Port Lincoln...

Well – haven’t I been a slacker!

It seems some months have passed since I’ve written a blog entry. I could come up with lots of excuses – such as it was Christmas and I’ve been adjusting my diet to help combat my fibromyalgia (which is helping – yay!) etc. But I’m not going to. I’m just going to get on with this entry!

Between Christmas and New Year, Kirby and I travelled with our friends to Port Lincoln for three nights. The purpose of our trip? To go out on a boat with Adventure Bay Charters to swim with sea lions.

Travelling on the boat to the seal lions

Dolphins joined us for part of the journey

                                                     

Me and one of our friends in the water

It was absolutely brilliant! Sea lions are endangered – there are only 10000 left – so swimming with them was a real honour.

The sea lions lazing around

In the water

I also loved the way the crew of the boat we went on to where the sea lions live were very respectful of the sea lions. We were not allowed to approach them, but rather we were to wait until, and if, they came up to us  –  which made it all the more special when they did.

Sea lions are so playful and cheeky! One of the crew put a floating line as a guide to where we were allowed to swim – one of the sea lions grabbed one of the floats and took it down to the ocean bottom (it was shallow water) and proceeded to lie on it!

Look what I can do!!

You can't see me!!

While we were in Port Lincoln we also visited Coffin Bay National Park, where we were fortunate to see an emu and his chicks (yes – the Dad takes on the child rearing responsibilities!), New Zealand fur seals playing, and a kangaroo. The beaches were so wide and white, and the water so clear. It was stunning.

Baby emus with their Dad

Loving life!

 

Beautiful remote beaches

Kangaroos camouflage so well! 

Fur seals playing...

The ferocity of the ocean

I’m writing about this holiday for a couple of reasons – aside from the fact that it was awesome. And those reasons relate to the fact that we couldn’t, and don’t, have children.

The view from our balcony at the Port Lincoln Hotel

The first is that our friends are in their early twenties – and we are in our early forties. It’s quite an age gap and yet we are good friends and we get along so well. The truth is that if we had children it is less likely that we would spend as much time with these friends, if any, because we would be mixing in quite different circles. People with kids tend to mix with other people with kids – and are less likely to mix with people from very different age groups. Lately Kirby and I have been looking more at what we do have in life, instead of what we don’t, and these friends are part of what we have – and they are a blessing.

The second is that we could just go away. We can go away, work permitting, any time we like. We don’t have to think about school holidays or making sure that the activities we do are kid-friendly. Kirby and I can take off on the weekend, or even just for a day, and do what we want. Of course, we have our fur-kids to think of – but they are so adorable that I think we’ll have to start a raffle with the winner being the one to look after them next!

Lastly – life is getting better. I still get sad about not having children – but what we have is amazing. Kirby and I have changed in the last year. It’s taken a while, but we have become more aware that we have a life well worth living and that we shouldn’t waste. It doesn’t mean we don’t feel a sense of missing our children though – that will never go away.

Kirby and I are spending more time with friends and family, going out to different places, and enjoying life. We even spent Christmas Eve putting together Lego – Kirby had a car and I put together Rey’s speeder from Star Wars: The Force Awakens! If that’s not geeky I don’t know what is!

Life – dance, play, work, laugh, love, cry, walk, see friends, listen to music, feel angry, do something.

 

It’s too precious not to.

An old soul...

We took the eleven year old daughter of our friends out on Saturday. We went on a dolphin cruise on the Port River in Adelaide and we even saw four dolphins! We were the only ones to see one of the dolphins which was pretty special!

Jess knew that Ari had died and in the car on the way to the Port she said about how sad she was that Ari was gone and how it must be really hard for us.

She said “He was like your child…so he was like my cousin too.”

Okay – I’ve got tears in my eyes right now.

This beautiful, amazing girl said so simply and honestly exactly how we felt about our Ari. He was our child.

She showed more understanding than many adults would and with such simplicity and honesty.

We adore her so much – she is a pure delight in our lives – and I know for sure she is an old soul.

We love you Jess! 

Me, Jess, and Kirby

The Port Adelaide River

One of the tall ships the "One and All"

Jess with her Dad, and Kirby with Ari when he was a puppy.
Jess can't remember a time when Ari wasn't around.

Back I go…and my nephew…

Hey everyone! Tomorrow I’m headed back into hospital to fix up a small issue from the procedure back in January – not my doctor’s fault, just something that happens. My body does not like the clips put on my fallopian tubes and so they are coming off and my tubes will be taken out.

I’m not looking forward to the procedure itself, but I can’t wait till it’s done and I can get out and walk my dogs and ride my bike and so on again. It’s really quite exciting!

Okay – got to tell you about something my five year old nephew did a few weeks’ ago.

Kirby and I were going to look after him one evening, but Kirby was sick and so I got to look after our nephew by myself, which was quite nice as we don’t get a lot of one on one time.

We played some games, he beat me at an x-box sport game, and then we had some quiet time before he was to go to bed. We decided to watch a movie.

My nephew said I could pick the movie and pulled out his DVD box. I looked through them and picked out “Despicable Me”. He looked at it and shook his head.

“We can’t watch that, because it’s for over three year olds and Charlie is only two.”

So, I picked out another movie “Kung Fu Panda.”

“No – that one is for over three year olds as well.”

Eventually I picked out a DVD “Planes.”

“Yes – that one is okay.”

It was really thoughtful of him to think about what movie would suit Charlie as well…we wouldn’t want Charlie watching something that is too mature for him…

By the way – Charlie is the dog.

My nephew let me “choose” until I picked a suitable movie (otherwise known as the movie he wanted to watch all along)!

I let my nephew have that one – he is a clever little guy!

Our child...

I haven’t written an entry for a while as I’ve been concentrating on getting better, and I’ve also been in a bit of an emotional well and found it hard to write. Though things are improving slowly but surely.

So, on my return to the blog – I present you with a funny story about our nephew.

My mother-in-law was explaining our family tree to our nephew (he is five years old). She started with herself and my father-in-law as Grandma and Pop, and then had two branches down to Kirby and my sister-in-law.

My sister-in-law had a line to her husband (our nephew’s Mum and Dad) and from there a line dropped down to our nephew.

That all made sense to him.

Then my mother-in-law drew a line from Kirby to me (as Uncle and Aunty) and explained that we don’t have any children.

I can imagine my nephew as he stood there, rather indignantly, and stated “They DO have children – they have ME!”

He is a precious, precious little boy and I couldn’t love him more if he was my own son.

All the small things...

On Sunday it was a year since we put our beautiful cat Minerva down. She was 15 years old, and her kidneys were failing and she only had about 10 percent lung capacity. We didn’t want her to suffer. It was an honour to be there for her as she took her last breath and passed away while we told her over and over again that we loved her – and we still do love her.

In honour of her and the one year anniversary of her death I put her urn with her ashes in the sunshine. I lit some incense and Kirby and I sat and remembered all the funny things she used to do.

We laughed a lot recalling different things. Such as the time when I was blowing on the top of a bottle to make musical sounds, and she came running in, jumped on my lap, smacked me in the face with her paw, then got down and ran back up the hallway. I guess she didn’t like the music I was making! I recall sitting there stunned and then bursting out laughing hysterically – as did Kirby as he was a witness to it.

Thinking about Minerva and all the little things she used to do got me thinking about all the small things in my life that make life interesting, fun, humbling, and sometimes have me feeling wistful.

All the small things that I am honoured to have in my life.

So instead of writing more – here is a collage of just some of the small things I love.

If I can only visualise hard enough...

I guess at some point most of us think that we can have whatever we want in life. I know I used to. I looked for the magical answer that would bring me the life I wanted. You name it – I tried it. Crystals, Feng Shui, prayer and meditation, and visualisation.

Visualisation – that’s a big one. But I’ll write more about that later.

Even since I knew Kirby and I would never have children I thought I could have the life I wanted. I negotiated with life, I thought if I can’t have kids then I would compromise and think about what else I wanted and then I could have a life that encompassed that instead.

It seems crazy to me now. I don’t, personally, believe that things happen to us on purpose to teach us things, but sometimes you can learn something anyway and I know one of the lessons I took away from not having children is that life isn’t going to hand me what I want just because I want it. It has just taken me a while to really understand this.

And back to visualisation. There are many self-help “gurus” around who say that we can have the life we want by using visualisation and just making it happen. It’s curious that the lives they suggest we can have all involve big houses, expensive cars, and a lot of money – and how the tickets for the seminars these people run are generally a couple of hundred dollars each, if not more.

To me – it’s kind of cultish. It’s getting people to pay lots of money to someone who is going to tell them they can have it all – when no one, ever, can really have it all. So, they are selling a lie.

Wow! That sucks...

We who have not been able to have children know very well that we can’t have it all no matter what we do or try or visualise. And, this means there are quite possibly other things we can’t have either – for example, a dream of mine is to climb Mount Everest (seriously!), but I am unlikely to ever do it because I have a heart murmur and a hole in my heart.

I would like to travel the world for a year or two, but that means I couldn’t have my pets – I want both! But, I can’t have both.

I want people I care about to get better – but some of them never will again.

Now that I’ve accepted that I can’t control every aspect of my life and there will never be a point where I have everything I want and I will live happily ever after I have found a sense of happiness I didn’t expect. Sounds strange, doesn’t it…

I’ve read a book recently called “The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand PositiveThinking” by Oliver Burkeman. And I get it. By being realistic I can focus on what is here, now, rather than waiting or striving for something that is never going to happen. And by focussing on what is here and now I appreciate the smaller things rather than constantly waiting and hoping for the bigger things to happen.

That doesn’t mean I don’t have goals or don’t push myself in certain directions – for example, I might not be able to climb Mount Everest, but I fully intend to go on treks in Tasmania, and in the Himalayas at a lower altitude. I’m starting training to do this very soon.

I’ve put a short poem about my feelings about not having it all on a postcard which you can feel free to download and share.

This is what not having children has taught me – and blessed me with.

Realization and my weasel…

The subconscious mind is powerful. It can bring up old feelings and pain without actually letting you know that this is what it is doing. You feel anxious, sad, unsure, and sometimes angry, but you don’t know why.

That is how I was feeling last week. All I wanted to do was run to get away from the feelings of inadequacy and pain that I was experiencing. I couldn’t picture how I could be happy.  And I didn’t know why. Life is good – I have a wonderful husband, I have the opportunity to follow my dreams of being a full-time writer, I have amazing friends and family, and I have just been to Thailand and fulfilled a dream.

Last week I felt quite pathetic. I had intended to experience life with more gratitude and simplicity, to remain inspired by what I experienced in Thailand, but last week I felt far from where I hoped I would be when I came home in May.

One of the dogs from BLES died in the last month, but I only just heard about his death this week. The news that the dog had died opened the way for the realization that my subconscious had been pushing something important up and I just wasn’t receptive to it. July is a wonderful month as it is the month in which Hugo was born. But, it is also the month of anniversaries of some losses. It is the month in which my beautiful Nan died three years ago and it is the month, six years ago, that we started IVF with the expectation that we would become parents. It’s true that no embryos were created from the first round of IVF, but with the cancellation of that cycle came the beginning of the death of hope that came more real with each cycle.

Anniversaries of deaths, in particular, bring with them memories and feelings about other losses that have happened as well. One of the most obvious is the loss of my cat, Minerva, just this past May. There is also the memory of my cousin who died in a motorcycle crash when I was eighteen and he was twenty one. 

There are other losses throughout my life, just like there are in everyone’s lives.

And, so, onto the weasel…

I have a weasel that turns mutant sometimes. Okay, not really, but I do have a part of me that when I am feeling melancholy and unsure seems to sense my weakness and rushes over to me to make sure I know just how useless and horrible I am. That is what was happening last week.

I felt fragile and with it came the thoughts of “you are stupid”, “you can’t do anything so why try?”, “anything you do will fail”, and the big one – “you can’t even have a child.” There was also one that relates to my concern that some treasured friendships seem to be falling away and I have no idea why.  Communication from their side has stopped. So, there were also the thoughts of “people don’t really like you”, and “you are not likeable – people just pretend to like you.”

I used to fight these feelings. I put all my effort into trying to overcome them, but all that happened was that the thoughts got stronger. There was no way I could defeat these kinds of torments and when I failed it just gave more ammunition for the thoughts that I am useless and no good.

I now have a strategy that I use where I imagine that there is a weasel in my mind. Normally it is well behaved and even useful, but every now and then it goes crazy and becomes a mutant that pours forth negative and unfounded judgments about me. If I try to make it go away completely it just gets more out of control. I have now given it an imaginary place where it gets a “time out” until it calms down. I imagine it as kind of a dog bed in the corner of the room.

This really does work for me. It’s like dealing with a child that is having a tantrum. I give it space, I don’t engage in its attempt to bring me down even though it keeps trying, and I ignore it until it calms down. Sometimes I even thank it after my thoughts return to being healthier.

Why would I thank this mutant weasel? Because sometimes it can be helpful. Telling me I am no good at anything is not a good thing, but helping me to recognize when I need to let go of something that I have tried and really have little talent for (and am even not enjoying) is beneficial. Saying people don’t really like me is something I don’t like, but helping me to think about whether I have done something that hurt someone can be a positive step in rescuing a friendship that is important to me.

Sometimes there is nothing positive that I can find in what the mutant weasel is saying. “You can’t even have a child” is one in particular. All I can say to the weasel then is “yep – that’s true…so what?”, or, even better, I ignore the weasel as it plays up in the corner.

While the weasel has its tantrum I get on with life.

With time the weasel calms down and stops the negative attacks. Then it returns to being a helpful and quite cuddly little creature.

I forgot about all of this last week. Life isn’t all rainbows and unicorns now that I have remembered, but it is certainly better…and I am free to think of the people and animals that have come and gone in my life with love and tears and laughter, and sometimes anger, without feeling that I am no good.

And I am free to think through the concerns of last week without being overwhelmed by them, and I can move forward instead of being stuck.

Me and Nan on the last day I saw her

Nothing is sorted…

I remember a Facebook post by a friend of mine that said something along the lines of one of the best things about turning thirty is that you’ve gone through the turbulent years of your twenties and that in your thirties you will know who you are and what you are about. You’ll get your life sorted out.

I replied that the best thing about turning forty is that you realize you have very little sorted out. You still aren’t too sure about who you are and what you are about and that you probably never will be, but that this is actually okay.

For me this is true. As I mentioned in my last post, the past ten years (my thirties) have been very different from what I expected. While I thought I would probably meet my life partner and this happened, there were also many unexpected twists. Not having children when I thought I was destined to be a Mum was one of the biggest. I’ve also lost not just one but three jobs (two through organizational downsizing and one through quitting because I couldn’t stand the bullying anymore), been diagnosed with a few major health conditions, and, of course, lost my darling cat, Minerva. I won’t go into the other twists because I’ve already listed them in last week’s post.

I thought, at the beginning of my thirties, that I would have it all sorted out by the time I turned forty, but as that age drew closer I realized the only thing I could be sure of was that nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, will ever be finally and for always sorted out. This realization has set me free from striving to be in a position in life that is actually a mirage – the closer you think you are getting to it the more it disappears.  It has enabled me to look at life differently – where nothing is set and there are opportunities everywhere. I normally find this a very good place to be.

But, some days, I hate it.

When I got back from Thailand I planned to live more simply and do more for the community and animals. I planned to live my life with more inner strength and personal integrity. This isn’t opposed to knowing I will never have everything sorted out. It is a philosophy I want to live whilst moving with life instead of against it.

Just one problem – I am feeling really, really overwhelmed right now. There are so many things I could do with my life that I am stuck doing nothing because I don’t know which way to go.  I have no idea how to go about my forties. What do I want to pursue? Do I really want to write novels? Is it too late to have a career change? What causes do I want to support? Do I want to do volunteer work? If nothing is sorted, everything is an option, and it’s unbelievably hard choose between them – and I do have to make choices because I can’t do everything. But because I can’t make a choice I am stuck in one spot and doing nothing. Why can’t I make a choice? I just don’t know.

Maybe I’m not as comfortable as I would like to be with not having my life sorted out– and I am afraid I will make a choice that will take me further into uncertainty.

Sometimes I think it would be easier if I had children. I would be a mum before anything else and my life would revolve around my kids. My choices would be limited to those that were in line with my role in being a mum.  

I know this is utter rubbish, of course, because mums have many, many choices they have to make all the time and not just for themselves but for their children too. It is not easier for them than it is for me in terms of making choices about their lives. And being a mum isn’t necessarily a life-encompassing role either. Many women are mums and pursue careers or causes or hobbies or other things as well.

For me, though, being a mum would likely have been the major role in my life. If people asked what I did I would be able to answer “I’m a Mum.” Of course, being a mum would have been in the context that nothing in life is ever sorted. Even now it hurts my heart that I will never be able to say that – although I do consider myself a mum to my fur-kids.

Am I rambling? Maybe I am. Maybe that’s a reflection of how confused I am right now. I think I’m going through another stage where I don’t know who I am if I am not going to be a parent. I don’t know what to do or what path to pursue. I don’t even know if I am happy right now.

That’s life I guess.

I’m reading a book at the moment called “The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking” by Oliver Burkeman. It was given to me by one of my friends for my fortieth birthday. I’m half way through it. I think it might be a book that will give me a new perspective on life that might help with where I am at the moment. I’ll let you know.

BLESED in Thailand…Chiang Mai

I forgot to tell you about something that happened in Sukhothai that was really challenging at first – martial law was declared across Thailand. I found this out on the television one morning and I had no idea what to do. Should I be heading home? Should I be going to the Australian Embassy? Should I be hiding under the bed?

I contacted Kirby via email and he researched and found out that it wasn’t too much of a problem in northern Thailand – and even in Bangkok there weren’t too many issues for tourists. So, I decided to stay and go on to Chiang Mai. I was nervous, but I went anyway. What is that saying? Feel the fear and do it anyway?

So, onto Chiang Mai…

My room just left of the stairs...

I had an amazing hotel to stay at, ManathaiVillage. It really was like a little village surrounding a gorgeous pool. My room was so sweet and I had a little patio out the front of my room with chairs and a table. I sat there every morning with a coffee working out what I was going to do for the day. I was, and am, so happy that I booked over a year ago and therefore got a substantial discount on the room. 

The amazing pool...

The four days I spent in Chiang Mai really weren’t enough and I intend on going back again one day. But, I did fit a lot in during those four days.

Beckie (who was with me at BLES) told me about the Healing Family Foundation and said it was worth a visit. It is a foundation which employs people with (mainly) intellectual disabilities to do weaving which is then made into products such as clothing, bags, coasters, and bookmarks.

Healing Family Foundation...

Beckie was right – it was well worth the visit. I got to meet the people who are employed there and see them weaving. The artistry of these people was brilliant. They got to choose the colors and patterns that they wanted to weave every time – and every time their creations were different. And they were happy and that is the main thing. The man who formed the foundation did so because his own son was born with an intellectual disability and he didn’t want his son to end up poor and potentially on the streets. I did a lot of my souvenir shopping at the Foundation! 

The Stupa...

On one of the days I joined Anne and Laurent on a trip to Doi Inthanon National Park. It was about an hour and a half drive away and we hired a taxi driver for the day. The day started with a visit to Napamaytanidol Chedi and Phra Mahatat Napaphon Bhumisiri (which is a Chedi built to honor the 60th birthday of King Bhumipol and Queen Sirikit. The King’s Chedi was under renovation, but it was still worth visiting, if only to see the beautiful gardens.

The beautiful garden...

Vachiratharn Waterfall...

Initially we intended to see a waterfall and then go back to Chiang Mai, but we found out about a hike that would take us up the mountain and through some incredible landscapes. We kind of wanted to go, but kind of didn’t as the sign said the hike would take 2-3 hours even though it was under four kilometers (about 4.5 miles) in distance. Eventually we decided that we would do it, and we were so happy we did. The hike brought us to incredible gullies with old rainforests, a cloud forest, open areas that could have been straight from Scotland, and a perfect vista from the edge of the mountain to the valley below. I admit I was a bit scared walking along the trail next to the edge of the mountain, but really it was quite safe. The mountain is actually the highest in Thailand (around 2,565 meters) and technically is part of the foothills of the Himalayas, so I can now say I’ve been to the Himalayas (kind of…)!

The view down to the valley...

The cloud forest...

The old moat...

There was so much more that I did in Chiang Mai, but I’ll tell you about one of the best things I did while I was there. I started out the morning thinking I would do a tour of the temples in Chiang Mai’s walled city, but after two very crowded temples I decided to do a walk following the wall boundary of the old city instead. It was a long walk at over 6 kilometers (around 6.7 miles) in above 35 degree Celsius (95 degree Fahrenheit) heat, but it was worth it. The ruins of the walls were incredible. It was amazing to be able to look at and touch walls that were built in the late 13^th century and walk on bridges across a moat that was built around the same time. It was quiet in many of the sections and I loved the freedom of just seeing what I could see – rather than planning on seeing particular things. I saw beautiful flowers, some kind of tunnel that (while blocked now) would have led somewhere under the old city walls, stunning fountains, people fishing, kids playing…it was awe inspiring. 

Ruins of the old city walls...

And this was all while a military coup had come into play. There was a curfew between 10pm and 5am, there were no television broadcasts at all (not even the movie channel), and there were soldiers with machine guns around the place. If anyone had said that there would be a coup while I was in Thailand before I left it might well have stopped me going at all, but when I was there and it was all happening it didn’t change the love I had (and have) for that country and its people. I felt quite safe.

Thailand is my second home and I will be back there again.

It was an amazing, life-changing, trip. I learnt so much about patience, about what is truly important, and what people can achieve. It also made me realize, as I wrote in the entry about BLES, that I have not truly been following my dreams.

It’s strange to think that if I had children I would never have gone on this trip. This isn’t because people can’t go on holidays when they have children, but rather I probably wouldn’t have thought about it and I would have wanted to spend my holidays with my kids. I certainly wouldn’t have thought of going to Thailand on my own, and I loved going all on my own to Thailand.

What does that mean? Does it mean I no longer care about not having children? No it doesn’t. It just means that I have really embraced a different life to that I would have had if Kirby and I had children. My life as it is without kids is neither better nor worse than the life I expected I would have with kids. It’s just what my life is. And I love my life.

I am BLESed.

About last week…

I wanted to talk briefly about last week’s post “What kind of mother…”.

Sometimes in my posts, like last week, I can sound incredibly harsh on myself and sometimes I wonder whether I should share such dark emotions and self-judgment on “When You Can’t Have Kids.” I don’t want people to think I am a negative person or that these types of thoughts and emotions are a significant part of my life.

So, why do I talk about the darker side of me?

I decided when I started “When You Can’t Have Kids” that I would be very honest with you all as to the experiences I have. This includes the good times, but it must also include the not so good. It must include those experiences that hurt, are frustrating and are hard to admit to. Like everyone, I’d rather people think I have it all together, that I am happy all the time and that I have brilliant self-esteem. But, I don’t.

I am mostly a happy and positive person and I love my imperfect life, but sometimes that dark little voice that says “You are terrible, you are not good enough” pops up in my mind and heart.

I want this blog to help people who are in a similar situation to me. It’s true that no two people have exactly the same experiences, but I am sure that everyone has times where those dark emotions call by for a while. If I share mine, then I hope it will help other people to realise that these emotions are normal – they are nothing to be ashamed of. We are all human and that means we have low times. Let me say that again – we ALL have low times.

Happy me in Port Germein, South Australia,
with Conservation Volunteers Australia

I do – and I want you to remember that when you do, I am here thinking of you, understanding as much as I can without being you, and sending you a great, big universal hug.

Lastly, I want to thank Milly and Robin Mary for their comments on last week’s post – your support for me means the world. And it makes me realise that while I want to be there for others, others are there for me too – and that touches my heart more than you know. 

This is MY life...

One of the hardest things about not having kids is sharing your plans and dreams with those who do have kids. We’ve had to rethink our lives and create new dreams that don’t include having our own children. Our dreams include travel, me being a writer, Kirby developing computer games, doing volunteer work and pursuing other adventures. Many of these ambitions would be very difficult, if not impossible, if we had children.

A year or two ago we were out to dinner with a few friends (all who have children) and the conversation was mainly about children. Kirby and I had recently decided that we would like to go to Alaska to see the glaciers. I was very excited and wanted to share this with my friends and did so. It is a long term dream, but one we are steadily working towards. The response from the group was to say how they couldn’t do that because they had kids, and then the conversation turned straight back to being about their children.

I love hearing about the children our friends and family have, but it is not our life. The life Kirby and I have is different to what we thought it was going to be and we have worked hard through our grief at not having children and have worked hard to develop lives that have meaning, goals and happiness.

I want to share our anticipation about our plans with our friends and family, but sometimes it feels as though because we don’t have children our news and our plans are not interesting enough. Sometimes I want to share what’s going on in my life – and sometimes listening ears are not there, or they are there only for people who have similar lives to them  – in that they have children.

Don’t get me wrong – most of our family and friends are very keen to hear about our plans and excitement at those plans and we are very, very lucky.

Perhaps I’m just in a down mood today – you know – when you see the negative rather than the positive.

One of our babies would have been five in a few weeks. I can’t talk about him or her and their first day at school and their attempts at calisthenics or swimming or whatever else they would have been interested in. I can talk about all the children in our lives who I love so much. But, sometimes I feel very lonely in this life – so very different to most of those around us.

Next time I will be more positive – I promise…

Introducing...

In 2003, about a year before I met Kirby, I had a very special dream about my Grandma – my Dad’s Mum. I dreamt I was in a long hallway and she was standing at one end and me at the other. Between us was a little girl who looked about two years old, who was toddling towards me. Grandma looked at me and said “This is Ruby – you will look after her now.”

My Grandma had died on Boxing Day 1999.

I met Kirby in October 2004, and not long after we met I told him about the dream. We had already talked about having children, and he thought that Ruby would be the perfect name for a daughter if we had one. Kirby even bought me a necklace with a ruby stone for our first Christmas together.

Not long into our relationship I found out that Kirby’s Grandma, his Mum’s Mum, was called Grace. It was just right for the second name for our Ruby. Ruby Grace – it sounded beautiful.

We never had our Ruby Grace, or our Jacob Arthur either (Arthur after my Dad).

I have eleven cousins, and one of them is Joshua. It often seems strange to me that he is a well and truly grown up man now – I used to change his nappy and bath him when he was a little baby! Although I suppose I was only ten when he was born. I haven’t seen Josh for quite a few years.

A few days ago Josh and his partner, Dale, had their first child. They had a little girl, and they called her Ruby Grace. Out of the millions of names they could have chosen, they chose the exact name that we were going to call our daughter if she had turned up. Joshua and I have never spoken about names, and he had no idea about our intentions.

I have seen a photo of Ruby Grace and will be going down to visit Josh, Dale and Ruby in the next few weeks. She is beautiful – as you can see from the photo below.

Little Ruby has already made a wonderful difference in my life, as she will be the reason that I will see Josh again – I have missed him and can’t wait to see him because of who he is, as well as for his daughter and Dale of course.

I’ll admit that when I found out Josh and Dale had called their daughter Ruby Grace a part of my heart hurt a bit. It didn’t last long and now you couldn’t wipe the smile off my face if you tried!

It would have been wonderful if there were two Ruby Graces in our family – I’m sure our Ruby would have led baby Ruby astray…but, having Josh and Dale’s Ruby Grace arrive this week is incredible and she has made the world a more beautiful place.

I’ll definitely do a blog entry after I meet her for the first time.

Ruby Grace – how awesome is that?

Two days later...

I’ve just reread my blog entry from two days ago. I really was in a bad place and it was very difficult at the time to see how I was going to get myself up and going again. It was almost as if I didn’t want to be happy – how could I be happy when our child was missing from our lives? How could I care about anything else? It all seemed so superficial. Everything I was doing was worthless if I couldn’t have my baby.

Yesterday I had a bit of an insight. I was still feeling angry – at myself mostly – for not being able to have a child and for feeling so down and pathetic and not having the stamina to get up and see what I do have. I resented where I was and I resented myself for being there. I thought I was wallowing a bit, but I couldn’t seem to shake it. Then, clear as a bell, the words popped into my head “If you can’t be compassionate to yourself, how can you expect to be compassionate to other people?”

It was a wakeup call. I didn’t need to fight the feelings I was having, I just needed to give them a bit of space without becoming attached to them. Trying to fight them was only giving them fuel to burn on. Letting them be, watching them, and feeling compassion for them, as well as for myself, took away the power they were having over me. I watched my feelings – my sorrow, grief, anger – like they were children who were tired and fractious. I opened up to them and let them know it was okay. I imagined myself and my feelings as small children who didn’t need to be yelled at – they needed to be comforted and reassured.

That is when my mind cleared.

With this clarity I’ve realised why I was feeling so disconnected – why I have been so unhappy and why I have been thinking that my life is worthless. I was expecting too much.  Before I went on the trip with Conservation Volunteers I knew that when I got back it would be close to the time when our baby would have been turning four, but I had the expectation that because I would have been on the trip with Conservation Volunteers I wouldn’t feel the sorrow and anger like I had in past years. I figured that because I had built a life where I felt valued and content I would not feel sad this year. I would feel nostalgic, but content with my life as it is.

When I got home from the trip I was stunned when strong feelings of anger and sadness started showing themselves, and I tried to fight them off by pretending everything was okay and that I was happy, happy, happy. As I’ve already said – fighting these kinds of feelings doesn’t work, at least not for me. It only makes them stronger and leads to them being so huge that I have no idea what to do with them.

I’ve recently been reading about Yoga (as a spiritual practice), Buddhism and Hinduism. I’ve started meditating and at first I struggled with it as every time I meditated my mind threw thoughts and emotions up left, right and centre. I thought that was wrong and that in order to achieve peace I should either be completely calm and centred, or at least have an empty mind. I expected that my trip with Conservation Volunteers would contribute to my ability to meditate and be at peace.

It didn’t and I’ve started to think that my understanding of peace and being centred has been misconstrued.

I’m going to leave it here for this entry as I realise I’ve written quite a lot already (and I want you all to memorise it word for word! Just kidding…) Next time I will talk more about my understanding of emotions, peace, being centred and all that jazz and how it relates to thinking about our baby turning four.

Feeling bad and being okay

here’s a book called ‘The Happiness Trap’ that my Mum has ordered and is about to read. I checked it out on Amazon and it seems to be about the myth that we have to be happy all the time. I couldn’t agree more that it is a myth, and I also agree that society repeats this myth to us far too often. One part of the book talks about fairy tales and how they always end in ‘happily ever after’.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve realised that I don’t have to be happy all the time, and I can feel like shit and still be okay. I can feel angry and still be okay. I can feel down and depressed and still be okay. I don’t have to put on a brave face if I don’t want to. I can have my heart torn apart and still I am okay.

The myth of being happy all the time, I believe, does far more damage than good. It puts a pressure on people (particularly when they are already under pressure) to be something that is just not always possible.

I’m not saying that thinking positively is not worthwhile in some cases, but sometimes it just doesn’t cut it. I can think positively all I want – it still doesn’t mean we will have a baby.

I went to a course on writing last year and a lot of it was really about self-help and the power of positive thinking. Their basic message was that with the power of the mind you can achieve anything you set your mind to. I don’t want to completely disregard this opinion, but it truly is not always the case. Think about all the people who are training hard and positively thinking about winning gold in the 100 metre swimming at the upcoming Olympics – clearly not all of them are going to win it, so it kind of blows the idea that positive thinking will get you where you want to be out of the water.

I don’t want to sound negative, and I do believe that positive thinking, along with being realistic, can get you a long way. For example, I am hoping to become a published writer, and I keep envisioning my book written and published and selling. I’m giving it the best shot that I can.

With regard to babies, however, while there is a minute chance that perhaps we could have one, we have come to the realisation that it won’t happen for us, and that it is okay for us to grieve about it.

I think I will leave it there and talk more about why we won’t be trying for a child again next week. There are more reasons than our chances being slim.