A patchwork tangled skein

Not too long ago someone infinitely wiser than me told me “Nothing lasts forever Tash, including the bad times and you just have to trust that things will, at some point, get better.” I know she had my best interests at heart and I also know where her advice was coming from but it did little to make me feel better at the time or to reassure me. Quite the reverse actually, I felt more distressed that she couldn’t tell me when exactly I would start to feel better, when I would stop bursting into tears randomly, when the nightmares would stop and when I would feel, well like me again.

Looking back at that moment I can see just how right she was; in the last year I’ve made huge progress and I do feel better than I did. So feeling awful and overwhelmed and scared and vulnerable didn’t last forever...but now I feel kind of...numb (if that is the right word) and I’m still pushing people away. Worse, now my refusal to communicate with people is driven by defensive anger. I have developed what I think - because I'm not sure that I'm right - is the proverbial chip on my shoulder.

I’ve gone from feeling like I wear my heart on my sleeve and my emotions on my face to schooling my features to reveal nothing. I’ve gone from feeling everything too keenly to feeling nothing. I’ve become indifferent and unsympathetic as well as impatient and laconic, bitter and jaded. I avoid whenever possible any situations which I know are going to be emotional or evoke emotion in me, and if I do find myself not being able to get out of it I switch off and refuse to allow anything to register. I now avoid anyone that I have a complicated relationship with as far as I am able. It isn't a matter of not being able to spend time with them because of our history, it's simply become a matter of not wanting to, of not wanting to be with them and not being prepared to put myself through the misery of doing so.

I’m no longer choked by all the things, all the feelings that threatened to suffocate me. I no longer feel overwhelmed by all the emotions I kept locked inside out of fear for what I felt and fear for what would happen if I let them out. I no longer feel like I’m a two sided mirror reflecting calmness on one side and chaotic emotional disorder on the other. Now the two sides of my mirror reflect the same image: composed nothingness, a void. It's strange because I didn't think when all the turbulent emotions stopped overriding everything in my life that they would be replaced with cold composure. I never expected that. I never expected to look at myself and see a cold unfeeling person with nothing behind the eyes staring back at me.

Is this a part of the healing process? Is this just another stage that I have to go through before I emerge metamorphosed into something resembling a patchwork skein of wholeness that encompasses all that’s happened?

Me Vs. the Wii

My relationship with my Wii has deteriorated beyond fixing.

We are no longer on speaking terms and are now inhabiting different rooms – I am thumping my fingers on the key board of my laptop, my two eyebrows have become a mono-brow while it’s upstairs sulking in the bedroom.

At night we glare at each other from across the room before the light is angrily switched off and a tense silence descends.

But *heavy sigh* it wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time we spent a great deal of time enjoying each other’s company, laughing together, working out together... Now it calls me fat (every day) and I usually shout something relatively incoherent about how it’s changed and my weight never used to bother it along with a few profanities.

What’s changed for us to have got to this point of stalemate? Well I decided I was going to take part in race for life this year. ‘Start small Natasha’ I told myself, ‘Don’t be over ambitious but you can do this’. So I signed up, from the comfort of my sofa of course.

I run already but infrequently. I know it’s not an excuse but it bores me after about 5 minutes. I’ve tried listening to music, my singing scares the birds and I’m not particularly aware of my surroundings at the best of times so me with earphones in and cars, or any moving vehicle... is really just asking for trouble.

I’m not a gym bunny either. I really don’t see why I should pay someone else to torture me when I can do it perfectly well myself – for free – at home, therefore forgoing the need to inflict the vision of me red faced, laces undone, panting for breath and singing (tunelessly) on the public. Besides, I find it nauseating how everyone else there spends most of the time looking at themselves and taking themselves far too seriously. I only have to look at my reflection in the mirror while I’m on the running machine and I start laughing, thus resulting in co-ordination taking leave of me shortly followed by some unsuspecting passer by having to pick me up on the floor. I've never pretended to be able to multitask.

Hubby bought me Cardio Boxing for the Wii and this is where all the problems between me and it started. I work out, on average, every day for about an hour. Jabbing, squatting, upper cutting, hooking, weaving, with press ups, ab crunches and running on the spot thrown in – its an amazement that we haven’t lost our front room light fixtures with me doing all that ... ahem bouncing around up there.

And STILL it tells me I’ve gained weight!!! Can you believe it?! So yes, I do think I am completely justified in hurling profanities at it while throwing my remote down and stalking from the room. I know I have a Masters in English Literature and therefore should possess an adequate vocabulary to make the need for use of foul four letter words redundant ... but, okay there’s no but - I should know better!! *Another heavy and heartfelt sigh with head hung in shame*

Today I’ve foregone the pleasure of exchanging insults with the Wii in favour of going for a run (who am I kidding) jog later with a friend.

'His son Elmo'

Today I finally understood what life for a fish must be like living in tank or a bowl. Let me backtrack and explain – we’re having work done on the outside of the house and so it’s surrounded by scaffolding, on all sides and from every angle. Positively peachy.

I can’t pee without the fear of an audience (for some unknown and unwise reason) we have no blinds and no curtains up in either our downstairs toilet or our bathroom upstairs. That sounds worse than it actually is - our windows do have that bubble thing where details are obscured etc. Don’t ask, thinking about it makes steam whistle loudly from my ears. I have used a pillow to shield as much of the window downstairs to protect my modesty as I can but, whenever I go into this room I hear a little voice in my head saying ‘Full moon, half moon, total eclipse’ and it has nothing to do with Jaffa Cakes.

I’ve managed to fit my shower/bath schedule around the workmen’s timetable. It isn’t something I’ve consciously worked at figuring out, I haven’t sat down with a pad and pen and staked out their working day - it’s just kind of happened naturally. I think of it in terms of a houseful of women syncing their natural rhythms. I now have it down to a fine art. Worrying.

The really annoying and generally quite disturbing thing is I’ve managed to avoid making eye contact with all of them for the entire period, but I still feel watched and it’s not my paranoia. Picture this if you will, windows on all sides of your house, viewing platforms in the form of scaffolding and planks of wood and then all you need is a bite to eat and you have dinner and a show all rolled into one.

I wonder how many of them have had to resist the urge to tap on the window to get my attention or to make me dart away into a corner?

p.s apologies for the poor picture - yes I really did spend time this afternoon drawing (if I can call it that) myself on my laptop.

180g plain flour, 2 eggs, 200g bananas...

Feeling down earlier I turned to baking for comfort. It used to be something I did for other people’s pleasure and enjoyment, now I do it because it's a means of distracting myself.

My favourite cookbook at the moment (it changes, often) is The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. The one before that was a collection of cook books presented very prettily in a hat box called Sugar and Spice, the one before that was a Vegetarian one, the one before that was Green and Blacks, the one before that was a Wuzzle one (don’t ask) and before that probably Mrs Beeton and a dozen or so in between that I can’t remember.

Getting back to The Hummingbird one it seems this is the one that I dip into most making quite a few from it's pages – the New York Cheesecake, Banana Loaf, Chocolate Brownies – tonight I opted for the Banana Loaf. My bananas in the fruit bowl were looking like they were, at any moment, about to give up the will to live. That and I couldn’t get hold of any buttermilk to make the Blueberry Muffins (they are also looking pretty pitiful in my fridge, I can feel a cheesecake coming on at the weekend). Clearly I am not a big fruit eater, unless it comes caked in ...well cake. Although, that said I’ve taken to baking and then giving my efforts away, it’s no longer the rule of ‘If I’m going to get fat you’re going to get fat with me’ it’s become ‘I bake, you get fat by yourself’.

I’ve discovered that there is something very reassuring about baking, about following a recipe step-by-step and getting the exact result that you expected. Why? Well I guess it’s about control and using what is a tried and tested method. You are given clear and concise instructions; you know exactly what to do, when to do it and how much effort is required. You also know precisely how long it is going to take before you get your perfect result. You don’t have to wait an indefinite amount of time for things to change, or for things to become solid, real and tangible. Sooner than you realise that batter turns to a cake, it turns into something real.

Like I said very reassuring. When life throws all manner of unexpected things at you from seemingly out of nowhere, you can count on baking to restore the feeling of order to your life. The simple steps of creaming sugar, butter and eggs together with plain flour and a pinch of baking soda or powder brings back the feelings of calmness. There is no confusion as what is needed from you and when because it’s all there in black in white before you, and more than this you know you can cope – you can do it. The guidelines are there, the instructions are there, all that you have to do is allow yourself to be guided safe in the knowledge others have trod in those same footsteps before you. The exact number of how many?...who knows and for once it isn’t about safety in numbers, its about the mere fact of knowing someone has gone before you, tried it before you and is there to guide you. It’s about knowing that should you need the support, the advice, help that there is someone to turn to and something to draw encouragement and confidence from. Baking is certain and the path is mapped out - the same can’t be said of many other things.

Food for thought.

Nature vs Nurture

Thinking about this blog, about my past, both recent and growing up has made me wonder how much of what you go through shapes you and makes you the person that you are.

I’ve begun to wonder if certain ‘truths’ really are truths or just assumptions that have had things presented in support and in justification of them. I’ve always thought I came out of my parents divorce relatively well adjusted and now... well I’m not so sure. I’ve begun to wonder if my inability to trust people and allow them to be there for me is a result of the fact in the space of less than a week I went from having the perfect family – a mum and dad and two older sisters – to moving out of the family home with only what we could carry, no dad and discovering my sisters were in fact my half sisters. As time revealed my dad wasn’t a man who let go of what he considered his without first wreaking as much damage as he could. Or is my inability to open up, to let people get under my skin and get to know the real me just me being, well me? Is my caution, my emotional introvertedness and the art I possess at dissembling just a part of my personality?

And just to confuse things further if I buy into the belief that I have been shaped, influenced even, by what happened between my parents and my immediate past then it negates my opinion that you’re past only has as much influence on you and who you are as you allow it. So which way is it?

More recently, in the last few weeks, I’ve come to realise I can’t disown my past or deny it regardless of how much I’d like to be able to. To a certain degree I accept and welcome that my past and the things that I have gone through are a part of me, and that they are not the sum of me and I am not the sum of them but ... If I am entirely honest I am not sure what I’d like to do with my past if given the choice...Eradicate all painful memories? Today that feels like a good option. Maybe if I took that one and it was possible I could get out of this unnamed horrible place (mentally and emotionally) that it feels like I’ve been in for far too long.

Quite frankly, and this is something I pride myself on (sometimes and mood dependant), I’m aware that I’m much more complicated than simply the result of my parents and my life so far. Does that mean I am any closer to understanding why I behave the way I do, or say the things that do, or even react the way that I do?.. Err no. If only it were that simple.

Hope

I find myself in the unusual position of having picked a title (a very appropriate one) but I don’t know where to begin and usually it’s the reverse – I start writing and a title comes to me after.

But I digress titles, topics and the writing process aren’t on my mind this evening. Love and hurt and stress are. Yet another tangled ball of past, present and future angst all entwined with confusion, uncertainty and fear.

I don’t know how to describe the place that I am in now other than to say something is slightly...amiss, although this doesn’t feel like the right word. I’m no longer in the grey area of no man’s land where nothing lives and nothing can survive, but I’m not yet out in the lush fields of plenty either.

My marriage to my husband didn’t begin under the best circumstances. Aside from the troubles I was experiencing with my mum, my older sister, the middle one, and I were at loggerheads. We’ve always had a turbulent relationship, fiery, passionate and volatile - we can be the best of friends and the worst of friends. My sister once upset me so much with the things she said to me that I didn’t talk to her for four months. I stayed hurt and angry, although I was mostly angry for that entire period. She knows where the chinks in my armour are and how to exploit them like she made the suit herself.

Although the way she behaved on my wedding day hurt more than I can find the words to describe, I can understand. I can see why my sister didn’t hug me that day, I can see why she didn’t congratulate me or wish me every happiness and I can see why she didn’t write in our wedding book or get us a card. I can see why she didn’t want any part of the day I spent trying on dresses and shopping for one. I can understand these things because I made her react like that, I made her lash out and want to hurt me. It was a ripple effect. There was, not matter what my intent, a certain degree of deliberate hurt inflicted. It was selfish of me to get married before her when she had been planning her wedding, her big day for 18 months. I know that. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly, and in my defence I did have mitigating circumstances. However given the choice...now...again...I’d still make the same one. Despite knowing how complicated things would get, how much people would be hurt and the extent that that hurt would taint everything, I would still do it.

For a long time I wasn’t sure, wasn’t sure that I would make the same decision again. I wasn’t sure that I could. It was hard for me to look at my husband and not see all that hurt and the damage done to my relationship with my family. I found it difficult to separate him and my feelings for him from those I had for my family and all that had happened. I looked at him and I no longer saw the happy memories that we had made together, or all the good times that we had shared. I no longer saw just love, my love, for him. The harder I tried to see just that and nothing else the more it evaded me and the more this made me panic and doubt. At its worst point my husband would go away and I would start to relax, stop searching for things – emotions, certainty, evidence of love and surety – but then as the time approached for him to return I began to not want him to. It seemed to me that he brought with him all measure of turbulent emotions and immense confusion.

Throughout all of this I never once felt that leaving him was the answer. Somehow and from somewhere within me I knew that if I just waited long enough time would set things right. That something turned out to be hope, I just didn’t know it. I know it now though.

Happy Ever After...

I’m saddened and troubled today. I’ve just heard some friends of mine and my husband are splitting up. I don’t know whether it is going to be a trial separation (I hope so) or if they are going to divorce. I don’t know the particulars of it all and there isn’t any real reason that I should, but I am saddened and deeply troubled.

On the surface my troubled status is selfless. I want to send her a message to ask if she is okay (stupid question given the circumstances and I can pretty much guess that she isn’t) but I don’t want my enquiry to be perceived as prying. Deeper than my concern for them however, and I’m ashamed to admit this, are my own fears. I’m having a hard time detangling them from each other and sorting them out. It leaves me feeling anxious and uncertain. A horrible feeling has sunk into the pit of my stomach and is refusing to go away no matter how hard I try to reassure myself and banish them.

These aren’t the first couple we – my husband and I – know that have gone their separate ways. To be honest most of those that we do are no longer together. It may sound callous to say this but before we were married couples splitting up never really bothered me. I didn’t know them too well; I had not been to their house and had dinner, I had not held their children in my arms, I had not drank and talked the hours away and I had not got to know them as people. That would be the obvious answer to my feeling sad and troubled. The less obvious but more pressing reason is entirely selfish and it all comes down to feeling secure in my own marriage – and I don’t. I doubt. Everything.

I see these couples splitting up and the devastation that is left behind and I panic. They are all people who I thought had something special, couples that seemed to have the ‘happy ever after’ thing. They were couples were who I thought would grow old together and live that happy ever after, so when I see or hear of them breaking up...I begin to wonder what chance have my husband and I of making it? My doubt makes me doubt.

I have this compulsion to find out what happened and where things went wrong for them so that I can attempt to prevent it from happening to me. I don’t want to experience the fear, the confusion, the hurt, the paranoia that everyone is talking about me (about us). I don’t want to experience the uncertainty of what I should do, where I should go, what the future holds and how I’m ever going to get back up on my feet. I don’t want to wonder what I did wrong or what happened to make my happy ever after go wrong. I believe, however wrongly, that if I find out what happened in their relationship for it to end I can watch for the leading signs in my own and safe guard myself against it.

There is every chance that because my own parents split and divorced (it was far from amicable) when I was young that I look to others for the example of what a happy marriage/relationship is rather than looking to my own. I can’t whole heartedly deny my insecurities and anxieties aren’t a product of their divorcing and the turbulence that ensued. I want to refute it though. I want it to be far from the truth because I’ve always believed that I came out of my parents’ messy and acrimonious divorce relatively ...how can I phrase this...emotionally unscathed and without issues. Yet the fact I still do not speak or have any contact with my father even after over twenty years more than testifies to the fact I quite evidently do.

The strange things is when I think about it I know there probably isn’t a couple in the world that has been through what my husband and I have got each other through – a step parent who refused to admit it was over and leave the home eventually becoming violent, him going to war, months of separation, the death of two grand parents (one to the big C), delinquent siblings, parents immigrating and one of us going away to university just to name a few – so I should have a great deal of faith in ‘us’. Yet I doubt and I’m afraid and I withdraw into myself scared to trust.