Motherhood & The Things We Take For Granted - Weekend Grateful

I believe everything happens for a reason.

The painful implosion of a friendship - necessary to give you much needed space to realise how toxic it was in the first place.

The financial struggles of day to day life - required so when these times ease you appreciate it so much more.

The agony of loss - to remember the joy of having them in your life at all.

The fear of a mother. A reminder to make you realise the importance of appreciating what you still have, not drowning in what you have lost.

This Sunday is Mother's Day here in Australia. A day to celebrate the joy of motherhood, to spoil those that deserve it. It should be at least once a month as far as I am concerned. Why? Because we Mums are absolutely fricken awesome! Because we Mums are NEVER off duty. Because we Mums support our children unconditionally and are ourselves the last to be supported in a lot of situations.

This Sunday is my first Mother's Day without my

 Wise Woman. 

You can imagine how I have been feeling about that one.  As the date approached I felt physically ill at the thought of being without her, and asked Big Boy to please arrange for us to be away from here for the day. I could not bear to think of being home on this day without her.

Now, as I said I believe things happen for a reason. I also believe my beautiful mother is somewhere using her strength, persuasiveness and sheer obstinance to continue to look out for me and my family. Things have happened since she left this world, things that have no other explanation than her pulling out the big guns, and I continually feel her love and strength protecting and supporting me.

My Mum. The only person on this earth who could keep me in line, the only one to calm my raging anger, the sane voice of reason when I was threatening dire retribution to any who crossed me, the one who pulled me into line and made me look at things from a more realistic and logical direction.

The centre of our family - October 1996

This week I had a very sick child. My second son. I won't go into details, suffice to say he had the medical profession and his parents totally baffled. And scared. Terrified in fact.

Obviously, after nearly a week, he is on the road to recovery. I would not be posting otherwise.

We still have no idea what this was, but I am so incredibly grateful he is getting better. And somewhere in the back of my mind is the thought that maybe it was a Wise Woman kick up the proverbial... A reminder to make you realise the importance of appreciating what you still have, not drowning in what you have lost.

Thanks Mum. I am now looking forward to tomorrow without any shadows. Well, maybe only a little one, but you wouldn't expect me not to miss you at all, would you...
 
 
This is my Weekend Grateful.




 
 
 

Power and the Passion... Otherwise Known as Passionate or Piss-Weak?

Discussing recent and not so recent events with an old friend evolved into an interesting discussion on personalities. The discussion went something like this:

OGF(Old Good Friend): "You need to realise you are a strong, passionate, highly capable women. And because you are honest and out there you invoke a strong reaction in others."
MM: "You mean I'm a demanding, confrontational bitch who scares the shit out of people!" *nervous titter*
OGF: "Oh, get off the self-pity wagon, that is not what I said at all. Look, we've been friends for over 25 years and I've watched the people around you, and you do, you inspire a lot of people to want to be like you. And because of that jealousy and envy enter into the equation."
MM: "Come on, who the hell would want my life? Look at it, it ain't exactly a bed of roses."
OGF: "Listen to me, it is NOT your life they want, it is the passion with which you live it, and the strength you fight adversity with."
MM: "Yeah right, how many times have you seen me fall into a sobbing mess on the floor?"
OGF: "I know that, and you know that, but there are many out there who do not. And even those that do, see you pick yourself up and keep on going. All close to you realise you are not this hard-arse some think you are, and are a real softy on the inside. But I am saying those who look at you with this type of obsession see only the vibrant, out-there persona and want to emanate you, and when they cannot then those strong feelings make them want to destroy you, make you feel failure like they do."
MM: "Well, they nearly succeeded this time. You mean those who do not make or are ejected from the inner sanctum wish to demolish it."
OGF: "Yeah."
MM: "Wow. Deep. Fringe dwellers?"
OGF: *laughing* "Yeah. Fringe dwellers."

Now there was a lot more to this conversation obviously, and it was made clear that the FD's OGF referred to were the wounded puppies/nutter types I tend to pick up along the way. Those who are insecure and unhappy with who they are, and feel the need to either become someone else or bitch about those who do change their lives whilst they wallow happily in their self pitying poor me attitudes. Jealousy, pure and simple.


 So, I guess my question to all of you out there is this. When you are no longer how do you want to be remembered? As a passionate, somewhat controversial person, about whom conversations still revolve over time (I know I have dearly missed friends who still provoke the "Remember when she/he..." type comments), or do you want to rate the "Yeah, she/he was nice wasn't she/he..." quiet compliment?

Irrational

I am sitting here, sobbing my eyes out after watching a comedy: The Boat That Rocked. The boat sank and they were alone. I am alone.

Irrational, I know, but right now in the dark, lonely place I lurk, it is entirely logical to me. I give friendship easily, I love to envelope, nurture, hold, feel. Trust is slower. Trust is deeper. So when not once, but twice it is hurled back into my face as ME betraying them, it hurts. I NEVER, even after someone cuts me to the heart, will betray their trust. It is not the way I work. But I hate it.

I hate the paranoia it creates, I hate the lying, the games, the way I question EVERYTHING in my life. And at this point, I am so scared if what is happening to me is serious, I hate the way the people who were meant to be there for my kids will let them down the way they have let me down, and will shape them.

Oh God, my oldest has come so far, I want him to have the emotional, nuturing, mummy parachute that maybe I will not provide. I am probably being stupid. But know that people who are supposedly friends in my life do not believe that the test results show nothing and yet I throw up blood. But both my children and my husband have witnessed it. Fuck. Maybe I am the internal Jesus. I so wanted it to be an ulcer. I want answers.

Dear God, why do they not see?

I am always the strong one for them - do they not see my Achilles heel? I hate people sometimes.