Non-traditional debriefing.

Happy Friday, Peeps!

My fella is blowing off a weeks worth of cares, in the traditional way, at the Pub, with beer and chips.

I have taken inspiration from Nikki and am giving the 5:2 way a decent crack. I decided yesterday. So today, I fast. Usually I want to do it on a non-Friday/Saturday/Sunday, but I thought that I would start today. I got on the scales the other day and thought hmmm.... that new mirror that makes me look taller and thinner is a dirty lying bastard.

Unfortunately, some work-related nastiness occurred today.

The week has been plagued work related self-doubt, irritation and frankly a bit of resentment. It's just sucking the life out of me a bit at the moment. I am sure many of you can relate to this. It's been quite full, these last few weeks.

Such a week with this ending would usually culminate in quite a few drinks. And deep fried morsels. In fact, I was invited to the pub by my fella for these very things. My response to the invitation was "Nup. I am fasting".

The fasting has forced me to be mindful. My default response to stress is to eat or drink. I've made inroads into this, but old habits die hard.

The thing is, you still have to go through the stress, the anger, the frustration. Nothing will stop that.

I had to consciously plan a nice evening.
I was very grateful for the chance to debrief with my fella.
I am consciously trying not to think about stressful events, as they are done now.

After a hectic morning, I went to have an ultrasound. See, I went to do the pre-pregnancy obstetrician visit, like all the other nice uptight professional women. She just wanted to make sure that all the bits of the oven were in good structural order.

There was a long wait, apparently the fetuses were not behaving themselves (!?). I saw the preggy ladies, and was a bit.... I don't know...envious?

Also, my colleague bought in her little bubba to work today. Those chubby wubby cheeks! Hearing the baby squeal and gurgle and even do hungry moans from my consulting room - that was the highlight of my day.

I am ready for a change, I think. I have no illusions that my child(ren) won't severely try my patience, but the joys of it will far outweigh them, and I am just finding work a bit joyless at the moment.

Re: the intermittent fasting, I am not actually a great deal hungrier than I get on a usual day. I feel a bit more alert. It was not too bad. And apparently it gets better.

Big things. Backing myself.

There's a lot happening around here at the moment...

The House! How lucky we were...... we have already started considering what we will do, renovations wise.

Work! I am taking new directions in that... it will be different, hopefully enjoyable.

I am trying to crank up my PhD work.

Baby plans have moved forward. All the "pre-baby" health things are being thought of and actioned.

It's exciting..and yet, it makes me anxious. Full of "but what if (insert thing here) happens"

I worry about whether I have the skills to take my job in this direction, even though there is no reason why not.

I am extremely sensitive to new mums talking about their crying babies. About how "it is the hardest job in the world". So sensitive that I have unfollowed a few people on facebook.

Thank God for the Mums I follow on these blogs - they are an excellent counterpoint and are so positive.

What if I don't know what to do? What if I don't like it? What if I fall to pieces? Get depressed? I have already made an anxious call to my mum confirming that she will be there to give instructions when I don't know what to do. It's not something you can practice for.

The underlying theme here is that I worry that I won't be good enough.

I worry that I won't be good enough, without any evidence that that is true.

By the by, I caught up with a friend whose marriage is on it's last legs. I went to Uni with him. We did the uni thing, graduated together, got married at similar times. Some of our colleagues had kids. Now they are having number 2 and 3. Now the first lot of marriages are breaking up....all different stages of life.

I told him without batting an eyelid that, whatever happens, he will be alright. There will be a time when he is happy. I told him that with absolute confidence, based on my own experience of that happening.

I need to learn to have a bit of faith. That anticipating the worst doesn't insulate me against bad things happening, but will definitely erode my confidence. I am somebody for whom the anticipation is almost always worse than the actuality.

I am having to learn to back myself, to have confidence in the fact that I can deal with things, and make the best of things. I've done it many times before, and I can do it again. Fear, like guilt, is a wasteful emotion much of the time.

Thankyou for reading that ramble. x

Sigh, grit teeth and smile...Checking in.

I think this bug that I got has knocked me around a bit. I still feel a bit sick occasionally, especially if I get hungry. And I've been really pooped.

Most of my attention has been towards work and my PhD. Specifically, I want, HAVE to finish the PhD (or lapse candidature). My energy has been directed towards developing a plan to complete, overcoming certain obstacles (too mundane to discuss here). Also, towards expanding my work practice, perhaps into some private practice, though not too much during the PhD (otherwise I shall never finish). Towards making other life plans - saving money, having babies, et cetera.

Nothing like an end point to sharpen your focus, no?

I am also very rapidly approaching my 35th Birthday - on Saturday. That might sound spring chickeny to some readers, but it is officially Mid-30s. I can't help but get a bit philosophical.

When I was 25, where did I think I would be when I was 35? I don't think I thought about it that much. I was newly married, in the physician training program, and life felt a bit like is was mapped out, like I was on a raft on a river.

But life goes interesting when you go against the flow, doesn't it? Difficult, sad, challenging, and at times, harrowing, but ultimately rewarding. I am very happy with the way things have turned out.
Yet it is the perceived holes in our life that keep us from stagnating, keep us moving along. I think you know what that hole, that yearning, might be.

I am having a think about what I would have told my 25 year old self. My 30 year old self. That might be a separate blog post.

Anyway, that is enough for one night. I think it will be House of Cards, then sleepybyes.

I have just finished the book "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro. I am looking for another to download. Something fairly light, a bit funny.

What would you say to your younger self?
What book do you recommend?
What telly series are you enjoying?

Decisions, decisions.

I have a bit of a conundrum at the moment.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice one. But a conundrum just the same.

I am wanting to go to the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. I have never been to South America, nor to an Olympics.

The time to book things is now. I have had my eye on a tour provider and am looking at making a small deposit to lock things in.

The thing is, that is 2 and a half years away.

I am thinking, hoping, that things will change in my life in that time.

Change in the form of a house/mortgage in an inner city suburb with the fella. Change in the form of a little bubba.

I will be 37 in 2016. Just sayin'.

Yet I have learned that things don't always work out as planned in life. All we can do is plan for what we hope for, plan A, and have a plan B too.

My thinking is that I will see if the deposit is refundable, then pay it. And then get on with things. Cancel if needs be.


Any thought bites out there?


In other news, I bought a bikini on line. I have to send it back. The top is good but the bottoms, no good. I have been looking at Robyn Lawley swimwear, which is made for normal women with booteh and no box gap (whose thighs meet in the middle and kiss like old friends). Swimwear galore were selling them at a discount. I bought this one.

Yeah!

Hope your week is going good.

We are off to Sri Lanka next FridayYEAHHHHHH

Any nice conundrums in your life?

The Waiting Womb.

I have had this post brewing in my head for a little while. It says in my "about me" pic that I am an aspiring mother. This post will elaborate on it a bit.

As I have alluded to, I was married. I got together with him at 19, having never been in a serious relationship before. We were married when I was 25. 2 years ago, when I was 32, I got divorced.

Having been married for nearly 7 years the pressure was on us to have children. During the painful but necessary marriage counselling that we had, I found out that he had a lot of resentment towards me, because we had not had children. He pined for a child. We never discussed this in a lot of depth during the time, so finding this out was surprising, and explained a lot of what occured in the latter part of our marriage.

To be clear, having children was always on my agenda. But first, there was medical school. Then being a junior doctor leaves very little time for anything else. Then add study for specialist exams to this. Add a couple of bouts of depression to the mix.

Also, at the back of my mind, I had increasing doubts about his usefulness as a potential dad - insofar as I could not even get him to pay attention to me. I could not get him home from work. This I shared with him in marriage counselling. He stays away because he is resentful. You can see what a vicious cycle this would have caused, I know that now.

All of that considered, though, we weren't acutally that compatible. We were/are 2 good people, but not that good for each other. Our personalities and ways we react to things are completely difficult and increasingly at odds during our relationship. It eventually got to the point where I dreaded spending the next 30 years with him, and I had to get out. He was very upset and wanted to get back together, initially, but after a 3 months of separation he started going out with his female friend. I have heard he is happy, and I am happy that he is happy (really I am).

A lot of the people close to me did not agree with what I was doing. There were many things said to me that I had to deal with. One of the most difficult things was "you will never meet another person as good as him" and "you will never get to have children".

This played on one of my deepest fears. Fear of being alone. I had to face that fear headfirst. I knew deep down that fear is not the right reason to stay in a relationship. A common reason, but not right. I knew that having children in that relationship would have been a disaster.

From very soon after the separation, till about 14 months after, I put a lot of energy into trying to find a new relationship. Mostly to offset my loneliness, but, in one's thirties, there are biological imperatives.

I met lots of nice people, and some complete fuckwads (there's my favourite word). I met a man who had a couple of kids. His wife died very young of breast cancer. The warning signs were there; he had not really been single for any length of time since his wife died. I quite liked him. I asked him if he wanted more kids - he said yes, if he met the right person. That was ok by me, but later he told me he'd had the snip, but no worries, it could be reversed. Then, after a fairly short but intense period, and the very same day he told me that things felt very right with me, he said "I don't want more kids". I never saw him again. That happened  a year ago to this day.

That was painful, but it made me have good hard think about what I wanted. I did want to have kids, or a kid. I wanted them in a functioning, honest relationship. Not long after that, on Mother's day last year, I acutely felt the first tick of my biological clock.

I went through a bit of a rough time after that, no marathon training to keep me from acting in a feral manner. Meanwhile, though, I was trying to make peace with my future. If the relationship/children thing did not work out, there would be other things I could offer the world. I tried to relax.

And as you might have read, the moment I relaxed, I met my lovely fella.

After previous experiences, I told him right upfront: "if you don't want children, you need to tell me now". He is a bit older than me, no children, and I was scared that he didn't want them.

We have revisited this discussion a few times. Well, I have. Just to make sure. Because, increasingly, I am getting clucky. I just want a little bubba to hold. One of my own.

Perhaps it is because this relationship feels good and right.

Perhaps it is because I am much more emotionally ready to have children. This is because (through tens of thousands of dollars worth of therapy) I am now able to attend to my own emotional needs; I am in a much better position to give to a child.

Much of it, I think, is biology. "It's not logical, it's hormones" a work colleague said to me.I would be inclined to agree.

Over the last year or so, there has not been a week go by without one of my friends, or somebody I know, telling me that they are pregnant. Or I find out on facebook. I am not exaggerating.

Just before Christmas, I found out that my ex and his new partner were expecting, they are due at the end of this month. I was with the fella in New Zealand, about to meet his family. I had a little cry in the airport toilets (that was where we were when I heard). The fella was so good about it. I was so glad I was with him in New Zealand.

I am happy for every person that tells me they are pregnant. I fully and wholeheartedly share in their joy.

But I can't deny that it is becoming a bit wearing. I wonder when it will be my turn. This may seem a bit weird to people reading, I am in a good relationship. There is no reason why I should have problems (other than that my age is slowly creeping up). Yet the talk of poor fertility all around scares me.

Part of it is a bit of a desire to escape the grind of work, and the PhD. To do something different. Again, sounds weird, right?

And I know that no good will come if I push things before they are ready (no pun intended). It is quite early in our relationship. We need to move in together first. I need to get a bit more done of my studies, ideally.
I try really hard to be happy in the present. It always helps, though,  for me to be a bit mindful of what is going on in my own head.

Thanks for reading.