The Single Mum Life

So we kissed and the spell didn’t break. Much to my relief he didn’t kiss like a toad who’d had a stroke either. We both fell asleep for a bit, clothes in tact and then spent the whole of Sunday together. I think we may have sourced some brunch in a little café on Byres Road before we ended up at the Botanic Gardens, sitting on the grass. I wish I’d thought more about the way I was sitting because The Ace advised me to reposition myself as he could see up my skirt. My embarrassment would have certainly shown but then surely he would have felt some shame at the fact he had inadvertently admitted to looking in that direction.

I only remember that and being in the scabby kitchen of the scabby flat from the whole day we spent together. He left sometime around late afternoon to head back to Edinburgh where he lived. We never swapped numbers and although I know that something poignant was said as he was leaving I can’t quite recall what or by whom.

So he was gone and that was that, or at least it would have been if I hadn’t turned into what can only be described as a desperate romantic displaying stalker tendencies. What I am about to tell you is quite frankly disturbing but perhaps also very resourceful, actually it’s just downright embarrassing but anyway, here goes….

Naturally after the “electrifying” experience with The Ace I couldn’t get him out of my head. I thought about him constantly, about the energy between us that night and more so about the fact that nothing had really happened, well, apart from a kiss. As far as I was concerned the universe had thrown us together and we were meant to be together. I wanted to marry him. Yes, that’s right, marriage to a relative stranger at 19 years old seemed feasible. The question was, how was I going to get to see him again? The forces of nature would dictate that it was fairly unlikely. Not only did I not have his number, the college term was close to finishing and I would then be moving back home for a couple of months before my move to Newcastle for University. Most sane people would accept this and move on, I didn’t.

My first port of call was my friend Dave who I tried to convince to raid my not very nice friend’s address book to see if he could find The Ace’s number in it. This mission was extremely unsuccessful, so much so that the “friend” found out and subsequently realised The Ace and I had spent the night together, albeit fairly innocently. I don’t recall seeing her again after that. Most semi-sane people would have thought at that point “ah well…”, I didn’t. The next bit is probably an excellent example of “worrying behaviour” and I would go as far as to say it may be seen as acceptable grounds in court to lodge a restraining order.

I went to the library. I went to the library and searched for the phone book for East Kilbride. Why East Kilbride? Because The Ace had explained that his parents lived there. Yes, that’s right. I looked up every single person with the same surname as his in East Kilbride and made a list of them in my little note book. Please be assured that this little notebook did not contain other stalking methods or the various ways of boiling bunnies ….

Armed with many 10 pences, I dialled the first number on a list of 10 or so matching surnames in East Kilbride. I was ready with a script of what I was going to say, in my head I might add, not on paper, that would have been taking things too far! I had decided to explain that I was an old friend of The Ace’s, that I’d lost his number in Edinburgh and would they be able to pass it on to me. How handy Facebook would have been back then. I wouldn’t have seemed so desperate. The first call was answered which resulted in an immediate negative response. I apologised for dialling the wrong number, thanked them for their time and so the calls went on as I crossed off each unsuccessful number. I didn’t listen to the voice in my head which was saying perhaps I should just leave it but then that was the voice of reason and so far my behaviour was anything but reasonable.

Call number 7 on the list was answered by a male and I automatically reeled off my speech. “He’s an old friend…..I’ve lost his number for his flat in Edinburgh…..” etc. The man on the other end of the line sounded fairly uncomfortable and I started to cross off the number.

“Oh…….right…….” he said. “I’ll just get his number for you…....”

Moving back to your home town can inevitably mean bumping into your past on a regular basis, old friends from school, boys you’ve snogged at the back of the arcades who are now fat balding men and girls who wanted to beat you up because you were not part of their gang who are now almost unrecognisable due to the absence of heavily hair sprayed perms. There’s no escaping it, well, not for the time being anyway.

It’s been great catching up with the group of girls I used to hang about with at school though. Many of them have come back to settle down with their families after being away and I’ve realised just how much I’ve missed them being part of my life. I suddenly feel part of something again. Of course seeing the majority of your friends settled down leaves you wondering whether you got lost somewhere amongst the map of life. Was there a wrong turning or a junction which I missed?

When I was ill with the doomed pregnancy my big brother handed me a book and told me to read it, “it’s a good book”, he said. “It’s about 2 people who meet and the different journeys they take over the next 20 years, you know, people taking different paths in life and where it leads them.” The first page of the book was set in Edinburgh so I immediately felt a connection. I was struggling to concentrate on anything though at that point and the thought of concentrating on a big novel was not particularly appealing. I’d only read a few pages when it got packed away with the rest of my belongings for the unwanted move back home. If I’m honest though, there was also a reluctance to read it. My relationship with Mr Rockstar was on a downward spiral, I was feeling extremely confused about everything and I felt lost. At times like that and usually when I am drunk and feeling lonely the same person always creeps into my thoughts, The Ace.

I can distinctly remember the first time I saw him, Safeways, Byres Road, Glasgow around the time of Euro ‘96. He was sporting fairish hair, cut in a mod style. He was tall and was wearing a leather motorcycling sports type jacket and he was going out with my friend, who looking back on it, had never been particularly nice to me.

I think perhaps a little part of me fell in love with him, at that point and it’s probably the closest I’ve ever come to love at first sight apart from Johnny Depp of course….

I can’t even remember if we spoke that day or the next time I saw him at my friend’s flat. I can remember him telling her off for clicking her false nails together though – funny the things that stick in your mind.

Shortly after that he finished with my friend. The nail clicking must have got to him.

It was an impromptu decision to go out following the defeat of England in the semi final that found me in the Art School on Renfrew Street. Myself, Martin and Dave had started the evening in the Grosvenor Lane drinking beer and I remember the constant laughing between the three of us. I also remember that upon realising we were going to be going out I had rushed back to my flat to change and only shaved the thigh part of my legs because I was wearing knee high boots and a mini skirt – nice.

The Art School was a haven of pretentious young things trying to out smart each other in the fashion stakes. You could be forgiven for thinking that you’d walked back in time when entering the ground floor. Everyone looked like a throw back from the 60s but in a very chic vintage way and the music matched the fashion. Naturally I went there for the talent and to dance beside guys who knew how to dance. It was very rare that I got to dance with them. I always felt like I could never get it quite right clothing wise. My outfit often consisted of a mix up of Top Shop and Miss Selfridge, or cheap high street sale items. I tried my best to work the retro look but you could tell I hadn’t been vintage shopping in Virginia Galleries like the others. I didn’t have that moth ball aroma.

The first floor was in complete contrast to the ground floor, thumping house music and people who appeared to be chewing their cheeks a lot. I liked both floors and flitted between the two that night. Somehow at the end of the night, when the crowds were spilling out onto the street I lost Martin and Dave. But as I looked for them amongst the surge of people around me I found someone else, there he was, The Ace.

We got talking, I have no idea what about but no doubt I made some reference to him dating my not so nice friend briefly to break the silence. Somehow we ended up walking all the way up Great Western Road back to my scabby basement flat. We lay there on the bed fully clothed facing each other just talking for what seemed ages about, well, I have no idea what about but while lying there I felt this unbelievably strong energy, it was like electricity was building up between us. Naturally there was a part of me which was also concerned about the fact I had only shaved half of my legs and that I would inevitably have to remove the boots which were concealing my fuzzy calves but regardless of that, I couldn’t get over this feeling that I was experiencing. It was all rather innocent, we weren’t even holding hands but there definitely seemed to be a strong connection between us. Of course who knows what The Ace was thinking at that point although I sincerely hope that later on it wasn’t along the lines of “Jesus, what hairy legs….!”

I had no idea if we would kiss at all that night and although I really wanted him to kiss me; I couldn’t help but worry that the magic might disappear. If he was a dreadful kisser it would have ruined the illusion. So I held back for as long as I could until it began to get light outside and the thought of my semi hairy legs reflecting the daylight across the room filled me with enough fear to take a chance on breaking the spell……

I’ve been watching This is England ’86 and I desperately want my hair like Lol’s. Being a natural brunette and a dark one at that it would be anything but an easy transition but my hairdresser states that if I start lightening gradually I may get there without actually ending up bald. A woman’s hair can be a real representation of her psychological state. Take Britney Spears for example, we didn’t need to be told that she was going through a breakdown when we watched her shave her head through the murky lens of the paparazzi’s camera.

When I split up with my Geordie boyfriend at 21, I cut all my hair off, or rather, some hairdresser from Toni and Guy did. I decided I wanted to look like Louise Wener from Sleeper but I also suspect that I didn’t want to look like the person who’d just had her heart broken.

While I was going out with Mr Rockstar my hair was the longest it had ever been, it was down to my waist. The ironic (and somewhat disturbing!) thing was that I wanted to have long hair for when I got married. I seriously thought that the years it would take me to grow my hair that length I would’ve met “the one”. Of course with Mr Rockstar I thought I had. Three weeks after the termination, I cut my hair. Not as drastically as when Geordie Boy had dumped me but even so there was a good 6 inches of hair lying on the salon floor. Now I’m wanting to get it bleached and shorter – what does that tell you?

There’s no doubt about it, I want to escape from the girl (woman?) I was at the beginning of the year. Is this deemed as "running away" or "reinvention"?

However much I try and detach myself from the person I was earlier on this year I know it won't stop the baby dreams. They've been happening on a regular basis. It's like a punishment, I'm happy with a baby in every single one. But those are dreams and it's not the reality, I have to keep reminding myself that.

They'll stop, eventually. Meanwhile, I need to start looking at other areas of my life that I need to change, starting with my romantic side. My mother says it causes me nothing but trouble and I am beginning to think she may be right. But how does one go about "de-romanticising" themselves? Should I refuse to watch rom-coms, stop looking for "signs", stop believing in love at first sight? Ironically I have never experienced love at first sight, lust yes, but I don't ever think love. The list is possibly endless but what is more problematic is the implementation. Of course throw yourself into a financially crippling, physically and mentally draining housing renovation and you're pretty much sorted. Add in the threat of losing your job and the process is complete.

So even if the bleach doesn't make my hair turn white, it's more than likely my current life will.......

"Cold and calculated". The words rang louder and longer in my head than my alarm clock had that morning. I'm still hearing them now, a couple of weeks later.

I stood momentarily, reading the text over and over again that morning wondering how someone who was so in love with me could be so horrible but ironically that was probably exactly what Mr Rockstar was wondering too.

It had been the morning after I'd ended things with him over the phone. I'd woken up from a dream that consisted of me discovering that I was still pregnant and was happy. The buzz from the mobile had startled me and broke me from my happy place, bump and all. Before I had time to comprehend the dream, I looked at my phone.

I knew he'd be angry with me and I knew he'd be upset. I'd withdrawn from the relationship for over 2 months but yet had refused to end it. He'd been left hanging around wondering what my thoughts were and whether I still loved him. Only a week before I'd indicated that we should take things slowly but I'd also told him I'd changed. Perhaps I just hadn't appreciated how much.

It was a long text. A long, angry text.

Should I reply to the text or should I just leave it? There was a part of me though that felt I had to defend myself. I hadn't planned all of this, I wasn't trying to make a fool of him, I was gutted things hadn't worked out and yes, I knew it was because of me. My instinct was to leave it though. Nothing I could say was going to make Mr Rockstar feel better. My mother however, suggested I should text him back. That we needed to speak face to face. I have to agree, I had never intended it to end over the phone. He deserved better than that but when I opened the conversation with "we need to talk about us", things escalated. We'd finished the conversation by wishing each other the best in life. But needless to say, things were different by the morning.

"He's not going to want to meet up at the weekend to speak face to face" I said to my mother. "I know it'll just make him mad if I say that in the text". However, I went ahead and did as I was told in untypical daughter fashion.

He went mad. I had just made things worse. Sorry, my mother's advice had just made things even worse.

And then there was my blog, I began to think it probably hadn't been a good idea to tell him about that.......

I’ve started this post many times over the last couple of months. Never knowing quite how to start it or where to end it. Should I speak about the termination? What about the suicidal tendencies? How do I throw in the impending house move and saying goodbye to Edinburgh? Do I mention my birthday/leaving night and the fact nobody turned up? And what about Mr Rockstar, where does he fit in amongst all of this?

Does anyone really want to hear how shit my life has been for the past couple of months? Possibly, it often makes us feel better when we hear how awful someone else's is, after all, that's why I watch Eastenders.

But if you're still reading, I shall go on.....

The termination - well, for some reason I thought going through it for the second time would be easier. I was having the surgical procedure which would mean that I would be knocked out and wouldn’t face the traumatic experience of passing the pregnancy. What I hadn’t anticipated on, was having to wait in a day surgery waiting room at the hospital on my own for over 5 hours amongst pensioners getting knee transplants while my body slowly prepared for the surgical intrusion of having a baby removed. Being on your own for 5 hours gives you a lot of time to think about things. While my stomach produced the odd cramp I sat there and apologised in my head to the baby. I built up quite a lot of self hatred that morning, getting angry with myself for being so stupid and telling myself that I was a bad mother. I wondered whether this was it. Would I ever want to be pregnant again, would I ever be able to conceive again? I questioned whether I’d made the right decision, because it was my decision, Mr Rockstar never once said we should consider a termination.

I had tried to come to a conclusion with Mr Rockstar about what we should do but I knew that he didn’t want to make the decision. “People have babies all the time”, he said. Yes they do, I’d witnessed that enough through my work in child welfare. Drug addicts have babies, people who were incapable of looking after themselves have babies. Having the baby is the easy part, looking after it is another thing entirely. I tried to reason with him, explain to him that I had already been there, I knew how difficult it was to raise a child and I could see that we weren’t ready for it both financially and mentally. The problem was we were both too emotional and were unable to communicate in a rational manner. That’s when I took control. Rightly or wrongly I made the appointment to see a pregnancy counsellor with a view to setting up a termination appointment. With only 3 weeks left to make a decision, I had to act quickly. I thought I would come out of the counselling session thinking “no, I want to have this baby, I can have this baby” but disappointingly I didn’t. I felt more certain that there was no other option. It just wasn’t a decision I wanted to make on my own.

The sad truth is that following the termination, I couldn’t face Mr Rockstar and I didn’t want to communicate with him. I shut him out, it was the only way I felt I could cope with what had happened. I felt that if he was around me he would only make me feel worse. I know how selfish that sounds, I know that we should have been there for each other but I needed to be there for Evie, I needed to put her first and I couldn't allow myself to feel anything.

Within a week of the termination though, things only went from bad to worse. While I was recovering at my Mum’s up in the Highlands, I decided to visit my house (I've been renting it out while I work in Edinburgh). My last lot of tenants had just moved out and when I saw it I was on the brink of tears. The place was in a terrible state of disrepair, there was no way that I was going to be able to rent it out again and that only meant one thing, I was going to have to leave Edinburgh. I’d already gone through 2 months of having to scrape/borrow money to pay for my rent in Edinburgh and my mortgage for my house, I’d used all my resources, there was nothing left.

I’d barely had time to react to the termination properly and think about Mr Rockstar, when suddenly I was thrust into giving notice on my flat in Edinburgh, remortgaging my house, breaking the news to Evie that she was going to have to leave all her friends, trying to arrange new childcare and begging my employers to allow me to remotely work from our Highland base. I spent two weeks agonising not knowing if I was going to have a job while I waited for my boss and the HR department to decide my fate. They allowed me a 3 month remote working contract.

Which brings me to where I am now, back in the Highlands with Evie, living with my Mum because my house is inhabitable. So what about the suicidal tendencies, my disastrous birthday/leaving night and Mr Rockstar? Well, some things just aren't meant to be.......

It wasn't supposed to be like this, this post. I was supposed to be spreading the joy, I was supposed to be glowing, that's what they say - don't they? You're glowing. But I'm not. I'm 10 weeks pregnant and everything has culminated into a terrible mess. Shall I rewind?

After the last negative pregnancy test, I did a further one a week later, just a cheap one from Boots, nothing fancy this time. Initially it looked like it was going to be negative again but after 5 minutes that infamous red line came up - positive.

Mr Rockstar and I were very excited, so much so that Evie picked up on the news a lot sooner than I would've liked. There was certainly a buzz around that night. I woke up at 6 am the next morning with my head spinning. I couldn't get back to sleep. The initial fear was the thought of the dreaded morning (or rather all day) sickness, I knew how ill it had made me in the past - how was I going to cope this time? Of course, what I had to keep reminding myself was that there were two people involved in this, Mr Rockstar would be able to help, although we didn't live together yet, there was no reason why he couldn't come and stay with me during the sickness. He'd be able to commute to work, people did it all the time by train from Edinburgh to Glasgow or vice versa. I would later realise that this rule didn't apply to builders.

Through our excitement we told our parents. Although shocked they were happy as long as we were happy and we were happy. We loved each other and that would get us through it.

The cracks started to appear pretty much as soon as I started to get sick. Luckily (or so I thought) when the sickness kicked in I was on a weeks leave as I was arranging a surprise 70th birthday party for my Father during the Easter break so thankfully didn't have to phone in sick to work. However it made what was already a stressful week even harder because I was unable to eat, had no energy yet somehow had to find the strength to arrange catering, balloons, etc as well as trying to keep Evie occupied.

The following week Mr Rockstar came to stay with me for a few days to help me out. It was a complete disaster. As he doesn't have a driver's license he had to rely on public transport. In the past when he'd stayed at mine during the week he'd got the train and always arrived on time for work but that was one day, to get the train all week would be a massive expense so he went for the bus instead. I'd gone into work that day but had left at lunchtime as I just couldn't cope with constantly feeling like I might throw up at any moment. I suddenly realised that there was no way I was going to be able to keep this from my boss. I couldn't work and besides, my Doctor's line would state quite clearly what was "wrong" with me. Mr Rockstar had left my flat that day just after 5 am and was late for work, the bus almost took double the time of the train. By the time he got back to mine, went food shopping for dinner (I couldn't face the food let alone the supermarket) and cooked it, it was after 9 pm. I hoped that this was perhaps just a one off, that it would be easier the next day. It wasn't. By the time I saw Mr Rockstar walking down the steps to my flat the next day almost an hour and a half later than the previous day I knew we were in trouble.

Mr Rockstar looked absolutely exhausted and unfortunately due to my pregnant sickly state I was unable to give him the attention that he needed. My sense of smell was ridiculously sensitive and I just couldn't be too close to him after he'd had a hard day grafting. Plus when I'd seen how tired he looked I said to him that he should have just taken his bag with him in the morning so that he could have stayed at his flat in Glasgow and got a proper rest. I realised that it wasn't benefiting either of us but unfortunately he took this as rejection. We decided that it just wasn't workable - the commuting.

I spent the next week or so struggling to get myself out of bed, get Evie off to school and then the rest of the day lying on the couch feeling like utter crap with only the TV for company. I lived on Frosties and toast. The only time I didn't feel sick was when I was asleep. During that week, signed off work, I started to think more and more about what Mr Rockstar and I were getting ourselves in to. Suddenly all the little things that didn't really matter e.g. not living in the same city, Mr Rockstar not having a car were suddenly turning into really big things for me. It was fair to say I was having severe doubts about whether going through with the pregnancy was the right decision. For days I let things go through my head. I trawled the internet to see if it was common for women to really want a child and then suddenly not. It seems it's not something that many women write about, certainly not on forums. When I went back to work I immediately had a meeting with my boss and feigned happiness at my news. Deep down though I was feeling very alone. I knew Mr Rockstar was there for me but somehow I still felt alone.

Working full time while dealing with Evie in the mornings and evenings was taking its toll. I was constantly exhausted and struggling to know what to eat. Dinner times were awful. I had to open the fridge without breathing because the slight smell of food was making me wretch. Mentally and physically I was feeling drained. I found myself constantly wondering how we'd cope. Or if I'm more honest, how I'd cope. All of a sudden all I could see in the future was myself with 1 child and 1 baby. My life had already been a struggle for the past 8 years, I could only see it getting worse. I had no family support in Edinburgh like I'd had up North when I'd had Evie. Who was going to help me? For some reason I suddenly felt fully responsible for this baby. It wasn't supposed to feel like this. I was supposed to feel like I had someone to share the pregnancy with me, why didn't I feel like that?

The truth of the matter was that Mr Rockstar and I didn't really know each other. Certainly not enough to be sure that we could provide a loving, stable home for a baby. Sure we had a bit of history but I'd been a teenager then. Perhaps if I didn't have Evie and had an air of ignorance surrounding the situation I may have thrown caution to the wind but as it was I'd already been there. I knew exactly how much hard work was involved in having a child and I knew that I wasn't ready to take a chance on something that might or might not work out. The thought of ending up a single mum all over again filled me with utter fear.

It left us with only one option and me facing the sad truth that love simply wasn't enough.

When I thought there was a possibility that I may be pregnant I started to put some measures in place. I started by stuffing my face.

As you will know if you have read my earliest posts I suffered from terrible morning sickness within a week or so of finding out I was pregnant. It wasn’t so much throwing up all the time but more the feeling like I was going to be sick. I can only compare it to how I used to feel as a child when I was suffering from travel sickness. That constant dizzy, nauseous feeling. I lost a lot of weight within the first few weeks of my pregnancy with Evie because I just couldn’t eat, I suspect that my colleagues at the time knew something was up.

If I ate loads now, then any weight loss wouldn't be so noticeable. That was my theory anyway.

I also recalled the debilitating tiredness that I’d suffered, to the point where I struggled to even lift the eye shadow brush to my face, let alone sweep it across my drooping eyelids all those years ago. So I tamed down my make up. I wore a little mineral foundation and mascara. I didn’t even do my eyebrows (I have a thing about my eyebrows, ever since Audrey Horne from Twin Peaks entered my life back in 1990). There would be no struggling with my crayon face this time, I was easing my colleagues in with the au naturel look.

I sorted out my office desk drawer. I generally throw everything in there at the end of the working day but I figured that if I was going to be off with the morning sickness than I should at least make sure everything was in order because no doubt someone would go in there looking for something. I sorted, I filed, I shredded confidentially and I labelled. I couldn’t quite remember my desk looking so efficiently tidy.

I stocked up the freezer. I needed to have supplies in to ensure that I was able to at least cook food for Evie even if I didn’t feel like eating. The last thing I’d feel like doing would be traipsing around the supermarket with green gills.

I started to read up on early symptoms and was introduced to a whole new scary world on the internet. I’d never had this privilege with Evie, I don’t even think Broadband existed then! But suddenly here were pages and pages of women desperate to discuss every single aspect of trying to get pregnant, being pregnant, having babies, not having babies. And everything was initialled. What the hell did “AF” or “CM” mean and how on earth was I supposed to be able to tell whether my cervix felt like the tip of my nose?? I learnt things about my reproductive system that I never knew before. I made a pact to myself that if I did find out I was pregnant I wouldn’t visit that cyber world again and as it happened, I didn’t have to.

Realising I wasn’t pregnant, I suddenly started to panic about the over eating, the important documents that I may have “accidentally” destroyed during my sudden office drawer spring clean and the ridiculous price I’d paid for that “we can tell if you’re pregnant 4 days early” pregnancy test. Well, at least I'd prepared for every eventuality, even if I didn't really need to. Then my phone bleeped, a message from my Mother, "I've just read your blog...." Then again, maybe not.