Today I read this:
" Strength doesn't mean being able to stand up to anything, but being able to crawl on your belly a long, long time before you can stand up again."
And it did that thing that happens when you read something with personal resonance, when that chord in your brain starts to quiver. The Prince of Darkness left for the first time a little under three years ago. And when he left I crawled for a long long time. The resonance of that statement for me is that when you are crawling I now realise that just getting through the day takes real strength. To get the kids to school, to turn up to work and confine the tears to the toilet, to put food on the table, read bedtime stories, to cry, ever so quietly, so that you don't wake the children and then to get up in the morning and do the same all over again.
Whats more: I'm ok. I've lived through this before but it was worse back then. In a week I feel like I've travelled the same distance I came in six months last time. I know that there will be ups and downs but its really going to be ok. This weekend I've laughed with my kids and sat in the sun and played with the puppy. And I've thought about what I've lost but much more about what I gained.
This is the quote that had resonance last time he left:
"When one door closes another opens; its just that sometimes its hell waiting in the hallway."
And then the hallway was hell. But now I realise that the hallway is an alright place to be; just a bit of down time till a new door opens.
P.S. julochka has suggested that the Prince of Darkness should be downgraded and this idea has thoroughly amused me all weekend. Suggested titles for the new Duke/Earl/Count gratefully received...
Sunday 12 July 2009
Thursday 9 July 2009
Surfacing
Its been a rather trying couple of weeks. [Editors note: that is the infamous British stiff upper lip speaking] Not to put too fine a point on it I have been immersed in a sea of pain.
Physical..... turns out when the osteopath said serious injury she really meant it. I got into work once and looked so awful I got sent home again which was gratifying as I felt awful too. Plus I had to type kneeling in front of the desk because I couldn't sit down. Haven't been to work since. Have been drugged up to the eyeballs, talking absolute nonsense when awake (my vocabulary has leaked out of my brain) and sleeping for most of the rest of the day. I half heard the girls saying at the weekend "look mummy is asleep .....AGAIN" Have roused myself occasionally to go to get the back seen to and eldest has now become expert at making sandwiches for dinner for all of us. We have used up all the dubious tins of food lurking in the back of the cupboard. In fact I have become a bit of a celebratory at youngest's school. I have strange children pointing at me and saying "there is the lady with with bad back mum" as I hobble pitifully to the school gate looking for all the world as if I was a cross between a woman who had peed her pants and a distant ancestor of the homo sapien who is not entirely able to walk upright.
Emotional.... and just as I start to come off the drugs and walk a little more like a human being the Prince of Darkness delivers his verdict following Ultimatum Friday. Seems he is leaving me for another again. I am sure that he would argue with that statement but essentially that is the case. It has just floored me. For all the heartbreak he put me through, and if I must be fair I put him through, I thought we might just have a future. I've cried those unglamorous loud snotty without control sobs. I've screamed at him. I've thought about telling the girlfriend the truth about him. I've taken off the jewellery he bought me and thrown it around the house [Editors note: there is a ring behind the tv and a watch on the roof terrace]
Now I just wait. For my back and my heart to heal. I know that one day I will be able to pick things up from the floor. And one day he won't be my first thought in the morning and last thought in the evening. I will try to remember its all for the best. I am going to learn some exercises to strengthen my back but which will also apparently make my stomach flater. Really the Prince of Darkness is just a sad middle-aged man who won't confront his problems and has difficulty distinguishing the truth from a lie. He may well be the Prince of Darkness but he is not the Prince of my dreams. I really am better off without him.
I have done all this before. I know some days that I will feel like I am drowning in the pain again. But just for now I am surfacing for a while and that means that one day I will swim with the current again.
Physical..... turns out when the osteopath said serious injury she really meant it. I got into work once and looked so awful I got sent home again which was gratifying as I felt awful too. Plus I had to type kneeling in front of the desk because I couldn't sit down. Haven't been to work since. Have been drugged up to the eyeballs, talking absolute nonsense when awake (my vocabulary has leaked out of my brain) and sleeping for most of the rest of the day. I half heard the girls saying at the weekend "look mummy is asleep .....AGAIN" Have roused myself occasionally to go to get the back seen to and eldest has now become expert at making sandwiches for dinner for all of us. We have used up all the dubious tins of food lurking in the back of the cupboard. In fact I have become a bit of a celebratory at youngest's school. I have strange children pointing at me and saying "there is the lady with with bad back mum" as I hobble pitifully to the school gate looking for all the world as if I was a cross between a woman who had peed her pants and a distant ancestor of the homo sapien who is not entirely able to walk upright.
Emotional.... and just as I start to come off the drugs and walk a little more like a human being the Prince of Darkness delivers his verdict following Ultimatum Friday. Seems he is leaving me for another again. I am sure that he would argue with that statement but essentially that is the case. It has just floored me. For all the heartbreak he put me through, and if I must be fair I put him through, I thought we might just have a future. I've cried those unglamorous loud snotty without control sobs. I've screamed at him. I've thought about telling the girlfriend the truth about him. I've taken off the jewellery he bought me and thrown it around the house [Editors note: there is a ring behind the tv and a watch on the roof terrace]
Now I just wait. For my back and my heart to heal. I know that one day I will be able to pick things up from the floor. And one day he won't be my first thought in the morning and last thought in the evening. I will try to remember its all for the best. I am going to learn some exercises to strengthen my back but which will also apparently make my stomach flater. Really the Prince of Darkness is just a sad middle-aged man who won't confront his problems and has difficulty distinguishing the truth from a lie. He may well be the Prince of Darkness but he is not the Prince of my dreams. I really am better off without him.
I have done all this before. I know some days that I will feel like I am drowning in the pain again. But just for now I am surfacing for a while and that means that one day I will swim with the current again.
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