It's Been A While

I haven't written in this blog for a while. A whole month in fact. Sometimes, a week won't go by that I don't have some thought I want to put down in here. But my Head Aches blog/vlog has been taking priority.

I want to explore that concept of priority. It's hard to know what are your priorities, and the difference between what they are and what they should be. Most of us feel strong obligations to one thing or another: work, family, money. My strongest obligation at the moment is family, particularly my grandparents. With my grandad now in a care home, I need to be around to go and see him, and also to take my nan to see him on occasion. My sister only gets the opportunity to see them at the weekends, and if I was working full-time I would be in the same position. 

I'm struggling with not working. The thing is I'm not not working, I'm just not in my usual environment of a full-time 9-7/8/9 job in TV. I'm having to work off my own initiative to work for my friend on her business, on a film project. I have to sit myself down and say "Right, today I need to get this done" or "Ok this afternoon I'm going to get that finished."  It's not easy, and the house can be full of distractions like the washing up or the hoovering. Often I go and sit in my local library to be free of distraction. But I am going to have to learn how to work from home.

Much as I miss working in TV, and I miss the money, I want to be volunteering like I do each week - something that working in TV would not allow. I want to be around for my grandparents, because we don't know how long my grandad has got, and my nana is now alone in her house. For a woman that does not want to make her own family, I am curiously devoted to the one I already have.

When I got home in May, I felt like I'd made the wrong decision coming home, and my plan was to get back to work and save up enough to get away and out of the country again to somewhere else by the New Year. And then my mother told me my grandad had cancer. Lots of cancer. Cancer that will kill him (though won't technically won't kill him). Terminal, aggressive, untreatable cancer. They started chemo in order to give him more time. But only a few sessions in they said it was too aggressive and chemo would make no difference.
There was no more bargaining for time. This is it. 

And so he sits in his care home, in pain, uncomfortable, but being given more care and attention than we could if he were at home. He says he's ready to die tomorrow, but tomorrow doesn't come.

But I'm not ready.

Having a family is so selfish. You create people who are bound to you by blood and more often than not care about you like no other in the world. And sometimes your kids die before you and that's tragic, no parent should have to bury their child. But why should the children have to bury the parents? Is it part of growing up? An inevitable part of the human experience - the loss of a loved one. An experience that cannot be ignored, that cannot be got around. Unless you are an orphan hermit perhaps.

And I can easily empathise with people, fictional or otherwise. Watching the beginning of season 7 of Castle I was crying even though I knew what was going to happen. But the heartbreak of Beckett's face - it cut through to my own heart.

I'm not ready for this loss. How can I possibly become ready?

20 hours later.

I love my job. I love it. I love the fact that I have in the past not left the office until 9pm. I love that I did a full day of work on Thursday, and then drove 3 hours to Derby. And then drove back from Derby after working on Friday.

And I love when you are put "on call" for something, that no one really expects to happen. And then it does.

I'm working on a show about pregnancy, and I have worked on it on and off since January.
And I have never really filmed anything before except test interviews. And once I did a pan down from the top of a shop to the door of it. Exciting stuff!

So being put "on call" for a birth in Milton Keynes, which is only an hour & 45 minutes drive away, didn't bother me. I had my overnight bag packed "just in case". I put my phone on loud by my bed on Friday night at 11pm as I settled down to sleep, having arrived home from Derby about an hour beforehand.

So when, at 3am, I heard the word "Labrinth, come in" I bolted upright and looked at my phone, luminous in the dark. I knew. I didn't know the number, but I just knew.

"Hello Emma speaking?"
"Hi Emma, it's [colleague] from work. I've just got the call - [contributor's] water's have broken."
"OK. OK. I'm on my way. I'll see you at the hospital?"

I jumped out of bed. I pulled on some clothes. I tied my already greasy hair into a bun and clipped back the remaining strands and fringe. I threw my phone charger in my bag and programmed the satnav.

I ran upstairs to my mum, to wake her up, and say goodbye. My mum went on holiday yesterday, so it was the last time I'd see her for a week. And I didn't even really see her.

I went back downstairs and said goodbye to my dad. And then I grabbed everything, including a bottle of coke, an old cous cous salad, an apple, and an open bag of pistachio nuts, and I was out the door.

I didn't even eat. I stopped at some services to wolf down the cous cous. I made good time - the M1 was empty, funnily enough. I had just got to the roundabout where the hospital was located, and I got a text message to say they were back at the flat. So I changed the satnav's instructions, and headed there.

We did some filming with the dad, as mum was resting on a ward at the hospital. We tried to sleep for an hour. Then we got up, did some more filming, and headed to the hospital. Then we waited, for the lead midwife and the communications lady to arrive.
And then we filmed.

I'm not going to tell you everything because that would be giving the show away.
But we didn't leave until about 10.30pm. We headed to the hotel that had been booked for us during the day, to find that it was located directly above a pub/club and there was no free parking.

I went to bed around midnight. I basically did a 20 hour day. I went to sleep very quickly.
And goddamn my arms hurt today from carrying that camera!

But what I really want to tell you is how I felt when I first saw that baby.

Nothing. I felt nothing.

I had wondered throughout the day how I would feel. Would I suddenly feel that supposedly "primal" instinct in my womb. Would it suddenly start screaming out "Fill me!! I NEED TO BE FILLED WITH HUMAN LIFE!!"
But it didn't.
It wasn't an ugly baby at all, but I didn't want to go "Awww!"
I just felt nothing.
Except maybe relief because the day was nearly over.

I watched this woman doing a very brave thing. Doing what women are "put here to do".
And I am telling you now, I have not been put here to do that. Nuh uh. No way.
If I suddenly one day feel like my life is missing something, and that something is not a cat, but a child, then I am adopting. Definitely.

People are always condescendingly telling me I'll change my mind.
But I saw a newborn baby. And I did not think, "I want one of those one day."
I'm fairly sure my mind's made up.