After Anabelle

Are you content? 

I am but I'm not.  

Are there things I would change if I could? Of course! For the most part I am content. I'm content in my relationships with Jon, my family, my friends. I'm content in my role as Alexander's mother. I'm content in my job.   

I'm not content with my role as Anabelle's mother, it goes without saying how differently I wish things were. How I wish she was here. It is well documented here my struggle to accept being without her forever. 

I'm not content with where we live. I would love a family sized home now.

It does feel ungrateful to moan about my living situation when I know there are people much worse off than I am. I am grateful that I have a roof over my head, I do love our little home. The first home we owned and created our family in, this place is special. However, we have quickly outgrown our living space now and I'm increasingly frustrated with the housing market and our position in it. Our home is in negative equity, we have no savings to cover a shortfall in a sale or for a deposit to move on. Additionally as we bought through a first time buyers scheme, and are in a shared equity contract ; not only can we not sell, currently we cannot rent here out either as an option to move on. 

What was a 'starter' home has become a lengthy stay and with choosing schools for Alexander not far away on the horizon I had hoped to be living in a nicer catchment area for our children. 

There is absolutely nothing that can be done about it and our options are limited to none! 

However I appreciate if the worst I have to moan about right now is the size of our house and the catchment area it is in then I have a lot going for me, much more to be content about than not. I saw this on facebook earlier this evening and thought it made a good summing up for this post: