MY DEEPEST, CHILDLESS THOUGHTS - RANDOM

We were sitting on one of our favourite park benches in a lovely country park at Long Sutton, Lincolnshire. We go walkies there rather a lot. What we find is many other 'oldies' (can I say that?) like myself, so a conversation between us is imperative, to be honest. She has made many doggie friends there and they shout to each other in recognition. Do you know it really is therapy? Walking, preferably with your dog, and seeing other folk like you. Chatty folk and they're almost always of the 'older' generation. Aaaah...such bliss...

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Writing from ‘the bed’ 11.30pm.  

Just read a couple of things that got my mad up.  Silly really but it’s sometimes the way this childless lark goes.  And can go…

So, I’d been reading the comments to various pieces of work (not from on here but other social media ‘bits’)  which went something like this - ‘isn’t it so lonely when you’re sitting in front of the TV and realise you have no one to share your thoughts with?  Just you and the dog.  Honestly, it’s simply unbearable.  I know I’ve got my sister in the next town but still….?’ 

And …

‘No one really knows what it’s like to be alone. Childless, dark nights alone, family miles away.  I couldn’t bear it any longer so I phoned my youngest brother who lives at least 100 miles from me’. 

Turned out that both these people had family within reasonable reach.  Just not at that particular moment in time.  So our heroes felt melancholy and vulnerable with childlessness.  Yet they were able to phone family, in at least one of the cases, within geographical mileage.  Or, metaphorically, it could’ve been a workmate.  I don’t know - someone OK? 

See, this is maybe not the greatest of examples but it’s just one of the reasons I’ve become a tad disillusioned with the ‘without children’ trope.  I suppose I’m basing my childlessness on the whole of the subject matter - i. e. having no one, no real support network nearby only coffee mornings and church (I jest, I jest. All do excellent work apart from myself). 

As I’ve properly aged (and that’s another thing but let’s not over egg it) I’ve become so flippin’ jaded I’m meeting myself coming back. I’m getting to the point, and I am getting to the point. Which is this - why do I get so darned arsed about ‘boo hoo, on my own’ younger folk? Married folk? Folk with extended families be it siblings, step families. Folk in employment because they’re still young enough?  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - your childless grief is real and often raw, of course it is.  But does it sit at night, on a Summer’s evening facing what short bit is left of your life completely alone - does it?  Well, it does me and me is who I’m on about. And I’m done with it.  I’m done with ‘joining’ and, indeed, suggestions of ‘joining’. Do these people think at aged 75 I’ve not done all of those things many lifetimes over?  I’ve set up the ‘come join’ clubs but never again, I’ll tell you that.  Women, especially ageing women, can be terrifying in adversity.  Don’t take them on would be my advice.  In fact - oh, never mind.  I’ll get in trouble again. 

One problem I have is this - I don’t reckon I’ve ever properly grown up. There, I said it.  

Maybe I got stunted when my then hubby and I left that hospital knowing we were never going to be parents. You don’t know do you?  See, I was remembering the other night my obsession (well, one of many), when I was a little girl, with babies or dolls in other words but babies.  How, as an only child,  I couldn’t wait to have babies. I ‘kidnapped’ a neighbour’s tiny child once when I’d be around eight years old myself. Ran off with her down our road. We were ‘picked up’ (and to be clear, she was delighted to be ‘kidnapped’) about 200 yards down. At the time I desperately wanted a baby sister but that’s another big story for yet another time. Don’t go out and kidnap the nearest child, young people. It’s never going to sit well with the commooonity.  Goodness me I was as weird then as I am now. 

So, many years down the line and this. And here’s the thing - people who have families, siblings et al have no idea at all.  Why would they?  How much you continue to gird your loins so no one can see your old age memory-visuals forming an orderly queue behind your watery eyes.  Cheerful? I’ll give you cheerful.  I’m right as a sprite, me!   But you’re not really, are you? Behind closed doors and all that. 

In our various groups we’re all childless in some form or another.  Oft times we grieve for our babies we never had, should have had but life simply is not fair.  As the old saying goes ‘life’s a bugger and then you die’.  I thank you …

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Taking a breather. Lilley back to front as usual. Lovely, mysterious gardens at The Walled Garden, Baumber, Lincolnshire. Wish my garden looked like this one.

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But I’m at the last part of my life, now.  And here’s the thing - I’m wrong to base my childlessness on my pointscoring of griefability.  

‘Mine’s worse than yours because…’ 

I do though.  Bit of a comfort if I’m being honest. As in ‘well at least you’re (me) a total miserable old arse as opposed to her, who’s just a whiner’. Mean to say - if I can’t reach absolute and pure childlessness at my age then when can I? So, the moral of that tale is leave me to wallow in my own satisfaction of knowing I’m a total, brattish but purebred, childless clown.  

Not a soul, people. Not a bloody soul do I have.  And that’s my point.  

Actually I do. I have my lovely cousin and her hubby who, one day, might allow me to photograph us all together.  She’s resolutely kept in touch with me when I, hopeless as per, forgot birthdays etc.  And of course I have my funny friends - not so many nowadays but still hanging on. I do hope they continue to hang on as I’m such a lost cause.  In spite of my doom and gloom I expect to make new friends as I tread my limpy, bent double, new walking stick needed, deathly-pavement path.  I sincerely hope the next set of photos are not me and her waving from a mobility scooter.  If we are can you pretend we’re not and you’ve not noticed the strange bubble-like vehicle taking up the shot?  It’d be a first for Instagram I’ll tell you that!  Look - if it is it is.  How do I get that up the stairs though? 

I jest, I do. Seriously, and I speak for a fair few, because I’m skippety- whippety down the road with her prancing on end of the lead,  people think everything is OK?  Unfortunately so does our current Government (well, I say government. Middle management at best imho. Couldn’t run a p*ss up in a brewery but then - could any of ‘em?) who are taking desperately needed benefits from disabled folk. I could rattle on but mustn’t. It’s not what you’re here for is it? Errr - you are here aren’t you? 

Tell you what though - I’m so darned glad I’m old, I really am.  Why? Because today’s world is simply way too much trouble. Effort needed and who wants to play around with ‘effort’? No - I’ll go quietly into the dark night and report back. That’s something for you to look forward to.

Apologies, I’ll go back to my original point - I/it is not OK.  And I’m not getting any more tolerant of anybody - anybody.  

I got to be successful in my business, nay life, because I mask. I mask awfully well.  Acting it’s called.  So no one ever really knows what you’re feeling or thinking as you gush and fawn over them.  I’ve masked my childless pain since our hospital carpark breakdown.  It’s convinced me I’m over it.  

How can you ever really be over it?  You mask.  And I’ve masked so well I’ve accumulated a chest full of fabulous memories that oft times reduce me to hysterical laughter - the 70s to noughties  were without the strangulation of woke so a bloody good time was had.  Sod it I say it like it is.  Get to my age and give a ****.  True though. Good times - no woke. 

Me and her at one of the terrific Dog Parks that are plentiful roundabouts. You book it for an hour (say), and you have full use of a great, big area of field and doggie play things - like this. She's not keen. You can tell. ….

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Anyway, back in the haunted room and the distant glow of a beckoning eternal, gentle (I hope) hand gets closer.  Ignore it but know it’s there.  Educate your mind and body to accept the inevitable.  I do. And there it sits - the child you never had.  Somewhere it sits.  Good to know someone is waiting. 

So, back to this,  it is - or has become - something of a struggle to see anyone else’s childlessness through the same lens as mine.  Am I saying I think mine is pointscoring and leading the childless procession? I think we share our pain yet don’t.  We, naturally, see it through our own personal lens and we may well see it through others.  But I’ve concluded we must deal with it in our own personal way.  And to hell with judgements.  There is no right nor wrong. There is no worse nor worser.  It is ours to share or hold close and ours to grieve as we wish to grieve. And for as long as.  To file away and later - to face full on.  But I tell you this - let’s not be too quiet about it.  We’re not a bandwagon for politicians to bandy about.  We’re not some weird sect who decided we didn’t want kids but wanted  to breed llamas or some such ( I love llamas, by the way). We wanted babies. We wanted to feel the pain and the everything besides.  We did.  

Time passed and here we are.  Still childless, still in the room.  We’re kind of an earlier generation of childless aren’t we?  I’m not sure what the next lot coming through will be.  Not for us to worry.  Let’s stick together and - shout out - hold the rear flank you newbies!  

Quite a few of us will be the early ones through those pearly gates.  Maybe we will be  surprised ( as much as spirits are surprised) by who will be waiting the other side.  A tiny hand?  

A sit down at the doggie play park at Long Sutton. We did have a great time but quite exhausting to keep her occupied. Goodness getting old is not for cissies is it? (Careful Trish - using the word 'cis' nowadays. I believe it means something different to my interpretation?)

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I felt the need to add the following to my piece, such as it is.  You know about my young friend, Marie? Marie and Andy who have a wonderful family of two strapping, clever sons and an equally clever, younger daughter? Plus two of Lilley’s besties - Daisy and Barney (the latter being Lilley’s secret love. Not particularly reciprocated I’m sorry to say. Poor Lilley…). Well, Marie and I met for lunch and photoshoot at a lovely, local eatery called The Walled Garden, Baumber, Lincolnshire yesterday.  We hadn’t met for a while and I felt old.  I am old ffs! But I have need of a stick to walk and stay upright now.  

See, I’m in constant awe of my close friends’ families and in Marie and Andy’s case theirs is simply marvellous. And I find myself acting like some surrogate Auntie and ‘telling’ Marie what to do.  Like I know best!  I know nothing and anyway, they’re all off doing their thing and doing it amazingly well.  So I figured - when young folk do go forth into the big world and give it a go - do you not find it a wonderful thing?  And yet - how disconnected I also feel because I don’t have any optional alternative to folks’ families.  I feel proud of their kids through a distant lens. 

Lilley and I went to visit my cousins in a beautiful, well known, market town in my birth county of Leicestershire recently which, geographically, makes them far more accessible.  They are grandparents of some years standing so could well be great- grandparents at some stage in the near future. I haven’t met their kids and grandkids and we said it’s time I did so - next time - hopefully.  It was a truly lovely day for Lilley and I.  We drove home through those beautiful green, rolling hills and dales to our dear, but suddenly lonely, little home. 

And I’ve wondered if those with families ever consider what it really must be like to have no children, no nearby family - reliant totally on ‘friends’.  As you properly age said friends often disappear to be nearer to their own close families and you’re left alone once more.  Join, join join goes the shout.  I have joined - that is - and found most of it wanting. Too many bossy old women and too many grandparents with ‘photos’ to share.  Listen, I’ve also set up groups which have been successful until some ignorant old s*d decides it’s not and starts whispering and spreading discontent. My dears, I’ve done it all and maybe you’ll tell me it must be me?  Maybe it is, I don’t know.  But know this…I’m truly old now and sometimes a bit scared.  Of the dying thing.  Of being alone and the dying thing.  So, it seems, at some stage I must leave, sell my home and go live in senior living accommadation.  Me and her - no longer fully independent.  How lucky my Mum and many of her friends were.  She had me running round after her like a blue-arsed fly.  Selfish woman if I’m being honest.  She was!  

Marie and I circling the huge area of garden and land at the Walled Garden. Getting those two animals to get into shot and stay there is an impossibility - clearly. But Lilley is there, somewhere.

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I’ll tell you something - many centuries ago when I was married and we were still very young - my then hubby and I decided it would be a great idea to emigrate to Canada (I preferred South Africa at the time but Canada was apparently safer. Don't know tbh). We quietly enquired, met with various officials and clearly we were much wanted over there.  He was a fully qualified carpenter and I was in the Civil Service.  We were ready to travel to London to have a multi meet with officials, and talk with other like minded folk.  My ex hubby’s parents took the news with sadness but encouraged us to make said move.  They knew it would be a great thing to do.  My father was of the same opinion.  My mother, on the other hand, would have none of it.  Stropped and banned all talk of it.  What would happen to her?  I was the only child and how was she to cope?  We dropped the idea.  I was young and you did as your parents said in those days.  We were going to Canada I can tell you until my mother’s self centred strop sent me into an auto mode of ‘do as you’re told’. We were still pretty young at aged around twenty.  It would have been a great move.  The right move to have made.  I believe his father, in particular, also knew it would be a good thing for me to break away from my overbearing mother. Clearly we didn’t go but I often wonder what would have happened if we had made the move?  Would we have still been together?  

Friends used to say my mother was ‘a good woman’ and she was.  The word ‘nevertheless’ would oft times be added.  A selfish woman.  I see it now and feel sorry for the person that was me. And, indeed, her. Everyone saw it but no one spoke up nor defended me.  They were scared of her and some admitted it.  Apologies if I appear to moan for I had a good childhood on the whole.  An emotionally neglected one but that wasn’t just myself suffering from emotional parental disconnect. I could say a lot more but mustn’t.  Not fair….

A tiny moral coming through all this is the ‘mother’ thing.  I imagine it’s doubtful if today’s Mums’ act in the same way mine (and many others from those years) did.  I truly hope not.  One shouldn’t ‘look backwards’ but as you age you really can’t help it.  And you end up in ‘what if’ land.  Occasionally I rather enjoy drifting off in my head of dreams.  Has it all made me stronger, capable, stalwart?  You bet.  

Tell me what choice I had to be anything else?  So to those of you out there who recognise any of the above characters I raise a metaphorical glass - telling it ‘like it is’ seems to be a modern idiom.  I say - so tell it then.  Even if it offends or annoys.  Life is not always some silly bed of roses and dippety doo-dah.  Folk cannot always ‘be strong’.   Please just be you.  You’re alright by us. 

This is an oldish shot of me and her. She wouldn't be all that old here, and I'd be - well - younger.

Lots of love to everyone. Lots and lots of it. For let's be honest - we have love to spare . don't we gang?

Bye folks. Talk soon and we won't be so long - promise xxxxx

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Little Lilley and big boy Barney (he's not very big, actually. Just bigger than her). She loves him but I fear it's not reciprocated. Poor Lilley. Such a handsome boy....