#180.21 - Beauty and sadness

This morning I woke up and I felt very sad. Because of the madness of course. I had a terrible night. I dreamt I was in some place which was dark and it smelt and I was trying my best to get the boys to a safe place. But at the same time it was awful the nightmare of the betrayal and the failure hounded me. I kept on trying to turn and run but everytime i found myself back in the same place. Trapped by a man who wasn't really a man. Was never really a man. A festering sore, a wound which i can now see only used people to make himself feel better.

As the layers peel away and away and away it is clear that there is no centre of goodness there. There is no integrity, no dignity, no thought of anyone but himself. I woke relieved but the echo of the dream even now as I write at 4 in the afternoon haunts me. I tried doing the Irish lessons in the morning a routine I have come to enjoy and all the time I was crying. I get the simplest pronouns wrong and I teared. They seeped. I was not crying, just oozing. The sadness and disappointment was oozing from me - I was overflowing and I could not stop. 

I kept at it, the Irish even if it was not working... somehow the repetition was therapeutic. After that I cleaned the house. the boys' room... seeing them sleeping there just brought me such a deep delight. A peace in the stillness of the breaking day. And then i began with the living room and then upstairs. This is the house my mother put over me to protect me from the kudin. My mother, my mother who has sheltered me with her boy and who still does that. 

I think it was the blankets - that he could take the blankies which my mother than corcheted for the boys, sewn for them and used them. That was the hardest thing ever. That really hit home. That really made it even worse. He is not a man. He is also not my problem ... soon. 

I continued cleaning. I found wonderful things. An event I organised at the Crescent Arts Centre just before I left. Letters of thanks. I found a reel cable and a collapsing plug and put it into the case with my speaker. I organised piles. Did the laundry. These simple things which tie me to the place.

I think of the house I lived in how it would break my heart when I looked after it. I was the only one looking after it. The boys were too small and Peter did not care. He never cared and he still never cared. At least here, here I created my own kingdom. It is a bourgeois idea... but at the same time not. Not at all. I cannot be crying away when people are homeless and miserable. I literally have no right. I live in the most perfect surroundings. I cannot be crying. I must grow up.

So, I gathered everything and got it together and I cleared the messes up. One step at a time and I must keep expecting the left hook. The jab. The poke in the eye. The constant confusion. Always. The confusion. But from today onwards, here is my plan.

To do a bit of everything every day and leave the evenings free to enjoy with the boys. And really enjoy them. That is what is going to be put front and centre of everything. Enjoy everything. In that spirit... I will be writing an installment everyday called the world's funniest man.

Today's installment is:

He told the boys he was cycling over on his bike. We don't know why they said.

And when he gets here what are you all going to do?

We don't know.

Ok. I said.

An hour later he rolled up... in his car. 

There is something about men which prevents them from aging gracefully. What they wouldn't do to pretend they still had youth. Why would you want that I ask? I enjoyed my youth thoroughly. I did many wonderful things. I made a tonne of mistakes. I didn't care. I was happy. I pushed the boundaries. I didn't pretend I was anything other than someone who was trying to ask questions of all of life...

And then I had my children and i found another set of boundaries to push. And then I became 50. And so many things became clear.