Unawares

I've had a bit of a manic week (our term only just started but it started with about 1/4 of my teaching for the year in the same week, the next 1/4 is this coming week and the rest spread out over the rest of the year, basically) and while I had plenty of countdowns on Facebook I somehow missed that Friday was Pregnancy/Infant Loss Awareness Day until I read May's blog.

I was at church this morning on my own (Mr Spouse really needs to learn not to say "ooh let's have a curry" and then vastly overconsume...), and the service sheet was sponsored by an older couple we have got to know a little, but who've never had family with them in the services. We assumed they had no children or other family but it turns out they had a son - who died about 15 years ago, at the age of 23 - on 15th October.

I lit a candle for him at the end of the service, and thought about it afterwards. I'm hoping we will get to have a baptism for our child in this church, but I don't want that to mean we never acknowledge our other children. A few years ago we sponsored some Easter lilies in memory of one (I think - it may have been more recent than that) and, which was fine with me, Mr Spouse didn't add our names/reason to the list (you can be public, or not, usually the lilies are in memory of someone and we all know that there is a cloud of unspoken names around them). I have a feeling he doesn't want to dwell on remembering them. He knows I get sad sometimes and he does too, but he doesn't want to look at our sole pair of scan pictures, and he doesn't want to go to the local infant loss and miscarriage service again. So i don't know how he'd feel about remembering our other babies as part of a baptism service.

Moving on to marginally more jolly topics. I am feeling a tad left out at work. There is a crowd of about 4 or 5 colleagues who are all slightly newer than me, one of whom I work very closely with, I actually feel I carry her a little but I also know she's had a hard time so I give her a lot of slack, we buy each other coffee when we're team teaching, she is part of this crowd. One of the group invited us to a housewarming (though has since moved, but with a new baby so I doubt the housewarming was repeated!), and one to a birthday a couple of years ago, but I've missed a couple of birthdays through being away over the summer (I was actually feeling even MORE left out but realised that I wouldn't have been around when all these parties were happening).

We have a small circle of friends here, very small in fact, and I often feel a little isolated. But I would also like to get to know these particular colleagues (except, unfortunately, the one I teach with) because they would be great collaborators. I've tried to approach them for both work collaborations and just to be friendly, and we've never really got beyond superficial conversations in both directions (and I know I can be rather overwhelmed at work, and I can show it, and that can't really make people too enthusiastic about collaborating with me, frankly).

As none of these people are really new, I can't offer to "show them round", I guess it's hard to get to know someone better when you realise you missed your chance the first time - but that's what I'd quite like to do.