It’s 2.30am and I’m sitting on the sofa, slightly drunk, near naked and in pain. I’m staring in disbelief at a needle plunged deep into my inner thigh. I take a deep breath and pull it out, collapsing back exhausted but not finished. This isn’t a version of Trainspotting, chronicling a bereaved husband’s descent from mainstream coping to middle-class mainlining. It’s another example of how hard I’m paddling to keep our new normality afloat amid the choppy stream of logistical and lifestyle challenges that Helen would have handled seamlessly had she lived.
This one started innocently, shopping for Millie’s pointe shoes. It was her first class the following day and she was excited. Sandy, the helpful assistant, led us through a ballerinafest of satin and silk footwear. Inevitably, the winners were very pricey and very pink. Distracted by the bill, I barely registered Sandy’s parting remark, “Of course, you’ll need to measure the ribbons.”
Fast forward to midnight, when I unpack the shoes and four pink ribbons flutter to the ground, patently unattached to the shoes. It seems that what Sandy meant was, “You’ll need to measure the ribbons before sewing them into the shoes.”
Nothing in life is a fairytale of late, but would that I were the Grimms’ old shoemaker, sleeping soundly, knowing that elves would finish the shoes during the night. Instead, I’m sewing and swearing, with a few trips in between to a sleeping Millie, to check the length of leg to cut the ribbons to. Despite losing, and painfully finding, the needle a couple of times, and burning the ends of the cut ribbons to seal them instead of singeing them, I finish the shoes and all is well.
The truth is that I might have ended up sewing on the ribbons even if Helen were alive, but she would have spotted the need to attach them earlier – and here’s the thing, would have bought the shoes weeks ago.
It is not just about new skills: Helen’s absence requires new knowledge. Sitting at a laptop with Millie, we are shopping for bras. I want to get it right because I’ve taken so many back that the assistants are beginning to recognise, possibly not in a good way, the middle-aged bloke with a penchant for seemingly randomly chosen 32B / 32C/ 34B/ 34C foundation garments. Millie’s enthusiastic face is front-lit by a screen displaying what looks to me like racy lingerie rather than utilitarian underwear. She provides commentary, “Dad this one’s designed to provide support. It’s a sports bra.”
I peer suspiciously, pretty sure that the three “P’s” in the description, push-up, plunge and padded are not the language of fitness but of display. However, I’ve learned to save my sanity by choosing battles carefully, so hit “checkout” without hesitation. She grins – she has roped in her mark and worked the sting.
The challenge is not just that I’m a male having to deal with a teenage girl. Matt’s need for help with his homework, mediation of fallouts with friends, music exams and much more, all need input that would have been better from Helen.
I’m not complaining, but I keep getting caught out not just by the obviously greater workload of one rather than two parents, but also by the loss of complementary joint skills and experiences. I’m coping but only just, often relying on logistical firefighting skills for fires I have lit due to lack of timely understanding or action.
Add to this the fact that I am working full-on in a demanding job and the stress is beginning to show. I’m not sleeping enough, not eating enough and drinking too much. And the weightloss I sought in order to get fitter is uncontrolled and I’m starting to look gaunt rather than thin.
I have to get better at dealing with day-to-day demands, many of which I can’t even guess at, but which I do know are likely to get tougher as the children get older. If I don’t, something will give if only to prove the point that two into one totally, utterly, miserably – and bloody painfully when it comes to nocturnal sewing – doesn’t go.