Six months minus three days

Today is my first day back at work. And despite the fact that I have intended all along to come back on this date, wanted to do it, and have had six months to prepare for it, it was still torture leaving Alice at home this morning.

So, to cheer myself up I've been thinking of the plus points:

1) I have a fighting chance of getting through the day without my clothes becoming covered in sicked up milk and half digested carrot (unless we have some REALLY ill-mannered students this year).

2) I might get some adult conversation instead of n repetitions of 'Row Row Row Your Boat'.

3) I don't have to think about routes avoiding steps whenever I go anywhere. And I can sit wherever I like on the train.

4) Nobody is likely to yank my hair out (it's not the searing agony that I mind so much as the alarming number of WHITE hairs that now end up being clutched triumphantly in a chubby fist...)

5) An actual lunch break, dictated by logic and preference rather than the whims of an infant.

6) Significantly less ear-splitting crying.

Seven weeks

Alice is still far from convinced by her plate. She's managing just about enough of her feeds now, although still fitting in one or two extra bottles a day, but her sleep is very disturbed - she keeps waking herself up at intervals with pitiful little cries, then dropping off again. And of course this plus the more frequent feeds means OUR sleep is still disturbed.

The cleft nurse came to see us today and was able to tell us that it's normal to react badly to the plate, especially if feeding has been well established for a while. We just have to persevere, and the more she wears it the sooner she'll get used to it. But although it's reassuring to know it's normal, it doesn't really help us.

It's funny, although to some extent I do want the health professionals to be reassuring and tell us that Alice is normal and the tiredness is normal etc etc, part of me would like them, just once, to say 'oh my god you poor thing that's TERRIBLE, nobody should have to cope with that, it's just much too hard isn't it?'

It's a fine line between 'normal' and 'yeah yeah tell us something we don't know'.

Making a drama out of an identity crisis

When I think about my friends I often think about the characteristics they have which I would like for myself. I define myself by them and by what I lack in comparison. So I envy my sister's artistic talent, Georgie's integrity and practicality, Sophie's compassion and motivation, Simon's career success, George's mental ability, Cat's emotional openness, Clarissa's creative energy, Wags' intellectual curiosity, Anna's fearlessness...

I was hit by the realisation this morning that I would probably be happier if I just appreciated and admired my friends instead of comparing myself unfavourably with them. And if I spent more time taking pleasure in the fact that all these great people have chosen to be friends with ME.

I might still be a way off from finding and being comfortable with my own identity, but it's a start. (And the above post may not seem to have anything to do with writing, or parenting, or anything, but I don't think I can regain my voice as a writer until I have regained some confidence as a person.)

Weeks: 16+1

Character in search of an author

I have come to the sad conclusion that much of my neurosis is due to the large quantities of fiction I read. I get through up to 100 books in a year, almost all of them middle-brow, not too experimental, escapist novels (I wonder how much my reliance on the public library has helped determine this...) But ever since I was a child I have seen my own life on some level as a narrative, myself as a protagonist. The older I got the less like a tragic heroine I imagined myself to be, but I never stopped looking for tidy conclusions, meaningful circumstances and universal insights like the ones to be found in my books. That's why I feel like a failure if I don't know where I'm going - ok so the women in the books may not know where they're going either, but there is always the guiding hand of the author to lead them toward their destiny on the final page.

I don't think I've ever properly accepted that I'm the author of my own life, not a character in it. Being the author should give you MORE control, I suppose, but being a character gives you security. And your every action is loaded with import and 'rightness' simply because there are no other choices you can make, only what has been written for you. All the books I've been reading lately have had happy endings, and all the female protagonists have 'followed a dream' in some dramatic way, 'just knowing' what the right thing to do would be. I guess I need to accept that I won't ever 'just know'. That nobody has a grand design for me. So I'm going on a diet of non-fiction and keeping my eyes on the road instead of on the page.

How silly to be having an existential crisis at the age of 28 - didn't I go through all that when I was 18? And why can't I get this down in poetry instead of going all emoblog?

Weeks: 13

A pregnant pause

Well it has happened. I have finished my dissertation and next month will possess a piece of paper that means I can theoretically work as a librarian. Whether I WANT to or not has not yet been worked out in my head to my satisfaction. Anyway, the idea was that as soon as I emerged from academia I would have time to devote to poetry, and to the exploration of the writing process via blogging.

Only, another thing has happened in the meantime: I have become pregnant. It thus remains to be seen whether I will get any writing done before about 2050, but I am hopeful. Possibly I will write about babies.

Things I have learned so far:

1) Expecting a baby makes you radically review your entire life. I was prepared to feel anxious about being a good mother, but not about whether I was a good person. Do I deserve to bring a child into the world? If only I hadn't spent my 20s being too lazy/scared to get myself a proper career, we would have a perfect house and a sensible mortgage by now, instead of a rented one bedroom flat and a box full of unpaid bills. If only I had a dream to pursue instead of a lack of ambition that would put a stoned media studies student to shame, I could feel sure of being a serene and inspirational mother instead of a neurotic bore. If only I had paid more attention to my ecological footprint, done my own composting, bought organic all the time etc etc, I wouldn't be contributing to the global disaster that my child is going to inherit. And if I remain as expert in the art of beating myself up once I've actually given birth to this baby, I will be emotionally black and blue for at least the next eighteeen years.

2) Everyone else's opinions become simultaneously extremely important and extremely unwanted. It only takes one sniffy look at the words 'home birth', or one question about which blood tests I'm choosing to have, to make the whole fragile edifice of our choices and decisions threaten to tumble down on my terrified head. So if you're reading this and you have pregnant friends/family, try not to offer advice until asked for it. We're overwhelmed enough as it is.

Weeks: 12+6