Better. 

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We always think there are better days ahead. We look forward to the days the kids are grown and can take care of themselves. We dream of the days a bill  comes through the door and we can pay it straightaway. 

We look ahead to the time we no longer have to go out to work and plan what we’ll do when we retire. 

When times are tough it’s natural to look forward to the storm passing, to want to glimpse calmer seas on the horizon. 

In the days of keeping up with the Joneses  (who incidentally buy most things on credit) we’ve become a dissatisfied people. We want better things, better technology, the latest gadget, to see the latest films etc. 

It has become unfashionable to live in the moment and that’s a great pity because that’s where the treasure is. 

I know from personal experience that it’s difficult to know contentment sometimes. Everyone else’s grass always looks greener but it isn’t. 

They have dissatisfaction and discontent also. You just don’t realise it because you’re looking at their highlight reel on social media. 

A picture came up on Facebook today. It was of my youngest daughter standing outside our house shortly after we moved in here. 

I couldn’t help but notice how much she’s grown. Her face has lost its baby chubbiness. She’s grown taller. She’s in her penultimate year of Primary school and I just don’t know where that time has flown to. 

But I can say this. An awful lot of it I spent waiting for better days, for easier days, for lovelier days .

Jim Elliott, the missionary said “Wherever you are be all there”. 

It’s one of the biggest things I struggle with yet it’s so important. 

Learn to live your life in the now. It takes practice but it can be done and it’s necessary because while we’re waiting on a bigger and better ship to come along laden with everything we think we possibly need we’re missing out on valuable memories now. 
Till next time. 
This post was written in response to the Daily Prompt -better. 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/better/

The Ghosts of Christmas past. 

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Perhaps somewhere in a different time we share Christmas day together. You bring your family. We share tales of growing up separately but bound by blood. Perhaps it begins an annual tradition of meeting and exchanging gifts and sharing each other’s lives. 

Meanwhile in a different realm I bring home a special guest. We laugh at the repeats on the TV and bicker over Brussel sprouts.

Later after you’ve had a glass or two and your pipe you fall asleep in the armchair, your cracker hat slightly askew as you snore gently . I look at you and think “when did you get old?”. I remember you carrying me up the stairs to bed in your arms when I fell asleep downstairs. So strong then but now you resemble an old comfy arm chair yourself. The children look at you and giggle. I shush them anxious not to stress the fragile brokered  Christmas peace. 

In still another time, she is there.  Laughing with the children, making merry with the sherry. Making us scream with laughter at her awful charade reenactments. I dream she has had a happy life, a life of peace and wishes fulfilled. 

Lastly in another Christmas I bounce upon my knee a little one. I can see their tiny fingers and their rosebud mouth. They look at their siblings, desperate to join in the fun and excitement. “Soon” I tell them. “Soon you’ll be old enough”.
This Christmas will be a happy one. We have lots of blessings to be grateful for. We love our little family. I won’t feel anything amiss. 
But sometimes I wish the ghosts of Christmas past would collide. 

When dreams come.

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The other night I dreamt about my father. Nothing unusual in that you might think but it’s unusual for me. That’s because we don’t have a functional relationship. In fact I can’t remember the last time we spoke other than by email and that was a year or so ago.

This is pretty much how it’s always been. He’s not a significant part of my life and I’m used to that. I accept that. Gone are the times I’ve sat by the door on my birthday wondering if this is the year he’ll remember me. 

I rarely think of him now. I may get a twinge of jealousy when I see my friends having a great relationship with their dads but on the whole I try not to dwell on it. This is how it is and it is largely my choice too. 

It’s not all his fault. He’s made efforts in the past to be in touch and for us to see each other but he left when I was 5. He has rarely been a Daddy figure in my life. We’ve both tried but our relationship is lacking something and neither one of us is desperate to rebuild it.

And yet in my dream I asked him “just tell me are you ever going to make time for me? I need to know”. 

Why did I need to know? I’m not sure. It seems laughable to me now. I’m happy with my life mostly and I don’t often grieve on the things I don’t have. Instead I try to be grateful for the things I do have.

The dream left a bitter taste in my mouth. It brought up feelings I thought were dealt with. Things that I’m tired of dwelling on continually.I guess I’m still that little girl who misses her Daddy. The difference is now I’m older and harder inside . I choose not to have a relationship with him because it’s easier for me.

It’s an awful thing to not be able to relate in part to your children because they know the joy of having a Dad there every day. A Dad who loves them and cares for them. They’ve never known anything different. They take it for granted and I’m so glad for that. It’s just sometimes……

I wish, I’m not sure really, I suppose I wish my childhood had been different. I wish my Dad had been there.

The honest truth is I can’t forgive him for the fallout he left in my life by leaving.

He has told me awful things about my parent’s marriage, that no child should have to hear, how do you bounce back from that?

And yes I’m a Christian and yes I know I should forgive him. I’ve tried to, several times but the guilt that arises from not being able to manage such an onerous task combines with the pain of the unforgiveness.

It’s not something that I could ever accomplish by myself and thankfully I don’t have to.

The only legacy he has left me with is insecurity and this I could do without. It colours every relationship I have and causes me to second guess myself continually.

Was I too open with that person? Did I share too much? Was I too clingy or needy in that relationship? Is anything I do of any value? Did I say the wrong thing in that text or that comment? What did so and so mean by that or by this?

I hate it. I hate being an insecure person. It’s awful. 

So this is why I try not to revisit this relationship, this topic. It is what it is. It can never be changed. It can never be unhappenned( if there is such a word!)

But oh, sometimes, only sometimes, I wish it could be.

I can’t sleep….

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On a recent holiday my eldest son came into my bedroom late at night and uttered those immortal words all parents dread, “I can’t sleep”.

Whilst a myriad of unkind responses raced through my head in irritability at being awoken from sleep myself I somehow managed to bite them back and lamely said something along the lines of ” try not to worry about it, that will make it worse, just lie there and close your eyes and hopefully you’ll drift off”.

Looking somewhat sceptical and bemused he padded back to bed and left me wide awake and thinking.

My first thought was amusement. Why do children say these things and what do they think we as parents can do about these issues? Does he think I’ve got a bucket of sleepy dust under my bed I can sprinkle over wakeful teenagers?

Having  4 children and spent countless sleepless nights there have been times I would have given almost everything I owned for such a powder, so desperate was I to sleep.

But as time wore on and I pondered deeper I came to a realisation. He wasn’t only telling me he couldn’t sleep.

Being a sensitive soul, prone to some anxiety, he was telling me something was off with him.

He was feeling afraid. We were staying in an unfamiliar place and it felt strange in the darkness. His fears were magnified in the shadows. His bed felt odd, his surroundings were untested and quite simply he needed his mum. He wanted me to make him feel safe and secure, like I used to when he was a baby and I rocked him to sleep.

He’s grown a lot this year. He’s a young teenager and almost 6 foot tall. His voice has deepened and he’s not a little boy any more. 

So sometimes I miss the cues. I miss the moments when he needs me. He’s come on so well since his school anxiety and become so self reliant and independent that I forget he’s still a child. And he still needs his mum.

But now he’s older it’s different. He has different needs and we have a different relationship. 

You might think that I’m making too much of this, that maybe I should have just taken what he said at face value, instead of reading into it. But I know him. 

When he came into my room that night it was based on a feeling he was having, he wasn’t able  to articulate it so he based it on the closest thing he could think of. Not being able to sleep. And undoubtedly that was part of it but not the whole part.

Something caught in my spirit that night. I lay there and thought of all the conversations I’d had with my kids recently and wondered what other cues I had missed. 

I felt gutted to be honest which quickly seesawed into the usual motherly guilt trip. 

Parenting is hard and children don’t come with a manual and as they age their needs and issues change.

I forget that sometimes. When I am prompted to remember by situations such as that night I feel like I’m constantly playing catch up .
Love language and family dynamics change but I will strive to keep up with the times and with the children and their needs, however subtle the cues might seem.

Till next time.

Entire of itself (Island -Daily prompt).

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The poet John Donne once proclaimed”No man is an island, entire of itself”. Poetry can be a tricky thing to interpret. Is a poem meant to be read in a literal sense or is it merely symbolism to convey an idea or subject the author is pondering? We can never know for definite and that is one of the things I love about poetry and art. It is left to our subjectivity and the interpretation we choose. 

However in this case I think by reading further on Donne is merely saying that we’re not meant to live our lives alone. We’re meant to live in community with others and it’s only when we have that interaction we are truly ourselves.

The Bible speaks of us being members of one body, again portraying how necessary we are to each other and it speaks of us rubbing each other’s rough edges off”as iron sharpens iron”.

The truth is we need each other. I’ve said many times I’m an introvert. I find small talk painful. I don’t find social occasions easy. Often, even with people I know well I stand there frantically searching my mind for something to talk about.

But I try to persist because I value the people in my life, past and present, whether I have the courage to voice it or not.

I’m grateful for women who came alongside me in my lowest moments of depression. These women sat with me when I was afraid to sit alone. These women shopped for me so I didn’t have to think about what to feed my children and cooked for me too. They sat and sorted and folded my laundry pile when it was stressing me out to look at it. These women and men came up trumps the last few years when money was tight and the future looked precarious and uncertain.

Food gifts would appear on our doorsteps, money and coffee gift cards through our letterbox. They walked the walk. They showed they cared.

I’m grateful for those whose preaching I sat under, those friends who opened up the word and things of God to me, in church and in their homes. I’m grateful for the times of fellowship that went along with these times and the many people who fed our large family.

I’m grateful for the people who trusted me with duties and roles in the church and in the job world and painstakingly encouraged me the very many times I doubted myself and if I actually had anything to offer.

There were times as a teenager I felt I could die from loneliness, despite being surrounded by friends.

I felt like that island. Alone and isolated. Cut off from people and land. Left to fend for myself.

Today I live in a house populated by a small army I created myself, as the saying goes. I know every parent says it and thinks it but my kids are amazing.

All different characters, all different traits, all good at different things but all kind and helpful and loving. Don’t get me wrong, we have all the sibling rivalries and arguments and family dramas but we are a unit, a stronghold. And on the days I am seeking a little peace and a little solitude and the only place I can find it is the lavatory(normally with someone banging on the door asking if I’ve almost finished!) I reflect on the fact that I need these people. I’m not an island and I’m glad of that.
Till next time.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/island/