Silver and Gold

One of the entries in my old school autograph book (remember those?) says:

“Make new friends but keep the old; one is silver, the other, gold”

and I’ve always pondered on the validity of this. It’s a great sentiment, of course, but how much weight does it carry?

I’ve just deleted the whole blog post because all I was doing was making myself sad recalling all the instances that I’d allowed ‘good friends’ to unsettle, upset and basically undermine me. Which is a lot of the time; I learnt from a very early age how to be undermined.  Suffice is to say that the friends I always took to believe were steadfast, strong and true, have never been what I would call real friends; the ones who don’t let you send a text saying ‘I can’t meet you, I’m having a bad day’ and leave it at that; instead they come round with a hug and take over the tea-making and tell you it’s okay to feel sad and they feel sad too sometimes and then stay with you until you feel strong enough to face putting some clothes on. (Nope, never happened, although I’ve been there like a shot in a reverse situation).

Friends don’t (just after you’ve split up with the father of your child) tell you how great it must be being single again and painting the town red while she has to slave over a dinner party for eight (mutual friends) where I couldn’t be included because I’d have been a ‘threat’. Friends also don’t text you an hour before you were due to meet up after you’ve spent weeks trying to convince yourself this won’t kill you because you’ve been a hermit for years and the thought of going outside fills you with fear and dread and her excuse is ‘Realised there’re too many other things to do’.  Real friends don’t….

No. I can’t go on. Reading even these instances back makes me feel like a wuss, a victim a pathetic person who’s never stood up for herself. Maybe that’s why I was bullied so relentlessly at school; I just don’t have the courage, the conviction in myself to believe that I deserve to be treated any better. In fact at times I’ve thought I deserved nothing less.  My parents used to say it was character-building, all the punches and pinches and spits and name-calling I got; they’d sayignore the bullies, they’re“just jealous” but there was nothing about me which could make anybody jealous. I was rubbish at maths, I couldn’t run for a bus let alone a hockey ball, I was skinny, freckly, my hair was terrible, I had braces on my teeth and the only friends I had were also relentlessly bullied. What did they mean: jealous?  I’d spend hours… hours upon hours trying to work out what it was; which was when I started writing: I thought it might be like the ‘workings out’ in tests–maybe the answer would come to me.

It never did.

So latterly, whenever I’ve felt upset by something a ‘friend’ has said, or done, or not said, or not done, I’ve always chalked it up to me being an overly-sensitive soul; they didn’t mean it; they were just trying to be funny; they weren’t thinking properly. And sometimes I even believe it. Sometimes I’d feel a kind of strength knowing that I’d still trust and keep them as my friends, no matter how my feelings might be hurt, because that’s what true friendship was all about; sticking together no matter what.  And if they didn’t say or do  things that I know I would do as their friend, then it didn’t matter; it just meant my expectations were too great; nobody’s perfect, I’m not the only friend they’ve got: I should be grateful they’re my friend at all.  And I’ver never liked to be pushy, which may make me seem ignorant or uninterested. Again, though, it’s the confidence thing; I won’t make a move because I worry I’ll intrude on their -way more- interesting lives. Yet I’m thrilled if somebody makes contact with me. It springboards me into action and I feel wanted and justified and accepted and I’m the best friend in the world. Until there’s a lull and I daren’t make contact again (I even go through the last conversation I had and try to work out what I might have said wrong for them not to have contacted me again since; any subtle indiscretion I may have inadvertently made, any peculiar look I may have cast their way without having meant to?)so really I’m not very good with the whole friendship thing. I don’t know the steps.

So it comes as something of a shock to find that I’ve recently met somebody who could potentially become a ‘friend’. I’ve already (I’d like to think) become ‘friends’ with the person I work with and we have off-the-record/after work meetings at the wine bar next door.  But  just the other day I met somebody who happens to have so much in common with me that at one point I thought I was either talking to myself (wouldn’t be the first time) or that the whole thing had been set up. Someone who’s also only been in Bath for 6 months. Someone who also writes and somebody who has the same taste in art as me because they bought the picture I’d set my own sights on and apologised profusely whilst paying (me) for it when I said as much. I know.

So we’re going to meet up. See if we like one another. See if we have anything else in common. See if the world might be a brighter place for having one another in each of our lives. Because who knows? Longevity doesn’t seem to mean anything other than a shared history of dead people, broken places and sad situations, so why not try something bold and new and fresh?

Disclaimer: If you don’t hear from me again, then perhaps they turned out to be an axe-weilding monster or something equally heinous – but it’s okay – it might’ve been something I’d said and I totally deserved it.

 

 

 

 

Survival

Colette raised her eyes to the mid-morning sun as she sat on her back doorstep, the second cigarette in a row clamped between the fingers on her right hand.  She refused to feel guilty about promising Emmy she wouldn’t smoke anymore and thanked the lord that she wasn’t religious; she’d never get into heaven lying to her six-year-old daughter.

              The tangled mass of shrubbery lay level with her eyes at the end of the garden where the wheelie bins sat.  She still hadn’t got around to looking them up to see if she should cut them back or right down and she refused to call Carl to ask him if he knew what she should do with them.  He’d think she was as pathetic as he always told her she was.  “Said you’d come runnin’ back, din’t I, yer useless piece of…” she heard him sneer.  She didn’t need that.  She didn’t need him to think she couldn’t cope on her own. No, despite not knowing how boilers worked or where the emergency stop-cock and trip switch was, this was what she needed now; some quiet, some space and somewhere she and Emmy could sleep without the constant worry of which one of them might be slapped awake to face whatever punishment Carl thought they deserved next. 

              She’d always snorted at beaten wives when she’d read about them in the paper; what were the women doing staying with these monsters?  Had they no self-respect?  No sense of worth?  There was no way she’d ever allow herself to get into a position like that.  But it’s always different when it’s you, isn’t it?  There’s always the voice of doubt, of misguided ‘reason’, of fear whispering that if this monster doesn’t like you then who on earth will?  She wondered if she’d have had the courage to leave if it hadn’t been for Emmy, but it didn’t help to dwell on might-have-beens.

              Frowning to dampen such thoughts, she stared idly at the sandy patch of soil where she’d flicked the ash from every cigarette she’d smoked since they moved into this place; probably getting on for at least two hundred by now but who was counting?  There’d been some sort of bush growing there when they’d first moved in and over the colder months the plant had darkened, wizened and become so brittle that when she’d accidentally rolled over it with the bin, what had remained had cracked and crumbled to the ground.  It had looked beaten-up, dead, as though it had had enough.  And because she saw it every time she opened the back door and it reminded her of how careless she’d been in trampling it down, she’d given it a decent send off, murmured something vaguely poetic and pulled it up from the dried-out roots, flinging it into the heap of junk behind the shed.

              Now, as she blew out the final puff of smoke, she noticed something green poking up from the dust. It looked like a tiny three-winged propeller as it swayed precariously in a breeze so slight she couldn’t even feel one.  She wondered if it might be part of the plant she’d uprooted and if this was one of its new shoots coming through?  It wouldn’t last, though.  Not in this climate.  They’d had a couple of hard frosts but it wasn’t over yet; it didn’t look as if it would survive a drop of rain falling on its fragile stalk let alone a burst of icy weather.  Wouldn’t it be kinder to just tug it out and chuck it than have it endure such a struggle?

              Later, when Emmy raced back into the kitchen, cheeks flushed from exertion, she stood in front of Colette with cupped hands.  Colette was worried she’d brought another crawling creature in from the garden.  Well then she’d just smile, pretend she wasn’t scared; she was beginning to master being soft and strong, mum and dad, kind and strict.  Not screaming at the sight of spiders had been a difficult test but one she’d managed to pass.

              ‘Look.’ Emmy panted. Carefully she uncurled her fingers to reveal the same delicate green propellers Colette had been considering earlier.  She smiled at her daughter.  Well, it didn’t have eight legs. Emmy stroked one of the fragile leaves as though it were a pet.  ‘I’m going to keep it in my room where the sun comes through the window.  We’ll take care of it, won’t we mummy?  It’s too small to be left outside on its own.’

              Colette explained what would be needed, how much care she’d have to take over its watering; to make sure it didn’t get too much sun as well as not enough, and Emmy listened, memorising the information in a way that only children of six can.  Then she raced to the shed, back out again and over to an area of earth where she spooned up soil and pressed it carefully into the pot, arranging it delicately around the tender stem of the plant.  She returned to the house breathless and victorious with her new charge safely potted and cupped back inside grubby hands.

              ‘When you look after something properly, it gets strong.’ Emmy beamed at the plant as she strode towards the stairs.  Then, her hand on the banister, she leant over the pot as if she wanted to tell it a secret.  ‘My mummy learned me that,’ she whispered.

 

Written in response to the Creative Writing Ink weekly image prompt 29th March, 2018

Unravelling the Year Behind

Some of you  might already know that I don’t like, do, or particularly agree with New Year Resolutions; they’re set up to knock you down – at least that’s been my experience.  And there’s too much pressure (again, self-inflicted) to try and ‘be good’ and stick to ‘the plan/goal/aim’ for these knee-jerk lists of what you might believe should happen in your life over the course of the following year for everything to feel, or be (perhaps only seem) to be better than the one just gone, that come February you’re already in the self-induced slough of despond and wishing it was another New Years Eve so you could try a different list.

*sigh*

No.  Not for me.  One year – a couple back, I did try an alternative approach and decided to have a writerly-focused goal for the ensuing year, in that I would enter at least one writing competition every month for 12 months and see where it got me.  This actually worked out rather well, because along with being longlisted, shortlisted, and running-up (that’s 2nd) in the Yeovil Literary Festival, I also won the http://www.creativewritingink.com bi-monthly image prompt writing competition 5 times consecutively – I know!

Of course I should have stopped there.  One year.  I’d done it, it had borne fruit, enough now.  But with success often comes the thirst for more, and so I thought I’d continue it on to the following year (the one we just waved goodbye to).  Entered much the same competitions, thoroughly convinced myself that instead of running-up this time, I’d secure the top spot, and toppled from that self-inflicted target I was sure I’d hit this time.  Because that’s how all the feel-good stories go, right? Slowly-slowly-catchee-monkee and all that.  My time was so ripe it was going to frikkin’ well juice all over me (or something like that).

It didn’t.  Of course it didn’t.  Wrong film.

A lot of other things that I didn’t expect, want, wish for or hope might pass, happened in 2017–and happened without notice, enquiry or any kind of safety net. Boom!  There it is  deal with it.  But was that really how it happened?  Are events truly so out of our own control that we can shake our heads in wonder/despair/disbelief and proclaim: ‘Whoooah! Now I didn’t see THAT coming.’?  No. Not altogether.

Years ago I signed up to the Notes from the Universe interweb site thingy which sends an deep, meaningful message from –yes, the Universe if you will– with encouraging undertones and uplifting topnotes, which I quite enjoyed for about 3 months, until my general demeanour (have you met him?  Don’t open the door if he comes knocking… he is BAD NEWS) flipped the reality switch and I thought of all the other thousands of other *suckers* (yeah, Gen. Demeanour gets you like that) who were also receiving the exact same message and thinking it was sent specifically from a higher plane to yours truly and that life was all about wonder and marvel and seeing bright things flickering from a black abyss… bear with me.

So I unsubscribed.  Ha!  That’ll teach the Universe to think it can get one over on me–how dare it continue to send me these snippets of encouragement… even as I’m still making lemonade from all the lemons that the polar opposite of The Universe has squished under the gap at the bottom of my metaphorical doorframe, still it’s encouraging me to maybe turn the pips into a jolly game of marbles (albeit inpossible because…. wrong shape, right?) then I’ve had enough of your fatuous, trite nonsense thank you very much and good day.

But this year–after the small hell that was last year–I’ve decided to, no, not ‘resolve to’, simply, casually, decided it might be a nice idea to see if I can ride a wave which I’ve watched roll out on the Instagram place over the past 12 months and see if it might not be as difficult to let wash over me as the Universe had proved.

I’ve followed Susannah Conway‘s Instagram account for years but because she posts such sublime images, and has a following that I can’t even begin to image ever having (let alone know what to do with if I did), I’ve always kind of skirted proper interraction because I’ve felt ‘unworthy’.  I do this.  It’s a part of who I am.  I believe myself as unworthy as they come; it’s a childhood thing (isn’t it always?).  I have ‘signed up’ (again, a bit of pressure, because I’m one of those people who, if they say they’re going to do something and then for whatever reason they can’t or they don’t… they will spend the rest of etermity beating themselves up about how much of a failure they are. I know) for the occasional ‘monthly image challenge’ whereby Susannah lists a prompt-a-day for a month and encourages (doesn’t ‘force’ you, NB) you to post photos that reflect what these mean to you.  I’ve done #DecemberReflections for two years I think, and this year got as far as day 4, or thereabouts, when the prompts became a little too upsetting to produce anything sensible, and so I stopped.  It’s a great way of meeting new IG’ers though, and I’ve kept in touch with a lot of #DecemberReflections participants and love their accounts.

Susannah has also, for the past 9 years, delivered (if that’s the right word) something called ‘Unravelling Your Year Ahead’ which is sent (free) to your email address where you can download the 64-page booklet, and either print out and write by hand in it, like a journal, or use (as I’m doing here, albeit in a very convoluted fashion because I’ve only just got to the point!) a blog prompt; and because writing is my thing, this is how I feel it will suit my needs best.  Others might use it as an image prompt.  The thing is, there’s no ‘right way’ to do this.  It’s a personal thing.  And that’s something I find very hard to do–because I worry so much about not getting things–any things–‘right’.

I’m also (after the Universe fiasco) very suspicious of anything which purports or suggests that doing something like this (yoga for the mind, if you will) will make you and/or your life ‘feel better’… so I’m going into it with eyes slitted cynically and definitely not wide open.

The first page on the booklet is called UNRAVELLING YOUR YEAR BEHIND.  It asks if you had ‘a word’ for 2017, and my answer to that is no, I didn’t.  But, on reflection (and this, really is the essence of the whole exercise.. to reflect) it might have been’CHANGE’ because I did a lot of this last year, unexpected as it might have been, and as much out of my control as I initially believed it to be; it wasn’t though… the stars aligned, the moon shifted, the wind blew a particular way and I was destined to follow the course set.

I am where I am and that’s all that can surely be said.  For good or bad, better or worse, I am here, and I’ll aim to be as positive and reflective as I can about it.

Bet you can’t wait to read what’s up next! (me too *winky emoticon*) 😉

Happy New Year everyone.

 

… and how does that make you feel?

I’ve just had my first Skype session with the counsellor I’ve been seeing for nearly three years.  Crikey – three years! Because now we’re not in the same geographical vicinity and there are nearly 130 miles between us, but we wanted to maintain the face-to-face momentum we’ve thus far ‘enjoyed’.

And it was great.  It didn’t feel peculiar or weird as I worried it might be. And it was lovely to see her (or parts of her, when she managed to get her whole face into view and I wasn’t talking to just her fringe or her chest).

I’ve never catalogued any of our sessions and it made me wonder why.  Perhaps it’s because right at the start of our time with her, I’d been one half of the ‘couples counselling’ sessions we’d arranged in order to save our struggling marriage and somehow it wouldn’t have felt ‘right’ or ‘fair’ or even ‘decent’ to have broadcast to the http://www.world what we’d discussed in confidence.  Now, however, I am feeling a lot less obliged to comply with such social restraints, especially as  I am no longer half of a couple and (although it has no bearing on her professionalism as a counsellor that the marriage broke down anyway) so therefore I don’t feel obligated to withold things I might have before felt I ought.

If that makes sense.

Anyway, here I am, a week and a day after I moved out of my ‘Former Matrimonial Home’/s (2 houses over a period of 12 years)  and living in a different county with my darling daughter and her equally darling boyfriend.  In Bath.  Which is beautiful. And has captivated my heart ever since I applied to the Bath College of Fine art in 1980 and sent an interview date which my parents flatly refused I could attend.  So I flatly refused to pass my Art A-level on the grounds that it would serve no actual purpose, and walked out of the examination room.

A lot of this process has felt destined, somehow.  From the origins in the 80’s to the fact that The Girl originally wanted to study in London (and there’s NO WAY I’d even consider moving to such a scary place) and right down to the wire that this time last year neither of us would have been in a position to have even contemplated this move becaused she’d have been newly-graduated and not in the stable, secure (I hope) job of her dreams, playing video games for a living and getting paid for it.

So although I don’t believe per se in Fate, I do know that things happen when they happen/when they need or can or have to happen and that this was one of those things.

I can truthfully say with hand on heart that I don’t regret the move but then it is only 8 days later and historically I have been known to fluctuate positively/negatively but then don’t we all do that?  I haven’t woken up one morning and thought ‘Shit.  What the effing heck have I done?’  I haven’t woken up and wished I hadn’t either, so that’s a definite plus.  I get to see My Girl every day, even though we spoke every day anyway, but this ‘in-the-flesh’ thing is waaaaaaayyyy better than a text or a call anyday.  I get to watch her get up in her PJs; I get to hear her humming tuneless sounds as she artfully designs her face; I get to wash her laundry, to mop up shits her new rescue kitten has left lying around, and cook her and her boyfriend their evening meal.  It’s what I like and what I’m good at.  Being wanted. Being needed.  Being loved, validated, respected, encouraged, praised and thanked.  And as it’s a three-way thing this time, it’s a triangulated joy; and because it can only thrive where the heart truly is, there really is no other place quite like this. It’s  Home.

You Are Now Entering The State of Limbo

 

I’ve been here before but the landscape was slightly different back then.  There are photographs of the time before where The Girl is just 5 and she’s dressed as a shocking-pink My Little Pony character with her voluminous ‘tail’ created from petticoat/underskirt netting.  I didn’t fully comprehend at the time just how much living in Limbo was affecting her because of how miserable I was feeling at the time.  But looking back at these photographs, of her swishing her luminous pink tail and surrounded by cardboard boxes holding my ‘share’ of the divided former matrimonial home‘s chattels, she looks how I felt; bemused, hollowed-out and tired as hell.

I’d felt it more intensely that time, I think.  Perhaps because it was the First Time (God only knows how much you don’t ever expect to be going through it a second) and I considered it the Greatest Failure a person could endure.  A wife, at any rate.  To be effectively replaced by another woman clearly deemed more suitable in every department was, for me, the loudest, hardest, most painful slap around the face I’ve ever had.  Even when The Girl and I had moved out of the FMH and into our little (as one friend subtly described our 2-up/2-down when she first visited) ‘Wendy House’, it took me at least 4 months to even go out into the garden – such was my eternal shame at being displaced and being there.  I could actually feel the brand ‘F’ on my forehead and my head was always hung, whether standing in the school playground dropping off or picking up, walking round the supermarket, or–yes, in the garden. I think I was terrified of reactions if I  happened to bump into anyone I knew and might have to go on to explain the answer to ‘hi, how are you?’ without collapsing in an emotional heap and rocking because I hadn’t the first clue why I was there, what had really happened and what terrible thing I must have done to be feeling the wretched way I was.

I didn’t even turn the radio during that time.  It was like a bereavement.  I didn’t want to hear happy presenters telling me the sun was shining and playing cheerful music to celebrate; didn’t want to hear callers with their n ormal lives going on as usual becaus it only served to highlight what an absolute train-wreck I was stuck in.  I think the fact my mother had also died 6 months previously  didn’t help (or maybe it did-because there was an actual bone fide reason for my feeling bereaved and I wasn’t just being melodramatic) and so along with a 5-year old confused and uprooted daughter, I also had a slightly bemused newly-widowed father to support albeit from a distance and on the end of the phone.

I remember precisely the time things felt as thought they were starting to shift for the positive.  I’d been DIY-ing  the new house, and the fact I was getting to choose my own scheme (The Girl had elaborate schemes of her own which I delighted in orchestrating on her behalf, sometimes even with her assistance which was a glorious thing) without having to cross-check my ‘choice’ with another person, had started to get cogs moving inside me which I hadn’t felt in a l-o-o-o-o-n-g time.  It was the beginning of a new-found independence.  If I chose the ‘wrong’ colour, then I wasn’t going to look foolish or be berated for the error, because there was only me to answer to.  If the paint didn’t go on the way it should, then I’d laugh at myself and not have to worry that somebody else might laugh harder later on.  It was a strangely liberating time.

And that day I’d been standing on my bed rag-rolling, or sponging or doing some other crafty little paint-effect on my bedroom wall and because it was bouncy, I thought I’d just flick the radio on for some company.  And that was when she surfaced; this single-minded, independent, battle-scarred but still standing woman of the world, dripping paint on her bedcovers and not giving one shit that she had.  Nobody was going to die because of it.  Nobody was going to make her feel inferior for not having turned out a perfectly painted wall and it was a positively enlightening experience.  I still get shivers when I hear the tune which I danced and painted to on that day – it’s like an anthem – it strengthens me inside somehow.

So I know this state of Limbo passes.  I know that I will be feeling fragile, broken,  torn and all the other things that break-ups and divorce brings to the table, but I also know that in time I will start to notice brighter things, hear livelier sounds and not feel that terrible ache of failure at the pit of my belly every time I see another cardboard box which needs filling with things I get to take with me.

And knowing that The Girl will be once again moving on and with me, already gives me such a sense of Karma that I’m (almost, let’s not push it) positive that this time ’round it won’t take me months to lift my head once I’m through to the other side of this particular tunnel.

Wish me luck.

 

 

The Journey – a poem by Mary Oliver

The Journey 

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
‘Mend my life!’
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver

Upheaved

I’m not a fan of online personal ‘spilling’ but when it’s connected to Mental Health Issues then I can’t think of a better place to publicise the importance of sharing the extremes of this debilitating condition.

Not content with knocking me flat generally, the black dog which has followed me around for most of my adult life (barring some truly awesome moments which it could never overshadow) has now impacted on not only my life, but the person I chose, 11 years ago, to share it with.

There are always recriminations with separations and divorce, and to avoid having to ‘side’ with one or the other, mutual friends are keeping a very creditable but painful (for me, anyway) distance in their attempts at not becoming embroiled in our situation.  And maybe I’d do the same in their position; I don’t know.  The thing is, it makes me feel very alone – as if I weren’t alone enough beforehand; before the decision to split with my husband and save us both the agonising torment of trying to make a marriage work when there’s always this big black thing sitting between us.

I don’t expect sympathy.  In fact I never expect anything ( a legacy from my mother whose mantra was:”expect nothing and you’ll never be disappointed”) so sympathy is the last creature on the list I want sniffing around my door.  I have learnt through sheer tough luck and scabbed-over-(metaphorical) wounds that a thick skin can protect the soft underbelly of life’s little….shall we say challenges and I’m happy to be left alone to pick at them.  I don’t even expect help (as Prince Charles would say “whatever that means”) because what can anyone do but listen?  Listening would be good right now, though.  Maybe people don’t want to hear.  No matter, I have a counsellor who I pay to listen.

I said, through last week’s very wet session, that the thing I find most difficult to come to terms with is the loss of my support; my husband.  I mean, he’s still here (in body anyway) but now that we’ve decided to separate and move on away from each other, he’s done exactly that.  We drift around the same space together, avoiding eye contact and because verbal interaction is likely to make us both feel worse, we don’t speak as such.  Just to praise the dog or speak ‘through the dog – which is heartbreaking. (Not least for the dog) and I feel even more isolated with my fears, anxieties and dark thoughts than I did before.

The one (and she brings with her another, a bonus) bright spark in all of this is my daughter.  The darling, sweet, brave and wonderful human being I casseroled for nine months, produced from regions she always goes “eeeeewwww” at, and brought up as best I could during some incredibly emotionally and problematic times, spending the best part of 8 years as a single mother with her, has turned into the best, truest, most honest and powerful person in my life.  I’ve never believed in  ‘blood being thicker than water’ because most of my life, blood relatives have done nothing but bring me down and added to (maybe even instigated) my depression, anxieties and fears.  But I know I absolutely wouldn’t be here, typing this with bags-for-life under my eyes today if it weren’t for her presence in my life.  In fact I wouldn’t have been here nineteen years ago when I split with her father, but because of her I knew I had to fight to go on and show her how to overcome emotional battles and the upheaves life hurls your way.

It is by far the best time for this separation to happen.  We have tried and tried and tried to get over it, to get round it, to see if we can somehow incorporate the downwards-facing-dog in our lives… but now we’ve had to hold up our hands and said “enough”.  I don’t want to believe that this means ‘it’ has won…. it was never about winning or losing… it was more about the coming to terms with and seeing if we could somehow overcome the issues it brings with it.  But we haven’t.  We can’t seem to.  All we’re doing is allowing it to bring down both of us when one of us is already suffocating in its presence and feeling worse because we can see the other one sinking too.   We’re only human; we’re not superheroes.

I read that part back and wondered if I could have just said: ‘I made my husband depressed’ but we’ve already agreed this isn’t helpful.  Even if I can’t shake the worry that that’s what I’ve allowed to happen.

When we went for our first Mediating session this week, one of the solicitors asked me where I saw myself in five, ten, fifteen years’ time (a bit like an interview) and I had to honestly reply that I don’t even know what’s going to happen five minutes hence, let alone forsee that far ahead.  I joked (my usual go-to cover-all when I feel threatened and cornered and unable to respond like a normal person) that maybe I’d get Alzheimers in five years and be dead in ten… that’d sort that question out.  I know what he was trying to get me to think about, though; because who seriously wants to buy a house and have their mother live with them for the rest of her life?

My girl.  That’s who.

Well, we haven’t exactly discussed ‘the rest of my life’ but for now – and ‘for now’ is the only way I can cope with today, tomorrow, next week etc – we’re just seeing it as rehoming a battered (not literally) old thing and giving it a bit of help in reintegrating it into that outside, scary thing called ‘the world/life’ and I couldn’t have a better arm to lean on than the one that used to lean on mine when she was growing up.

If I never do anything else worthwhile in my life, I will die happy for having such an incredible daughter who truly, shamelessly believes in me without question, whether I think it’s in her best interests or not.  This is the unconditional love I always craved  from my own parents and, if nothing else, I am proud that I broke the painful pattern that my parents didn’t have love enough to break when I really needed them to.

I could’ve been a whole different person than the one sitting here today.  She’s probably out there somewhere, or in here somewhere, and she’s going to need some coaxing to poke her head out and try to sniff the air around her, but I’m sure we’ll give it a shot.