When I very first met Lovely Bloke, the very first time I came to his house, he was at work. Sounds strange I know, but I’d left work early and he was coming home late, so I was to collect the key from his mum who worked a few doors down from his house. I braved the quick “hello, can I collect keys for your son’s house even though I’m a stranger” conversation and came to the exact spot I’m sat at now. The decking at the back of the house. I sat there, thinking I’d found peace at last – in my new boyfriend’s house of all places. It was strange, but I didn’t feel at all lonely or uncomfortable. It felt great, sitting there waiting for him to come home….
In some ways, despite many years having passed, some things haven’t changed. We haven’t gotten around to replacing the decking. We still can’t make plants live in pots on a side wall, no matter what we buy. And now I’ve gone and lost the patio door keys, so we can’t even open those any more. But lots of other things have stayed the same. Lovely Bloke still prefers to sit indoors and watch TV, whilst I crave the fresh air and sit outside on the decking. Lovely Bloke doesn’t want to sit outside here and have a drink with me, because it’s not his kind of thing, whereas it’s very much mine. Some changes are good, some are not so good.
The fundamental change is that I’m now a wife a mother. In some ways, I find myself feeling quite lonely sometimes. Lovely Bloke and our two boys have a very unholy alliance. It’s brilliant for the boys – all three of them 😉 Not least because they have such an amazing time together. But for me, when we went on holiday to Cornwall a couple of weeks ago, I just didn’t know how to fit in. And that’s a change for me – I didn’t know where to start with Lovely Bloke or my children. That upset me. I couldn’t wait to get back to my work and in fact buried myself in it whilst we were away. My mobile is my friend. It doesn’t make me feel like I don’t fit in, or know where to join in the conversation. I’m not saying I couldn’t and didn’t join in at all, it’s just that I was conscious of not always knowing what, where or how to take the lead, the initiative or where we should go next. Being self employed is great because it gives me so many benefits. I just don’t think I’m seeing enough of them right now. And feeling a bit lonely isn’t on my list of benefits so I think it’s something I need to tackle.
What do you think?
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