It's come and gone all my life and I have no idea if it's endogenous, or the result of an unremarkable but not very pleasant childhood, or both, or something else. There's definitely a very melancholic gene in this family.
Moving to another country was always going to be risky. You leave behind family and long friendships and the framework of your life in which it is more or less accepted who you are, and you come to a place where nobody knows you. Everything depends on who you are today. Over time it becomes clear that some old friendships are not going to stand the separation. I believe that there are people I will never see again, and it feels like they died.
Removed from the framework of all that is usual and normal and accepted, life does snake-like things. The Doctor said that rather than being linear, time is "more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly...timey-wimey...stuff". I couldn't have put it better myself. Things that happened 40 years ago feel suddenly as fresh as if they are happening now.
Should it really still hurt this much, stuff that happened then? Should it still feel like there is a size 12 boot on my face (that looks like his face, and makes me want to claw it off every day) making sure I do not try to be ok? God knows. I'm going to have to work through this one, because these are not good days.
When I was about 7, I hid in a cupboard, intending to jump out and surprise my father as he was coming home from work. He knew I was inside and locked the door, leaving me trapped in the darkness. Some 40 years later, when the memory resurfaced and I told it to someone, I physically recoiled as though drawing back in horror. Yes, painful memories can be hurtful years later. But, guess what, memories of love and joy and warm acceptance can also wrap themselves around us. I pray that, like me, you have been blessed with more of those kinds of memories.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds utterly terrifying. Why would someone do that?
ReplyDeleteThe warmth and love and stuff for me did not really start until I became a mother. I certainly have been blessed in that respect.
I'd guess it's a mixture of things Jane. Your earlier days, some of which I know and were not good, but also what's happening now. Good though some of it is, there's also a lot of loss (people who have "died")and maybe you're grieving. And now a place where nobody knows you; I'd find that sooo hard.
ReplyDeleteSadly, experiences from our earliest days can last a moment but their legacy last years or forever. Check out the plastic brain theory. People eh.....what are we like?!
I don't always agree with your learned (not meant sarcastically) opinion, Ged, but on this occasion I think you might have hit on something. It does feel a lot like grieving - for all sorts of things, and for people, and for bits of me that were well established but seem not to exist now, and for things that never were and can never be.
ReplyDeleteSo yes, eh, what ARE WE LIKE, eh? Eh? (Was that a good Liverpudlian impression?)
haha yes, very good impression.
ReplyDeleteAnd remember, grieving is a process, and it ends. xx
I find it horrible frustrating that the sad, bad memories are often the ones that stick in my mind and insist on resurfacing. They grab me, unawares, in a way that the happy memories don't. The happy ones are too soft are fleeting and warm, but the unhappy ones take my breath away.
ReplyDeleteand I completely agree with The Doctor.