Safety

I ran into an old friend yesterday. I hadn't seen him in a while and he asked me how I was doing. I said it had been a rough time and he asked me why and I gave him the briefest of versions of the past year in my life and it was the oddest thing. Without a pause or reflective comment or even sympathy, he launched into this long narrative of how he was so much worse off. Ten minutes later I broke away from him. I felt like I'd been slapped.

I had a session with my counsellor an hour later - previously scheduled - and told him what had happened. I recognised that I needed to be even more careful with whom I share anything with for I can feel far worse afterwards. That crying in the wilderness thing.

My counsellor had me focus on the gifts that have sprung from my losses. And there were many. Not least of which is reevaluating my life now in light of these. He also had me talk about Missing Daughter and revisit that with the heart numbing thought that I am "dead" to her and may remain so. It's a fresh way of looking at this and I am grateful for that.

Healing is the underlying scaffolding of all of this. I keep thinking I'm ready to brace myself against the real world and then find I'm not. I'm unable to live superficially, it's a gift given to many but alas, I didn't make that particular cut. Many, many times I wished I was light and fluffy and could fiddle-dee-dee life's trials, both yours and mine. Or stay mum and wait for them to pass or even bury them.

The last few days have been rough, that Black Dog thing. I know there's an end in sight, I wish I knew when. Change is always nerve-wracking and emotional, even the changes wrought by intensive counselling sessions with the healing acceptance of the losses of former confidantes combined with the rejection of those I hold most dear.

No one gets a free pass, particularly as we age. It comes down to the tools we have to just deal.

I am grateful for those.

Rewind 2015, please.

Yeah, that would be good, thanks.

Maybe it's my turn or something and life will just be all peachy-keen-lovey-doves once this year is over. BUT. There has to be too much, right?

Yesterday: well yesterday started out with a power outage. Remember no wood stove here as, post bad chimney fire, I am still awaiting parts for the chimney and for the weather to smarten up so the guys can access my roof.

So there ya go.

And compared with other shyte that's gone down for me this year, overall maybe these are small things.

But yesterday, no sooner had I scooted over to my friends for coffee and breakfast and assured I have a room (see yesterday) all made up - they have a generator, you see - the power came back on after a 4-1/2 hour unplanned outage across the island.

And I pick up the mail, which I hadn't for a while, and lo and behold 2 rejection slips. I'm getting used to them, I am no longer traumatized.

And then, and then, terrible rain storm last night and I hear this - no mistaking the sound - heavy splatter of water in the corner of my house, like inside the house in a downstairs closet, and sure enough, big leak, where I don't know: could be roof, could be loose siding, could be anything. Analytical minds don't help in situations like this, do they. But buckets do. And all the towels on the shelves, moving stuff out of the downstairs closet, more towels. Buckets. Upstairs, moving book shelves. Not panicking. Coping.

And so it goes......

If you're having a bad day just read my entries over the last couple of months.

You'll feel loads better.

Guaranteed.

Outside Looking In

Outside Looking In

Of all the slaps
Slung by love
None hurts so much
As a shove

Out to the blizzard
Deep with snow
Shivered by the
Sudden blow.

Baffled, hurting,
Cast aside,
Puzzled, frightened
Holding tight

To mem'ries of
Precious years
Which slowly melt
Away to tears.

Missing: An extra layer of skin.

That’s me.

Maybe I feel things a bit more deeply for I react more sensitively to the situations that others can toss off with a “Next!”

Not me.

I do wish I could move on and leave slights and slings and arrows behind me. Not personalize them so much. Not to feel so hurt.

I’m far too sensitive. "For God's sake," my father would explode, "Why are you always wearing your heart right there on your sleeve?"

I don't know how not to.

With one huge change: this is the stuff I used to drink and overeat over. But not today.

Today I let the feelings wash over me, and allow the flashbacks to old feelings of abandonment, rejection, never good enough, loved enough, respected enough. No stuffing anything down. Feel the feelings. Put them on stones, toss them into the ocean. When I'm ready.

I find out at the last minute my family of origin doesn’t care enough to come and celebrate a significant milestone birthday with me. A party I had planned at the beginning of the year is not going to happen now. I was so looking forward to seeing them here in Newfoundland. Showing them the sights, spending time together under happy circumstances rather than a funeral. I even called it my pre-funeral party.

And to add insult to injury, they leave it to the last minute to tell me they’re not coming. Even relatives that are living really close by to here have made other plans. A multiple whammy of rejection.

I had been sensing this coming when a huge void of silence refused to be ignored anymore. Their original enthusiasm had faded into forwarded jokey-e-mails, never anything personal and my birthday party never addressed.

Is this the emigrant experience, I ask my emigrant friends. Yes, they say, it is finally catching up with you.

I used to go back to my family of origin frequently but in the last few years I felt it was always this one-way scene, they would only come here to Canada when the visit was tied onto the end of a business trip.

I went back for weddings and christenings and just to be with them all. Sometimes several times a year.

And I know it wouldn’t matter as much if I was in a partnership. All my siblings are in partnerships where family rebuffs, real or imagined, are in turn buffered by their significant others.

I wonder about family ties. Do they exist? Is it all ephemeral? Do they just inhabit my imagination?

I’ve changed my plans. I won’t go back to Ireland in September. For the first time in my life I feel this real emotional distance from them all.

I would be staying with strangers.

I hesitated about posting this, but here I am warts 'n all (and , of course, anonymous!).