Barren Mare

Dragged backwards

Oh yikes, I am crankalicious. Chalk it up to hormones, boredom, or the unceasing grim, grubby weather; my former good mood is somewhat squelched. Instead it seems I must contend with a long series of grumpy-making events. And where better than to have a right good whinge but in my pajamas and furry slippers in front of the internets.

Firstly there are the minor annoyances- not one but two buttons on my coat suddenly came off during yesterday’s walk, leaving my delicate flesh at the mercy of the biting wind, and looking sloppy besides. The prices in my favourite lunch place were raised today, and my carefully calculated change was not
enough. How dare they? Despite a futile scrabble in my wallet for additional change, I had to beg the extra 7p off my companion.

After which I managed to dump half my coffee down my front. Huzzah.

Then there is the recent electricity bill. Oh, I wish to weep. It would seem that for the past year or so we have been somehow underpaying. The reckoning is a vast, ghastly invoice. I am now completely horrified at how much it is costing to heat our flat, and spent the weekend running around after E. turning off all the lights in his wake.

Also, can I just say: South Dakota. Um, what the fucking fuck is going on?

Then there is my grand plan, which has hit a minor snag. I shall almost certainly find a way around the problem, but to go my desired route will now entail a certain amount of extra work- writing letters, compiling various documents, firing off pleading emails into the void. Needless to say, I am good at this sort of palaver, but it’s tiresome. The only bright side is that I have found an ally, a friend of mine who is
also interested in doing this…thing. Together we have vowed to scale the barricades and make it work. Viva Project Possibly Possible!

Even with all this moving on, there is still the occasional sullen backwards stumble. Today, for instance, I spied yet another colleague sporting a modest bump. My eyes bugged out, since I had had a ten minute conversation with her last week and had noticed nothing. She was standing in the corridor talking to someone else, and I actually made a round-about detour so I could get a second covert look- was it really a bump or was she just having a bad posture/wardrobe day? Mmm, definitely looks like a bump.

Cue plunge into sudden, abject depression. With possibly one or two exceptions, every female under 40 working in my immediate vicinity has gotten pregnant at least once or twice in the last couple years. The parade of pregnancy is unceasing. Every time I believe the torment is finally finished, a new one springs out of the woodwork. And every time, I have the same urge to run screaming out of the office, rendered.

Which sometimes makes me think that, all the good plans aside, I may never really shake off this sadness completely. That time will never be a complete healer on this one. With all my best intentions, I still find myself feeling like a freak, the odd one out, the one that is always left behind, the only one who can’t do this. The only one who can’t have this.

Little earthquakes

Oh dear, has it been over a week already? Erm, yes, it would appear so. Time flies when nothing much is happening.

Really, I have had the most awful case of blogger's block- I would attribute a lot of that to the fact that my mind is a-whirra-whirring away with a great many other things. What I realised the other day is that there simply has to be some sort of shift from the status quo, in a fairly grand seismic sense. Because I don't think I can plan on plodding on like this for the next 35 years or so, or to whenever it is "they" deem I can retire.

What I have been pondering muchly of late is the possibilities that are open to me. I'm trying to move on from the big shock of watching the Big Plan A crumbling under my feet. So. If children aren't necessarily going to happen, what else is there? What a question. In the last few weeks, I have contemplated everything from the sublime to the ridiculous. I'll open a bakery! I'll start up some weird religious sect! I'll take a year off work and travel! I'll move to London! I'll move to New York! I'll stay where I am...oh, wait, we decided that last one wasn't working out so well.

Anyway, to cut a long, navel-gazing story short, I've now come up with a rather interesting plan. It has all the elements I so delight in- it's just wacky enough to make me stop in my tracks and think Whoooah! It's dauntingly challenging, but it's also realistically do-able, if I put my mind to it. It would be something that takes place over the medium to long term (since I am generally not one for the spur of the moment decision-making). It would, I hope, open up a lot of possibilities either for me on my own, if it comes to that, or for us (that being E. and I). A pleasing kind of ripple of effect, if you will.

And now you are all going to roll your eyes, moan, and then hate me, because I can't tell you what it is. Wait! Stop! Ouch! I'm not being deliberately coy, I'm not. Stop hitting me with that pillow. Were to I to divulge the details of this idea, then I would have to reveal rather more than I care to share about my professional life. But let's just say it involves my career. It's a notion I had on the backburner for a long time, but always shelved until now, primarily because I had thought any minute now I would get pregnant and then I would be too busy with kids to do it. Well, we all know how that one turned out. Therefore, in light of recent events, I am shuffling the pots around on the stove and turning up the gas.

The best thing is that suddenly, I feel better than I have in a long, long time about what could be out there for me. If I go through with it, I know there will be moments when I want to stick my finger in the light socket, but I figure an occasional burst to the nerve endings is no bad thing. At least that way, I'll know I'm still alive and feeling something.

Where is Tenzing Norgay when you need him?

I feel compelled, after reading your very interesting and thoughtful comments, to try to clarify some of my thinking. Not because I feel I must in any way justify my choices to you but because it's a discussion which I think warrants some further examination. Oh, and I thought of an analogy, albeit one involving artificial limbs. After all, I do hate letting an analogy go to waste; think of all those starving blog posts.

Here goes:

Supposing you were just about to climb Everest, and then you fell and broke your leg. Suddenly, the climb is pretty much out of the question. Sure, you could in theory have a go, but that would be crazy, right? I mean, it wouldn't do your leg any good and it would hamper your already somewhat tentative chances of making it to the top. But all of that is kind of irrelevant. It's not even a question of how much further damage you might do. Your leg is broken. Why are we even discussing whether it is possible to climb Everest?

Legs can heal, of course, if you wait. But that might hamper your chances, too. You're not getting any younger after all, and your leg might not ever be as strong as it was. Or with the passage of time, you might decide you want to do something else besides climb Everest.

There is one rather drastic option and that is to amputate the leg immediately. They can do wonderful things with prosethetics nowadays, you know, and if you're willing to deal with the present hassle of going through the surgery, the therapy, and the search for a proper replacement, then your chances of success are pretty damn good! Huzzah! Everest awaits!

Except on balance, you realise kind of like your leg, broken or not. OK, so it's looking oogy right now, but actually, you're sort of attached to it and you'd like to see if it can get better, at least for awhile longer, before you lop it off entirely. You also realise that when it comes right down to it, Everest is high, cold and pretty fucking scary. That the leg- breaking has wounded you perhaps a little bit deeper than you initially thought and you're not sure you are up for the fresh trauma of an amputation. And really, wouldn't it be nice not to think about any of this crap right now but to just sit down, have a nice cup of tea and perhaps do a bit of knitting.

Hmm. OK, so having written all that down, maybe it's a crappy analogy after all. I guess the point is I'm not quite ready to consign my relationship with E. to the bin solely so I can look to meet someone else with whom I want to have children, who also wants to have them with me, and with whom I will actually manage to pull it off. I might consign him for other reasons, of course, and end up on my own. Naturally, one of my criteria for a new partner would be that children could be part of the equation. But, no, I'm not going to prioritise that search over everything else. If it ends up being too late for me, so be it.

I don't think that means I am necessarily choosing "a relationship" over having children. I'm more saying that for me, unless I am in a strong relationship, I don't want to even consider adding children to the mix. For the avoidance of doubt, I am absolutely not interested in being a single mother. I hope you understand, that is in no way casting aspersions or judgement on other people who choose that route- but for me, no.

Anyway, listen, when I said that I can foresee as far as next Tuesday, I really meant it. I might change my mind about everything I have said above at any point. Watch this space.

I was standing on the dock when that ship sailed

At the moment, E. and I are proceeding on the basis that for the foreseeable future, we will stay together. Of course, I can usually foresee about as far as next Tuesday, so that's not saying much. But I suppose it's better than endless day-in, day-out wobbling on the grim knife edge.

As part of this tentative re-negotiation of the relationship-that-was and the one that will be, we have obviously had a couple of things to talk about. One being: what we will do, if anything, about trying to have a family? What was interesting is that for the first time in a long time, this conversational tack didn't inspire me with either gut-wrenching fear, excited anticipation, or saddened flatness. My main reaction was a sort of benign indifference. Because at the end of the day, what is left to say?

In short, the options for us appear to be as follows: do nothing or do IVF or other treatment again.

The idea of doing IVF again at this point is, to my mind, frankly out of the question. Aside from the fact that the last go-round didn't go so well in terms of outcome, my view on it is that the whole process did play a big part in bringing this relationship to its fucking knees. Why would I want to go back there, and more importantly how can I even think of going back there? It's hard enough doing such treatment with somebody when you're in a rock solid situation;whereas less than two months ago I wasn't sure if E. and I were going to spending Christmas together. So the notion of sashaying off to the next round of IVF, as if all of that were a small blip on the radar, is completely ludicrious. Of course, I don't have a crystal ball, but if I was a betting girl, I wouldn't back that particular horse.

Listen, I have spent some long, hard, tearstained, wine-soaked hours over the last few months coming to terms with the idea that the life I wanted was probably not going to come about. I do hear a tiny voice in my head which plaintively cries out "But if you don't do anything now, you'll never have children". But on the whole, that has given way to something much sterner and harder. A cool, slightly detached voice, which says that in the present circumstances, embarking on the pursuit of further treatment at this stage is basically akin to sticking my finger in a light socket.

So, for now the answer is wait and see. If things improve to the point where I feel secure enough to go down that road, then who knows. It could take a long, long time to get to that point, and by that stage, I may want to even less than I do now.

I've learned to never say never in this game. Really though, deep down in my heart, it does feel like that particular ship has sailed. And my main concern is to learn to love and accept the dock I'm standing on, rather than forever mourning the loss of the high seas.

South

Having gotten done with all that fanfare about yon bloggie changes, I suddenly don't know what to write about. Go figure. Is it stage fright? Or akin to going out wearing a bright yellow polka dotted top, instead of my usual somber gray? Or, even more likely, is it the fact that the avalanche at work continues unabated, and most of my spare moments are spent lashing on the crampons and trying to chip an airhole with my ice axe?

Yes. That last one.

Some of you asked about the new picture. That suggests to me it translates less well in a small photo, as opposed to, say, its other role as my screensaver. It's actually a large compass in a glass case, reflecting the ssky and the mast of certain ship . That being the RSS Discovery, Scott's ship, now docked in bonnie Dundee, Scotland.

I suppose the photo is part of a theme for having the instruments you need to get where you are going, but not being quite able to see yet. Almost there, but somewhat obscured. Er, perhaps the theme itself is too obscured for its own good, if I am having to do all this explaining.

In case you haven't noticed from my liberal sprinkling of icy analogies over the last couple years, I am fond of all things polar. And Robert Falcon Scott of the Antarctic and his band of merry men (most notably, the redoubtable Captain Oates) have a special place in my heart. Their tale is the absolute epitome of "close, but no cigar". Beaten to the South Pole by a rival expedition by only one month, and dying on the return trip, due to adverse weather and a refusal to ditch their load of heavy rock samples. Every time I read about their adventures and their sad end, I want to shout, "Oh, for heavens' sake! Drop the damn rocks, willya?!" As if it could somehow still turn out differently.

Funny thing is how much the expedition's untimely end became a stirring example of all that was fine, noble and stiff upper-lippy. Lots of people nodding their heads, remarking, "Oh, I say. A glorious effort in a glorious age. Jolly good show." Whereas nowadays many of us would be muttering, "Freaks!" under our breath, or possibly turning the escapade into a bestselling book about the lunacy of man, a la Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild.

Sometimes at night, when I can't sleep and when I tire of reading blogs, I check in at the South Pole. Of course, soon it will be that time of year when it gets very, very dark and cold there, and then there's not much to see. But that has a certain appeal as well- and somehow it always cheers me up to think of places more desolate than here. Desolate, but with a savage, windswept beauty.