Hello.
I am not sure that anyone will read this, you know it has been so long since I blogged. Like YEARS. So I could just be talking to myself (and besides that it kept getting hacked, so someone had been blogging on my behalf... the type of stuff that usually fills your spam emails)...
What's new with me since 2011.. Well. I left L/C. I got a new job in the NHS, worked it for near on a year (for a pittance but I loved it nearly more than any job I have ever had) then I left to work where I am now for A's. I am not happy there BUT it's a job. There are points when I am happy. Like last Monday (I was on a weeks leave) but now (due back tomorrow) I am not so thrilled to be working there.
I am doing something about it though. I am studying my access course (well should be but haven't done anything for this weeks assignment, due on Sunday the 28th). I am STILL toying with midwifery. I have been for years and so with something that happened recently it has made it possible. (If I pass my access with flying colours).
My dad died at the end of May. I am NOT sad at all. You know, he was a wicked man. I am not sure now why I call him dad. He wasn't one at all. He was abusive to us girls (me and my two half sisters, I was his only biological child), he was verbally abusive and controlling to my mum. He, no matter how hard I have tried to put the past and the dreadful things he did to me and my sisters behind me, it still impacts my life now. How I trust, how I live, how I view the world, how much it impacts on my parenting is immense. I have no trust for anyone with my kiddos. I have so much fear for anyone taking them from my sight. I know how easy it was for us to be so highly abused. How it often was done in plain sight and how no one noticed.
Him dying, brought that all up and it was something I thought I had put a tight lid on. Yes, it impacted how I felt about leaving my children and how I trust others BUT that fear for me, that dread in the pit of my stomach, those feelings of such fear, being so terrified and hurt were hidden away. I would manage the monthly or so nightmares, when i'd dream about being trapped in the house, knowing he was coming up the stairs. That was manageable. Him dying was not. It felt like he held all the control again.
If anything though, I have learned to protect myself emotionally. That day I found out (although the neighbour had called the night before and left me a voicemail asking me to call him. It had been about dad), I cried so hard. I was at work. I sat in our interview room and sobbed.
It brought me to the reality, I have always known, I knew I had no one. And I don't mean that in a horrible way. I mean it in the sense of, when you have been hurt by someone you should of been able to implicitly trust. You learn to only trust yourself. While you can hurt yourself, you can't hurt yourself in such a way another person can.
But to protect myself, I stayed at work. I worked that day. That week harder than I have ever worked. It was a superhuman amount of work that I achieved. It's funny how grief, I guess I was grieving for the father I never had, makes you superhuman at times. I didn't sleep much that week. I cried lots. I didn't drink, for fear I might not stop. I knew that, as his next of kin, I would have to sort it all out and I was so terrified of that house. The feelings I had about it. How can a place cause so much fear?
Well, I went to the house that Saturday. Nothing, NOTHING had changed since we left in 1987. Okay, maybe a paint in the lounge, wood floor in the hall and kitchen but it was the same. Same carpets throughout. Same darkness in the lounge. That same oppressive feeling in their. My bedroom curtains STILL up in the small bedroom. It was the same house. It stunk of smoke, wee, cat (there was a feral cat living there) and there was poop and wee and an enormous amount of grotty stuff everywhere! I felt a little creeped out at times but on the whole, I felt a small bit of comfort (comfort in that stink?!!). Maybe I had some of my childhood back?
And I found photographs of things I thought had been lost forever. I found my great grandmas photos, I found some of our photos. It made a small bit of me happy. It made the enormous task ahead of me seem a little easier to handle.
And now? Well, the solicitor is dealing with it all. I have a lot still to do. I feel comfortable in the house when I go back. The smell is getting better (we call it stink-house). We cleared the lounge of all furniture (apart from the three piece suite), carpets up, wood floor up (the smell reduced). We cleared the front garden (jungle) and I cleared the back garden somewhat (we need another skip). The two ponds are thriving. I chopped back the elderflower tree at the bottom of the garden. I cleared the weeds, thistles and made it look more live-able. There are frogs and newts and the most beautiful water lily in the ponds.
Emily and Ben came with me one weekend and I heard laughter in that house. Uninhibited, pure joy and laughter. It made me sit in the back garden and cry. I have never heard happiness in that house. It was the most simple, yet beautiful sound I think I have ever heard. It made me realise that this house was not what I feared at all. It was him. He was the fear, the hurt and the thing that made me terrified. He had gone. I let it go. I let that part of my life finally go. There is something strangely cathartic in facing what makes you so scared. In fact, I wasn't scared anymore.
It's now September. Three months or so later. The kiddos have just both had birthdays. Emily is now TEN. Ben is now EIGHT. Really? Where did that time go. Both are thriving. Both are turning into great people that I am proud of.
I am still making, which is of course why this blog was first set up! I love making, this love has never dwindled or left me. I always have loved making. It's something that makes me happy and I am happy I have passed this to Emily (and Ben sometimes). We made lots of shrinkies yesterday! And currently Emily is sat at the table drawing, she also asked for a desk for her birthday (so she could have a 'work-station' like me) and a spinny chair. She has used it every day since to make, draw and just be at. I hope the love of being creative stays with her forever.
Well, if you read that all. Well done! It was a long, rambly one. I hope to continue blogging and maybe next time with pictures?
