Let it Go...

Let it go..

And before you ask, this is not about Frozen (but we love that film...) this is about a chair. Well the beginning bit is anyway. 

So last year a friend of a very good friend of mine was flown over to sort out her stuff and clear her clutter.  This was not only necessary for practical reasons but for spiritual reasons too. My friend had been through a rather crappy time, by herself, with two small children. She needed to get rid of the past and half of her closet and all this went remarkably smoothly until she was confronted with an object that she wasn’t expecting her friend to pick-up on: the baby chair.

The chair in question was one of those wooden ones that can “grow” and change with the child thus lasting a good six years or more and this one had been the loving supporter of both her kids; and it wasn’t going without a fight. 

Her friend insisted and finally at the end of the week, just before a girl’s dinner, we all met in the square of a forgotten hilltop town and the chair was passed down to our other friend who had a baby girl. The Chair Ceremony was a big deal. The chair had been a solid, silent member of her family and now she was saying goodbye, and with it, she was recognising the hard fact that her kids were no longer little. They didn’t need the chair anymore. She had to Let Go.

Fortunately! The chair is alive and well and is much loved by a delightful little lass and so the story ends well…

Now, dear reader, what the hell has a chair got to do with me and my cervix I hear you cry!?

Nothing and everything.

Yesterday I had another check-up. This was a big one and I was pretty scared but thankfully my doctors took one look up me and smiled (euwww!) no sign of nasty Mr Cancer. But my bloods confirmed that I had started the menopausal process and that my ovaries and uterus are, well, burnt to a crisp. I will never have a period ever again THANK HEAVENS FOR THAT I SAY!

Yet, alas, I will never get pregnant again either.

I will never again eat for two (or 4..), or wear funky stretchy tops, or get heartburn or feel those little kicks! I will never again wash dinky little socks or change my child’s nappy or get puked on. Nope, never again. It’s quite a final thought.

So I have decided that I need to Let Go too. For years I have kept onto all my baby stuff in the hope that the patter of tiny feet will once again be heard. I have so much baby gear I could stock most of the Early Learning Centre and it’s all washed and scrubbed and wrapped in plastic. I have clung to it. I sniff it all occasionally…

But now the time has come to move on and clear out. I have been blessed with one amazing little boy and that is a great deal compared to some. I will enjoy every moment with him and not waste another minute thinking about the second baby that will never be. I have one. I have wonderful friends with wonderful kids too. I have my beautiful niece and nephew. I am pretty lucky.

I like to think that I am not “getting rid” of my baby stuff, I am just passing it on to babies who actually need it. 

Like the chair.

Keeping up appearances part 1

I went to an all-girls boarding school from the age of 8. 

In Cumbria.

Mark Zuckerberg was just going into first grade.

Things were a little different from what they are now and us girls didn’t really give a damn about what we looked like. We were Northern. We had scuffed knees, red noses and chapped lips (it was bloody cold). We ate like troopers: everything from porridge to Lancashire Hotpot to chip butties and tinned tomatoes and fried bread (did I mention it was fricking cold??) We didn’t worry about fat or cellulite or spots or bad hair and ragged nails. Some of us didn’t even look at a razor for months!

Until the dance with the local boys’ school was announced and all hell broke loose. The week running up to the event was a flurry of madness and preparation. Hours were spent discussing every outfit in detail and being the first to borrow so-and-so’s top or boots or jeans. Tweezers were dusted off and we would queue up to get our mono’s sorted and shaped. Suddenly we gave a damn about the acne and hair and nails and the corridors would stink of ‘Stop n’grow’, Clearasil and Veet hair removal cream, a smell that would linger for a good few weeks. The suspense and anticipation was a killer but FINALLY we would pile onto the coach and drive off into the night. It was a big deal. Who would be there? Will the teachers bugger off for a bit and leave us to it? Will this god awful strapless bra last the night? Will I get a snog at the end of it? (a snog, Dear Reader,  instantly gave the green light to ‘go out’ with the boy in question and become a steady girlfriend, thus spending the next two months writing long letters of love during Biology and hanging around the pay phone most evenings...sigh!) I would wake up with a HUGE spot, always, without fail on the morning of the dance. 

Of course most of the action happened in the last twenty minutes as the first two hours were spent just STARING at the opposite sex, scarcely daring to believe they were real until someone (usually the smallest boy) would get pushed over to the most approachable looking girl (usually me, due to the spots…) and ask if his mate could dance with my mate (sigh again!). And that’s all it took. 

What I am trying to say in a rather roundabout way is that WE DIDN’T CARE (much) about looks. This all changed much later on, when I was about 17 and went to a mixed collage and was surrounded by boys ALL THE TIME. And no, I didn’t like it. Well actually that is a lie, I DID like it because they were very funny but I felt like I needed to look half decent all the time instead of slobbing around in pyjamas. We started worrying about fat and cellulite and bad hair and spots. We started eating salad. I found my rusty razor and decided that I would just wear thicker tights.  Yet the funny thing is we would have conversations like this:

“Ugg.. God you are sooo lucky you’re thin..I am such a fat moose..”

“No you are so not, my bum is wayyy bigger than yours..”

“Guys I have no boobs, being thin is crap, you are soooo lucky”

“Do you think that if I can just squeeze here and here and not eat..”

Whilst sitting down, drinking tea and eating chocolate biscuits. Lots of them.  Those were the days…

No matter how much we complained, looking back I bet most of us would take back our 17 year old bodies in a heartbeat.  I would!

The other thing is that chemotherapy made my body go nuts and shed 15 kg in 2 months. At Christmas I weighed 56 kg. I haven’t been that weight since I was about 12 (I did talk about the chip butties and biscuits didn’t I?) and guess what? I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it because I looked like crap; nothing fitted me, my bones stuck out, my eyes were sunken and yellow and my knees looked massive compared to my skinny thighs. Flash moment! Thin? No thank you very much.

Now that I can actually eat, I am going to eat (healthy of course!) and I am going to enjoy it safe in the knowledge that I now like the skin I am in and it ain’t skin and bones.