Perched atop the rolling hills of Tuscany, I'd spot the Sienese skyline were my glasses within reachable distance. Cyprus trees peek their tips out over the fluorescent green grass typical of italian spring. The romance of it all really is something rotten, though I admit my decision to write after nearly a year and a half adjournment is inspired less by this consummate scenery and more by the wish to expose my husband-to-be for gaslighting me about an arachnassault I narrowly survived last week.
I suppose I should start by explaining to those who don't yet know just how busy a year it has been. For starters, I am now balding at the fault of two men, the first of whom impregnated(!) me and a second who spectacularly exited my beaver last november, leaving me with a cocktail of hormones that would make my hair fall out more abundantly than a short fat man hotfooting his convertible through a midlife crisis. At the age of 40 I became a mother. Not long before I would be proposed of marriage, something I had come to ascribe only to starry-eyed twenty-somethings rather than myself- a senescent and cynical mid-lifer with a rented flat in a part of town intended for those refusing to level up.
Early last year my father congratulated Tim for making me "the happiest he's seen me in a long time". I objected to a man congratulating another man for a women's happiness and reminded him that my smile was instead born of the richness that was unemployment. You see, in February 2024 I hit pause on my hectic working life as a London doctor and traded it for a six month sabbatical. It started extremely well with a solo business class flight to Bangkok (where I would try to appear nonchalant in the glory of its decadence while I covertly pocketed the mini salt and pepper shakers like the true insolvent I was). I spent a week meditating in Koh Samui, kayaked through caves near Phuket, and received a hand carved wooden luggage tag with my name embossed compliments of The Six Senses Yao Noi. This was followed by a week snowboarding in the French Alps, a trip to Southern California to eat dollar tacos and showcase my new british arm candy with the nice teeth, and a spiritual experience under the moonrise over Joshua tree. But the pleasure and leisure came to an abrupt halt the day before I left for Milan Design Week last April. I wasn't quite feeling myself so did a pregnancy test if only for the reassurance I could safely drown in Campari spritz and cured meat over the next week. In an instant I realized my eyes were not in fact crossed, but that double blue line not dissimilar to all four or five of my positive covid tests meant my sabbatical was effectively over.
Weeks later I would lay moribund on the sofa for three months of "morning" sickness. I shit my pants in public on the day I was too tired to put underwear under my trackies (and ironically wiped it up with a t-shirt that read not today satan). I dry heaved into an Ikea trash can after Tim lovingly presented me with a shriveled vegan hotdog made of quinoa that resembled Shrek's penis. After 14 weeks of this I was finally well enough to return to work after my 'sabbatical'. The hospital was noticeably next door to a pub called "the spread eagle" and I often cogitated about this absurd reminder that I should have stayed virgin for the extent of my intended time off.
Being a "mature" pregnant lady, I had to do lots of extra prenatal tests. This included the oral glucose tolerance test to check for gestational diabetes. I wondered why I couldn't ply my cake hole with pan au chocolate instead of that goopy drink made with 75grams of sugar. My tendency to multitask was like never before while I entertained conversations, went to the gym, treated patients, and trotted around on public transportation all the while doing things behind the scenes like building placentas and eyeballs and testicles. I was busy. Too busy to read about childbirth or motherhood, until the day my water broke a month early and also about an hour after I had just read the chapter on premature rupture of membranes. When my 30 hours of labor reached its precipice, I found myself surrounded by the most inspired team of female surgeons, nurses and midwives shouting at me to push because I was so close to meeting my baby. They seemed to know this because they could see his hair IT'S BLACK (sic), and in an instant I wished he would have just stayed in there because this defied everything I knew about genetics and my understanding about how the world worked.
The months that followed have been a blur with minimal time for anything beyond simply trying to keep my child alive. I have never faced so much uncertainty. But one thing I am certain of is that last week when I dropped trou in the night, my hand was met with a massive nodule on my arse which the mirror confirmed to be a nasty spider bite. I knew this because there were two punctate marks where the fangs would have greedily sunk themselves into. It was also extremely red and indurated. I was disillusioned when (panicking of imminent death from its venom) I showed Tim who suggested this was nothing more than a pimple. He is a creative not a doctor but spoke with harrowing conviction. I did not previously identify with having a pimply ass and told him I'd never in my life had a zit on my behind. He argued against this point by saying he had never in his life been bitten by a spider in his home. He then negated my suffering for the next 24 hours by gesticulating at me with extended wrists to simulate my new super hero capacity to shoot webs out of my arms. I was too tired to argue my defense until two days later whilst sat on the toilet bleary eyed at 3am I noticed a colossal, HAIRY brown spider on the ceiling, staking me out with his seventeen eyeballs and licking his chops in preparation for his next meal. I ran to the bedroom to wake Tim up to: 1.) Save our souls and 2.) inform him I was RIGHT about it not being a pimple, to which he accused me of having invited the spider inside because thats how convicted I am toward being right. This man with whom I have created our combined flesh and blood was gaslighting me in front of my very own psychiatrically minded eyes. So I want the universe to know that Tim is a gaslighter.
And for the record I have still never had a pimple on my butt, neither is my son's hair black.