Vulnerability

Further to my post last week, maybe a renewed sense of vulnerability can encourage me to make some changes/put in precautions. Things happen. Little things. Big things. But we can't stay with our head in the sand thinking that "things won't happen until we are old." Because "things" don't always wait!

I know that those who are childless are not the only ones who feel vulnerable at times. Those who have children who aren't close - either geographically, or emotionally - must feel the same vulnerabilities. Those living alone must have a heightened sense of their own vulnerability. It is yet another example where the saying "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" doesn't work. It also reminds us we're not immune from bad luck. Ignorance truly is bliss. But I'm not sure I'd like to go back to the ignorance, despite everything. 

Sending out love to anyone who is feeling vulnerable at the moment. You are not alone.

 

Plans change, so let us thrive

Today, purely by chance, I came across two previous posts that cried out to be reposted. They were written 18 years ago, on my second blog (an alphablog that was so much fun to write), so I'm pretty confident none of my readers here today ever saw them! They were written with my No Kidding status in mind, especially V = Vintage, but not for that purpose alone. I think it's worth repeating the sentiments, as they hold true 18 years later. If not more so.

V = Vintage

“Five years ago, I had a doctor who kept referring to “women of your vintage.” I felt like a wine that was souring, turning into vinegar, appropriately barren. He was trying to be considerate, but it would have been kinder if he had just been blunt.

Now, though, I am a very different vintage. Richer in character, able to stand up to time, changing and aging in the best possible way. I like to feel I’m maturing well. I like my vintage. It is one of the best. The kind to be celebrated, treasured, appreciated. So I do.

Vintage. There’s a lot in a word. And in five years.”

Note: I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to say this, as the years do their damage. But it still feels good to me, so I'm reposting it while I can! 

"Z = Zigzag

The logical, pragmatic, planning, and list-making part of me loves the idea of setting goals, achieving them, having the next five or ten years of my life planned out. But then I listen to people who do that, and think of everything they are bypassing.

Life doesn’t take us where we plan. For that I am very grateful. Some of my most rewarding experiences have been when plans have gone awry. Some of my most successful career moves have been the result of a barrier in the way of my plan, or simply of chance, being in the right place at the right time. I am who I am now, simply because my plans didn’t go the way they were supposed to.

A straight line is so boring. No stopping off to sample experiences on the way, to meet new people, to try new things. A straight line has no imagination, and covers far less ground. Zigzagging my way through life is much more fun."

It’s worth clicking through on the titles to see the comments of people I still “talk” to all this time later, and who had interesting insights or funny comments. I particularly liked the ones on the last post, showing that we all have unexpected changes to our plans for our life, whether we’re childless, childfree, or parents. A reminder that we’re not that different. And I loved these lyrics that were posted:

“Somehow I find myself far out of line from the ones I had drawn
Wasn't the best of paths, you could attest to that, but I'm keeping on.
Would our paths cross if every great loss had turned out our gain?
Would our paths cross if the pain it had cost us was paid in vain?

There was no pot of gold, hardly a rainbow lighting my way
But I will be true to the red, black and blues that colored those days.
I owe my soul to each fork in the road, each misleading sign.
'Cause even in solitude, no bitter attitude can dissolve my sweetest find

Thanksgiving for every wrong move that made it right.

—Poi Dog Pondering”

Adapting to change

I’ve been thinking about resilience and adapting to change recently, and was chatting to my husband about it. We agreed that many people struggle to adapt to change – his parents did, for example. He laughed, and pointed out how much it annoys us when the supermarket changes its layout, or drops some of our favourite things. “That’s just irritating,” I said.  Infuriating, even, I will admit to you now! But it doesn’t make me afraid, in the way I see that change makes some people afraid.

Adapting to change is really hard. Covid was scary enough, and there are changes all over the world right now, both positive and negative, that has various groups reeling at the thought of it. Change can be good, or it can be bad, on individual or societal levels. When I think of my own personal situation, most change I have adapted to in my life has been positive, even if it was very scary at times. I’m thinking about the changes and opportunities as a result of second wave feminism, my student exchange, and the various career opportunities that have come my way. Even then, I slowly adapted to the idea that having children would be a good idea. And I wholeheartedly embraced it.

Until, of course, I had to adapt to the idea that a) I was infertile, and b) I would remain childless throughout my life. That change was a huge adjustment. Even though, for much of my adult life up to then, I had not been affected by the fact I did not yet have children, I had assumed I could have them if I wanted to do so. Equally, I had not contemplated my life without them.

Adjusting to that change was hard. Hard, because it involved a number of issues around self-confidence, including feelings of being unworthy and of guilt, as well as the external reactions of others – judgement, isolation from society’s mainstream, condescension, etc. It required not just an adjustment to the idea of my place in society, but an adjustment in how I saw myself. Ultimately, though, learning to change the way I saw myself and society and my life was what helped me to be able to embrace the life I have. I learned to appreciate my life, and to be grateful for what I have.

I look at people who can’t adjust to changes in their lives. Whether it is the white man who feels his status in life is threatened, or those who can never pull out of the grief of not getting what they had always wanted, or those who can’t adjust to inevitable changes, there are plenty of examples of people who are change resistant. My father-in-law, for example, struggled with getting old, grieving the years of fitness that he had lost decades earlier, rather than feeling grateful for what he still had (eg a brain that still functioned, family, his wife, relative longevity, etc).

Frankly, I pity them. Because the one thing I’ve learned about my own resilience is that fighting against change is painful. It hurts to always want something that we know we’ll never have. In comparison, learning to be grateful for what we have, looking forward to what we know is achievable, and finding joy in the moment all feel so much better than an impossible yearning. Isn’t that the key to living a better life, to enjoying ourselves, to being compassionate and understanding?

 

Adjusting expectations

 

About a month ago, I invited my sister, her husband, and daughter to spend Christmas with us. After only a day or two, they enthusiastically accepted. I was excited. I’ve hosted Christmas dinners here fairly often to take the responsibility off my elderly in-laws. Sometimes it has been a small gathering – the smallest was my husband’s father and uncle three years ago (dare I say it, the most depressing!) – and the largest was when a couple of my husband’s brothers and their families returned home for the holidays. Not huge gatherings, but big enough for my small kitchen and fridge! Lol Once my in-laws were gone, I’ve spent the day with my one or both of my sisters and their families – in the south, and the north for a change of scenery. Last year, there were just the two of us here at home, and it was quite lovely, even though I had faced it with some trepidation.

But this year I was ready for a few more people, and I was really looking forward to it. My niece is now 15, and my sister and brother-in-law share our interest in wine and good food. It was going to be a lovely adult celebration, with the things we love. I was keen to use some things I have stored away to make the house seem more festive. I was going to dig out the beautiful tablecloths and candlesticks and serving crystal bowls I’ve inherited. I also thought it might be fun to use some spare Christmas stockings I still have. (I gave a number away once I knew I wouldn’t have children, and wrote about it here.) Especially as, cleaning out a drawer, I found some things that could be slipped into a stocking, along with some baking or chocolate or something fun, just to make it an occasion. After all, I’ve never been able to do this for children, and my husband and I don’t really “do” gifts, because we don’t want clutter of unnecessary gifts. But also I guess because The Husband gets stressed out. I’d already started meal planning, and activity planning, and cleaning out the freezer so I can freeze meals or pizza doughs etc to make hosting easy. For once, I was actively looking forward to Christmas.

Then I got a phone call. Someone close to us had asked to join us for Christmas, and my sister had accepted on my behalf. She texted me saying she hoped it was okay, following up before I even had time to respond to the text with a face-to-face call. (Note: Things I have always hated include: surprise phone calls, face-to-face calls when I am unprepared, and having to deal with surprise news in front of others. Argh.) So, I had no time to process any of it. And in honesty, I was so soooooo disappointed. Even though I knew I could never have declined the request, and understood the reasons for it.

So I was going through the logistics of it all, processing my thoughts out loud in front of her. Of course, all the negatives came up first – how to squeeze everyone in to our house, nothing to amuse a three-year-old, all the food/sleeping in/adult activity plans going out the window, our house and garden (is a deck a garden?) unsafe for a little one, etc. The degree of cleaning/sorting/decluttering I will have to do to squeeze them in.

My sister is a different personality to me. She loves being surrounded by people. The more the merrier. For her it’s probably a bonus. But not for me. I tried to explain it to her, but I don’t think she gets it. Yes, I have reclaimed the season and do it my way. Yes, I love my tree, and certain parts of the day – the croissant breakfasts, champagne, the desserts, the beautiful table! Yes, I like hosting a group at Christmas lunch. But yes, I still breathe a sigh of relief after everyone has gone home and we get the evening to ourselves, or at the very least on the next day when all the pressure (external and internal) is somehow lifted. I had looked forward to showing them <Mali’s> Christmas <Mali’s> way, and anticipated a fun, relaxed day. Now, it will by necessity be different.

My emotions are confused. I feel selfish for feeling disappointed, when the circumstances around the request are so much worse. I feel annoyed that I didn’t get a chance to process the change in circumstances in my own time. I assume (although this could be all in my imagination - those inner critical voices we all battle) that my sister will judge me and think that a) that I am selfish, and inflexible, and b) I am <fill in the blanks with any other pronatalist stereotype> because I don’t have kids. I feel empathy and compassion for the person making the request. And for the child who will be coming to strangers. As I said, I would never have declined the request. But time to breathe would have been nice.

Of course, almost immediately I started coming to terms with the change, and adjusting plans. Since then, I keep seeing the perils of my house for a young child, and what I will need to make it safe, and how impossible that will be in a house with four separate staircases, no lawn, and a rickety dangerous outdoor staircase that is on our to-do list to fix later this summer. I am thinking about activities – the playground down the road, the zoo that will be open, the beaches that might be safe, the walks we could do that aren’t too onerous. What we can put in the little one’s Christmas stocking (that is not too onerous for the person to take home). Whether I will need to rent a car seat, pushchair/stroller, other things to make the visit easier for our two new visitors. Not the thoughts of a selfish person, I would think, but no-one sees that. We’ll make it fun, and it will be a nice time together, and won’t last forever, and we will ease the troubles of someone we love for a few days. And I’ll be okay. We will have to do a fun, more adult, celebration some other year.

But as a childless person who has been through the painful process of learning to embrace the joys of an adult Christmas, and for years has successfully done this,  I’m now going to be reminded, closely and intently, of what I will have missed. Maybe that’s what has been hard to adjust to, just as I enter this awkward anniversary season of two pregnancy losses (the first anniversary begins today/tomorrow), and the end of my fertility journey. I don’t know.

Now, some days later from that first explosion of words and feelings above, I think I’ll be fine. I don’t want a three-year-old now, after all. And my expectations for the time have adjusted. I've had to do that before. I will have to do it again. I can do it now. After all, it is a privilege that we were chosen as the most desirable option for these two over the holiday period. It will be a privilege to share these days with them, and to brighten their time (we hope). I’m fine with it now. I have a couple of weeks to prepare the house. And I just have to think about what dishes I have in my repertoire that might be okay for a three-year-old; almost everything I cook is spicy. Maybe we’ll just barbecue every day and eat leftover ham sandwiches – it is summer after all!