Having It All

This morning I woke up and burst into tears. The reason being, that no sooner had the snooze alarm gone off, my boyfriend was brusquely calling “morning” in my ear - waking me up abruptly and depriving me of my last ten minutes sleep. This wouldn’t usually make me cry of course, but at the moment I’m a tightly wound coil. The last few days could be likened to tobogganing down a black run. Never sure when you’re going to land or whether it will be smoothly or in an undignified heap. There is no rest after dark either - my dreams are full of work. Last night for example I was trapped in a lift and screaming “will you c***s get me out of here” to no one in particular. Oh yes, my job is not without stress. But then there are the perks I thought, as I stumbled into the sun on Chiswick pier, temporarily de-stressed by the warming effects of a good white wine and a hearty meal and talking advertising b*llocks to other people equally as inebriated and passionate in their subject. We took a chartered boat back to festival pier, one of the survivors from Dunkirk and I had to admit to myself that whilst I am not sure I have the emotional stability to deal with such a life in the long run, part of me really, really needs the buzz.

But can I have it all? I think I’ve fallen for someone recently. Indeed for the first time in three years I’ve made it past six months. But my relationship is not without conditions. Of which the main one is that the mother of any children he might have, will be healthy. Which means eating the right food (no inevitable on the run snacking or skipping meals that my sort of job encourages), exercise (difficult when one is tied to their laptop for 12 hours a day) not getting stressed… Failure to achieve these conditions now, even before we have had children causes arguments. So in order to prove that I can do it all, at 8:30pm on Monday night when I finished work, I changed into my gym kit, got off the tube half way home and ran the rest of the way back to my boyfriend’s house in Putney.

I am intelligent enough to realise that this level of strain on my body is not maintainable. I also realise that some would say that it is none of my boyfriends business how I choose to plan my days. But in so many ways, I agree with him. I want the Georgian house, and the three children and… well, we’re still fighting over whether we have a dog or a cat but you get the picture. And I realise that my earning capacity is unlikely to match his for some years. I also want a huge say in the first few years of my children’s life and that would simply not be possible alongside my job.

But to give it up? Oh I wouldn’t miss the stress… but the buzz? So it seems I have to make a decision because I’m really not sure that having it all is possible.