REASONS TO BLOG

SOMETIMES my life goes OFF SCALE mad. It has not been easy of late. I have split up with Builder Bloke but of course because his children and my children are step brothers and sisters there will continue to be a link. I keep hearing things. There is no escape. I have had various child issues to deal with, my father’s death anniversary, my teenage son and his unexpected gap year, coping with my mother AND NOW my cat drops dead. Literally. God. It’s all happening in our house. I have been worried about why the cat simply dropped dead. Poison? He was stressed again and my children were once again blaming my mother visiting us. “He always gets cystitis when Grandma’s here” and so I thought it best to ask for a report on his death. Just so there would be no recriminations or blame down the line about it being anybody’s fault. The vet rang me this morning and told me that he had something called “Cardiomyopathy” and therefore his heart just stopped. Dead. Nothing we could do. No way we could have known. No suffering for him. It doesn’t make it easier in the short term but it will down the line. My children are still in shock, but they have the closure required to accept his death in time. My daughter has suggested that I get his name tattooed on my arse. Does she want me to be single for the rest of my life??? CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT A TURN OFF THAT WOULD BE? Mad cat woman. Stay well away.

Every so often – and usually when I am in need of a reminder as to why I blog (LIKE RIGHT NOW) a comment arrives that blows me away. Something profound in some way shape or form. From somebody going through a trauma of some description (usually divorce or separation) who has found something that I have written to be helpful.

I’m going to reprint her words here because it hit a raw nerve for me – about why I write, but actually the quote from Rilke rings true for many of us who are looking and searching for advice and answers at the moment (I think Lady GaGa might have this quote tattooed on her forearm – which presumably wasn’t the name of her dead cat). All too often (and it took me a very long time to understand this) you know the answers yourself. You know what you want and what you have to do. Look into yourself. You are the one who knows you best. Follow your instincts. Sit. Be quiet. Find a place for a moment to sort out what your priorities are. What you are prepared to put up with. What is unacceptable. Find. Your. Own. Peace. Respect yourself and your decisions and whilst things won’t necessarily be easier you will be stronger. Sorry, sermon over – here is what she said:-

“I want to thank you for your blogs. I am early in the process of my divorce, and though the decision to divorce was mine, and I do not regret it, it makes the road ahead no easier. In fact, as the instigator, I am an easy target, and subject of speculation. I refuse to explain the reasons for my decision to others, because doing so would dishonour my children’s father, and is unlikely to truly convince anyone anyhow. If my reasons are valid and true, I expect time will reveal them to others as well – small consolation right now, though.

I needed Anne Hill’s advice – I had felt crazy, and much of it (too much) was already very true. I do need to get up every day and face my dragons as my pyjamas and reasons not to shower first thing in the day on the days I’m not working has become more and more appealing – though harder and harder to justify. And your other blogs, which I have only just discovered, provide much therapeutic relief and cathartic laughter.…things that may not always seem funny, but ring so true, you just have to laugh –relieved I am not the first to have thought the same things.

As to your brother’s mentioning that your blogs have been a bit dull lately (a statement that, as a newly single mother of an 11 and 14 year old, I wholly disagree with), I thought of Rilke, and his advice in “Letters to a Young Poet”–advice I think applies to more than just writing:

“You ask whether your verses are any good. You ask me. You have asked others before this. You send them to magazines. You compare them with other poems, and you are upset when certain editors reject your work. Now (since you have said you want my advice) I beg you to stop doing that sort of thing. You are looking outside, and that is what you should most avoid right now. No one can advise or help you – no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must”, then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.”

This is an awful time for opinions and advice-giving–as though there is a right way to go about divorce, or as though anyone but you knows what it is like to be you. But I suspect, that like me, you feel the urge to write it out just the same–that just speaking it is cathartic and makes you feel less insane…For myself, I recently chose a confidant to whom I have expressed these fears and feelings. Unfortunately, my newfound confidant, despite their care and concern for me, is not as fond of verbal expression, and my long heart cries often elicit blunt one liners–many of which do not even touch the heart of the matter. There is a need to be heard, to be understood–I do not want advice, but then I Google “how to survive divorce”. I do not feel the least bit sociable, but then cling to the first person to share genuine care and concern. I am a living anomaly, and do not know how to go about this new life, almost frozen into inaction with fear, while my two children look to me for direction and strength…

Okay, I digress. All to say, thank you, and please, don’t give up blogging”.

Thank you lovely anonymous stranger for your comment. I wish you well in your journey. It is most certainly reassuring to know there are a lot of us out there each searching for answers.