Without compromise

Dear Lynn

Two weeks ago I asked J for a separation.  I wrote a post about it on Beauty which he tracked down and asked me to remove.

And then you wrote here and a light went on.  I do find it so very useful to write out how I am feeling and you reaching out across the miles to let me know how you are feeling was so very special and reminded me that we have created a space to explore what it feels like to be in our late forties (and to write very long sentences).

This separation is very important to me.  J has done everything to make up for what he did but I have not been able to resolve the hurt and damage.  Last night I realised that it is only now that I feel confident that he can care for the kids properly.   Three years ago he was still so unwell that I could never have left them with him with confidence.  Now he is much better, on good medication and in good hands with the therapist he is seeing.  That means that finally I can achieve some space,

I need as much space as I can get to get better.  The connection runs too deep to say that this separation is permanent.  I need, though, to have some peace and quiet to recover and mend myself.

I am scared yet strangely calm.  I want to live an uncompromised life.

Some things change, some stay the same.  When we moved to Sydney I met with a dietician and have lost 13 kilos in the last three months.

As I write this though my chin is actively producing more hair and I have a pimple on my upper lip.

I so want to be able to turn 50 next year and be a strong, wise, happy woman.  Serene.  (without pimples - the chin hair seems to be determined to persist).

Much love to you

Mary

The Ugly Truth

(photo by my seven-year-old)

Dear Mary,

When I envisioned this project, I had all sorts of ideas about showing how juicy late-40s women can be.  It was going to be sort of an "In your FACE, popular cultural views of mid-life women!"  And then life happened.  Boy, did it ever.  And I have never felt more un-juicy.  Desiccated is more like it.  (Interesting: when I looked up "desiccated" just now to make sure it was spelled as weirdly as I'd remembered, one of the definitions was "lacking interest, passion or energy."  Yup!)

My father is in a nursing home; the dementia is getting worse.  I haven't been over to give him a backrub in a couple of weeks because my mother spontaneously sold her house and moved to an apartment, and it is up to my sister and me to pack/move, distribute or discard her belongings, and to remind her to do things like eat.

I try not to be resentful about the timing of this enterprise, coming as it does at a time when I am trying to plan a big trip (the fresh-new-start trip meant to repair some of the damage of all of the traumatic events of the past few years -- ha!).  But the resentment is there.  Along with an astonishing array of other emotions.  Grief, mostly.  And lots of anger.  I have become a rage-prone person, which you would find dumbfoundingly bizarre if you had known me all my life.  I was the sanguine child, not the choleric one.  The child who, when banished to her room, could conjure nothing more fiery than pictures of people sticking out their tongues (it was my sister who would kick the walls and hurl all of her toys out into the hall).

But I soldier on.  I see my holistic health practitioner, pop handfuls of supplements meant to heal my thyroid and adrenals, eat a ridiculously clean diet (but treat myself to a cup of coffee most days, because it's a cheap and enjoyable antidepressant), hug my children, exchange bad-tempered but humorous text messages with my sister, fill my house with roses from my garden, and play a whole lot of digital Scrabble.  And I live in hope that even though things seem to be getting worse, they are just bound to get better eventually.  Right?

Much love,
Your Little Mess of a Friend

Neglect

Dear Lynn ( and dear neglected blog)

Not even a photo.  I do so love this space though, even empty.

So here I am.  My chin still sprouts ever more hair.  I still have heart burn.  I still have weight to lose.

I get so passionate about things I ought to do, and start off well.  And then it all goes to hell in a handbasket.  Or whatever that saying is.

All of my blogs are much neglected.  The people I love to write about do not see a lot of me.  Even my photography has been neglected other than for major occasions where I have been paid to do the work.

I guess I am living my life.  It is a very quiet life which is driven mostly by the needs of the kids.  J and I continue to work away at our marriage - in a very quiet kind of way.  Which is OK with me after all the drama of the past few years.  I was in such a hurry to get engaged/married and now I feel like we are slowly building a friendship with stronger foundations.  I heard a local comedian say recently that we should only get married after being together 20 years - that we have it all the wrong way round.  In our case we were only together four months before we got engaged and whilst it felt fantastic at the time I think we could have done with waiting to get married for 20 years.

And have I mentioned the cross roads thing.  I hope I have a good 30 or more years left in me.  Yet what shall I do with them.  I know my own mother went into a clinical depression over questions like these. Whilst I know that won't happen to me I am left wondering - what to do, what to do.

Give back is the answer I keep coming up with.

love to you

Mary

Sandwiched

Dear Mary,

I am feeling downright peanut butter-ish lately.  Or maybe a dollop of Nutella would be more like it.  In any case, I have become a card-carrying member of the Sandwich Generation, with my children being one slice of bread and my ailing parents the other.  And as much as I would like to ooze out from between both at the moment, it is not to be.

So I lower my parenting standards (I was always kind of curious about unschooling anyway, and maybe the old Scooby Doo episodes won't warp my five-year-old's brain too much).  I luxuriate in a little self-indulgence (I'm taking an online self-portrait course; if you promise not to laugh too much, here's my collection so far).  And you'd better believe that I'm getting pretty good at living in the moment (because it beats reliving a month of hospital visits and nursing home conversations, and anticipating crises to come).

Until next time...

xoxoxo
Lynn

Fat Fat the water rat

Dear Lynn

To say I was devastated when I got on the scales last week is an understatement.

One hundred and one kilos or 220 pounds.  Never ever ever did I expect to get to that weight.

Ever.

I want to live for another forty years.  Not fifty. Forty will do.  I want to kiss my children a billion more times. I want to continue to nurture the very gentle tentative new relationship I have with my husband.  I want to take better and better photographs.  Laugh with my friends for so much longer.

And so, yet again, I begin to monitor my food, my exercise and have booked to see a herbalist.

I have done this before.  This time though I am so angry with myself that there is a ferocity in my determination to achieve some weight loss.

Fuckity bugger.

Love to you 

Mary

Heartburn

Dear Lynn

Just wanted to let you know that I am still here - that my heart burns for you as you look after your mum

and that I am , in fact , literally suffering from heartburn, indigestion, reflux -  I believe that it is quite common at our age but it is utterly repulsive.

And that I am now 6 weeks off the fags ...

which I thought would help me with the heartburn.. but it has not..

I suspect a lot less sugar in my diet and a lot more exercise is probably the key.

Bugger it.

xxxx

Mary

bathroom toys

Hello my friend

I am still here but I know you and I have been dealing with all the stuff that life throws you in the last couple of months.

This post has been on my mind for a while....and whilst the photo is a bad one taken with my phone, the memories it conjures up are not.

These are the last of the bathroom toys that I cannot bear to throw out just yet.  On the rare occasion that Margot has a bath now instead of a shower, I will still hear her playing with them.  The noises she makes, the stories she tells, the songs she sings whilst taking a long bath, these bath toys are the last vestiges of toddlerdom left in my home  (other than for favourite soft toys).

Margot is the youngest of my three and at eight years of age, she still, thankfully, remains an innocent in many ways.

When I drop her off at school I consciously imprint on my memory bank the image of her , blonde haired, back pack carrying, sometimes murmuring away to herself as she walks in the school gate.

Because one thing is for sure- at 47 the years are truly whipping past at a tremendous rate.

Love

Mary