“You know you’re getting old when all your friends start getting pregnant - on purpose”

I heard this quote a month ago and it has stuck in my mind ever since. As a traveller with no immediate plans or intentions to settle down, get married and have children, this quote especially hits home - and I mean, literally, home.

I have been back (Perth, Australia) for a week now (of a 4 week holiday) and OUCH does this quote reign truth! My friend from high school, who it feels like only yesterday, I was sneaking out of bedroom windows in the middle of the night with, now sits with me over coffee nursing an absolutely gorgeous baby daughter (Addison). But it isn’t just the new arrivals, it’s my friend who’s little boy (Elias) I was rocking and feeding a bottle too the night before I left on this journey, is now running around and talking. Like a real little person.

Where has this time gone? And how exactly did I get so lost in the transition to ‘adulthood’? It’s not to say that I am immature or a child in any means, but when my conversations start with.. ‘So I met this guy..’ and their’s start with.. ‘She had real trouble when I first started breastfeeding..’ you can’t help but feel like there is an entire universe between you. Or, worst still, the unanswered question of all time, ‘What if?’

Then I find myself sitting on the beach. Alone. Silence. No child to look out for. No one calling my mobile to pick up milk on the way home. No thoughts of paying bills and cleaning the house running through my head. And, I am happy with the decisions I have made in my life. The boys that could have been husbands, have come and gone, and even though their memories will forever be in my heart & thoughts, I hold with me the certainty that my time will come one day - and when it does will be welcomed with open arms. Until then, I will love these gorgeous babies and children in my life, and keep doing what I set out to do - be blissfully happy  xx

Addison

Elias