Message to the Masses

“Bored Confused Annoyed Don’t worry about it, just buy your copy of Heat magazine. Heat, makes life worth living!

Or something to that affect, I recoil too adamantly at this advert to manage 100% concentration.

Anyway, today in particular this advert made me sit up and listen. Because I was feeling confused and annoyed, but the thought that I would turn to this kind of publication to ‘make my life worth living’, or even that they have the gall to suggest that it would help, twisted my guts inside and got me to thinking.

First, I re-read the paragraph of Yalom’s Staring at the Sun that I had just completed. The last line was ‘the desire to help our kids is hardwired in us’.

Uh-huh, I’m sure your all imagining where this is going, but this isn’t a traditional “paganhorsegirl banging on again about how terrible her upbringing was” kinda post. I’m boring myself at the moment with all that, trust me.

I then got to thinking about my dream that I had this morning. I always remember the last bits of my dreams, the bits just before the alarm goes off for the umpteenth time. My mother and I were in a very light room, a kitchen or conservatory, with big windows and sun streaming in. All was very lightly coloured, and well lit from the sunshine. We were sat on stools at what I think was the kitchen work top, looking at pamphlets. Mum was showing me a white card with tiny little plastic rings kinda hooked into it. They were all different designs, coloured in bright orange, deep royal blue and luminous yellow. She was showing me which ones she had worn as a child, and which were her sister Nicola’s. Another card showed an engraving done in silver plate of a christening of the daughter of her friend Diana. My brother was part of this engraving, looking very young and noble. It was a side profile of him, dressed in a suit I think, underneath a big christening title with names and dates on it. My mum also gave me a pearl necklace. It was a beautiful necklace, made from gold, with gold leaves and pearls of various colours and sizes attached. Some in clusters, others single. Mum said it was time I had the necklace, as I was now old enough.

I felt very happy. It was a nice conversation, mum sharing her childhood with me, and presenting me with this lovely gift. It felt like a positive experience. And it was a positive experience that encompassed the family.

I woke up feeling very sad and despondent, as in reality this was something that would not happen. I also felt the loss of the pearls. When I was a teenager, my mother took me up to the bedroom and showed me a plastic bag with 21 pearls in it. She said that they were her grandmothers, and that I would receive them when I was 21, and that she had fought tooth and nail to keep them hidden from my father (who had pawned the rest of my mother’s jewellery to pay for his gambling debt). It was one of the few memories I have where I felt important, although it was made very clear that this was yet another sacrifice that my mother had made for me and I had better grovel and show up most gratitude otherwise I would get what for.

I never received those pearls, and now believe that they were sold to pay for my mother’s and stepfather’s boat.

Anyway. The dream I believe was a culmination of the past few weeks, my conscious and unconscious merging to crystallise what is going on at the moment. Things have been tough lately, with a near enough constant barrage of situations that heighten and sharpen my insecurities to popping extent.

Light bulb moment

The dream was a poignant depiction of what I have always wanted; a sense of safety and security within a family setting, where individuals cared for each other, have a past, present and future, where communication occurred.

But this is not going to happen. Maybe I really am just one of these people who needs to have their face smashed in time and time again before they start to look where they are going. I am always going to be insecure, I am always going to want a family, I am always going to be defined by and live my life according to what has happened to me. My dream pointed out all that will not be, all that I continuously search for.

So, what to do? It is said that to free yourself from your past you have to forgive, otherwise you simply end up bitter and twisted, constantly reliving the wrongs done to you. I have no intention of forgiving my family members, ever. Yes I am very angry, but it is this anger which allows me to be far more compassionate and caring than the majority of chumps out there because I try to not behave like they do. But it isn’t the wrongs done that make me angry. It’s the fact that they have no idea that they have done wrong. And near enough everyone appears to suffer from this particular mental deficit.

I am not going to sit here and say that I am perfect, that I haven’t made mistakes, that I’ve never hurt anyone. Of course I have. But I say sorry! And, once more, if I don’t have anything nice to say, I don’t open my bloody mouth! I live my life by a certain set of rules, rules that encompass taking care of my fellow man often to my own detriment. I watch people, I learn their foibles, I enquire, if they are upset in the morning I make sure I make them a cup of tea and ask how they are in the afternoon. If I make plans with someone for the following week I don’t forget about them the instant the conversation is over. I don’t make idle threats, I watch my language, I try not to come across as overpowering or opinionated or overly judgemental. I don’t press my ideas and my ways of doing things onto others.

I’m starting to think that maybe my family are not the problem anymore. I know what they are like, I know what to expect from them for the best part. But I expect others to be different. I view my parents as the extreme, and they are, but I forget just how prevalent their psychological traits are, albeit to a lesser extent, amongst the majority of society. I suppose that I have been very unlucky in that between all of my blood relatives, I was exposed to just about every negative behaviour and very few positive. There was no buffer; all of them were cocks. I am now sensitive to ‘cockish’ behaviour (I’m so turning that into a real word).

I am happiest when I am alone. When I am with others, I feel uncomfortable, I feel on edge, I worry about how I look, what I say, is my facial expression appropriate, have I got anything to say that will be of interest to anyone (often I haven’t, I am hardly the life and soul of the party), and this is without all the residual insecurities about having to explain my career choice (no one seems to know what ecologist means) go through the whole ‘why have you got all those tattoos?’ ‘what do they mean’ ‘you’ll regret those when your older’, and what on earth do I do with my time if I don’t watch east enders or X factor NOR do I get drunk every night with mates down the pub because of course, at the age of 26, isn’t that what I am supposed to do?

I am not a normal person by today’s standards. I have not had a normal upbringing, I do not think like others do, I do not dress like others do, I do not view the world like others do. I am very happy with this, with my aims in life, with how I have managed to overcome my past and deal with the constant bollocks that I have to face today. Yes I have tattoos. No I am not going to regret them. No I do not care that will have 8 years of university education behind me and still only earn 18k. No I will not spend hours every day cleaning my house and my car. No I will not live and let live. No I will not sit quietly. No I will not look the other way. Yes I will write, laugh, love, scream, cry, learn, live, and be me.

And if you don’t like it, then please go, because I am tired of trying to fit to ideals that have nothing to do with me, and I cannot move forward if I have to keep trying.