Saturday 25 May 2013

A long time away

I am here.  Its been a long time, away.  I have been somewhere else, still in the country, but all consumed by life and the events of just trying to get by.  I am not even sure why I stopped writing or when the appeal to speak my mind openly, ended.  But its been too long and I realise that its been missed. Yesterday, I read a note from my daughter who is an avid blogger, and she mentioned how therapeutic it was to write.  She was right, and I have been bursting to get my thoughts out, shouting them to the world. So listen up.

5 years ago I was an incredible mess.  I am not going to blame everyone, but the truth is, a series of very unfortunate events lead me to make the biggest decision of my life.  Do I regret it today?  Sometimes I do, but not always, because some days are really good and I am happy and at peace.  But then there are others that are hard and I feel a restlessness which just will not subside. I know that I have probably popped up in many conversations over the past few years of friends and families who must wonder what on earth possessed me to literally pack my bags, leave my home, my two children and start a new life in another country.

Hurt. Its that simple.  A pain that was so big, I could no longer allow it to infect me or my children or anyone else in close proximity. I have tried over the years to medicate it.  Drown myself in life, my job, TV, the internet.  The truth is, it never does seem to just go away. Its like a tricky injury. It seems healed and good when I am happy and things are going well.  But just let any bit of adversity come along, and its as if the core of the pain is so great it has to surge to the surface and make me feel as if life itself, will kill me before I am due to die.

I currently face a crisis at the moment.  I am thousands of miles away from my ailing mother who, call me naive, I thought would live forever.  But she has been ill for 3 months now, and I am left wondering if leaving her was the best thing.  I am now left weighing up the pros and cons as to what the best thing would be for me and for the new life that I have inadvertently started while trying to get myself sorted out. But the truth is, my mother is the centre of the whole problem I have with life.  It is, as a psychologist once said, a very twisted and entwined relationship.

There is no doubt, I love my mother more than I could express here.  And please believe me when I say, that I would literally stop my life to go back and make my mother better.  And this in itself, is the entire issue with our relationship.  Because by nature,  little bird is meant to be kicked from the nest to start its own life, and never to return.  Yet, I am held by an invisible string to her.  I am unable to turn my back and wait for her to live out the last few years of her life, like a family member suggested I do.  I guess its because she and I both know what that invisible string that entwined us, has been made from, to keep us so deeply connected.

I do not expect my siblings to understand the way it is.  They had long left home when the connection was forged.  Its iron clad and stitched with unspeakable pain, loss of innocence, confusion, guilt and something that can just never be explained. It has been a connection which has pushed me forward through the some of the most difficult times in my life, given me great strength, and it has also been the chains which have held me back in life, and caused me to doubt everything I have ever done.

I started this particular blog thinking it would finally be the time to get the issue out in the open, get the hurt "off my chest" so to speak.  I have tried on many occasions to come clean and just get it out.  Reading back on my blogs, it is the undercurrent to every blog I have ever written.  But I sit here holding back. Not ready to speak up, and I fear it may be some time before I am ready to stand, hand on heart and say exactly what it is that holds me to my mother, that has cause unrepairable damage to my being, the thing that drives me through my life like an unstoppable hurricane.

I just want and wish for peace, in every moment.  And I know, going back will be the catalyst to rip open a wound which I am trying desperately to heal and forget.  I know staying will make me regret and keep me wondering if showing it to her how I really feel, will eventually make it all better.  I don't know what the answer is right now.  Like everything, time seems to have this incredible way of showing the right way. Until then, I really hope my mother has the courage to hang in there and wait for me. Because right now the solution to all this, seems a long time away.....







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