The Single Mum Life

After managing to convince Mr Offshore to see a therapist regarding his jealousy he suddenly informed me after the first meeting that his shrink thought I had a strong attachment with my past and for some reason there was a need for me to keep in touch with ex boyfriends. This was bad according to his shrink. It was unnatural. They were like individual comfort blankets, I had to keep close to get me through life.

Some people live in the past. I like to think that I’m not one of those people. I try to use my experiences, good or bad from the past to push me forward, to aspire for better things. To remind myself that if I got through crap times before, I can again. After all, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Of course that’s all good and well unless you have a box of diaries sitting in your airing cupboard ranging from your early teens into your late 20s.

Last night it suddenly dawned on me that my diaries might hold a few answers as to what had gone on between Mr Rockstar and I back in 1994. Our memories of events were both pretty jaded and my diary seemed to reflect this with the words “I was completely wasted” being used on more than one occasion around that period. I thought it was fairly likely that he would be mentioned as there have been 3 re-occurring themes throughout all my diaries..... men, being unhappy with my figure and never being cool enough. I actually gave up my diary writing last year because it suddenly dawned on me that after 18 years I was still spouting the same old shit.

I reached for the box and located my diary of 1994 near the bottom. I slowly turned the pages many of which had come away from the binding and there was the first mention of him. I'm discussing how much I fancy his friend who I've seen round at his, that he's "my stereotypical guy, 70s in appearance, funny, long hair...." Bugger, I had hoped I would be mentioning Mr Rockstar in better circumstances. As I read on, I also discover that I have a boyfriend while I'm writing all this. Not just any boyfriend, the boy I lost my virginity to. It appears that I'm losing interest in him, already at 17 I'm asking my boyfriend to get a grip and grow up, some things never change.

A couple of entries later and there is Mr Rockstar again, ah, things are happening now, apparently it wasn't all me, he started it by holding my hand. Then outside the pub he kisses me, "God, he kisses so passionately it's a kind of kiss that should be in a film or on TV. Tomorrow I'm going to tell Jamie I don't want..." But wait, what's this, another boyfriend? I honestly didn't think I had so many boyfriends back then - what a hussy. It would seem that I also repay Mr Rockstar's passionate kissing by calling him a "user". I'm not liking my 17 year old self very much at the moment and it only gets worse. After snogging the face of Mr Rockstar I finally get the courage to dump the aforementioned Jamie only to phone Mr Rockstar's friend a couple of days later. "I hate fancying people, it depresses me." I was bloody depressing me...

The rest of the entries consist of me trying to get together with the friend, and telling Mr Rockstar that I knew "what he was up to, that he was using me". Except on one particular night I find out that he hasn't been using me, it had all been a pack of lies fed to me by my cherry picking ex boyfriend. Suddenly it becomes clear that I have really hurt Mr Rockstar's feelings (so perhaps I did have a heart back then?). Oh hold on, further down the page it looks like I've decided that as I'm drunk I may as well snog the friend anyway! Fast forward a week and I'm eating humble pie, the friend hasn't lived up to my expectations and I can't stop thinking about Mr Rockstar........and Scott! What?? Is it possible that I can add another guy into this tangled web of teenage lust? Apparently so.

The last entry involving Mr Rockstar ended the way it had all started, with him holding my hand. We never kissed that night at the party or saw each other again until the funeral of his band mate some years later.

As I closed the first chapter on Mr Rockstar and I, I felt thoroughly ashamed and mortified. I was really upset that I had treated him in that way all those years ago and that I had instantly judged him before getting to know him.

Sometimes we all need to take a trip down memory lane, to remind us of where we've been and where we want to go. That night I revisited the past and although I didn't enjoy it I learnt something. The fact that I got so upset over reading how I had treated Mr Rockstar proved one thing, this time the boy had got to me.

Frustration features quite heavily in my life. You can be fairly restricted in what you can do socially when you live on your own with a child and when it comes to dating, your life can be a logistical nightmare.

I knew that I wanted to see Mr Rockstar again after our date on Saturday night. In fact while in the bar after dinner, I had agreed to move to North America and have mountain babies with him but then I blame that on his inability to remember that when I asked for a Cosmopolitan I didn't mean a Manhattan. Of course I drank it, after all, those cocktails are expensive and I didn't want him to think that I was ungrateful!

But it wasn’t too long before I began to think about all the planning and organising that goes into dating someone when you have a child. I can find it extremely stressful at times. From finding a babysitter to trying to work out when I will get the time to have a relaxing bath so that I can shave my legs in peace! My brother tries his best to help out but unfortunately appears to have the memory of a goldfish so often double books when I ask him if he can look after Evie and if I end up paying for a babysitter it tends to cost more than my night out and taxi home put together!

Then there's the outfit. It's not like I can afford to go out and buy something new every time I go on a date but I want to feel good about what I'm wearing so I usually rely on my trusty green River Island dress. This dress makes me feel good because it's a size 6. I'm not a size 6 by any means, I'm still not quite sure how I manage to fit into it (although it is very stretchy!) but for some reason having a single number on the label makes me feel good about myself. Tragic, I know. I blame society and all those "Yummy Mummies".

The run up to our second date on the Wednesday night proved stressful as at the last minute on Tuesday night my brother had been in touch to say that he was going to be unavailable to babysit. I already had the issue of trying to catch a train to an all day meeting which was due to start at 9 am while also trying to get Evie to school on time, I didn't need the added stress of trying to find a new babysitter. The added difficulty I had was that I wasn't going to be back from my meeting until after 6 pm meaning I'd be too late to pick up Evie from after-school club. As luck would have it and thanks to a very kind parent, Evie managed to go back to her friend's house to stay the night and be dropped off at school the next morning.

Everything was sorted and once I got to the meeting (albeit 45 minutes late) I felt that everything was under control until I remembered one thing, Mr Rockstar knew that Evie was out all night, what if he wanted to stay over? Was I ready to enter the next stage of complicated single mum dating - the sleep over?

I'm sitting here and my stomach is doing back flips, actually that is an understatement. It feels like the whole 2012 Russian Gymnastic team are in training in there. This might mean that I quite fancy Mr Rockstar, either that or I've caught Evie's sickness bug from a couple of weeks ago.

Last Saturday after Mr Rockstar kissed me we ended up going to a party. Well that's how it was sold to us by Molly's friend. What it actually consisted of was a group of people being told to remove their shoes, being ushered into a living room, the host suddenly announcing his Dad earned "something like £250,000" before disappearing off to his bedroom with a burlesque looking girl. He did reappear briefly looking for some matches, wearing nothing but a hand towel, which he struggled to hold around him, much to the amusement and disgust of his guests. Thank god I didn't get a full frontal!

It wasn't long before Molly and her friend left and Mr Rockstar and I found ourselves in a room full of strangers. We didn't care though, we talked, we laughed, we kissed and he asked me out for dinner. I said yes, hence the squiffy tummy, we're meeting tomorrow night.

It was 6.50 am when I finally crept back into my Mum's house - I felt like a 17 year old again, it was great! Not so great later on that morning when I discovered that I had a rash spreading around my side and onto my stomach.

Molly's a nurse so I had faith in her not recoiling when I showed her my reptile skin. "It might be Shingles" she said. Damn, that's not good, doesn't that make you really ill? Now my first text to Mr Rockstar after our kiss was going to be about whether he'd had Chicken Pox, hardly romantic and very uncool. When I was seeing Mr Writer he caught Chicken Pox from his best friend who had Shingles at the time, not a pretty sight. Oh god...

I went to the Doctor on Monday morning. "Hmm - it might be Shingles". Ok, so we're still on the "might be". Did she not realise I had a dinner date on Saturday? I needed to know. "Give it 48 hours, you'll know then". Those 48 hours passed on Wednesday, I still have a slight rash but hey, it's not like I'm going to get naked tomorrow night - right.....?

So there I was, face to face with Mr Rockstar wondering if he was thinking about what a cow I had been 15 years ago.

"You know I didn't really know who I was meeting tonight".

Hmm...ok, naturally I'm a bit insulted by this, surely he remembered me? I remembered him, why didn't he remember me?

"I had to ask Ian if he knew who you were when you friend requested me, but he didn't know."

"Wait a second" I said. "I know Ian, I've been at his house". Ok, that was 15 years ago but even so.

"Yeah, then I asked Al, he didn't know who you were either".

WTF??!! Al is Ian's younger brother who was in my class in high school. Am I really that easy to forget?

I suggest that we move to the bar upstairs so we can get a seat. It is obvious that there is going to be a need for one of us to familiarise himself with someone!

Within minutes though, Mr Rockstar has me in stitches, I couldn't remember him being this funny all those years ago! In fact, I couldn't remember laughing this much in the last couple of months. The time just seemed to pass so quickly, we talked about his friend's tragic death, how I'd wanted to speak to him at the funeral but couldn't. We talked about what we were doing with our lives now, the disastrous relationships we'd recently been in. He told me how great it was that I was a mum, he thought it was amazing. I'd always thought that was a bit of a turn off but here was someone who was so impressed with the fact that I was a mother! He said that I was a cool mum for taking Evie to Glastonbury. This was good, I had achieved status not just as a single mum but I was cool too! I was quite surprised at how easy it was to talk to him. I'd expected that there may be some uncomfortable silences but there were none. Even though 15 years had passed I felt like it was only yesterday since I'd last spoken to him.

As the night went on I could see that Molly and her friend were trying to get Mr Rockstar and I together.

They didn't need to try, Mr Rockstar had managed that himself. He made me feel great about myself without it being too desperate. He made me smile and laugh but most of all I felt alive. For too long I'd felt like I'd been surviving life rather than living it, on Saturday night he changed that and as we left the pub he looked into my eyes and kissed me.

The past couple of weeks have had me all over the place. On my knees trying to get sick stains out of the carpet after I forced Evie to school, dismissing her sore stomach as trapped wind. In a local pub for a secret meeting (secret because I didn't want anyone to know about it) with a young man, who asked me if I wanted to accompany him to a wedding in St Lucia - wow! Slight draw back, it's 8 days and I have to find £1500 to pay for it, oh yes and I have a child. That'll be a no then. He wants to see me again, actually, I think he just wants to have sex with an older woman. Unfortunately he's not going to get that from me, I don't want to be a MILF.

I also had to travel north at the weekend. It was Evie's father's 50th and I'd promised that I would take her up for his party. I laughed at the thought of him being 50. Isn't it strange that the age difference hasn't changed but the fact that he has turned 50 seems to make it feel bigger?

Knowing that I was going up north I decided to catch up with some old friends. One in particular who I'd recently got in touch with through Facebook. I'm not quite sure why I got in touch with Mr Rockstar. I hadn't seen him properly for almost 15 years but there was a memory of him that I just couldn't get out of my head. Perhaps it was curiosity that made me search for him on Facebook - I don't know. Mr Rockstar explained that he too was going to be in the area at the weekend, so I had suggested that we should meet for a catch up.

Mr Rockstar and I had a "thing" going on when I was 17 and he was 20. For roughly 5 weekends in a row we had snogging sessions while out at the pub. As far as I was concerned it was just drunken snogging, so when I decided I would prefer to snog his friend instead one weekend I thought nothing of it. Mr Rockstar wasn't impressed and although a fight didn't break out some choice words were used. I've felt bad about that ever since, especially since his friend wasn't that great at kissing. Serves me right for being so greedy!

Although I would see Mr Rockstar when I went to watch his band play, I never really spoke to him again and he moved away. Just after I had Evie I found out that the singer of Mr Rockstar's band had died of a Heroin overdose. It was a total shock to me, I had known the guy and I just couldn't believe that he'd gone down that route. I decided to go to the funeral and I will never forget when I walked into the funeral directors and saw Mr Rockstar sitting with the rest of the band in a room off to the side. I caught his eye but I don't think he saw me, I don't even think he recognised me. I felt utter pain for him and wanted to say something but I couldn't find the words. I never saw him again after that, although that memory of him sitting there, at his friend's funeral looking totally lost has never gone away.

The weekend was my chance to do right for my wrongs all those years ago. I was hoping that Mr Rockstar wouldn't get the wrong message about us meeting up. I just wanted a friendly catch up, I wasn't looking for a lumber. I just really wanted to say sorry to him, sorry for not finding the words at the funeral.

When Saturday night came though I got extremely nervous. Why was I nervous?? My poor cousin Molly had to put up with me nattering away anxiously while waiting to meet Mr Rockstar and where was he? I'd wandered around the bar to look for him but no sign, maybe he was in the upstairs bar? No, no sign of him there either. Starting to feel even more unprepared for this reunion I decided to text him "where are you?" No response to my text, by this time I was almost looking for a brown paper bag to blow in, still wondering why I was so nervous. Back down to the downstairs bar and I check my phone, no reply to my text. I look round and see this tall, scruffy haired guy walking towards me smiling. Bugger, Mr Rockstar had got even better looking and looked just my type.....

When it comes to love, what should you follow? Your heart or your head? In the past I've always gone with my heart. If those fireworks aren't going off in my belly when I'm with the person then it's just not going to work. However that hadn't been working for me recently which is why I followed my head when it came to Mr Offshore.

You see although I didn't have the fireworks going off, Mr Offshore had some great qualities as follows:

1) He had a fantastic smile and made me laugh (always important)
2) He was romantic
3) Had good dress sense (ok, slightly shallow)
4) Could cook
5) Was completely devoted to me
6) Wanted more children and to get married again
7) Paid for almost everything, food, wine, petrol!
8) Was going to build his own house, which he said could be for all of us
9) When I was at work he would have dinner ready on the table when I came home
10) Didn't think twice about taking me away for a weekend.

The most important of all though was that I completely trusted him. There was no doubt in my mind that he would be completely faithful to me, I knew that he would be there for me, no matter what. I felt I could rely on him.

I can safely say that I have never felt this about anyone. Now that I have Evie it's even more important that I feel I can have someone to depend on and Mr Offshore provided that.

So this is where I followed my head, after all, I thought given time I would fall in love with him. When he said on the third night we spent together "Do you think you could fall in love with me?" something clicked inside me, my heart closing its door. This question freaked me out. We'd only gone on our first proper date the night before, how could I possibly know that but then if I'd been following my heart I would have known that the answer was "no" and I might have saved a lot of heartache.

I later discovered my major faux pas, I slept with him on the first night. Yes, you read right I slept with him. He later said to me that he'd wondered what kind of girl must I be to do that? I laughed at him when he said this and said did he not sleep with me too? Apparently that doesn't count though. The truth was that I was at a party, saw an opportunity with someone I was having fun with and grabbed it. I guess I acted a bit like a man might and I didn't expect to hear from him again, it was just a bit of fun - wasn't it?

As it happened, egged on by our mutual friend I met up with him again and we had a great time. We continued seeing each other (despite the big love question on the 3rd night) and I soon learnt that he had all those wonderful qualities that I'd been looking for in a man. We were both passionate about the same things, although our music and art tastes varied, on paper, it all looked good and it was. In his typical style he told me he loved me sooner than I had wanted. I wanted to be in a position to say this back to him but couldn't and that made me angry, immediately it put me under pressure to put a label on my feelings for him. I'm ashamed to say that I gave in to the pressure and told him I loved him too knowing deep down I didn't but hoping that I eventually would.

It was during a particularly shitty day at work that I applied for the part time school administrator post up in his neck of the woods. It was in the exact location where Mr Offshore was planning his Mill Conversion, a little village in the north east of Scotland. We'd briefly spoken about moving in together if things continued well but not until the summer of 2010, that way Evie could move school during the holidays. There was a part of me deep down that was wondering what the hell I was doing but the other part thinking I needed to do something, feel like I was alive, things felt stagnant and I needed a change.

I received the call to say I'd got the job on the way back to Edinburgh following my interview and before I could stop the words I accepted it. Mr Offshore said he was happy to support me financially as the job was only part-time and on a lower salary grade. I was going to be losing over £12K a year but I tried not to think about that, instead I fantasised about country pubs, only having to work 16 hours a week, being able to spend more time with Evie and going to yoga. Bloody hell, I could go to Yoga! I could eventually get rid of all that tension, stress and frustration that had built up over the years.

The next day I told my colleague, who I often confide in, that I'd got the job and was taking it. I could tell by her face that she was gutted, she knew I'd be making a big mistake, at that point I just couldn't see it. Within the week, I'd handed my notice in (verbally, thank god!), told Evie's class teacher and more importantly told Evie about the exciting new start we were going to be making in the country.

She cried every night for the next week, I started freaking out and when I received an email from my very good friend Rapunzel at work telling me she couldn't be happy for me because she didn't believe I was doing the right thing, I broke down. My shoulders heaved as I sobbed uncontrollably hoping no one from the outside world was looking in, watching this lone person howling over her computer keyboard. Suddenly my breathing quickened and before I knew it I was out of rhythm and gasping for air. What the hell was happening? Was I dying? Shit, was the cleaner going to find me slumped on the floor with mascara running down my cheeks? Thank god it wasn't Yves St Laurent - what a waste that would have been! I sent a text to my mum "I can't breathe", possibly not the best text to send when you live 150 miles away. She phoned, I struggled to talk in between the sobbing, "I got an email, can you come down tonight?". It was the first time I'd really ever asked my mum for help since I'd moved to Edinburgh. I felt all alone and I needed her, I needed someone to tell me everything was going to be alright, like she did when I was little.

That was on the Thursday night, before the Saturday night in the pub where I realised Rapunzel had been right, the jealousy was a big issue. It was never going to go away and I wasn't prepared to say goodbye to good friends who I'd known for years just because they were the wrong sex.

That email saved me. It broke me down, held my breath and questioned my friendship but more importantly it gave me back my life because Rapunzel saw the one thing I couldn't, that I deserved the fireworks in my belly.

And there it was, my name in print, "These people have helped me in one way or another, some still do so thank you...." I felt very honoured to be amongst a select number of names on the acknowledgements page of Mr Writer's debut novel. My work colleagues didn't seem so interested in seeing my name in print today but then they're probably fed up hearing about it. It meant a lot to me though, it made me feel like a really good friend and a not too bad ex girlfriend either!

I suspect, in fact I could pretty much guarantee, that Mr Offshore wouldn't think the same about me. When I received the proof copy of Mr Writer's book I kept it hidden. I had mentioned to Mr Offshore that it would be arriving and that I hoped he wouldn't let it bother him. "As long as you don't keep it right by your bed". Hmm, don't the majority of us read in bed? So there it stayed, hidden in the bookcase. He didn't know Mr Writer's full name and it would be pretty tragic if he went searching through my bookshelf.

Of course he soon discovered his name when he asked me to show him Mr Writer's Facebook page. I suppose I could have said no but I was worried that it might look as if I had something to hide. Mr Offshore hated Facebook, I'd tried to explain the merits of social networking for a single mum stuck in most nights in a city she was new to but he wasn't buying any of it. When he saw that I had a friend request from a guy whose name happened to be the same as someone he knew he asked me to click on the profile. It turned out it wasn't someone he knew and it only added fuel to his fire. Why was this guy asking to be my friend, had I gone out with him, did I know him, which I didn't. Perhaps I should have lied and said he was an old school friend or a distant relation but all I ever tried to do with Mr Offshore was be honest right from the start.

You see, and I'm not trying to excuse his behaviour by any means, there have been two relationships that he's been in where his partner has cheated. The first was his wife, they'd been together 10 years when she went off with someone at a party and the second was a previous ex girlfriend to me who had flitted between him and her ex boyfriend. So I could appreciate his initial caution surrounding my friendships with my exes, however there's only so much a girl can take. After all, I had done nothing to raise suspicion. I'd been completely honest with him, I hadn't got pregnant by an ex and then claimed that I didn't know whether it was his baby or my ex boyfriend's. She'd done this, an ex girlfriend before me and he'd gone along to the clinic with her while she had the abortion knowing that the baby wasn't his. So, why was I being punished, why couldn't he trust me?

The final straw was on a Saturday night when after a few drinks he started going on about how I put Mr Writer first, or that's how it felt to him. Being a parent himself he should have known that if anyone was number one in my life it was Evie. So, in a way he was right, he was second in line but really, I was getting tired of this. It was a free Saturday night out where I'd managed to get Evie to spend the night round at a friend's so we could go out, listen to my colleague's band and have some quality time together, why was he spoiling it? That's when I realised, no matter where we were, what we were doing his jealousy was always going to spoil it. I'd said to him a month previous that the only man who was going to split us up was him. This couldn't continue as work in progress and the next day I told him that I was going to ask for my job back and stay in Edinburgh. Oh yes, I didn't mention the moving in with him bit, did I?