Baby Blues...

This blog has been quite hard for me to write... It's the 'serious' side of me that rarely gets to rear her head.  Firstly, I'd like to stress that the following is no reflection on anyone, but myself.  Okay... deep breath... lets go!


I caught up with some girlfriends for dinner on Friday night... Two already have children and one, Sam, is newly pregnant.



I'm totally stoked for Sammy... and I know the little jellybean (actually it's more like a baby now - with a massive penis?) will have more love and happiness in his/her life than he/she could ever hope for.  I also know that it's not the last time Sammy and I will throw back a few coldies down the Suffo!   I guess Sam and I have quite a bit in common... We both love what we do and have focused a lot of our time and energy on it... We're honest and open people and have some great discussions plus we have similar idea's on parenting - I can already hear all the mother's out there saying it's easy to have ideas but putting them into practice is another story.   


Sam was my drinking and smoking buddy... She was one of the few that didn't have kids, so we related to the shit a married childless woman cops on a daily basis.  In fact, she was so sick of people constantly asking 'when are you gonna have a baby', she'd worked out the perfect response... 'when Bruce stopped f-ing me in the arse!'  That one always worked a treat!


That night, the four of us had a great meal, a few laughs and shared a couple of bottles of wine (actually I should correct myself here and say for the most part, there was little 'sharing' of the wine - it was primarily downed by yours truly).


Through no fault of my 'with child' girlfriends, after I'd gotten home and gone to bed, I started to feel pretty isolated, inadequate and for probably the first time in my life a little immature.  I've always been the 'good times' girl... often overindulging in social situations.  Although, I've never woken up the next morning and thought, I probably looked like a real dickhead last night.  Truth be told, I wasn't that inebriated... I was certainly tipsy though.  Even when truly drunk I maintain a certain self control and I was far from slurring and falling over.


So, yesterday I told you I'm not an over thinker... And 99.5% of the time I'm not.  I should also explain again that it wasn't anything that my girlfriends said or did, so I'm positive this feeling, was all in my mind.  I'm pretty full of self confidence  - by that I mean, I know who I am... my strengths and my faults so when either are pointed out I'm totally okay with it (body issues are a different case altogether - call me fat and feel the wrath).   The thing I guess that caught me off guard was this feeling of being beneath people... It's kind of a new feeling for me and I didn't like it one bit!


Then last night, as I was continuing through the ongoing saga of reading Shantaram (fab book, awesome writer but fuck it's so big it hurts my arms to hold it up), and I came across a passage that sums up the experience completely...


The main character is living in the slums of Bombay and the girl he is in love with but hasn't seen, for sake of his pride, the entire time he has inhabited his dirty little square in poor mans land, has dropped by for a visit.  He feels her looking at his 'hut' and the few possessions he has and for the first time he sees them in her eyes.  He feels a little resentment and shame... the things he had been so thankful for, no longer had their glow.  Then he realises that 'wanting my house to be bigger or brighter or grander than it was had been in my mind, not hers.  She wasn't judging.'


Which brings me to what it was that I thought they were seeing...  I thought that my mates had 'outgrown' me... That I was relegated to 'drunken Karls',  that I needed to grow up and get my priorities straight and lastly, that I had become a second class citizen because I don't have a child.  Of course, it was all in my mind (well I fucken well hope so, cause if it's not that case consider yourself friendship dumped).  But, at the time while I thought I was seeing them, seeing me full of faults... It wasn't actually their judgement I saw, but my own.  Make sense?


Yesterday, I talked about things going over my head... But, I think it's actually more than that.  I think because I do know myself well, I don't notice or question the passing comments people might make.  They generally roll off like water off a ducks back.  Sometimes, I think, when you do notice yourself analysing something that someone has said, you should stop and put some thought into your thought process - are you reacting with self doubt?  Perhaps its an area in which your confidence could use a boost?  If it's struck a nerve, I believe there's always a reason why.  The main point I'm trying to make is that (most of the time - and there are always exceptions to the rule) it's not them... it's you!


So, although there was nothing 'said' to me, I still had this niggling feeling... I came home and couldn't sleep... my mind was working overtime.  Eventually I cried myself to sleep.


On the way home Sunday, Micko asked what had upset me on Friday night.  He said, 'Do you want to have a baby?  Is that it?', I started crying again... and replied, 'No... that's just the problem.'


And for me... that's my achilles heel.  Right now, I'm so not interested in having children, but I feel myself kind of shutting down around those that do - due to my own insecurities... What are these insecurities, you ask.  Well, I guess I can put it down to this... Does not wanting my own children, not now and quite possibly not ever, make me a bad person?  Does it make me any lesser person than those that do?   Do those with kids think that I'm completely selfish?    Does it mean that eventually there will be a great divide between my friends and I?


Of course, the answer is a big fat NO... at least I hope it is!  So, rather than let these thoughts take over my mind creating more self doubt and further unnecessary tears, I'll just keep affirming to myself that it's okay to want the life I have... and I'll fake it, till I make it!  Either that, or I'll succumb to peer pressure, change my mind and get knocked up.  Joking!  Joking!  


I'm not writing off having kids forever... They are just not right for me right now... So take this as a warning, and don't approach the subject anytime soon - you might cop an earful and an arse fucking response (well, Sammy has no use for that comment anymore, so I think I might just be stealing it - thanks hot mama).