Happy endings

It’s been years since I last blogged. In the meantime, we had a baby, built an extension, made new friends, did a masters, lost hair, grew it again, discovered the joy of Botox, minoxidil, bioidentical oestrogen, sleep. I rose up from the ashes of my former life, renewed, and ready to take on, well, new challenges.

Jonah, about whom this all started, is, everyone says, a different boy. Well, man, now, really. A GB climber, a legend – another child’s hero. These things have all been said to me. I couldn’t make up the transformation. He slopes around, snake hipped and python chested, floppy hair replaced by a gamine crop, chiselled jaw no longer speckled with acne but stubble. He smiles, cleans up, is gracious, humble, yet oh so confident. He wears baggy trousers over stem-like legs, Tom’s old jumpers made trendy on Jonah’s slender frame. He is a superstar. I can’t quite believe it, although I knew it, deep down. Let’s hope my pride doesn’t precede a fall- I know him well enough to realise he’d be a terrible paraplegic. But for now, my maternal pride spilleth over, and isn’t that what we all want, after the shitshow of raising them?

Ava, too, has emerged from the hovel of teenagehood, tall, lion maned, a Hollywood smile about to emerge from metal braces. She is calm, determined, gentle, completely herself. I don’t worry about her so much now. She has friends. She has principles. They are not necessarily mine, but she is a good person and that’s a feat in itself.

Lana is my reward. I revel in her – with her sparky cuteness, her puppyish joy, fluffy hair, elfin face and broken tooth, verbal and physical dexterity and happy go lucky manner. She is easy breezy lemon squeeze, and I think Jonah and Ava for teaching me how to enjoy this, knowing how all to briefly this creature will exist in its current form.

So it’s with trepidation I embark on a new phase in my life, in which small children will barely feature. I’ve taken a big job, a grown up job. I need to money to offset the financial squeeze. I need the intellectual stimulation of a new challenge and I will have this in spades. Covid made life with children easy. Too easy, in a way- I could drink on weekdays, nap at lunchtime, exercise in my commute, paint my nails in meetings, fit my work around laundry, shopping, baking cakes. It couldn’t last. I don’t mind. It will be good for me to get out, face the drizzle on a Monday morning, enjoy a bit of grown up normality, the chat and camaraderie of office life. It’s not like I have to do it everyday, like I used to. I think my mental health is safe, between a tiny dose of sertraline and middle aged colleagues who aren’t interested in what I might do at the weekend.

I’m climbing out of my comfort zone in a much better place. But life has moved on. My parents are noticeably older, my sister has been unwell. Normality feels more fragile, prone to the whims of dictators, the market, and popular sentiment on Tic Toc. I’m not sure I like it, not least because my own views feel at odds with the majority. I liked Liz Truss, for example. Thought her policies made sense – were heroic in a way, but that seemed to make me an enemy of the people, despite the fact my own mortgage was growing unwieldy. I grasped the nettle, took the more difficult job – perhaps I’m just privileged to have had the option, for all it feels like it’s just been a lot of hard decisions and bloody hard work.

Perhaps that’s the comeuppance for those that fly too high without the authority to do so. Maybe it’s a lesson I’ll learn to my cost as I learn to walk with the giants of the financial world. But how many of us would turn down opportunity when it comes knocking – even with the risk you could come to a sticky end. For now, at the beginning of a new chapter, I feel happy that my hard work is coming to fruition, in family, finances and finally, career.

I do worry though. With my current middle aged bob, I identified a lot with our erstwhile PM, so much so I purchased the Karen Millen frock she wore on her inaugural Tory Party Conference, albeit it in a more somber shade. It felt like such a power frock at the time. Confirmation I’d finally made it. I hope I don’t end up with lettuce on my face, like she did, projected onto the House of Commons like some latter day, cautionary Gail Porter. Climbing the pole isn’t the tricky part, as I know from my own past endeavours. It’s staying up there where the skill really lies.

And so to Tom. How happy are we these days? We are more likely to have a snooze on the sofa than use our lunch break for passionate endeavours. And I sense that having reached moreorless parity in our financial contributions only works if our child and housekeeping equality keeps pace. For now, the end is in sight. Ten years to retirement- the finishing line- can we make it? Can we pay off the mortgage on two properties amid financial collapse? And even if we can, what’s the point of retirement in a world where travel is now the preserve of the ultra well off. These are questions for another day. And if you’re still here, with us, on this journey, well, I thought you’d like to know that it’s all turned out ok in the end- for now.

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