Just cut me some fucking slack. C’mon, I mean really! I know that we all make some shit decisions. I know that the world owes us absolutely nothing and I know that being a functioning human does not mean we deserve the love of another. But honestly universe! Come the fuck on. Take your cruel jokes and keep them, for this big-panted, frilly-knicker wearing woman is checking out of the game.
You are all aware of the ‘no-man’ plan. The plan where I get to have a baby and a house and holidays even though the sperm is clearly a missing ingredient in my life. I get to sell my liver (or a kidney – after all there are two of those) and buy sperm and start the life I’ve wanted in 2017. It’s a goal. Christ, it’s a SMART goal. It’s specific, measurable, action orientated, realistic (only in this time – my Nan would disagree if she were here) and timely. There are steps to take, things to do and people to pay and I can have all of those things I’ve listed above. But here’s the kicker… It was a ‘back-up plan.’
I know J-Lo had one of those and her life worked out peachy. She got inseminated and two days later met a man who, in the end, took her and her babies and she did it all wearing fucking amazing shoes. What a winner! I am not J-Lo. I won’t do any of that wearing fucking amazing shoes, I’ll do it wearing Skechers and Birkenstocks and denim shorts. It will not be glamorous and I sure as shit won’t be able to do my hair with golden highlights or be able to keep up the squats to get an arse like that one, but nevertheless, a back up plan it is.
When the ‘no-man’ plan was formulated there was a distinct lack of appropriate donors on the horizon. (Well, that’s not true, if it was just a donor I was after I probably could have found one of those at the pub, right mum? #winkyface) But I wanted a donor with some semblance of affection for me. One with a functioning heart and sperm. I didn’t think it was a big ask and I was willing to accept all kinds of other deformities and impairments, but that was the bare minimum and if one of those was still not available then the plan could be implemented and life would go on. That was an action plan.
So what did I do for plan A? What did I do to give myself the best chance of a double donor? I went out, I made friends out of my primary circle (they’re great by the way – I’ve kept them), I went speed dating, I joined online dating sites, I shopped in different grocery stores, I tried new hobbies (remember life drawing?), did a night time short course, volunteered for a charity, changed job locations, snuck into hospital staff lunch rooms but most of all, I spoke to people I never would have spoken to before. I spoke to strangers on buses, in toilet lines, in any queue I could and at work. I even met a couple I liked. A couple I made my friends and I met one that I thought could be a possible double donor.
For the last nine months I’ve waited for the Possible Double Donor (PDD) to respond appropriately. Some days he would. Others, he didn’t but it’s safe to say that PDD was not overwhelmingly declarative with his feelings. Over the last nine months I’ve made excuses, justified his responses and clung to the small declarations of affection in the hope that he would man up. He hasn’t. And this morning I woke up and realised in a lightbulb epiphany, that this whole time he has never promised me anything. Never has he ever said how he feels, what he wants or promised to give me anything, and yet I have given him everything.
What the fuck? That was my wakening thought as I sat up in bed this morning. I have been emotionally manipulated (whether its intentional or unintentional is freaking irrelevant – he may not even know he does it but the outcome is the same). He gets to feel valued and supported and for fuck sake, let’s say it, loved and what do I get? Fleeting moments of delirious happiness followed by prolonged hours and days of self doubt, longing, loneliness and endless nervous wees that disrupt my daily schedules.
So I wake this morning angry. Then sad. Then resentful. Then back to sad and short tempered. Then angry. But not at him – at myself. I let the sliver’s of hope outshine the way I felt all of the other time. This time round I did things differently. I was honest, upfront and brave with my feelings. I said what I wanted and when those feelings were ignored, I kept looking for the glimmer of glitter when I should have drawn a line in the sand (probably should have been a moat) and a castle built for one.
So here I am. Again. Back to the back-up plan hoping that J’Lo’s shoe collection will magically appear in my wardrobe when the double pram does and back to saving for sperm. (I never stopped by the way, but I did imagine how many shoes or plane trips I could buy if I got to use those dollars for something else.) The only thing left to do is talk to the universe. Send it out there with truth and honesty and hope to God she hears me.
Dear Universe,
I ask you one more time, whatever it is that I did in a past life to piss you off, I apologise. I am sorry. Again and again I am sorry. I know I am slow learner and I know that the men I have previously considered have not been appropriate PDDs but it’s time to cut me some slack. Shit has been tough in the last year or so and I need some reprieve. If that means that you send me no men, then I can handle that, just cut me some fucking slack.
Yours forever and ever,
Me.
PS: Send wine.
life in big frilly knickers 