I have Sienna home from school with chicken pox. The kids have an uncanny knack of getting sick in the week that uni starts back up! This is the third time (out of three years!) I've had at least one home for an extended time in the first week of uni and I think I've also had them home at the start of second semester before. Sigh. Such is the life of mums everywhere. It got me thinking (again) about how grateful I am, not even so much to be with Michael but just to be away from my old life. When I was 18 the thought of going away to uni FREAKED ME OUT. (For those who read my post a couple of days ago detailing the importance of dealing with trauma when it's happening, you will understand my fear.) I met my ex-husband when I was doing year 12 (at tafe) and initially was still talking about my plans for the following year. It had always been assumed that I would go off to uni right after school, for as long as I remember. When the time came to apply for uni though I panicked. Using the excuse that I didn't know what I wanted to do and didn't see the point in spending four years and thousands of my father's money to go to uni just for the sake of it, I got engaged at the age of 18 to someone I'd known for six months and told myself and everyone else that I'd go to uni when I knew what I REALLY WANTED to do. Quite besides my fear of public places and strangers paying any attention to me, I wanted a family more than anything. I wanted someone to always be with me and I wanted children. Even at that age, boyfriends were always potential husbands to me and I was someone who simply had to be a mother. When other girls at school were talking about never having children, or only having them "after doing absolutely everything I want to do first" (?!!!) I was saying I wanted four children and that I wanted the first at 23. Summing up - got married at 19, had a baby at 24 (who was born four years almost to the day after we started trying to get pregnant) and another baby at 25. When my daughter was about 18 months old (and I was realising that another baby wasn't going to happen) it started to occur to me that they would be at school in a few short years and I had nothing to go back to. I started to realise that I really should have done some tertiary study. At least a tafe course if not a uni degree. (It was another year or two before I started to realise that this was the very reason my mother had made me promise her that I would go to university - I always just thought it was because she thought I was so smart and should do something with it.) While I was just talking about studying when Sienna was a little older, I had their father's full support. As I said, I had always talked about studying "one day" - and he had always encouraged me. HOWEVER... when it went from me talking about uni to me coming home with uni forms to fill out he went from encouraging me to saying "well, if you can find a way to make it work with the kids, go for it". It all seemed too hard so I enrolled in a tafe course (that I really had to twist around in my mind to find any interest in). Three months after the course started he asked me to drop out. For the rest of the year. We could then send Sienna to school the following year. And if she really wasn't ready for school she could just repeat. All to avoid paying child care. I was pretty miserable in the marriage by that time and it was only a few weeks later that I left. In counselling when the subject of his lack of support came up he said that no, he didn't support me going out and studying, that he did just want me at home all the time for him and the kids. I left for uni eight months later. And you know what? I'm so proud my kids are seeing me work for something I want. They are the thing that pulls me up short of regretting that decision I made as a scared 18 year old; if I hadn't done it I wouldn't have had them. I've for quite a few years thought that if I'd gone to uni at 18 I would have met someone there and still married quite young and had kids - it was what I wanted more than anything. I still would have wanted to stay home with them. I've often thought that I would have had the same life with different faces. But I like the faces I've got.
I was unbelievably happy when I moved to start uni. I didn't actually need to move. My course that first year ended up being external so I could have stayed where I was. But I felt like I was just treading water there, waiting for my big move. My mind was made up so I did it. For the previous eight months I had revelled in all the things I had to do for myself. I had moved out of home the day after my 19th birthday and it was just under four months before the wedding. I'd never really lived independently. I loved mowing my own lawn! Buying a car was a thrill. But nothing compared to moving to a new town, finding a place to live and signing a lease all on my own. I was loving my independence and felt so content I wasn't sure if I wanted a man coming into our lives. I kind of liked the idea of meeting someone and I was ready for something fantastic. But each time I met someone (well, both times not each time) I'd question how much I wanted a relationship. Until I met Michael. As soon as I knew him I wanted it all. And I wanted it with him. I wanted the partnership, companionship and commitment of a long-term relationship. He blew me away! And yet we had our feet so firmly planted in reality. We took our time getting to know each other and it was two months before we said we were together and he met the kids. He had work, I had two children. Our relationship was built around domesticity and outside commitments. The things that relationships often don't survive. And still there was and is so much love and passion for each other. I feel like this is the life I was always meant to have. (Even down to the thought that if I'd gone to uni at 18 it would have been to the same one Michael was at and we had so many common interests we would have met back then.) Pretty much as soon as I ended my marriage I felt that my 20s had been all about bringing Rory and Sienna into the world, that they had been the entire reason for my marriage. Now I feel like this is the way it was always supposed to be.

God, we were excited to be having a baby together. Kat was (obviously) my third child, but Michael's first. He had always wanted children and, just like me, had even been picking out favourite names since primary school. His ex announced on the first night of their honeymoon that they were never having children. When he and I met he had accepted that, although it was still something he would absolutely love to do, he would never have a child. He never wanted me to feel that I had to have a baby "for him" and continually told me, up until I was actually pregnant, that I was more important to him than whether or not I had a baby.
In the midst of grief, I can still appreciate all the things that make my life wonderful. Our lives are moving on, as we knew they would. Only now, there is an enormous pain that was never there before. We will always miss you Kat.