Becoming a Parent

When do you become a parent?  Some go through heart-breaking agonies over countless years pursuing that very dream.  To others it’s a surprise revelation, a shock, maybe something that they weren’t planning on.  But most parents have a time period before the arrival to adjust, to plan, to adapt, to prepare.  For mammals, it’s called pregnancy.   These days parents can clutch a hazy, grainy photo and say that’s my child.  But are they parents in that moment?

I don’t think you become a parent until you have that small, fragile, vulnerable life form in your hands,  until you can feel the tiny, delicate heartbeat, until you have a life in your hands which is depending on you.  At that moment, two souls meet and join, a relationship begins and  every instinct and fibre of your very being swears an oath of protection and care to this small, fragile, vulnerable life form.

Being a parent isn’t just about having physical charge of a child, it’s not even about bloodlines or looking after one of your own species.  It’s about a very special bond between two beings, two souls, one dependent, one caring.

Even when that little one grows, leaves, fledges, matures, however they progress, that bond will always be there.  Your heart is joined to theirs and you simply care in the truest form.  Their well-being is intrinsically tied to your own, their pain is your pain, their hopes your hopes, their achievements yours …  Your heart soars with theirs.  And sinks too.

You can’t ever lose the emotional tie of a child, of being a parent to a little one.  It is more than memories.  It’s not facts or even really feelings.  It’s two hearts, two hearts that cannot be separated even when that little grows, leaves, fledges, matures.  And when the little one is lost, it is a heart that has lost part of itself.

The Runcible Spoon – A Question of Attitude

These last few weeks there has been a minor ‘domestic’ rumbling; it is usually at that gentle simmer where you can leave the pot bearing some wintry stew-like concoction for a while to attend to more important and pressing matters.  Until, of course, it starts bubbling a little too violently and seeping out from under the lid.  Then the issue requires immediate engagement.  And perhaps a stir or two.

How we act, what we say is all linked to attitude.  What motivated us to do or say?  What drives us?  Attitude can have a marked effect in how we choose to deal with others.  Our own attitude may be mild and forgiving and their own attitude may be excused by a variety of extenuating circumstances.  It’s not exactly a question of justification but sometimes it is more appropriate to turn the eye, to excuse, to forgive.

Surprisingly, these two matters are linked.

There are some attitudes that I do not appreciate.  I don’t like snobbery, it rankles me that some person or other has the cheek to think themselves better, superior, more perfect than another.  When someone makes an unjustified claim on another motivated purely by such an attitude then I will rise to the victim’s defence quite quickly, regardless really of my own personal view.  I’d rather help guide that someone to a more balanced approach, I prefer to both sides of every story and live in hope that one day they will be able to also.

Therefore, I find it a gross insult to be labelled ‘snobbish’.  Not least because of the complete injustice in such a claim.  And this is what lies behind the small rumbling ‘domestic’.  My husband has dared to, deludedly, call me a snob.  I was livid, annoyed, frustrated, hurt and insulted by turns.

Some behaviours are often motivated by a snobbish attitude, it is true.  However, just because one behaves in that particular way, can you forcibly conclude what their motivation is?

I don’t think so.  And I would hope not.

Just because I behave, or act, in a certain way in a certain circumstances should not mean that I am motivated by such an undesirable attitude.  I wouldn’t like others to assume that.  And I certainly wouldn’t like to find the slightest trace of such an attitude in me.

Today I found myself defending a particular demographic of parents, sinisterly described as ‘undesirable’, and a little boy who was labelled ‘naughty’.

Perhaps some parents aren’t as good as they could be or as good as we think that they should be.  However, the sad case is that many people, parents included, are victims of circumstances.  It’s not merely a question of ‘education’ as in what school one attends or for how long but of a vast array of complex issues as well as, often, a lack of opportunities.  And when those issues are repeated generation after generation, can you really feel anything but sorry for both those parents and their children?  I wouldn’t like to write it, or them, off as a hopeless case.  Even from very dire backgrounds, people have time and again turned things around for themselves and for their children.  Just not everyone can.  It is easy to judge from the comfort of a presumed moral high ground but it only perpetrates the problems and the divisions.  We need more compassion.

The little boy who was labelled ‘naughty’ is a good friend of mine, he’s a lovely, sweet child but he does have specific ‘issues’ that are in the process of being identified and helped.  His language is behind that of his peers and when he gets badly frustrated (and who can blame him really?), he has been to known to bite.  Is he motivated by mischief, by badness as that word ‘naughty’ suggests?  No.  He is frustrated by the handicaps that he faces day in, day out.  And he cannot even express how he feels.  Worse still, ‘naughty’ can quickly become a label that follows a child throughout their entire life and, unfortunately, also leads easily to prejudice, exclusion, discrimination.  We need more compassion.

Instead of judging people, instead of presuming, we need to think a little harder before we speak, we need to think a little more carefully about how we view our fellow man.  Yes, I may like ‘nuances’ but I think they help us be better people and make the world a better place.

I resent being called a snob.  I am a working class girl who loves my humble (and oft slighted) neighbourhood.  I have no desire to be ‘better’.  I avoid as much as possible any tendency to superiority or of thinking that I am somehow better than another.  I have few airs and graces.

I was naturally upset at the accusation.  I didn’t like the subtle inference that my motives and attitudes were being questioned.

I was very happy to find a certain utensil in a shop.  I have never seen them for sale before; they are slightly old fashioned admittedly.  A lot of people are heavily condemnatory of ‘gimmicks’ and write off most kitchen equipment as such.  (Maybe it’s another incarnation of that ‘making do’ attitude).  I say that if a tool can make your job or life easier or happier then go for it.  To each their own and to each the right to choose what he wants to use.

I hate eating my pudding or cake with a large (dessert) spoon.  It feels awkward, ungainly and something very akin to stuffing my face, rapidly.  I like to use a teaspoon (if the consistency requires) or, preferably, a fork.  It adds delicacy, refinement and pleasure to the savouring.  However, there is an even better, more suitable utensil, designed for this express purpose.

I had found cake forks.

I bought two and proudly bore them home.

And there the ‘domestic’ started.

Apparently, eating one’s cake with a cake fork makes one a snob.

Other than the emotions that I have already described, I was bemused.

Is it really criminal to want a cake fork?  Is it really snobbish to want a cake fork?

This was a utensil chosen purely for practical (a case of the ‘right’ tool for the job) and emotional reasons.

Despite the fact that this is a rather elegant more, I’m sure, and ‘elegance’ is something that is never usually associated with me, I like using a cake fork.  Well, we all have our little idiosyncrasies.  Surely I am allowed mine.

The ‘domestic’ will rumble for as long as those forks are in the house, which, as I’m having my way, will be a very long time.

Besides, the issue has taken a new turn in the last day or so.  I have taken to referring to this much maligned utensil as my ‘runcible spoon’.  Husband is convinced that a cake fork is not a spoon.  However, he was less certain about whether it is ‘runcible’ or not.  And thus one of literature’s greatest etymological debates of the last century left the hallowed halls of academic sages and is now just as fiercely fought over in this more modest milieu.

What exactly is the runcible spoon?  Is it merely an adjective for a piece of cutlery or does it have greater meaning and use?

The husband decided to go with that well used allegation that is summoned forth whenever bigger, more complex words get bandied about: I was making it up.  Then he had second thoughts.  He told me to look it up.  I told him that I knew perfectly well what I was talking about and as he didn’t, he was the one who had to look it up.

The worm had turned.

Or the cake fork.

In the end I took pity on the poor, uneducated spouse and equipped him with my beloved compendium of Edward Lear’s works.  This hardback edition was my father’s, which says something about him, then it was found on a shelf by a member of the next generation for whom it became regular bedtime reading, which says something about them too.  Husband actually knew some of the words of the Owl and the Pussycat, but not the essential part.  He read the words of that romantic tale then explored further.  He read, he stared, he questioned, he stared, he mused and then he laughed.

It seems that many things can be described by ‘runcible’, not just a spoon for eating mince and sliced quince.  But for now, we will restrain our usage to just cutlery.

And our botanical lore will be forever enhanced by that fascinating species, manypeeplia upsidownia.

Domestic Loss

Home is such an important thing.  There are those who try to confine its definition within four walls or a place on a birth certificate yet home is much more than just those simple, physical concepts.  Home is a sentiment.  Those who feel it find something very precious indeed, a sense of belonging, of safety and security, of love and peace.  There are those who have never experienced such a privileged and lofty feeling before, they may have a ‘home’ of four walls but whether they are the world’s richest or the world’s poorest, it remains just that.  Four walls.  Somewhere to sleep, somewhere to address envelopes to.  Home is much more than that.

Home inspires more than pride, more than the pride that comes with having the right postcode or the most bedrooms, it is something that calls to you when you are away and soothes your soul when you are there.  Home is where you belong, where your love is.  It might seem trite but home is where the heart is.  Home doesn’t have to limited to four walls or just one place, in the secure love it can be nomadic.

Home can be powerfully tied to one’s roots but it isn’t limited to that. Home can be a place that you’ve never been or it can be place where you’ve just arrived.

We all need to have ‘home’ in our hearts and our souls, without we are lost and adrift and the world is a lonely, isolated place.  It’s horrible to think that some have never known it yet perhaps in some ways, having it and losing it is even worse.  You fully appreciate just what you have lost whereas those who have never had it, whilst they may dream of it, cannot fully understand the impact that it will have in their lives.

There are those whose home is destroyed by others, the betrayal usually comes from those who are closest.  If home is a sentiment then domestic abuse is a bulldozer and wrecking ball.  To not feel at home, to not feel safe or secure, loved or at a peace within the home, well that is a the greatest tragedy.

Loss come through other means too.  Home can be abruptly taken away from us by a change in financial situation.  Many have known this painful grief in recent years.  It’s not just that loss of home which has to be dealt with in those circumstances but a myriad of psychological questions that bubble forth.  Having your home taken away brands you a failure, a failure whose life is out of control and who is unable to provide on every level for those who they love the most.  Four walls represent so much more than just a building.

Sometimes the physical home is what is violated but the impact on the psychological home is what pains and grieves the most.  The loss of any item in a burglary hurts but what is hardest to deal with is that you can no longer protect your home and the ones that you love the most, that anyone can just trample all over your space, your belongings, your feelings and devastate it.  You walk through tossed rooms but it’s the footsteps that echo in your mind that disturb the most.

Other times it isn’t actually what is recognized as crime that causes the devastation.  A tradesman, an expert, can violate that space, tearing holes in the physical and psychological.  Again, you’re left questioning yourself, whether you should have known better, whether you’ve let your family down, whether you’re a failure, whether you could have protected your space and your loved ones better.  In this case, it can be harder to restore the damage on all levels.  A robbed home is quickly defended by the police and insurance agencies, the pieces righted, repaired or renewed.  When the damage is from a professional in another field long years may slowly pass as the family lives with the consequences, in a broken shell that no longer feels like home.

Home can be damaged by its surroundings.  Home can be a moment frozen in time, before some catastrophe hit or some new development obliterated its surrounding countryside.  Home is never quite the same after that.  A childhood place of home can change hands without your say so, can be transformed into something unrecognisable by the passage of time.  You grieve for something that was, even if it was only ever an illusion, because the psychological pull of home is so great.  It is a sentiment not just a physical space.  As times erodes and neglect ruins, the heart is pained because of what is lost is so much more than just the physical reality.  The loss, sometimes abrupt, eats away at the core of who we think we are and where we feel that we belong.

Home is so important.  My heart goes out to anyone who has lost such a powerful piece of themselves, whatever the circumstances.  We are lost when we do not belong, we are broken when we know no love or peace, we are threatened when we have no safety or security.  There is no relief from the outside world without a home.  We all need somewhere that we can call home.  Not just four walls around us.

 

 

 

I Dream

Do I dream?  There are the terrifyingly real nightmares that drag me down into an abyss of muddled darkness where the images and thoughts of my mind labour through an Escher-like treacle, flashbacks and subtle reminders from the subconscious attempting to make sense of the crazy, messed up world that I live in.  I skip through no fields of daisies.  I dream lucidly sometimes too, most often conscious only that I am dreaming and that I’m desperate to wake, to be free and to shake off the cold fingers of the night still grasping at me and trying to pull me back down.

There are other dreams too, a blend of the practical and the wishful.  I dream of paying the bills on time.  I dream of doing the things that need doing.  Quite often it just remains fantasy.

To accomplish great things, you must not only act but also dream, not only dream but also believe.

- Anatole France

Wise words, I wish I could carry them out but I dream of no future and I believe in little.

A few weeks ago, Just Be Enough prompted us to share our dream day.  I couldn’t think of anything, find an answer within myself so I left it and got on with not doing very much, as I do of late.  But the prompt stayed with me and I found myself reflecting on the subject regularly.

When we speak of dream days, perhaps it is of trips to mouse-eared theme parks that our minds turn to.  Some elusive, magical destination.  Something out of the ordinary.  (Mouse-eared theme parks hold no appeal for me, I’m not a fan of plastic commercialism or of rides that torture and terrify me and keep counsellors and osteopaths in business).

But the posts that came in from other readers were revealing.  Time and again, the same theme appeared.  And it wasn’t mouse-eared and there was no park attached to ‘theme’.  It was heart-warming and it got me thinking some more.

It was about people, often the people who are most precious to you, that everyone wanted to spend time with, to reconnect, to appreciate and to be with.

Isn’t that a beautiful thing?

The furthest I can dream is of having a day off, a day away somewhere in the sunshine, somewhere warm where I can sit, probably with my tent nearby on a campsite field, and knit or read or spend a little time just being me, just being in the moment with no pressures.

But if this was a magical dream day then I’d like a little more.  I want some other people to be there.  I want some good food to share with them.  And I don’t want to be the one making it.  I want sit down with those people and talk.

These people are nearly all dead now, there are one or two who are still alive, there are some that I have never met.  I want to sit them down and around my table, to talk with them and hear their stories.  There are some women in my family (whichever side or line) who have been incredibly strong and taken amazing journeys out of the ordinary, not just in place or distance.  I want to ask them about it.  I want to find out how they felt.  Some of those people I will expect them to leave their innate prejudice of me behind.  We will talk on my own terms, equal.  Others will, with me, have to break down walls of cultural and linguistic difference.  I have been separated from a family culture by the generation above me, by someone who was perhaps trying to better than their roots.  I appreciate roots.  I love stories.  I want to hear.  I want to connect.  I want my father to be there too.  I want to say goodbye.  And I want to hear his stories too.  Because I’m afraid of forgetting them and I always promised myself that I would write them down for him.

We will pass dishes and there will be meaningful, easy flowing conversation.  I will find the right words to break down barriers, I will find my place amongst these people and I will belong.

I dream.

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Who Cares for the Carers?

Being a carer is something that I’ve written about before, about how it can be a much broader role than is first perceived, especially when we focus only on a professional home-help for the disabled or elderly.  Modern life likes things appropriately pigeon-holed and boxed but such attitudes rarely do justice to the reality nor anyone any favours.  We all should be carers really, people who care, every day of our lives.  But there is more to ‘caring’ then just its root meaning.

Although I am not claiming that parenting is simple, when it comes to ‘caring’ I would suggest that the parenting role is the simplest.  It’s the most easily defined and recognisable.  You are meant to care for your children, you could say that it’s almost an intuitive response.  You have the support of individuals and organisations.  You have specific goals and timeframes.

When it comes to adult ‘caring’ then things get more complicated.  A lot more complicated.

Why is that?

The person who is receiving the care is not a dependent minor.  They may well have known a long life of maturity, independence and responsibility before suddenly finding themselves in need of care.  Having to hand over their life along with any remaining dignity doesn’t put them in an easy position.  Without even thinking of the physical changes, any change of health has huge emotional and mental consequences.  And not just for the sufferer themselves.  The carer is often a family member who has likewise been precipitated just as suddenly into this new arrangement.  In fact, the carer may have previously been the dependent party in the relationship.  What happens when your full-time breadwinner is too ill to work?  Or is the sole driver in the family?

Just as the ill person needs to adjust so to does the carer.  And that adjustment will need to be done together, there needs to be dialogue, meaningful communication.  The process can even be similar to grieving.  And you have to accept that both of you will be seeing, feeling and dealing with the situation differently.

It’s not easy living with a serious and or long-term health condition.  I know that.  But the ill person usually is best placed to receive appropriate support and treatment.  What is on offer for the carer?  Precious little.  In the best scenario, they will have the full support of the person they are caring for but maybe not.

Carers have to walk a fine line, carving out a new role for themselves even if the relationship is falling apart around them for whatever reasons.  They may be taking on all the responsibility, the duties that come with sickness whilst the person who is actually ill is practically delusional as to the reality or seriousness of their illness.  And what point does a carer become a nagger, a paranoid observer or a call-the-doctor-right-now hysteric?  Usually at a different point to the person they are caring for.

It needs open and frank communication between both parties, that’s for sure.  The ill need to accept their limitations and know when and how to ask for the help to need.  Because that carer needs all the help they can get in knowing what to do.

Mental health makes the challenge even harder.

What do you do when your loved one refuses to seek treatment or acknowledge their decreasing state of health?  How do you balance motivating them yet not overburdening either them or yourself?  Do you take responsibility for getting every single pill into them, for them getting to every single appointment?  Do you remain on high alert even when they’re swearing that they’re fine?

It’s hard to find a balance as a carer.  You may have lost your best friend, your own support system.  You are lost and alone in a place that has no name, no map, no solutions.  You may or may not have the cooperation of the person you are caring for.

But the worst is the endless, draining, exhausting level of responsibility and pressure that you have to live with day in, day out.  Sometimes it feels like someone else’s life is in your hands, everything you do, say or even think seems to be a determiner in their state of health, maybe even their survival.  You find yourself taking on more and more, tasks that you never used to have to do yourself, tasks that you maybe didn’t even know needed doing.  There is not a moment off-duty, you are permanently tuned in to their every symptom, reaction, feeling, whim, want, need, you name it.   Even when you’re apart.  Sometimes being apart is worse, the fear, the dread, it eats away at you.

And then there’s the emotions that goes with that endless, draining, exhausting rollercoaster.   Sometimes bitterness seeps in as you wonder whether they couldn’t just make more of an effort, whether life really needs to be this way, a bitterness tinged with then quickly replaced by guilt and shame.  The loneliness that sets in as your loved one withdraws from the world then from you.  The pain and confusion of reactions, words and behaviours that would have once been incredibly alien.  A fear for the present never mind the future, the future  is too far away and unfathomable as you subconsciously scrutinise everything, analysing and recording, noting each subtle change, holding onto each one like time-lapse cloud patterns.  The thousand and one worries that are yours and yours alone as seemingly the only responsible adult around, the financial, the administrative, the domestic, everything is on your shoulders, it is your burden to manage.

The pressure is overwhelming and ceaseless.  There is no hope.  Just endless cycles where good days see m far and few between.

But who cares for the carers?

While most of us wouldn’t be ‘glad’ that our loved one is ill, we do ‘gladly’ take on the challenge.  Why?  Because we care.  We do everything and more because we care.

But our resources sadly are limited.  We are human.  Love doesn’t make us perfect.  Or bestow some super power or immortality or whatever else is needed to care day in, day out, year after year.

That’s a scary and humbling and shaming thing to admit.

But carers can’t go on forever without rest or support.  Especially when that’s not the only thing that they themselves  are facing, their health may break or they may have other responsibilities and commitments to juggle with or some other crisis to deal with.

What then?

Who cares for the carers?

What help and support is given to them?  Where can they turn when they have reached the thousandth breaking point and just don’t know how much longer or further they can go on?  Who will listen to them?  Who will relieve them of their burdens?  Who will  give them a supporting hand?

Carers do an awful lot, normally behind the scenes.  They are stage managers who also run the lighting and sound whilst building all the scenery, rehearsing the actors and choreographing the dancers, learning understudy, drumming up support and backing and leading the marketing campaign.  They do everything.  Usually single-handedly.  It’s fine for a while and the show goes on.  But for how long?

Please remember the carers in your midst, appreciate them.  Spoil them every so often, make sure that they have an evening off or a listening ear.  And if you ever need someone to care for you, man up and work with them.  Trust them and reassure them.

Please care for the carers.  We all owe them such a lot.

Stick Will Out

I don’t like things that make me stand out, things that made me stand out as different.  (Isn’t it liberating that you can start blog posts with the dread ‘I’?)  I’d hate to wear white trainers, huge ocean liners of glowing white-ness (albeit briefly).  New shoes too make your feet feel enormous and obvious.  But there’s other things too, the ones you dreaded and loathed as a child and teenager: glasses, braces, spots.  All glowing Belisha beacons shrieking ‘look-at-me, look-at-me’ and not even in a positive way but in a morbidly distressing, humiliating ‘look-at-me-I’m-a-freak’ kind of way.  A beacon with a siren call invitation to others to mock, stare and tease.

I like to keep things to myself; I don’t like to stand out as different.  (This may be a slight paradox when you consider that my standard dress code involves DMs and a Western hat but I have often noted the Jekyll and Hyde inconsistencies of my personality, normally despairingly with a hint of frustration).  It’s not that I want to blend in, choosing some teenage high school stereotype persona to morph into; rather there is a degree of wanting to fit in.  To find a place in the world for myself, to be accepted for myself.  There is a difference between the two.

I fight a long time war with two illnesses, both invisible except to the trained eye, and I have perfected the mask I wear in public.  I don’t want to make a fuss; I don’t want the eyes on me.  So it’s just easier.  No-one sees me battle.

Then last summer my husband came up with a cunning plan.  A friend of ours uses one of those hiking sticks, trekking poles kinds of thing.  (I would like to point out that he’s eighty so this is a perfectly acceptable accessory).  Husband decided that one of these would be just the ticket for me.  I think he was fed up of towing me up hills.

So we went and investigated walking sticks, I, for my part, very reluctantly.  A stick is a badge of shame, a sign of failure.  I do not need a stick.  I’d rather wobble and be towed and be stuck at home by turns than have such an outright Belisha beacon of my ineptitude.

I could come up with a lot of other, more solid, reasons why I had no need of a stick.  Well, for starters, I have a husband.  No, that didn’t wash particularly well.  Apparently ‘for better or for worse’ doesn’t include towing.  Who knew?!  Well, sticks are for properly ill people.  Husband was convinced that as I had been struggling all year to walk anywhere that I was most likely in this category.  Thanks.  They cost an awful lot of money.  Husband set his chin in a stubborn line and told me that I needed it.  Thanks.  (I hate spending money on myself).  The final straw I clasped to, the last rock between there and losing my dignity forever, was that I would never be able to walk safely with a stick, I would trip over the third leg all the time.  (Well, I already have perfected tripping over two, a third was just adding to the confusion).  Husband didn’t buy it.  The excuse not the stick.  Stick was purchased.

The problem is that people see me with the stick.  They then think that something is the matter.  Have I trouble with my knees, hurt my leg?  It’s a little bit hard to explain that actually I’ve had ME for fourteen years.  (The majority of my circle was beautifully oblivious to this).  I sigh and explain that it was my husband’s brilliant idea because he was fed up of towing me places.  It makes people laugh.  I like making people laugh.

Reluctantly, I have to concede that the stick has actually been a good thing.  I can use it to poke things off high shelves, to gesture and to sheepdog clueless younger brothers to the safety of pavements when they attempt to walk out in front of a car.  It’s also quite good for poking and beating them with too.  A well-aimed jab of a walking stick to a foot makes people surprisingly docile.  I can actually make it up the stairs to my flat and it’s jolly useful for levering myself out of car seats with.  I don’t tell husband this of course.

I can lean on it and prop myself up on it.  It steadies me when I’m walking.  It helps me up stairs and hills.  It stabilises me on the way down.  I quite like my stick and take it everywhere with me.  I call it my third leg and feel lost without it.  I don’t tell husband this of course.

But now everybody knows that something’s up.  I’m still not comfortable with this.  My main circle of associates are on average a lot older than me so I’ve spent a lot of the last few months feeling rather guilty about the stick.  I’m not thirty yet and they’re all sixty plus.   If they don’t need a stick, why should I use one?  It seems selfish, lazy, attention seeking.  All characteristics that I loathe.

On the plus side, I have now been asked if I would prefer a disabled access carriage when I went with young friends on a miniature train ride.  I’m not sure entirely if that is a plus.  I was embarrassed.  Youngest friend was very disappointed that we didn’t get to go in the ‘special’ carriage.  But I can now use lifts in shops without being evilled by well-meaning strangers who previously seemed to believe that I was a specimen of lazy, modern youth.  This peace of mind however is exchanged by the discomfort of being seen with such an aid.  I can’t win.

And yes, I have on occasion tripped over my third leg.  I can think of two incidences, one of which was spectacular and involved a pirouette (no, I didn’t know I could do those either) and landing very heavily in the concrete communal hallway outside my flat, ouch.  But that’s not quite as often as I was expecting.

So on the whole, the stick has been useful whilst absolutely mortifying.  It has ‘outed’ me and my illness to the world, which may or may not be a good thing.  I’m still undecided.

Sleeping Beauty

I see you lying there, beatific, with a sleep softened face, innocent and childlike, one hand clasping the covers softly and my heart soars.

If we had a choice, this would be one of the moments that I’d choose for my life and for my love to be made of.  If we had a choice, this would be one of my handpicked beads on my necklace of both love and life.

In this moment, all is forgiven.  I forget the night-long snoring, snuffling, muttering, squeaking and bubble blowing, I forget the regular duvet snatches and elbows to my cranium.  In this moment, I love you.

It is with love I look down at you tenderly, wondering at how you sleep through anything and everything, marvelling at your easy, peaceful repose then apply a well-aimed poke to your ribs and a strident call in your ear.

 Love also has principles and a sense of duty.  It’s jolly well time that you got up.

Space and Wings

I don’t have children.  I’m not a parent.  But I think I understand a little of what parenting is like.  It’s that level of responsibility for another being, a human being, one whom is vulnerable and dependent and with whom your heart is entirely bound up.  Sometimes you get that feeling in an adult to adult relationship.  You pour yourself into that other person, doing everything you can for them, to keep them well and healthy and safe.  The problem is that in an adult to adult relationship it can result in an unbalanced relationship.  Adults aren’t meant to be so entirely dependent on each other.  That’s the whole point of being an adult after all.  The one who is giving can only give so much and the other person needs to be appreciative of that help and support.  That help and support also has to make a difference.  I don’t think that there are many situations where such an adult to adult relationship is sustainable for the long term.  There has to be a change at some point, even if it is more heartbreaking.  And it’s so important that the giver can see that they’re making a difference and that they’re appreciated.  Otherwise an already demanding situation becomes an impossible one.  I give.  I’m a generous person.  But there’s only so much that I can give.  And then there’s the fact that I feel.  I feel everything so much and so deeply.  It makes it all the more exhausting, draining even.  It’s very hard.  And it can mean that you’re more tuned into how someone else is feeling and thinking than they are.  They don’t always appreciate it.  You can love them with all your heart but the power to change has to come from them.  They are responsible themselves at the end of the day.  Even if you’re both in denial about this.  Children grow up.  Adults are grown up.  Even when ill or damaged or vulnerable.  They have to have their own space.  They have to take responsibility for themselves.  If they don’t want to help themselves or take their medicine or choose to throw their toys out of the pram, it’s with them.  Not you.  However personal that may feel.  Or however much responsibility you may feel.  The other problem is that you can give too much, you can be bound too tightly to the other person.  You end up forgetting who you are.  You end up not having your own life.  They are your everything and you pour all your energies and resources into them.  That’s not balanced.  Or sustainable.  Adults are fledged.  They might not be the world’s best fliers but they have their own wings.  Sometimes you have to make a heartbreaking decision and let them fly themselves.  You need the space because you are now broken too, drained with nothing left to give.  And the worst is that you know that by letting go, by giving both of you that space you need, that they’re probably just going to crash.  You can see it coming.  But there’s nothing that you can do.  You just have to step back.  You need the space to recover, to breathe and to find yourself.  You’ve done all you can, if not more, even if you’re desperate to just give a little bit more.  But no.  It’s time for a little bit of space.  You need to gather your own strength and look after yourself now.  Because when you’ve done all you can, it’s up to them.  And honestly, that’s always been the case.  Even if you will always feel that responsibility.  Now they need to go out on their own wings.  And you just wait for them to break, heartbroken.

Real Friends Don’t

Real friends don’t just stick around for the good times.

Real friends don’t just call you when they want something.

Real friends don’t get embarrassed about being seen with you.

Real friends don’t help then complain about how much you put them out.

Real friends don’t wait for you to call them.

Real friends don’t just hang around with you when there’s nothing better on offer.

Real friends don’t criticise you for who you are or what you believe in.

Real friends don’t laugh at you.

Real friends don’t gossip about you.

Real friends don’t stab you in the back.

Real friends don’t turn their noses up at where you live.

Real friends don’t turn up an hour late to a dinner invite then hurry away as soon as possible.

Real friends don’t not believe in you.

Real friends don’t complain about the state of the house, they know what you’ve been going through.

Real friends don’t forget what your favourite chocolate is.

Real friends don’t forget what you’re going or been through.

Real friends don’t value your gifts only by their material worth.

Real friends don’t get snooty about handmade gifts because they appreciate the effort and your talents.

Real friends don’t forget to invite you too.

Real friends don’t insist that you change into someone else.

Real friends don’t criticise even if they care, they advice and counsel and love you all the same.

Real friends don’t tell you that your illness is imaginary.

Real friends don’t expect you to do the things you can’t afford.

Real friends don’t get embarrassed about trading store cupboard food.

Real friends don’t just say, they do.

Real friends don’t forget that you have feelings too.

Real friends don’t drop you as soon as you get ill.

Real friends don’t put you down constantly.

Real friends don’t expect you to maintain a certain lifestyle.

Real friends don’t just take, they give.

R E S P E C T

OK, now I’m sure I’ve given you an earworm!  (Thanks for sharing that one, Coming East!)

Now, I hear a lot about RESPECT.  It’s become an important word in street culture.  Although they seem to forget that respect isn’t just automatic, you do have to earn it.

There are three classes of respect:

The automatic kind.  The kind you give to every living thing.

The position kind.  The kind you give to someone with a title that your culture says gets treated a certain way because of it.

The earnt kind.  The kind you give to someone who you’ve got to know and who you choose to respect because they deserve it.

It’s one of the crimes that’s been regularly levelled against me, I’m disrespectful.  I’ve heard it for years, the greater percentage of my life.  Usually about some ‘authority’ figure like my father or my husband.  Always accused by some ‘grown up’, a wife who ‘wears the trousers’ at home.

Apparently respectful means agreeing with the so-called authority figure all the time, whatever they say goes, they are never wrong.  Kowtowing at every opportunity and more besides.

Er, excuse me?  I thought that was called sucking up but maybe I got confused.

Respect means knowing your own mind too, you know?

So when I joke about disrespectfully disagreeing with my husband, I am just joking.  I respect him in the full old-fashioned sense but as sure as heck, I’m gonna tell him when I think differently and especially when I think/know he’s wrong.