Yesterday, we threw caution to the winds and went to visit the ISPCA’s National Animal Centre in Co. Longford. Mainly because I caught sight of this little lady on their website and Dave melted a bit we wanted to meet her and her sister, Lola. Initially, I thought Lola was prettier but she’s so bossy and extrovert that she had Honey bamboozled in no time. Lottie, on the other hand, is a lot calmer and less intrusive where our girl is concerned and so we might have accidentally-on-purpose filled out forms for a home check to be done… What have we let ourselves in for? She was born on November 15th so she’s still very young – it’s one way to use up old shoes, I suppose!

Today, I have applied for two jobs – having not got the one I wanted that I interviewed for on Thursday – but I have a good feeling about this week. I don’t know if it’s just the sheer, unadulterated joy of having skin again – and it is a joy, believe me – or the lovely weekend with my family, or if it’s all that in combination with having a great walk this morning with The Hound. Whatever it is, life is feeling more Spring-like and I’m sort of excited about things. Also, my Dad’s coming to stay in a couple for weeks for two nights and I’m sort of looking forward to talking to him about a business idea I had a little while ago…

1) they’re magic;

2) everything hurts for the first forty-eight hours of taking them.

Dealing with the ‘magic’ part first, I took the first dose yesterday evening at about six o’clock. This morning I woke up with fresh, healing skin. The inflammation has gone down incredibly and my arms no longer glow in the dark. The ‘everything hurts’ part correlates nicely with one of the side effects of the type I’ve been given: insomnia. I got three hours broken sleep last night and I feel as if I’ve been run over by a steam roller. This is exacerbated by the fact that, because of the existing pain, I haven’t slept properly for two nights prior to this. Ugh. Also, because the cream I have to use is a type of immuno-suppressant wotsit to stop my skin freaking out quite so much which also makes it overly sensitive to heat or cold on top of the fact that fresh healing skin is always a little tender anyway, my neck is currently screaming at me.

In the face of all this, I had an interview this morning. I was a bit terrified, to be honest, because I’m not sure I’d hire someone who looks like I do right now! Having said that, I tidied myself up as best I could and I think it went really well. I am hoping that this one really comes through because, even though it’s only a six month contract to cover a maternity leave, it’s local and it’s working for a really interesting company which would keep me in the medical devices field that I liked so much. Moreover, the people working there seem to be intelligent and kind, and the sort of people I’d be dealing with would be end users and hospitals. Actually, I was so involved in all the talking that we did, I completely forgot to ask them about how much the salary would be. Oops. Anyway, fingers crossed that this goes positively. It’s something I’d genuinely like to do.

For the last few weeks, though, I’ve started getting itchy feet. A friend of mine was talking about the possibility of moving to the States with her husband (who’s from Arizona) and it sparked some part of my brain that really hasn’t been active before.

It’s often been the case that I’ve had a hankering to go back to the UK to live. I miss it desperately by times and, in my heart, I call it home more readily than I do Ireland. Every trip I take over to visit friends or family is a sort of happy torture, or was, I should say, until I had my own house and then, frankly, all I wanted to do was curl up here and never leave.

Still, with the dawning of a new day and a new way of living as a family of four*, my mind has been exploring new possibilities. One of the main reasons (despite the obvious lack of funds) that I stayed in this country was because I wouldn’t and couldn’t take the children away from their father. He wouldn’t let me and I wouldn’t (really) have wanted to. The other thing in my mind was the very real feeling of dislocation I had carried with me after being uprooted at the age of seven when my parents chose to move from Berkshire to Cork. However, the current thinking goes something like this: moving a child is a very big deal but if it’s done at a natural break point in their lives, such as leaving primary school for example, the effects might not be so acute. J is currently in 4th class which means we have two-and-a-bit years until he makes the next jump in his educational career.

The thing is that while Dave was born and raised in Dublin, he’s not overly attached to this country either. His parents are here but they’re still young enough and active enough to consider travel a good thing. My mother is here and, well, that’s a bit of a mixed bag really because in many ways I know that she’s horribly homesick for England. In addition, she’s got ten years on Dave’s mum and it shows nowadays. I don’t know how I’d feel about her being here if I was somewhere else but her age is certainly a slight barrier to packing up and heading off anywhere too remote. Given that D’s parents have a fairly huge family and social circle, it’s not likely that they would feel the lack of us although I know they would miss their grandchildren and vice versa. With Mum, who’s much more of an isolationist, it would be harder to gauge the effect. We don’t see that much of her as it is but at least at the moment we are just around the corner if needed. She still works and it’s not as if she doesn’t have any friends, but she’s not the gregarious type.

I can picture us being happy somewhere else, you see. This house that I love is MY house. And I think that D is always going to feel that. To be fair, he hasn’t decided what he’s going to do in terms of keeping on his apartment or moving in here as yet and, given our history, while I worry about the additional cost to him, I can very much see the sense in him keeping it for a while longer. If his flatmate moves out – as is possible in the next few months – it may spur his decision making but, personally, I don’t suppose there’s really any hurry. Long term, though, if this sticks then keeping two places going is a bit daft. When I bought this house, although it was mine, I bought it with the idea in the back of my mind that it might be a home that TRM might share with me some day. In many ways, it’s more suited to him than it is to Dave. He is better able to cope with its quirks for one thing: the temperamental  boiler that he keeps coming round to fix for me and the slightly mad heating that it produces being one very pertinent example. Whereas I suspect Dave just finds much of the house poky and awkward although it’s fine for now, if you see what I mean.

All of this hypothesising is exactly that and I don’t see me heading off into the sunset any time in the immediate future. But if Thalia has given me anything, it has been to show me that there are places in this world where I will fit and feel good. It may well be serving as a launch pad, though, instead of being the place where I thought I might stay forever. And it feels good to me that to feel that way. Who knows? You may see me here in six months time, in a six years time. And that will be alright too. The point is that the possibility exists and that there’s room to discuss it down the line.

* Well six actually, if you count the animals too, and we usually do.

This morning, I got the children to school and was home by 9am. It occurred to me at this point that today was going to go in much the same direction as yesterday if I didn’t get some more sleep. Dear Reader, I went back to bed and slept for two hours. When I woke up again, the world was a nicer place. More tellingly, I have managed not to break or drop or scream at anything or anyone all day. I call that a win. It turns out that, when I no longer have small children to keep me awake at night, six hours sleep is just Not Enough, and that all the Facebook and Etsy-ing and distractions that abound on the web are not sufficient to keep me sane if I insist on trying to keep going. Moreover, if I stay awake til all hours during the week, I pay for it at the weekend when my body refuses to let me wake up until I’ve made up the deficit. Thus, it seems that eight hours a night must be my new goal. A routine is needed for the adults of the Lair in much the same way that it’s required by the smaller ones.

Also, I applied for a job in Dun Laoghaire today that looked really do-able and positive. Please keep your fingers crossed for me; it sounds, from the description, as if it were made to be mine.

But then I thought I might clean out the boiler. ‘If it’s going to be a grey skies and ash day,’ I thought to myself, ‘let’s go the whole hog and get filthy dirty to boot.’ Except that I don’t trust that when I switch it off it will have the manners to start back up again when I press the ‘ON’ button. (Frankly, I don’t feel like being cold if I can avoid it.) So the boiler is half cleaned and that will be a step in the right direction for now.

Favourite Engineer called out of the blue this morning. He was on his way to Cavan and fancied a natter. Always happy to oblige there. Made me feel quite homesick for the lunacy of my last job, but only for the people not the bullshit and arrogance of the management which, allegedly, remain unchanged. You know when hearing someone’s voice gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling? Well that. It’s about a month since I last spoke to him and I am no longer at the point when I miss him every day. It’s nicer like this.

And that’s it really.

*Through a garden hose. I can’t recall where I first came upon the phrase but it endures as an accurate indication of extreme suckage. Due thanks, I am sure, should go to one of our American cousins for their fine imagery.

Aside from that, there is little of note. Days amble past and I find that I am ambling with them rather than doing anything productive. This worries me slightly but then, to a certain extent, I feel that I’m never going to get these days again, and definitely not in this manner, so perhaps it would be better to flow with them in the long run. The truth is that, honestly, I’m not champing at the bit to get back into an office again. Part of me is revolted at the thought of it and the cessation of my morning walks with the dog and long baths with a book. I know that, in this as in many other cases, I will be fine once I get going but, presently, the getting going is sadly lacking. It’s confirmation of what I’ve always known: when left to my own devices, I tend to float in a comfortable sort of limbo; peaceful and absorbed in whatever has currently caught my fancy. At the moment, my fancy extends to walking my dog and feeding my family; throw in a few books and copious mugs of tea and all is well. However, Dave is talking about family holidays later this year and such things require funding. Given that we’ve never had a family holiday, I find I’m quite ambivalent about the whole thing but I’m prepared to give it a go if it turns out to be something he wants to do. It would certainly be nice to see somewhere different for a little while but, now that I am so settled in my house with my animals and children, the urge to wander has almost completely vanished. Well, except for the idea of leaving Ireland completely which has, I’m afraid to say, been rearing its head in recent weeks. Perhaps this is the sort of thing that occurs to a person when she has to much time on her hands? Or perhaps it’s just the incessant bad news on the radio these days? Or the raging incompetence of the Irish government and its ability to screw everyone over?

Still. For now we are here. And it’s nice.

“don’t underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along listening to all the things you can’t hear and not bothering”
- winnie the pooh

I never expected it but I’m so enjoying the whole ‘being with my family’ thing. I love cooking dinner for them in the evenings, I love the fact that D and I are able to work so well together. I dragged them all, including Honey, off to the Bog Meadow in Enniskerry yesterday after lunch amid cries of “Muuum, I don’t want to go out; I want a go on the computer…” but, once packed up in wellies and coats, the children ran all round the field and headed off down to the river with the dog. Obviously, being organised, I didn’t have my camera with me but I will have to see if I can take some of the photos from D’s phone because there were some nice ones. J managed to cross the river over a fallen tree. Evie just waded across, naturally. Honey was allowed to run round without her lead because there was no one much about and she loves splashing about in rivers. It’s so good to see her racing about. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog grin so much, even through a muzzle! There’s an ease and a sense of sharing, even when the children are being awkward or bratty, that makes this all feel good, like exhaling after holding your breath for longer than you thought you could.

Now, however, when my current account is over its overdraft limit and my credit card is maxed out and my savings account can just about manage with its last breath, to bring them both back into their respective boundaries before being utterly demolished, I have to focus on finding something that will pay the bills. (Literally.) At the moment, the children and I are being fed by the money that D gives me each month.*

When I finished up with my last employers, I really had no intention of being off work this long. At this point, it rather makes my brain ache to think I’ve been off for three and a half months. Had Evie’s surgery not arisen, it’s probable that I would have started something new in November and none of this would be an issue, or at least not to quite the same degree. At the moment, though, I’m fretful. I try not to be. I have always agreed with my dad whose one useful lesson to me was always that worrying is pointless. He always says that if you can do something to fix or alter a situation, you should go ahead and do it. If not, there’s bugger all point in moping about feeling awful because it neither changes things nor puts you in the right frame of mind to effect change for yourself. And this is from a man who has found himself in all manner of horrendous financial situations which would make mine look utterly insignificant. (Of course, this may be because  of the above advice, rather than prompting it!)

Anyway, I suppose the thing is that I wanted to put it down and admit it as a reality before I go back to being chirpy and positive and believing – and this part is also true – that something will show up and that we will be better than fine in the very near future.

So, having done that, I’m going to go and put some washing on and sweep the kitchen and hall floors. And I might, tomorrow, go and make an appointment with the bank to discuss the current troubles in paradise. That would, I think, be the grown up thing to do. Hmm.

*As an aside, I feel much less guilty about this than I did given his almost permanent residence here. After all, it’s feeding him too!

2012 is already promising to be an unusual year. It finds me in the odd situation of being in a relationship with my husband for starters. Which is noteworthy because we separated in 2005. Sometimes, the more we struggle and tie ourselves into knots over things, the further we end up from what we want in life. Sometimes, when we can stop and be open to what’s there in front of us, good things can happen. I am not going to stand here and say that everything’s great and that all my bumpy roads are behind me, but I will definitely and happily say that when one stops making assumptions about other people, even if only for a few minutes, it opens up perspectives that are surprising to say the least.

It took five years for he and I to get enough space from one another to allow the issues between us to heal. When both parents are actively involved in raising their children and when that means that, as a separated woman you still see your ex most days, there is a feeling that you might never get free. When we started to leave one another alone and got our own lives, it was a huge relief. We developed boundaries for one thing. We accepted that there were parts of our lives that didn’t involve the other person and we were both (reasonably) okay with that. Then, before Evie went into hospital, an odd thing happened. I started to sort of like him again. Not like him like him but to see that, as a person, he was a pretty good bloke. We started to complement each other again. We filled in the gaps, often without realising it. With the arrival of The Hound, Honey, he became a more frequent visitor because he loves her almost as much as he loves his kids. Strangely, and possibly because I wasn’t really aware of it as a problem, I didn’t put up walls or start to fight. On the evenings he wasn’t there, I felt a bit odd, as if some necessary part of the household was missing. Over Christmas, when he usually ends up moving in for a week or so, we really felt like a family. And I didn’t mind it. I didn’t feel offended or overwhelmed or like someone was intruding upon my territory. Instead, life felt really good. 

Between Christmas and New Year’s, we realised that things were a bit different between us and that we needed to look at what was happening. So we talked about it. Sounds like such a little thing, doesn’t it, unless you know our history… So, in as slowly as is possible for two people who already have two children and have been, technically at least, married ten years this year, we are seeing what we can build together out of the fact that we like each other again. Like like. Maybe a bit more than that, even…! And for me, this time, it’s a conscious choice. I know what I’m doing and I’ve looked at why I’m doing it. I can see a future and I can see a past, but where once the latter was still a source of immense anger and pain, the space we gained from one another allowed for healing and, for the last three or four months, I find I’m no longer looking backwards.

In 2004, just before Christmas, someone broke into our house and stole all my jewellery: every piece that was worth anything went, taken by some tosser in a hoody who wandered into my bedroom and went through my side table looking for loot. I never got any of it back and it has irked me more and more as the years have gone by, although at the time, I really couldn’t have cared less. (Everything had fallen to bits and I wasn’t wearing my wedding ring anyway.) On Friday, D replaced my wedding ring and he put his back on. We have agreed that we’re not going to discuss any of this with our families yet; they don’t need to know. We’re simply going to go onwards and do the best we can with all that we have learned in the intervening years, leaving the bad stuff behind for once and for all to see what will happen next. Most importantly, we’re going to try and have some of the fun that we missed out on the first time round and enjoy each others company now that it seems that we genuinely can.