Well it is now March 2017, and this week I earned my very first pay check as a full time, employed PHP developer. I didn't blog at all over 2016, it was (as has been widely documented) the year from hell; and our house was no exception. There were potential jobs that fell through, there was clutching at straws and there were very near family break ups. Fuck you 2016, fuck you. But we made it though, and we made it through all together, a little battered and a lot bruised it's true but there you go. So with the pre-amble done I should, as any old friend would after a meeting long delayed, update you on my situation.
In May 2015 I started this blog, with two things in mind; to blog about my attempt to retrain myself and start a career in coding, and to see if a bit of blogging could raise money from strangers to fund such a thing. It didn't. It might have, if i were a more dedicated blogger or alluded to it more but really at a time when i needed somewhere to var_dump($myMind) ( a joke for the coders out there) the blog came in handy.
Well it is now March 2017, and this week I earned my very first pay check as a full time, employed PHP developer. I didn't blog at all over 2016, it was (as has been widely documented) the year from hell; and our house was no exception. There were potential jobs that fell through, there was clutching at straws and there were very near family break ups. Fuck you 2016, fuck you. But we made it though, and we made it through all together, a little battered and a lot bruised it's true but there you go. So with the pre-amble done I should, as any old friend would after a meeting long delayed, update you on my situation.
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Hello, it’s me. I was wondering if after all these days you’d like to meet. To go over, year ’15. And tell you what we’re planning in for two thousand16…
Yesterday, for the first time since Lizzyâs birthday, I updated my Facebook page. Was I doing something interesting? Not really. Did my post enable people I care about to share in my life? Only very incidentally. Perhaps it was a clever, witty satirical stab at the world. Hardly. So why did I do it? The wine and beer we had with lunch probably helped, but in reality I wanted people to see that my life is good and I have fun and we are happy. Of course this is true, we do have fun and I am happy. But if you were to judge my quality and enjoyment of life by my Facebook feed would it reflect the reality? I suspect not.
Evening blogosphere how are we all? After a little break here we are back again. Where have we been? Well I have been training a new manager so my lunch hours have not been my own for the last couple of weeks but since Lizzyface is refusing to sleep tonight I’m taking this opportunity to write another exciting post for you all. Today I would like to talk about our first official family tradition
Two days ago, after a long and mixed 365 day period my Lizzy Face finally, at 12:26 turned one year old. We had a family party at the weekend, and it’s been emotional. Your baby’s first birthday, it seems, has a much greater impact on you than your own. Perhaps it’s because you start to compare your actions against the effect they have on someone that you love completely, and want to never have an adverse impact on. Perhaps having a child means that you view the world from a different perspective and make your judgements against a more all-encompassing picture. And possibly, you just realise that it has been a whole year that you have been running through the emotional mill and started to come out of the other end with your new identity. In my case Pappa Carr, whose shoes I am starting to feel comfortable in and the memory of my former self doesn’t vanish, but merges into a new phase. Sounds exciting. But don’t worry, I’m not going to get all mushy on you folks (not today at least). Instead here is a list of things I have learned since having a baby.
This morning when I watched the news I saw a report about the percentage of people that smoke during pregnancy. The main point of the piece was that the levels of people who do smoke while pregnant are higher amongst those in the lowest incomes; which initially seems unsurprising. It is often the bottom bracket that are highlighted; obesity, childhood obesity, alcoholism, crime. If it has a negative impact on society you can bet that sometime or other there will be a report on how low income families have the highest instance of the problem. On reflection however, I am struggling to understand how this statistic exists.
The world is full of ‘advice’ for people starting or planning to embark upon parenthood. There are so many different opinions, philosophies and general points of view that unless you already 100% believe in something it can be very difficult to feel anything other than overwhelmed. The NCT is a prime example of this. The NCT ante-natal class has a very specific agenda, or certainly seemed to from our course. This agenda is not for scrutiny or question, it is to be taken as truth. Now if you are coming from the same place as the NCT (philosophically speaking) then the content of the course is probably very worthwhile. However from discussion I’ve had few people toe the line. What I think most people, and certainly we got, was much more important.
I’ve just got back from my first solo rhyme time; it was a nerve wracking experience to say the least. This is not the first rhyme time I have ever been to, I lost my RT virginity a while ago at the big library in town but that time I had Fergotron to hide behind. She was a regular back then, I was just a rookie; an observer really nervously shielding myself behind the belief I was ok as I was with a mum. Today though, I was a dad alone in a mother’s universe.
If anyone is a big fan of Monty Python then, aside from being due a high five you might also be the owner of a CD of their music. A hit and miss album but some vintage classics – the penis song for one always brings a smile to my face (no pun intended). But there is a song called I’m So Worried , which I find popping into my head most regularly lately, but unfortunately the lyrics that fill the tune in my subconscious are not quite so light-hearted.
Today I am not happy. I’m not in a bad mood; I’m not angry or hateful. I’m just not happy. I’m not profoundly miserable either of course. There is a melancholy hanging over me, partly brought on by the weather. I get down in the autumn and winter although I do like the colours and the jumpers. But it gets to me, the dark days, the endless grey and the drizzle. I can feel the seasons changing. I’m also feeling stuck at work. In the past I would whimsically leave a job and find a new one, but now I have to be responsible, I don’t only have myself to care about. But mostly, I wish I could be a normal grown up, get on with things and make mature reasonable choices. I thought this would come with age, I was sure there was a point where suddenly the world made sense and you knew how to make the right decisions but lately, if anything, I seem to be feeling more lost and confused with every facet of my life, and of myself.
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March 2017
AuthorI'm a 30 year old boy who is responsible for an entire other person, much to the surprise of the world at large. |