Two things I forgot to mention about my trip to my happy place — my hairdressing salon — yesterday were that, first of all, there is an elderly lady I often see there, and I always have a chat with her. She is such a lovely woman and always has an interesting tale to tell. Coincidentally, we often have appointments at the same time, and it’s always nice to see her.
Well, yesterday, sitting next to me was her daughter, who was also an older woman, but she was so different from her mother. She was almost aggressive in pushing her point of view — not in a negative way, but strong. My hairdresser mentioned to her that I always chat with her mum, so we talked about her for a while. It was so nice to meet her.
I absolutely love chatting with her mother — she really brightens my day. She’s so lovely and caring, but she’s also very reflective and has so much wisdom about life. It was very nice to connect with her daughter.
The other thing I found out at the salon was that one of the apprentices, who is my mate, quit! I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t seen her for a while, and every time I was there, I asked about her and they all said she was sick. But yesterday they told me she had quit due to health reasons, and they seemed unimpressed about it. Apparently, she had only texted them and never called throughout her health struggles, and they even read me her resignation message. I really thought that was such a shame.
Apparently, she was only six months away from becoming fully qualified. When I first started going to the salon, a gay man did my hair, and he quit and left on really bad terms. I think my apprentice mate has done the same thing, and I think that is such a sad way to do it. What if she needs a reference? Or wants to come back? Those things are not a possibility now. Six months away from finishing — whether she’s sick or not, I hope she can go to another salon and finish up.
The apprentices are all so young, in their late teens, and to have a trade qualification at that age is such a huge step up in life. I’m going to miss her. They are all into ancient aliens and conspiracy theories there, but this one had some great ideas and thoughts.
Tonight there has been a massive IT outage around the world affecting banks, airports, supermarkets, TV stations — everything seems to have some sort of flow-on effect from it. I don’t completely understand it, not that I think anyone does, but I went to Officeworks last night and the first thing I did was check that their EFTPOS machine was working, and they said it was. I bought a big packet of labels for more letters, which was exciting.
Then, on the way home, I stopped at the PO Box, and there was nothing. I’m not going to get disheartened because, thinking about it now, apparently the mail only comes twice a week. I’m going to check with Jimmy next week to find out if that’s different for PO boxes, but there’s got to be something slowing down the time it takes for a letter to get from a head of government to me.
It’s 2:17am on Saturday morning and I’ve got Fox News on in the background. After I’ve written this post, I’m going to stick stamps on envelopes for my Chief Justice mail-out. I’m actually a fair bit behind with my letters, but I am determined to get them all ready and out there by my birthday, which is the 16th of August next month — so just under a month.
I’ve been thinking about this blog and what my intention was in writing it. One thing I wanted to do was document my life and have a record of it somewhere, albeit anonymously. The other reason I wanted to keep it was to help with my writing — to have somewhere I can go to write freely and get into the habit of writing every day. I haven’t been writing every day, which is something I’m working on, but I’ve also found that the blog itself is a little boring and lacks the honesty something like this should have.
So I’m going to try to tackle the real issues of a middle-aged woman and expel them from my body. The first thing I want to write an honest opinion on is the fact that I’m 42, about to turn 43, and I don’t have any children. I’m not married, but that isn’t as much of an issue as the fact that I don’t have children. I want to tell you how I feel about that.
I feel like I am an incomplete woman. There are so many articles and books about women who are childless or childfree, and I don’t really know the difference. I know one is by choice and the other is by circumstance. But there is so much literature saying it is okay for a woman not to have children — and of course that is true — yet I still feel like something is missing from my life. I feel a little bit empty about it. I feel like I let down my unborn children, who were inside me all along; I just didn’t bring them to life.
I feel like I can’t relate to mums when they talk about how much they love their children, and I feel like mums judge me for not having kids. I feel like a failure. I have a way of blocking out pain in my life — not that there is a lot, but I really can distance myself from it — and I know I’ve done that in relation to not having children. I feel like getting married and having children is the normal thing to do, and by not doing this, I’ve strayed from a normal life that I should be living. I haven’t fulfilled my biological destiny. I feel sad about it.
Two years ago, when I was on my way to the Gold Coast, I was at the airport waiting in the security line to put my bag through the conveyor belt. I started thinking about the fact that I was 41 and I didn’t have children, and that I never could have children, and this wave of darkness swept over me. All of a sudden I felt frustrated, trapped, at a dead end, and unable to change this circumstance. I felt real emotional pain. I couldn’t unfeel it; it was there and confrontational, and there was literally nowhere to run from it. It was a very distinct feeling, and I’ll never forget it.
I mentioned before that I can block pain from my mind. I feel like every day I am blocking this feeling from coming back because I never want to feel it again.
I don’t know if I would have made a good mother. I know I would be the sort of mother who sleeps in the baby’s room out of fear it would stop breathing or have a coughing attack or something. But I know I would have loved any children I had. I would have loved my children if they were fully abled, disabled, Black, white, gay, straight, trans — however they came out, I would have loved them, as I know all mothers do.
I feel like if I had kids, they would be in their late teens by now, so it’s not like the ship just sailed; it sailed a long time ago. But I don’t know what to do with all the love I had for these unborn children that will never get put to use. I love my mum and my brother, and I try to love them hard, but there has to be something more. I’ve got to put all that love into my letter-writing projects, and then into my books.
