timing

It is so weird timing of things. Gaye started on the lucrin last week and was booked in for Monday to have the scan and blood test.

We were meant to spend the weekend with her folks who live in Victoria and take them, her visiting nephew and Thomas to Philip Island to see the penguins come out of the water at sunset.

Gaye had the week of work to get started on finishing her Masters and spend some of the school holidays with Thomas.

Late last week Gaye caught some bug and couldn't be very far from the loo so a flight was out of the question. We put off our trip by a week and planned to meet her nephew as he flew north back to his folks and bring him home for dinner between flights.

On Saturday night Gaye's mum rang and said her Dad had a heart attack and after flustering around and ringing clinics and worrying about her Dad in the end Gaye flew to Melbourne on Sunday, she is having her scan there and will be back on Friday to start the next phase of drugs. Her Dad had surgery yesterday and had one of those shunt thingos put in and seems to be in amazingly good form and going home tomorrow.

In the middle of this we had brunch with my gorgeous sister Lou, who turned 35 this weekend and whose partner broke up with her ‘6 weeks and 6 days’ before hand.

All of this has made me think of timing and how little control we have over things really.

If we had gone down as planned this weekend – would we have spotted her Dad’s illness earlier (he has been hiding his pain) and made him get help or would we have been half way to Philip Island and things made much worse by a long trip to the hospital. Understandably Gaye was upset and worried about her Dad. And said a number of times that she wasn’t ready yet to lose him.

My sister has been waiting for her fella to be ‘ready’ to settle and have kids, she loves him dearly and wanted to give him time – but had definitely set a timeframe in her head a number of years ago (when previously single) that if she was single/childless at 35 she was just going to try and do it on her own. She thought/hoped that they were working towards that aim and instead finds herself at 35 single and heartbroken (but I must say also strong, amazing and resilient).

Gaye and I have “waited” for all sorts of reasons before “trying” for a baby together. And now we are trying and we are in a good place together to do that, but it occurs to me that this is indeed our future – young child/ren who need us close by and parents who are ageing and also need us to support and care for them.

One of the ‘timing’ issues we talk about is my mother. Coming out to my mother was undertaken at the ‘right time’ (turned out not to be so right but there you go), putting pressure on her to accept our relationship was undertaken after ‘time’ for her to get used to things. And we have talked about if if if we are lucky enough for Gaye to have a baby when we would tell her (early give her lots of time? Later give her little time?). But I think this weekend I have realised that no time is going to be the right time for her.

I talked to my folks about Gaye’s Dad – and my Dad was gorgeous and concerned for her. But my mother continued down her path of resistance or denial or whatever it is and ‘hmmed’ and ‘how awfuled’ on the phone and then moved the conversation on. Today she has sent me an email asking about cooking tips – without even asking how Gaye’s Dad is and I am outraged but also a bit defeated.

No amount of time I think will make much difference to her – and I think I am just like her – cause I do wonder how much time it will take to make a difference to the disappointment I feel in her. Sometimes I miss her so much.

Really there is no right time perhaps, but it is weird - timing.