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