During our break away in Ireland, thanks to my partner’s lovely parents we managed a day trip into Dublin. The city is around a twenty minute bus journey from where we stay in the house in which my partner grew up, but since we have become parents we have not made it in. I was beginning to forget what it looked like.
The last time we were in Dublin city was the fateful Christmas of 2018, around the time we decided we wanted to start trying for a baby. This year, as the bus we took into town travelled along the banks of the Liffey, we could see the gates of the Guinness Storehouse from our seats on the top deck and I imagined our younger selves walking along the river into town.
Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash
That year we had visited the Guinness Storehouse and afterwards I remember we walked amongst the tourists hand in hand talking about the future. We walked with no aim or intention other than to find somewhere warm, have another drink or two and to keep talking. We talked about dreams which were now a reality; we have bought a house together, we have two beautiful children, yet my heart ached to reach out to us.
“If you could walk back along the Liffey – back in time, and meet us that Christmas what would you say?”
I often think about what I might warn my pre-parent self. Any time a friend announces a pregnancy I think, what would I have liked to have known?
I am an organised person. I often over-prepare for things like trips, calculating every possible scenario or danger in an attempt to cover myself, yet with the life-changing events of child-birth and having to look after a human baby, I barely prepared at all.
I was terrified.
I didn’t want to know.
I just knew it was going to be hard and that was it. In fact the preparation we did do, which was in our minds the most important thing: finding a place to live, took up so much of our time and energy it was a welcome distraction, but did mean that other preparations were left to a bare minimum and were very last minute. We couldn’t buy any furniture for the baby for example until we had the house because we were effectively homeless and had no where to put it. We didn’t move into the house until I was eight months pregnant.
I think now looking back that there is plenty I could have done to prepare and perhaps I should have done. I didn’t know anything about the newborn baby we were going to look after - how to feed it, clean it, change it. We had no idea what to expect in terms of breastfeeding and the challenges that we may face. Importantly, we had no idea how much nursery would cost. There were books I could have read and questions I could have asked but I didn’t. I actively avoided them, in fact.
So why do I think that the past me, the younger me full of dreams and hope walking along the bank of the Liffey with the man she loves, why do I think she would even be open to listening to my advice?
She probably wouldn’t.
But there is lots I would want her to know.
I would want her to know that it is going to be hard. I know that anyway, she’d say.
That by moving out of London (and by which I mean to zone 6) she may have well moved to outer space for the amount that she will see her friends or family. That even if friends want to come to visit, to see the baby, or to offer help, something will happen when that baby is four months old that will change how the world functions. That even if they wanted to visit – they wouldn’t be allowed and that for years after visits will be plagued by tests and government restrictions either side of the Irish sea.
I would want her to know that having a baby won’t bring her family closer, that they won’t all come rushing to her like she imagines, that her children won’t be the apples of her parents’ eyes, and that by the time her children are old enough to play with and enjoy their cousins’ company, their cousins will have grown and some will have drifted away.
I would want her to know that it will be hard but not in the ways she thinks. Sure sleep deprivation is no joke, but there are decisions that will be made about her own future that make her question if she did the right thing by having children at all. That it will feel like the world is against her. That she will have to quit, and rebuild herself. That rebuilding herself will be everything she thinks about in the coming years and that five years later she will be starting to feel herself again. That in having children she will feel the most bored she has ever felt yet it will unleash a creativity and drive inside of her that will make her feel that anything is possible and that she can have dreams and she will.
I would want her to know that the days will be long and never ending. That it will feel impossible, relentless and thankless. That it may feel like it will never happen but there will be a day when she can get the bus into Dublin again with the father of her children and they will smile, they will laugh and they will be happy.
“If you could walk back along the Liffey – back in time, and meet us that Christmas what would you say?”
“What would I tell us?” he asks looking out towards the gates of the Guinness brewery. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? Nothing at all?”
“I wouldn’t want to change anything.”
Thank you for reading,
If this post resonated with you, I would love to hear your thoughts. Please do join me in the comments.
Would you tell your past self everything you know now?
If so, what would you want your past self to know?
Would advice would you give to new parents or people on the brink of a life-changing event?
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Yes, it's the light at the end of the tunnel that I would want to tell my past self about because old me couldn't see it. Couldn't even believe it was there. After having a baby, I had this sense that my life as I knew it was over. That was seven years ago and as things slowly get easier and shift back into the old balance, I always wish I would have known it wouldn't always be so hard or consuming.
I’d tell my past self the future is much brighter than the present. He probably wouldn’t believe me though. I’m grateful for the growth.