One of the hardest parts of life is deciding whether to walk away or try harder!

When I was younger I always imagined my life would turn out in the footsteps of my parents. They met each other when Mum was only 16 years old fell in love then Mum decided she needed to venture out on her own spread her wings and discover what she wants to do with her life before she settled down with a husband and a family. So they broke up went their separate ways. Years later fate brought them back together they had stumbled across one another at a party and soon enough they were married and had 4 children. They are still together to this day and all of us kids are closer than ever. This is how I pictured my life to be. I imagined that I would be married with the love of my life and also have 4 children of my own by the age of 20! ha I know right THANK FUCK that’s not how my life story unfolded.

Over the years I have experienced my fair share of relationships, a few heart breaks and breaking others myself in search for “the one”. My last relationship before I moved away from my family was quiet a traumatising one, one that I thought I would never be able to move on from and made me give up on finding love. The only way I knew I would be able to get on with my life was to move away from the town he lived in so I moved to Warrnambool away from my home town of Mount Gambier. Within only a few months I had met my sons father, we didn’t see eye to eye at first I was very distant but eventually he grew on me and I fell in love. I thought this was it! I thought I had found the person I would spend the rest of my life with. Within a year I had moved to a small country town where he lived. Shortly after, our relationship began to deteriorate I became very unhappy within myself and I was just about at breaking point when I fell pregnant. This was not a joyful time for me I was not over the moon about this pregnancy. This was more of a holy fucking shit I am pregnant fuck my life! What am I going to do situation. At one point I even considered getting an abortion. I feel terrible now for even having those thoughts because I love my son but at that point in time I was very unhappy and was not at all ready to become a Mum. And I think that’s okay, it’s okay to have those feelings of doubt and to be scared of the unknown. It is a massive change to your lifestyle to take on parenthood, raising a child that’s your own. It’s not easy and if you are simply not ready then I don’t think you should be discriminated for making decisions like abortion. I personally couldn’t do it, I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason and I thought maybe this will fix my relationship, maybe I will finally be happy.

I was very lucky to have such an easy pregnancy, I loved it, every minute of it. I wasn’t sick, I was glowing and I was overly happy. Which helped me come to ease about having a child by about 12 weeks I was finally excited to become a Mum and had overcome my fear and was ready to tell my friends and family the good news. I had reconnected my relationship with my sons father and things were moving along smoothly. Cael was born we named him after Cael Sanderson some famous wrestler I knew nothing about. We didn’t want to find out the sex so we put 3 girl’s names and 3 boy’s names in a hat and best out of 3 was the name we chose -Cael. I didn’t like the name at first it just reminded me of the vegetable (KALE) which in my words tastes like fucking shit! But as soon as the midwives put him in my arms for the first time I just knew that name was meant to be, this is my son Cael.

Few months down the track I started to get those unhealthy feelings back the horrible thing they like to call (postnatal depression). We lived basically in the middle of bum fuck nowhere so I started to feel very isolated and alone, my friends were an hour away my family 3 hours I wasn’t doing anything but sitting at home all day with my son day in and day out. I had nothing in that town other than my son and my partner I came to a point where I knew I needed to make a change so I decided to go back to work. I got a job at a bakery full time and put Cael in childcare. I even started my own business sewing bibs for babies and eventually it grew and I started to create so many different items of clothing and accessories. I loved it I finally had a hobby and an extra income. Eventually the novelty wore off and I went back to feeling lost and alone and confused. I still wasn’t happy and my unhappiness began to make my partner unhappy. We tried so hard to make it work for years, changed our routine made a date night each week, he changed jobs, I got back into sport. We had some really good moments where we were going great and things were working out but we also had some really bad moments. The yelling and fighting over the smallest things got worse until eventually the bad weighed out the good.

Few months down the track of confusion we came to a mutual decision to split up. The decision to walk away from a family you have put your heart and soul into and worked so hard for was easily the hardest decision I have ever had to make. We still loved each other but we just weren’t making each other or ourselves happy anymore. Neither of us had done wrong, we were just not meant to be. One of my favourite lyrical lines from the oh so famous Eminem his song Bad Husband “not bad people just bad together”. I relate to this song on so many different levels. It took me a few months to completely move out. I decided to move back to Warrnambool, I changed jobs got a full time job at an insurance company, changed Cael’s childcare and found a rental property for just Cael and I. In the end I know that both of us are happier and have become better people for making this decision. It took a long time to move on, you aren’t able to just cut that person out of your life completely when you have a child with them. It was really hard at first but eventually we got there and we became friends in the end which has made it easier to communicate and it makes Cael happy.

I have come from a religious family, everyone in my family, from my immediate to my cousins have gotten married and had children and stayed together. Me on the other hand had a child out of wedlock then became a single mum. This wasn’t my plan not the ideal situation but at the end of the day your own happiness is the most important thing, it goes above anything else. If you are not happy within yourself then that will affect your relationships, friendships, family, work and children, everything around you. Find what makes you happy if something is making you unhappy no matter how hard it may be to do so WALK AWAY.

You can spend a lifetime trying to fix something, but if it’s not making you happy, if  you are not being your true self, there will forever be broken pieces…