Weddings and Babies - when will the hurting stop?

So its been years since I have eaten the skin off chicken and I had some yesterday. It smelled amazing when it was cooking, but I didn't rate it when I ate it. It was BBQ flavour. That has nothing at all to do with what I want to talk about, but thought that it was interesting that after years of eating skinless boneless chicken that I can no longer appreciate how delicious it is...

What I wanted to talk about today, was how you see yourself in others, especially if they are going through similar things to you, about the same time that you went through them in your life and how it blows my mind at just how similar we can all be.

Its Summer here in the UK and for a change it has been a corker. I am more tan now than I was the last time I came back from NZ. My body is drinking in the vitamin D and loving it. Of course it helps that there is no ozone hole here. I have vowed never to complain about the heat as there is never enough of it in this country and I stand by that. Even when its been 30 degrees at midnight and I am sweltering in my bed, I know that soon enough I will be shivering in my coat and dreaming of a Summer get away.

Summer brings the wedding season. Whilst I love a good wedding, in my last blog, I discussed my issues with weddings. Couples love weddings, if they are already married, they like to relive their wedding and get very cuddly and touchy feely. If they are not married, they recognise the love in the happy couple, reflected in their own, and get all cuddly and touchy feely. I can honestly say, that I have never been to a wedding with a partner, that has had that effect, which says more about the choice of partner than the wedding. Which is why going to a wedding as a single person is a nightmare fraught with emotions. The feeling of being excluded from all of the love, the expense – with no one to split the gift costs, travel costs or even accommodation costs, it can get really pricey, and then there is the fun of being sat at the singles table.

In my last blog I expressed my surprise at not feeling upset at the last wedding I went to. There are a few reasons for this, if I wanted to, I was allowed to bring a friend. I opted not to as I know how expensive weddings are to put on, and also I was happy enough to go on my own, as having met a number of the girls at the hens weekend, I was comfortable with them. I was also super excited for Nic & Gareth, I love them to bits. There was a bit of travel and excitement either side as well and well, I was just to busy to feel upset.

I am lucky that this year, I only had one wedding to attend. However, one of the boys, has not been so lucky. He was sighing the other day and when I pressed him a bit, he said that he was getting sick of attending weddings on his own and that he was also sick of seeing all of his friends getting married, having kids and generally moving on with their lives, when he did not even have a girlfriend. Wow, was he preaching to the choir. I resisted the urge to hand him a punnet of icecream and sit him down to watch The Notebook with me.

It was a surprise to me that men felt that way too. I guess I have always felt, that to a certain degree that man hold the balance of power when it comes to dating and romance. Having seen way to many chick flicks and read way to many books and been on the dating scene myself for sometime, I have certainly felt this way. I know that despite just about every person I know has tried to discourage me from feeling this way, and has encouraged me to ask men for their numbers, I am cautious. One of the biggest barriers to me doing this, is that when woman reach a certain age or stage in their lives, that men seem to think that they reek of desperation and that they are just after marriage and babies and are crazy enough to make them uncomfortable in their pursuit for it. I have listened to many a conversation in a pub where men retell their close escapes from these crazy woman. I have no desire to be the topic of this conversation. I have dignity and pride, and whilst I want marriage and babies, I am not desperate for it. I want it with the right person and the reality is that I have not met that person yet. I am happy with the life that I currently lead, I would just like someone to share it with and if that leads to marriage and babies in due course, than great.

So when I heard from this boy that he was feeling bereft of girl company, I was surprised. He is good looking, has a good job and in my mind, could ask out any one he wanted. And yet he was telling me how it was. I guess that the lesson there for me is that men are just as nuts as woman and that we all just need to ask for what we want a lot more. As a side note he has told me that I should be bolder and definitely ask more men out. Hmmm will bear that one in mind.

Whilst it may not be weddings for me at the moment, its freaking babies. Sorry lovely, snuggly, snuffly, squishy babies. Its no secret that I would love to be a Mum and when I am, that baby will be the apple of my eye. So its getting to me, that 99% of my friends are either with child, have a newborn or even one of them got really greedy and had twins. If I hear of one more couple having a baby I may just scream. Please do not get me wrong. I am very happy for those with the babies, they all are amazing parents, its just that I am so freaking jealous. Watching One born every minute and Offspring does not help.

Two people very close to me are currently pregnant. My sister is due on the 20^th of December. I am really struggling with not being there the way that I was for Sam. Sam and I have a close relationship today, due to the work that I put into building that when he was an itty bitty. He used to cry when I left, I would often not realise that he was at my parents and hear him crawling as fast as he could to come find where I was when he had heard my voice. The sad thing is that this baby will not know me that way and I am worried that I will never be as close to them.

The other person is my amazing friend Fe, who is due on my birthday. Which I am stoked about as its the day after her birthday. Fe and I may not speak very often, but when we do its awesome. Fe lives in Aussie, so she will be on the baby visiting tour that I will be undertaking next year. This tour will be at an undecided time, as currently my job is ending in March, so it could be March, or I could have a new job and need to put in some hard yards before I can take off for the 6 weeks that I will need to be home for.

Again the reality is that I have no one that I want a baby with right now, and it would be a major change from the student life that I currently lead, but a change that I would happily make. Apparently there has been a noticeable upsurge in woman in their 30's visiting fertility clinics and going it alone, with donor spunk to have babies. I can understand this. We are in an age where we are constantly reminded that we should live our lives and not have any regrets. The last thing that I want is to be 60, and thinking, I wish that I had a baby and a family. I really hope that it does not come to donor for me, but maybe this is just the reality for this generation. It will be interesting to see if this becomes a trend in the future and what impact this will have on society.

Anyway, that is probably enough of my wittering for this blog post. I have learned a lot about people this week and probably a bit about myself as well. And of course been so freaking busy, with my fab job, going to bootcamp and seeing my friends. Hopefully I can spend more time talking to you all, I was planning a quiet August after all. Its yet to pan out, but I am hopeful that it will soon. Ka Kite for now xx