full moon in a garden

I went to a gig in a garden last night. My husband's band surrounded by their best friends and family. The people that they love.

It was a good night, the music was great, the moon was full. There were some beautiful people there last night, a Libyan, a member of the Wicklow aristocracy, a red-haired sweetheart that me and everyone else loves like their own son, a girl who's so kind, and dances so fluidly, she moves her hips so beautifully, joyfully, a sweet little guy who just came out at Christmas and told me the band blog I write is the highlight of his day. The moon shone on it all but I had mixed feelings - I'll admit, I got melancholy, kind of like I used to do when I was young, actually, and my loneliness would hit me in the middle of all the fun. That sense of helplessness, of no way out of this. I'd forgotten how many nights I found myself staring off into space, wishing for something more, watching my frustrated dreams and projected future. And here I am again. It's partly being surrounded by the youngsters - flowing drinks and some fairly committed spliff rolling. Perhaps that's why I felt so keenly the lack of arms round me, of someone to kiss me, why I wanted to walk up to someone while they stood in the dark, , take the joint from their hand and drag on it, locking eyes with them ... I don't know if it's worse being lonely and loveless in a relationship or out of one.

` I got buttonholed earlier by the drummer's mum, whose garden it was. She has three children in their twenties and thirties, living at home. She's not a happy mammy. Her husband left her out of the blue a few years ago. Her kids don't give her any money for their keep, and she won't ask. But she expects a bottle of wine, a few packs of cigarettes on payday, they know that would make her happy. She wants them to show her they care, to look after her a little. All she ever wanted was love, and she never got it.

I wonder. I don't know what kind of wife she was, or mother she is. There's two sides to every story. I can't comment on the kids, I wasn't born, but raised with a silver spoon, my parents looked after me, not the other way round. But still. Will that be me, an old and broken version of my daughter, standing there telling my kids' friends all I ever wanted was love, and I never got it?