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!

x

 

 

 

 

 

It’s been a while…

Life continues apace but I feel the need to splurge ‘verbally’ and get stuff out there…

I will re-group with my thoughts and feelings about a multitude of world and smaller news – the smaller stuff being about me and mine.

Lots to say and share, the good, not so good and the positively great!

Back soon!

 

New year: Better me.

I’ve been quiet for a while and not because I had nothing to say but because there was so much to say that I didn’t know where to begin.  Conversely, there was so much to say that I could not be asked to blog it, the whole matter being so boring in that I’ve pretty much been here before so I will not go into great detail.  But this time was worse…the person who got badly hurt was my son.

I was left shocked.  It effected a change in us both from which it seems there is no coming back for any involved in the whole sorry affair. So…

I poured myself into the pages of a diary, one of many that I own.

I talked to friends.

I took long walks.

I kept myself busy.

I sat and quietly reflected.

You know, the kinda things we used to do before we blogged about the minutiae of our lives!

I’ve been adding another layer to my shell.  I’m tougher but not watertight – never will be, wouldn’t want to be.  I feel my way through life; it’s who I am and who I always will be. And sometimes I get it wrong. I never want to shut down and shut out the world so completely that I end up being unaffected by something awful.  It happened to me once and it scared me.

Being numb is an odd “feeling” – you’ll understand if you’ve been there.  I didn’t like that version of me.  I had no more to give, I was running on empty and life held little meaning. It felt like my heart was blocked.  When you get like that, you feel nothing at all.  And for a sensitive, feeling person, that’s nothing short of horrible…

I don’t think that being numb would have been useful as a coping mechanism for the drama that was the run-up to Christmas.  Not giving a damn about anyone but my son and (relatively) calmly vocalising that was necessary and useful:  my Mum got told, in a way she hadn’t been told before that her part in this mess, going back many years, was appalling.  Whatever upset she felt about a family torn apart was not my problem to resolve and she just had to accept it; my son was my priority – not making her feel better because her “life is shit”!  And, in fact, it was my son’s life that had been shit, having borne the brunt of this awful situation alongside me.  She needed to stop pussy-footing around my “sister” and pull her into line – she’s the parent and she needed to do some parenting!!  Of course, she didn’t and I don’t know what that’s about… I told her she could not rely on me any more to be the “good daughter”, who bends for everyone else’s benefit, getting shafted time and again.  I had made clear months ago that enough was enough and that those days were long over.  But here they all were again, dragging us down to their (cess)pit just when my son and I had been feeling good about ourselves and about life in general.

Mum uses emotional blackmail; my “sister” and my ex are bullies who have no interest in building bridges.  What they want is control  – of me and of the way I live.  Why?  Heaven knows. I gave up trying to figure out those idiots a long time ago.  The effect they have on my son is a major concern though.  They pretty much ruined Christmas for him, so I did everything I could to make it one to remember for good reasons.  I hope I succeeded – it was certainly different and we did many memorable things.

Being me, I do care about them.  Hard to believe isn’t it, considering what they’ve done and how they continue to behave?  What I don’t care about is what they think about how I do things or how I choose to live my life – I do not need their approval, I do not need their love or attention:  in short, I do not need them.  That said, the ties that bind run deep, especially when it is my “sister” and the father of my child that we’re talking about. I will always care.  I cannot say at all that the feeling is reciprocated, but no matter!

My concern now is the total breakdown of the relationship between father and son. I can’t force it – tried and it didn’t work.  I was told to back-off by both of them – I did in the main but now it’s worse than ever just when it was improving.  My ex shed copious tears about the latest breakdown in their relationship, but is now as cold as stone.  He hasn’t tried to see our son since Christmas. Disgusting really but then again, what is our son losing exactly?  Not much if this is how his Dad chooses to be.  He’s never had a positive male role model and that bothers me. He’s a fine young man, loving and considerate, bright, funny, independent, honest, open and confident (though he doesn’t think he is) but all this drama has definitely hardened him even more against his Dad.  I’m not happy about that, because of the damage it does to him.

Still, if being that way means he avoids repeating our mistakes, more power to him I guess…

No matter what distance I put between “us and them”, their reach is far and it had me feeling trapped again.  I had these wild notions of packing up and leaving the UK to live with my cousin and her family as soon as my son went off to Uni, in order to put as much distance between myself and them as I possibly could.  My son was alarmed and said he is still dependent upon me until he finishes his degree – and that where I go, he goes!  I said he needed to branch out and so did I and, who knew what would happen at or after Uni? He may meet the love of his life or get a great job in another part of the country.   Anything can happen… Of course I know he’ll need me around for a while longer but, in that moment, I felt like a caged bird under cover of darkness.

All I wanted to do was run, as far and as fast as possible.

So, my plan now is to become less financially dependent upon my ex and I am applying for a second job which, if I get it, will make a substantial difference to our quality of life.  My son turns 18 this year and if my ex refuses to stump up towards the costs of his party, I would like to think that by then I’d have this job and so, could manage to pay for it without being broke for months afterwards.  I put him on notice about helping pay for it – he, typically, did not respond.  That means he won’t stump up.  And you can take that to the bank if you pardon the pun!

Plans to leave these shores are not quite a pipe dream and are a definite possibility – something to keep in my back pocket if life here doesn’t work out the way I’d like it to, but there has been a sea-change in me these past 2 months.  I am not exactly in battle mode but I refuse to pander to my “sister’s” histrionics (including bombarding my son with a string of texts after rowing with him and being told, by him, to leave him to study!).  If my ex doesn’t hold up his end, I take the issue to him and leave it there.  He still has stuff at my place, so I have been getting it down to him, throwing things out and commandeering what’s useful. He has had no say in the matter – been there, done that.  The last time around, it was 18 months before he acted:  his crap was everywhere, I was coming out of hospital and with it all being a trip hazard it had to be sorted.  When he didn’t show up recently as promised to take more stuff, I didn’t chase him up.  Those days are over.  I’ve boxed it all up and it will all be heading his way very soon, unbeknown to him.  It took up every weekend and most of my week nights for the past 6 weeks but it has been satisfying and liberating to do so.

I could cause a great deal of trouble for them and they are worried that I will. You could say I’m in control but I have no desire for that.  I made enquiries connected to something that could affect my son; my ex saw it as a threat.  Now, what I might have to do hangs over them. That’s their problem.  My son comes first.  I’ve been getting on with my life, immensely relieved to be free of them and their strange outlook.  Above all I just want what’s best for my son.

We’re getting there…

So life gave me, indeed us, lemons (again).  I made lemonade (again) – no “woe is me” here!  I am open to change and much less afraid to take the bull by the horns.  What I have to avoid are rash decisions when I feel hemmed in and there, my son is a great leveller.  I raised a smart kid.

I have options.  That feels good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m going to hell for this one, so enjoy

A Narcissist Writes Letters, To Himself

I don’t believe in God.

Sure, I think he exists,

I just don’t think he has what it takes…

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Rebel with a Cause

1. Rebellion, uprising, or insurrection is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviours aimed at destroying or taking over the position of an established authority such as a government, governor, president, political leader, financial institution, or person in charge.

Don’t tow the line if the line begins to twine around ones’ throat, thereby causing suffocation and death….

Change is inevitable.

Growth is profitable.

Stagnation kills off the boldest heart if no-one or no thing stirs it up.

We rebel on a daily basis:  Why should I do this…?  I don’t want to go there and won’t….   I’ll do it in my own time  – not because you said to….

And we acquiesce on a daily basis also:  Ok, but only to shut you up…  Alright, alright, anything for a quiet life…  Well if it means you’ll leave me be…

The internal struggle is a thing of terror and of beauty; without it we’d just be animals.

Being human is the easiest or hardest form of existence that we alone make hard or easy by the way in which we tackle what life puts in our way.  I have seen very poor, put upon people who exude sunshine and wealthy people who lack spirit and direction.  The wealthy always want more of they don’t quite know what and envy those who lead simpler lives, whilst not wishing to lead the simple life themselves! And giving to charity does not fill the hole for them either…

The poor (in spirit, body or mind) have the capacity to elevate themselves above the dross.  The poor suffer, no doubt about it, but are stoical as well as long-suffering.  The poor grieve but appreciate all the more, the best that life can offer – and their view of the best life has to give is quite different to what you would expect.  I have seen both sides and it may be too facile to say that an emotionally and materially poor person with beautiful, healthy, intelligent children is more wealthy than an emotionally redundant person with money and means, but of the two I know who would be happier, certainly stronger.

Money can buy an awful lot and yes, we need it.  But people are worth more than gold and a heart cannot be weighed in the same way.

I’m not entirely sure where I’m headed with this suffice to say, don’t settle.  Rebel.  With every fibre of your being, kick out against the accepted norms and breathe in what life can give you when you push back and say:  This is what I want. Not that. This.

It is possible to shake loose from a lifetime of regret and to do so at any stage of life.  As I head relatively comfortably into my Autumn years, as my body heads gradually downhill and my mind grows up, I’ve realised that this is the golden time of life.  I haven’t got it sussed by any stretch of the mark, but I am more grounded because I finally know who I am. I have a much more relaxed attitude and approach to life and I am told that it shows.  Apparently I have a light around and about me.  Those who’ve known me for years said it hadn’t quite gone out but acknowledged I was a sad sight to behold during the years that I had folded in on myself.  My son likes this version of me and is glad I struck out and stopped labouring under the banner of “duty” – duty to all but myself.  It frustrated him for years and the irony was that I laboured so for his sake, for the family ideal that I wanted for him – the ideal that never actually existed.  And therein lies the joke at the heart of it all!  Only nobody was laughing….

Rebellions don’t always amount to anything though….  There were times I (semi) boldly sallied forth and was promptly put back in what “the enemy” felt was my proper place  – and I don’t just mean my marital situation here.  The point is to keep pushing because what’s the use of living if you’re living for anyone but you?  We are creative, loving, emotional creatures, light and dark, reasonable and unreasonable by equal and often unequal measure.  We are filled with passion and dispassion that by turns takes us up so high the light blinds us and then brings us so low we cannot fathom any way out.  Then there is the grey but we are not meant to merely exist in the grey, that shadow land of life.  We are meant to challenge ourselves in order to the reach the peak of who we are since that not only benefits us but the people around us too.  Seeing it and achieving it are not easy, believing it one stretch further.  And too many don’t get that far….

How many lights have been dimmed or snuffed out altogether by normality, banality, drudgery, misplaced duty or (the most feared) control?  Mine almost was and on more than one occasion, yet I kept getting back up and smacked back down again (sometimes by my own hand).  I don’t know why or how I kept getting up but I did.  My mother is a strong role model and the support of two very good friends and one of my cousins went a long way towards keeping my head above water when I wanted to drown.

My situation improved and changed dramatically when I listened to my heart and moreover, used my head to get there.

So I say be a rebel, especially if the cause is “you”.

 

 

Hello world!

So, here I am….

I’ve wrestled with the idea of blogging for well over a decade.  A writer friend told me to go for it way back then and I wasn’t brave enough.  I didn’t think anyone would give a flying fig about anything I had to say. That same friend prompted me again recently when I suggested I might dip my toe in the sphere of blogging and he said “Just write for yourself…”.  His words of praise for my prose have brought me here.

Why “Drops of Sanity”?

We live in a world punctuated with all too much reality, drudgery, insecurity and darkness and most of us seek to escape from it in daydreams, crazy ideas, holidays, books, film…the list goes on.  And we don’t just live in this world, we also live in a world of our own creation.  It can be a prison, a heaven or hell (and trust me, heaven can be a prison if it eludes you).  Some people can’t/won’t/don’t escape and merely exist. That is a prison every one of us has been to and will likely frequent more than once in a lifetime….

But every now and then there are “drops of sanity”, moments when we achieve clarity through our own thought process, human interaction or simply stumbling across a great line in a book.  These moments or people always seem to come along when you need them most and always when you stopped looking.

But one person’s sanity is another’s insanity and this makes me recall the saying:  A crazy person doesn’t know that they are crazy!

My blog will expound upon the highs and lows and in-betweens of life and there will be drops of sanity as well as insanity, complexity and no small amount of contradiction!  We are not one personality our whole lives; we are constantly in a state of flux which can be unnerving, exhilarating and exhausting all at once. The point is to keep moving and adapting.  Of course that’s easier said than done.

Life happens.  Shit happens.  It’s what we do in those dark and often simply long grey moments that defines who we are.  I am a passionate person who knows all about dispassion from within the cold heart of a dead relationship that spanned just over a quarter of a century.  What happened in that crawl space changed me but it did not define me, although I once thought it had.  Passion and reason won over dispassion and irrationality:  I thought I was stuck, believed I was stuck, allowed myself to feel powerless and then got so mad at myself that I broke free.

But it took me an awfully long time to grow a shell that was tough enough to withstand all the negativity, the violence, the emotional blackmail and utter disdain that came with my decision to go against my vows, my faith, my painfully adhered to duty to family and ultimately, to go against myself and break the cycle within which I had become bound.  Change is terrifying.  Standing still is (and was) infinitely worse.  I refer to that quarter century as “death by inches”….

It was damn hard and I had to grow another new shell as I worked through it all.  What I write about here will undoubtedly reflect back on those times but mostly, I want to focus on the me in the now of my life – and it’s an exciting, challenging, far happier time!

I hope you enjoy coming along for the ride…..