Friendship

So some time ago I blogged about friendship...(here).... I wrote about the ever changing enigma that friendship is to me.  As an Aquarian it is typical that my friends are the centre of my world... and deeply important to me... and this is very much the case for me.  I struggle however... sometimes I feel overwhelmed with the joy of feeling surrounded by dear dear people that I cherish, flooded with the richness of friendship, feeling wrapped in its warm hug.  Other times I feel terribly alone.  I feel that for all the effort I make, the sense of connectedness that I so crave is elusive, transient, like sand - hard to keep a hold on.  I fear aloneness deeply... I fear the loss of friendship... I fear being abandoned, misunderstood, judged and cast aside by my friends.... So when people hurt me, put me out, demand of me in ways that I find difficult, I tend to push it aside, ignore it, move through it - the friendship is more important to me... However I find it so deeply distressing when others do not do the same.  When I find out that someone I consider a friend is upset, offended, put out by me...when they are closed to me, rejecting, push me away... this breaks my heart.  I will literally lie awake all night worrying... I feel like my guts are torn... I become deeply unsettled, confused, saddened... It seems that friendship is a double edged sword in my life - at once my life-blood, my breath, my joy de vivre...and at the same time the source of my darkest moments.  

Being friends means being there for each other at all times, whether it's good or bad. A friend needs to be very understanding and give each other the benefit of the doubt. Ideally the meaning of friendship is sharing unconditional love for each other. However this is not an ideal world; therefore some form of expectations are allowed, but that has a limit too. The purpose and meaning of friendship is to make life's burdens lighter for our friends and not make them heavier.

Happy First Birthday Morning!

The morning started as normal... a bottle in bed with mummy....but mummy seems strangely happy and keeps singing at me!

OOOH  whats this then???

Wow.... new books!!! I love books....

 And this one has a really cool character in it!!!...

More??

Oh lots and lots of little doors to open and close...with things inside!!  wee hee!

But this new activity table is the BEST!!

I think I really like birthdays!!!!

Happy monday holiday lunch...

Happy autumn picnic sunday....

More more!... more?

So the urge to procreate is upon me again...
Its very odd.  For my entire life I have been clear and adamant that I only want to have one child.  Its logical, its reasonable, its practical.  I don't cope well with big commitments at the best of times, and one child is already a huge responsibility - why would I want to double that?  I am determined that I will continue to travel, do aid work overseas, live my cafe lifestyle, socialise, work a little harder than I want to, study, advance my career to a point where I feel useful, take on too many projects and get most of them done... and live the way I want to live - the way that makes me feel like I am living a meaningful life.  One child means some compromises, but they are well worth it for the immeasurable experience of being a mummy, and over all I anticipate that I will still be able to manage to do pretty much everything I want to do... I have always said that as long as I can put a back pack on, hold the child with one hand and my passport with the other then I am ok.  One child is not too much of a financial issue, thankfully she doesn't eat all that much yet... and if the going got tight I have trained her on hummus and pickles sufficiently for her to be able to just eat what I eat.  Being such a teeny bubba she is also still, at one week away from one year old, wearing her 0-3 month old clothes!
But two kids?  Well that means having a job, a decent job, and budgeting for two lots of day care, two lots of school fees... and all those other serious grown up things...
Two kids means that for even more of my life, now and in the future, I am first and foremost a mum... One child means that I can balance being a mum with being a career woman, a student, a friend, a lover, a traveller, a dreamer... Two kids means that the rest takes a back seat for much more of the time...
Oh and I might have a boy the second time around!
So it just doesn't make sense... logically... rationally...
and yet...
I fear... I fear losing her.  I fear that if I lost her I would be losing both my child and my place in the world as a mum.  This would be unthinkably horrific.  I fear growing old alone, childless, grand-childless... I fear the amount of hope that rests just on her small shoulders... I fear that she will move away, pull away, move countries, become a scientologist, marry a red neck... I fear that there are so many ways to lose her!
Fear drives me to have a second chance... to double my odds of growing old with a feeling of loving connectedness to the next generation of my family.
I fear what will happen for her if anything happens to me - an only child of an only child of an only child....she would be terribly alone in the world.
Fear drives me to have a back up... Fear and an irrational biological urge - my baby is growing up, its time for a new littler one!
But no... I am staying strong... I am holding on the the instinct of the vision that I have always had of my daughter and I, holding hands and skipping through the world together.
I am holding on to my resolve to have one child....