Picture perfect?

You already know of course that Matt and I survive the drama.
Nothing thrusts you into adulthood more violently than having children, I'm told.
Matt was inconsolable. He didn't want to bring a child into the world this way.
His own father left when he was seven and is now living out his retirement in Thailand.

After the initial shock, Matt needed a friend and if I could define any part of my relationship with him, it was our friendship. I stood by him, but with half an eye on the door, ready to bolt.
I promised my friends I wouldn't let it get too far. If I couldn't trust him before, this only confirmed that.
Matt had always imagined he would eventually grow up, despite being almost 30 and not having made much progress.
He had only just converted the word 'job' into 'career' and wasn't exactly on the right path towards sustaining a meaningful relationship.
But from somewhere, he expected to end up with 2.4 children, a suburban semi, an Audi Passat and a wife who he can still have good sex and a laugh with a few years in.

With the exception of the latter, Matt's dreams varied greatly to mine.
I had a vague picture of being shacked up with kids and a hubby one day, but would have to overcome the obstacle of all men being tw*ts, which seemed too much hard work.
Children also scared me. Rather the hazardous effects they may have on my business suits scared me when I encountered them on public transport and it annoyed me that I couldn't block them, and their effing and blinding mothers, out with my iPod.
And suburban communities make me want to vomit.
I grew up in middle class commuterville and at the age of 13, started working in my local pub, from which I was privileged to witness the kind of person I did not want to become.

I could write another blog or an entire novel about this time of my life, which I believe was also the beginning of my superiority complex.
My friends have often joked that I should publish Memoirs of a Village Barmaid, but that's another story.
In short, I've spoken in hushed voices with the so-called respectable men who hoped I'd take pity on them if they told me they no longer had sex with their wives.
I've got cigarette burns collecting glasses from the women who were 20 years and three kids older than me.
And I've watched five-year-old Tommy, who was as much part of the 'early doors' crew as his parents were, being drilled one day by his grandmother. "My fahther's car is a Jaguah and he drives it rahther fahst."
Meanwhile 'fahther' raced to the scene on his front garden where mummy was pouring Châteauneuf-du-Pape on his best shirts for gambling away Tommy's college fund again.

I don't think now I could leave the blessed anonymity of the city.
Where I can walk down the street with tears streaming down my face without starting rumours.
Where I can turn off my phone and walk for hours without bumping into anyone I know.
Where I can shout at a rude stranger when I'm in a bad mood without expecting to see him again.

One day, Matt awoke suddenly to find that instead of a distant dream, he was somehow already halfway there.
With a baby on the way, his 30th birthday approaching and a place on a fast-track leadership course within a plc, I was the final piece of the jigsaw.
A nice girl. Great fun to corrupt, but also a keeper.

Explosive arguments about betrayals, about Nick and Lizzie and about our different hopes and values maybe should have warned us off.
Instead, it showed us we couldn't be just friends.

Now we live in a messy two-bedroom flat in a beautiful city that suits both our careers.
Every weekend we have a gorgeous happy little visitor who is allowed to dribble whatever she wants on my clothes.
I have Disney compilations on my iPod and babble away with her all day, rather than trying to block her out.
Here's to the best risk I've ever taken.