Not By Accident

I had morning sickness and was trying hard to look after myself, now about 5 weeks pregnant, but it was a struggle with the lack of structure in my life over the summer, and all this travel.  Today though, back to work, just for a week. I was feeling guilty and conflicted about work. This was really the first time in my life that I wasn’t putting work ahead of everything else and it made me very uneasy. I was lonely and felt very isolated. It wasn’t a choice I’d made, to go through life alone.  After I came out at 30, I ventured out into the Sydney lesbian scene. I felt like a 30 year old teenager. It was exciting and terrifying. I started internet dating. I had some fun. I got my heart broken a couple of times. I fell in love with a woman called Lucy and we had a relationship that was intense, exciting and before long, tumultuous. The fact that I wanted a baby at some point added extra strain. She moved with me to Denmark and things unraveled.  I found myself living alone in a beautiful big, empty apartment, broken hearted again, in rural Denmark with no friends nearby and almost no lesbians in sight. I had my dream job but my personal life was empty and I kept wondering why I was doing this to myself in the last years of my youth. I gave everything I had to my work, which I loved.  So much was unknown, and unknowable. It was the first time I really wondered if I could do this. But now I have a long vacation in Europe which I’m determined to enjoy. Six years have passed since Lucy and I broke up, but we’ll always care about each other from a distance, and now it’s clear that the love carries through to the next generation.   Not By Accident is made by me, Sophie Harper. Thanks to my family, my friends and my daughter for allowing me to record, and for the practical and moral support. Please subscribe, rate and review to help the series find more listeners. Go to notbyaccident.net to sign up to my occasional email newsletter, tweet at me @byaccidentnot and if you know anyone who might like to listen, please share! Music from freemusicarchive.org - CC NC License: Like Swimming by Broke For Free; I Don’t See The Branches, I See The Leaves by Chris Zabriskie; Safe In Glass Houses by Dexter Britain; Going Under by Dexter Britain; Level 2 by Total Reboot.

US listeners, support the series and eat well. Hello Fresh Has signed on to support me for 2017! Sign up at www.hellofresh.com and use the promo code 'noaccident35' to get $35 off your first delivery. Everybody wins!

Go to www.notbyaccident.net to find out more about the series or to get in touch.