A week in the life....

Monday:

My Dad called me with the opening line of 'Now I don't want you to worry but...'.

It turns out that during an operation for something unrelated, the surgeon had done a routine scrape of his prostate and had found cancerous cells. Apparently this in itself is not too serious if caught in the early stages (most men as they get older tend to get cancerous prostate cells), but my Grandfather and his Father before him, both died of prostate cancer. The hospital have therefore decided to give Dad a course of radiotherapy and touch wood he will be fine before we know it. He's had an MRI scan and his results will be ready in a week, so we'll know more then.
I'm so glad my Dad was ill in the first place or they'd never have found it, and I thank the surgeon for doing his job so well.

Tuesday:

I receive a text from a friend. His wife recently gave birth to twins and very sadly one of them died shortly after birth, the funeral is arranged for Friday and I cant imagine what they are going through right now. On one hand they have the surviving twin to care for and be joyful for and on the other they have to grieve the loss of their other child. I am struggling to put into words what I feel about this situation and how best to give words of comfort to them.
Life can be so shit, it gives with one hand and indiscriminately takes with the other.

Wednesday:

I receive a letter from my lawyer. I'm going through a divorce right now. It's been almost 3 years since my husband left and I still struggle to cope with this situation sometimes. It seems my whole 10years of marriage is now compounded into a few pages of legal jargon and court stamps. A marriage that lasted years can be ended in seconds in some court, with a complete stranger rubber stamping a bit of paper.
It seems that there were several discrepancies with his financial disclosures and my lawyer has now applied to the court to stop the divorce until the finances are sorted. This is only because she's asked his lawyer several times to confirm that the decree absolut will not be applied for until the finances were sorted, but her requests have fallen on deaf ears. This could be the start of a messy situation I didn't want in the first place and I dont know if I have the stomach for it.

Thursday:

I reply to my lawyer and give her permission to send all the papers she needs to get things sorted. Despite my lack of stomach I have to protect mine and my daughter's futures. My ex is a high earner, I gave up my career to bring up our child and have nowhere near his earning potential, no pension (he'd promised his company and private pensions would cover both of us so therefore I didn't need one), when the house is sold I'll need capital to secure a small mortgage (he's just bought a £465,000 house with his girlfriend so it's safe to say his housing needs are met)
I call my Dad, he's doing ok, says he feels fine and then tells me he had his radiotherapy today. He didn't tell us all because he didn't want us to worry. I think that's our perrogative though so I worry anyway but I don't tell him that.
I try and prepare myself for the funeral tomorrow.

Friday:

I finish work early and head to the Church. as it gets closer to 1'o clock it becomes apparent that there's something not right. The church is still closed and there is a handful of us waiting outside. None of us though want to call and check. Then we get a text. The mother of the twins had been rushed into hospital with a complication from the birth. Thankfully she was going to be ok but the funeral is postponed. You couldn't imagine this could get any worse for them, they've had so much to deal with and are now going to have to go throught the trauma of rearranging the funeral so they can finally put their little girl to rest.

This has been a week of personal emotion and that of others. It's weeks like this that make you wonder why shit things happen to good people but it's also a week to be thankful for those you have around you, that love you and support you. It's a week that makes you thankful for the things your parents have given you; their unconditional love, their knowledge and experience, and their sometimes unwanted advice, and it's a week to tell them so and never stop telling them. It's a week that makes you thankful that your children are here to love, to argue with you, to hug you, to frustrate you, to show you their wisdom beyond their years.
It's a week to be there for someone who needs you even if they dont ask you to.

In the words of JJ Barrie....No charge

For all of our children...............

______________________________________

Now our little boy came up to his mum in the kitchen this evenin' .

While she was fixin' supper and he handed her a piece of paper he'd been writin' on

and after wipin' her hands on her apron

She read it - and this is what it said

For mowin' the lawn - five dollars

For makin' my own bed this week - one dollar

and for goin' to the store - fifty cents

An' playin' with little brother, while you went shoppin' - twenty-five cents

Takin' out the trash - one dollar

Gettin' a good report card - five dollars

and for rakin' the yard - two dollars

Total owed - fourteen seventy-five

Well, as mum looked at him standin' there expectantly

and I could see the mem'ries flashing through her mind

and so she picked up the pen, and turnin' the paper over

This is what she wrote

For the nine months I carried you Growin' inside me - No charge

For the nights I've sat up with you Doctored you, and prayed for you - No charge

For the time and the tears That you've cost through the years, there's No charge

and when you add it all up The full cost of my love is No charge

For the nights filled with dread and all the worries ahead - No charge

For advice and the knowledge and the cost of your college - No charge

For the toys, food and clothes and even for wipin' your nose There's No charge, son

and when you add it all up The full cost of my love, is - No charge

Well, when he finished readin'

He had great big old tears in his eyes

and he looked up at her standing there and said Mama, I sure do love you

Then he took the pen, and in great big letters

He wrote PAID IN FULL

Lord knows when you add it all up The cost of real love is - No charge

____________________________________________________

I read this to my daughter..........she made me a cup of tea and told me she wouldn't charge me for it but could she have her bedroom painted blue......maybe I'll try again next year!!!!

Back to life!

I used to be a painter, I used to have my own interior's shop, I used to be a jewellery designer, I used to be an artists model, I used to, I used to, I used to.................Now I'm a dinner lady.

I constantly hear things like, "god, you must hate doing that job", or, and this is my particular favourite, "why on earth would you want to do that, when you could get something so much better with more money".

What was that line in Spiderman about power and responsibility? Neither of these things hold much attraction for me as far as work is concerned. I had my time of wanting more, being ambitious, climbing up the ladder, wanting success and the kudos that went with it. Now I want a job where I can go in, do what I get paid to do (and well I may add), enjoy the social contact of my fellow workmates and the teenagers who grace the dinner hall at lunchtime, and be home in time to pick my daughter up from school. I dont want any stress, my personal life for the last few years has had as much stress as I'd never want to have to cope with. I love my job and the freedom it gives me and the stability it gives my daughter at home. I am fortunate enough in that I dont have to work full time but am constantly being questioned as to why I dont want to.

This week I was offered, out of the blue, a job from an old aquaintance to do some designs. It initially would involve doing some corporate work for a members only club wanting to develop their own line in jewellery, so would be a set amount of pieces which once designed I would have no more involvement in, but then came what it was thought by the other party, to be the sweetener. This job may lead (and I say may in the broadest term) to more work from members wanting individual commissions. Now I know many would jump at this, and my past self would have as well, but it's not me anymore. I dont need to be top of my game, I dont need to be taking phonecalls on my family time weekends and evenings, or checking up on orders, or chasing progress of craftsmen, or supply of gemstones, or travelling to meet clients, or dealing with what would be impossibly high demands from the well heeled or media types this partcular club aims itself at. So I said no.

After much begging from my aquaintance, I agreed to give some ideas to the corporate bit of the deal, but only as a favour to her ( which I hasten to add would be stored and recouped at a later date). I do not want to be paid and I do not want any further involvement and I most certainly dont want the commissions. This was questioned by her, my boyfriend and needless to say a couple of my workmates who yearn to be someone other than one of the dinnerladies at their local school.

All I want is a nice quiet life to enjoy with those I love. I want my daughter to have her Mum to take her to school in the mornings and pick her up from school in the afternoon. I want to be able to take her to her piano lessons and go to school plays, I want to enjoy just being me and not have to mind my p's and q's with someone with more money than sense.

What's wrong with just wanting to be Mum?

knock knock

Who's there?
Me
Me Who?
I'm still trying to sus that one out! Ask me again later.

Seems like this blog has turned into an annual event as opposed to the daily one (sometimes twice daily) blog it used to be. A lot has happened since I last visited, way too much to put on this little page believe me! I just write now when I feel like it. I used to use this blog to help me with my daily emotional trauma's of my marriage break-up, then it was for the eventual occurrence of the return to dating......(or should I say lack of) that particular chapter in my life was short lived. I decided that conventional dating was not for me, I felt totally out of my depth after losing the man I thought I'd be with forever, and after 10 years of marriage was completely lost in the mire of scary modern dating.

I realise from that last statement that I sound ever so slightly ancient! I'm not, I'm 37, but I was never one for dating loads of blokes. I never actually dated any guy who I didn't already know at some level. Even then however, my total experience of boyfriend material was counted on one hand, including the boyfriend who eventually became my husband. I now find myself at the end of that chapter, my decree Nisi comes through tomorrow and in approximately 8 weeks time I shall be divorced.

Several of my friends have declared this a time of celebration, freedom, and 'you should be glad to be shot of him'. The truth of the matter is I am not happy, I am sad. I am sad for the loss of my marriage, I am sad that my husband never had enough respect for me or our daughter to work at saving our marriage,I am sad I could not give my daughter the life I wanted her to have and I am sad that people these days see the ending of a marriage as cause for celebration. It's not, it should give us all cause to reflect on ourselves, the lives we lead and the people affected by our actions (and I include my own in that statement)

I am not sad anymore that I do not have my husband, he has moved on with his life and I finally accepted this and with that acceptance the love disappeared. All I have now is the memory of the relationship we had and looking back on it, it was not an equal one.

There is a plus point to the sadness though. I stated earlier that I did not enjoy success with conventional dating after my break up, and after much persuasion from friends I tried internet dating. I had a few hiccups at the beginning but I met a guy who made me laugh, had a similar outlook on life and was a tonic to all my ails. Throughout the last 20months he has proved himself to be a genuine , caring, supportive and extremely understanding boyfriend. Which is just as well really, as the road he decided to travel with me has not been the smoothest!

Now though, I'm finally getting there. I look forward to simple things, like getting a dvd and cuddling up on the couch, going for a walk on a Saturday morning, taking my daughter to the panto where we can laugh at the jokes that go over the kids heads, talking about holidays we'd like to go on, jumping in the car and going somewhere at the weekends (I've never travelled so much in my life!) and just effortlessly enjoying each others company.

We've also had arguments, which was all new to me, but I realised that we were actually being completely open with each other and not being afraid to vent it. I'm not saying I enjoyed it as such, but I enjoyed the freedom of saying exactly what I felt without feeling it would be stored up to be used against me at a later date. This has only happened twice but I reckon we are stronger for it.

I can categorically no longer deny that I am in love with this man.

I didn't think I'd get to this point again, and I put up so many barriers I was pretty sure no one could break through them anyway, but he has. He should get a medal for that achievement alone! He also gets on like a house on fire with my daughter, they tease each other mercilessly, they joke together (quite often aimed I me I may add) and he has strong family values.

My only wish now is that we some day soon get the freedom my ex enjoys. My marital home has still not sold, I am still living there and am unable to move without releasing it's ever decreasing equity, and in todays market it's unlikely to sell soon. Until it does we're kind of stuck in this limbo of wanting to move on to the next stage in our relationship but still stuck in the dating stage (not a bad thing in some ways hehe). So this week the big clearout has begun to try to sell the house. All personal photo's have been taken down, all unnecessary things have begun to be stored or thrown out and much to her annoyance my daughter's very childlike bedroom will soon be a might more sophisticated.

I know it's cliche but this is a New Year and I really do want it to be a new start for all of us. I am hoping that our determination (not desperation) will have the desired effect and our positivity will brush off onto potential purchasers. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that before the year is out I'll be going 'knock knock' on a new front door:-)