Free Bananas

Blimey. I've just resurfaced from visiting 'that site' again and I'm letting out a gigantic PHEW that I didn't have kids.

phewphewphewphewphewphewphew

I know some of you have them and do parenting well and are also able to live your dreams, but bloody hell, on the whole, it would seem (heaps of people use the site), it's a daily struggle.

I prefer this kind of struggle

And you just hope, for the sake of all the sacrifices these people are making in the name of having kids, that it's worth it in the end.

The good ship Sea Wolf

You hope that they don't wind up standing in the kitchen at the end of their life, lamenting that they shouldn't have sacrificed so much 'for the children', which is what my grandfather confided in me just months before he died, that he was disappointed at the relationship he had had with his children once they became adults.

I tell ya, the site gets you up close to what it's really like to be living in this recession, with real people out there, not only enslaved to jobs - if fortunate enough to have a job - but even enslaved to the simplest of things, like the price of petrol, which is so high now that a lot of these people can no longer use their vehicles unless it's absolutely necessary, like for work, or shopping.

Awww. Vader.

And so many of these people talk about claiming benefits and how in a lot of cases the cost of childminders and two cars for couple who both work, becomes far more expensive than having one parent stay at home, claiming benefits, albeit the quality of life is pretty grim, with no extra money at the end of the month for 'new clothes' and 'play' trips for the kids. In many cases, because many of these women come across as good people, I feel like offering them free berths (my kind of berth) and free use of my flats, just to help them out.

Two pleasures in my life

As a person with average intelligence and no skill whatsoever to ever have made enough big bucks to pay for a childminder and all the rest of it, I thank my lucky orbs all over again that, where I am in my life right now, and where it's always been, and where it's heading, has been more often than not a joy, so easy, so interesting, so exciting, and with more of these moments to come, and after reading so many sad stories on 'that site', I have come to the conclusion that my worst misery is their best day.

I'm not being a smug glib git here, I am merely doing a spot of Margaret Meading, because I am interested in how people live their lives-  from the lives of folks in the Motherland, to the lives led by those in other cultures, because if I just concentrate on my own world, which seems to be uniquely free of struggle, despite being of average everything - the roots, the education, the *cough* 'career' - then my life would be too one dimensional and it would be impossible to appreciate just how easy my life is, compared to 99% of the women who are posting 'over there'.

Uh. Makes me want to commit ritual suicide on their behalf.

I reckon my main regret is the fact that too much happened to me in one go - the retirement, the love, the boat - and that this left me unable to truly appreciate all those around me in Water World.

I was just too overcome all the time.
Oh cry me a koi pond.
Folks would ask me sailing - like the lovely people on Sea Wolf - and more often than not I'd turn them down because my head was so busy trying to figure too.much.out.

These are my regrets, these are the things that I often think about, and I feel disappointed in myself, verging on shame, and feel that I only gave half of who I was to all those wonderful people out there during the days of Retirement Dos..

I really did take a lot on and I'm still trying to figure it all out.
But this is life, isn't it, it's no different to all the women 'over there' struggling with bringing up kids, divorcing husbands, and having less than pleasant sex.

Believe me when I say that I cannot wait to be truly free come March, and this time around everything is going to be done in a way that doesn't short circuit my head.