Last year at a Christmas party... nearly four years single and not hugely bothered about it at the time... I found myself under interrogation from a new friend... I love her because she is blissfully open and honest about everything... which is why I was suddenly painfully aware of her very loud voice bawling at me:
"Four years? Seriously, you've been single for nearly four years..?"
"Yup, four years," I replied, smiling to myself and swigging on my champagne, because I knew what was coming next.
"Well, what the fuck are you doing about it?" she bellowed, already looking around the packed room for a potential man for me.
There it was... the million dollar question... just what the fuck was I going to do about it?
Well, not a a lot as it happens, and I launched into the standard speech I'd worked up over time for people like her, explaining that I actually quite liked being on my own and that while sometimes it was shit to only have yourself to rely on, actually most of the time it was quite nice and very very liberating. And while everyone around me had come to view me as some crusading, femininsta, selfless single mother doing a brilliant job under trying circumstances... actually... ACTUALLY... what they'd failed to notice was that I'd been leading quite a selfish life.
Yes, there was no one to put up shelves for me or to screw in light bulbs, but then again I'm quite handy with a drill and a stepladder. There was also no one stopping me from doing exactly what I wanted to do. No one to have to compromise with, no one to have to quietly resent for not having done the washing up before he came to bed. It was one less thing to think about, one less responsibility in a life jam-packed full of them.
Despite being slightly hemmed in by my single-motherness, I've never had so much freedom in my life as I've had over these last years. Independence is a wonderful thing and a very enriching thing. So, these days with My Lovely Man on the horizon, I find myself asking whether I am even capable of giving it up? What will take its place?
I used to always end my little speech about not being at all bothered about being single by saying..."Look, I just honestly don't know how I would fit a relationship into my life." And people would either congratulate me on being so incredibly self-sufficient or nod patronizingly, while I could see them thinking, "Yes, yes... poor thing."
Well, who knows perhaps I was kidding myself, perhaps it was a clever little smoke screen for my concerns about even attempting to get involved with someone again. Perhaps I really did believe it... I think I did. I know that in the very few dark moments when I wondered if there would ever be anyone else, I did do sums in my head about how many hours I could realistically give over to a man, in the spaces in between work and children and cultivating my own life. And wondered very seriously about what it would cost me... personally.
But until I got together with MLM, and since we have started trying to fit ourselves in around the rest of our lives... between children and jobs and friends and families... well... I don't think I really knew until now how hard it really would be. I asked him recently, what would you be doing differently if we hadn't met. His response? "I'd have been to the gym in the last three months and I might have read a book. I'd definitely have got more sleep."
At the moment MLM is being tugged in all directions by his life and, sympathetic as I am to those demands, I'm quite caught up in the responsibilities of my own... which has got me wondering what we can really be to each other. I don't want to be a pessimist, after all, this is a learning curve for us both... Love in a time of parenting is a many splendorous, but a very bloody complicated thing, and looking over at MLM, all tired and worked up, and with no hope of going to bed early like Proust, I find myself asking:
What price love?
No comments:
Post a Comment