To remain neutral in the face of injustice

There’s been something buzzing round in my head for a while now and I have tried to write it down, however incoherently but when I go to press ‘publish’ on my blog, something stops me. Nerves? Not wanting to upset people?  Not wanting to cause offence- who knows?  Probably a good combination of all the above but this time it’s different. I feel like today all the buzzing bubbled over into something… well this, so I will try to explain.

I read yesterday about how during major football tournaments, cases of domestic abuse spike, whether England win or not. Now that is awful as it is, but what’s annoyed me is people’s reactions to victims of this crime.

Why don’t they just leave?

I hear people say. Like that’s the easy option.( Although statistically to leave is the most dangerous thing someone in a domestic abuse situation can do. But let’s not go there… )

My issue is why? Why do people think it is so easy for someone in that situation to leave?

Every day we are faced with decisions, with right and wrong, with abuses of power…Every day very few of us choose to stand up against bullies. Very few of us stand up and say ” hang on one moment…” So why don’t we? Why don’t we stand up against people who abuse their power? To playground bullies, to bullies in the work place, bullies at the school gates? We have always been told not to let bullies see that they have upset us. Don’t cry they’ll think you’re weak. Crying isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a sign you’re upset. But we don’t make a stand. We don’t take on that bully, that boss, that institution? We just walk around the problem, skirt the issue. We wait for someone else to become a victim and then we say ” Oh yeah that happened to me too.” We hope that maybe someone else will take on the giant so we don’t have to.

So why don’t we fight ourselves? Is it because we can’t? No. Is it because we don’t want to make like uncomfortable? Yes probably.

Whistleblowing. It may be the right thing to do, but it’s not the easy thing to do. I have a friend that blew the whistle. She stood up. She did the right thing. Came back to bite her on the bottom though when she least expected it. Truth is, people are happy to whisper that something isn’t right, but they’re not so happy when someone yells it from the roof tops. Then you are disloyal, you are a trouble maker, you are shunned and cast out.

So how come we think that domestic abuse is something that people can just walk away from?

It should be easy shouldn’t it? As easy as telling a child off for wrong doing? If something’s wrong- it’s wrong. It’s all black and white, right? Nothing in life is ever really that easy. You begin a relationship with someone and it’s all fantastic. It’s all tickety boo. You form a bond with someone. You make a life together and then slowly over time you realise that something has changed. The balance of power has shifted somewhere. It isn’t in the first moment when you stay after your partner has hurt you,humiliated you, abused you?No, it happens before that, way before that… the abuse is just a test to see whether the power has shifted. It starts with something little. A put down when you’re feeling great. Undermining your confidence in yourself. It could be that you’re ready to go out and you’re feeling great. At the very last moment, seconds before you leave, a look and “You look like a slut with that red lipstick on.”

You scrub it off in the bathroom. You feel humiliated but you don’t leave your partner for it – that would be a little bit of an over reaction for a grown up right? You shrug it off, you go on. Time passes, things go back to normal. Then another little dig. Then another. They are not every day at first, they are spaced out enough for you to move on from them. Then the first test. Will you stay after he ups the heat. Will you stay after he has punched all the lights out in the room because you wouldn’t turn the light out? Will you stay after he has yelled at you in front of your friends? After he has thrown a bunch of keys in your face? Will you stay?

When he takes away your bank card, because you’re no good with money. When he throws things and rages in your face. When he drives erratically because you are not worth driving carefully for? Will you stay?

You learn that it’s easier to try to avoid situations than to deal with the fall out. You try desperately to keep him happy to avoid his wrath because you just don’t know what will happen next. You hope other people don’t annoy him. You pray no one cuts him up in the car. That his football team wins. That you get it all right, because you are nothing without him. You have no money. You have no idea about the bills. You’re not allowed to know anything like that because you are useless. You would get it wrong.

How can you leave? How would you live?

If most of us cannot stand up to the everyday bullies in our midst, how on earth do we expect someone in a domestic abuse situation to do it? Most of us, sadly, are cowards when it comes to standing up to people that we perceive as being stronger than us. Myself included. It’s not easy, to make life not easy for ourselves. We all want an easy life. We all just want to breeze on by and get on with the good stuff.

Standing up, saying “Enough is enough”, blowing the whistle, mean trouble.

It means hard times ahead. But do you know what Desmond Tutu said

“ 

It took me 7 years to leave my oppressor. 7 years of trying and not quite getting there. I wish someone had told me back then what I told my son this morning when he couldn’t get to the next level on his leappad game.

“Every time you don’t get there. You are a little bit closer to getting there next time.

You have to keep trying. Don’t give up.”

By the time I walked away I was stronger. I was ready. I never looked back. I couldn’t have got there any earlier than I did. I had to believe that my life was worth saving. It took almost dying to realise that. That I wanted more from life, That I wanted to live. I think the fact that everyone knew made it harder. It made it harder because everyone knew and did nothing. They did nothing because you stay out of other people’s relationships, because they didn’t want to see, because they didn’t want to make trouble for themselves, because they were worried that they may make things worse and because ultimately they knew that it had to be me that walked away. If they took me. I would just go back, as I did so many times.

It is hard to stand up and say,‘ hey, don’t treat someone like that.’ to say; ‘that ain’t right’.

It is hard, but because people don’t say it to the right people, it makes the victims feel, like in a way it is accepted. ‘It’s just their way.’ people say, to reason it away. ‘It’s just their way.’

I just wanted to say, that that doesn’t make it ok.

Fat and Loathing in Broad Hinton

As I cried into my sauvignon blanc last night, (a school night I know, don’t be too harsh- it was a Monday!) I came to the realisation that I have not hated myself so much since I was a teenage girl. Why do I hate myself? At the moment it’s because I believe myself to be the largest fatty bumbum in the whole world. This is based on my becoming more and more obsessed with how my body looks. This I believe happened as  a result of my starting to weigh myself again, some months ago. This is something I hadn’t done in over 17 years. I stopped when I became obsessed with my weight in my teens and chose some unhealthy methods for controlling it. It wasn’t about the weight then, not really. And it’s not now, if I really break it down. It’s about thinking that my worth as a human being is defined by how I look, my weight, my appearance. My value as  a person is lessened by the fact that I have no control over what I put in my mouth, or rather by my lack of control over how much I put in my mouth. Let’s be honest I don’t believe that this rule applies to anyone else. Infact even as I’m saying it I realise that it’s a load of horse poo but it’s something that is so deeply etched into my psyche that it’s a struggle, a real struggle to break free of it. We’re all programmed by things we heard, learnt, saw in our earlier years. Some good stuff and some not so useful. We all latch onto a particular view or message that tortures us for much of our life, till we get to a point where we are able to say ‘life’s too short’ and move on. I thought I had done that when I was 15. I thought I had taken that sickening obsession and unhealthy connection between the value of my life and how much fat is on my body and banished it from my head years ago. I stopped weighing myself and thought about how my body feels in my clothes instead of judging myself by bmi or pounds and kilos.

I’m not sure why I started again. I think I just thought I could handle it. I thought I would be ok counting calories and doing weigh ins. I was wrong. I realised as I sobbed last night, that my increasingly more frequent thoughts of self loathing stem back to my choice to look at my weight again. So I have decided to stop. So what if I don’t know whether my body mass fits into a chart of the average healthy person? I’m not average or normal anyway. It’s ok not to know how many kilos I weigh. My doctor knows and they’ve never said anything. I want to be healthy so I will exercise but what I see now is that what isn’t healthy is to look at the details of what you eat to the extent that it is all you think about. To the point where you think about it every minute and use your failure to lose pounds as a reason for berating your very existence.

I guess I have moved on. I know that my feelings have become unhealthy so I am going to terminate them by giving them nothing else to feed off. My worth as a human is not determined by the pounds I weigh or by what I put in my body. It should be measured by how I behave, how I treat others and what I do. That’s rational thinking. I’m done with the loathing. Now I’m gonna eat cake.

Unopened doors

Is there a door you wish you’d left unopened?

An event you just wish hadn’t happened?

A time in your life you would gladly forget?

I have been walking round all morning, being told off for singing ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…”. I imagine this is due to listening to all the X factor hopefuls on the weekend. Then I got to thinking, what a load of horse crap that song really is. I mean, I still love the song and it’s inspiring and motivating and all the rest but it’s just not true.

So many people say to you that no matter how painful an experience has been, they could not wish to undo it, because it made them who they are. I can see that for some things; such as failing an exam at school. Or your knicker elastic going in front of a room of your peers.( I was about 6 but I remember quite clearly standing there at my best friend’s birthday party in my pretty dress with my knickers on the floor around my ankles- mortifying !!) Making a false start at the beginning of a race and being disqualified after months and months of practice, letting yourself and your team down… Yet, these are all things that although embarrassing are soul defining and ultimately strengthening moments. You learn that the embarrassment you feel at making mistakes, is always far worse than the actual mistake, which when you look back is quite trivial. (And to always check your knicker elastic before you go to a party!)

These are things that I get, that I understand, you may look back on and say, that yes it was embarrassing and painful but yes it also made you stronger. It defined a tiny part of who you are. But it’s not these type of incidents I’m thinking of. I mean the big stuff. Those sliding doors moments, whereby your life and the person you are, is defined and altered forever. Where all you learn is pain and bad stuff. Where, before that one moment, you had a choice and that choice made, your life was changed forever.

See I’m not sure there’s always a useful point to pain. So before you tell me it teaches you strength and resilience and what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, yadda, yadda,  yadda…stop. I know there’s a reasoning behind those words and perhaps, a truth in it , but I just don ‘t believe that to be a good enough argument for all of human suffering.

When I was 17, I made a choice and quite literally walked through a door I shouldn’t have. It did change my life but I don’t think there was anything about the experience that followed that I can look on as defining in a good way. It taught me something, sure. It taught me distrust. It taught me that sometimes even when you can, you will be too frightened to stand up for yourself, to protect yourself. It taught me that saying ‘no’, does not mean you will be listened to. It taught me so many things. Not good things.

Will I look back one day, from the doldrums of my dotage and think that actually that incident, made me self reliant, that is gave me inner strength? No, I don’t think so, because I think if you took the stepping into that room out of my life, you would find that I am still the person I am today, just perhaps with a lot less bitterness and far less insecurities. Sometimes in life, there is no silver lining, no break in the clouds, no magical, karmic purpose. Sometimes we just tell ourselves there is, to try to lessen the horror of what we have seen, what we have said, what we have done, or had done to us.

Sometimes life throws us shoddy opportunities and bad experiences. Sometimes we are faced with choices and they do open up our lives and re launch us into a different path. But at other points in life, we just take the wrong way and end up getting hurt. There’s no purpose in there. Life does not always have a good lesson for us to learn.

I know that people want to believe in hope. I know that I have rattled on about it. Maybe I am being too pessimistic? I just wonder… am I the only person who has shadows in their life that they wish they could undo? Who has moments that they would like to eradicate? Choices they wish they could unmake? Does all pain and bad experience really have a purpose? If it doesn’t kill you, does it really make you stronger, or is that just what people like to tell themselves.

Is there anything you’d undo?

Any day, you wish, you’d just stayed in bed for?

Any door, you should have left unopened.

 

 

Only skin deep

 

 

 

Today, I have to do something that I don’t want to do. I have to take my youngest son to his swimming lesson and get in the water with him. So what? Big deal, right? 

So why don’t I want to do it?

Am I afraid of the water? No.

Afraid to show my fat tummy and cellulite to the other parents watching. No, well maybe a little.

Truth is, I’m afraid because I don’t want to show anyone my skin.

Since I was 17 I have suffered with moderate to severe psoriasis. This is not something I ever like to talk about. But 2013 is my year of facing my fears so here goes. It started, after a particularly traumatic event in my life that my body just couldn’t deal with, so my immune system revolted and soon I was covered in little red plaques of dry itchy, painful bleeding skin. If the appearance of it wasn’t enough for a hormonal teenager to deal with, the pain and the bleeding and the shedding of skin was enough to send me over the edge and result in me being diagnosed with depression a short time after.

Over the years I have tried creams and uv light, every random ‘miracle’ cure, every disgusting concoction that the doctor at the Chinese medical centre sold me and although some have offered respite, nothing has sufficiently cleared my skin to make it significantly better. Then 2 years ago I decided that having chosen to not have anymore children, I would try a new type of treatment. This involved taking 5 tablets of a type of chemotherapy drug every monday. The idea being that the immune system would reboot itself and stop over producing skin.This treatment really helped. Although the side effects at first were gruelling, I stuck with it and as my skin cleared up, I learnt to adapt to cope with the tiredness and exhaustion that accompanied it and for the first time in years I felt happier in my own skin. Not just that, I felt comfortable. My head was released from the constant vice like grip that it had been held in for years by the layers and layers of my own skin. I still had patches but I could live with that. I could go swimming again and sometimes wear tops without sleeves, skirts and threequarter lengths. This may sound ridiculous but to me it was like a new lease of life. I could even tie my hair back. Things you just take for granted. Unfortunately, I got used to these new benefits and when a few months ago I had to be taken off the pills because I was becoming more and more sick on them, I wasn’t ready for the full impact of my psoriasis returning with avengeance.

The doctor said I needed a break before starting a new treatment. These drugs are heavy going on your body and I needed to wait a few weeks before deciding what to do next. Each day it got worse and worse. I think it was doubly hard because of having 2 years without it. It hurts. Every time I move it hurts. It bleeds. It’s humiliating and I feel embarrassed. I try to cover myself up, so I feel better about myself, but you can’t avoid every mirror. Every day I look at the horror that has become my body and I cry.

Now I know there maybe some of you reading this, who just think, pull yourself together it’s only skin. This is just vanity! Thing is, it’s not. It goes so much deeper than that. It defines how I feel about myself. If I can’t look at myself, how can anyone else look at me without feeling repulsion, like I’m feeling right now?

I have started a new treatment, something to tied me over for a couple of months before I can hopefully move onto something more long term, less time consuming and more bearable. The new medicine is working. My skin is a little less tight each day and maybe even a little less red and thick in places. I have hope again.

Still, in a short space of time I must get into a swimming costume and take my boy to his swimming lesson. I don’t want to do it, but I don’t want to let him down. I’m his mum. If he ever gets this horrid illness I want him to know that it doesn’t matter. That yes people will look but so what… I want him to know that, but I don’t feel it. I feel scared and uncomfortable and a little bit nauseous at the thought of it.

My plan is to just get straight in. I know some people are going to look. That’s natural, right? That doesn’t mean they are thinking bad things. I know some people may say nasty things but what I hope for is that people see a mum who is not letting her own hang ups get in the way of her son’s life. I say that now, as I am secretly wishing that the lesson will be cancelled, the car will breakdown on the way there… anything but going through with this.

I have to go in with him because he is too scared to get in with the other kids on his own. I have to give him confidence and security. That’s what mother’s are meant to do.  A few months ago this wouldn’t have been a problem, I have been swimming with him so many times before but not when my skin has been this bad. There is no way of getting round this now. I have to go through it. I either disappoint my son or face the potential humiliation and embarrassment of stripping off in front of all the other parents.

Like I said, I don’t have a choice. I am not about to let my son down. So wish me luck people, I hope this is something I can look back on as strengthening. I’m not ready to hold a spider yet but maybe today I can face up to one of my fears. Didn’t some one famous say ‘there’s nothing to fear but fear itself…’ ?

Fingers crossed that’s true.

Mother, wife, dogsbody, woman

I haven’t written in ages. I just haven’t felt passionate about anything to say it. Today I am peedled off.  I am annoyed. My husband, who was supposed to be looking after the boys today, dumped them on me, at the very last moment and disappeared out the door. Yes he had to work, but so did I. Did he care about what would happen with the children? That didn’t even make it onto his radar. That was my problem. Why? Because the sexes aren’t equal. Men, in general become the main breadwinner when their wives or partners are ‘forced’ to take time off to have children. I’m not saying that most women don’t want it this way. I definitely jumped at the chance to stop running myself into the ground in a job that was 7 days a week from 7 in the morning till gone midnight, 365 days a year. I was glad to stay at home and watch daytime tv, feed my baby and sleep when he did. (Not that that happened too much!) I was glad that my husband was the one that went to work. I felt that I deserved to have this time with my baby. I had carried him for 9 months. I wanted to get to know him. So despite the long sleepless nights and the baby sick and the poo under my finger nails I relished it. What’s not so fun, is a few years down the line, having to juggle work, school, pre school and all the endless things you have to remember with them. There’s committees you are badgered into, school fees to pay, uniforms to source, books and themed days and lost lunch boxes and left behind PE kits to sort out. It never ever stops. My husband laughed when I said last week that I just needed a day off. He cheerily told me, that’s what weekends are for! Funny, because it makes no difference to me if it’s saturday or wednesday. I still have to think about every meal, clean up after messy boys and tackle the mountain of ironing! Yes, I do get a lie in, if Formula One is on, or if I defiantly lay there refusing to move long enough, but apart from that it’s business as usual!

I know someone has to work. I know my husband works extremely hard and he does look after us. I am being hard on him. It’s just that sometimes I get so fed up of being the ‘housewife’, the ‘maid’ , the general dogsbody to everyone. I and so many women that I know, have to work, look after the kids and take care of the home. It isn’t that my husband is being slack. He is just so absorbed in his work that he doesn’t think about anything else. So, in the evening after dinner, when I disappear off to do the volunteer work that I do, I know that when I return home, the dishes will still be in the sink and the lunchboxes will still have yesterdays scraps still left in them. He will be in bed and apart from that, nothing will have changed since I left.

Now don’t get me wrong I know that I’m lucky. I don’t work full time; just here and there when needed. My voluntary work is just that ‘voluntary’ and no, I don’t have to do it. But I love it. I love going somewhere and just being ‘me’. Just ‘Cerian’ and not mum or maid. It’s not just me making the tea for someone else. I get asked if I want a cuppa. I’m not last in the needs sake. I can wee when I want to, talk without being interrupted and sit in peace without someone asking me for something.
At home, my husband makes his breakfast. I make the kid’s. Then somewhere along the line I get to gulp down a cup of green tea, (whilst clearing up) and wolf down a yoghurt with one hand (whilst changing a nappy with the other.)
Thing is I know I am lucky. I have beautiful, healthy children. A handsome and kind husband. I have a roof over my head and happiness in my heart. It’s not that I don’t realise these things. It’s not that I would swop my life for another. It would just be nice to not be last on the list sometimes. To be thought of first. Now before you say it, I know that being a mum means sacrificing yourself to your child’s needs and being a wife means in sickness and health, richer and poorer, blardy blardy bla, but doesn’t it work both ways? Shouldn’t the men in our lives stop every now and then and realise how much we do for them and how good they’ve got it?
All I’m saying is we’re not winning the battle of the sexes, we’re settling because we have to. We have to , to keep the peace, so the world keeps turning, so the food is on the table and the uniforms ironed and the packed lunches ready. We have to accept that we will always be mother, wife and dogsbody before being woman. Most of the time, I put my marigolds on and accept that, but today I want to burn my bra and rage about it. Or atleast turn off the dyson and have a nice cup of tea in peace instead!

Living together

 

 

 

True love or not, living with the opposite sex is tricky. Sometimes it’s downright disturbing the annoyance someone else’s little habits can evoke in you. Take for example my other half’s lovely knack of cutting his toe nails whilst on the toilet and leaving his straggly nail ends on the side of the bath. The first time it’s gross, the second it’s disgusting and after that, it’s just blood boiling, threat inducing annoying.

Of course there’s the other lovely habits that most men I have known seem to have in common. The dropping of the clothes by the bed every night.( Apparently this is logical, so they can just put them straight back on the next day?!) 

The disappearing to the bathroom with book or newspaper in tow for the 2 hour morning poo, just as you were about to leave the house on some trip or other; the accompanying stench that no amount of febreze can remove and the absolute denial that they were gone for anything more than a couple of minutes!

The refusal to clean the toilet, although they clearly leave the skid marks and miss the bowl most of the time. The ‘What’s for dinner?’ as opposed to ‘Shall I make dinner tonight?’. The hilarious joke that they make with other male friends in your company, that they did the washing up so badly the first time, on purpose, so they would never get asked to do it again! So funny, if you are 3 or something!

Why does it so often feel like your husband is the third child of the family? Sometimes it seems that life would be so much sweeter if you could live with your female friends instead. If you could take it in turns to cook for each other and paint your nails and take long restful baths in a sweet smelling bathroom. So why do we choose to live with the opposite sex , when we are clearly programmed so differently? Well there are certain advantages that I can see. In my case, there is my other half’s ability to remove a spider from the shower, his fantastic culinary skills, (when he chooses to share them with me,) how good he looks in a tool belt,( although he never gets further than thinking about the DIY job in hand) and of course his mowing of the lawn every weekend. Oh yeah and he does bring me cups of tea, whenever I ask and fills up my wine too. Oh alright, he can stay! Now if we could just do something about the ability to walk passed a light bulb that needs changing 200 times before it registers on his radar and stop him blocking the drive when he puts the bins out for collection, so I can actually get out without having to move them when I am late on the school run, I think I will be on to a winner.

To be fair, my husband is not as bad as other men I have had the displeasure to live with. One left dirt rims round the bath,( apparently to give me something to do, )  another left dirty mags by the bed and drove me insane to the point that even listening to his breathing at night got on my nerves! That’s when you know it’s over!

I guess living with the other sex does have it’s advantages but true love or not, it takes patience and adapting a more relaxed attitude to life. Although saying that, I do have one friend who lived with a man who was anal about cleanliness and she was the slob. He even gave her specific colour coded bottles to pour her shampoos and shower gels into so she didn’t upset the colour coordination of their new bathroom suite. So I guess it’s not always the man. Living with someone else is hard, but human beings are often better with someone than alone. We all crave human contact, even if we long for solitude and a bit of peace and space of our own. I myself can live with the nail ends and the pants on the floor because they are worth it for the bear hugs in the morning and having that person to hold back your hair when you are sick, knowing that no matter how silly you look in your onesie or how bad your breath is in the morning, they know you and love you for all of that. (Besides, I don’t think I would find anyone else to put up with my dirty habits.)

Written in the stars?

True love… is it just an outdated concept? Is there really just one soulmate out there for everyone? If so, are you destined to meet, or is it pot luck? Does true love go on forever? Has it always been and will always continue to be?

I asked my dearest this question last night and he said that as far as he could see, I had been involved in two serious relationships before him and had ‘thought’ I was in love, until something better had come along. He figured that most people believe themselves to be in love until something more ‘perfect’ presents itself. He said he believed that our love was the real thing, that he hoped it would be forever but who knew? 

So if this is the case, how do we ever know if we are in love? What is love and what does it feel like to be in it?

 Before my present husband, I did think I was in love a couple of times, but I got hurt and all though it took time, that love faded until it was no more. So was it really love in the first place?It certainly didn’t feel like what I have now. With my husband, the way I felt was something that grew and just keeps growing. We were friends for 5 years before anything happened and it was like a movie where the heroine just doesn’t see what is right in front of her nose. I never really bought into the whole Hollywood thing where the guy trails round after the girl, whilst she dates some idiot, who ultimately makes her unhappy. Then at the last moment, at the altar or somewhere equally trite she realises she is with the wrong guy and runs off into the sunset with the friend who has been there all along. What a load of baloney, I always thought. Why would you not get it? Why would you not see that the person you are happiest with, who makes you laugh till you are hoarse, is the person you should be with? Yet there I was for months trailing around with my head in the clouds, whilst my true love was patiently waiting in the wings. Amazing really because I had given up on the idea of love. I thought it was all made up. That there was any number of mr. rights out there but that they would only last for a while and then you would just move on, out grow each other, fall out of ‘love’.

Funny, cause when I realised what an idiot I had been, it was almost too late, but in true Hollywood tradition, a last minute car chase to the airport and he was mine. Alright, so I made up the bit about the car chase and the airport but the rest as they say is history. Now I know that all sounds a bit mimsy and twee but it made me believe in love. Real love does make you feel happy, even when all around you is falling apart. When my husband and I eventually became ‘an item’, everything else in my life went skewy. I didn’t care. I mean I did, but ultimately it didn’t matter because I realised that whatever happened, I would have him. I lost pretty much everything else around me, but nobody could take what really mattered. So I kept smiling through the bad times because they just didn’t feel so bad.

So I believe in true love. I believe that it is written in the stars. I know it’s a romantic idea but I think that we’ve been here before and loved before and that true love just keeps on going. It’s not about things being perfect. It’s just about being happy. Being with that person that makes you feel like you’re the luckiest person alive, even when all you seem to get is bad luck and disappointment after disappointment. Love doesn’t end. 

Now I don’t necessarily think there’s just one person out there for everyone, but I do believe in destiny. Not to the extent that I don’t think you need to atleast make a little effort. If you can’t be alone and love it, you’re always likely to be too reliant on someone else to be happy in any relationship. You have to believe you deserve someone to love you.

My husband is my soul mate. Could I love some one else if he were gone? I don’t think so. Do I think he would find someone else to make him happy if I wasn’t here? I think he would have a queue of contenders but I just don’t think they would measure up. Not bigging myself up, because I’m definitely not perfect, but no one has imperfections quite like me. I think our love was written in the stars and nothing else will ever measure up to it. Yes, I could have made other choices in my life and maybe we wouldn’t have ended up together now, but I do believe, (no matter how gushy it sounds, )that at some point we would always have ended up together. To me, that’s how our story ends; together.

 

Schools Out For Summer!

 

 

Arr peace… Nothing quite like it. Well atleast not for the next 5 weeks that is! I am sitting here, enjoying a cup of coffee knowing that it tastes all the more sweet because this is the last coffee I will enjoy on my own, in a peaceful house for the next 5 weeks of summertime. School’s out from 2pm today and that is it. Expect crying, screeching, whining and excessive drinking, from me, that is, not the children! It’s not that I don’t enjoy spending time with my children, I absolutely love it. Just not 24/7 for 5 weeks! I need a little ‘me’ time. A little quiet time. Even if that’s just 5 minutes spent talking to the dog in the garden. He never answers back, or wees on me or hits me in the face, to wake me up in the morning.  Oh the things I used to just take for granted!

I am prepared though, in a way. I have started sorting crafty things to do, which from past experience, mean the boys will work diligently for 10 minutes or so, before fighting over the pritt stick and taking it in turns to ‘glue mummy’ instead of creating Van Gogh style masterpieces. It’s all a bit of fun, I hear you say and yes I agree, especially when you’re on your knees picking up foil shapes of the floor and scraping stickers off the walls. What joy!

It’s not the constant mess that slowly drives me insaner than the fruitcake that I already am; it’s the noise.

Oh my god, THE NOISE!

No amount of,‘ Use your inside voice, sweetheart’ or

‘Sshh let’s pretend to be little mice with little voices’ ,works with my two.

They rough house like rhinos. They enjoy making noise just for the sake of it and my husband wonders why I seem to be going deaf! Although quite clearly I am not the only one with difficulty hearing, but in my boys cases their deafness appears to be particularly selective to commands such as ‘Tidy up the playroom’ or ‘Don’t use a whole roll of toilet paper to wipe your bottom with’. They appear to have little difficulty hearing ‘Snack Time!’ or ‘Dino Dan’s on’!

And to add to the joys of summer we are starting potty training our youngest. Oh the pleasure of endless washing and poo on the sofa! I’ve already tripped once with the potty and spilt wee all down my legs. I can’t wait to be knee deep in pooey pants and wet car seats!

But seriously, it’s not all bad. Hopefully the boys will sleep in a little and we can laze around in our pjs all day, without the hectic shouts of;

 ‘Stop playing with your willy and get dressed!’,

Or my youngest telling me he has done a poo just as we get into the car, making us once again late for the school run. Still being late does have it’s advantages. By the time we get to school, the early mums are just evacuating their prime parking spots just in front of the school gates and we can parallel park, (badly), and make it in just in time for the register! Hurrah!

I have to make the most of this summer though. It is my last with my eldest before he goes off to school and I lose him to the world of big kids with bad attitudes and homework for ever.  I know that I will cry as I pick him up from his last session at pre school today, knowing that he won’t be going back there next term and that some one else will have his peg to hang their bag on. (Oh god, why did I not remember the water proof mascara today, I’m welling up already!)

I look at the pictures of the new prince leaving hospital and the happy royal couple filled with the joys that a new baby brings and I just think, where has the time gone? Everyone tells you how quick they grow up. That you must cherish the time you have. You just don’t realise when you hold your new born in your arms, that in the blink of an eye, you will be kissing them on the head and sending them off, in their brand new uniforms on their first day at school.

So, this summer, I am going to try to make the most of it, even if it rains and we are stuck inside for days on end. I will try to keep my cool, whilst I scrub the floor to eradicate the wee stains and laugh it off when they throw cocoa pops all over the floor, because I won’t get this time again. I may not look back in years to come and fondly remember the tantrums and the disturbed sleep but I don’t want to look back with regrets. I want to think I made the most of their childhood.  That when they look back and remember these days to come, they have a wealth of happy, fun filled moments to draw upon that maybe one day they will share with their own children.

Still for the next couple of hours it is just me and the dog, my coffee and a chocolate biscuit and I am going to enjoy every last second before I rush off, hankies at the ready to collect my son. An era ends today and another one begins in September, it’s just the inbetween now to contend with! Wish me luck!

 

Why love means having to say you’re sorry

I have been up most of the night, maybe down to the coffee I indulged in before bed, or maybe because I had so many things whirring round in my mind. My eldest son has quite a nasty cough at the moment that wakes him up at night. I went to sit with him and got him fresh water and stroked his head. I asked him if he wanted me to stay with him and he said ‘no’. He told me he just wanted daddy. I went back downstairs and told my husband, he said that was good as our youngest always wanted me. I said that I felt my eldest didn’t think I loved him as much as the youngest and he said maybe we just need to change the way we do things. I always read stories at bedtime to our youngest whilst he puts our eldest to bed.  He always takes our eldest to swimming whilst I stay at home with the younger one and play dinosaurs. The list goes on really…

It made me sad because for much of my life I have lived under the shadow of what I have realised now is self imposed pain from the idea that my parents love my sister more than me. I say self imposed because this is an idea created by my own brain, it is not true. I know that now, or rather I see that now. Becoming a parent can force you to face up to certain things, not always good. I get now that my parents love my sister and I equally. I say this because I love both my sons equally and although there are parents out there who controversially say that they love one child more than the other; I’m not sure I believe them, unless they are somehow mentally ill. I know this is a strong thing to say and maybe it’s just that I can’t understand it.

I can see how at times one child is easier to be around from a behavioural sense. For example if I have to take just one child shopping it will be usually be my eldest because he will help and give his opinion, sometimes surprisingly insightfully. My youngest is more likely to blow raspberries and try to get out of the trolley and shout at random passers by. This is not however a personality thing, it is an age thing. He is 2 going on 3 and his brother was just the same at the same age. I lost track of the doughnuts he part ate and then placed back on the shelf, whilst I pretended not to look.( Well atleast it meant he wasn’t having a tantrum. )What I’m trying to say is that sometimes it is easier to be around a certain child, but to be honest even when they are having tantrums, they are adorably cute, as they stick out their bottom lip and fold their arms across their chest and huff loudly. I don’t think you can prefer one from the other, not really, each child is different and wonderful in their own way.

I have always been overly sensitive to how other people might be feeling and maybe this extended to over analyzing every little action that my parents made. I, for example, would constantly move my toothbrush so it stood closer to either my mum’s or dad’s. It was impossible to get it in the middle because of the toothbrush holder that we had, but I was worried that if it sat next to my mums for too long my dad would feel I loved her more and vice versa! So I spent my time moving the toothbrush so that it would have equal time next to either parents brush. A little bit extreme now I see. I never look to see where my sons have placed their brushes, or feel where they have put theirs has anything to do with where their love lies.

It’s not just being a parent that has made me see my parents actions for what they are, rather than what I interpreted them as, it is also a concept explained to me by a colleague. He explained to me, after being 45 minutes late to collect me, that I could read into his lateness many things, all of which might cause me upset or pain. For example I might think that he was late because he did not value me as a person, that he was rude, that he couldn’t care less about other people’s feelings. However, none of those things would be true. The fact was, he was late because he overslept. This infact was true and I knew this because when I rung him to see if I had the time wrong, I woke him up.

This got me thinking about one of the many times I had found cause to criticise my parents and question their love for me. It was one occasion when they were late to get to me because they were putting up a blind for my sister. I told myself that this was them choosing her because they loved her more because she was the easier child to love. Now I see, that wasn’t the case. They were just late. I interpreted their actions in a way that wasn’t true and caused myself a lot of pain.

We all do it. We meet a new mum at school and they are quiet or they just nod at us, we say they’re up themselves, cold or rude.That they think they are above us. We don’t stop and look at the situation and see that maybe they are just shy? By misinterpreting other people’s actions we cause ourselves pain that is unnecessary, instead of seeing things for what they are. 

I have spent years telling myself that I am not easy to love, or like; thinking that when people really get to know me they will not like me. This stems from my reaction to my parents actions. Knowing that this is based on an untruth, releases me from the burden I have been carrying around. I feel like a weight has been lifted. /p>

Being a parent means facing up to things, not always comfortable things. It means learning to say when you are wrong, or atleast it does if you want your child to realise that no one is perfect. Their parents are fallable.It is ok to be wrong. It’s human to make mistakes.

I have made a mistake that has tarnished so much of my life. I believed that my parents loved my sister more than me and it wasn’t true. I know this because I look back at their actions now and see them more clearly. During my chemistry gcse exam I was sick and had to go home, the teacher told me to wait in reception, my dad said he would pick me up in twenty minutes. Despite feeling dreadful I laughed, twenty minutes, I knew it would take him atleast an hour to get to me from where he worked. But he was there in twenty minutes; god knows how, he must have flown. It became our long standing saying to each other; ‘be there in twenty minutes’.

My mum has always written notes in books she gives us, picked cards with lovely words, made sure she gives to one of us what she gives to the other. She plans everything, because she wants us to have the best of times. When she comes to stay she puts the washing on for me and irons my husband’s shirts. She stands up for me, when I am feeling down and cannot do it myself. She helps out where she can but she stays out too so that I can live my life and be the person that I am, which she accepts is different from her, but is also part of her.

It’s not easy to say sorry. It’s not easy to admit you were wrong, but love does mean having to say that you are sorry.

So mum, dad, I’m sorry for saying that you don’t love me as much. I know that you do. Not just because you have told me enough times, but because you show it. You have always shown it. I just haven’t always had the clarity of mind to see it.

 

Scaredy cat

I’m not sure that this is going to make much sense because I am dog tired. Whatever dog tired means! My better half has been away with work for a few nights now and I haven’t been able to sleep. This is primarily down to the fact that I am a big scaredy cat!

I’m not afraid of ghosts or monsters under the bed but thanks to programmes like The Fall, I am terrified of the human threats that walk among us every day. They that at night time, break into our houses, to burgle us and steal our children. I can’t stop thinking that a serial killer will break in. I know this is extreme. I avoid watching scary programmes, I don’t read books about murder but it’s not these works of fiction that terrify me the most; it’s the world we live in. It’s not the made up stories that writer’s dream up, it’s the real life horror stories that are so prevalent in our society today.

I feel that I should get a grip and I suppose when my husband is home I am better at rationalising. The more balanced side of my brain tells me that the doors are locked, the dog will bark if intruders enter and that no, there is no one hiding in the cupboard but then the irrational side takes over and nags at me. It whispers that the dog is old and snores loudly and is going deaf and probably wouldn’t hear anyone opening the door. That a deadbolt isn’t going to stop someone who really wants to get in and then it strikes me; what if they have already got in and are as I feared hiding in the cupboard waiting till I turn the light out to pounce.

Ridiculous, I know but in the dead of night I can’t get passed it. So, for the last few nights the children have been bundled into bed with mummy and the lights left on. They, I confess have happily kicked the covers off whilst I have stayed hidden beneath my duvet, making sure no part of me is peeping out, just incase!

I  breathe a sigh of relief as I open my eyes after a few snatched moments of sleep and realise that it’s beginning to get light and I can turn out the lights, take my glasses off and atlast get some sleep. After all no self respecting burglar or serial killer is likely to strike now that it is not pitch black outside. I allow myself to breathe normally again and relax my shoulders, release my grip on the duvet and drift off into slumber land, shortly before my alarm goes off and the boys yell at me to “Get Up”! I really can’t take another night of this, please come home honey… I have even developed a twitch in my left eye I am that tired…

I know I need to get a grip. I know I have no power over other peoples actions and that if someone is going to break in, they will, whether I have shut the stair gate or not. Pretty sure your average burglar isn’t going to be out foxed by me shutting it but just incase.

Maybe I’m more irrational because I have lived in several properties where I have been burgled. I have come face to face with a burglar, me with my feather duster, him with my crown jewels! Interesting moment I can tell you. I ‘m not sure who was more un nerved him or me? I guess though, it’s not really a thief that I’m worried about, as  long as they steal the tv and don’t come upstairs for the hair straighteners. But really it’s the human threat. The thought that someone could harm my children or take me away from them. That’s what terrifies me. I don’t want to lose those that I love most. We live in a terrifying world. I am afraid enough of all the things I can’t control. I can’t read the papers or watch the news or I swear I would make my family live in a panic room 24/7. It’s not possible I know and I have to let them live. I cannot wrap my children up in bubblewrap. I cannot ensure that they never get hurt or that they are never afraid. I don’t want them to be a scaredy cat like their mum. I want them to be brave and to sleep soundly at night.

Thank goodness my husband doesn’t have to go away too often and that he is back tonight. I am looking forward to getting into my jammys and snuggling up. But if you are a would be intruder I will still be locking the doors, shutting the stairgate and setting up my boys toy soldiers to trip you up. So be warned…