A Certain Lucidity

Have you noticed that my blogs are becoming further apart? I know some people have, and they worry and ask how I am or nudge me for an update. Thank you for your continued concern - it helps me to feel I am accompanied along this road of sadness. But let me add to that now well-used expression: this road of sadness has started to grow flowers alongside it, to take on colour and form. There is still the unknown - the road bifurcates ahead of me, the fork always seeming to be the same unreachable distance away.

This metaphorical comparison equates in real life to several positive advances I feel I have made recently. I have begun to wear perfume more regularly; just one spritz, but a spritz nonetheless. I have worn colour, I have worn wedge shoes, I have even worn sequins.

I am mainly busy and active and rarely bored which means I rarely dwell. RECENTLY. We all know about the waves so this could change. I'm not looking forward to my next bout of PMT! Let's hope it doesn't clash with any other huge emotional upheaval like last month.

But I have been off the sleeping pills for a week and on the anti-depressants for 12 days, so maybe they are starting to kick in and will help to maintain a more even keel when the dreaded lady-hormones attack in a couple of weeks' time!

Back to the road: where does each fork lead to, I hear you asking yourselves? Well let me tell you that each direction is equally wide, equally defined and equally possible. One road leads to singledom and the life of a single mum taking good care of my gorgeous Isabelle.

The other leads to life back with my darling Olivier, but we have spoken a lot and I just can't see a future for us unless he changes his mind about wanting another child. Not only do we have the issue that in each other's presence we are a constant reminder of what we have lost (not just William, but our wonderful family life too), but there is the very real possibility that he'll want children later and my eggs will be long gone.

I can't take that risk. But look, it's still not even three months since William died. He may well change his mind in the next three months, but he is so damned adamant that he doesn't want kids, it's hard to envisage.

So around all this uncertainty, I have to decide where to live. We can't afford to stay in this house and it's now way too big for two, or even three. It wasn't too big for four. COULD we bear to stay if there was even the tiniest chance of re-building our family? I honestly don't know. I LOVE our house, but it's the pool that's the problem.

I've been doing nothing but thinking about where would be the best place to go and live. I have considered and weighed up advances and disadvantages for most of the towns and villages around me, up to and including Montpellier. But what I have come to realise over the last few weeks is that I have a fabulous network of friends around here and you can't replace that in an instant. This has taken me ten years to build.

We've been getting out and doing things - this weekend Soumaya and the twins came for supper on Friday night, then we went to Cap d'Agde on the Saturday (Izzy, Olivier and I, as well as Isabelle and her two boys) to finally see the old cars (brilliant!). Izzy and I joined Olivier and his siblings at his parents' house for apéros on Saturday evening for an hour, before leaving them to eat, and on Sunday three families (Isabelle's, Jane's and us) went to the huge park at Bessilles and barbecued followed by a really full afternoon of zip-lining (acro-branche). It was actually good fun! Yes, that's me saying that! Izzy was a trooper, Isabelle and I did the longest, fastest zip-line (tyroléan) yet and by the end of the day everyone was rather pooped! Izzy slept all the way home, mouth and eyes open (weird how she does that), snoring lightly, bless her!

This has all made me realise that I do not necessarily need to be in, say Montpellier, to find things to do. I just need friends to do things with. And they are right here! So my latest idea is to consider a move to Pézenas, our local market town, about 12 minutes away from where we currently live.

Pézenas has some amenities, not loads, but it does have some good primary schools and it has families and is growing and evolving quite dynamically. It also has excellent access to both the A9 and A75 motorways (Béziers 15 mins, Montpellier 40 mins). The town is pretty (alright, very!) quiet out of season when all the tourists have gone, but I guess to live there and be involved in school life means year-round people contact and the hope of extending my social life locally.

So far, so good. But the HUGE dilemma is whether to rent out my house here and rent in Pézenas, or just whack this on the market and sell it. How long could that take? Can we afford to stay here for as long as that takes? I don't mind - I'd prefer Izzy to have this year settled for her sake. But if Olivier doesn't come back, I can't expect him to pay the bills till the house is sold.

Which brings me onto my final point. One of my best friends, Angele, is arriving today. We are going to have a good sort out, start the clearing out before moving jobs. Once she leaves on Saturday, I have decided to download and start the on-line TEFL course that I meant to do while William was at nursery school in the mornings. It's 40 hours so I'll just try and crack through that around life and house jobs and then TRY and find some work. Income = independence = choices.

I'm not forgetting about William throughout all this. Just last night I sat and watched lots of videos of him being his funny little self! I want to keep his mannerisms and little voice fresh in my head. He will NEVER be forgotten, I will ALWAYS be William's mummy, but life has to go on. Now is the time to fight for the best future I can give us.

Izzy Zip-lining

The Isabelles on a Rope Bridge

The Zip-lining Guy climbed this tree in
about 5 seconds!

Izzy Rolling Down a Hill