Last night, I dreamt I was still pregnant, and went for a run in Scalby, close to my grandmother's house. A house I may well never set foot in again, depending on how we manage the furniture I've inherited and how fast it sells. (Which is a thought I haven't got used to since it has been the most constant building, perhaps the only constant building, in my peripatetic life; but as little as we got along I fully understand Granny was the sun that pulled the system of her establishment into some sort of order or identity, so what would be the point of setting foot in it again?) No mention of the extra 20 kgs from my dream self of course, as she ran. It was glorious. Powering lightly up hills that would have me breathing like a bellows at a gentle waddle now. Feeling that great lightness of limb which has been turning into a distant memory.
I miss running, and I miss kayaking, and I miss not giving out a fatty grunt every time I squat or roll over or get up. I like feeling Ren moving around in there, and I like how awesome my hair looks, and I like that random strangers show me some interest and kindness that is totally fucking un-Australian. And that's about all I like about being pregnant. Any fear I have of a bad labour or being a bad mum has now been almost totally overwhelmed by being sick of being pregnant. By week 37, when Ren is pretty much mature by any measure, I imagine it'll be overwhelmed completely; at the moment my only concern is he or she not being fully baked on arrival. I'm paranoid about needing specialist care here. My guess is that what's available here in L____ or Brisbane, if things go pear-shaped, is better than in even the cities in Canada, and worse than in the buttery-beery bits of western Europe, and that's not good enough for my kid.
This weekend the F-word and I discovered twin paranoias about Ren, sparked off from this sordid affair with no winners and six losers, especially the girls involved. And it's something that has been at the base of our minds since Squidsy's wife tried to split to Canada with their son. The F-word was concerned that I'll abscond to Canada with the child and without him and somehow use my massive brain power to work out a way around the Hague Convention. I was concerned that at some point he'll decide that he wants us, or at least him and the kid, to stay in Australia and under the terms of the Hague Convention I'll be stuck on this fucking retarded rock at the end of the world for the next 18 years. I think we reassured each other effectively, as far as we can. Both are far-fetched fears, for a ream of practical as well as emotional reasons.
But the fact is we both suspect that people can go a little crazy once they have children. And the fact that we have these twin guns that can be pointed at each other's heads would ordinarily be fine - the happiest of couples are happy because they have massive arsenals of pain they're choosing not to use. But we don't know what sort of freaks we can turn into once a child is involved. I guess we'll see. Squidsy and his wife are a bit of a special case - time has demonstrated that Squidsy was probably worth running away from, and his wife's big fuckup was thinking he was an appropriate person to be making babies with in the first place. And the other couples we know who are going ballistic mostly, I suspect, didn't like each other very much in the first place. But, well, there you are.
I miss running, and I miss kayaking, and I miss not giving out a fatty grunt every time I squat or roll over or get up. I like feeling Ren moving around in there, and I like how awesome my hair looks, and I like that random strangers show me some interest and kindness that is totally fucking un-Australian. And that's about all I like about being pregnant. Any fear I have of a bad labour or being a bad mum has now been almost totally overwhelmed by being sick of being pregnant. By week 37, when Ren is pretty much mature by any measure, I imagine it'll be overwhelmed completely; at the moment my only concern is he or she not being fully baked on arrival. I'm paranoid about needing specialist care here. My guess is that what's available here in L____ or Brisbane, if things go pear-shaped, is better than in even the cities in Canada, and worse than in the buttery-beery bits of western Europe, and that's not good enough for my kid.
This weekend the F-word and I discovered twin paranoias about Ren, sparked off from this sordid affair with no winners and six losers, especially the girls involved. And it's something that has been at the base of our minds since Squidsy's wife tried to split to Canada with their son. The F-word was concerned that I'll abscond to Canada with the child and without him and somehow use my massive brain power to work out a way around the Hague Convention. I was concerned that at some point he'll decide that he wants us, or at least him and the kid, to stay in Australia and under the terms of the Hague Convention I'll be stuck on this fucking retarded rock at the end of the world for the next 18 years. I think we reassured each other effectively, as far as we can. Both are far-fetched fears, for a ream of practical as well as emotional reasons.
But the fact is we both suspect that people can go a little crazy once they have children. And the fact that we have these twin guns that can be pointed at each other's heads would ordinarily be fine - the happiest of couples are happy because they have massive arsenals of pain they're choosing not to use. But we don't know what sort of freaks we can turn into once a child is involved. I guess we'll see. Squidsy and his wife are a bit of a special case - time has demonstrated that Squidsy was probably worth running away from, and his wife's big fuckup was thinking he was an appropriate person to be making babies with in the first place. And the other couples we know who are going ballistic mostly, I suspect, didn't like each other very much in the first place. But, well, there you are.
2 commenti:
That is crazy...both of you. Stop it.
The only thing that ever worried me was that if I passed...Martha because of family ties would be tempted to take my boy up north. I made her swear to never do that.
She looked at me like I was crazy..."this is my home. The South is my home. I would never do that."
Precious woman.
Are you some sort of stop-it counsellor?
http://youtu.be/CCT89B_NWuw
Some time ago I made the F-word swear not to raise our children here in much the same way - that is, when I brought it up he looked at me like I was crazy and reminded me he hated Australia a lot more than I do.
I think my real fear, and his, is how people change after they have children. We don't know what sort of people we'll be after a year of sleep deprivation and loving something else like we've never loved anything else.
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