Still working it out

It's funny that after 25 years we are still negotiating our own Christmas traditions. Actually, sometimes it's not funny. Sometimes it can still be a minefield. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because our memories of Christmas in our childhoods are filled with so many significant events, memories that are still precious and important and we are both sometimes unwilling to let them go. We want to recreate what was so precious to the both of us and neither of the recreations can exist in its own fullness without the deaths of some parts of the other's recreation.

I get nervous. I think maybe I am the one more willing to let mine go...locking my memories away in the box of yesteryear. They will always remain valid and real and precious, so I am content having them at rest in the memory box. Instead, I am concentrating more on the things that make it significant and memorable for my kids and participate in their creations with gusto. It seems we have two set-in-stone traditions now. The first is decorating the Tree. We put on a specific Bing Crosby CD and start decorating - I assemble the tree and put on the lights and tinsel and then everyone hangs the baubles together. We sing, we laugh, we all exclaim how quickly the year has flown, we tell jokes and reminisce about some of the decorations from over the years.

That is Tradition #1.

The other is the annual drive-around-the-streets-looking-at-the-Christmas-Lights. We did it last night in the pouring rain. We've had a lot of rain all throughout December so the house lights are a little scarce this year. Still, it was nice. We all get an attack of the sillies when driving around. I don't know why this is. Maybe the excitement that Christmas is coming. One of the kids said last night that it really feels like Christmas when we do the drive around the streets.

That is Tradition #2.

Still, there is the tension that exists between the two of us where Christmas has to be "just so". I am learning how to negotiate this time. My strategy is to just let my agendas go and concentrate on what's important to this family. I don't want my kids remembering a mother who was hell-bent on getting her own way that she forgot what was important to them. I don't know how to do "his" Christmas and I find myself feeling awfully inadequate sometimes because I simply can't provide an ample bounty of decorations, food, people coming in and out delivering well wishes and blessings. There has been times where he has been frustrated because there are things we haven't got that "every other normal family has."

Sometimes you have to just let your own memories go and work at creating new ones with the people you are with today. If you don't, you may just miss out one some of the richness that is already around you and rob others of the right to create their own traditions.

Anonymity

Anonymity....being anonymous. It is a gift. Embrace it.

Being invisible...blending in...not standing out in a crowd. Do you have any idea how much I envy you for it?

I guess a lot of people would love to have people notice them, to stand out in a crowd, to have people call out their name, to have people know who they are.

Not me. I crave being invisible. I crave blending in. I long to be just another face in the crowd, nothing different, nothing special.

I don't want random tourists to take photos. I don't want post work/school stories, "Hey honey! Guess what I saw today!"

I don't want blogs to be written about me...

Not that this one is about me, but you get the picture.....

There! It's out there now.

The Pact

He and I seem to have this pact.
Do not acknowledge each other.
Under any circumstance.
I don't know why this is. It's stupid really. We even live in the same neighbourhood; around the corner in fact.  We went to the same church. We went to the same school for a while.
We went out....but when I say we went out, I mean we went to see Ghostbusters together. He asked me if I'd like to go to the movies. I said yes. We went.
We didn't "go out" in "that" sense.
After the movies he called me. Asked me out again. Asked me if I wanted to go to someone's birthday. I wasn't sure. It was all just too weird for my liking.
He went away...enlisted in the Navy. He'd write to me. I'd write to him. In letters I was able to tell him things I couldn't say to his face. I've always been like that. The written word is easier. I also hate the phone. Please send me an email instead of calling me.
See, at the time I was seeing someone else. I felt comfortable with the guy I was seeing. He was just like me. It was easy to believe that I was accepted if the guy I was seeing was just like me.
But this guy...he was.....normal (for want of a better word)......and I had always been led to believe that if a "normal" guy showed an interest in me then his motives should be questioned.
Question him I did.
He was kind of pissed off I think...that I was suspicious of his motives. He pretty much indicated that I was the one who had the problem with my difference, not him.
On reflection, and with the passage of time, I can see he had a valid point.
One day a letter arrived from him. A letter that contained photographs of him in his navy uniform.
That was the letter I never answered. It was all too much. You don't send photos of yourself to a girl if you don't have some kind of interest. It freaked me out.
Since then we have never spoken.
We seem to have this unspoken pact.
Do not acknowledge each other.
Under any circumstance.

Gallantry?

It was dark. She had been away all day...going to a destination she had never been before. It meant two trains, a bus and doing it all again in reverse to come home again. Her mobile phone was out of battery charge. She called from a public phone, "I'll be at the station at 9:23pm," she said. "Can you come and pick me up?"

Of course I would pick her up. Being stranded at that station at that time of the night was a dangerous situation to be in.

I managed to get to the station just as the train was pulling in. I watched from the station house as she was helped off the train and get into the glass lift that would get her off the platform. I was nervous too. A gang of young men were loitering in the station.

Finally we were together and we made our way to the car, talking loudly to keep the nervousness at bay.

I noticed we were being followed by a lone figure.

We continued talking, but walked at a slightly quicker pace.

Just as we drew up to our car I heard a deep voice behind us.

"Hello."

My heartbeat quickened. I reached for my car keys.

"Do you ladies need some company?"

No thank you. We're fine.

He continued walking.

We breathed a sigh of relief.

The sad thing is that maybe he was concerned that there were two women walking in the dark near the train station. Maybe he had concerns for our safety. Maybe he wanted to accompany us to our destination to make sure we reached it without mishap.

We will never know because we had already reached the sanctuary of the car and we needed to go no further.

I think it's sad that we as human beings have a tendency to suspect the worst in a stranger in an unfamiliar and scary situation. He really could have been a protector.

However what if we did have a little further to go and we did allow him to accompany us and the worst did happen?

We will never know.

I do like to think he was being gallant....but that's easy to think from the safety of my computer chair.....

Familiarity

The Kids Hospital has been like a second home. As much as we've hated it sometimes, it became a place of familiarity and comfort. Sometimes I'd forget that my child was amongst the countless thousands of faces the specialists would see because most of the team looking after us treated us with care, dignity and respect. We'd have our jokes together and laugh, despite some of the serious issues we all had to face together. Maybe that's what drew us all closer somehow. Sharing in traumatic experiences, even with surgeons, can draw people closer.

Over 25 years we come to know "The Kids" like the back of our hand. We knew where most things were. We knew our way around. We knew where to get a good coffee, where we were welcomed to come in and say hi and have a chat even if we didn't have an appointment. We knew where to go when we needed respite from sitting by bedsides, where we would meet new parents embarking on the same journey. As much as we sometimes hated going there, it became a sanctuary.

However, now we have had to move on. Most of them are no longer children. I only have one now who will visit those familiar halls and rooms. The others have moved into the world of the adult clinic at a completely different hospital. Today we had our first visit. It was unfamiliar, disconcerting. We didn't walk through the halls with confidence. She was unsure, I was unsure. Next week we will meet with the specialist there. Interestingly enough, he is someone we knew from "The Kids". He has an adult clinic at this new hospital. Knowing that is a relief. We won't be embarking on a whole new journey. There will be someone there who is familiar, who will help her with this transition into the adult medical world.

One day these new halls will be familiar. One day we will go there and feel safe. One day we will greet familiar faces, know where things are and where to go to get good coffee.

I'm kind of looking forward to that day.

Stumbling

Neglected little blogspot this is.

Stumbling about in the dark is never fun. Stumbling about in an uncharted dark place is even less fun. As of today I have turned back towards the light of a place I don't particularly want to be in but there seems to be no alternative. The small sanctuary I found actually belongs to someone else and I can't stay there. I wish I could...even though it was unfamiliar and strange and I wasn't sure of the boundaries...but it was a place to escape to and explore this new, dark, uncharted terrain and start drawing up my own maps.

The Lioness

When does the lioness instinct of a mother fade away?

Sometimes I wish it would.

When does the urge to protect them from physical, emotional and mental harm become less and you just let them fight their own battles, self soothe and move on?

Things happen to my kids....some small things that I can talk them through, let them work it out and move on. Then there are the bigger things that wake the lioness in me and I just want to roar and hit out and go into the battleground and fight for them, protect them, keep them safe from harm and damage.

I also recognise with these bigger things that happen there is an element that awakens my own pain...things that have happened to me where I never took the opportunity to fight back....or where no one stood in the gap for me and fought for my cause - where someone who was supposed to be a friend stood there and laughed along with the bullies, or a parent didn't step in and bring a situation up with teachers.

I at least want my children to know that their pain mattered to their mother.

But sometimes, in the midst of their pain, they say to me, "Let me handle this Mum." and I have to back off and let them work out their own solution. It doesn't stop the lioness roaring from the sidelines, wanting to leap in and rip and kill and maim with cutting words.

She hurts today.

I hurt for her today.