Yes! says author Lynda Marron
You know how it is in the early days of a relationship. You have all the time in the world for each other. You ignore your oldest friends, neglect your work and abandon your favourite TV show, all in the name of love.
You clear your schedule to make time for this new and exciting person and if that person does the same for you… well, that’s how you know…
That’s how it was for me and the man we will henceforth call Husband, because yes, this story opens with the blush pink dress, the gauzy veil, and a bright yellow VW Beetle with Just Married painted on the back. We had a fairytale beginning to our marriage, a golden-hued September wedding in West Cork, and one-way tickets in our pockets to Happy Ever After in a university town in Northern Italy.
It was 1998. The funding for Husband’s research (hard physics, don’t ask!) gave us a budget of about 20 gazillion lira a month. That turned out not to be quite as much as we thought, but even so… We discovered prosecco. Will I tell you precisely how long it takes to make a baby following the discovery of prosecco?
Let’s just say we had been in Italy for less than 10 months when I learned the verb spingere, ‘to push’, and we welcomed Intruder Numero Uno into our relationship.
Our boy was born on a snowy night. He was whisked away to the nursery, while I was tucked up in bed and instructed to sleep well. Fat chance. I lay awake through the wee small hours waiting until I heard the rattle of a crib being wheeled up the corridor and a nurse calling out for ‘la mamma’ of the little blondie one.
That was the moment when everything changed. For me, becoming a mother marked a fundamental change in my priorities. That tiny blonde-haired, blue-eyed scrap of humanity became the focal point of my life. It was 25 years ago. We were still happy. We were a family and that felt good.
We moved back to Ireland, home to Cork, a couple of years later as a family of four and, after that four became five, and then six, and a dog. And from then on every day was just a forward tumble, doing my best to keep everyone fed, clothed, and reasonably well-mannered. Husband got, at best, 20 per cent of the attention that he got when we set out together, and probably a good deal less than that. He had clean socks in his drawer and got a reminder every morning not to forget his lunch box.
And as for my own career and ambitions, I had a part-time job as a GP’s secretary and a shoebox full of scribbled dreams. And in the middle of all that, we built a house.
Well – a small, mid-century suburban bungalo
