A little while ago I was at a party when someone let slip that a close friend was having a baby. Everyone is having babies around me now – if I get a text asking “How are you?”, I know what’s coming – so it should hardly have been a shock, and it is unequivocally happy news. Except I wasn’t expecting it, and it knocked me sideways.
I gripped the sides of the sink, as the loudmouth tried to retract what they’d said and to understand my reaction. It wasn’t something I could articulate at the time. In the end I felt so thrown by the news, I went to bed.
But I realised I had suddenly felt excluded. How could I spend all this time with someone, share everything about my life with them, and not know they were ready for this?
It was a few weeks before I got the official dispatch and by then my emotions had settled into uncomplicated joy; my feelings were no longer a projection about my life and our friendship, only sincere excitement that someone I love so dearly has got everything they’ve always wanted.
I was grateful for the heads-up that uncomfortable conversation in the kitchen gave me, even if it killed my buzz at the party. Had my friend witnessed the blood drain from my face that night and got the impression I was anything other than thrilled, I would have been heartbroken.
Hearing my friends’ big life news didn’t always feel like this. In my twenties, every big milestone felt like a novelty and we had unbridled enthusiasm for it all. We threw ourselves into hen dos and baby showers, and loved how calling ourselves “auntie” made us feel. The big reveal – the photo of the engagement ring, the hidden pregnancy test – was part of the ceremony. Each person’s good news felt like ours, too; they were advancing into a new stage of life and by proxy, we were advancing with them.
The further I get into my thirties, though, the more people around me seem to constantly be sharing big life things, and the more complex it gets. Each announcement lands a little differently. Had you known it was coming? Did you know they were “there” yet? Were you growing up in tandem, and now see them speeding ahead? How does it make you feel about your own path?
I’ve learned too that there are very bad ways to receive very good news. I wish, for example, I had not been told about an old friend’s pregnancy while I was on the train to Glastonbury and had several hours to stare out of the window examining our divergent life choices (thank God it wasn’t while I was on the train home).
I wish a whirlwind engagement had not been announced out of the blue on a group call with several other people after I’d had an extremely long day at work, when I was so wrapped up in my own selfish stresses I could not muster up much enthusiasm for anyone else.
I am grateful I have not, unlike some friends of mine, fallen victim to the “photo trick” – posing for a group picture and being told that someone is pregnant while someone else is recording the reaction.
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square LAYTON WILLIAMS
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Because our reactions aren’t our real feelings, are they? That unsettling surprise that takes us aback, that face that departs from practised, pure elation, is never betraying some deeper truth, some bitterness, jealousy, or resentment.
All of us only want the best for the people we love. It’s just that sometimes you need time to adjust; to accept that your relationships might change, and to confront the feelings that come up as you’re forced to reflect on your own life.
It helps, then, when you feel included. I cried recently, listening to my friend’s quiet voice note about her proposal, because as she told the story I felt like I was there with her, and was overcome by how infectious her happiness was.
I loved it when my friend phoned me drunk from a toilet at 4am after getting engaged on holiday – I could barely make out a word but I loved how quickly she wanted to call and let me in on the secret. When another friend and her husband FaceTimed me to tell me about her pregnancy, there was something strangely reassuring about their delivery: “So I guess we’re doing it!” they said, pulling faces of comic dread.
It also helps when you suspect it’s coming. None of us has a right to be privy to the details of other people’s relationships, but knowing, for example, that a friend is trying for a baby, or that they have always talked about moving away, or that they’re planning to get married quickly, does help the news and the changes that follow it feel less sudden.
You know the place they’re in, you know the plan, you aren’t being left behind; you’re right there with them. As you always will be, through all the news – good and bad – to come.
