storiesfromtheheart's Blog

 

 

 



I woke up this morning, made a pot of coffee
I went out onto the stairs to sit in the sun
I haven't been myself, I know I haven't been much fun
But I woke up this morning and the air taste different

The fire in the gut
Kills the worm that haunts us
I'm all shook up
I'm all shook up

And I'm gonna ride this feeling as far as it goes
I'm gonna ride this feeling
I don't know, I don't know
Whether I'm flying or falling
But I'm gonna ride this feeling

Then all of a sudden I knew I was dreaming
And for some reason I decided to take off my clothes
Then I jumped off a cliff, just spread my arms and flew
All the way across Canada to see you

And I'm gonna ride this feeling as far as it goes
I'm gonna ride this feeling
I don't know, I don't know
Whether I'm flying or falling
But I'm gonna ride this feeling
All the way down

The fire in the gut
Kills the worm that haunts us
I'm all shook up

It's alright, it's alright
It's alright, it's alright
It's alright, it's alright
Just get out of the way and ride

And ride this feeling as far as it goes
I'm gonna ride this feeling
I don't know, I don't know
Whether I'm flying or falling
But I'm gonna ride this feeling
All the way down

The sun peeks out behind the grey lined round fluffy clouds. And in the distance brown hawks can be seen circling in the brilliant blue sky. Miss 8 and I hang the washing on the line together, as the cool autumn breeze that heralds winters arrival whirls miss 8’s curls around her face. She chatters away to me about all those most important things little girls of 8 need to talk about. Beside us in the shade the dogs slobber and chew on bones, stopping every so often to look at us, maybe just to check we are not going to steal their treats. Maybe to eye a rogue fly that seems set on harassing them.

Once done we venture onto the trampoline and play egg and bacon, the squeaking of springs brings out master 11 to play too. Jumping around the trampoline in a circle, the three of us bounce as though we can touch the sky. Our laughter excites the dogs, who jump up to run around on the grass; barking, they look as if they are smiling with their tongues lolling in the air.

Today is mother’s day and I am feeling good.  It is unlikely to be my meds which I have finally started to take, it has not been long enough to feel that rising of serotonin they offer. It is because I have heard from all of my children today, one in particular wanting to be first and texting me at midnight. They have been unaware of how I have been feeling lately, but each of them helping to improve how I have felt today.  I know I am supposed to be in control of my own happiness, and  I should not rely on someone else, but as a  mother contact with my children makes me feel life is worth something, especially when I know they are all okay.  And a welcome surprise was getting a message from one my daughter’s friends, who used to spend a lot of time with us because his own family were not willing or able to offer him the support of a family.  All my children refer to me as Mummabear, and so he does too.  “Happy Mother’s Day Mummabear! I miss you, I love you, you have come closer to being my mum than anyone has, I hope you have a wonderful day.”
 
It seems to be I always repeat myself; I am just slow to learn the lessons of my life journey. But when I learn to let go and settle into acceptance things right themselves.  Or is it that I just have righted myself enough to see what is around me clearer.

There is no better time to learn about yourself, than when life is at its hardest.  Through the darkness is opportunity, like a beacon it calls to you to confront yourself. Even when the pain gets too much and you feel that you are losing everything, you need to have faith that things will get better.

I turned my back on everything, even me. As a way to deal with the loss of something precious to me, something I always thought would be there. Now I keep trying to focus on the reality of this loss it is not permanent, she will come back, but it’s hard to keep that faith when every day that passes she gets further away.

I have always held sure of the belief that children are given to us on a temporary basis, as parents we are in charge of helping them to grow, teaching them to fly free on their own. I let my sons fly free not so long ago, and the intermittent contact does not make my heart ache for them, only soar as I watch them begin to explore the world, make choices, and for one of those sons heal the wounds he caused himself through selfish immature stupidity.   I can call them with the confidence they will reply even if they don’t answer straight away, and at some point  I will hear those words I long to hear – “I love you mum.” We will talk, laugh and gather the stories of the last week or so before moving on confident we are connected. 

However, the expectation the same would happen for my daughter and I, has been snatched away. I desperately tried to analyse what my part in everything was, how did I contribute to her other parent taking her away from me without so much as a word to me. Filling her already disturbed thoughts with words that I thought should never have been connected to me.  And I seem unable to fathom why I have become the problem, all I have ever wanted was happy children, well adjusted healthy children, at no point would I act in a way that serves me. And I know this to be true because after several weeks of agonising truthfully over how I react, what I think and feel, I keep coming up with the same answer – All I want is  my child well again no matter how that happens or who that happens with, I truly thought sending her to her other parent would help her. Maybe it is, just not the way I thought – I must remember no attachment to the outcome – I hear my mother say this all the time.

So here I am, learning to let go. Comforting my thoughts with the constant humming of – it will all be okay, she is safe. So now, I hand the outcome of everything over to something greater than myself, and I start to get through each day a little better than the last day and I see that I can keep going.

I have avoided, ignored and hidden from all those I love, and for the most part they have patiently waited for me to come back. I have spent nights clutching onto my husband, just to ease the pain inside, and he in turn has silently and gently nudged me in the right direction of just getting on with the business of living.  

Tonight I am surrounded by mess and chaos that has become my house, I even noticed that my desk at work is the worst it’s ever been. Is it any wonder one morning when I walked into work, I was told to go home and take some time off. The benefits of working in the industry I do, surrounded by social workers and psychologists who notice those little signs that give us all away when we are falling. And better still they understand.

Tomorrow – I will wake up again and for a minute before the reality of being completely awake takes hold, I will truly believe life is grand, and then I will remember, she is missing but life goes on.  I will continue to write to her, and I won’t allow the returned silence to hurt me.  I will love my children as I always have, but this time I will love myself too, because I am only human and I did the best I could with what I had and if that was not good enough for some, I can’t control that.  Let it go StoriesFromtheHeart, just let it go....  and now let’s clean this mess!
 
 

 


When we woke, we agreed 
That we would not ever speak 
Of this night to anyone that we both knew 
And you said, "Every time we kissed 
I felt something that couldn't exist" 
And I confessed that I thought I felt it too

I am lucky! Some days I truly feel this excitability. Like, today for instance.  Actually days like today make it easier to reflect on the positives.

Walking into a workshop today that I was holding, all my materials in a black trolley, clacking along the cracks in the walk way.  I suddenly felt my nerves begin to twitch the familiar fear of anxiety that I get when I have to talk in front of people. This was only added by the acute awareness that yet again I was under prepared. I haphazardly go through life, and this is yet another example.  You would think by now I would know better than to not be prepared, this is not my first one.

I winged my way through the 2 hour session, all eyes watching me.  I rattled off statistics, descriptions, information and inadvertently made one of the participants cry. Of which I dealt with once it was all over. I already knew her, and I am still kicking myself for not being prepared for her to be there, but she was an unexpected participant.

I did walk away with a feeling of satisfaction despite it all, I always like to learn from all I do and I have learnt some lessons from today. One of them is of course – BE PREPARED – I think it is starting to sink in.  I have another workshop to do, so who knows maybe I will actually turn up ready to kick some workshop butt!
The feedback was good though; I was told I spoke from a genuine place, to me that was a wonderful compliment as that is what I aim for.  I want to connect with my participants while sharing and learning together about things I am passionate about.

And this is just one of the things that has made me feel lucky today, yes I bumbled successfully through that, but also I am not sure why, but things just some days  gravitate to me.  The right phone call, the right person, and the right comment. It all just unfolded today, helping make me feel good about myself.
It is always nice when things go to plan; I am not sure whose plan, as I am sure it’s not mine, (that is evidenced by the lack of preparation for most things) but to plan none the less.
 

It’s been a long time between imaginary therapeutic sessions on the couch in my head. Going over my actions thoughts and values on a regular basis, helps me to critical reflect on how I react to things; to dissect and sort through the good things, bad things and just plain blunders of judgement.

It has been a regular tool I use for work, and increasingly I was using it for everything else too. I figure at some point I have to get better at what I am doing, if only I think about it hard enough and for long enough. Rolling it around the corridors in my brain, sifting out what I did well and wondering what I could have done better.

This reflection can be hard to hear inside my thoughts, because it highlights the responsibility I must take for my own actions, which is probably why I stopped for a little while.

When I step aside, and look over the why’s, in an unbiased and purposeful way, I can see as plain as day the answers to those why’s.   I am a big believer in the, don’t ask a question you don’t really want the answer to principle, but I go against my own sage advice when I reflect with a critical eye on my own actions. And sometimes those answers I didn't want, but I got them anyway.

In them I see my fragility, my losses, my values, and my insecurity. But this is not a bad thing, quite the opposite; it helps me understand why I do what I do. And the only drawback I can see to it is, it’s all bouncing off a one sided conversation that I am having with myself.  A bit like now.

So the hard weeks have rolled into months, and those months have been fraught with heartache, loneliness and finally the realisation as to what has prevented me from letting the fear go all this time.
I only allow myself so many blunders in one week, and so far I have been exceeding those, and not because I am incapable or lacking, but because well really, I failed to stop reflect, and let go of the things I can’t change and change the things I can. It really is as simple as that for me.

Work is work, it won’t change and I will keep doing what I do. But outside there, the life I live when I am not at work - I let her go, and for good reason.  I can’t change that, but I can change how I am reacting to that. I know, it sounds very cryptic from an outside view but it’s the most sense I have made for weeks. And with this reminder it will mean when she rings me crying, begging to come home, I will react from a safe place for her, not from fear for me. That is my job as her mother, and somewhere along the way of late I lost sight of that.  And no doubt I will again, it’s the ebb and flow of turmoil, of grieving but as I tell my clients, this process is slow. No one person will do it the same way. And there is no failure in faltering on our path towards healing, we will get there in the end – I will get there, and so will she.  Every now and then if I listen and watch without fear, I can see that glimmer in her and the way she talks, and I can see it in me too. It is there ...
 
 

 

 

 

 

Rushing out of the front door, I realised I had forgotten to grab something for my lunch. So I quickly turn back, knocking stuff off the hall table, before finally coming face to face with the pantry. I am too rushed to think, and before I know it I have knocked a large bag of rice onto the ground; white long grain rice now like snow around my black shoes. I turn to the cat and tell her I will clean it up when I get home. Like she cares anyway, she just gets back to licking her leg.

I scramble back over the mess I have created to finally get out the door.I had hoped this was not some kind of omen of my day to come, sadly I think it might have been.

Within an hour I am cancelling a project I had been managing, of which its demise I have taken personally. Because there is of course no other way to take anything. Then I field questions from others  who were involved, dealing with their mixed bag of emotions. Funny, despite the kind of job I do, there are times I just do not deal well with emotions, especially those from others.  Not sure why I am the only one who can see, that the only people with a vested interest are those trying to get it up and running not the actual community it was meant for. Still by this stage I am now starting to feel guilty and take the responsibility for its failure.

Normally I am more resilient, but it’s just a build up of bad days, yesterday was not much better only that was finished off with a sad daughter, and me struggling with how I was feeling about everything.
Today I am missing my husband terribly. He has taken the kids away for a bit of a holiday, and I will be flying down to meet up with them in a day, but still I just think I am still not strong enough to cope on my own, not whole enough to deal with even the simplest of things without him.

A mild distraction from everything was a call from my dad. However he can’t talk for long, not because he is busy, but because it’s not our day to talk so he must only confirm some dates and talk no more. My dad is an interesting man; he only calls me on the exact same day and time every week. He can’t talk outside those days unless it’s really important.  I kind of like that routine, sometimes it’s a comfort to know that he will always call, regardless of whether he has anything to say.

Finally I am home, it’s quiet and lonely. The stuff I knocked everywhere is still there. I throw my satchel full of work on the floor. I mindlessly open the fridge door while standing amongst long grain rice, and just stare into the emptiness.  I am not particularly hungry, so close the door and go and flop on the sofa, beside the cat.  I kick off my shoes, and gently run my fingers through Stinky’s fur – that’s the cats name – My reward for such affection is the low growl of purring and dribble all over my knee.

Now it’s time for me to dribble, from my eyes that is.  I think I will call my husband, tell him he is not allowed to go way like this again, and let his soothing voice bring me some relief.

Anyone would think my world had come to an end, with all this carry on, but it hasn't and it won’t, I am still recovering from the last time it did that is all.
 
 

 But sometimes every word has been used
And there's nothing left to do
But hold the one you can't have
In the sweet arms of a tune