures me about how much I drink and the drinking problem that she perceives I have. This woman would never ever judge me, my own mother - despite always saying she was coming to see me and not my house, would always turn her nose up when she walked through my door if the place was anything other than pristine. Which I don't think it ever was.

I have not yet experienced loss like this. I had lost all my grandparents by the age of 24. My dad only had his mum when I was born and she died when I was 12 so I don't think I was old enough to even understand what was going on. My mum's parents died within a year of each other in my early twenties and I was never that close to them. Partly because they lived 80 miles away and partly because, by my adulthood, I was well aware of what they'd put my mum through and I wasn't sure I actually liked them. I didn't particularly grieve either of those passings. My dad's sister, also my godmother, died in 2015. She was ten years older than my father and almost felt like a surrogate grandmother. Up until now, it had been her death that had affected me the most. But even that grief has not hit me like this has.

She has two daughters in their thirties, one with a three year old. I feel guilty for feeling as I do. What right to I have to feel this hurt and this loss, this grief that is ripping my insides apart, when she has closer family than I. I don't want to tread on her daughters' toes, I don't want to assume my place in her life meant more to her than someone else's. It's something I'm grappling with, it is not my mother. It is not someone I saw frequently (altho that was more geography, I'm now wishing I had seen her so much more than I managed to. I hadn't seen her for eighteen months). But I can't help how I feel. I don't want to feel I'm taking the spotlight, which I know is a crass way of putting it but I hope you know what I mean. Despite how I feel it is not my mother who has passed.

There is a part of me that thinks that a life has to leave this world for another to be created. And, whilst my body is seriously fucking me around this month, it's still possible that I'm pregnant (we won't find out for definite for at least another week or two) and all I could think was why her. If you had to take someone to make the space for a new life could you not have taken someone else??!? But then if I am going to be granted my miracle child, surely someone as special as this lady (and oh my god was she special) has to be the one to make way.

But I miss her. SO much. I just want to hear her voice one more time, her laugh. I want her to hug me, squeeze me. Just once more.

Endgame

Well, the blue pills are still working. No doubt about that one!! And if you'd offered me the sex life we have now (altho I'd still like it a bit more frequently admittedly, but fact is we're still living apart and I'm out most evenings in the week at the moment) two years ago I would have bitten your arm off for it. Literally probably!! But this is not two years ago. This is now. And I'm less then six months to the age of 40.

Yes, the pills are working. Yes, we're having sex. But there is still one thing missing that needs to happen if we're going to conceive. Please don't make me say it...… But yes, we're not getting 'endgame'. He's not getting to the point he needs to to be able to do what we need to do. We're not sure why, never used to be a problem. Yet again, something else gets taken away just as another puzzle piece falls in to place.

But then it happened. On an evening when I was due to ovulate the following day. Perfect timing! I didn't want to get my hopes up but it was the closest we'd ever made it timings wise. I tried not to think about it. But then I felt myself ovulate the following day as planned (yes yes I know, I'm a freak. I've always been able to feel it) and over the course of the next week there was more twinges. As if things were fusing together, things were changing. I could feel it. It was the weirdest thing. I noticed hormonal changes that I wouldn't usually have at that particular time in my cycle. I wanted to ignore it but the little voice in the back of my head just got louder and louder 'you're pregnant, you're pregnant'. Absolutely absurd, I had no proof of this other than knowing what I was feeling within my own body. But I couldn't shut the voice up. I tried to tell myself I was just being positive, that I knew it was unlikely to have happened and I knew I needed to ignore the voice for another few weeks. But it got harder and harder.

Then I went out with my mum to an exhibition, ten days after hubby and I had finally got there. And all of a sudden something changed, I felt something detach. I knew I'd lost it. The voice was silent and no matter how hard I tried to hear it it just wasn't there anymore. I wanted the ground to just open up and swallow me. But there I was, out for the day with my mum. Who, of course, knows absolutely nothing (despite constantly asking me a hundred questions and it's getting harder and harder to fob her off. I mean, why does she NEED to know everything??!?). I waited until I got home. I cried. And I have not stopped. Again, absurd. Can you mourn for the loss of something you didn't actually know for certain that you had in the first place? But it felt like I did know, even though I couldn't have done. A different kind of endgame. And so now I just wait for it to be confirmed.

Let's See How Deep The Rabbit Hole Goes

Now, Christmas. And yes, I realise it is now February! But still, I didn't really manage to snap out of my Grinchness (which you can read about here) sadly and work, as usual, was nuts in January. So. The weekend before Christmas was lovely, hubby and I went out for the day on the Saturday and we also spent Christmas Eve together. I opened up to him about how I was feeling over a drink on Christmas Eve, told him that I'd come to a realisation and that I was not at all in the Christmas spirit per se but as a Christian I was absolutely ready to celebrate Christ's birth. I said that I found this a very strange but lovely place to be and it gave me very mixed feelings. He promptly suggested we walk to the local church later for midnight mass. I was so touched and it was a wonderful service, just what I needed.

Christmas Day itself was spent volunteering at a centre giving Christmas lunch to those that wouldn't otherwise have had it (elderly that were alone, homeless, families on food banks) and again, it was very enjoyable. Boxing Day was also much better than I thought it would ever be. Sister-in-law was on good form (well, good for her.....) and the kids were brilliant. Even my brother seemed to be a in a good mood! So the next evening, admittedly after a couple of glasses of wine, I texted her about the fact she still hadn't unblocked me on FB. It had been over six months now, I said, and I was getting more and more embarrassed that I was keeping up with the kids by relying on my parents taking screenshots of the things she was posting and sending them to me. She went on about how she couldn't do it on her phone, she had to be on a desktop. Well, said I, you managed to do it in the first place so please - I'd like to be able to see what you post. Her response was the same, she needed a desktop and it was a banned site at work so she couldn't do it. I snapped, said I'd unfriend her and add her back again and hopefully that would reset it. So I took her off my FB, and there was not the option to add her back. Clearly the fact I'm on her blocked list means I can't even add her as a friend. To be honest it's a bit of a relief. We don't have to pretend anymore and the ball is absolutely in her court.

Christmas for hubby and I on the, erm, 'getting back in the saddle' department was mixed. There were urges and opportunity but what needed to happen for us to get back into said saddle didn't happen. Or did, but then promptly disappeared again. Beyond frustrating, as you can imagine. It was as if now that we are very much back on track someone has said "brilliant, well done for getting everything else sorted and getting it all back together. Oh, but by the way we're now going to take this away from you." Gah! But, as if to prove just how much he's changed, hubby dealt with it brilliantly. Knew immediately that something wasn't right, made an appointment at the docs for blood tests (which have since all come back clear so who knows) and placed an order for some blue tablets. Which work.

* and yes, I am well aware of the inaccuracy of my Matrix quote. I just like the sentiment, it's not my fault the pills I'm talking about are blue not red :D