31.10.24 - Oíche Shamna

It has been a truly peaceful mid term break. Yesterday the boys were over and we had a lovely feast followed by a session of pumpkin carving where Ghin made and Oisin carved a pumpkin and turnip lantern. One each for good measure.

Over the past three days we've cleared the yards - front and back and organised the gardening tools. You have everything to start a landscaping business said Ghin. It's true, I said. I have no excuse to not have a nice garden. I know how to garden and I have every tool I need. I have no excuse to not have a beautiful garden. Apart from being very lazy.

But I did the edging in the front garden, cleared the weeds in the yard, the leaves and then we started on the backyard. It felt very satisfying. So much deadwood was cleared. I am utterly happy.

My children are now young men. I said to them, it's so nice now since I carved most of the pumpkins myself. They said, Awww... I said yeah cos you'd all lose interest halfway and I'd have to complete it. Also you all were too young to use knives. It was a very lonely time. And ironically it is no longer lonely. I love being on my own. Being with someone else who refuses to come into the relationship is like - what is it like? It's like waiting for something which will never come. And what's worse is that person is purposely putting you in that position out of a power thing.

And I am realising one more thing. REALLY realising it. That it was part of the sadism. He was truly an awful man. Truly. And all of this trying to convince everyone he's the good guy now. That's how you can tell that you weren't the things which he says you were - because you are not trying to convince everyone else that you are a good person. There is no performance in my life. I don't go around saying see what a good girl am I by doing Pay it forward coffees, attending events which are about things you don't really care about, only being there now that the children are aware you are present or not while all the hard work took place in silence - the hard work which mothers all over the planet do in silence, making sure that children are safeguarded as they grow.

It is actually worse than I could possibly imagine. The truth is that he was much worse than I could possibly imagine. And I do not know how I stuck with it for so very long. I do not know.

I have been writing a short story every day for the past two weeks. I only began on the the 18th and I have now written 9 stories in long hand. In 13 days I have written 9 stories. That's 4 days of no story writing. Because it was the weekend. This is my writing process.

I get up and make a cup of coffee then as the water is boiling, I light the candle and smudge myself with sage and rainforest incense. I still have no idea what it's called the resin of what tree? It was a gift from the spirits of the forest. I draw a goddess card and if I don't know anything about the goddess I google her and read about what she is about. Then I get the coffee, go back into the living room, fill my pen, and do the journaling entry to get me started and then I start to write, based on something inspired by the goddess. And the thing that was the most important for me was - I allow myself the shitty first draft. And I punch through the boundary of the shitty first draft. And as I do that the story arrives. The character comes alive. This person who mediated in a church yard, the woman who has glass skin, the eternal traveler in the Gaza war, trapped forever in the cycles of violence, the alcoholic who encounters a very short migrant, they all arrive and they just let me tell their story. How come it is only now I have been able to do this? I have been so afraid that I will not be able to ever write again and now stories just pour out of me. Because I am in the Good Place. I no longer doubt myself.

And another thing. My wrists are almost back to where they were before the injury. I still need to strengthen them, but they are nowhere near what they were in the previous month. After I received my new heart... I have felt restored. 

I did drink on Friday and instantly regretted it the weekend. Which is why I didn't write. The drinking keeps the writing away. I was drinking for other reasons. I could not have written because I was surviving. I was being a mother. I am going to acknowledge that work. My mother saw me. My friends saw me - we saw each other, all in the trenches together with largely absent husbands. Is it the cross which we must bear, the women of our generation - having to have done everything - from raising children to working our own jobs and only now, now we are allowed to finally be ourselves.

At least the jobs I worked in were jobs which I did love. Well - for the past 20 years that was the case. Before that, it was a rough start. Even if it did teach me discipline.

So here I am. I survived. Under her aegis. Under her love. Under her protection, all these years.

Of all the amazing things which have taken place over the past year, this unstoppable fountain of writing has been the best thing.

I sit down and I just WRITE. It is all in there. It is all fucking in there. I am downloading like crazy. It is not the empty place. It is the joyful place. So glad my wrists still work. And now I know that it is either drinking or writing. And I know which I choose. Writing, writing, all the time. That is my truth.

Today I write my last journal entry in the book I began on the 11th of February this year. It took me six months to use up half the book and only 13 days to complete the second half. It's completely mad. With 9 incredible stories.

I will continue downloading stories for the next two weeks and then type them up and rewrite them. It will be my November project. I feel so incredibly lucky now. So incredibly lucky. So thankful it has finally arrived.

When I think of the stumbling blocks he put in my way, he was truly truly truly a horrible person. A truly awful cruel, rabidly jealous, selfish, self centred, user - most of all he used people. I used to feel sorry for him at the start. I do not feel sorry for him now any more. Manipulating. I don't feel any of those things anymore.

I need to do a cleanse of him. He continued to try and stay in my life... I have made many many good decisions in my life, but top ten, maybe even top five, was to not have him in my life after I left the house. I wonder why he thought that would be something I would be interested in. That he even would suggest that tells me that he actually had no idea how completely abusive he was. Really. Talk about being totally oblivious. I really had had enough of that shit. Why would I want even more of it in my life? Just the very sight of him made me ill nausea. Then he moved across the road to our school and tried to register is children at it. What a total dick. Now they are having childcare in an police station. Talk about continuing the abuse. Because it is cheap. That just about sums up how much he cares about the people in his life. They are props to his main character syndrome. Oh yes, Main character syndrome. That defines him perfectly. He had that in fucking SPADES. Still does. Right. It's a busy enough day.

You know what, I no longer need to plan out every single minute of the day because the thing which I needed to do most - write - I am doing that now. Along the way I did other things, learn to play the piano, learnt to draw, to run, garden and to teach and to learn about the birds and the beautiful world and to do a million other things - as well have children - but this ranks top tier in the things I needed doing and that was writing creatively and now everything has fallen into place. I know I can just settle down and the short stories come out of me. I'll keep up the goddess cards work for the next three weeks or so and then I'll start transcribing them and move on to Atlantis... or maybe not. If I do this for the rest of my life, I would die happy.