I am 56 years old....

...for the first time, I am able to breathe.

When the body says NO.

Happy new year wishes! Breathing a sigh of relief now the madding crowd is dissipating and decorations coming down. I have to say this has been, not quite the worst Christmas and New year eve period but up there with feelings of grief. Pushing back emotions, repressing has been the most damaging in my life and despite the protestations, I believe to be the root cause of illness, my body speaking out where I felt unable. This illness is physical in nature, we know that. We also know emotional triggers can have as much if not worse a detrimental impact as physical exertion. Emotions, as well as physical pain, denied or felt creates a biochemical dance. Suppressed, unfelt, denied, this dance becomes chronic in nature causing havoc with our systems. I fully understand being told our illness could be psychosomatic in origin holds with it accusations of this being our own fault, we are to blame for our bodies natural reactions. Understanding how human bodies function, on the other hand along with conditioning with how we cope with life from childhood, a lot can be made sense of the dangers of repression and the associated chronic stress. If anyone is interested in exploring more thoughts on this with me, I am reading 'When the body says no' by Gabor Maté and finding his discoveries not only fascinating but relatable as well as something known instinctively if not confidently expressed. Prior to being diagnosed with ME I applied for a job with an ME organisation as a telephone helpline assistant and when asked what I thought ME was I responded by explaining the psychosomatic connections I believed to be the root cause. I was offered the job but turned it down on the grounds that I didn't know enough about the illness..ironic that a few years later I'd be on the other end of that helpline as if the desire to understand was taken personally. Perhaps I could have been in the early stages of ME or chronic fatigue and that's what drew me to apply for the job..who knows. Releasing my emotions after 56 years of swallowing them down learned as soon as I could swallow solids feels like torture. Isolating agony yet, paradoxically drawing concern from people I'd not invited in. Those I have sent an invitation have left me alone..my self fulfilling prophecy of being impossible to love coming to fruition whilst at the same time being debunked. I'm a way off crying in front of people out of anything but frustrated anger and I've not done that for years, learning not to take personally what others think and do. But crying I am frequently lately, involuntary leaking as if full to bursting with tears, alone in the home I have arrived for safety. Moments of calm, soothing relaxation coming forth like never before to be jolted back into panicked at the slightest of triggers. One of which spirred me to write this post as a way of both distracting and finding relief from a clearer understanding. A situation I know nothing about but in my overactive triggered imagination is turned into a solicitous affair between the man I love and a woman we both know simply by seeing her walk past my window twice around the same time I would leave his place whenever I stayed and a woman he met with for tax advice in my presence once! It's none of my business, of course, I don't want to be with him with the way he's treated me, I do want him to make the required effort to be with me in friendship, however, and if he's seeing her then he's gone way down in my estimation...but I digress, when sense kicks in after feelings are felt and heart settled down, I recall adult responsibility and wisdom. Prior to such expression of emotion, this process wouldn't have occurred. I'd be eaten up with needing to know what's going on, taking me further away from the resolution I ask and deeper into a very dysfunctional relationship. It's hard to tell which situation is the greater burden, the most destructive to life, health and peace of mind at this conjuncture and wouldn't wonder why denying how we feel would be the preferable route to continue. I'm left in the dark when it comes to the distant people I attached myself but the light is beginning to shine for me, there is a spec, a tiny sliver but enough to keep me on this path I trust will lead to maturity and improved health. That I am relaxing, sensibly pacing..better than I was at least, which wasn't, and finding a picture of how I see my life ahead for me is sign enough the road to recovery is being journeyed. Perhaps not full recovery but enough to live with. My heart is now calmer and thoughts of that woman with him losing its stranglehold although still niggling as I habitually sabotage my peace. Reassurance for the inner child is paramount. May 2020 be the year for more insightful vision. <3

A life lived backwards.

Both the heartache and beauty of it all. An irony I have found in relationships is my initial (faulty) belief of not being good enough and determination to be the confident intelligent me I know I am and think they might love but involuntary hide and stifle out of fear of rejection (the mothership battle of all my relationships), I become the person they want at the very point I realise it's was never me who wasn't good enough and perhaps they knew this all along, hence their control and distance? I really need to approach future relationships backwards...once I get over this particular heartache that I'm still uncertain will lead to heartache but the heart is aching in anticipation of what has always been but mostly in the waiting. The anxiety I feel by his procrastination and indirectness is enough for me to walk away but I'm hanging on a while longer in case he's taken my challenge and decides to risk being known as I have with him...all very unexpected for me as I imagine it may be for him also, I don't know, that's the whole point. Part of me wishes he doesn't but mostly I hope he does..either way this is one hell of a journey and I do find joy even in the darkness as the discoveries made here are more revealing than the light that shines when we turn the corner with greater clarity. Real life is never how we picture it to be.

The only certainty is there is none.

Uncertainty it is said is the time to ride the waves, release creative energy, be in the moment...I'm not sure anyone who realized these wonders of not knowing what's coming next ever knew trauma of war. Woken in panic night after night, creativity is an exhausted dream of darkness a walk in the sun doesn't quell but for a fleeting moment of forgetfulness. The waves do not ebb and flow they loom large and threatening all around in wait of drowning this strong yet struggling swimmer against the tide. Every moment pulls back the past and hurls me into a future where this is no light, no picture of what could be as assuredly of what I knew was is long lost the further I walk. Relinquishing control has rendered me expectantly vulnerable to bombardment.

I feel threat with each determined step I take marching forth unable to sink into despair or rise in hope uncertain of either, sure of both but not yet and when I don't know. Holding on a cliff edge when letting go is what I need most. I don't know how, the mantle of decision has always been past to me, never before did I hand that back until now. Did I trust him with this two weeks ago? I don't recall, certain only this is a test not only of his character but of my durability too. Battleworn and weary I enter a new year on fertile ground no matter the seed he sows, what wounds are sorely reopened or soothed. Scars harden with time as attraction grows or fades dependant on who the other reveal themselves to truly be. I am here at two points in time waiting anxiously for the road ahead to clear the fog of doubt. Unable to focus on anything else I may as well stand still for a while and lean into this trauma of not knowing, trusting I made that certain decision for a reason.

Daddy, I'm home!

It may have been apparent the stress I've been lost under whilst untangling the unravelling of my complex relationship with another as well as myself. Who knew a declaration of love, at last, would open the floodgates to unfelt grief for the father long dead leading to clarity of why I've been unable to let it be known what I want from this person when directly asked. I've been clear as far as I've been able and willing throughout but this block I now understand was fear of him giving me what I ask..I now ask out of fear he won't as he recoils with my every 'no' in defence derived, I suspect from a belief of personal attack. The ball is firmly in his court and as he decides if he wants to bat it to me with the beginnings of revealing what he feels, action, not reaction as I've asked, or not I can rest easier, breathe..I've done my groundwork, faced my fears, now it's his turn if he takes the mantle.

The love declared? No, my darlings..not from him but I. For a year and a half that word directed at him would not come forth, I skirted around whilst feeling the forever tale of angst one feels when loving someone not knowing how they feel in return, knowing their readiness is a long way off if at all. Love being a verb, the way we respect, understand and treat one another.

All I wanted was to come home, I've been on my way and now..yes, now for the first time today feels like a Sunday, my yellow day that embodies family, love, relaxation, warmth, joy and some good nourishing food and drink. The day my dad was often home and my mother cooked the roast and all was well as could be, The day when I could take a break from the beatings and lashings of her tongue as my dad never knew this was the woman he married and I could never tell...he believed her lies to keep the peace and I the innocent scapegoat. He never knew how much that hurt, I did.

Proving my point perfectly.

I assert my claim that women are still oppressed in today's society, to reach the professional level in any hierarchy created to reflect society's value of people, in a male dominated ideological world women would be required to subscribe to notions enforced in traditional roles belonging to men within the workplace...one being the suppression of emotion to enable objectivity and command of oneself.

"My life is okay" the professionally successful and financially independent woman states..."I've reached a good professional level I'm happy with, I think women do well in this country, not much need for pushing for greater equality. That could backfire on us" In the next breath, she claims anger is a wasted emotion!!

Home Is Where The Heart Is

Freedom..what is liberation without sharing? At long last, my voice was found hidden behind the oppression of my lover but ultimately my conditioning as a child reared by the anecdotal overbearing mother from hell. The paradoxical irony is it was his challenging me that sprouted my need to tell him exactly how my experience with him has been to which he's had and still has no knowledge of what he does nor does he understand what I say as he translates through filters of projected negativity and assumption no matter my wording or clarity. Prepared as he was and I suspect remains to revisit this exhaustive circular conversation until he's convinced it's me not he in the wrong in protection of his fragile esteem, I've staked claim to my own sanity, no more am I willing to ride his merry-go-round. In this elated liberated state, however, I find myself wanting him to see me released with confidence, another paradox I'm convinced if he knew me as I freely am he'd recognise what I've seen all along, I his equal match but of course, this is the I that scares him the most, a threat to his carefully crafted defences, not as extension of him for social acceptance and value. With this ending new beginnings are forging, hungry and exhausted I now find relieved rest calls before this journey alone commences in my readiness to say "no" without guilt or fear of accustomed repercussions but with an honest love for us both. He can hardly hurt me more than already done as I am lost to him now as much as I was then. Found to me, home is exactly where I want to be at long long last.