Sponsored by the letter T

We didn't get the posting we were after.  L has been extended for another year in his current unit.

No I'm not happy about it.

No I can't think of it L like 'at least it's not Yorkshire or Germany'

Why?...pull up and chair and I'll tell you

Because I had mentally and emotionally prepared myself for moving.

Because I sold my merchants chest in anticipation of being allocated a smaller quarter.

Because I've accepted a place on a course at Winchester University, not Reading but WINCHESTER - come on say it with me now W.I.N.C.H.E.S.T.E.R - good, now you're getting it, on the understanding we were being posted to Winchester.

Because we were told it was 98% certain that we were being posted to Winchester.

Because we now have to find the money to pay for my commute.

Because I don't even know where to begin trying to research if I can transfer to another university.

Because my stress levels have gone through the roof.  Again.

Because I will now have to endure another year of L not being here - physically or emotionally.

Are you hearing a lot of 'I' in there?....you better effing believe you are because  no one has considered me in any of this.  Due to someone's else's inability to keep promises - once again and people wonder why I have trust issues - my life has just got whole lot more stressful.  Like it isn't stressful enough already.  Someone who doesn't know me, has never met me even, is playing with my life and my future.

I don't feature in their equations at all.

I feel like nothing.

I feel like it doesn't matter to anyone what I want or what makes me happy.

I feel like I am expected to just 'roll with it' because I knew what I was marrying into and because you know it's 'queen and country first and family a close second'.

I feel like I don't matter.

I'm invisible.

No, I'm not happy about it at all.

Underneath the anger, which is always easier to deal with, is the disappointment and frustration.  I'm hurting and I'm fed up of being understanding about being reduced down to a 'dependent' by the military.  

I'm not a dependent, I have never been a dependent and I will never be a dependent.

Today's post has been sponsored by the letter T - tiredness, too many tears to tell you about, a tirade, trepidation, tantrums and tourettes.

Tonight my heart is breaking...my oldest sister L called to say that her and her partner P have split up.  After nearly 11 years together he ended it.

She didn't see it coming at all.

He said he was unhappy and that he hadn't been for a while. 
He said he couldn't do 'us' any more and he didn't want to do 'us' any more.
Yet she comforted him.

My heart broke for her.

I listened while she talked and I empathised - I even confessed I had thought about leaving L when we had been married for about a year and explained why - and as she talked I felt my insides clenching.

I cried (sobbed actually) after we had said our goodbyes for all the things she was feeling and for the things I know her ex, P, is feeling too.

Break ups have in the last few years started to make me feel very insecure and vulnerable.  I become anxious and distressed and in desperate need of L to be here to comfort and reassure me whenever I hear of any.  It doesn't even have to be the separation of a couple that I am familiar with, just knowing it is people that I know of (heard of) is enough to destabilise my world and have me seeking reassurance.

I will willingly hold my hand up to having control issues and to admitting I have an inherent need for certainty, despite knowing in life these are non-existent. 

I guess deep inside of me there is still a 9 year old, who relives the primal trauma of her parents splitting up and all the emotional rawness, turmoil and uncertainty that came with that whenever I hear of relationships breaking down.

Some Memories Shock You into Disbelief

T came to stay at the weekend and perhaps it was the mojitos or just that with her I can talk about things that are painful and I usually try to avoid, but I remembered something...difficult.

I remembered that when mum was in the process of ending her relationship with B and we were trying to get him to move out, to face things were over, he turned violent. 

I can't remember whether it was before or after the violence that I moved into mum's room and slept every night with her in her bed.  I use the term 'slept' liberally because I didn't sleep.  Not once did I allow myself to fall into a natural deep slumber, one part of me somewhere inside my mind and body remained alert and awake in case B came into the bedroom and I needed to protect her.

I can't remember how many nights I did that, I only know it felt endless... like it lasted for weeks, months even.

I remember when his eldest daughter G finally came to get him, mum and I descended into this weird silence.  That evening we hardly spoke at all, there weren't any meaningful glances or looks exchanged.  Nothing at all. 

I remember Mum was in her bedroom and I went into the bathroom first to wash up for bed, it was taken for granted that I'd still be sleeping in her room.  He was gone but it still didn't feel safe.

I remember standing in front of the sink and the mirror searching for something but being so distracted, so numb, that I didn't know what I was looking for and then I called out "I don't believe it!...." and I couldn't for the life of me stop laughing.  Mum called out 'what?' or something akin to that and that's when it really hit me....the absurdity of it...

B had taken the electric toothbrush.

The Hardest Thing in the World

Break ups are never easy no matter how amicable they are. 

It doesn't matter whether the other person treated you like dirt or a princess, hung on your every word or ignored you totally. lavished you with gifts or forgot every one your significant days, repeatedly stood you up or arrived early - ending a relationship hurts.

There is always a part of yourself that blames the break up on yourself; you weren't smart enough, you weren't pretty enough, you weren't slim enough, you weren't fun enough, they didn't love you enough, you didn't love them enough, you weren't in the same place or wanted the same things...

Sadly, being deficient in something is the BIG thing though whichever way you look at it.

Walking away from someone that you've loved - still love more often than not - no matter how much you know its for the best, is a hard thing to do.  Possibly the hardest thing to do in the world.

A letter

Hi Monster,

I thought writing this letter to you would be a good idea but... now that I’ve started my confidence falters. I’m balking at the things I want to say and need to say, afraid of what happens when they’re out there and I can’t take them back. I am, in short, scared. I’m scared of how I feel and of the things that I think, I’m scared of admitting them out loud to myself as much as I am of admitting them to you.

I don’t know where to start really, I don’t know how to tell you what’s wrong with me because I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Lots of things, lots of little things, have been bothering me. That said they are things that have always bothered me, only for a short while before I let go of them and forgot about it all. This?...This feels bigger, so much bigger than that.

I’m angry with you. I’m angry and I’m hurt because you’ve let me down and you’re still letting me down. I don’t feel important to you L. I don’t feel like you notice me or that you notice when something is upsetting me. When I am upset and I ask for a hug its because I need one and not because I want one. Do you think that I like feeling so vulnerable, so weak, so scared and so emotional that I resort to the primal need of having someone’s arms around me to make me feel comforted and secure? Do you think I like having that need ignored? What do you think that does to my confidence?

Truth be told this isn’t anything new, you consistently let me down L, time-and-time-again. You really are just never there – physically or emotionally – whenever I need you and I am just so sick of it. I am fed up of reaching out for you and finding that you’re ...absent. You have something else on your mind, something more pressing, something else that you are focussing on; work, lists of chores that you’ve asked me to do while you’re geographically away, researching flights to the States to visit your parents (your mum really), pushing me in the direction of becoming a qualified teacher...with a view to getting a visa to the States. Ask yourself why you’re so desperate to get to the States, is it for us? Is it so that we can have a better quality of life together? Or is more about joining your family? I feel and think that it’s more about the latter. I’m not suggesting that you don’t love me, I believe that you do but I think your need to be with your family out weighs your love. I feel like your family are more important to you than I am. I feel like you put them above me and your need for them before me. I can understand the latter but it also makes me very sad that you don’t extend the same courtesy to me...has it occurred to you that I might also need my family? That I fell out with them for you, that I hurt them for you and that I would be leaving them behind for you?

Some times L I am so hurt and so angry with you for letting me down that I hate you. I really hate you and wonder why I ever married you. I mean think about it...this isn’t the first time that you’ve let me down, this isn’t the first time that I’ve needed you and you haven’t been there for me. You let me down and left me alone to cope during a difficult time before we were married after mum and B split, you did the same when I moved to Needham and was diagnosed with depression...and it hurt. Yet I loved you that much that loving you far out weighed the hurt...now? I don’t know Luke. I know I still love you but I love you less than I did before and that hurts too because you have no idea how much I wish things were the way they were before this new round of hurt and of being let down. You aren’t my special boy any more, you aren’t my sanctuary and your arms aren’t the one place that I go to when I need to hide, you aren’t perfect in my eyes any more and I’m grieving so much for the loss of these things. It feels like a loss. I don’t want to look at you and not see what I’ve always seen, you perfect, lovely, special and mine. I want so desperately to get back to that, to looking at you and seeing those things and feeling my heart melt. I don’t know if that’s possible, and even if it were I don’t how to get back to that and that scares me. I’m scared of what this means for us. I don’t know how to move forward from this and that makes me feel sick to the pit of my stomach.

I’m lost for words now. I’ve finally run out of things that I can say although I don’t feel empty or purged yet.

I want to tell you that I love you but saying it hurts and the only thing that comes to mind is that it shouldn’t hurt. Love isn’t meant to hurt, not like this any way. So now I don’t know how to end this letter, just saying bye doesn’t feel right but I can’t tell you that I love you either...

x

Day 08 Someone Who Made Your Life Hell, or Treated You Like Shit.

This one is beyond easy, it doesn't require a moment of hesitation or thought. The one person who leaps to mind when I ask myself 'who do I think of when I am asked to name someone who has made my life hell or treated me like shit?' my sister T.

I don't mean that in the sibling rivalry kind of way where one bullies the other or you break each others toys, read each others diaries or borrow each others things without asking. I mean that in she broke my heart and really hurt me kind of way.

She hurt me, she made me cry, she took her love away and I had it coming, so I took it as best as I could knowing I deserved a good measure, if not all, of it.

When I look at the finer details and separate them from emotion - never an easy task - it all seems so small, so silly for us to have had such a huge falling out over something that really does seem...well trivial. It really does seem petty and ridiculous and not at all understandable or reasonable. Baring these observations in mind when I then apply my emotions to it and take them in to consideration too I feel a little sheepish and pathetic. I feel a lot like the name calling of 'drama queen' and 'over sensitive' is appropriate. Is justified.

If I take a step back in the name of finding balance and look the whole 'thing' from a neutral stance there is definitely right and wrong on both sides. Yet, despite accepting that being told that she has (recently) said that 'she wasn't fair to Natasha' doesn't make me forgive her. How she made me feel still hurts too much for me to even consider it. I am using my anger - it much the same way as I use humour - as a way to avoid dealing with something I find incredibly difficult. Knowing T has voiced her guilt, may be even her remorse, doesn't change my reaction.

I can accept my role and take responsibility for what I did to deserve her wrath but I can not heal myself nor even take comfort in knowing it is in my past.

I guess it is still too raw for me to have learned anything from it and be the wiser for it.

Sibling Rivalry?

I read an article today that struck a chord. It was like the author had crawled inside my head and pulled out my perception of the relationship I have with my older sister – by 5 years – T.

Like all sisters we have fought and squabbled throughout our childhood and into adulthood, I’m reliably informed that it’s what sisters do.

I too like the author have only ever wanted the kind of relationship with T where I could feel secure in turning to her for advice, for a sympathetic ear, for support and the kind of bond I believed I was missing out on. That isn’t to say I don’t for one moment know without a doubt that should a moment ever arrive in which I really needed T she would be there for me. The difference is I know that such support would come at a cost and with her usual barbed comments of being a drama queen, of the mess I’m in being just typical of me, what did I think was going to happen – well you see where I am going with this.

To be entirely honest T is a bully, and I can’t say that I like her much as a person. At times I only love her because she’s my sister and so ...I HAVE to. That however, doesn’t negate the knowledge that she wouldn’t be her if she wasn’t a bully, if she didn’t put me down, belittle me, ritually humiliate me, tell me how to live my life, or generally bulldoze her way into my life. Contrary to my sister’s popular belief I am not stupid.

Perhaps it is ridiculous of me to dread spending any amount of time with her for fear of not knowing whether I am going to be in her good books or her bad ones. After all I’m an adult so I should feel confident in myself and my successes. Yet somehow a few hours in T’s company has me more on edge and doubting myself than anything or anyone else has the power to.

I’ve often talked to our mum about her treatment of me. I’ve confessed that no one can hurt me the way that T does and admitted I often feel like she hates me, but that I’ve no idea what it is that I’ve done to deserve it. Is she jealous? T is an intelligent, successful graphic designer with a doting husband who adores her, a fabulous house that reflects her classic taste and a flair for creativity that can’t be matched – what have I got that she could possible want? At present I am a rather lost housewife floundering around with mathematics in the vain hope I can pass and get a grade C so that I can progress onto a teach training course – something I doubt that I’ll be successful or good at and am therefore unsure if I should try to achieve it – knowing this won’t be my final career choice because I’m well... fickle and indecisive.

The long and short of it is that I’m fearful T will push me too far one day and like the author of the article I’ll snap and cut her out of my life. I’ve done it before for 4 months when she last really upset me, I only relented at mum’s urging. It is always me who is the peace maker in our arguments and always at mum’s urging.

So, having read this article I can and do completely sympathise with the author. I hear hurt in her voice and also see the hurt child that she still is inside. As comforting as it is to know I’m not the only one who has a turbulent relationship with my sibling, it also makes me think I should stay away from Disney and books like Little Women. T might be a selfish, opinionated and bully but she’s my sister above and beyond all else. Her less desirable traits I can choose to ignore (however hard this may be), the fact she’s my sister I can’t, which I why I am thankful every day of my life that I have Trish - the sister of my heart – in my life. She is everything and more that I could want in a sister but what we have is in some ways more special because we aren’t related by blood, our love and respect for each other is one of choice not because we HAVE to.

In case you’re interested here’s the article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1289366

Mothers and Daughters

My mum came for the weekend and with her came a rollercoaster of unwanted emotions for me, but looking back on our conversation what strikes me most is the anger I directed at her and the resentment I feel toward her.

When you’re a little girl you want nothing more than to be like your mum. No one is as smart, as funny, as attractive, or as amazing as she is. You play dress up in which you put on her clothes, her jewellery, her make up and totter around in her shoes hoping you look just like her. Your mum, is in short, as perfect as she can possibly be on the pedestal you have placed her. When you become a teenager things are different, she doesn’t understand you or what you’re going through and you’re absolutely convinced she was born an adult. It’s a tough time filled with anger and frustration, and lots of stomping up stairs and slamming of doors. By the time you’ve reached your twenties you’ve come to realise your mum has been through some rough times herself and definitely knows a thing in two about life and growing up. Suddenly you begin to realise she might not be perfect and that while she is human with flaws of her own, you understand she always has your best interests at heart. The advice your mum gives you in your twenties starts to resonate within you and she becomes your best friend as well as your mum. A subtle shift happens and your relationship changes to one of mutual support, out of somewhere and seemingly overnight you are steady enough on your own feet to lend a supporting hand to her – you start to be there for her through her trials. This change, this movement away from being the dependent child into a mature adult continues throughout your life and relationship together. Inevitably there is the possibility that there will be some events in your life that will be so shattering they shake you to your core, and you revert back to being a child needing comfort and support. In such instances the one person you instinctively reach out for is the one person who has never failed to let you down in the past – your mum.

Perhaps because of this when your mum does lets you down the aftermath is devastating and hurts in ways that only time can reveal and hopefully mend. My mum and I have, just like every mother and daughter, had our ups and downs. We’ve fallen out and disagreed and been there for each other even if it meant putting aside our own hurt. But fairly recently my mum wasn’t there for me when I really needed her and the magnitude of the hurt from this goes much deeper than I’d previously thought.

We’ve talked about it and continue to do so but somehow the hurt doesn’t lessen and now I’ve the anger to contend with too. And there is so much of it. I’m angry that her whole attitude seems to be ‘It’s in the past you should just let it all go’. Just like that. Like it didn’t hurt, like I’m not still hurting, like it doesn’t reduce me to tears, like it all doesn’t matter any more. It does hurt. I am still hurting. It does reduce me to tears, often and it does still matter. It matters very much. Initially I was angry because she let me down, because I needed her, desperately needed her - my mum - like I had never needed her before. I wasn’t an adult in that moment of need, I was a child and I needed the comfort and support that only she as my mum could give me and she wasn’t there for me. I fell and she wasn’t there to catch me. She wasn’t there to pick me up and make me feel better. She wasn’t there to hold me and to reassure me that everything was going to be okay.

I’ve made all the right excuses for her and my hurt and anger aside I know I am right. I know every insight I have of her situation from her perspective is right. I can (and I do) put myself in her shoes and experience all that she was feeling at the time. I know she was going through a difficult time herself; her own mother was dying and they weren’t on the best of terms, indeed they hadn’t been for a very long time. If I take a step back from myself and all my roiling emotions I can see the similarities in our situations; mum was feeling like an abandoned child just as I was. Mum needed her own mum and was subsequently let down too, in much the same way I was. She was hurting and she had retreated into herself in order to protect herself.

I know this and I feel that it is right but ... and perhaps it is the hurt little girl inside of me that makes me feel this... but I am still so angry with her about all of it. The whole thing. I am angry that her advice, the advice I have always followed and accepted as right before, is to just let go. I don’t accept this. More than not accepting this I completely reject it. Somehow I feel that by just letting go I send the message that it was okay for her to hurt me and that I am okay now. It’s not okay and I am not okay and I won’t pretend that I am because other people have decided that I should be, or because it makes their life easier. I won’t sweep it under the carpet because I can’t. It is still fresh and raw and all pervading for me.

Will a time come when I can? Will a time come when it will hurt less and I won’t be so angry? I hope so because I love my mum, I love her very much and without her I don’t make sense. But I won’t pretend, not for anyone.