They often say that 'info dumps' are a pointless waste of time, when writing. I'd tend to agree... when writing fiction they can be annoying and cumbersome. So much so, that I've been made to cringe by my own writing in the past.
But for now, it's a necessity, and a place to start. So bare with me.
It was little things I think, that lead to it in the end. Oddly enough I find it sort of freeing, in a disassociated way. Because that's all the last 15 months have been for me. Disassociated, and cut off. Perhaps that too, was my own fault. Of course I see now that I have a tendency to hold grudges.
It started I think when my mother died. Receiving a phone call at just after 5am on 24th July 2008. However much, I wanted it then, to be a prank. It never will be. However much, I wanted my premonition to have been more wrong, it would have been then. Of course, it started out as just a feeling. An intuitive moment some eight weeks earlier that I put down to not wanting Caleb to be born early, like his sister was. How off the mark was I? I would have traded anything in this world to be faced with another prem and not the loss of my mother. Ironic considering that when she was alive, I pretty much hated her. I realize now that I was angry. So angry at all the little things, things that in reality I didn't understand, and perhaps didn't want to. It took time and my own similar experiences to realize just how stupid I had been and what a waste it was, being angry.
So, she died. And I spent the next week seeing her lying on the bedroom floor every time I closed my eyes. Hearing her voice in my head and wondering why, I hadn't mentioned my 'feeling' to her weeks ago. Maybe then.... ah if the world was full of maybe's would we even be better off?
Dwelling on 'what ifs' I'd gotten pretty adept at it over the last few years. It wasn't surprising that it should continue then. Shutting myself off, was a mechanism left over from childhood, again something I was pretty good at. So in order to protect myself, and to protect my yet unborn son that's what I did. I shut off, and almost pretended that it never happened. It was relatively easy in a way because nothing changed so dramatically a week on from her death that made it so impossible. Things as they say returned to normal.
So when Caleb was born with a bumpy start, after I was admitted to hospital with PE the feeling of dread that washed over me in the days before his birth was completely unexpected. My mother would never get to see her third-born grandchild. It was terrifying and completely mind altering. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. There was no comfort in knowing that my mother was dead, and my son would never get to meet him or hold him, or experience any and all that she had with my older two children.
To say things went back to normal after Caleb was born would be a lie. Nothing went back to normal. Things rapidly continued to spiral out of control. So much so that we were facing the break up of our marriage and the end of our family. Again that was hard to take, and perhaps that's where the bitterness stems from. Knowing that another person was perhaps just as angry as I was, and strived to keep us apart was harder to accept. And something I didn't know straight away.
So for the better part of 14 months we were both together but separate. Our family stayed together as much as for the kids, as for us ourselves. Whatever reason it was, we never could let go completely of one another.
Re-entering a family who turned against you instantly for things that you felt had to happen wasn't easy. It still isn't. I didn't second guess myself then, because I did what I had to. I am reminded by people that perhaps I was a little less sane than I like to think of myself during that time, and perhaps maybe I didn't have it as together as I would have liked. But nobody seems to think or realise, I don't think, that I was hurting too. None of it was premeditated. None of it was planned. I was thinking foremost of the well being of my kids.
And so when those 14 months came to an end, we found a place, and moved in, and have spend the last 15 months more or less happy, and added another munchkin to the mix in that time as well.
I guess something had to give, really. And maybe part of it is my fault. Without me, things would have gone a little differently. But then when you're married where exactly do your allegiances lie? With your parents who have raised you or with your spouse? It's one lesson, I suppose I don't think my husband will be forgetting anytime soon. Although, he did come to it willingly on his own. Which is a blessing. Most mother's however, would probably let the dust settle and accept an apology when given one, and move on. She seemed to be the exception to the rule, unfortunately. I know I used to get angry and tell my mum exactly what I thought of her. Drunk or not, I know there were a few occasions where my words might have hurt her. I didn't care back then. Ironically enough, I was always invariably forgiven. That's what mothers are supposed to do, isn't it? Forgive you? Love you unconditionally even if they don't agree with your choices. My mother in law is not like that. Instead she throws everything back into the face of the one person who has loved her unconditionally his whole life. The person who has sided with her over others his whole life... up until recently.
To be cut down like that, I can only imagine. I can relate a little to what it must have felt like. I can say it was heartbreaking to watch, and listen to him tell me he just didn't care anymore.
So that's where we are at. No longer part of a bigger family than just us six. How long it will last, time will tell. From my own experience though, I hope that there will be a little more closure than there had been with my own mother. Death is cruel and largely unrelenting, but after death, it's all too late to say what might have been said or what should have been said.
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