Reflections

So it has been a long time hasn’t it! I began writing this in August and am tweaking it as we draw to the close of the year.

I was fortunate enough to go to Miami in late June and had a fantastic time.  Back at the end of March a casual comment by one friend saying I should join her out there (as I needed it and it would mean company for her and a cheaper room rate too) led to a conversation with another friend who, to my great surprise, paid for my trip and expenses!!  Yes, there are people who offer such kindnesses and this doesn’t only happen in the movies.  I’ve never travelled alone before, was a bit nervous but then went for it – booked the flight and excitedly made plans, watched programmes about Miami and of course, bought a pocket guidebook.  The weather was incredible, I went the colour of dark gingerbread (!!) and my skin significantly healed.  I’ve been having real trouble with my back since last October/November but mercifully the occasions of pain were few whilst out there.

I spent every morning on the beach, waking up at dawn pretty much every day.  Sunrise was incredible, I had the beach pretty much to myself and I enjoyed the peace, the warmth and the sound and feel of the sea.  It really was glorious in those moments.  If I was back at the hotel in the afternoon/evening, I’d hit the beach again with or without my friend (she was on a course so not able to always join me or go out and about).  I took a book but rarely read it, I had a journal and made sure I filled it, but mostly I’d either people-watch or listen to music, sunbathe and swim.  The sea was the most incredible green and it felt good.  I was happy in my own company and realised how independent I am – so did my friend who was quite surprised, and I found out how very cautious she is which really surprised me.  In life she holds on to the sides  – I don’t!

The trip was exactly what I needed and the friend who helped me get there said that I still look really well and was very happy for me.  I am paying her back little by little despite her saying if I didn’t it wouldn’t matter – she just didn’t want me to use credit cards, for which I was grateful as that was what I was talking about (and how I wasn’t keen) when she offered to pay.  Small miracles if you will…

My son did brilliantly in his first year exams, is over the moon and very excited to head back for year 2.  He has sorted out a place to live with 2 other students, set up utilities and already had a couple of what could have been awkward conversations with the landlord but all is well and he has it under control.  It’s perhaps an even bigger year for him than last year and it is quite something to watch him mature through all of these rites of passage, with my support as needed.  I can be hands on or hands off and my instinct leans towards hands off so that he can learn, adapt to or resolve whatever comes his way.  So far he’s doing fine even though he believes he still needs my advice.  He doesn’t really though – the boy is a man and a kind, good one at that.  There are a few tricks and tips I can pass on but those aside, he knows how to deal with whatever comes up and he only needs a touch more confidence. Yep, I’m a proud Momma bear!

My mum having been gravely ill twice last year is very well and has lost a great deal of weight.  She is lighter of heart even though the issue of my stubborn sister remains unresolved.  I accepted the situation as it stands, but my sister remains pissed off and mum naturally wants her daughters to be sisters again.  It may happen, it may not but it doesn’t cloud my horizon nor cast the shadow of gloom across my face when in her company – I can tell you however that she looks like a bulldog chewing a wasp whenever she has to be in the same space as I am which is a real shame.  I feel sorry for her but unless she confronts what is eating at her (to my face and not in poisonous texts/emails) she will never move forward.  I said we should but she was dead set against it (talking through my ex) believing it would degenerate into a slanging match.  So what?  It might go that way but then again it might not – the point is, shit needs to be thrashed out from her side.  I shovelled mine and buried it already.  If she doesn’t get a handle on her pain, she’ll become seriously ill.  She’s balding and I know that must crush her (she’s only 41), she’s significantly over-weight and lord knows what else.

Forgiveness is how we find peace.  I’m not coming over all Dalai Lama or anything but it is something I learnt the hard way.  I don’t hate my sister (and she did piss me off for the longest time) but I haven’t felt annoyed by her in such a long time, despite refusing to acknowledge my presence with a hello/goodbye or to even make eye-contact! If I hadn’t forgiven, I’d feel rage and would eventually react (the old me).  I don’t feel anything but pity for her and sadness too.  My lack of distress seems only to make her more enraged – she looks like a bulldog chewing a wasp!  So we come full circle – for her rage to dissipate, she must change or she will spiral further downward whilst pretending she’s absolutely fine.  I doubt she sees herself that way but most of us do.

With the wind in my sails, despite the issues with my back (now improving following weight-loss), I keep trying to get out and go places, see friends or do things that either relax me or give me a boost.  It can be as simple as going to a market and delighting in what I find, walking by the river, painting or going to a part of town I haven’t been to but always meant to. I’m much calmer about many things, including where my personal life is at and where it might be headed.  I used to get upset and tearful about being single when my plan was anything but that.  I was given an opportunity to carve out a different life and I think even more about quitting the UK and living further afield.  I have possibilities now that I never would have had in my forties with the 3 hoped for kids and a husband.  It is an exciting prospect.  For now I seize the moments in small ways with my eye on the future and what I can make of it, encouraged always by my son.  And what’s more, none of that future is dependant upon me being in a relationship or not.

So where am I relationship wise?

I love someone who continues to drink his life away but let him go over the course of the year.  There are periods of sobriety (more this year than I’ve ever known him to attempt) but the following periods of drinking are getting worse and he knows it.  He’s very low at the moment.  He wants to stop but is hopelessly unable to because he tries to do it alone; he is also severely depressed. Taking pills and drinking fuels this perpetual cycle. The pills don’t halt the suicidal thoughts, the drink lifts him briefly and then it quickly goes black emotionally; to dull that, he drinks again and so it goes around and around…  He holds down a job but has said several times this year that he has “…got to put a stop to all this silliness…”.  He hates himself for failing. His marriage ended long ago but an alcoholic afraid of life hasn’t the strength to do anything significant for themselves or the people they say they love.  If you cannot stop yourself from having a drink, how can you march towards a new life?  It isn’t impossible but when you hate yourself that much, life itself seems designed to beat you down and keep you on the outside.

We have not seen each other this year and I think that has been for the best all round.  I remind him of the life he could have had and he finds that painful.  You cannot help who you love…  The passage of time made no difference and took us both by surprise – we did not reconnect for this to happen. We sought to rekindle our very strong bond of friendship. I do not expect the outcome he promised and have quietly moved on.  He has always said that I am the only person he can be himself with and without the need to be drunk and that he cannot get that with anyone else (his words and not overblown romanticism), whether male/female, friend, family or colleague.  Something about me makes him feel normal, at ease.  He relaxes completely and there’s no mammoth effort to hide, no pretence.  It brings him peace and then it doesn’t.  He cannot let go and loving me at a distance is no easier  I can’t do anything about that and he doesn’t expect me to yet I cannot help but feel that on balance, this is the way it needs to be, to preserve his sanity and for my peace of mind.  Married is married after all.  I don’t like the idea that he is troubled and hope that in time it will get easier for him.

The marriage did not fail because of me – that happened decades ago – but they are together. He has in sober moments over the years tried to have that difficult ‘can’t do this anymore’ talk but his wife starts crying, goes to see someone to talk and then behaves as if nothing happened. But married is married and that is that.  I haven’t given up on finding someone right for me but I am not going to cry on the floor in despair if I remain single – I am not waiting in the wings for him like a vulture!  We are where we are, which is nowhere. I’ve been through too much for that and since he will not meet me to talk – I’m sure he knows what I want to say – I have quietly stepped back and contact is pretty much monthly where before it was daily, then it was weekly….  It was the right course to take and I’m not saying it was easy.

I’ve had some interest in the crazy that is me in the past couple of years but neither gentleman was right – one too young and directionless, the other older and filled with self-loathing and deep, long held insecurities.  Know and love yourself before you try to commit to loving somebody else…

Drinking is a selfish game and not a fun one at that.  It soaks your reason, robs you of optimism and all the while it whispers ‘You want me, do it…’, only to remind you later that you really, truly wish you hadn’t. Nobody ever wakes up wishing they had drunk more.  I read that somewhere.  He is where he needs to be though – he needs the support of a woman he sadly doesn’t love, he wants to make a life with me but is afraid and incapable, and so in the end we all lose. He sacrifices what he wants to make other people happy then drinks his way through the months and years making those very same people deeply unhappy.  His wife is long-suffering, almost left him and finds solace in her career, which ironically isolates him further so he drinks after work as often as he can because he doesn’t want to sit around bored and lonely.  You can be alone in a marriage and in my mind, it’s worse than being divorced.

Scared as I was of divorce and the whole difficult process and aftermath, it was worth all that pain as it gave me back a sense of myself and the chance to re-write my future.  I didn’t think I’d be ok but it was definitely a risk worth taking.  I feel alone sometimes, different from lonely as you know, but it doesn’t pull me down like it used to.  I had a blip in October with low mood but shook it off and am ok now.  I really felt so bleak about my health and my future because my back was getting worse again and I thought dear God, is that what my future will be?  Alone, in pain and unable to do anything or share the load and with everything, everything, on me?

Sidebar: What is it about me that attracts such men?  My whole life it’s been men who are attracted to my strength and then resented it (ex) or men in deep despair/confusion!! It’s a whole other blog.  I’m Cancer with Aries rising, the moon in Gemini and Venus in Cancer (I thought Taurus was in there but it seems not) which made a lot of sense as I’m highly changeable and spontaneous – the moon, the twins, all that water and some fire, all softened and soothed by Venus…  No wonder I’m often misunderstood and defy pigeon-holing.  I confuse myself half the time!!  There’s a lot going on and sparks fly I guess…

Christmas is a few days away.  As usual it has come out of nowhere despite being a fixed event on the calendar!  We’re already eating the shortbread and have broken the seal on the chocolate tub but so what?  Life’s too short to save the treats for one week of the year – besides, this way we can pace ourselves (at least that’s what we tell ourselves!!).  I’ve planned days out to surprise my son and so far, so good.  He hates the phrase but I’ve decided it’s ‘Year Zero’ for us – this Christmas we do it our way and I have put him first, not mum, not what the family wants/expects.  It’s time.

With all the madness and violence kicking off this past year with shocking speed, and threatening to mark out the 21st Century as being bloodier and more cruel than the last, I am even more determined to make the most of life.

Anything or anyone that can brighten life or soften its’ sometimes hard edges is most welcome! On that note, I was told yesterday that my holiday is a Christmas gift so I do not have to repay a single penny which has left me overwhelmed.

And so it begins…

The year has ended better than I thought it would on so many fronts.  Change is ahead but we mustn’t fear change.  Plan as best as you can but don’t fear it.

Merry Christmas everyone and a bright New Year!

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