My entire life has been spent as a pessimist. In everything I’ve done or said, in every competition or option, in every element where hope was a possibility, I erred to the negative. Not because I prefer being a grouch but because damage limitation was easier for me if I didn’t have very far to fall. Aim high, expect low, and then when the inevitable failure happened it didn’t hurt as badly.
Cynical and depressing, but it made for a few joyous successes.
I don’t expect to get a job working for the massive, overseas international company…and then I do and my entire life changes. I don’t expect to have that boy fall in love with me in return…and then he does, and my entire life changes. I don’t expect my last round of IVF to work…and then it does and my entire life changes.
And the knockbacks, they happen. They happen regularly as not every failure and victory is on a large scale. But when they happen they hurt less because I was prepared for them.
This is the struggle I face now. While I live the life of the glass half empty there are two little people who are half full types. That’s what children are, or what children should be. The world should be a hopeful positive where princesses find a prince, fairies are revived by clapping your hands, and there is a simple way to work out how to fly, if they just keep trying. And that positivity is beautiful.
And therein lies the struggle. Two little people who are bright spots of vibrant color are contained in my little bubble of grey. They light it up magically and turn my grey to pastel. They fill me with hope. But there is a mantle of protection that I have to have about them, around them. The world may be a place where fairies fly and where rainbows really do have an ending nearby, but there are secret horrors in the world, too. Bad nasty things that, while I don’t spend every waking moment debating their darkness, I am constantly aware they’re on the periphery and they ignite in me a response of fury that I didn’t know was possible.
Add to it that there’s something about this year. This year, 2012. It’s a very big year. So much is happening in 2012, it feels like an achievement, a pinnacle, a starting gate. I don’t understand why, but it feels like I’m strapped to a fast moving freight train, approaching the gates at speed.
This year the work their father has done for the past two years comes to life – the Olympics are on. I am so hopeful that it goes according to plan and is everything that has worked for them to be. My own programme delivers major milestones this year, the biggest programme I have worked on to date and with a team I have grown to know like the back of my hand.
The nation will celebrate a long weekend in June as the Queen celebrates 60 years of reigning, and we not only have a four-day weekend off of work but street and neighbourhood parties are everywhere. My father reaches retirement age. Alastair turns 50. I stare down the final days of my 30’s. The twins turn 5.
And they start school.
It’s nearly March, and here we are hurtling through the year. I’m not upset about them starting school, in fact it’s the opposite – I’m breathtakingly happy. I’m beside myself. I’m delighted for one simple reason – this is it. This is what I’ve dreamt of. A tiny village school for them, one with the most amazing Reception (1st grade) classroom I’ve ever seen. There will be football and school plays, there will be fayres and homework, there will be a Christmas bazaar and there will be pencil cases and rucksacks. My little babies are growing into little people and I am exhilarated by the ride.
Their future has started to arrive and my pessimism is kicking in. How do I protect them? How do I protect it? How can I reach my arms out and contain all the members of my family, keeping them safe? Is there any need, even? I panic over these things and yet there’s no indication I should. It just changes so fast – jobs can be lost and we can go from gainfully employed to seriously not. Or my love of dystopian fiction could come true, and we battle mutants over the last half-gnawed chicken leg. Or when there’s bouncing in the bouncy castle, and it goes from hysterical laughter to tears.
I sit here and think – my nature is to predict what can go wrong. And it’s what I’m doing now, worrying about what can and will go wrong. Something could go wrong or everything could go wrong. I guess the answer is that it will be something between the two.
-S.
* And yes, they are laughing in the featured photo.
So very true. Sees to me in regards to the ” little people” in your life your priorities and concerns are right on.
You know I’m the same babe. I reek negativity at times, and I try very, very hard to keep it in check. Veronica tends to be a bit more negative like me, but Scott often sees things with a silver lining. I love watching them mature into independent people, even if it the way the world is heading scares the shit out of me. Truth is, when they are down about something, its much easier to put things into perspective for them than when its actually happening to me. As much as they have their own feelings, reactions, and expectations, they honestly do seem to listen to what their dad and I are saying to them. Especially Veronica, who at 13 is able to grasp what we are saying on a more mature level-I can see that she gets what we are saying even if she doesn’t want to admit it.
Whatever growing pains you-as-blogger had a while back? Gone. You’re writing so beautifully these days, just like always, but with a real presence and, I don’t know – just some high quality shit, man. I guess the growing pains happen, trudge up the hill to survey the spring landscape.
(iou-sorry-crap month)
My youngest is starting in September too, also at a lovely village school, everything we could have hoped for and much more. He’s my youngest. This is it. I also feel the 2012 freight train in so many ways too.
Tempus Fugid indeed. (not sure on my Latin spelling, it’s been awhile).
I felt all these feelings and more the year Maxi started school and you know what 3 years in, I still feel it everyday!
The truth is that you can’t protect them from everything. You can PREPARE them as best you can – and unfortunately that’s pretty much it. So you’ll do your best and when they are sad or disappointed or heart broken, you will be there with big wide open arms to gather them in and love and hug them back to okayness.
And yes, it will break your heart – that’s the awful truth. In the meantime, keep on enjoying every minute and loving the hell out of your life!
Mama pants is right.
Practice expectancy of good things, and you will draw them to you. What you dwell upon has a good chance of happening, so dwell on good things, while being aware of other possibilities.
Prepare for the worst, but revel in the light those two little ones (and all the good things going on in your lives) bring to you. You’re not going to be able to stop yourself from worrying – if you could, you would have done so long ago. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the experience of some fresh perspectives on the world that you distrust. And congratulations on the wonderful things going on for you all this year!
My mom struggled with the same things – and there was never a bit of joy or risk or excitement that she didn’t try to dampen so that I wouldn’t have as far to fall. I understood why she did it, but just once, I really wished she could have shared the wild fun/excitement/anticipation that I felt about something without the haunted look she always had on her face when I felt that way.
On the other hand, she is and was a great mom and I can only hope to do half as well by my kid… without being Debbie Downer.
First and foremost, repeat after me: the lack of fear of reeducation camps will almost certainly affect the opening ceremonies. It’s a truth we will all have to endure. On the bright side, if any small thing does go wrong, it’s highly unlikely that Alastair will be disappeared under cover of darkness. So, good and bad with this whole not-being-a-communist-dictatorship thing.
I’m a pessimist, too. Shocker. I worry for the future, I imagine all the terrible things that can happen and obsess over them. Bad things will happen, undoubtedly, but the best words of support and encouragement I think I can offer is that as far as your kids go, they’ll have to deal with a lot of the same obstacles as everyone else, but the fact that they have a support system and parents with brains and morals and from whom they seem to have inherited some fine qualities will give them a leg up. And maybe keep things from hurting quite as much as they otherwise might.
If that doesn’t help…well, at least they won’t grow forced to be youth acrobats in China.