Not for the first time in my life I’m lost for words.
I’m faced with a blank page and find I have nothing to say, nothing to fill that empty space with. No thoughts. No words. No ideas. No feelings. That isn’t to say I have emptiness – emptiness is still ‘something’ even if it is only a space defined by what it lacks.
Instead of feeling panic that it MUST be filled, that I MUST say something, I think it is okay to leave that page blank. It is okay that I have nothing to say. It is okay to be silent.
And I’m going to leave it that.
Friday, 20 November 2009
Friday, 13 November 2009
Ripples, laughter, Christmas
I promised to post memories as they came back to me and to prove I’m as good as my word here is the first...
A few years ago there was just myself out of us three girls still living at home with mum. My sisters had long since moved out into places of their own and were getting on with their lives. Mum hasn’t had a particularly easy life, and as much as it pains me to say she has made it harder for herself with her appalling taste in men. How is it that there are some women out there who go through life only knowing love, care, devotion and companionship while others in desperately seeking those things never seem to experience them in the same way? I can’t say that mum hasn’t known love; we – her children and her family – love her more than she will ever know but I know that there are times in your life when only the comfort of your partner’s arms around you will do. I hope with all my heart that one day mum will find someone as special as she is to spend the rest of her life with.
Getting back to my memory... It was twelve days before Christmas, I know this because we were in our front room, surrounded by boxes of bright sparkling baubles, tangled fairy lights while music played loudly in the background on the stereo. A few months before mum had ended a bad relationship with a man who had been intent upon manipulating her away from all those that she loved. I’m not making excuses for him when I say I do, in part, understand why he tried to do that. He loved her that much that he just didn’t want to share her, he couldn’t understand that we – as her children - came before him and always would. He couldn’t understand the closeness of the bond mum shared with her sister either, it seemed all of us were to him some kind of threat, an enemy who needed to be overthrown. Love is the most powerful thing in this world but it can destroy just as easily as it can nurture. The relationship ended terribly and with so much hurt on both sides. While I was relieved so many months of anguish and anxiety were over it was still an ending and ending are by their very nature tinged with sadness. I only understand now, nearly seven years later just how much I was changed by that ending. I am beginning, I think, to have an appreciation of how much of an impact it’s had on my life and the person I’ve become.
The months that followed the end of that relationship I remember as the most serene and tranquil, happy even, months we have ever shared together. Those happy months of light and laughter brought us to that day, the first day of Christmas. It was a Monday.
Arriving home from work I dropped my coat and bag down on the sofa rather than hanging them up in the coat cupboard, a habit I still haven’t grown out of in my thirties. I remembering feeling so glad that mum hadn’t started to decorate without me. I don’t know what it is about decorating the tree but to me growing up it always had a sense of ceremony about it, held some kind of emotional significance. As I began to take decorations out the box, carefully revealing their shining magnificence by removing the layers of protective tissue paper mum opened a bottle of wine. We had by this point fallen in to an easy pattern of living with each other; we would take it turns to cook and clean, sharing the bills and enjoying the pleasure of taking care of each other. But for some unknown reason food that evening had been forgotten.
We sang and danced and laughed our way through two bottles of wine and a box of chocolates that night. Mum even taught me to jive that evening, something I can still do, although badly and I wouldn’t recommend asking me do it with you, not if you want your feet uninjured. The tree? It was perfect. All things considered it should have looked like we’d just thrown the boxes of decorations at it and hoped for the best, but somewhere in between the laughter, the spinning and twirling we had created the picture of perfection and harmony.
I haven’t had a Christmas or a tree for that matter like that since, but that doesn’t mean I have run out of hope for one in the future. Events, big, small, happy, sad are like pebbles tossed in a pool; they create ripples of movement and emotion that can be felt way out in the stillness of the years to come. I’m feeling one now remembering that moment of shared healing with my mum, and I know again, some time down the road of my life, I’m going feel another ripple and I’ll remember all over again.
A few years ago there was just myself out of us three girls still living at home with mum. My sisters had long since moved out into places of their own and were getting on with their lives. Mum hasn’t had a particularly easy life, and as much as it pains me to say she has made it harder for herself with her appalling taste in men. How is it that there are some women out there who go through life only knowing love, care, devotion and companionship while others in desperately seeking those things never seem to experience them in the same way? I can’t say that mum hasn’t known love; we – her children and her family – love her more than she will ever know but I know that there are times in your life when only the comfort of your partner’s arms around you will do. I hope with all my heart that one day mum will find someone as special as she is to spend the rest of her life with.
Getting back to my memory... It was twelve days before Christmas, I know this because we were in our front room, surrounded by boxes of bright sparkling baubles, tangled fairy lights while music played loudly in the background on the stereo. A few months before mum had ended a bad relationship with a man who had been intent upon manipulating her away from all those that she loved. I’m not making excuses for him when I say I do, in part, understand why he tried to do that. He loved her that much that he just didn’t want to share her, he couldn’t understand that we – as her children - came before him and always would. He couldn’t understand the closeness of the bond mum shared with her sister either, it seemed all of us were to him some kind of threat, an enemy who needed to be overthrown. Love is the most powerful thing in this world but it can destroy just as easily as it can nurture. The relationship ended terribly and with so much hurt on both sides. While I was relieved so many months of anguish and anxiety were over it was still an ending and ending are by their very nature tinged with sadness. I only understand now, nearly seven years later just how much I was changed by that ending. I am beginning, I think, to have an appreciation of how much of an impact it’s had on my life and the person I’ve become.
The months that followed the end of that relationship I remember as the most serene and tranquil, happy even, months we have ever shared together. Those happy months of light and laughter brought us to that day, the first day of Christmas. It was a Monday.
Arriving home from work I dropped my coat and bag down on the sofa rather than hanging them up in the coat cupboard, a habit I still haven’t grown out of in my thirties. I remembering feeling so glad that mum hadn’t started to decorate without me. I don’t know what it is about decorating the tree but to me growing up it always had a sense of ceremony about it, held some kind of emotional significance. As I began to take decorations out the box, carefully revealing their shining magnificence by removing the layers of protective tissue paper mum opened a bottle of wine. We had by this point fallen in to an easy pattern of living with each other; we would take it turns to cook and clean, sharing the bills and enjoying the pleasure of taking care of each other. But for some unknown reason food that evening had been forgotten.
We sang and danced and laughed our way through two bottles of wine and a box of chocolates that night. Mum even taught me to jive that evening, something I can still do, although badly and I wouldn’t recommend asking me do it with you, not if you want your feet uninjured. The tree? It was perfect. All things considered it should have looked like we’d just thrown the boxes of decorations at it and hoped for the best, but somewhere in between the laughter, the spinning and twirling we had created the picture of perfection and harmony.
I haven’t had a Christmas or a tree for that matter like that since, but that doesn’t mean I have run out of hope for one in the future. Events, big, small, happy, sad are like pebbles tossed in a pool; they create ripples of movement and emotion that can be felt way out in the stillness of the years to come. I’m feeling one now remembering that moment of shared healing with my mum, and I know again, some time down the road of my life, I’m going feel another ripple and I’ll remember all over again.
Thursday, 5 November 2009
Transition
I’ve been of a thoughtful mood of late, the last few days really, and so many memories have started to come back to me. Strange as it sounds, this time of year – autumn - tends to do that to me, make me thoughtful, introverted and introspective. I have a pretty good memory for just about everything – it’s a blessing and a curse especially when it comes to drunken adventures (come on, we’ve all got a few of these lurking in our subconscious) – so not an exceptional thing by itself. What I find exceptional is that for the first time in what has been too long they are happy memories.
When you are going through a tough time, when things feel like they are never going to get better and you are always going to be stuck in that awful moment of transition, it is hard – impossible more often than not – to remember good times, that it is just that a moment of transition. I’m not sure what they this says about me (I dread to think) but when I am moored in this trying time, I look to my past for the answers to change it. Often this is not a good thing, I usually see only the other trying times without seeing the most import thing; that they are in my past and there was a light at the end of the tunnel, a silver lining to the cloud – call it whatever you want – the significant thing was that it is over. That was yesterday and this is today.
Something different has begun to happen though. I am not looking to my past and only seeing the bad, the difficult, the trying, the sad etc I am seeing the good, the happy, the easy and the laughter that was there nestled comfortingly between these more challenging moments. All I had to do was look. If you go in search of bad things and bad memories that is what you are going to see, don’t ask me why (let me think on it for a while and by the time you come back and we meet again, I might have a theory for you) it just happens that way. Usually, but this time something different happened, unprompted happier times and memories started to come back to me. I’m sure there is a reason for this and there is something I am meant to take away from these unlooked for reminders of happier times, whatever it is it eludes me for the time being, but I have hope and faith that I will have an epiphany and all will become revealed.
Right here in the now I am just going to enjoy them, smile and laugh. I will put them here on this blog so that when my mood starts to darken, they are there to remind me it is only a moment of transition. So, until we meet again to exchange these instances of happiness and serenity think happy thoughts and remember the good along with the bad.
When you are going through a tough time, when things feel like they are never going to get better and you are always going to be stuck in that awful moment of transition, it is hard – impossible more often than not – to remember good times, that it is just that a moment of transition. I’m not sure what they this says about me (I dread to think) but when I am moored in this trying time, I look to my past for the answers to change it. Often this is not a good thing, I usually see only the other trying times without seeing the most import thing; that they are in my past and there was a light at the end of the tunnel, a silver lining to the cloud – call it whatever you want – the significant thing was that it is over. That was yesterday and this is today.
Something different has begun to happen though. I am not looking to my past and only seeing the bad, the difficult, the trying, the sad etc I am seeing the good, the happy, the easy and the laughter that was there nestled comfortingly between these more challenging moments. All I had to do was look. If you go in search of bad things and bad memories that is what you are going to see, don’t ask me why (let me think on it for a while and by the time you come back and we meet again, I might have a theory for you) it just happens that way. Usually, but this time something different happened, unprompted happier times and memories started to come back to me. I’m sure there is a reason for this and there is something I am meant to take away from these unlooked for reminders of happier times, whatever it is it eludes me for the time being, but I have hope and faith that I will have an epiphany and all will become revealed.
Right here in the now I am just going to enjoy them, smile and laugh. I will put them here on this blog so that when my mood starts to darken, they are there to remind me it is only a moment of transition. So, until we meet again to exchange these instances of happiness and serenity think happy thoughts and remember the good along with the bad.
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