Well fuck me. Here I am at 49 still wondering wtf has happened, wtf is going on and wtf will happen next. A crystal ball would struggle to pluck a single prediction from the permutations and combinations that present on the daily. It’d have better odds hitting powerball in a single game or getting the Melbourne weather report spot on.
It’s been quite the interesting roller-coaster these last few years, which I may add have been fleeting at best. We have finally moved in to our brand new home, I have become one with the full-time, mortgage-bound rat-race, scrambling for every cent and cursing rate rises, and I have evolved, nay stumbled in, to become the unwilling parent of a teenage girl and tweenage boy. Not for the faint hearted I can attest. If you are reading this and contemplating having children – DM me for a dose of verbal contraception.
It’s hard to put the situation in to coherent words, so, as all the cool kids do, I just chatGPT’d my situation and it unceremoniously spat out “maelstrom” in what I can only assume was a derisive Ai tone. Bitch.
So yeah, pretty intense time in life tbh. But there is one more thing, thankfully a huge positive, to add to the mix.
I have a girlfriend! ?
Slay! ?✋???? (I’m so cool I even know what that means)
Yes my furry friends, not all has been lost to the doom and gloom that is solo parenting the oft-spawn-of-satan in this fucked up economy and climatically erratic world. There has been one brightly shining star of pure delight that has kept the darker thoughts at bay, brings a constant smile to my heart and has begun filling the fractured corners of my soul with hope.
And her name is Kate ❤️
Our story is for real just a little bit cute too; we dated back in Yr 11, reconnected nearly 35 years later and literally picked up where we left off. Naaaww! ? (movie script anyone? ?)
I haven’t immortalised it in words until now. It’s kinda scary tbh so please be kind. At first I was guilty and felt I was cheating. Then I was worried about what everyone else would think. Then I was worried about family opinion. The I was worried about being a heavy sad-sack of baggage. Then I was worried about the kids. Then I was.. Well you get it. It’s not a walk in the emotional park and, if I’m to be honest, I think that’s a good thing. I don’t ever want to be a person that doesn’t consider others in my decisions or forgets my past.
The term “Chapter 2” and “re-partnered” get bandied about in the widow community, but I’m not a fan of the labels. To me they denote a “moving on”, a turning of, and away from, the page as it were. I like to think of life as an evolution. Of being somewhere I am meant to be now. Not because something else ended, but because without that experience, that part of my life, this one wouldn’t be occurring in its current form. Sliding doors if you will for all you 90s tragics. ?
So yes, wonders have officially ceased and I am one truly lucky bloke. I will introduce you all one day, in fact as a solo mum with 4 kids of her own 2000km away from me, maybe I can talk her in to double teaming with me on Friday night lives as Just A Mum ?
Kate? ? ?
✌️