Swimming in the sea of old wounds and enragements is not doing me any good. I was planning on getting very much into my own personal sea of RC harm on subsequent posts but it seems like that particular muse has fled and I have no irresistible urge to lay it all down on paper. I wrote a couple of notes and found that the subsequent apoplexy was simply not my colour at all.
Lay the ghosts. Become a kinder gentler me. No, impossible, scratch that last.
Daughter and I had a chat yesterday on old wounds, on how we are all wounded to some degree. How we carry those wounds being all important. Should we keep peeling those scabs off? Thing is, we decided, patterns in families repeat and repeat. Ad nauseum.
Certainly in mine. Much as I'd like it all to stop now, please. Let's be friends. Let's enlighten ourselves as to what is really happening. What truly lies beneath, as some wise old pundit had it. But enlightenment doesn't happen to all at once, does it. I sometimes think I'm some kind of Pollyanna, trying to make it all better. Kiss the boo-boos.
Thing is, again, that there are some who desperately need those boo-boos.
They need to keep tending them and tending them like a really bad abscess. So they don't have
to look at the root causes. Ever.
I'm finished with this particular topic for now.
Bloodied but unbowed, that's me.
You shared this for me :)
ReplyDeleteWe are so alike
and you are far far away
but I find comfort in your words.
Do not like old sad wounds
trying to come alive again.
I repeat special words over and
over - words that are healing to me
and finally it works.
Thank goodness....
I so easily get lost in old wounds, especially when soemthing happens to re-open them. I seem to be on a life-long path of repeatedly trying to let go.
ReplyDeleteYou are so right. It's near impossible to be the one in the family to make the decision to move on. Been there, done that - only able to do so with the help of a therapist who helped me see that things would not be the same afterward, my role changed because I was no longer willing to pretend things were okay. I did lose the relationship with my mother, such as it was, because I would no longer play the game. We are now on friendly terms, all on the surface, much left unshared because I don't placate or accept excuses. Oh, families. I based my own on everything I didn't have growing up and wanted so desperately. So far my children and I have been able to be honest with each other, as it sounds like you and your daughter are able to talk openly. I think it's true we need to be the change we want to see in the world.
ReplyDeleteOWJ:
ReplyDeleteI'm getting too old for all the shyte, the energy just isn't there anymore to heal estrangements and shunning. I'm so sick and tired of it all.
And I don't have to be a monkey in their circuses. (I recently read this and liked it!!)
XO
WWW
SAW:
ReplyDeleteI can so relate. I can only control my own reactions to events and I do well most of the time but now and again old ghosts haunt....
XO
WWW
Sharon:
ReplyDeleteI was so lucky with my therapist who was so wise and told me unless there was awareness in other family members they were destined to repeat and repeat and they MIGHT wake up when their own children repeated the family pattern. MIGHT.
I might well be dead when this happens.
XO
WWW
On the whole I manage not to pick at old wounds. But I find that people can wound me more as I get older and the hurt lingers. I guess all you can do is distract yourself with something pleasurable and as you say, don't keep trying to cure estrangements that probably can't be cured.
ReplyDeleteSome good came out of these posts, however. You and your daughter had a reasoned adult-to-adult discussion, and isn't it wonderful when we have an adult child with whom we can have such discussions? You set limits as to what you'd endure when thinking about this particular topic and have moved on when you felt those limits were being exceeded and your own health endangered. For people who are passionate, that's hard to do.
ReplyDeleteDear WWW, there are band aids, plaster casts, downright amputation and sometimes we just lick a wound. Or apply Sudocrem. I swear by Sudocrem. The Angel never had one nappy rash. Other than that try camomile tea.
ReplyDeleteI so understand your being sick and tired of shite. Thing is, correct me if I am wrong, I do suspect that, like me, you are one of those people who stretch out that hand again and again and again. That's the scab we pick at. Not so much to keep it alive as slowing the healing of that knee we smashed when we fell off the bike.
With you in the spirit of your signing off "Bloodied but unbowed" if limping at times,
U
Nick:
ReplyDeleteFine 'n all when we are feeling chippity. But throw a bit of slop my way and I can be triggered into the company of the Black Dog.
But mainly I am fine, I don't brood and try and understand others' wounds.
XO
WWW
Linda:
ReplyDelete"For people who are passionate, that's hard to do."
My own daddy would harass me for always "wearing my heart on my sleeve".
Now I think: Yeah, I do, so what?
It's a good thing.
Most of the time.
And I am blessed with Daughter who understands.
Count the old blessings, yeah?
XO
WWW
Ursula,
ReplyDeleteMy mammy would send me Sudocrem when the babies were small as it was unavailable in the New World then. Magical stuff. Not one nappy rash here either.
My metaphorical Sudocrem has temporarily halted the hand sticking out for more slapping.
I've had enough. Battening hatches, moving on and out.
XO
WWW
A fascinating series of articles: stories needing to be told and still not the common knowledge they should be.
ReplyDeleteReading your latest post, "Reflection on a Friendship", I was glad you decided to pursue the grotesque sins of the RC church no further. As we grow older and more mature I believe its best to dwell more on the positive aspects of life. We deserve it.
(Huh! And I can dare say that, with the stuff I write about).
RJA:
ReplyDeleteYes, it was getting to me. I have to watch my anger meter as I teeter into old age!
I'm trying to be a Susie Sunshine but at times a lobe explodes and I need to get into some serious metaphorical teeth grinding.
XO
WWW
Quite so. People have to be ready to change, usually after they've reached rock bottom or faced their biggest crisis. Or on a positive not, had an epiphany or road to Damascus experience.
ReplyDeleteIt;s a shame as one would like to hope that words alone could solve everything. Especially as as writer. Would that they could.