Take it with you: I am raising my daughter alone, and she is my favorite fellow traveler
I did not think that I would raise a child alone, it seemed to me that at first there would definitely be love, and then it would be desirable for someone to appear third. But it turned out the opposite: great love has not reached me yet, and the child happened; just happened - in the next trip, under the influence of Georgian hospitality and lamb shashlik. I did not plan anything: I just smiled at the tall handsome man, and then I found myself in the hayloft with him. I did not ask for the name, there was no time - and in the morning I left.
When I saw two stripes, I burst into tears from horror. Thirty-seven years old, freelancing instead of stable work and lack of support in the form of parents: the father never existed, and my mother died ten years ago. My peers have already managed companies and lived in families, but I’m used to being responsible only for myself. Two strips on the test said the opposite: soon there will be someone small, who will have to be provided and responsible for his health, happiness and life. This was really scary.
So scary that I decided to think about it later and went to Mexico. In Mexico, I continued to work (I am a copywriter and write travel texts for travel companies) and travel. I remember how in Oaxaca I went into a beautiful Catholic church and met the eyes of the Madonna — she had such a penetrating look that I burst into tears. I sat and confessed to myself that Mexico was just an escape, that I was not ready to accept the approaching motherhood, so I moved around the cities and climbed the pyramids not to think about how to deal with the baby alone. There really was no time to think: it was necessary to learn Spanish, understand the bus schedules and find time to work.
In the seventh month of pregnancy, I returned to Moscow, where I worked, saved money and went to lectures at the Direct Speech lecture hall, and then spent hours in bed without sleep and looked at the wall. I thought how in a few weeks everything would change irreparably: I would stop getting enough sleep, wash my hair and meet with friends. I will become a single mother without a steady income, but with a baby.
A few days before giving birth, I read Grantley Dick-Reed's book “Childbirth without Fear,” which talked about relaxation and how to take pain. Then I realized that such a principle is suitable for everything: the most important thing is to relax and accept a situation that you cannot change. I could only change my attitude to this situation and decided that from now on it will be easy for me.
I gave birth quickly and painlessly and gave my daughter a patronymic name Georgievna, because this is the only detail that refers to the miracle of her appearance - to Georgia. And then she began to grow it: to breastfeed on demand, to sleep in the same bed and carry it everywhere. In parks, banks, supermarkets and paychecks, because there were no other options.
It was easy for me: I slept well - my daughter slept with me, and to breastfeed, I didn’t have to go to a free-standing bed; there was a sling - I put my daughter in him and worked while she slept on my chest. I always had time to prepare food and take a shower, because there was no partner who would help me, so I proceeded from the situation.
I could take a bath with my child or leave her in a cocoon on the bathroom floor and make faces in the process, trying to cheer. She put a cocoon on the table next to her and cut onions and carrots, preparing dinner, and her daughter carefully watched. Together we went for groceries, went to the subway, visited banks and museums, met with friends in a cafe and walked around Moscow. Life with a baby reminded me of my old one, except maybe six kilograms hung on me in a sling, and I was smiling and smiling. Everything was peaceful, quiet, sunny and calm, until November began.
The gained lightness of perception has come to an end - the typical Moscow weather of November has been established with a gray sky and dawn, gradually turning into twilight. The cold, the dirt under my feet, the absence of the sun — all this smoothly led me to depression. Sadness was added by the fall of the ruble and the reduction in income: due to the crisis of orders it became less, and the future became less certain. I dreamed of going with my daughter to winter in Thailand, but with the new exchange rate of the ruble, this option became too expensive. And then the pediatrician asked her daughter to donate blood for a general analysis, and the result was not very good; was similar to neutropenia, which means that the body is susceptible to bacteria and the immune system is weakened.
There is a small problem in raising one child: there is no one to share what one wants to share. This is not domestic life, with which everything is just simple, and it’s probably easier to be alone in this regard: you can not cook dinner at all, but have a snack on a sandwich, don’t clean the apartment, but go to bed with the baby. If a child sleeps well and eats, being alone is easy and pleasant - until a bad analysis result happens. Then you really need a loved and reliable person who would just hug and say that everything will be fine. I did not have such a person.
The pediatrician said that it would be undesirable and better to forget about Thailand to leave the Moscow Region. I already forgot about Thailand by that moment, but I thought about Egyptian Dahab - this is also a popular place for wintering with children. Red Sea, mild climate, cheap housing, colorful fish and a friendly maternal community - of course, I dreamed of changing the landscape of the Moscow region to warm Egypt. I started crying every day, talked on the phone with my cousin and sobbed at the very beginning of the conversation. I felt bad, I reluctantly went out, and when I imagined that there was a long winter ahead, I cried even more. Then she decided to leave and give her child a normal, happy mother, and not a dull woman with an unwashed head. Leave despite not the best blood test result.
At that moment I assumed responsibility for my decisions and their consequences, for where and how we would live. I promised myself that it would be easy - and if it does not work out easily in November in the Moscow region, then surely it will turn out in warm Egypt. And everything turned out: the daughter did not get sick, but, on the contrary, got stronger, every day, even the first of January, swimming in the Red Sea. I stopped crying, and walked along the seashore, drank freshly squeezed juices, laughed, continued to work and communicated with interesting people.
I was surprised to see that the child does not interfere with the former life, but complements it, brings in more emotions. I continued to travel, only changed the format: instead of saturated short trips with a lot of flights and crossings, I switched to the wintering option, and to the disapproving glance of my uncle, they say, I only do that I rest, I proudly answer that I am doing a very important thing - I heal with seas of the child. And every minute happiness and warm climate are a nice bonus.
However, I never stopped working; when the daughter was a baby, there were enough daytime dreams and time for work, while she was intently studying Bedouin carpets in the Dahab cafe. When my daughter was one and a half years old, I took a local nanny for three hours a day to winter in India. Now, when the child is two and a half, I changed my routine: I get up at four or five in the morning to work in silence and concentrate.
I was sure that raising a child was very expensive, and I was desperately afraid that I would not cope. The envelope on the statement, stroller, cot, clothes, expensive and very correct creams, educational toys - the more I read the forums on the Internet, the more I wanted to cry from horror. It turned out that in my case a little infantile adage about a rabbit worked. In the proverb, "God gave a hare, and he will give a lawn," there is a grain of truth: my friends, relatives and readers on Facebook greatly helped me with clothes, a carriage and other needs.
I did not use creams, breast milk was in abundance, there was no one to leave the baby with, so the bottles with the breast pump were irrelevant. When a wheelchair was stolen in the stairwell, a whole heap of comments were formed to my Facebook post with suggestions to donate another. The scooter got from a colleague - yes, not girly-pink, but blue, but this does not affect its speed. Daughter's educational toys replaced souvenirs in Egyptian shops and a bright Bedouin carpet pattern. Instead of a massage course, every day I bathed a child in the sea - and now my daughter is tenacious like a monkey, dexterous, and for four months in the kindergarten I haven’t missed a single day due to illness. After traveling to India, the daughter knows what the elephant looks like and what the cow says. She is able to dive and keeps on a little on water. I didn’t put an effort to it - I just brought it to the sea and plopped along with it.
Now we have moved and live in Israel: the daughter goes to the garden, I continue to work remotely and learn the language. I am very scared of how our lives will go on, for example, if I have enough money to rent an apartment, what will happen if one of us gets sick, if I find a job here. This is a new page in life, in which I am afraid to even look. But I try to remember that it is easy for me. Because if I even for a minute admit that it is hard for me to raise a child alone, then everything will crumble. And waking up in the morning and choosing to be happy is the only thing that depends on me.
