Life on the hill

Monday, December 19, 2016

Here's your sunglasses people

On Saturday night I went to a 30th birthday party, with a Great Gatsby theme. I needed earrings to complete my outfit, so I dared to dive into a bag of jewellery that I have been carting around for the last four years, and adding to at each frantic move that has occurred in those four years. I found a pair, and left the bags contents strewn over the floor as the Great Gatsby awaited.

I only got back to the detritus this morning. As I was looking for earrings on Saturday night there were moments of recognition of pieces that I had been given, or made, or brought, like a rapid slide show going off in my head. I had planned to scoop all the contents up and put it back in the bag, to be shoved back in the cupboard, waiting to be carted away the next time I moved house. Except, that's not what happened. I started really looking at the pieces. And remembering...back to times when I wore whatever I wanted, and someone else's approval wasn't sort after, because I really didn't care if anyone else liked it or not. I did, and that was all that mattered.

I found myself slowing down, and sorting through the debris. Oh look, there's a set of earrings! and another! beautiful, intricate, dangling earrings... why did I stop wearing them? And there's my toe ring!...I thought I had lost that...why did I stop wearing that as well? Broken necklaces and bracelets made from a myriad of crystals, thrown into the bag with the intention of fixing them. Why didn't I fix them?

As I sat on the floor, surrounded by little piles of earrings, broken necklaces and bracelets, and items I no longer wanted, I felt the very long languor that I have been occupying, lift. The shroud that has been over me for far too long, was cast aside. I felt AWAKE.

A beautiful woman died last night. She has been living with terminal bowel cancer for the last 3 years. Her light reached out and touched many of us. In her book Breakfast, School Run, Chemo she wrote "Don't die with your light inside you." Julia, here's to you. Thank you. I'm going to shine brighter then a mother fucking star.

Here's your sunglasses people. I'm no longer dimming my light for anyone.

Thanks Eden.

Skin hunger

As I struggle to find a place that is comfortable to lie in, my body aches for touch.

To feel the curve of someone behind me, safe in their embrace. Their breath on my neck, the length of their body curled around mine. The weight of their presence a comfort, easy, and secure. Their warmth and energy mingling with mine.

Instead I lay within a nest of pillows, strategically placed to offer some support and comfort, and the illusion of weight. No warmth, no energy exchange, a lone tree on a deserted island, surrounded by sea.

I had to loose my breasts

I had to loose my breasts to get the narcissist who was in my life out.

Ok, so that may be a tad dramatic.

I did have breast cancer and had to have a double mastectomy
I did have a narcissist in my life, that I was fully aware that he was one.

It wasn't until I had the mastectomy was I able to cut him completely out of my life forever and ever and ever. Just like the cancer that was in my body, the cancer that was him was cut out of my heart.

That may sound harsh. And Nasty. But remember that this is my perspective and my experience. I allowed a man, a cancer of a man, to take up residence in my heart.

I first started to research narcissistic personality disorder when I started observing and listening to the bells that were going off in my gut, about 18 months ago. Believe me. I'd ignored them for a long time. He is such a chameleon, and so good at it, it's not surprising that the bells where ignored for so long.

Even with the knowledge of who he was, with absolute certainty, I still continued to be within his presence. Like a moth to a flame.

It was my distraction. My place to run away to so I didn't have to deal with the shitful thing that was about to happen to me. I expected nothing, no promises, just the space to be in for a little while.

I'd be watching the behaviour patterns of this man for such a long time by now I knew when he withdrew, I knew that he had met someone else, I knew that he was lying to me again. I knew he would do what he inadvertently did.

What I didn't know was just how much malice and nastiness he would do it with.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't hurting. My whole entire being is fucking hurting right now.

But I'm also learning a whole lot of lessons. Because through the enforced rest and recovery I'm in right now, I have no distractions, I'm listening. And learning. And becoming.

I know that I am not the loser in the ending of this relationship. I am so much the victor. Because, unlike him, I have learnt. I have listened. I take ownership of my part in this thing, whatever it was.

He never will.

Displaced

Displaced.

That's how I'm feeling right now.

My teenage son has come back to live with me. It seems that it wasn't working out at his father's place. Who could have seen that coming...? (It was written in the fucking stars)

Where I'm currently living, there is no room for him, so he has been boarding with a friend. I thank the universe that his friends mumma bear just got it, without me having to go into minuet detail. I didn't have to fill in all the blanks.

My time where I am living is coming to end. I've been searching and applying frantically for places, so I can make a home for Nathan and I. As yet - nothing. Oh the irony that I can write and connect on the internet, but are, for all means and purposes, essentially homeless as of Wednesday. That I have an iPad, a laptop, an iPhone, a car...yet no home.

I just stood in my kitchen, clutched my hair, and yelled at the ceiling, HOW THE FUCK DID I GET HERE?

Don't worry, I know the answer to that. What I'm still working out is how the fuck do I get out of 'here'?

I am funning on blind faith. Like I have never done before. I don't have the answers, or solutions. I usually do. It's a strange land to be in, where I don't know the lay of the land. Everything is unfamiliar, strange and uncertain. I just keep looking. For a house. For a job. And sending it out there to the universe, every single second, that it's all going to be ok.

I have to. The alternative isn't an option.