Ari You Gonna Be My Girl?

In a few days my friend Ari is coming all the way from Argentina to holiday in Scotland (and see me). She’ll be staying with my partner and I for lots of the trip and we will even go away on a little mini holiday of our own in the middle. This will be the first time we’ve ‘met’ face to face after talking on the internet for maybe 3 or 4 years.

We chat EVERYDAY.

That’s rare in this day and age (and certainly for me) probably because I don’t feel that interesting or engaging most of the time. Yet this friendship is easy, fun and loving. It puts me at ease and there are no judgements on either side. She just makes me laugh and feel precious and our bond feels effortless. I can’t wait to meet my darling Ari in real life (and prove to everyone she isn’t a 45 year old man from Croydon).

Although I feel I know Ari very well and am not in any way nervous about meeting her, I’ve been thinking about how bold a move it is for her to fly halfway across the world for the sake of a friendship (and vegetarian haggis obvs). Friendships often get harder to make as we age so that’s one of many reasons why this one is so important to me. It came into my life at just the right time and now feels like it (she) has always been there.

I’m in my 30’s now.

So as these things do, many of my childhood and teenage friendships have dissipated over time; wrapped themselves up in quite a neat and healthy bow. Without meaning to sound harsh, some friendships just serve a purpose at a certain time and struggle to survive beyond their particular environment. 

Work relationships for example: once a close colleague leaves, or you move on it can be a tricky tightrope to walk in terms of whether or not you should maintain what may essentially have been kinship over a water-cooler and not much more. Thank-fully I’ve made a few AMAZING friends through work in my own life and I can’t see those relationships ever fading. I think the feeling is mutual on both sides and that’s comforting (and pressure free).

As most people with chronic illness will understand, maintaining relationships can be hard, and often disappointing. When people we love prove themselves to be flaky or uninterested in what is essentially a massive part of our lives it can be a bitter pill to swallow. And we already have enough of them to ingest.

Friends who love us will make an attempt to understand what we are going through, they will check in with us regularly and make us laugh, or simply give us a shoulder to cry on when we need it. With us returning the favour of course. Friendships when you are sick should still be a two-way street; we don’t become patients rather than people, but they may just need some adaption.

When anything changes in life we try our best to accept, adapt and move on, and the same goes for pals. We become adaptable. Adaptipals if you will. You won’t? No problem, I still love you, pals. xo

A Little Bump and Kind

I don’t have daughters. I don’t have children at all for that matter. I have a huge dog, a cat and am soon to have another little kitten brought into our fur-filled household. All of this aside, I do have friends with beautiful babies who are blossoming into incredible little people before my eyes. I don’t doubt that perhaps one day I’ll desire a family of my own; I’m in a committed long term relationship and it’s the ‘done thing’ after all; but for now I’m happy as I am. We’re happy as we are. If that changes, then so be it, but for now; my womb my business.

It is odd the interest in your reproductive organs that grows as we age. I haven’t been ‘blessed’ with a child. I haven’t ‘realised’ it’s what I want yet. I’ll ‘never know until I do it’. It’s common to be left feeling patronised and like a borderline oddity when everyone around you seems to understand what you want and need better than you do.

Childless women are just that for a myriad of different reasons. Some of us are not in secure relationships, some of us are unable to conceive, some of our partners have issues with fertility, and some of us simply don’t want to have a child. I know that is an alien concept to so, so many women. I know that from 99% of the conversations I have with mothers. Thank-fully, my own close friends who have families are much more accepting of what I choose to do with my vagina, and that’s great. They understand that children are not for everyone and that many of us can still (incredibly) lead happy and fulfilled lives without disrupting our sleep patterns and tearing our genitals to shreds.

That said I do feel a strange kinship with my friends who have children. Although it’s not necessarily something I want for my own future, the love I feel for their spawn often takes me by surprise. It helps me understand the unconditional nature of a mothers love in a small way.

I feel the same pull from the young women who message me about their illness. Some to talk about a diagnosis or some just to let me know they appreciate having someone else speak up about IBD/mental health. I feel a responsibility to the girls and young women who follow my blog to be respectful of their choices. Their fears are universal and have been felt by all of us to some degree. I don’t have a ‘fear’ of starting a family I should clarify; I just don’t want to. That doesn’t mean I don’t deserve the same respect as a mother receives. My choices shouldn’t be dismissed or belittled for not conforming to some sort of perceived ideal, and this serves to remind me how important it is that we, as adult women; aunts, friends, mothers; listen and respect the choices of our ‘daughters’.

When we talk to one another we should try harder to listen, truly listen, to what is said (and often what is unsaid) before judging. We all do it, I’m not claiming to be as pure as the driven snow here, but I do think it’s now more important than ever we help young women to grow accepting of themselves and one another. Life is hard and growing up even harder, throw into the mix the possibility of a chronic/mental illness and it can be difficult to see past the next few hours within the day let alone make choices that will affect the rest of our lives. 

So my ‘motherly’ advice (from a certified non-mother) is to simply be kind to your kind.

Today is National Kindness Day (apparently), so what better day to start! xo