This Christmas, Birthday and New Year were hard for me - one day I hope I won't begin so many posts with that statement - for lots of reasons but mainly just the following:
1. L was away and that experience came with a host of complicated emotions (anger, hurt, resentment, depression... to name a few)
2. I haven't REALLY spent time with my family alone without L in nearly 4 years and have deliberately tried to avoid doing so
3. Sister L had been left by her partner of 11 years because he 'wasn't happy and hadn't been for a while' just before Christmas ....(good job you guys can't hear me because I'm turning the air blue with expletives ... I know, I know a Masters in English Literature and still I use the language of the gutter).
Oh what to unpack first....I was angry with L because I'm fed up of him being away and having to be the supportive, understanding, sympathetic one whilst also feeling like he is totally unaware that I need the same.
I am hurt because L consistently fails to notice I am human and have emotional needs. I might smile and give all outward appearance of having the broadest shoulders in the world, capable of carrying great responsibility...but even I need someone to lean on. It hurts when you have a basic, primal need for security and there is none to be had.
I resent coming 2nd to the army. I resent knowing in it's eyes my job is to be quiet and put up with everything that IT decides for me, throws at me and puts me through because God forbid I should have a perfectly good head on my own shoulders and a desire to live my own life. I am not to have opinions, hopes, dreams, aspirations, independence or a will of my own unless L is away and I'm only to have these things WHILST he is away. I must of course relinquish such trifles when he returns and become the dutiful wife again.
My deliberate avoidance of my family....now to untangle this one...I'm afraid that they are going to notice that I'm not as happy as I should be and that they will think they know the real cause of it, therefore telling me things I don't want to hear... Things I don't need to hear. Unfortunately, or fortunately I haven't worked out which yet, there is still a part of me that is very much the baby, their little sister and I take criticism from them to heart.
So...despite having the above on my mind and inside...I did everything that I could to cheer my big sister L up, including letting her now nickname me Dobby from Harry Potter (just to explain really quickly I left a sock - my favourite sock that L bought me - at her house, she came over New Year's Eve for dinner and a Harry Potter fest. She flung the sock at me and said 'here you go Dobby', obviously I fell about laughing whilst chiming in 'master has set Dobby free. Master has given Dobby a sock!' I know so juvenile.)
At times I worked so hard to be entertaining and good company for my sister, I forgot about L being away and enjoyed myself. Imagine that.
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Monday, 2 January 2012
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
The Apron
I used to hoard things.
I found it reassuring, comforting. Somehow the things that had special memories attached to them and that concerned the people I loved overwhelmed the rational part of me that wondered if really did need to keep all my birthday cards from the age of 9.
It made me feel safe.
It made me feel closer to people.
It made me feel protected.
The harsh realities of the world could somehow be kept out if I just barricaded myself in in the centre of all the things that I loved given to me by all the people that I loved.
As I've got older and certainly being married to L in the forces, which means we're apt to move around a fair bit, I've learnt that it isn't practical to have so much stuff.
And I've learnt that no matter how well you build your barricade...it doesn't always keep hurt out. I didn't even need to go to university to learn that one.
So I've had to learn to let go of things. I've had to learn to stop hoarding and I'm slowly learning what it means to travel light.
It started to snow today. Not heavy and not enough to settle but its still snowing.
As we're not going to be in our own home for Christmas this year we're not getting a tree. We're not putting up decorations, we won't be here to open our cards and we won't be snuggled up together on our sofa against the freezing British weather watching the same films that they (the grand old boys club that is the BBC) show every year.
Although we're still going to be with family and there will still be Roast Turkey with all the trimmings, brightly wrapped presents, Christmas pudding, mine pies, carols playing on loop and the odd glass of wine...I'm going to miss the things I mentioned before.
Simply put they remind me of my childhood. It wasn't always happy and it didn't last as long as most childhoods but at Christmas time...with my mum and my sister(s) - L was more often than not 'away' as she moved out at 16 - I got to feel protected, safe, secure and happy. If only for 12 days.
Before we fly out to the States to have Christmas with L's parents we're making a flying visit to my sister L and possibly my mum's on the way back home. My sister has promised me that we'll go out pick a tree and decorate it together.
And I can't stop smiling when I think about it.
What does snow and Christmas and my sister L have to do with an apron? One year, I can't remember exactly when, before my parents split I was bought an apron. Just a run-of-the-mill children's apron with a picture of a hedgehog on it surrounded by the alphabet.
Its nothing special to look at.
Except that it is very special to me by what it represents, by what it symbolises. And no matter how often I go through all of my belongings and ruthlessly examine things to discard, to throw away...to let go of...I always tuck that apron right back into the drawer.
And I know that wherever L and I go, to whatever part of the world, and for ever how long, I'm going to be taking that apron with me.
Some things are just meant to be hoarded.
I found it reassuring, comforting. Somehow the things that had special memories attached to them and that concerned the people I loved overwhelmed the rational part of me that wondered if really did need to keep all my birthday cards from the age of 9.
It made me feel safe.
It made me feel closer to people.
It made me feel protected.
The harsh realities of the world could somehow be kept out if I just barricaded myself in in the centre of all the things that I loved given to me by all the people that I loved.
As I've got older and certainly being married to L in the forces, which means we're apt to move around a fair bit, I've learnt that it isn't practical to have so much stuff.
And I've learnt that no matter how well you build your barricade...it doesn't always keep hurt out. I didn't even need to go to university to learn that one.
So I've had to learn to let go of things. I've had to learn to stop hoarding and I'm slowly learning what it means to travel light.
It started to snow today. Not heavy and not enough to settle but its still snowing.
As we're not going to be in our own home for Christmas this year we're not getting a tree. We're not putting up decorations, we won't be here to open our cards and we won't be snuggled up together on our sofa against the freezing British weather watching the same films that they (the grand old boys club that is the BBC) show every year.
Although we're still going to be with family and there will still be Roast Turkey with all the trimmings, brightly wrapped presents, Christmas pudding, mine pies, carols playing on loop and the odd glass of wine...I'm going to miss the things I mentioned before.
Simply put they remind me of my childhood. It wasn't always happy and it didn't last as long as most childhoods but at Christmas time...with my mum and my sister(s) - L was more often than not 'away' as she moved out at 16 - I got to feel protected, safe, secure and happy. If only for 12 days.
Before we fly out to the States to have Christmas with L's parents we're making a flying visit to my sister L and possibly my mum's on the way back home. My sister has promised me that we'll go out pick a tree and decorate it together.
And I can't stop smiling when I think about it.
What does snow and Christmas and my sister L have to do with an apron? One year, I can't remember exactly when, before my parents split I was bought an apron. Just a run-of-the-mill children's apron with a picture of a hedgehog on it surrounded by the alphabet.
Its nothing special to look at.
Except that it is very special to me by what it represents, by what it symbolises. And no matter how often I go through all of my belongings and ruthlessly examine things to discard, to throw away...to let go of...I always tuck that apron right back into the drawer.
And I know that wherever L and I go, to whatever part of the world, and for ever how long, I'm going to be taking that apron with me.
Some things are just meant to be hoarded.
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