parenting

It’s four weeks today since dad left us and how does the world look? Lonely, hollow, in a daze. People are talking and I’ve zoned out, or I’m exhausted or I’ve forgotten what they have said. Currently, silence is my friend. Coming home after work has been difficult as some days I would usually go straight to see dad. I realise how much I am holding in and I cry when I get home or on the way home.

It’s hard to be honest at work as to why you want to leave work, to go and speak to your therapist but there’s no way around explaining why you need the time, it isn’t a given. Equally I am grateful that work understand and have given me the time off.

I’m starting to feel anger towards all sorts of things, little triggers. I feel irritated by the smallest things and at the same time I know they are small inconsequential moments. I am fighting the urge to allow myself to become irritated by people and moments and I know this is not me. I am justifying, reflecting within myself, having conversations over again within to make sure what I am thinking is actually from a genuine place or from somewhere else.

I told my therapist recently I understand the light and the dark can exist all at once and that’s okay. Probably the biggest take home from her since I started having therapy. The light and the dark feels deeply vast and expanse. Although the darkness is more attractive and can feel comfortable as I have been there growing up and through moments of my life.

I am getting married next year and I had two scenarios in my head, either see my dad before I got married or see him the day before. I honestly thought he would be with me beyond 90 year which he would have been in April. How could I have been in denial for months. I weep and sigh, I thought I had more time. In reality I had the best of times I could have had under the circumstances.

One of my closest friends spoke to me the other day, she was the one person who checked in on my mum when she was admitted to hospital on various occasions and when she had lung cancer. She said “you have all this time to adjust to, you spent years looking after your dad”. I don’t think that has completely sunk in yet.

I think of all the things my parents didn’t get a chance to see but I remember all the things they experienced with me during their lifetime. There was something about wanting to be the first person to obtain a degree, the first person to get married in a western way. I wanted to make my parents proud and I know when growing up, nothing felt like it was good enough for my dad. As an adult and a reflective person, I know my parents came from their own lack of “enoughness” from their own parents and their own belief of what they hoped to achieve in life. I was a “people pleaser” for my parents as I wanted them to be pleased and happy with my achievements. There were many rebellious moments where I couldn’t give a f@@k and my parents didn’t speak to me. Ahh those teenage years but you have to go through them in order to understand or try to.

Poem
Hold my hand and tell me that one day I will see you again
Not on the shores of the sea, in the cold and grey
Not in the darkness and seeking the light
But on a bench where we sat talking, laughing, walking together

We listened to the birds, we watch the squirrels ferrying for nuts, the sky held a calm
We smelled the rosemary and the mint together, we held the apples from the garden
We sat on the bench and enjoyed summer days
I miss the stillness, to be or not to be moments, the smiles, the pain, the loss

I hear your voice still, I hear your laughter in my heart, I see your struggles
They were not nice, they were angry, fearful, lost in a world of non-sense
A world where we know this sense, this hollowness, this part of you or me
That dissolves into nothingness

The tension in my stomach has not left, the silence of my phone disturbs me
I miss your voice calling me, I know you’re with me.
Dad – I cannot do this again, the caring, the arguing, the understanding, the loss
at every stage. I cannot find the patience, the empathy, the many stages, the hurt,
the grief.

I ache, I hurt.

With a background in acting everything I write has music to it, or rather in my head as I write. Cancion De La Noche

I love reading and I don’t ever read enough but there always comes a time when perusing a book from someone you know can make reading that bit more special. ‘The Good Enough Mother’ was certainly a piece I was looking forward to reading as I hadn’t spoken to the writer, Anoushka Beazley for some years; and was just genuinely excited to see someone who I had crossed paths with doing extremely well! I think sometimes, the worry is that someone will read/see your creative output and dislike it. But we put ourselves out there, sometimes with our hearts on our sleeves and not only take risks but hope to connect with the reader in some aspect.

The story opens with Drea who becomes a single, non biological parent to Ava over night due to her Teacher boyfriend who runs off with his Research Assistant to live in France. Drea’s character is funny, dark, sarcastic and shows the sad complexities of humanity that reside in all of us. Why did I love this novel, well firstly I could hear Anoushka’s voice, and even though I hadn’t seen or spoken to Anoushka, it was great to hear her voice in Drea. Secondly, the story of Drea has so much heart and made me seriously think of ‘Motherhood’.

I lost my Mum several years ago and it’s still difficult to know she is not here anymore, that I can’t take her shopping, meet up in a coffee shop, have family get togethers, or simply share my life with her. I contemplate whether I will be a ‘Mum’, ‘Mummy’ or ‘Mother one day, to my kids or someone else’s. Do I want to be a Mum? I ask myself “why this has not physicalised?” I blame the notion of not meeting the man who has wanted to have this “lifestyle” with me, but is this fair? Did I meet him but not clarify my needs? I always said “never say never to kids” when someone asked me, but then some how the cycle of men in my life that I attracted were the guys who could never commit, disliked children maybe because they hadn’t grown up themselves or possess the required emotional maturity, or had kids already and didn’t want anymore.

As with Drea’s story I could associate with other issues that perhaps prevent us as in ‘I’ from making those clear decisions. Maybe it was never high up on my priority list, maybe I thought it would happen naturally, maybe I didn’t think I would be a good Mum or be any good at being tied down and didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of my parents. So, “fear” prevented me? Maybe because my parents were so adamant on me having a career and in doing so gravitated towards people who wanted to take rather than share. Maybe my needs became second to their needs?

With main characters in novels, conversations happen in their head which only the audience can hear and identify with. When I started this post I was debating on whether to call it “Conversations in my Head” partly because we all have them and I do try to stem the demonic ones; but this is about how “The Good Enough Mother” stirred emotions and thoughts I have had all of my life. Maybe because my biological clock is ticking, maybe it has ticked? Oh look, there’s one more thing I cannot add to the bucket list but if I could, would I? Probably yes, most definitely yes if there was someone who wanted this with me. But unwittingly I chose and choose the men who do not and that is one of the most painful decisions I live with daily.

Drea’s internal dialogue is utterly insightful, I guess this is why I connect with her. There are reflective moments that made me feel completely broken, the way we compartmentalise so much until we are forced to confront our issues. The mirrored moment is never necessarily with a person or situation but pages in a book, a scene in a film, even down to the most boring of chores can have you crying because something you read in a novel made you think. Denying how we truly feel about our circumstances and who we are, and whom with we can be ourselves. Sometimes, being alone is preferable than being around people who constantly judge you, analyse you or your situation, who offer advice when it’s not needed or asked for – “The fixers”.

Drea deals with her problems internally, and I wonder if this is a symptom of modern life. We feel guilty for sharing our problems, we consider it “dumping”. We feel a failure if a relationship has broken down, there’s always blame. We feel shame for not being what Society says we should be, in a relationship that leads to marriage, children, financial and domestic security. There’s nothing wrong with wanting them but there’s equally nothing wrong without having them.

The fear is not loneliness or am I settling for second best or wondering if I had made different choices would I be somewhere else? The thoughts are what if there is someone out there who wants to live the life I want to live, should I keep searching? Maybe I do want to be a Mum? Maybe I just want security because I never had it as a child or growing up? Maybe being a Mum will fill the loss of not having one? Maybe I still don’t know and it’s okay to not know especially if you’ve been through the “I thought I’d met the one” phase and they turn out not to be.

Drea wants to be provide for Ava and though there are lots of ways she doesn’t see, in so many ways she does. She’s responsible, she cares, she admits to not being the ‘typical’ parent that gets stuck in with PTA or makes friends with other mothers for the sake of school. But there is something in Ava’s need to belong and be part of something that also resonates with me. Maybe it’s being a Mother, maybe it’s to say I did well, maybe because there is nothing left of me after I have gone and maybe that’s they way it is and should be. Why does their need to be a legacy of Maria Thomas? There doesn’t.

‘The Good Enough Mother’ is definitely about the human condition and the complexities of how our minds work. The trauma of childhood, the confusion within ourselves by not really knowing sometimes who we really are and we come from, our parents/families influence on our lives or non-existent parents/families in our lives. It all seems to boil down to who am I? Who I am can be anything I want it to be, how I live and whom I live it with is my choice as long as I am happy why should it matter? Who put the time clock in my body and do I have to listen to them? Listening to the conversations in my head can be harmful or amazing, and everyday I have to consciously choose to listen to the voice that keeps me going.

Thank you Anoushka, if ever I do become a Mum, I hope I remember like Drea, it’s okay to fall as long as I remember to pick myself up and carry on.

msgazelleinsights

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‘The Good Enough Mother’