There is something deeply disturbing and yet true in the opening lines of my favourite Waste Land. I have just realised that each and every spring it happens: anxiety, doubt, uneasiness, you name it. Identity crisis.
Here we are again, in lovely spring, with sunshine and trees in bloom. It is warm outside, time to take off the coats and boots, time to do one's roots and dig out sunglasses. Time for joy it should be as well, but somehow... it isn't.
I have realised that last year it was the same by looking at this blog - I started writing again in may. I write when I can't stand it any more and have to pour it out on paper. April.
It's my birthday next week. Is that the reason?
I've been having all sorts of thoughts and ideas recently that I don't really know what to do with.
For some time I've been seriously considering having another baby. It would be nice, I thought - trying again, being pregnant again, its a lovely time to be pregnant. Everybody is nice to you and takes care about your comfort and well-being. You can take time off work and still get your full salary. And a baby is nice and lovely and sweet and makes you feel young again. Moreover, it would be nice to finish off with a positive experience of a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. And so on.
I have a new friend this year. She's a philosophy graduate, a teacher, a singer, an artist. She's significantly younger than I am and yet we seem to be getting on really well. She's been inviting me to some nice events: parties, concerts, rehearsals. I feel great with her and her friends. I feel great in a club full of peole and cigarette smoke, listening to alternative music. I enjoy discussing life, universe and all the rest to till the small hours. And yet whenever I do those things, I feel like a fraud, like I had no right to be there, being married with children and 32.
Also, obviously, there's this guy. He's a poet and a singer and he's not even significantly younger, though younger he is. I really appreciate his writing, which means I should fall in love with him, as I always do in such situations. I haven't - yet. But it's Spring and everybody is falling in love and I really miss the feeling, the joy, the thrill... To fall unhappily, neurotically and romantically in love - that would be it.
There are some issues with Husband as wel, not connected with the guy in question, but old issues which were unresolved years back and now are surfacing again. It does not help the overall atmosphere.
The thing is I do not feel defined. Maybe hence the idea about the baby. If I had an infant again that would define me as a Mother, once and for all. No more working, no more concert going, no more philosophical discussions - just nursing, diapers and colic. Nice and safe.
But the truth is, I don't want another child. I barely manage the ones I have and mostly feel like a pedagogical failure. And I enjoy my newly acquired freedom of going out when the boys are already asleep and so on. Soon they'll be going for holidays alone and we'll have time off in the summer as well.
But then again - who am I? Where do I belong? Am I stil young and wild at times, is it ok for me to go to those concerts and flirt shamelessly with the above mentioned poet and all that? Or should I focus on bringing up my children in the right way, making them good and responsible people, and personally becoming a respectable matron frequenting parent meetings at school? Should I let myself become infatuated with this guy and maybe even enjoy his... what? Reciprocity? Or would it be wrong towards Husband? Not to mention the guy in question, considering that infatuation and flirt is all I can offer? Wouldn't it be time to finally grow up and mature and quit having identity crisis every sodding spring?
Uh, I don't like the note, it dod not come out as I wanted to, maybe because I am writing it in conditions far from perfect, in the teachers' lounge at my school. But I had to put it all down for further consideration. So, any advice, gentle reader?

November is the month of remembering, it seems. Recently I got to thinking about my ex-boyfriend and the relationship I had wih him. I think in one of the first notes in this blog I mentioned that before Husband I was in two serious relationships. The first one lasted for three years, between ages 14 and 17, so despite the fact that it was pretty long, cannot be considered serious. The second, though slightly shorter, happened in the formative years 17-19 and was very, very intense and serious and I was pretty much convinced THAT WAS IT. I was proven wrong by meeting Husband, whom I fell head over hills in love with... OK, maybe I should simply tell the story.
I met him through a mutual friend and he caught my fancy. He lived in a town near mine, but we did not meet very often. Instead, we started writing letters to each other, and those who know me know that there is no better way to my heart than through written word. The letters got increasingly flirtatious and each one of them ended with lyrics of a song. One thing led to another and eventually we were officially going out togther.
He was a great guy. Very sharp, mathematical mind, which I used to find really appealing, since that was the area of knowledge I was never good at. He was a mathematical genious (at least in my eyes). His hobby was playing bridge, which he was also very good at (and got even better later on, when I left). He could also play the guitar, which suited me, because I could sing, so we fitted together very well. He was also quite attractive physically - lean and tall, much taller than me, and for the first time in my life I was able to wear high heels. I was very much in love with him, I adored his family and his friends were my friends too.
That's how it was in the beginning, and then we started having problems, quarelling, I started noticing other guys, sometimes noticing them too much... But still we were together. And then I met Husband and that was it.
I haven't spoken to my ex-boyfriend for years after the breakup. Finally, almost two years ago we did have a conversation. It was long and painful, he basically accused me of beeing a lying bitch and destroying his life, his belief in humanity and love and making him a cynic. On the one hand, I do not blame him. On the other...
I fell in love. For a very long time I was convinced that love was something that just happens to you and nothing can be done about it. With Husband, I really did try to fight it. When we started talking and I learned about his mind, which is so incredible, I tried to resist. I was in a relationship and it was one of the good times, we didn't have any major fallouts and everything was going smoothly. Husband told me about this female friend whom he had this intense and completly platonic relationship with, and we decided it will be the same with us. For some time I really believed it could be so - I even introduced Husband to my boyfriend, believing they can become friends too... It lasted for a week, at the end of which I broke up with the boyfriend feeling that what I have for Husband is much more that just friendship. I was not sure if the feeling was reciprocated, but I could not go on deceiving the boyfriend and myself. Two days later, at a party at Husband's place, at four in the morning, my best friend went to th kitchen to get a cup of tea and left me and Husband alone in a room. We had plenty of time to explain things to each other and an hour and a half later I was oficially Wife. I started calling myself by his surname in the first week of our being together. Since then we've been living happily (ever) after.
At the same time there was always a thought at the back of my head: if it happened to me once (or, actually, more than once, because before Husband I had a number of minor infatuations while in the relationship with Boyfriend, and I was never quite as strong as Oliveira was), it might happen again. What if, I thought, I fall in love with somebody again? Worse still, what if Husband does?
As it happens, in three days we will have the twelveth anniversary of that all-explaining night and nothing like that ever happened. Why? Here comes Husband's theory: Contrary to what i believe, love is not something that happens to us unexpectedly and for no reason. If one is in a saisfying, fulfilling relationship, one is fully resistant to the charms of others. If, however, one is not resistant to them, it is a sure sign that something is not entirely well with the relationship.
For a long time I refused to believe it. I much preferred my romantic vision of being love-struck, although it made me uneasy and worried about the future. But the more I think about it, the more I am convinced it must be true. Maybe Boyfriend and I were not ment for each other. His talents, though appealing to me, were too far detached for my reality - I never learned to play bridge or chess and could never fully understand what he did and why he did it. We read different books, we chose different studies. When I talked to him ten years later it turned out that our views are completly different - it seemed to me that he was quite conservative. I do not remember if it was like that back then, but maybe I felt it somehow? They say that opposites attract - but maybe only up to a point? Husband and I have opposite characters, which is great, because we complement each other. But as far as views, intrests, hobbies are concerned - we more or less share them,and even if we don't they are not that distant from each other. True, Husband likes historical books, which bore me to death, but I can relate to what he tells me about them. With Boyfriend, it was as if he was speaking Chinese.
Well, after the one conversation Boyfriend does not contact me any more, which I understand.  I am convinced it is good we broke up, painful as it was. I am wondering whether we should not have done it sooner, having seen enough signs that things were not working out as they should. Maybe such situations should not be underestimated. We didn't, though. I did not have the courage, and neither did he, it seems. But I know now he is all right.

On December 1st I will have been with Husband for 12 years. And I am  very, very much in love with him.

Go figure.

My friend Oliveira has traditionally teased me into writing a note, so here I am. The note will not be long, though, nor interesting. Just felt the need to explain my absence to the few readers I might have.
It's the long weekend here in Poland, sadly it's the last day of it. On Saturday Husband and I were helping my best friend and her recently wedded husband to move house. It was fun: carrying heavy boxes to the elevator, then to the other house, finally to the fourth floor with no elevator (they are living in the Old Town for some time now). We did that, we placed the furniture where she wanted it to be, and finally had dinner in a lovely bistro downstairs. A perfect evening.
Sunday was spent by me mostly by working, while Husband and the kids enjoyed the lovely weather in the garden. In the evening we had a visit from the old friend (the one I wrote about once, the one I used to fancy myself in love with), and we passed some time sipping wine, discussing politics and remembering good old times.
Yesterday I went to the gym, had a nap and did some more work. In the evening we were supposed to go see "Burn after reading", but both couples of friends cancelled on us, so laziness took over and we stayed home. Spent the evening - guess what? - sipping hot wine and playing Trivial Pursuit with my parents and my brother. My brother made the best trout you've ever tasted! And we round up our evening with... well, let me not get into details. It was lovely.
Today Husband took the boys to Warsaw to visit our friends. The weather was lovely and they had a long walk in the park. I stayed in front of the computer and did some more work, so things are starting to look good now and I stopped worrying I will never manage to finish on time. They are coming back any minute and I am looking forward to another evening of lazy wine-sipping...
There it is, that's the reason I don't write. No, I do not mean to say I have become an alcoholic. The thing is, I'm happy. The boys are great, Husband and me are great, the weather is great. Thanks to Oliveira's nudging and a terrible photo of myself Husband took on holidays I've lost 10 kilos, started going to the gym and both look and feel glamorous. I work at school full time this year, which is a bit of a strain, but the kids are great - intelligent, nice, easy to teach. I do not have much time for anything, but what little I have I try to use to the most. I am doing my best to be a better mom - sit with my oldest son when he practices his piano, talk to the middle one, hug the youngest more. Will you believe that I bake a cake every weekend now? Does not help in losing weight but is strangely satisfying. I try not to complain about stupid little things that go wrong, but concentrate on the big picture. Which is basically great. Which for you, Gentle Reader, must be dead boring...
OK, they are back, gotta go. Of course you may think, considering what I've written so far, that I am just trying to convince myself that I am happy, whereas in reality I am not. I tend to think so too, at times. Most of the time, though, I am too busy enjoying my life.
PS. I am not on Prozac, either.

"Was I sleeping, while the others suffered? Am I sleeping now? Tomorrow, when I wake, or think I do, what shall I say of today? That with Estragon my friend, at this place, until the fall of night, I waited for Godot? That Pozzo passed, with his carrier, and that he spoke to us? Probably. But in all that what truth will there be? (...) At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, he is sleeping, he knows nothing, let him sleep on."
S.Beckett "Waiting for Godot"

I had a lovely afternoon yesterday.I had a "date" with my friend, we found a nice eatery near the school where I teach, had plenty of coffee and conversation. We do not meet regularly or often, but as we share an interest in analysing personalities, life decisions and the like, we always spend hours talking about life, universe and all the rest. Which is lovely and strangely gratifying, despite the fact that usually after a meeting like that I come to a conclusion that my neurosis is incurable. On the other hand, my neurosis compared to his neurosis is truly nothing :)
Anyway - to the point. We were talking about life, relationships and why people want them, children and why people want them, choices and how people make them... And then I told him the story of my Husband. When I first met Husband, he gave me three large notebooks (pink, for the record) containing plenty of personal stuff - the deep analysis of life, love, relationships, all that. It was deeply moving, amazingly interesting, wonderfully neurotic and I immediatelly fell in love with the guy who wrote it. Unfortunatelly, as it later turned out, the guy who wrote it and the guy who gave it to me were not the same person any more. What happened was the following: when Husband was about 18, he was a typical teenager, full of doubt, questions, insecurities, you name it. So he wrote a diary, some poetry, fell desperatelly in love with a girl who couldn't care less and made her into a goddess in his mind - the usual. However, having done all that he seemed to have arrived at some constructive conclusions and became a mature man who knows what he wants, what is important in life, what he wants his life to be like; who is confident, uninhibited, mature... It took me quite some time to realise my mistake, and still more time to learn to love and appreciate the new guy in my life. I still haven't forgiven him the deception of the first week, though. He would have saved both of us a lot of trouble if he hadn't given me the notebooks...
Back to the point! I told the story to my friend yesterday and risked a conclusion that maybe this is adulthood. Maybe that's what adults do: they go through the period of rebellion, questions, doubt and all that during puberty, and emerge from that hell mature and confident with a clear plan for the rest of their lives? Maybe the fact that both my friend and I (and some other people of my acquaintance) spend hours on end talking about relationships or blogging about the meaning of life simply means we are immature, childish brats who should get themselves together, grow up and find some useful employment instead of "wasting our time on idle discourse"? As it turned out, that's also how my friend imagined other people to be. Adult people.
However, I cannot help but wonder: how many people like that do I actually know? Do you, gentle reader, know any?
No bloody clue.

There is so many things I want to put in this note that it will probably turn out to be a bloody mess, hence the title. If you hate stream-of-consciousness type of writing, please stop reading now. If you do not mind it, why not make yourself a cup of tea and enjoy the lines that follow.
A number of things happened recently which really made me want to write. The most important one was being told that the stuff i write gives an impression that I want to convince - the reader? myself?- that I am happy with my life of being married with children, whereas in fact I am far from it. I found this comment really interesting and have been meaning to answer that in vague "future", but then I received an e-mail from my friend who also commented on the blog, and today Oliveira wrote this, stealing some of my lines, so I cannot wait any longer and just got to jot down my thoughts. So there they are.

Happiness is a very, very tricky business, I think. People spend their whole lives waiting for it, fighting for it, searching for it, earning it and so on. Very few actually feel it. I do, at times. And some of those moments of acute happiness are connected with my life as it is. When we all sit around a table on a Saturday morning eating French toast with maple syrup and discussing everything, from Power Rangers' special powers to the situation in Tibet, and everybody is healthy, and the boys are not fighting, and Husband and I had great sex the previous night, that's happiness. When we are on a cycling trip and we have just cycled 11 km and are all exhausted and are having a picnic in the forest, and my oldest son is so proud of himself, and we are all so much together and it is sunny and warm and we're eating chocolate, that's happiness. When it is nine in the evening and Husband and I are sipping wine on the couch watching "ER", surrounded by the sound of calm breathing coming from the boys' rooms, that's happiness. This is something I am not trying to convince anyone about, it's perfect truth. I do savour those moments and acknowledge them and cherish them and all that.
However, there's a "but".
First of all, as I have already mentioned before, I do not feel that the choices I made were fully mine, that they were informed, conscious decisions. On the contrary, I seriously doubt it, which I explained at length in the "role model" note. And despite the fact that my friend who has known me for years and has recently started reading this blog claims that my marriage and motherhood were not influenced by anything other than great love, which is to a large extent true, I am not sure if I would not have lived my life in a different way had I not been preconditioned by literature, culture and other people's expectations. Hence my wonderings along the lines of glamorous singledom, academic career and the like.
I've met my male friend the other day for coffee and I was telling him about a conversation I had with my 19-year-old students. I asked the boys (only 4 guys showed up for the leeon that day) about their plans for the future and all of them claimed that they want to get married by age 25 and have children by 30. They also claimed they would much rather have a plain wife who loved them than a pretty doll who would only care about their money/social position/power. Narrating the whole situation to my friend (single at 31 and most probably going to stay that way) that I have no idea where the commitmentphobics and emotional fuckwits come from, if my 19-year-old students have such plans for life. i also commented on the fact that they still use expressions like "make love", which would not pass my lips nowadays - I would just say "have sex". Why am I writing all this? Because my friend accused me of being cynical. And the comment that made me write the note today also goes along those lines. Am I cynical? Maybe that's just it - I got married, had children and am unhappy now, so I do not believe anyone can be happy that way?
My married but childfree (an expression I have recently acquired and adore) friend wrote to me after having read my blog. She was the person that recommended me Sex and the City, although she admitted now that she was a bit worried that I might not like the series, as it is a "lacquered" story of four "dolls", very American and not serious. She was happy to learn that not only do I love the story, but also hate the grounds on which she expected me to criticise it - the argument of my way of life being more "real" or better than the life of the four heroines. She also raised a very serious subject connected with that - the subject of a woman being judged as not real, not fullfilled, not... anything, not until she gets married, but until she has children. Whatever her merrits might be, whatever her achievements, she will always be considered a freak, or pitied, or asked uncomfortable questions, unless she gives birth.
Why am I describing all this? Conclusions time. I do believe that young people are presented with an idealistic vision of married life, parenthood and relationships. At least I feel i was. As i wrote in one of my first notes, the ideas about marriage and motherhood I sported when i was making lifechanging decisions were highly ridiculous. Do I regret them? Not really, no, they are, to a large extent, the main source of happy moments in my life. Am I disillusioned? Maybe, though I would rather call myself wiser. I know that great love of the first year does not last forever, and I accept it and I know now that it is good. I know that children are not always happy, healthy and well-behaed, and I am resigned to it. And I do not deny that there are moments when I just want to run away from it all, and that sometimes I do. But I do not feel guilty about it any more.
According to social standards, I have it all. There are small flaws to my happiness, but all in all I have nothing to complain about. My problem is, however, I absolutely refuse to settle for that. I strongly believe there is much more to life than being married and having children. Those things are very important, that's true. maybe i would not be so eager to criticise relationships if i was not in one, maybe i would not complain about children if I was not a mother. What i am trying to say, though, is that: according to social standards I should be fulfilled and happy. And I am not, i never tried to pretend otherwise. I am not fulfilled, there is so much more i want from life than what I have. Sure I am proud of my kids, but I am also proud of the book I translated that got published or a paper I wrote or a conference I interpreted well. Sure motherhood brings plenty of satisfaction, but so does work. Sure I have achieved plenty, but i want to achieve more. For me, I guess, there is no such thing as HAPPINESS, PERIOD. There are moments of happiness. Some of them just come out of nowhere, like the ones I described above, and I acknowledge them and enjoy to the full. Others need to be worked hard upon. But if it wasn't for this lack of fulfillment, what would I do? I mean, c'mon, I'm 31. Is it really time to just settle down and enjoy the fruits of my toil??
When I was younger, I thought life was pretty simple. You had to find your Prince Charming, marry him and live happily ever after, surrounded by your children and grandchildren. Now I know all that is just the beginning of a journey. No, not true. Now I know this is just one of the directions you can take. Or one of the stops on your way. one of many possible scenarios. For some it may be an end of their journey, for some the beginning, for some a trap to be avoided. I love the fact that there are so many possibilities. I love the freedom of not "shoulding", however ungrammatical it sounds. I love the fact that i have it all and still am not fulfilled and want more. I want to be allowed to bitch about my life and discourage others from following my path. I am not bitter or cynical. I just possess more wisdom now than I did 10 years ago, I guess.
This note has come out a bit differently than I planned, it is probably messier and less structured than I would wat it, but I gotta finish now, as the boys came back from school and I have to feed them and drive to a piano lesson. I might return to the subject later on, but I hope i managed to explain some of my thoughts. I would also like to take this opportunity to encourage the few readers I have to comment on what i write here on the blog - it will make it so much more interesting as well as easier for me to reply.
And let me finish with my favourite poem by Luis McNiece, called "Snow", as an optimistic tune:

I went out with my girlfriend tonight. No big deal, it was a kind of an impromptu thingy, a lucky coincidence that all the three of us had time and possibility to meet up. First it was just me and Friend A, then Friend 2 joined us. We went shopping, then we had coffee and desserts.
And here is a funny thing. I bought no Manolos nor Prada. We didn't dance all night or date cute guys. Instead, I bought Husband a shirt at M&S sale, assorted socks and briefs for my sons at H&M and absolutly fabulous Power Rangers sunglases at Next. Later on we were sitting over our desserts and talking. And the topics were not fabulous or glamorous. Friend 1 was celebrating the fact that she stopped breastfeeding by drinking coffee, eating whipped cream, and earlier having a cheese and onion sandwich. She was also talking about their plans of buying a piece of land and building a house there. Friend 2 has just unexpectedly changed jobs, so she was telling us quite excitedly about all the new opportunities and challenges. I shared our idea to buy a still bigger family car before holidays. We all bitched good-heartedly about our mothers-in-law. We told a few funny stories about our children. We were together, we listened to each other, we shared our lives. And although there was hardly any glamour there (maybe apart from the new job story), even though the whole meeting was really middle-aged, middle-class, mid-week thingy. I really, realy enjoyed it. I came home rested, refreshed, happy, with a feeling that I've just done something for myself and it was marvelous.
Does it mean my life is ok as it is and I shouldn't complain?
Or I guess I was more of a Charlotte tonight.
Still, I can't wait to see them in the sunglasses.
Good night (and i certainly mean it).