Tag: single

Grand moment de solitude [fr]

Minuit moins quart. Je suis rentrée tard, mais c’est samedi soir, ça va encore.

Je suis accoudée sur mon lit, téléphone à la main, chat presque contre moi. Il est temps de me lever pour me mettre vraiment au lit. Je vais lire un peu et dormir sans trop tarder.

Seulement, quand j’essaie de changer de position, je ne peux pas. Mon bassin est un océan de douleur paralysante. Changer ne serait-ce que la répartition du poids entre mon coude et ma hanche est un calvaire. J’essaie de plier légèrement la jambe: n’y pensons pas.

Quinze longues minutes plus tard, j’ai péniblement réussi à me coucher sur le dos.

Il me faudra quinze minutes supplémentaires et pas mal de serrage de dents pour me retrouver sur mes pieds, pliée comme une petite vieille, accrochée à la table de nuit – mais « debout ». Je tremble comme une feuille: froid, peur, choc?

Je me redresse tant bien que mal. Je fais quelques pas en m’accrochant aux murs. Que faire? Prendre des médicaments? Un bain chaud? Essayer de bouger? Au contraire, surtout ne pas bouger? Me mettre au lit et prier?

Je suis raide comme un bâton, pendue à un fil. J’aimerais aller aux WC mais je n’arrive plus à m’asseoir. J’aimerais voir ce que j’ai comme médicaments mais je n’arrive pas à me pencher pour ouvrir le tiroir. A tout hasard, je sors la clé de ma serrure. On sait jamais. Je m’accroche à mon téléphone, point de contact avec le monde.

Vais-je pouvoir aller travailler lundi? Ma tête fait le tour des plans de contingence en cas de catastrophe.

Vivre seul a plein d’avantages. Je ne range que mon propre bordel. J’ai toujours mon espace vital. Je fais ce que je veux à peu près quand je le veux.

Il y a des désavantages, aussi: je paie toutes les factures. Quand je rentre du travail, les courses ne sont jamais faites, le repas n’est jamais prêt. Toutes les décisions reposent sur mes épaules.

Et les frayeurs médicales arrivent toujours au milieu de la nuit. Être mal, effrayé, et seul, c’est vraiment misérable, comme situation. Je connais bien le numéro de la centrale des médecins de garde.

J’hésite à l’appeler, mais j’ai des scrupules à deranger l’infirmière de garde parce que je n’arrive pas à m’asseoir.

Heureusement, une copine infirmière est encore debout. Un paracétamol, un ibuprofène, un patch anti-inflammatoire et une heure plus tard, je peux précautionneusement me mettre au lit avec un coussin chauffant en bas du dos. J’ai pu aller aux WC.

Je vois ma physio mercredi.

[PS pour les curieux: très certainement l’articulation sacro-iliaque, et la suite du feuilleton faisant suite à mon accident de judo d’il y a 18 mois. Je suis entre de bonnes mains.]

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Coming Out as Single and Childless [en]

[fr] Quarante ans, célibataire, sans enfants. Un deuil à faire, et une porte à ouvrir pour en parler.

I turned 40 last summer, and it hasn’t been easy.

To be honest, I kind of expected it to be rough: my mother died when she was 40, 30 years ago, and in my mind 40 has always been a kind of “cut-off” age for having children. But it’s been (and still is) much more of an upheaval than I guessed.

Simple Flower, La Tourche

If you follow me on Facebook or maybe on Twitter, you certainly noticed I shared a slew of articles about childlessness over the fall and since then. This summer plunged me into a grieving process I’ve been doing my best to avoid for years — and am still resisting. It’s not a coincidence that my blog has been so silent.

As I started researching childlessness, and talking a bit around me, I realised that this is something about myself I have never really talked about in public. Or talked about much, full stop. Same with being single. It’s not something I’m really comfortable discussing publicly. Which is kind of strange, as I’m a very public person. So what is it about the childlessness and singleness that keeps me quiet?

Some have suggested that it’s because it’s personal. But I talk about a lot of personal stuff. It’s painful, too. Maybe it’s the grief? Not either: over the winter of 2010-2011 and the months that followed, I wrote a series of extremely personal articles dealing with the death of my cat Bagha, and the grief I was going through.

And I understood: it’s shame.

Failing to have a partner or children, when it’s what you want, is shameful — particularly for a woman. The grief of childlessness and singleness is something that we have trouble dealing with, as a society. Chances are you’re thinking “wait, 40, everything is still possible, the miracles of medicine, you have plenty of time; you’ll find somebody, all hope is not lost”. Do you see the problem here? I will write more on the subject, but for the moment please just take it as given that my chances of ever being a mother are vanishingly small — and that the best I can do is grieve and get on with my life, “plan B”.

I have kept quiet about this, and shoved it under the carpet, because it’s an issue that’s loaded with shame. And as such, it stands to be pointed out that the grief of childlessness, and to some extent singleness, is a taboo subject. People do not want to face it. When bringing it up, it is automatically negated (“there is still time”, “children are overrated”, “look at the great life you have”, “you probably didn’t really want children that much or you would have them”). We don’t know what to say. We have scripts for losing a loved one. Even a pet — when Bagha died there was an overwhelming show of support and affection around me.

But childlessness is another can of fish.

Grief has a public dimension. To grieve, we need our pain to be recognized from the outside. Grieving can not be done in complete privacy. That’s where it gets stuck.

As much as I didn’t want to, I realised that I was going to have to start writing about this. Because this is how I process. I cannot do it alone: I need you too.

I’m not where I was back in July. Things are moving along, slowly. I’ve been talking to friends, and joined an online community of childless women for support. Read about dozens of stories parallel to mine. And though a part of me still rabidly refuses to accept I will continue my life without children, tiny bits of acceptance are sneaking in. I first drafted this blog post back in December, and getting it out of the door today is part of the process.

My name is Stephanie, I’m 40 years old, single and childless — and it’s not what I wanted for myself.

Here’s the post on Facebook.
Also published on Medium.

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