My children

I was blessed to fall pregnant with my first child when I was 22 years old. I say, blessed, because at that time I had been severely annorexic for the past seven years. I wasn't menstruating and as far as the doctors were concerned, if I, or they, didn't find a way to help me, I would eventually succumb to this horrific disease. With only the intervention of a power and knowledge beyond my comprehension, I fell pregnant while I was only four and a half stone. It was the catalyst to get me literally off my own case and do something for myself, by doing something for my child. I started eating.

My son, Kyle, was born on August 9 1984, weighing a healthy six pound, and perfectly formed. My partner at the time, Kyle's father, Phillip Andrew Keogh, and I had been together from the moment we met, three and a half years earlier. Love at first sight is often talked about, but I knew that Phillip was the 'one' the moment I met him. When I was thirteen, I had had by that time, a very traumatic life and rather than just accepting whatever leftovers that fell my way, I challenged myself to dare to dream someone into my life who would love, support, understand and accept me as I was, with all that came behind me. In my moment of what I felt at the time, was perfect clarity, I wrote in my diary every detail about this man. His hair colour, his eye colour, his body shape, his job, his loves, his star sign, his dreams, his desires... anything I dared to dream. With every thing I wrote, or dared to imagine, my stomach lurched. I was exposing a want. I was challenging everything I had ever known, to dare to want something wonderful for me. I wasn't used to doing something like this, ever! My mind and my body were reacting fearfully. How dare I, who the hell did I think I was. But I pushed on, maybe to dare the universe, maybe to dare myself, maybe because, even though I knew too much for a child of thirteen, the thirteen year old child in me wanted to play, and in the end I pushed on because, what the hell, if it never came about, hey, I could handle it.

Once I had finished my exhaustive list, I ripped out the pages, put them in an envelope, sealed it and hid it in a shoebox at the bottom of my wardrobe, where no one would ever find it, so that my dreams would never be exposed and ridiculed. Eventually, I forgot about that list. I carried that box with me wherever I went, but I never dared to open it. I got older and wisened up to the fact that things never really change for some people, I just got good at pretending that it did. Then, I met a guy who was to become a really great mate, who happened to have a birthday one day before mine.

He was going to celebrate his 21st with his mate who happened to have the same birthday as mine. My ears pricked. What did he look like? Well come to the party and find out! It was two weeks away. I knew it at that moment, and my exhaustive list, compiled six years ago, sprung to life!

Maybe, it is my hope against hope, that saves me and maybe its that hope against hope that eventually kept me in relationships I had no right being in!

To be continued!