Flashback to La Vie in French

This is me, back in 2010, living in Carcassonne, France, trying to climb my way out of a terrible time in my life. I wanted to write. I wanted love. I wanted to feel whole again. My blog helped me enormously, but it’s hard for me to read sometimes. I flicked over to it this morning and found this gem. Over 10 years on, this still speaks to me. I said I would be pregnant before I turned 29, in July 2011. I put my order out to the universe. And the universe was listening….

April 24, 2010

14 Months…

Filed under:  Uncategorized — soulsearchinginsuburbia @ 2:04 pm Edit This

samedi, le 24 avril, 2010

“Now go write something,” she says to me. Go write something. Okay Nicole, thanks for that. It’s true I haven’t been writing much lately. What’s my excuse…I’m too busy? No, that’s not really true. I’ve had a fair bit on, but everyone’s idea of ‘too busy’ is different, forcément. It’s more a question of priorities. Why haven’t I prioritised writing lately? Because I haven’t had anything to say? That’s not true. This is journal style stuff. As long as we’re alive and thinking, there’s always something to say, something to muse over. In the words of Bridget Jones, “everybody knows diaries are just full of crap”. True? Yes, arguably, but I have to remind myself that I am writing this for me, first and foremost, as a way of exercising that writer’s muscle and keeping a record. Becoming all self-conscious about is a sure-fire way of killing my creativity, and part of the reason I forced myself to post that last little potty-mouthed entry. I reread and cringed, thinking to myself, Mia, really. Who wants to know?

I do. I want to know. Because I’m going to need to remember all this for later on. One day all of this is going to help me, one fine day when I suddenly realise what it is I actually want to say. That magic moment where I finally find my voice. Vivement ce jour! Bring on that day! I’m also going to need all this for when I have my own family and my own children who need a caring and compassionate mother to help them get through the less than sparkling times. I will need to remember what it felt like.

Speaking of children, you know, I have about 10 weeks of being 27 left. I am thrilled about this, and I’m actually being serious. While in one way I am gobsmacked that I am, overnight, it seems, closer to 30 than 20, I am thrilled because 28 is my magic number. I think it was a couple of years ago, I was having a delicious thai dinner out with papa, and I made an announcement. It went something like this:

“28. That’s the latest, dad. Even if I’m not in a relationship, I’ll do it myself. I’ll go it alone. I will be pregnant before I turn 29. I won’t wait any longer than that.”

And bless him, he understood. I always thought I’d be a young mum. I have wanted to be a mother since forever, and I have always known I’d make an amazing mother. Lets face it, half the ‘talent’ involved in being a good mum is simply the intention you hold, and the fact of actually wanting the child. So I’m already half way there. But I am aware of all the arguments against my aforementioned announcement. I know it’s generally much harder to find a partner when you’re a single mother! I also know all the arguments about being able to have children well into your 30s and even 40s. Hell, I could even freeze my eggs if it came to it. I understand the wariness people have of setting dates and time limits on this kind of thing. I know how obsessive and nuts it appears. I know, I know, I knooooow.

But what people don’t know, necessarily, is that for me, being a mother one day to me is as just as important, if not more, as being somebody’s wife, or ‘life partner’. No, I haven’t widened my net to include women in my search, but I am aware that marriage is not le but. It’s not the goal. A committed, loving relationship dedicated to supporting and nurturing each other and the children you raise- that, for me, is the goal. It has nothing to do with a rock on a finger and a white dress. Being a mother is part of my life’s work, in the same way learning languages, and writing, communicating and travelling is all part of my life’s ‘work’. It’s what I’m about. I want to share my life with my children, not stop living it the second they come along, as some people see it. So, when you understand that, you understand better that I want them sooner rather than later. Is that really so strange?  

Sure, you might say, so you want to be a mother. But why without a partner? Why wouldn’t you just wait a little longer? This is the bit that dad understood. Because I needed to take my power back. I needed to feel, and still need to feel, in control of my dreams, desires, and goals. I need to know how to recognise what is incredibly important to me, and be able to take responsibility for that recognition. If I want to have children, then why should I impose that on a man who doesn’t? I shouldn’t. Equally, his desire not to have children shouldn’t be imposed on me either, at least, not at this stage in my life. I think that’s fair and utterly reasonable. I don’t want to feel that such an important part of my life is entirely dependant on first finding a man to love, who also deigns to allow me to become a mother. No. There’s only so long you can continue to wait a little longer. We all know that. The only difference is, I’ve put a number to it: 14 months.