Sunday 29 May 2011

GOING AWAY FROM AND COMING BACK TO CUMBRIA

I have two friends whom I have known since University.  I have celebrated - or not - turning 21, 30, 40 and this year 50 - with them both: I am a godmother to the younger son of one and the older son of the other; one is a godmother to my oldest son and the other a godmother to my daughter.  I don't see them that often and sometimes don't even communicate with them that frequently, but they are there, part of my life, and important to me.

So I make the effort to attend events which matter to them and they do the same for me.  This meant that this weekend I travelled down to just north of Cambridge for the 50th birthday party of Longtime Friend C.  Oldest Son had decided to come with me, which was nice because he was company to me on the trip which was 256 miles in each direction, and because he saw his godmother and was looked after by her two sons, both of whom he liked (so did I: I'm not one of those people who automatically likes the children of my friends but I do like these two).

However being a long distance and a night away from the Baby (in particular), Husband and Daughter, plus having a late night and a few more glasses of wine than I might normally have imbibed, got me into a philosophical mood - especially at 1 a.m. last night when I couldn't get to sleep!  I think there were 3 main trains of thought I started following.

Firstly, it was lovely to see my friend and her family, and indeed to catch up with other friends of hers, some of whom I probably haven't seen for somewhere between 5 and 10 years.  One hit the nail on the head when she commented on what a decade we've had: she turns 50 in July but like me had her children only once she was into her 40s.  But the best bit of the weekend was just seeing my friend and her family and catching up on what she's been up to.  Whilst the bare bones of what's happening can be laid out in an email or phone call, as can even the fundamental feelings of the time, the detail tends only to be discussed when you're sitting face-to-face and having a cup of tea or glass of wine, or going for a walk - and also perhaps have had time to reflect on things a bit as well.  So in fact whilst the party was an enormously enjoyable highlight for my friend, if I'm totally honest I would have enjoyed the weekend more if I'd just been able to see her and chat to her.  Don't get me wrong: I still fully intend to have a big 50th party myself and I hope all my long-term not-seen-very-often friends will make the effort to be there, but I'm conscious that whilst they may enjoy the party I shall probably enjoy it far more.  And after all that's how it should be: I was there yesterday to help my friend celebrate and have a fantastic time, not to please myself. 

However (and partly as I know she sometimes reads my blog), don't go thinking that I didn't enjoy myself, as I did - and in fact the other thing is that because I was on my own I did miss my children and husband.  After all, when you have a newish baby you want to show him off, and also I was worried about whether Oldest Son was enjoying himself left with a babysitter and two boys who were older and relative strangers just a few miles up the road.  I still can't quite work out whether he was happy or not as he'd been writing 'I miss Mummy and Daddy' in his book but then sent a text to his Dad this morning saying he had a great time, and was also loathe to come home as he wanted to stay and play!

It was great crossing the Cumbrian border high up along the A66 and almost immediately having a wide vista across to the Lake District in the distance.  We were home, even though there was another hour's drive ahead of us as Cumbria is such a big county and we're right up at the top.

How I felt about the party also made me question whether dashing off all over the country to parties is really what I want to do.  The other Longterm Friend I mentioned earlier is 50 in November, and her party is during termtime: I do very much want to go for the same reasons I went this weekend.  But other friends, such as an ante-natal friend in Bristol who is having a 40th this year, I wonder about.  It would be lovely to see my ante-natal 'bunch' but many of them don't make much effort to stay in touch with me, and in fact I think I'd rather spend a week down in the Bristol area - perhaps staying with my parents in the summer holidays - and catch up with them in a slightly more leisurely environment, where there is a chance to chat properly and where I'm just with people I know.  That makes me sound a bit anti-social perhaps but I've never liked large parties where I don't know people: a dinner party is a different kettle of fish.  It's not that I'm in the slightest bit scared of meeting people I don't know: I'd just rather do so in a setting where it's rather easier to talk, and also if I'm travelling a long way I want to talk to the people I know rather than have to shout at them or try to make small talk with people who I meet that evening and may possibly never see again.

A rather nice conclusion of the weekend was how much I love my family: I mean Husband, Baby, Older Son and Daughter.  My friends have always been important to me and at one point where absolutely key in giving me support and affection: things I didn't feel I had within me and things which I didn't feel I'd got from my upbringing.  As I turned 40 I felt more self-confident than I had since being a child (and I do feel our basic nature, how we are as children, is our true self and what we ultimately return to after the experiments of teens and twenties and in my case thirties), but Husband and children and the move to Cumbria have boosted that further.  I wonder sometimes whether if I had remained single after 40, my confidence would have continued and increased in the same way, or whether I would have reverted to being a bit screwed-up.  At a friend's wedding years ago there was a brilliant sermon in which the priest said that marriage is about giving each other support and helping make up for the weaknesses in each other: well, whilst I don't adhere to the 'other half' theory (I'm quite whole on my own, thank you), I do think that my Husband has helped fulfil me in ways that perhaps wouldn't have happened if I had remained single.  But as I shall never know I don't tend to dwell on it!

That point in a sense brings me on to my final thought, or at least the only remaining one I can now remember.  And that is that I think I am mentally healthier because I am living in the present more: I think that is one of the gifts which babies and children bring with them.  In a way it's a problem because in the middle of August my income will reduce so that I have only £190 per calendar month to spend, and in January it will reduce further when the Child Tax Credits go down when the Baby turns one.  I should be worried about our future finances but somehow I don't seem to be able to motivate myself to get desperate, which means I'm not actually doing all that much about finding work!  I seem to be going along assuming that everything will be OK and that something will turn up from somewhere, which is somewhat naive in many ways: except that I'm trying to arrange to get some demo discs made, I do keep trying to get articles sold, I'm trying to motivate myself to do an aerobic class, and I've got a job interview coming up.... I'm not doing nothing but if I were single I'd be doing an awful lot more.  But again, as someone said at the party yesterday, whilst I've got less money, we also need less money living where we do.  In fact if I could earn even £100 per week (with no childcare costs), and if we sold one car, we'd be fine for a while.  No foreign holidays - and I do miss skiing - and no pension pot, but for a few years we'd be able to buy birthday presents for other people and new shoes for the children, and pay for swimming lessons (for example).  And again, recently a couple of people have commented on life in large cities for children.  They end up doing a different activity after school almost every day, and seem to be under constant pressure to perform and to learn: and I know if I lived in a city I would be one of those mothers who wanted my little darlings to be accomplished in foreign languages, music, dancing, acting, riding, swimming and various sports from an early age..... up here they get swimming lessons every-so-often and otherwise we're out walking or on bikes if the weather's fine.

I'm not sure whose children will achieve more in life: I'm not sure which is the best way (as they are, after all, little sponges): but I love living up here and whilst I wish I could afford to pay for a few more things for my children, I believe they are happy.  And as I've said many times before, if I can bring up my children to be happy, confident adults then I will have succeeded: and if I have good relationships with them that will be better still.

No comments:

Post a Comment