The week post New Years is a strange one. The decorations have been grudgingly packed away, the wheels are in motion for the kid’s return to school and nursery, all the thank you cards have been duly scribbled on by the little ones and posted, and everything appears to be returning to normal after the usual Christmas uber crazy insanity X five million.

There’s also an undeniable sense that everyone’s now doing something, starting something, and hey, actually, what am I doing? Why am I not doing anything?

I’ll say again, I disagree with New Years resolutions. I don’t think it’s healthy to set yourself up to fail. How long do you spend writing them, thinking about them? About the same amount of time it takes you to break ‘em innit? Sod that. Surely if you feel within yourself, under the layers of gristle and erm, yucky stuff, that you could be doing something better, that you could just be better, then screw it, do something about it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s fucking January or June, does it?

But I’m gonna come clean ‘ere, there could be something else that’s causing my resentment for the resolutions and the countless people doing good, positive kind of ting.

I think, I could possibly be… Envious.

There are dozens of things I want to change, things to do, places to go, people to see, yadda yadda.

But I don’t think I can. Since the bolt from the blue that was Rob falling ill two years ago, we’ve struggled to keep hold of any control over our lives. Too soon after being hopelessly in love, and happy, and HELL YES let’s fucking DO this, it’s been snatched away from us. All the things we want and our plans have been heartbreakingly tucked away in a box for safekeeping, and we pray and hope that one day, not too long from now we’ll allow ourselves to pluck that little box from the depths of ourselves and dare to look inside.

And, it hurts to even type the words, I want another baby.

I do, I really truly do. But we just can’t. It’s not fair, on anyone while we’re constantly floating around in this no man’s land of WTF to do and how long do we wait for whatever it is we’re waiting for to actually ya know, happen.

I love Bean, desperately, more than anything, yet I can’t help feeling he’s missing out on having a brother or sister. I’m constantly aware that the time’s ticking by and I was never keen on there being a big age gap between him and the next.

Bean’s cousins came to visit on last week, we don’t see them very often. While it made me insanely proud to watch him play and laugh his little head off with them, I found myself in a bittersweet melancholy, my heart breaking that I can’t give him a little person to muck about with. He is smitten with them.

It’s pie in the sky though, it can’t happen. Not yet. Not only because of Rob’s illness, not only because we’re not in a stable situation for ourselves, without even bringing another tiny human being into the mix, but because I don’t believe I’m actually cut out to do it all again. Not yet.

I’m not patient. I’m always tired. I’m crap at playing, I mean, actually rubbish. I’m OK at the creative and practical stuff, the *deep breath* messy play lark, the reading, the teaching, the endless talking. But stick a massive pirate ship before me and I’m stumped, totally blank. I just feel the urge to tidy it up, orangise all the pirates or clean the poxy thing, but play with it? How?

I’m not ready. I’m really not. Bean very kindly wakes up every night around midnight and I can spend anywhere from an hour to five hours going through the motions and rigmarole of returning him back to his bed.

Bean was a surprise. I was wholly unprepared. The first baby I ever clothed, changed, bathed, fed, even held besides a battered Tiny Tears in the early 90′s, was Bean. As new and exciting and life-changing as it was, I told myself, firmly, that next time I’d be ready.

Another confession, I haven’t registered Bean for any schools yet. The deadline is January 15th. Well, I think it is anyway.

My rebelliousness is due to my denial that we’ll be living in the same area come September. I can hear the screams of OMFG DON’T BE SO IRRESPONSIBLE already. I’m not happy where we live, it’s not a nice place. I keep getting itchy feet and find myself wishing we could pack everything up and go somewhere new, somewhere quiet, somewhere I don’t have to watch my neighbours beating the almighty shit out of one another in the middle of the road, somewhere I don’t have armed police traipsing around my garden and resting their BIG FUCK OFF machine guns on my son’s climbing frame.

I’ll be dashing up to wherever the hell it is I need to on the 14th once the penny has dropped, all apologetic and sweaty, don’t worry.

I also want to pass my screwing driving test. Yes, I know, it should’ve occurred to me before I was 25 that a car could possibly come in handy. But, it erm, didn’t. Obvs Rob hasn’t been able to drive since the shit hit the proverbial, so I’ve begrudgingly accepted the driver’s crown. There’s just the small matter that before May last year, I’d never even sat in a bloody driving seat before. And in August, I metaphorically crashed and burned on my driving test.

I’m sure I’m not the only non-driver in the land that often thinks to myself that having a car would fix everything. Like a fairy godmother. On wheels.

I mean, I’d have so much extra time. Like, from nowhere.

So while you’re counting your calories, chomping on the nicotine gum or resenting that ice-cold, refreshing glass of um… lemonade, rather than the usual Sauvignon, I’ll be wishing you all the luck in the world, really.

And I’ll keep myself from going near that box, but I won’t stop wishing that that day will come, when I can open it again.