I always believed that time flies when you’re having fun. I am not having fun. Lockdown is not fun, and yet time is flying.
I have one week left until half term and I’m exhausted. I’m really enjoying my new role and I like the new leadership at my school. Work is hard though. On the plus side, it’s keeping me busy and helping time to pass.
I’d had the mildest hope of travelling in February, 1-year after I had last saw him. I think I knew all along it wasn’t going to happen. When we discussed it some months ago – well let’s face it, when I accused him of not wanting me to go – he talked about the vaccines in both our countries and the hope that we would all be vaccinated in the UK by April. Easter is the perfect time: I have two weeks off,off therefore I can spend some time with Wildcard and with my children. There’s also enough time to quarantine and be tested ready to go back to work. So, after that discussion I booked flights for the beginning of the Easter holiday.
So you see, time flying wasn’t a bad thing. And then the new variant came. Lockdown 2 came, well, lockdown 2 for teachers. And I actually felt a bit of relief: some time to get myself together, focus on my job and myself. And, yeah, lockdown means I have more opportunities to talk with Wildcard each day. I was still hopeful. I accepted quickly that February was a no go. But April, April was the time. Flights booked, Vaccines promised and time.
Sure his country shut borders to the UK. There was still time though. Vaccination was going a-pace in the UK, plus we were in lockdown and the cases were starting to fall. There was still time.
On Thursday night, hope died. An email telling me my flights were cancelled. Worse, was when I opened the app to see that all flights to his country have been cancelled for the next 6 months.
I can’t describe the shock, the pain, the fear. I sobbed.
All hope was gone. In that moment, the future was gone. There’s no way he would wait all that time and surely he wouldn’t put his life on hold for another 6 months. Another 6-months of waiting. My heart broke. There’s nothing I can do about it.
Somehow I got through Friday in work. I actually think seeing the children and my colleagues helped a little; even the mask hid my swollen eyes a little.
The moment I saw him, when I got home from work and he called me, I cried again. I told him what had happened and he laughed because he was right, again. He laughed in disbelief that I would cry over it. Which made me cry even more because it felt like he didn’t care. I do him an injustice: he’s just more pragmatic, you’re coming summer” he said. His view is that it is life and there’s nothing we can do so there is no point getting upset.
Maybe he’s right – of course he is. But it doesn’t stop it from hurting. 6-months seems a long time now, a lot can happen and of course, in my mind, it’s all bad.
I know he loves me. He tells me he loves me, he shows me he loves me. If I dare to let myself believe it and experience it without fear then I know he loves me to my very soul.
But you want to know the truth? Finally, do you want to know entirely where all the fear comes from?
He wants a baby.
And you know what else? I want to give him one. I want a baby with him. I want us to have a baby together.
Here’s the thing: I love my children with all my heart and I wouldn’t change having them for anything. But I didn’t have them because I wanted a baby with their dad.
I want to have a baby with Wildcard.
In 2 months time, I turn 41. Time is running out – hell, it probably already has – but I still had hope. In a time where coronavirus didn’t exist I imagined 3 or 4 trips to his country in 2020. I pictured him meeting my children. And provided it all went well, I thought that maybe this year we would be married.
So whilst I recognised it would be difficult, there was a chance.
This, this is the root of my anxiety. The more time passes, the less likely that I can give him a baby. Whilst young, beautiful girls swarm around him, and family members try to set him up, I’m thousands of miles away, ageing.
Sometimes I guilt myself that I should do the right thing and let him go because it’s highly likely I can’t give him what he wants.
Just stop and think about that for a second.
Finally, I meet the man of my dreams. He is everything I want, I love everything about him. He makes me feel more alive than any other man has ever done and I want to share a wonderful life with him. And I want to give him a baby.
But despite that, despite all that love and attraction we both feel …I should let him go.
He is not stupid and his job has something to do with reproduction in animals – he must know, I tell myself, he must know and he still wants me. Maybe he is just hoping as I do.
Truly, I believe if our relationship ends it will because of this, if not directly then indirectly, because of my fear and my jealousy.
So there you have it: the truth.
Starting from the Middle 