I have cried so hard this morning. With something I can't name. I think it's a mixture of fear and relief. My eyes ache now like they used to in May and June and July.
You weigh 42.8 kilos - the most since the getting better began. I looked at the readout on the scales at the clinic yesterday and felt a small jolt of happiness. But I've seen the changes in you over the last couple of weeks and I know you're getting better - I don't cling so desperately to the numbers on the scales any more - don't look to them for reassurance and hope or for confirmation of my hateful fears. So I didn't feel my stomach flipping or that swaying feeling of deliverance.
It was almost as if I expected it. Your eating is stable. Your rage is contained. Your madness is managed. So you follow the expected course of recovery as you have done every step of the way. But now I feel limp with - I don't know what. I want to call it relief but it feels too empty and dark for that. It's as if all these months, a huge part of me has been on hold.
And now I am disintegrating - because I can. It won't kill you. It won't take something essential from you: you are healing yourself slowly and don't need my hawkeyed love and support now. I can fall apart. I can sink into my disintegration and the fallout won't be catastrophic. My hands are off the wheel now and we're not going to crash. I worry I might though - all on my own. I look in the mirror and realise I have stopped caring about what I look like - the lines and dark circles and the grey hairs that have grown with such alacrity this half a year are just there now - forever. They are unremarkable to me and that in itself is indicative of how deep I am in the this hollow place. I'm all a bit fragmented and loose in my soul and don't know how to put myself back together. Sighing and crying won't do it.
I feel so sorry for us. So sad and wretched that we had to go through this. It breaks my heart for us. I want my mother to hold me and comfort me and help me and tell me it's ok. But she has never done that for me - has never seemed able to reach out to me like that and nurture me. I've always managed without her. But right now I could so do with her telling me how wonderful and strong and brave I have been - that I have helped Grace and that I have been a good mother. She doesn't seem to have the wherewithal for that. But I am all Mothered out and need one for myself. I feel sad for me. I am so weary. Tired to my bones and as if my heart has been shattered. I want to leave this all behind now.
But I'm too scared to succumb. You might need me again. So today's self-indulgence will have to be just that - for today. A small peeping out of the real, broken me.
Is this my life now?
2 comments:
Hello, dear one. (Yes, I have a look on your blog every day to see if you've posted anything new!)
I was kind of expecting this. How you would be when the state of emergency stopped. Not so soon, maybe - and I'm delighted that Grace is better enough for you to have arrived at this point already.
I remember doing first aid at a dreadful road accident. How I was the personification of calm authority through all the bleeding and screaming and terrifying split-second decisions, and when the last person was loaded into an ambulance and the adrenaline drained away, sinking down and being utterly unable to get up. I wonder if it's like that... but magnified and spread over 6 months. My god. My dear friend.
All the things you wish your mum would say to you are true. I know it's not me you need to hear saying that, but for what it's worth, they are. You have been AMAZING. I can't find the words for how much your courage and insight and selflessness has moved me. You have done this brilliantly.
I think it's ok to be broken after such an experience as you've had. It would be odd if you weren't. I feel honoured to see you fragile, if only in writing, and I'm sending you as much tenderness as feels good to you (which I'm well aware may be none at all!)
Knowing you, I promise - and I only ever use that word as seriously as you do - that you will mend. Maybe it will take a while, if some pieces have been taken away and new ones added, and everything has to be reassembled in a new shape.
You are beautiful, by the way. I hope the grey hairs, etc, never bother you any more than they do now, even when you have the energy to care. You are so lovely to look at.
Sending love and my best thoughts,
Maia
No matter how many times I read what you have written, I always come away feeling very humble and emotional. This entry has made me feel so very sad for you. Sad in that you are not able to get the nurturing you need right now from your mother after giving your all (and more) to Grace. Sad that you cannot be held and told that you are an amazing, loving, giving, supportive mother by your own mother. I can and will tell you that you are all of those, so will your friends, but I know it does not have the same effect.
Where there is sadness, there is joy. Joy in that Grace is healing. Still, slowly, but she is getting there and that is so wonderful to see and hear. In the past month I have seen the difference in her. She looks so much better; there is light and laughter in her eyes. Her humour and wit is sharp. What a wonderful woman she is turning into. She would not be as she is now or got as far as this without you, Bec. All you have done for the past months and as together as mother and daughter are beginning to show. What a wonderful, strong and brave mother you are.
You can be self-indulgent for more than one day. The tide is turning slowly your love and support will never diminish. Your eyes will never move far away from Grace. Not yet. You can start to take your hands off the wheel we won’t let you crash and you won’t be on your own. The inner strength and broken heart will mend and in time, all will come back to normal. Those that know and love you will be there for you.
Love is a powerful word and emotion. I have never seen so much love between a mother and daughter. This has got you both through this long haul and it will see you to the end and beyond. Where there is love there is hope. You have both proved this, it might have been very tough but there is a light at the end of that tunnel.
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