Maternal wisdom

It pains me to admit it, but, as usual, my mother was right.

This relationship business is hard work.
It engulfes you. It lures you and sucks you in, and then spits you out.
It lifts you up and thows you down, and leaves you trampled on, with most of your little bones all crushed.
And then you go back in and ask for more.


This is probably why my mother, holder of all wisdom, is single; and counting the years she thinks she's got left.
That's probably why she is alternatively posting humourous quirky ads on internet websites to try an find some reasonably bright man who won't be put off by dark under eye circles and a couple of cellulite dimples, or deciding to just give up now and for all, because, frankly, it's all too much bloody work and she is too busy anyway.

It took her 55 years, two marriages and a few relationships to come to that conclusion, though.

Sometimes a part of me yearns for an era I didn't even know and heavily, wrongly, romanticize; when who and what you got stuck with after the church vows and the dance in the barn embodied all your hopes and aspirations for the next 70 years of your existence. If you were lucky and didn't perish in chirldbirth and abominable tearing bleeding pain under the crucifix. Ah, a life of wooden clogs and bonnets and stiff petticoats, rank milk and chamber pots, breastfeeding and getting up at 5 on Sunday morning to milk the cows.

I'm off to buy some under-eye cream to ward off the impending dark circles, and some self-help books.