On The Things I Never Knew I Wanted

Sometimes our ideas of who we are don't change so much that there's a noticeable shift in our ideals of our future. Like the way the world turns beneath our feet and us never being able to feel it, such is our lives in immeasurable ways of choices and subsequent decisions that shape ourselves and not just the path we're heading down. I've recently come to realise that the way I think of myself is not always the way others think of me and in turn, not really the way I am. Other people's opinions of who I am don't define that as the truth but there is some weight in the fact that I have seen and do see myself as someone that I'm not. Looking back ten years ago - even five years ago, I don't think I ever was the person I was telling myself to be. The wants I had back then are not the same wants that I crave now and possibly won't be in another ten or five or two or one.

I NEVER KNEW I WANTED A FAMILY
I always used to think that having a family wouldn't ever be important to me. I was a precocious child and that grew into my teenage years where I always had the idea that I wouldn't be a mother for a very long time, if at all. After all, I had so much to experience, the world was massive beyond my comprehension and I just wanted to explore life. I didn't ever think about anything with a long-term outlook, had no visions of a legal bond with a person beyond the cheap illustrations of a white dress and frankly, thought the whole institution of a nuclear family in general was a little near-sighted; for me, at least. But two months before my nineteenth birthday when I walked out of the family planning clinic with my friend Nicola perched next to the bus shelter, I made the decision to keep my baby. Six years later and I can't imagine life without the family I'm thoroughly in love with. Life without them is incomprehensible and they are by far my most favourite, treasured people. Marriage is still something I'm on the fence about morally but legally it all makes so much sense and my life is devoted to these people who came into my life at a time when all I wanted was something different and shaped it into everything I ever desired.

I NEVER KNEW I WANTED LESS FRIENDS
I was never popular in the American high school rom-com sense but I was always surrounded by friends and had a large social group that I could flit between depending on my mood. I always thought that'd be my life - a family made up of a wide circle of people that I loved that fed me in new and brilliant ways - but after Layla was born things took a dramatic turn. I found I wanted to be alone more in my time off and that the social activities I thrived on before were of little interest to me. A lot of my friends moved on to their own destinations either through jobs, their own families, university or travelling and while we all still catch up on Facebook it must be a good seven years since I've seen any of them for longer than a passing hello. That's not to say I don't have friends because while I have few they are everything. My two girlfriends who I speak to every day without fail are more like my sisters and I have friends who I can meet up with after months of us living our separate lives but talking every day through pixels that I don't know how I'd get by without. But really, I'm so happy to be able to say such a small, stable group of exceptional people are my friends.

I NEVER KNEW I WANTED STABILITY & COMFORT
There was always the thought that I was the unpredictable member of the family with impulses that drove my day to day life well above reason and logic. I thought that too. I thought that the idea of comfort, security and stability was so out of the realm of things I wanted and so foreign that they would never cross my mind. But I am really insecure. I love stability, routine, comfort, expressions of love and not just the idea of a constant but to have it there, to touch and in human form. Change scares me and not having a game plan makes my palms sweat and my mind race. I am still impulsive to some but it's never truly impulse; inside my head the plans have already been laid out well before the situation arises so what seems like spontaneity is just the putting into practice the labours of many a night at 3am in silence.

I NEVER KNEW THAT I'M MUCH MORE COUNTRY THAN I AM CITY
I've told you about my dream of becoming Carrie Bradshaw (New York or a London version) but I love the country. I was always fascinated with country landscapes but the idea of living in a cottage on the edge of nowhere where Topshop couldn't deliver my shoes in the Winter was just something I was never going to consider. Although the city I live in is pretty small and run down compared to others, it's still a city and I'm dreaming of leaving one day. Maybe it's because blogging made me realise what I really like and reading other blogs inspired me to cook more/sew more/make more which has led to the realisation that this is just what I like. I like walking my dogs, open spaces, tall trees, making jam as presents, baking bread, sewing small projects, designing things and being barefoot. Maybe it's also to do with the better reach of broadband services and the improvements with online deliveries? Maybe it's both but I know that the hustle and bustle of a city draws me in for explorative purposes and maybe for a holiday but for life I want a front door with trailing flowers, places to grow my own vegetables and much more natural scenery.

There are so many things that my past self would scoff at if you laid out my life and my plan for where I'm heading right now. There are numerous decisions I wish I hadn't made or took more time with and so many traits I have now that have been carved from a few really traumatic experiences that I wish I had then. Moments make you wonder if your life has been stunted in some way but looking back as to how much you've changed, not just physically but emotionally and morally, has a way of bringing forward the realisation that nothing is ever truly static and that growth can be quiet and small until you barely recognise the person you used to be. It happens so much both positively and negatively and I truly know that some aspects of change have impacted me completely for the worse and that I wish I still had more elements of that spirit inside me but on the whole, the things I never knew I wanted have made a better person. Understanding the shift from it never occurring to me to something I didn't want to something I have and then to something I covet? It makes me appreciate the things I protect all the more.