When the Priest bound their hands, at their bizarre, disorganised, beautiful wedding – the same Priest who would Christen their children – I realised it was all I would never have.

Twice, it hadn’t been right.

Twice, I’d shrunk from the question.

And instead, I would stand, years from now, bound in sequins and red cloth, shaming my parents and his.  Twice, I would be blessed by Gods I thought I cared nothing for – his and mine.

And stood in that church, holding flowers, holding hands, I knew I’d look back on that day, breathless in a corseted dress, afraid in the unfamiliar eyes of God.  I knew right then, in that moment, that I’d look back and I’d wish that that day had been mine.

And, it could have been, would have been.  I’m not sorry, not regretful, but ashamed.  Of what he is, of what we are, of what I have become.

Holding on, keeping faith, and all the time knowing – I’ve given up the world for someone who can’t shake the shame of me.

On his wedding day, my Best Friend held my hands in his, and whispered,

“It’s all wrong.”

And I’ve searched and searched, at the bottom of every bottle, to find the meaning, find the answer.

My first thought was that he meant his marriage.  But seeing how happy he was, erased any doubts I might have had.  He wasn’t talking about his relationship, or mine.  He wasn’t talking about us.

Our relationships are built on different stones, with meanings and reasons that couldn’t be more different.  We might be wrong together, but does that mean we’re right with the people we’ve chosen?

He loves his wife, and she loves him – the only thing that stands in their way of happiness is her lack of desire for children so early on in their marriage.  But he knows he’ll turn her to his way of thinking, whether it’s right or wrong to do so.

And me?  The only thing really standing in the way of my happiness, is me. 

I’m all wrong.

“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do.
Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”
- Ella Fitzgerald.

I’ve always been good at giving up.  First came ballet and horseriding, then meat, and church and God.  At times I’ve given up trying, given up my self respect.  I never thought I’d give up something I’d worked so hard for.  Infact, I was adamant that I wouldn’t give up teaching with The Other-Half asked me to.  But, things change.

Many teachers manage to be wonderful mothers and wives, while still being wonderful at their job.  But I’ve waited so long to be a mother, that I want to give it everything I have.  We’re lucky enough to be able to afford for me to be a stay at home mum, and I believe being at home with my kids will be better for them than putting them in day care.  And so, after lots of discussion with the Other-Half, I’ve decided to give up teaching.  You see, there’s a proposal looming, followed by a swift wedding and plans to start a family straight away.  I don’t want to waste time studying for teaching qualifications, only to give up the job almost as soon as I’ve started.

And so, I’ve decided to continue with the next best thing, for the time being.  I’ve had various roles in various schools, but have recently been working as a teaching assistant in a school nursery, and the job I’ve just taken for September, when I would have been starting my teaching course, is doing the same role, but in a very different school.

‘Quitting’ my course has raised a few eyebrows.  I worked hard to get a place on the course, I was over the moon when I got one, and talked constantly about being fully qualified, having my own classroom, setting my own lessons.  The truth is, I know I’d have made a wonderful teacher.  But I don’t believe I’d have been the best mother I could be.  I have a lot of respect for working mothers, and I understand that to some women – their career is an important part of their life.  I’m not saying that women who work are bad mothers – some have to work, some want to.   But for me personally, I see no benefit in paying to put a child into daycare when you’re willing and able to afford to stay at home and care for them yourself.

The children I’ll be working with in September are in the 2% of children in the UK who are classed as the most deprived.  In other words, 98% of children in the UK are better off socially, emotionally and economically than the children I’ll be working with.  I visited the school before I took the job, and fell in love with the pre-schoolers that I’d be working with.  These kids have nothing, and are a world apart from the children I’m working with at the moment in a typically white-middle-class nursery school.  The role of staff in a nursery school is to firstly educate and secondly care for.  But in schools like the one I’ll be working in, the children are mentally younger, and require more care than education.  That is, these kids need cuddles and reassurance, not counting rhymes and art equipment.  The benefit of being the teaching assistant rather than the teacher, is that you’re able to spend more time getting to know the children and less time worrying about teaching and assessing them.  My mental stability has been questioned by friends for taking a job that will undoubtedly take it’s toll on me emotionally.  But if you’d met these kids, you’d understand.

Do I regret withdrawing from my course to be a mother, before I am one?

No, because I’d give up the world to be a mum.  And before I am one, I’ll do everything I can to be fill the gaps in the lives of  the kids I’ve met who either have no mother, or would be better off without the one they have.

I am a quarter of a century old today.
(And coincidentally, this is also my blog’s 100th post)

I have done nothing I had planned to do before I hit this milestone.
And I am nowhere near.

I have done little I am proud of, and little that I regret.
My mistakes make me who I am, and my achievements are few and far between.

I am not a mother.
I am a substitute – a teacher.
Someone who borrows your children until 3.15pm, just to feel a little bit of their joy.

I am not a wife.
I am a dirty little secret.
Someone who is not quite good enough to risk a family for.

I am not myself.
I am treading water.
Someone who only knows the path home.

I am 25.  I have a whole lifetime ahead of me.
And it doesn’t feel like enough time.

Have The T-Shirt’s recent post has inspired me!  With the dismal cloud of Christmas looming over us, I’m going to follow in her footsteps, and make a list for Santa!

This isn’t a list of presents I’m going to buy other people, nor is it a list of presents I’d like.  It’s a list of (mostly unrealistic!! things I would love to have for Christmas (if I had a magic lamp, and a totally hot genie)..

- I’d like a dressing room.  Yes, an actual room.  A whole, enormous room dedicated mostly to shoes.

- I’d like a disgustingly enviable collection of shoes, of which at least 60% should be made by Jimmy Choo or Gina.

- Obviously, I’d need a bigger house in which to accommodate my enormous shoe collection.

- I’d like two Shar Pei puppies, who would absolutely, definitely, not eat/bite/annoy my little bundle of fluff (that would be my erm, cat.)

- It would be wonderful to not be allergic to my little bundle of fluff, whom I love dearly, but brings me out in a bugger of a rash.

- I want an extra button in my car, which, when pressed – emits a deafening voice that says “Stop driving up my ass, you incompetent dickhead.”

- Oh, and another button which (somehow) bitch-slaps any incompetent dickheads (particularly those driving 4×4s, who seem to think they can railroad my car off the frigging road..)

- Screw it, I’d like a super fast, super speedy, kick-ass, midlife-crisis car.  I don’t know what kind…  A sexy, dirty-hot one! :)

- I’d like to actually want to give up smoking, let alone have the willpower to do it.

- I’d like to just be qualified to teach, now, without having to actually train to do it (obviously all the knowledge would be stored somewhere in my brain, without me having to learn it).

- I don’t ever want to see a child suffer.  I want all the children I teach to come to school in warm, clean clothes, after a good nights sleep and a proper breakfast. I want to see parents who actually give a shit.

- I want my own childcare business, with wonderful staff, and plenty of money behind it.

- And a great big stack of cash.

- I’d like the finances, and the guts, to travel the world.

- I’d like to put my old boss out of business, and be able to laugh a great big “fuck you, lady.” right in her face. :X (Yes, I realise that makes me a massive bitch, but she totally deserves it.)

- I’d like my best friend to just not make a massive mistake, and to either get married and have it work out, or not get married and be ok with that.  Either way would be quite satisfactory, thank you!  Oh, and if he has to get married, could I please not look like a total dickhead in my bridesmaid dress? Pleeeease?

- I’d like the prospective-mother-in-law to not be such a racist assbag.  Or, if that’s slightly impossible, to just come with a mute button, so I can stop her mouth making so much pointless noise all the time.

- I’d like to have a steamy, kinky threesome with Alan Rickman and Mel Gibson (I’m aware he’s an ass, but my God, I would totally violate that man).

- I want to no longer be reliant on medication, for anything at all – to be healthy, without help.

- I want to live in France, with a vineyard at the end of my garden, and a filthy-hot gardener with a tight little bum and some polished abs, to erm.. garden?

- I want a baby.  And for the other-half to actually want a baby. Now. Or at least in the next year or so..

- I would love multiple orgasms. On a daily, is not half-daily basis.

- I’d like someone to say ‘Thank you’ for working so hard to make a difference to childrens lives.

- I want gambling to just disappear completely.  It ruins too many lives.

- I want an apology from a whole host of people, and forgiveness from a whole host more.

- I want fifteen minutes with my Granddad, to tell him how much I love him, and to ask him if he thinks I’m doing the right thing.

- I want a Happy Christmas, this year, just once.  No tears, no arguments, no stress, no fuss.

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.
- Burton Hillis.

- Oh, and I want a totally hot, six foot tall Santa to appear on my doorsteps on Christmas Eve, so I can sit on his lap and tell him what I really want for Christmas. ;-)
(That’s such a sordid fantasy, I know, haha).

What’s on your list?

Visit Have The T-Shirt – you’ll love her as much as I do (I promise!).

Sometimes, when one person is absent, the whole world seems depopulated
- Allphonse de Lamartine

It’s over eighteen years since my Granddad died.  I’m close to the majority of my family, but I was closest to him.  And since the day he passed, the world has seemed a little emptier than it should.  There’s been a hole that nothing can fill.

The night he died, just before my 13th birthday, my Dad told my sister and I that our Granddad had passed away, and turned into a star in the sky, that would watch over us and keep us safe.  It was the most beautiful explanation of death I have heard, to this day.

And somehow, on days when I need them to, all the stars seem to shine a little brighter than usual.  As if someone really was up there, watching and guiding me.

I haven’t been inside a church since the last Sunday he was alive.  I don’t consider myself to be religious, and I don’t believe in God.  But I do believe that people live on.  And I know that he will live on in the hearts of everyone who was blessed enough to know him.

Happy Birthday, Granddad.  I miss you almost as much as I love you, still.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen, not touched.
But are felt in the heart.
-Helen Keller

It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference. ~Tom Brokaw

The other-half had become quite accustomed to me not working. He came home from work to find his dinner on the table, his lunch packed up for work the next day. His washing and ironing was done and put away, the house was always spotlessly clean, the fridge was always stocked. In short – he had little to do except go to work, earn some money, and come home.

He explained that he couldn’t understand why I wanted to go and work as a Teaching Assistant, earning an appauling wage for dealing with the kids that no one else wants to deal with. He couldn’t understand why I wanted to go back to University eventually, and train to be a teacher. He couldn’t understand why I loved nothing more than working with children who had severe behavioural problems or special educational needs.

The bottom line was, he just didn’t understand.

He made various efforts to persuade me not to go back to work.

We don’t need the money.
You don’t need the stress.
I like you being at home.
We can have kids of our own, you don’t need to work with other peoples’..

Now, I’m stubborn at the best of times, and this was one thing I wouldn’t budge on.

I had been the ‘breadwinner’ long before he had. While he was still a student, I bought a house, ran a car, and paid for most things that we shared. When I decided to give up a well paid and successful job, to try get into teaching, he was very supportive, and moved in with me, on the condition that I would let him pay for everything except my own expenses (car, phone, etc). It was incredibly kind, and gave me the opportunity to do a job I could have never afforded to do otherwise. That said, I found it very difficult to suddenly go from being able to pay for everything myself, to relying on someone else to give me money to even go do the grocery shopping.

There are two reasons why I will be going back to work.

The first, is that I will be on a piss poor wage for a few years until I’m qualified, but a tiny wage is better than no wage, and I can’t justify relying on someone else for everything.

The second, and arguably the most important reason, is that I love my job. Since the first day I spent surrounded by kids instead of men in stuffy business suits, I have known that teaching will make me feel complete, as corny as that sounds. I look forward to going to work, and in my experience, that’s a rare blessing. I’ve worked with kids who spoke no English, I’ve worked with kids who have been violent, who have been unable to sit still or to respond in the same way as other children their age. I’ve worked with children with special needs, I’ve worked with kids who know far more than I ever did at their age. And in them all, in every single one of them, I saw something that made me smile. Even in the kids who teachers dreaded having in their classroom, the kids who spat at staff, the kids who beat the crap out of their classmates. I’ve found that if you can find a way to inspire any child, you can find a way to get through to them, and you can see whatever it is about them that’s wonderful, no matter how deep it may be buried.

When I worked in a nursery school, I worked closely with a little boy who had severe behavioural problems. When I left that job, he hugged me and said

“I have lots of friends now because you showed me how to be nice. You’re really nice and everyone likes you, Miss, so I’m going to try extra hard, all the time, to be really nice so that you and Mummy are very proud of me.”

It took every inch of strength I had, not to burst into tears.

The very nature of working with children, is that you give and give, and some might argue – get nothing in return. But in my experience, I do give and give, to the extend that it’s exhausting sometimes, but I get so much in return that it’s worth every second of underpaid, overworked, time.

I recently got a position working with children who are slightly older than what I would have chosen. I miss being with the little ones, but I still love my job. And the Other-Half’s tea isn’t always on the table, the house isn’t spotless, and we often have to do an emergency grocery shop because I haven’t had time to go. But, I’m happy. And so, he’s concluded that it doesn’t really matter about all those other things, as long as I’m happy.

I’m well aware that I, along with every other educational professional, should be paid triple what I actually get paid. I’m well aware that there’s a lot of people who wouldn’t even consider working with children, let alone working with the ones that struggle to behave well.

But I’ve yet to find anything that gives me the same satisfaction that working with children does. It’s often a hard, thankless job. But I feel privileged to know the children that I do. I feel privileged to share their secrets, smiles and sadness.

And I wouldn’t give up my career for all the tea in China.

A frumpy old woman pinned me into a bridesmaid dress that was made out of what I can only describe as scratchy, crappy, cheap material.

She said I looked beautiful, but we both knew I actually looked ridiculous.

When the Fiance had said, “I don’t want anyone to look prettier than me!”, she wasn’t kidding, and she was going all out to make sure no one did.

I felt like I’d borrowed my mum’s dressing up clothes, and I looked like I had, too.

I was the only bridesmaid who had boobs that didn’t resemble fried eggs, and so, unfortunately, the strapless dresses the Fiancé had chosen weren’t going to exactly work for me (something which had, perhaps, been intentional..).

And whilst the frumpy old woman pinned straps onto my strapless dress, I had a revelation.

It took me a little too long to realise.
- But I got there in the end.

Some people are too special to let slip away.
Some friendships are too precious to let fade.

We will fix this.  Because, I belong arm in arm with you, dickhead.

“Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so.”
~ David Grayson

Nearly four years ago, despite me being in a relationship, someone asked me to marry them.  Granted, it was after we’d slammed three shots of tequila in a row.  But he meant it, and I knew.

He asked me one more time, one last time, before I walked away from my job, from him.

I never said, “No”.  I never needed to.  There was a mutual understanding that the answer was not, “Yes”.

Nearly four years ago, I kissed a cheek, held a hand – and walked out of a life that had never begun.

I sat in a room with over fifty people tonight, listening to speeches and shaking the hands of people from another world to mine.  People knew my name – either because they knew me, they knew my family, or they knew that I had been loved.  I had sat in rooms like this before, but with The Other-Half at my side.  Tonight, I didn’t feel small.  My smiles were not fake, and people laughed with me.

I tried to pay attention to the ceremony.  But to my right, there was a man in a turquoise tie, whose feet tapped quietly on the carpet.  And although he never looked across at me, I struggled to keep my gaze from him.

You can be whatever the people who love you, believe you can be. And as soon as I put the key into my front door and greeted The Other-Half through a haze of red wine, I suddenly became so much less than I had been tonight.

A lot of people will argue that you can’t love two people at once.  I would argue that you can, just never as much as they deserve.

There’s no love between us now, just the sad ache that takes over after love has left.

We live different lives, with paths that seldom cross.  But when they do, there’s a spark that burns a hole right through me, and a voice that asks, “What if..?”.  His face betrays him, and I know he feels it too.

I wouldn’t change those 12 months.  I regret not letting him know how much I felt, but I don’t regret not having to say no.

I often wonder what would have happened if I had said yes, if I hadn’t been a coward, if I hadn’t been afraid..
I often wonder what difference one word would have made.

Because sometimes, staying still, hoping that what you have will turn into everything you need – simply leaves you with nothing at all.

Tonight, I kissed a cheek, I held a hand – and again, I walked away from a man who truly deserved more.

After ignoring my calls for a significant amount of time, my best friend called, and said the three words I dreaded most..

“Can we talk?”

And so, we talked.
(Well, he bullshitted, and I listened.)

“I didn’t mean it, any of it, it was just pre-wedding jitters, and I’m sorry.
I know I’m an asshole for complicating things, so can you just punch me or something so we can go back to normal?”

How can it be ‘pre-wedding jitters when they have literally only just got engaged? Everything should be full of excitement and love!

I tried very hard to explain what was preventing us from going back to ‘normal’, but he just didn’t get it.

It wasn’t that I wanted to marry him, it wasn’t that I wanted to entertain the idea of anything more than friendship between us, it wasn’t that I didn’t want him to marry her. It was quite simply just that I didn’t want him to make a mistake.

As far as I’m concerned, we’ll probably both end up settling for someone who isn’t quite everything we’ve always wanted. But I don’t see why that matters, if you go into it with your eyes open. I don’t need a husband who’s going to be my best friend, I just need a husband (applications in the post, please!). I see no problem with keeping those roles completely separate. He, however, seems to have an issue with being closer to me than he is to his fiancé. But you can’t steal someones history, all you can do is make your own, over time.

He loves her, she loves him, I like her – how could I possibly think that their marriage will be a mistake?
Because, before he’s even got the ring on her finger, he’s trying to change her into someone else.

And that, is a recipe for marital suicide.

As for us, we’re trying. Everyone makes mistakes, and our motto has always been to forgive and forget.
We’re not ‘back to normal’. The dynamics of our relationship has changed in such a way that, I’m not entirely sure I know him as well as I thought I did. Forgiving is a given for us, but forgetting.. How do you forget something like that, when wedding plans are being forced in your face on a daily basis?

I think he’s making a terrible mistake, and I hope to hell and back that I’m proved wrong.

This site contains a (strangely, horizontal..) list of polaroid pictures of real people, each with a caption that states what that person would like to do before they die.

Here are some of my favourites polaroids from the site..

What do you want to do before you die?

My answer is below. :-)