Letting go and looking back

Last Friday night was the first night in almost nine years that there has not been a cot set up in our house. 

This is a strange feeling, but at the same time wonderful and has made me ponder times gone by.

The cot that has been in our house for nearly nine years, the Taj Mahal of cots, I built when the LoML was expecting our first child. It is a beautiful cot and I really enjoyed making it, mainly because I enjoy doing things like that, but also because it allowed me to have some sort of control of a weird situation.

You see my dear reader, being a first-time-expecting parent must be no where near as scary as being a first-time-expecting grandparent. They tend to go completely looney. I am not sure whether it’s a fear of losing your daughter a little further, being a little less important, but oh my god, did my in-laws fall out of the crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down. 

Expecting your first child is such a rush of emotion and a time when the universe is forcing you to yield to a certain inevitability; a lack of power. You either completely admit that the control you always thought you had was just a childish way of learning good behaviour. ‘what would jebus do?” as a question to avoid the reality that there doesn’t appear to be anyone at the wheel. At least I don’t think so. I certainly hope not, because if there is, she doesn’t like me very much. I think to not fess up to that lack of control, that hope that Locke or Kant are right and Machiavelli or Hobbes are mistaken, turns people into crazy people. There seems a lot of people that have not made this connection. They have pride in a work ethic or a false association with creativity while wasting their lives selling houses and owning stuff.  

The first-time-expecting grandparent however. Urgh. What a pill. I remember seriously contemplating taking up a job on the other side of the country just to get away from those arseholes. I remember them interrupting the mid-wife two or three times during labour by phoning the ward, leaving the LoML and me alone during the whole thing (they work in the hospital and knew the direct line). I remember them annoying the LoML so much, she poisoned their rose garden at 30+ weeks pregnant. To this day it still makes me laugh that they could never get roses to grow...must just be too dry...sorry, this is turning into a rant...

So the cot that I built has stood up to four children, but only just. It is built higher than commercially available cots. It sits at roughly waist height, which gives far less strain on backs and knees, creates a groovy little storage space underneath and provides a little more shelter from older siblings. It made sense to me at the time, despite many claims of “if it were so much better, why can’t you buy cots like that...surely someone smarter than you would have come up with that by now (buy now...bye now)”... But then so much of what we have in society has no reason or efficiency motivation behind it. It just is that way because it is that way. 

There is no reason VHS won over BETA, it just happened.

But people in that situation always want to paint control there and ignore the signs. If they are humble to some big cosmic ballet, then good things will happen devoid of their actions and intentions. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a non-realist, or a scientistic person. I believe that there are a thousand times more things going on in the universe than humans will ever be able to get a decent grasp on. But a non-diverse and unitary all-powerfulness capable of expression? The only thing that comes close to that is our own minds, and we fall pretty short on that point a lot of the time.

But I find myself being drawn back into the control thing. The girls now have purple turned bunk beds and their room looks fab. I am hesitant to let go of my cot. Should I put it in the shed? It may come in handy? Friends of mine had an accident and had another child when their previous youngest child (of three) was 18.

Should I get rid of it? I really don’t want to, but the time has passed. I shouldn’t hang on to it, it should go to a new family that can hopefully enjoy it as miuch as we have. But I still feel so torn about letting it go. But no, it must go on to the next step in its life, as must I. On to eBay with you my old friend.

This post’s lame joke:  a horse walks into a bar and a drunk at the bar says ''di...do yoio know thad they named a wishkey afda you?''....and the horse replies ''what? Eric?''

This post’s groovy identity seeking quote. I applied for a teaching job the other day and one of the questions I was asked on the form is “what is your favorite quote?” I thought that this was quite strange. You don’t see job sheets actually asking decent questions very often. To name your favorite quote; that is a question that you could really tell a lot about someone from how or if they answered this question. My first reaction was just to re-quote the question and say “how did you know?”  But I thought that may be a little silly. So I put in one of my favourite gems from the wonderful Mr Jung:

“We should not pretend to understand the world only by intellect. We apprehend it just as much by feeling. Therefore, the judgment of the intellect is at best only the half of truth and must, if it be honest, come to an understanding of its own inadequacies”

This post’s inappropriate over-share: I am currently trying to give up coffee. I drink too much of it, but I think giving up drinking coffee is like being stabbed with a knife, but slower and louder. I know, that’s a pretty lame over-share, but I can’t think too straight about anything else.