Tag: travelling

47. And a funny bet was made.

I’m currently on a flying visit to Glasgow and Manchester with the daughter to check out the universities, and the cities them selves. It’s lovely to have her back, telling tales of her travelling adventures, sharing new enthusiasms and plans.

So, sitting on the train watching the beautiful countryside wizz past, we talk, inevitably, about me and her dad.

It’s getting easier, I tell her. Less painful to see him, even kind of normal. Could you see yourself back with him? She asks. Not in a ‘I need my parents to be together’ kind of way. She’s not that sort of person and it wasn’t that sort of question. The answer is a calm but decisive NO.

We talked about plans for the future, the advantages of having siblings to share the load of stuff. The perks of being an only. ‘At least you inheritance will be yours’ I laughed. ‘Unless you dad has another child, of course.’

And a whole new line of conversation started. And a funny bet was made.

Years ago, when the daughter was four years old I had the first of four miscarriages. Each one building on the trauma, insecurities and heartbreak of the one before. By the last one I gave up wanting to try again. The pain, in its many forms, just too much to bear. So it was going to be us three (I hasten to add not ‘just’ us three, as I know now and really knew then how lucky we were to have our girl)

We then had certain practicalities to establish. Not wanting another baby means not getting pregnant. My body had been in the wars so I wasn’t willing to put myself through anything else. So a small, snippy procedure was mentioned, and as we both knew people who had had one I didn’t think it such a big deal. But it was. It became a very big deal, a case of any other future being denied to him.

If it was merely fear expressing itself with excuses that would make sense, but in the discussions at the time I knew it was a sign of something else. A commitment he wasn’t willing to make. It did, in several little ways, take its toll.

So to the bet. I joked about another child. But his lack of support over the practicalities of contraception had always been a drag on our life together. So will he step up if he meets someone? He’s still a handsome man and, while I don’t enjoy the thought of him with someone else, it’s perfectly probable. I may even be at that point myself one day. But I’m not ever going to have another baby – I can’t say the same for him.

So on the long train ride to Glasgow I wagered £50 he would in 5 years! And once I handed over the cash, it was hers to keep unless he had one within 10!

And I’m not sure why I think it might happen, but there is the doubt in my mind. Doubt that he really has started to take responsibility, act like a grown up.

Be a drastic way to be proved right. But one part of the bet was that the daughter had to tell him about it if I win! So he’ll know if I’m suddenly fifty quid the richer.

36. The hard thing is that we’re feeling the same pain.

Tuesday looms ahead – it’s Sunday today today – as another one of those massive changes that is happening this month. First my marriage, then the flat, and then it’ll be Tuesday.

Tuesday the daughter starts her travelling. Vietnam for a couple of months, a week or two in Thailand, and then on to the USA for another couple of months. I’ve been filling my head with thoughts of my future, but I’ve very clearly been avoiding thinking about her not being a daily part of it.

I’m proud of her, excited for her, scared, all the normal feelings I imagine most parents have when their kids finally set off on their first big life adventures. But my heart just about breaks with the pain of how I’m going to miss her. But it probably would no matter what else was going on, it’s just that my heart is a bit battered at the moment.

Himself and I took her for dinner together last night. She brought a friend, probably partly because of not really wanting to spend an evening of unknown emotional content and partly to fit yet another bit of socialising in to her alarming full schedule. It was a nice evening, chatting between all of us, laughing with the lively lovely girls and the stories of friends and silly antics. Moments of painful familiarity between me and him as he offered me a sip of his beer to see if I liked it instead of the wine. The awkwardness of a goodbye that we still don’t entirely know how to manage. But still, a pleasant evening.

But now, with daughter out of the house squeezing in a few more visits to friends before she flies away, I really feel how alone i’m going to be. Cat on the sofa beside me, dog on the floor by my feet, and no one else to share a cold lazy evening with. I know I’m not the only one. I know he must feel her absence already. Just as they are starting to get along better off she goes. That must hurt too. The hard thing is that we’re feeling the same pain, sharing the same hurt. But that’s the only thing we’re sharing. And that feels just as sad.