Love

I spent an awful lot of  my earlier life feeling pretty unloveable. I had a fairly complicated relationship with most of my closest family. I was always on the outside of friendship groups, the afterthought, the tagger-along. In my teens and most of my twenties I acted as gooseberry with my friends and their boyfriends as I went from one ridiculous, unrequited crush on a thoroughly unsuitable man, to the next. I had very much resigned myself to a life of spinsterhood, being one-day found dead, being eaten by my cats. Sorry, that line makes it sound like a joke, but at twenty six, the only single person amongst an entire cohort of couples, several of whom were talking marriage and houses and babies, all those things that I had grown up hoping for my own life, well it didn’t feel like a joke.

Somehow, life changed. I actually found a Suitable Man and it all became remarkably easy.  The irony of the fact that I had known this suitable man for several years and always said he was ‘really not my type’, is not lost on me. Essentially my type had always been a man who didn’t really like me and wasn’t very nice to me! From that moment that I decided to let love into my life, more love seemed to find me.

I decided to move to Cornwall, a part of the world that I love, with its beautiful countryside and warm(er) winters and small world feel. I started a job that I love, which makes me feel good at something and, when it’s going well, truly fulfilled. I work with a team of colleagues who, though I probably don’t show it enough, I truly love like my second, enormous family. They have seen me through some tough moments, always have my back, and I am eternally grateful to them all. I also love quite a lot of my patients, who sometimes do me more good than I  do them as their doctor.

I had a daughter, who taught me some very tough lessons about love. She taught me that it can be extremely hard work sometimes, that sometimes it is terrifying and overwhelming and all-consuming. She taught me that it can make you so vulnerable and also stronger than you ever thought possible. She taught me that love can break your heart and form into new and beautiful shapes.

We bought our house, which like my Suitable Man I would have always said was ‘really not my type’ after years of watching Location, Location, Location and drooling over period features and what you would euphemistically call ‘a project.’  I love our new-build, featureless house which has become the greatest home I could have dreamed of. The garden has taught me the love of nature, of the seasons, of eating a berry picked from your own bush, of getting mud under your nails, of seeing the first green point of a bulb appearing through the ground in the spring. It has taught me the love of digging and weeding and lugging bags of compost around, of going to bed aching all over. It has taught me the love of sitting quietly, watching the bees buzz from flower to flower, hearing the birds singing, and feeling the sun on my face.

I had a son who taught me that love could be simple. That it could keep you safe and grounded and settled. That it could come instantly and easily and with chuckles and fun. That it could beam from your face like sunshine and make the world a better place.

I have revisited relationships with family which have grown stronger and stronger and have become the greatest support network to me in tough times. I adore every wonderful thing about these people and I am so grateful to have them in my life.

Somehow I have gone from the girl who felt unloveable to the woman whose whole life is suffused in love. It colours every single day, and I don’t think there is a day that goes by without me genuinely using the L word, to tell my husband and children how much I love them, how much I love the garden, my job, my colleagues. I feel incredibly lucky to be in this position and this is my little declaration of gratitude for all the love in my life.