“Where do you see yourself in 5 years?”

I stared at her blankly.

Thoughts racing through my mind. “Shit. I look insane. I need this job.” My company were making me redundant as they decided to move their company up north.

I always wonder what these managers think the perfect response is to that question. By this point, Mr Blondie and I had been TTC for nearly 9 months. I was still in the mindset of thinking “Well I certainly won’t be here, I’ll be happy with my two kids, dog and two cats, somewhere in Newcastle with my better half.” Something a little like this…

Instead I say “Well, I’d like to build myself up in this company, if there was the opportunity of course. I’d love to be in a higher position maybe even with some kind of team of my own!” She beamed at me, I knew it was exactly what she wanted to hear. Ambition. That’s what they love. That just isn’t me, so I fake it. I’ve said the same thing to different recruiters, time & time again. Knowing exactly that it was just going to be something I could live on. I didn’t care about a career anymore. I knew I was going to be a Mum. That was what I was made to do.

Funny isn’t it, as soon as I got this job I started to panic about maternity leave. I started to search the internet for maternity work clothes! I even went as far as to e-mail the HR manager to enquire “hypothetically” about what you’re entitled to for ML. I thought, “what if I get pregnant soon, you have to be there a certain amount of weeks before you get pregnant” etc, etc. I needn’t have worried, you’re entitled to the leave, but you get sod all from them.

This job is a sit down receptionist role. I smile & greet people all day, every day. I call taxis, I make reports about the building, I go above and beyond for people that work here, but mostly I’m on Pinterest imagining my future life. Mostly deciding what wallpaper I want to have in our future marital bedroom. Or what colours I’ll paint the nursery for a girl or a boy. Do I want to go with conventional blue and pink? Or will go outside the box and go all interior-design-y with greys and chevrons?

I’ll do anything to stop my mind thinking about the now. The depressing, heartbreaking, now. All now is, is me wishing and wanting for a baby and a house of our own. Being bitter and jealous about anyone else who is pregnant, or have children. Getting that toe curling, stomach wrenching feeling when I see another pregnancy announcement on Facebook. Or dragging myself out of bed in the morning to get to work, trying to skip past the feelings of crippling depression that consumes my mind. Sometimes all I want to do is be in bed, not face the world. Not look at my phone. I don’t want to see other people’s happiness. Why can’t I be the happy one? Even Mr Blondie sees it. He is begging me to go back to counselling but for what? To tell Mr Stranger how my past of child abuse from my alcoholic Mother gives me the demons of today, how I don’t have any ambition, that all I want is a baby and to be a Mother, that I can just about get out of my bed, how I never have any money, or how shallow & narcissistic I am? What exactly is that going to solve? The last time I had counselling, he was great. He told me I need to stop punishing myself for feeling selfish & bitter towards others. I am allowed to feel that way. I’ve been through so much that he wondered how I was still standing, let alone working. However, I don’t want to feel selfish or bitter, I want to feel happy for others. How do you teach someone to do that though? How do you teach someone to say congratulations without tears streaming down your face as you type it? Is it even possible?

So, 5 years from now. I’ll be 30. We could possibly be living up north. Definitely with Mr Blondie and two cats. The babies and the dog though, I’m not so sure. When will they come?

Love & baby dust,

Blondie x