Quit this ...

Here’s a question for you ... are you a quitter? Do you quit all the time or never? OK, it’s more than one question. Here’s another... Is there a right time to be a quitter?

I’ve been reluctant to quit things and ended up hoarding ... not just physical things but emotional things as well. (No matter where this thought process goes, I’m still not quitting my books!) Anyhow, I have discovered some things that I have to quit, some things that I have already quit and other things that I still don’t want to quit.

With these three piles of quitting I have decided that I now have to be like a magician and start moving things into the ‘I quit’ pile before I make it turn into a dove and disappear from my life.

It really is OK to quit things ... especially when they are damaging you.

My list includes: ... now that would be telling!

Here’s looking at you, Kid!

I had an unexpected conversation the other day which reminded me of a two way mirror. The fact is that what we commonly refer to as a two way mirror is really a one way mirror. There is only one side that is illuminated and the other, darkened, side is where the majority of the viewing takes place from.

Someone rang me to get information about a third party: I did not have any to give. This is because the connection between me and this third party had been broken a long time ago. Because the breach occurred a while ago but the innocent caller (Y) had decided to forget what they knew and stay in their own darkened viewing room.

You see, when the third party (called person X, for legal reasons) realised that I was no longer their puppet then their perception of me was destroyed. It was like throwing a brick into the centre of a floor to ceiling mirror: nothing can be the same again.

X took a step too far one day and I stood toe-to-toe instead of backing up as I used to do. At first X didn’t know what to do with my altered behaviour so they increased the pressure (sometimes known as bullying tactics) and I still refused to cave in because I was tired of being wronged without using my voice. The mirror cracked. Simultaneously we had both realised that our images of each other had been wrong.

At the end of this incident I felt that I was left with my pride intact and a new perception of X. Time passed and I did not follow the old script of crawling back for any morsel of conditional love that X would care to throw from the table.

What I found was that once I really started loving myself totally I was less dependent on others for scraps of their affection to make me feel better about myself.

The caller (Y) expressed a sense of anxiety about X’s perceived situation and tried to include me in it. I stepped back and explained that living in a constant state of dread and anticipation of something going wrong no longer suited me (I did not add that it also left me teetering on the edge of rejection and I was never good with heights or falling down).

So, the call ended.

I thought about X,Y and all the Zs... for a very short while. Then I exhaled again and went back to my peaceful place.

The beauty about losing the two way mirror is that I can see clearly for miles now.

What is hidden ...

This is a health story.

I noticed a tingling in one of my toes. It bothered me but I thought it would pass so I ignored it. I looked at the distracting toe and could not see anything obviously wrong so I learnt to live with it.

But the unsettling feeling would not go away. Oh, it was pushed to the back of my mind for a while but it always surfaced again. After years (well, days really) of doing nothing about it I woke up one morning and noticed that there was something new on my toe: a lump.

What was hidden had begun to show. The cause of the tingling was making itself evident right there, so I could not only feel it but I could also see it. The discomfort had also increased. It was no longer possible to walk with my usual ease. The numbness that I felt had started as a mere tingle, now it was spreading through my body. I felt something approaching fear.

Therefore at this juncture I decided to seek specialist help. I took action and saw a professional. The doctor checked me over and said that with a minor operation the cyst could be removed and everything would be back to normal again. The numbness would go and the tingling would cease.

Within a short while the pain will be totally gone because I didn’t ignore it forever.

As I said, this is a health story.

But remember, what is hidden eventually shows.

What are you saying to me?

Letter to some of my siblings

It must have been (and still seems to be) hard to accept me. I say this knowing our shared history. I feel I should thank you for still talking to me the best way you can. Others (like me) have no family at all anymore.

I have always been me, it’s just that you know more about me now.

Did you know that I know that the best body language readers are those who need to know how others feel about them when there is a verbal communication barrier? I learnt to see what you were thinking even when your mouths were silent. I had to become sensitive to the language of non-verbal communication; it never lied to me.

With the evident discomfort I see you in sometimes I often wonder if being totally separated from your family for good is better or is this facade easier to deal with?

I’m wondering from your point of view because I know it’s not easy to deal with from where I am. Most of the time I feel like an uninvited guest in my own family. It seems you want me to leave, but you know it’s not polite to say so.

My question is when did etiquette ever stop you before? I have heard so many tirades and rants I wonder what’s holding you back now. Not politeness I’m sure.

Then again, I could have all this wrong and you feel no different about me than you ever did. It’s just that the strained silences in the few conversations we now have and the increasing lack of contact seem to indicate otherwise. I only say this because I noticed that when I stopped travelling to see you I never actually got to see you at all. We used to talk so often. I miss those times but I grow tired of initiating contact all the time. Then again, maybe your life is just so busy that you don’t have time to get in touch.

Am I making excuses again?

All I know is that after a while the uninvited guest gets the message and leaves. Is it my time?

Wherever I am and wherever you are I want you to know that I’ll still love you and I do understand. Remember I was there, I shared that upbringing as well. The rest, since we’ve all grown up, is up to us. We can’t blame the past for every decision we make today.

I just wanted you to know that I’ve been thinking about you and I do miss you.

M.

Convincers

Scene 1:

The small voice whispered in her ear, “Are you convinced now?” The evidence was laid bare in front of her, there was no doubt. But still, as she looked away and caught her image in the mirror, she could see that there in her eyes were threads of the dream she had held on to for too long.

“But...” she haltingly tried to put her thoughts together, “but, what if ...?” She knew that it was no use. She was convinced but still did not accept the truth.

Suddenly she felt as if her feet were leaving the ground. She began to float. Trying to grasp on to concrete reality she had a last thought before she soared into oblivion, “Is this madness or hope?”

Scene 2:

The pain is terrible. The patient wakes up as the anaesthetic wears off. The bandages are covering her body. She winces as she tries to turn but cannot move. So she settles back and grimaces through the pain. It does not go away. She drifts back into a disturbed sleep.

(Flash forwards) It is one summer’s day a few years later that she looks at that day of awakening with a different point of view. The scars have all but disappeared. She remembers it all but does not feel the pain any more. It is only when she remembers the sickness she inhabited that can she say, “I had to go through that to get to this.” She smiles with understanding and contentment.

Squirrels are out and about

Cleaning up is part of everyday life. However, when the spring arrives I notice that there is an ongoing tendency to do more cleaning than usual. Maybe we are a bit like squirrels that have slowed down our activity through the winter so we have to do a big clean up.

Consequently as I was going through cupboards the other day I discovered a baking tin that I had avoided using for a long time; I couldn’t decide whether to throw it away or use it. It held many memories and was one of those ‘seasoned’ tins. It had been put away clean, but I decided to do something different to it this time. You see, I had decided to keep it instead of throwing it away, after all it still had lots of use.

I stood at the kitchen sink and decided to use a different scourer than I had normally used on it. Within minutes I could see a different shine on the baking tin; the past ‘seasoning’ was scrubbed away and with it the old memories started to disappear.

When I placed it in the draining rack I looked at it and thought that all it took to make a difference was to do something in a different way and I got a totally different result.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein

Moving on

It takes different people different amounts of time to move on. I have concluded that moving on from a relationship can be amazingly easy or devilishly difficult depending on your emotional connection at the time of its conclusion.

Often you leave a relationship because you are suffocating but you may leave a relationship because you feel you are drowning in totally unchartered emotional waters. I have never been a strong swimmer, physically or emotionally, however, when I love people but I know that right at that point I cannot be with them then I will even swim away from them to save both of us despite the fact that every stroke is breaking my heart and making my arms heavier than lead. The constant love makes me move in ungainly strokes that may just achieve my objectives.

It does not matter how far away I get, I will never forget them. And those memories must remain private. Intrusion into their current life is not an act of love.

I know that time and circumstances change people, however, I believe that some attractions remain true despite the distance or the time. The important thing is to know if they are valid for both people in the relationship, otherwise it really is time to complete the moving on exercise.

Sometimes, even when we cannot see the way out, we have to step away from where we are and keep moving forwards. I have done this. It was not without pain, but it was easier than I had imagined for all the time I was emotionally disabled and over compromised. I stepped forward and found a window that led to happiness.

This is an extract from some of my thoughts once I was free to be myself ... to be different to whom I was pretending to be and to accept that I wanted something different in my life. I wanted the pleasure of love and desire. I wanted to be free from emotional disability; I wanted to be able to express all of me - if I wanted to.

Like dormant volcanoes you can stay silent for so long but the eruption into life will come eventually. When a person is continually denied self-expression they will either give up and die or stand up and fight for their life: I chose to fight.

I experienced living in an oasis of self-belief when I was alone with my friends or some members of my family. The travelling time to them was blissful. That should not have been the case. The return journey always saw tension stabbing its way into my neck and shoulders as I anticipated my cold welcome back.

One day I just said that it was over and I needed ‘something different’ in my life.

An unsent letter to … my ex.

When I told you of my decision to end our relationship it was almost as much of a shock for me hearing it out aloud as it must have been for you hearing it at all. Although I know that we both knew for a long time that neither of us was happy. I have lacked honesty in dealing with my feelings towards you and for that I’m sorry. You deserve better. You deserve to know the facts.

... My desire is to desire and experience the desire ... It was though I had been voluntarily drugged (I craved simple and mutual love and desire and I found it elsewhere) and each time my fix started to wear off I went back for more.

Everything has its due time and our partnership has run its course. The good times were there in the past but now ‘I need something different.’

I need to be me.

So, this is my advice to you, dear reader – these things I have learnt from plenty of experience: don’t become lost in your own life. If you ever feel the desperation for change make sure you address it because you could, like me, deny yourself so much that you empower other people to take control over you. Then you will never have the experience of peace, and love is no longer an element of the relationship. The only thing that you are sharing is a sense of suffocation in a daily nightmare.

It’s time to move on.

Stuff, stuff and more stuff

I feel sick. This is not a physical sickness (unless tiredness counts) but I feel sick of stuff.

As I continue on my redecorating spree I realise how much stuff I have. I am trying to use my own de-cluttering steps and, so far, it is working a treat. However, I do have the occasional pang of “Oh, I shouldn’t give that away because X gave it to me,” or “I’m sure I could find somewhere else to put that object-Y”.

The other day I even got rid of something. I was attached to it in a number of ways (none of them physical as I’m not Spiderman or any other super hero, but I digress) – this thing, this object-Y was a gift and I appreciated receiving it – it suited my home.

Nonetheless, in a rash moment of ‘I-can-do-what-I-said-I would bravado’ I said to an unexpected visitor, “Do you want this?” I retrieved object-Y from where I had lovingly stored it and displayed it to her. She loved it and agreed to take it immediately. When she drove away with it in her car I experienced what can only be described as panic.

What was I doing? Could I really let it go? How would I explain it to X?

I text my recipient and explained my dilemma.

She understood and said she’d return it.

Then, I breathed.

In that moment of breathing I let something go.

The past. My heavy and negative attachment to the past was released. A section of my past story had been like

This time I felt braver so I called my friend and told her that I had made the right decision initially and object-Y was hers to keep.

She laughed at me and said, “Make your mind up!” I laughed along with her as I knew that I had permanently decided to move forward.

“Seriously,” I chortled, “it’s yours. Enjoy it. It’s lovely, but it’s not for me anymore.”

“I know you have a sentimental attachment to it,” she said kindly. (She knows this part of my story.)

“Yeah,” I acknowledged, “but that’s OK. It’s time to let X go now.”

“If you’re sure ...”

“I am. Thanks for understanding,” I still felt sure of my move, “it’s the right thing to do,” I concluded.

And that was it.

Apart from those 5 minutes when I was in total flux everything I have decided to get rid off has gone smoothly.

The things I can’t give to friends will continue to go to the charity shops or to be recycled somehow. There really is no point in me keeping them. They could seriously have become millstones around my neck if I let them. Instead I am enjoying the feeling of rolling freely down the hillside.

Goldfish existence

Everything we seem to know about has a beginning.

Some things we know about have ended.

Despite the frequency of beginnings and endings in our everyday existence we still seem to have great trouble with the start and completion of cycles; at least I sometimes do.

Whether it is the acceptance of an end, or the recognition that something else needs to start I frequently find myself back beyond now, in that city of dreams lined with streets of memories.

When I visit the past I often gain healing and strength to progress; I receive salve for the pain of current endings. The past reminds me that situations can end but I do not have to end with them. These memories of the past are like a favourite book of poetry that I never tire of delving into.

Some memories never end, so even when reality has to move on I can still clearly recall the best ones, like the love of my mother.

When I look back through my journals I know that I have known great love. In 1995 someone told me that they thought I was spoilt, my response was that the only possibility of me being spoilt may have been “by the beautiful love of my mother” or “the love of my significant other” – and I don’t really consider that spoilt, I think I have been repeatedly blessed by sharing love with wonderful people: family and friends. Anything else I have gained I have worked really hard for it.

My memory tells me that.

I think it is necessary that we have beginnings and endings otherwise life may end up being a boring repetition of events ... or a goldfish bowl existence.

So, I for one, and glad that some things end and others have the chance to begin; it allows new growth.

The End ... The Beginning

I am afflicted, nay blessed, with double vision. This binocular sight is not in the same sense as one normally thinks of this perception. In my particular case I saw a single end (and beginning) because of my view into my own heart and into the heart of my child.

Just three years ago I made a momentous decision to end my decade-plus long relationship. Today, after years of separation, it is legally finished. There will not be a great celebration, no party or champagne corks popping, just a moment to breathe and exhale as I step from the end of this phase into the beginning of the next one.

I am glad that I looked deeply and made the right choice: I have no regrets.

I have never been one to slate my ex partners. We were together because there was something good between us – usually love. We parted because of many different reasons - all of them based on it being the right time for us to go our separate ways. But today is about closing the door on a part of my history and continuing to create my present with my family. As a unit, we are, as the saying goes “small but perfectly formed”.

By the end of today I will truly be able to say ... “It is finished” in the style of the Master orator. A chapter of my life will be legally over and I am happy in a calm way.

Collateral Damage

I live with my child. We are, what is generally termed, a single parent family. Soon after our separation a few years ago my ex-partner decided that she did not want continued contact with my son or me because it was causing her too much distress and she felt that she could best move on with her life if we did not feature in it. With that message received - passed to me via a third party - Morgan and I started a new chapter of our existence.

As I approach the time when the official decree of my separation is written in the legal records I have begun to wonder what it is like for those parents who still want contact with their children once they have separated from their adult partner.

The majority of the time when families separate the children have to stay with one person. This can cause huge problems of contact and continuity with the departing parent.

What is their life like when they leave the family home? How do they get used to the silence of single life? Is it immediately filled with socialising or does the lone alone parent spend their hours remembering the laughter and the chaotic noise of family life? Do they wander through tidy alien spaces wishing for the mess and disruption of family life?

The alone parent has to deal with the empty rooms and the desperation of planned interactions with their own family. Returning to the shared family home as a stranger having to request access must be a horrible experience. The familiar door is now a drawbridge to a past life. No keys are allowed. As an interloper they wait on the threshold anticipating and hoping for a friendly greeting. Love had brought them back to this spot. It was the loss of a different love that drove them away.

Temporarily reunited it is time to exhale. Time begins to play tricks on the mind. Each allotted moment together is like a plummeting lift. Life is suspended in fear that the best moments will be lost in the rush and the separation will begin again all too soon.

Family life is provisionally recreated as the estranged parent shares uncomfortable time and space where they feel clothed in a sense of no longer belonging in their own children’s lives. Things that they knew on a daily basis now become lists of activities and achievements that were usually shared with distant aunts at Christmas time.

When they part, again, and again, the parent crumbles as they are destroyed by the desolation of separation.

Maybe it’s not just the children who suffer collateral damage.

M and I have had our process of dealing with the separation, and we have done it together. Although I didn’t appreciate the abrupt and sudden rejection of contact that my ex partner had with M, I realise that sometimes these complete breaks are for the best. The slow poison of continual contact can be more destructive in the long run.

And I know that it was also the best decision for us. We are in a better place now. As I’m sure my ex partner is.

Piloting your own life

Days are always busy. We get busy just living, merely existing and making ends meet can take up all our energies. It can get to such a situation that we no longer have any time available for the small pleasures of life because we are so overrun with the repetitive and necessary tasks that make up 21^st century living. Working, paying bills, shopping, cooking, ironing, cleaning … after a while we can seem to be in a daze as we stumble through life always trying to catch up with something.

Managing resources, time and focus are all important as you become the pilot in your own life. You need to manage the small aspects of your life so that you can take the lead in your whole life.

It takes conscious effort to:

PLOT YOUR DESTINATION

MAINTAIN YOUR COURSE

HOLD FIRM TO YOUR CONVICTIONS

It is advisable to become the captain of your own life instead of getting lost in the trance that we sometimes accept as living. When you make the choice about your future you give yourself FREEDOM to be YOU.

This calls for consistency as you …

“Manage the small, seemingly insignificant things in order to direct more important matters of life.”

(Dave Pelzer, Moving Forward)

We have to have an AMBITION and … work towards it.

New roots

I had obviously done something wrong but was not sure what it was. Maybe it was too much water after a period of drought or maybe it was just time for the end of this particular season of growth.

All I did know was that the plant was dying – right there in front of me.

I decided to try to rescue it. Well, some of it anyway. Some of the plant was evidently beyond saving and so, gingerly, I eased it out of the plant pot and released it into the compost bag.

The bit of plant that I had retained I placed into a cup of water on the kitchen windowsill to see if it would sprout any roots so that I could try to replant it.

It is not that I am particularly attached to this plant because of its origins (it was a gift but I was not attempting this rescue to remember who had given it to me and why). I am used to the greenery in the house and I just want to give it a chance to keep growing. I didn’t feel that its time was over just yet, and the free-flowing leaves and stems just made me happy because they were unrestrained and followed their own route.

Right then I decided that if I managed to encourage the new roots then I would re-pot it and pay much better attention to it this time around. I mean, to give it what it needed to encourage its free growth, rather than to stunt it by oversight and neglect.

Today, on this bright Sunday afternoon, about three weeks had passed since I started the rescue plan, I was now used to seeing the new cuttings on the windowsill but I decided to have a look and see what was happening below the rim of the cup. I raised the still green leaves from the top of the cup and smiled broadly as I saw the many roots that had grown out from the stems that had been quite harshly detached from the main plant.

It makes me happy to know that there is still a big chance that this plant will be successfully transplanted from its original state to a new environment where it will, hopefully, grow and flourish.

As I planned the future location of this fledgling plant I thought about how in the past I have been rooted in one way or another to a particular path and when it came to a time when I had to move the transition had sometimes been uncomfortable and difficult but eventually I settled in my new position. I have had struggles at times to establish my new roots but, thank God, with patience they have come through and I have obtained a firm hold on the new foundation.

Sometimes it looked as if I would flounder and fail to survive but a new channel for my growth was presented at the correct time and I have thrived. It has often been the case – for this has occurred numerous times – that I began to lose hope in myself when my root system no longer sustained my growth. However, I did not give up and I eventually saw that a new way was opened up for me.

It is because of this plant that I am reminded to embrace new beginnings and use the strength within to navigate the unexpected times of feeling rootless and reach across the breach because new opportunities for amazing growth are waiting to be fulfilled in my life.

Unfinished business

I remember the last time I was in a pub and the staff moved between the tables like they were on roller-skates picking up the empty glasses and bottles. There is a system to their routine. They remove the finished product and you replace it with a new one, a fresh one. As I watched them weaving between the tables, making increasingly impossible loads of empties balanced on their free arm, I began to question whether they would reach their limit before they reached my table. The calculation went through my mind quickly. Then, suddenly I realised that they are on a different agenda to me. There was a moment when I saw them coming directly for me and I knew what they are going to do, so I reached out, but I was too late – the bottle has been whisked away.

'Hey,' I say indignantly, ‘I hadn’t finished that.’

The staff member donned their most scornful look as they turned back to me with my unfinished drink in their hand. They looked at me, then at the bottle. The bottle was turned slightly towards the fading light that came through the window behind me in the cosy alcove.

‘Oh,’ they said, and then a reluctant obligatory apology without any real meaning, ‘sorry, I thought it was finished.’ Then they tipped the bottle towards me and feeling embarrassed but determined to hold on to my position, I reach for the bottle. I no longer want the bottle as they put their finger in the neck of it but it's at this point I begin to feel that it’s the principle that matters.

‘Thank you,’ I say, while wondering why I am thanking them when I know that they have just done me a disservice. Nevertheless, I still feel as if I should not have let the bottle go.

I reclaim my drink and feel just how light it is. I’m not sure that there is even a full mouthful left in the bottle, but I know I was right to claim it. The drink was mine, I had not finished with it. I know that I’ll give it up when I am ready, and not before.

The people with me smile those knowing smiles and shake their heads at the staff member who has decided that they will wait for the bottle that I have reclaimed.

‘It’s ok,’ I say sheepishly, ‘I’ll just hang on to it …’

‘Are you sure?’ comes the sarcastic response, ‘I could just wait, as it’s nearly done anyway …’

Suddenly this has become about more than the dregs of liquid in the bottle.

This is unfinished business.

I am not ready to let go. My time for closure with my beverage has not arrived. But another person has decided that they have a prior claim on the drink and they, without consulting me, have decided that my business is in reality now finished.

I sat there wondering how to resolve this ordinary situation that had somehow become extraordinary and was the focus of not just my attention, but several people on my table and the adjoining tables.

Did someone else really have the right to decide that my short connection with this bottle was over? Surely it was only down to me.

The pressure was building. Light conversations began around me but my only focus was on the soiled bottle in my hand and the overbearing staff in front of me who was becoming uncomfortable with the load of collected empties that they had already gathered.

I asked myself '... at what point am I willing to let go of things in my life or would I always hang on to remnants of the past?'

I could not see myself as a rat in bags of rags that I refused to let go of so I sighed deeply and accepted the truth. I had a tendency to burrow in the past but I needed to face the present and the future. I accepted what they said. It is finished now anyway, I thought. I smiled reluctantly and handed the bottle back to the staff. I had not made the decision but that didn’t matter any more. Circumstances meant that closure came - although not on my timeline - there was no going back.

‘It’s ok,’ I said with a resigned acceptance, ‘yeah, you’re right – it’s finished.’

Anyone involved can call time on the business. When it’s over for them, it’s over.