A Thin Veneer

I am in trouble. Biiiiiig trouble.

I am terrified I am spiraling down a rather long dark path again. It's occurred to me a number of times of the last few weeks. And there is no one thing that I can pinpoint that has made me feel this way, I can only admit to a number of things that have made me feel fragile, scared, raw, numb and out of control.

I miss my Mum in a way I never thought I would. I always knew that I would miss her physical presence, her smile, her hugs, her 'I love you's. I accepted that her home would feel strange without her in it. That I would expect to feel her there when I visited. In fact I don't that much. My parents home is always pristine, it is one of those homes that you could invite people to view at any given moment, there were never magazines, books, knitting or random things lying about, nothing for me to physically miss. All things had a proper place, all things were put away and stored where they were supposed to be. It still does. So yes, I miss her and yes I miss her sitting in her place at the kitchen table or being in her favourite chair in the lounge or the sight of her sitting up in bed when I pass her room. But more than that I MISS her. Do any of you out there know what I mean?

I simply haven't got a Mum any more. Oh I know I have, she will always be my Mum, that death doesn't steal the relationship or love we shared. But the here and now is that I am Mum-less. And there are times it completely floors me how much I ache for her, what I wouldn't give to have just one more day with her.

Add to that my Dad. I love my Dad but we have shared an odd relationship over the years. I have never felt quite good enough, a bit of a disappointment to him, so many things that over the years I have felt he hasn't approved of. I can never remember him telling me he loves me.

Sex at the age of 16.
Leaving home and 'carrying on' out on the town at 21.
Marrying a black man at the age of 27.
Never managing to put any money into savings age 30.
Getting fat age 35.

I have felt the weight of his disappointment  all through my life. But I love him, I love him utterly and his disapproval has coloured my life. Now there is just him. No Mum to cushion the relationship, to bridge the gap in us. Just him and me.
I visit him 2 or 3 times a week and we talk more than we have done for many many years. Finally I have seen hints in his words and actions that show his love for me, that express his approval and recognition of the person I have become.
He is sad and lonely and feels he has no purpose anymore, he had made it his personal aim to out live my Mum so he could take care of her. He has achieved it and he now feels he doesn't really have a reason to go on. I know that his one small pleasure is his garden, its winter and damp, cold and dreary, not the weather to go out and potter outside. Especially at 87 and only 2 weeks after a bout of bronchitis and 3 weeks after an operation!

Anyway, as with any elderly parent he gives me cause for concern. I hate the thought of him being sad and yet feel powerless to do anything. I hate the thought of him being lonely and yet he declines all offers of company, invitations and visits. I hate the thought that he has no future to look forward to as such and yet have no answers in the face of his determination to remain in the past.

And I am utterly terrified of losing him too. It means I will then have to grow up, be a grown up myself......

And then of course there is K. I must be totally fucking mad!!! I had just about got myself to a place I could function. Just about, it had been 20 months and he was still my first waking thought and the last when I closed my eyes but at least i thought I knew it was over, that I had to get over it. And now it appears I am back up to my neck in it! We are in contact each and every day, many times a day. We utter I love you's and forevers. We shared 'intimate' moments of a sexual nature (he is my sex life). We chat by phone as often as is possible and have plans for lunch together in a mere 11 days.

Of course you could just accuse him of having his cake and eating it too. And I don't blame you. Except he isn't. He has told me we can't be intimate in real life, that its too much of a betrayal. (Yeah yeah, how can he make love to me with words, tell me he loves me, chat to me for hours, write me poems and send me pictures and it not count as a betrayal? How the hell do I know!!) and yet that is the way he sees it, its the way he can cope with sharing his time, days, thoughts, emotions with me. Quite frankly I would rip any mans head off that had even a smidgen of the intimacy that we shared with another woman, sex or no sex!! But hey, thats me.

And so once again I find myself dangerously embroiled in a love affair that can only end in tears, probably for us both but its mine I am most concerned about.

So I feel my days are spent walking a tightrope, teetering on the edge of a precipice that I might tumble into, crashing through this thin veneer of happiness if I allow myself to wallow in any of these emotions, and that once tumbling I shall just free-fall myself back into a bucket of Happy-Pills once again.......and one of the worst things? I can't tell K, one of my best friends, the one I tell all too. He has just let slip to me this very morning that he thinks his wife is heading for another bout of depression in response to their being issues with his son.....so how can I tell him that his long-distance-lover is also turning into a nutball.........

New Year and Other Nonsenses

I found it quite shocking when I went back and read my blogs from last new year! Oh how focussed and positive I felt then! Or at least that was how it came across.....how depressing! That 12 months on I seem to have moved no further, am still in this limbo-land of uncertainty!

It made me think back over the ups and downs of the year.

Now writing like this makes me feel a little guilty. As others have pointed out to me (and I am not so up my own arse I don't realise) there are many others in the world worse off than me.
I have my health (even though if I don't do something about my weight this year that could suffer) I have friends and family who love and support me, I don't have to beg or steal to feed my children, my country isn't war torn or threatened by famine or drought. I really am in a very fortunate place.

But of course it is all relative, and yes while I do have all these things there are still things in my world that cause me distress and unhappiness. It is different things to different people. You could say simply that if my day involved a 5 mile hike there and back to provide drinking water for my children I wouldn't have the time and energy to dwell on a broken heart and discontent in my marriage (I also wouldn't be so overweight!) and of course that is true. But the fact remains my water arrives with the slick turn of a shiny stainless steel tap, abundant enough for twice daily showers and watering the garden and soaking my feet if I so desire, so I do have the time to dwell on my lifes trivial inadequacies!

I have written before, very early on, about how I hate this label of 'depression'. I now no longer take any form of drugs for it nor do I receive counselling although there are dark moments that I consider I need both. The thing that I find most frightening is the speed at which some times I can feel myself spiral down.....No! Not spiral...plummet!

It can be a gradual process, a series of days or weeks that I can feel myself slipping lower and into darkness, sometimes it is possible to buoy myself with company or activity, sometimes it is not. But there are other times where I can wake and write or speak such positive things and by mid-afternoon I simply want out! I want to shut myself away and hide and ignore the world and no amount of cajoling and counselling can make me feel differently about it, me, us, them.....

Looking back over my blogs it reads like a roller-coaster, so 'up' and focussed some days and so desperate and devoid of life others. I know that I have a hard path to travel this year, I know simply that I cannot get to the beginning of 2011 with the same problems I have now and have had for at least the last 5 years.

Hopefully there will be no threat to my western world that will stop me still having the 'luxury' of fretting over 'trivia' but I need to make very sure that it is indeed different trivia. So I won't write positive, upbeat drivel that will make me look foolish when once again in a few weeks I write of my woes..... I shall just say I hope 2010 is a gentle year for all.