The last of the thirties...

Some things are so momentous that they need to be documented. If only so that a decade later I can come back and remember how it felt and how important it was. I didn't write when the kids were born. I posted pictures on social media instead. And while I'm glad to have those reminders now that my ickle bologna loaves are no longer that small, I don't really remember what I thought. The only thing I recall saying when my son was born was that in a life full of incredible emotions and experiences (and at 29 I thought I'd seen it all and lived it all - hah!) having a baby was the single-most intense moment of happiness I had ever had. And amazingly, the next year, when the daughter was born, that feeling of amazement and wonder and excruiating joy had not diminished. 

It's not that things have been less momentous these past few years. If anything, with a universe turned upside down, there's been more to document, but the blog just hasn't seemed the place to do it. Perhaps, just perhaps, it's because I've finally reached a little bit of the zen state I've been seeking for so long.

Where am I now and how is it different from where I was before? Still parenting alone, for one, and grateful to be doing so. Grateful for the awesome twosome and even more so for being the only parent around them. Changed a job, and drove myself recklessly hard at work, mostly at the cost of health. But managed to avoid being unhappy.

I've realised one thing, fifteen years after I started writing this blog. Grief is inevitable. Grief is deep and overwhelming. But grief is not the same as unhappiness. Because grief is not an every day thing. I don't wake up every morning grieving the things I have lost or never had. I do it occasionally because it is good to remember the lows in order to appreciate the highs. But it is possible to wake up every morning deeply unhappy. To look for respite in work, in lethargy, in tears. That is toxic. That is abuse. And that is something I no longer have.

I don't have unhappiness in my life. I go from moments of anger, stress, exhaustion or unkindness to two pairs of warm little arms. Stick thin and with a tendancy to poke. But with so much love that nothing else matters. And that is why, unhappiness doesn't stand a chance. I've found that thing I was looking for all my younger days. A love that is unconditional. And that gives me such a centre of gravity that everything else just falls into place.