A different kind of falling ...

the things I thought were falling apart
they were just falling into place

This weekend I became a parent. Of sorts. I met the boy who is going to become my sort-of-stepson, and tumbled into love I haven't really experienced before.

I was anxious about our meeting. On thursday night I had bizarre dreams about giving birth in which nobody would make me a cup of tea and someone insisted I go bell ringing. In the dream I told my continuously morphing partner that we must give the child a name that would be good for a dog. I suppose this is the only experience I've had of any kind of parenting really - trying to bring up Ruby to be secure and well mannered. I have half succeeded.

The anxiety, I realise now, was not that he would not like me. I think that would be manageable, understandable - I half expected it, warned by all and sundry of the potential for resentment, confusion and anger that he might experience on being told that his mother was not only asking him to accept a new partner in her life, but that the partner was a woman. As it was, he was completely unperturbed, being a remarkably wise and sanguine example of a 12 year old boy, but regardless, I realised that the deep anxiety was that I might not like him.

But I did. I loved him, liked him, found him interesting and funny and easy to talk to. I am not just feeling ok about moving in with him as well as his mum, I am absolutely exploding with excitement about it.

All being well, in about 5 weeks time I will be moving, with Badger, up to a lovely little barn conversion in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales. And then his mum, the most amazing person I have ever ever ever met, and gorgeous boy, will join us when they feel ready. And with 4 cats and 1 dog and a few chickens, we will be a perfect, if slightly unconventional family.

I can't believe how amazing my life is today, and how excited I am about my future. The relationship I have with my new love just blows me away. I feel lucky every time I think about it. And not because I am not worthy blah blah blah ... I do feel worthy - I feel like I am a lovely person too, loved equally by her, and just incredibly lucky to have found my soulmate midst the six billion people on the planet.

A year ago, quite frankly, everything sucked. I was about as low as you can go, and life seemed to have no purpose or plan. My partner and best friend of several years had left me. I hated myself and had few friends and felt incredibly deeply alone almost all the time. Today I have an amazing partner, a wonderful friendship with Badger as well as strong relationships with quite a few others, and am beginning the adventure of being part of a child's life as they become an adult. I know myself, understand myself, have a philosophy on life that feels coherent and I love my work. I have somehow* discarded the sense of being 'not enough'. As a result I feel able to try things without being paralysed by a need to do them brilliantly - including becoming a sort-of-ish parent. (eek!)

I feel absolutely sure that I could not have all of this richness in my life simply by tacking extensions on to the person I was a couple of years ago. The difference in foundations would have destabilised the structure, and cracks would have spread and turned to fissures. I needed to be bulldozed, dug out and flattened, so that I could start again from scratch.

I suspect this is an experience shared by the people who held me together, who smiled at the mess and the chaos and the destruction, and firmly reassured me that all sorts of things were possible. Some of those people were therapists, some were nurses or doctors, and quite a few were bloggers.

So. I shall be starting a new business shortly, peddling t-shirts and badges bearing the simple statement "Blogging changed my life". Any takers?

--


*somehow = with lots of therapy and deep conversations with very wise people, face to face and online.

Nesting

Did you miss me?

I have been finding myself spending time usually reserved for blogging and reading the interweb doing things. Worse, cleaning things. I have lived here in our shack in the woods for just over a year now. 10th June 2006 we moved in. Suddenly, last week, I was overcome with an urge to clean and mend - really deep clean and mend - to line the nest with new feathers and no, no, I am definitely not pregnant!

This weekend I cajoled Badger and Dr But Why? into major action, and trotted along to HSS hire shops to procure a carpet cleaner. My bedroom carpet was installed in the sixties, and the office one in the late 70s. I doubt that they have seen much more than a cursory vacuum since then.

So. Every single Thing in my bedroom was brought out into the lounge. Actually, there weren't too many Things - a bed, a chest of drawers, 3 washing baskets (I have washing sorting OCD apparently), a bedside wheely thing and Ruby's crate. I filled up the dyson with the dust from under the bed while the cat made herself comfortable in the drawers full of clothes that I had left on the sofa.



I shampooed the carpet. I emptied bucket after bucket of brown sludgy water down the toilet. I rinsed the carpet. I emptied more buckets of brown sludgy water down the toilet. It is incredibly satisfying, pouring dirt away like that ... dirt you didn't even realise was there.

Badger helped me replace my furniture, and I fell into peaceful deep sleep in a spotless room with clean sheets on the bed.

Sunday ... sunday ... we tackled The Octagon. I love that we call our office / spare room 'the octagon'. I feel like a superhero every time I say it. 3 desks, one filing cabinet, a bookshelf, 2 sofas, one window seat, assorted musical instruments, speakers, tv, tv cabinet, 3 office chairs and lots of smaller heavy electrical items were duly shuffled and shoved, dusted and polished and wiped and tidied, and the carpet was hoovered shampooed and rinsed, and brown sludgy water disposed of, while Badger cleaned all the windows and mopped the floors and the cat made herself comfortable on the sofa.


And it feels good. It feels amazing. I realised yet again that I love this house. I truly love it - in the way that one can only love a living, breathing thing. Because it is a living, breathing thing. Our house nestles in the trees, soaks in the sunshine and showers in the rain. It is gripped and woven by vines and ivy. In the autumn it hangs heavy with grapes and in the summer the plums are only a quick stretch out of the window. And in the octagon there is the window seat, and this is why I am nesting - because I have remembered, once again, how lucky I am to live in a tree.

What's in a name?

... that which we call a nose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

I talk a lot of nonsense to my dog. Soppy stuff. Were you this cute last night? I'm not sure you were - did you just wake up cuter this morning?

Don't worry, I cringe too.

It's true though. In spite of regularly updating her 'The naughtiest things I have ever done' list, Ruby draws more affection from me with every passing day. And yet that seems impossible, because I'm sure that right now I already love her as much as it is possible to love a dog.

I have been wondering. Is it that, like pain, we cannot hold love in mind completely? Do we experience it with freshness even when it is a repetition of a previous experience? Is this, like our fast fading memories of agony, because if we did not forget then we would stop still; completed by love just as we would be consumed by pain?

Or, is it more like my gmail account? Today I am using a proportion of my 2457 MB, and tomorrow, by magic, I will have available 2582 MB. Is my heart expanding - forever slowly growing like my hair and nails?

Good morning

I don't care if it's unhygenic ... it's good for my soul.