In part  I think I have no recollection of such a date as there has been no finality to it all.  Why recall a date for just another day?  Not that it was another day and I remember the details of said day with such clarity they often replay in my head like some climatic movie scene, complete with soundtrack.

It’s been 12 something years now. Tonight I realised that you never quite escape the clasps of abusive partners. Well, not in my case.

He is always around me in some shape or form.  From the furrow my son… our son… makes when he’s disgusted, to the self hating voice in my head that counts the calories with such precision and deliberation.  He’s never far away even after all this time.

In fact, I think it’s getting worse.  Almost as though the length of time between actually seeing him is creating sufficient space to allow the memories of him to expand;  hopefully to implode.

I am getting angrier at him over time.  A self-righteousness for that younger version of me that was not at my disposal at the time. My capacity for forgiveness is waning;  my excuses are running thin.

It’s not that I live in fear of him – I don’t.  I’ve looked deep into those crazed eyes and know first hand the look of a murderous fool, but I don’t fear him.  It’s a strange one to explain to those who have not seen it, but I don’t fear death nor further rapes.  To that end, it’s just my physical being and I hold no great ownership to it such that it would cause me anxiety.

But if I am honest, I don’t trust him.  I could never trust him.  That I did once, and continued to do so as a parent of a my son breaks my heart.  I shan’t be making that mistake twice.  I don’t trust him to get close to my son; I don’t trust him to be within a kilometer of my daughter or my son’s girlfriend.  He is not worthy of our trust.

So much so that almost 13 years since I walked out that door, I actively seek to remain anonymous to him and refuse to provide him with my address.

He is never far from my mind’s eye on a day-to-day basis, I don’t need him to know where we live.  And when he phones at 3.18am on a Sunday night…  my increased heart rate and anxiety is reassured by such caution and the only peace I feel comes with that fact that he doesn’t know where I am right now.

Maybe if the space between when I have to see continue to expand, all this negativity will implode and I will finally get some closure.  Finally have a date worth remembering – an anniversary to call nominate as “the day I left Mick”.

You write beautifully.  Your first post is a triumph of articulation and emotion which successfully had me in tears.

When I was your age, I just felt so alone and I really remember feeling like I couldn’t share the dark depths of my thoughts.  The scary thing that I have found out since then is that all around me, everyone was falling apart and fucked up!  Some of us just hide it better than others!

My dad finally moved out at Easter of grade 9.  I was devastated.  He was beacon – my saving light against my mum.  We’d sit in the car together and call her the witch.  We’d talk for hours about the stars and the universe.

I was just so betrayed that he left me…  left me to care for my siblings and shield them… left me with the witch.

And the betrayal was because I saw him as dad.  That is all you see your parents as.  They are just mum  or just dad. Now, as an adult and parent myself, i know that whilst my father was being my “Dad” he was also playing other roles… he was “husband”, he was “employee”, he was “President of Rotary”, he was “Son and brother”…  He was also just plain ‘Terry” sometimes.

But I didn’t know these roles, I didn’t care for them.  The only one that I knew was “Dad”.    And the day that he walked out that house and left me behind, all I saw was that “Dad” had left me …

In reality, I now know that the “Husband” left that night… taking with him “Dad”.  And in the year that followed their split I had the misfortune of learning horrible things about my dad.

This man that I love and adored…  he was stripped down to an image of a prick of a man.  A human.  An adult struggling to juggle all the roles in his life and fucking up sometimes.

To this day, I don’t see him as “dad”.  My dad has done some very selfish acts in his life. I see my father for who he is.   I know my father for his adult weaknesses and his flaws, his deficiences and his absolute strengths.   The rose coloured glasses I once wore are no longer there – he is just a man prone to selfishness, caught in his own world, who happens to have kids.

Sweety, you can never recapture that sense of being “Daddy’s girl”.  I’m not going to lie to you.  Like me, you have this fantastic memory of being with your dad and a bond that was so special, many would envy you for having had it at all.

Thing is, your Dad probably doesn’t even know where to begin in patching things and expressing to you how much he misses you and how much he has regrets.  You know yourself, the first step to that is acknowledging… and going through the pain of admitting it… admitting the truth we like to bury so very deep.

It’s just so much easier to gloss over the truth with a story or pop a pill…

I still see my dad now.  But I made the effort… I was the one to bridge the divide.  He didn’t know how.  He was a simple man who knew he had crushed his little girl and I still sometimes now see in his face a look of yearning where I know he is wishing he could turn back time and just have a moment where he was my god.

So with all my heart, as a Daddy’s Girl who was left behind,  as a mother who adores her kids, as an adult who has done healing…  your dad was just dealing with his life the best he knew how.  No parent acts deliberately to hurt their child.  Sometimes, they just get too caught up in their own selfish shit and their kids are a casuality in the that.   But he loves you, and he thinks you are a beautiful and wonderful young lady – of this I am sure.  I don’t think he’d know how to express it, just as I don’t think he’d know how to you look you in the eye and say “I fucked up – I wasn’t leaving YOU behind – I was trying to leave me behind”.

Love him for the selfish, emotionally retarded moron he has shown himself to be.  Love him for the funny loving dad he was.  And give thought to getting to know him as the funny, awkward, but still selfish and emotionally retarded man that he is probably is today.

But more than anything, make note of this feeling for when you are a parent and juggling these multiple roles…  and remember that the to your kids, Mum is the only role you play.  All this pain now is what will make you an awesome mum some day (not anytime soon!!).

Sorry for the rambling but it’s now 3.35am.  I look forward to your next post,

xo

Life, for me, hasn’t been about a quest to the pearly gates or a better life on the other side.  This is it.  This moment.  This shared experience.  This breath.

I remember a stage in my life where those thoughts overwhelmed me – when the concept of having no purpose to be here but to be here seemed rather pointless.  What difference would it matter then, if i weren’t here?

I remember thinking that in the scheme of the country…  in the scheme of the world… in the scheme of the universe…  what does my life here mean.  Anything?

I remember that emptiness well.  That feeling of walking into a crowded room, surrounded by a sea of people yet feeling so very alone.  Disconnected.  A hollow that just wouldn’t fill up no matter how wide the smile or sincere the laughter.

I also remember the day that that feeling receded.

He was such a scrawny baby;  all limbs and no chubba.  I’d sleep with him curled in my arms, his tiny frame protected by my looming body arched over and around his.  We were inseparable – he was always my little right hand man.

It’s through his life that I finally understood what this journey is all about.  There may be no grand scheme to it all, no heaven or hell, no man in the sky dictating my path and purpose.  My life as a single unit probably has little impact to the world let alone the universe.  But to my family…  to this little babe I held in my arms, with his golden hair and cheeky smile, to him, my impact is huge.

And at the end of the day, I think that family is all there is – the rest are just extras in a film.

This life we lead, no matter how complex and brutal, it’s just a series of moments strung together by our somewhat dodgy memories and our capacity for love.

My son didn’t know why he was in this world.  I do.

He was here  to grow into a loving adult; person of insight and a pillar for change.

He was here to give love to another and be loved by them, and eventually have a child so that as he held his baby in his arms and loved it unconditionally, he would understand exactly why he is here on this Earth.

He was here so that his friends may love him and respect him for the wit and nurturing soul he was, and in doing so, grow.

He was here so that his sister may love and adore him and look up to him with all her heart and in doing so, know herself better.

He was here so that I may love him with all my heart and in doing so be a better person.

I just wish he knew how important it was that he was here and the irreplaceable gap he’s left behind.

He thinks he is weak.  Of all his idiosyncrasies, I find this one the hardest to swallow as to me he is anything but.

The weak don’t go home every day as a child to face a wall of brutality, and survive.
The weak don’t leave an unhealthy and abusive marriage at such a young age and seek to form a new life.
They certainly don’t fight for their children and raise them.

The weak don’t work multiple jobs, eat nought but noodles to ensure their children are fed, and put themselves through university in order to create a better life.
They definately do not move across the globe with their family to start afresh.

But most of all, the weak don’t break the chains of abuse they grew up with and love unconditionally.

In my eyes, I don’t see an ounce of weakness.  I see a strong and somewhat resilient man, who has worked hard for this life.  He has the strength to perserve, to love, and to nurture, despite his learnings from the first 20 years.

Maybe his sense of weakness comes from the scale of strength he’s shown… and the hairline fractures and minor chips to his veneer seem like signs of weakness to an otherwise sturdy, hardened copper vessel.  But if that is the case, then the most of us must be made of porceline and would have shattered long ago with the weight of his past.

Either way and more importantly, when I lay in his arms, I only get a sense of calm, love, and inner strength that defies his silly concept of weakness.   The hairline fractures that mark his veneer aren’t weaknesses.  They are external lines of where he’s been: a cross hatching to lines making a fenced motif to keep his past where it belongs, an expression of his strength to endure.

The sort of strength I want by my side to tide out many a moon.

This is what I want.  The thought scares the fuck out of me but also leaves me laying here with tears.  This is definitely what I want.

Today was an idyllic date – one of our few where we behaved as lovers would.   We strolled around Melbourne hand-in-hand and jumped ticketless onto trams to save our tired feet.  First stop,  I dragged him into Koko Black for gourmet Belgium chocolates and coffee. When our coffees arrived, he pushed his over in front of me so that I could photograph it.  He didn’t say a word just pushed it in front of me expectantly but patiently.  I’m not sure if he saw but I blushed – it was disconcerting to be with someone who knows me that well.  Someone who is just instinctively and without hesitation giving to my needs and happy to nurture my quirks.

Later we strolled past a dress store where there were three dresses displayed in the window. I quipped “oooh I like that dress!”.  He knew which one I meant, but more than that, he replied  ”mmm it’s nice but bit too green for you”…  We entered the neighbouring dress store where he slapped my hand playfully for daring to eye a dress that was in all the wrong colours for me.  Together we eyed off jewelry.  Secretly my heart swelled – he has such lovely taste and dresses me well.

Our evening date cumulated with a casual but perfect dinner of vegie burgers, fries and cheap wine.   I’ve not felt as in love as I did in those moments… even the waft of sewerage and garbage from the nearby alley didn’t dampen my beating heart.  As we noshed, he whispered sweet erotic nothings into my ear, arousing my senses.   As we waited to steal another tram ride, he pulled me close and under this jacket, slid his hand down my jeans and heightened my arousal in the broad daylight of Flinders St.

He pushes ALL my buttons. He melts ALL my boundaries. He tends to see through me and read me so well that some days I’m left in tears from being confronted. I absolutely adore him and he makes me think about romantic notions such as ‘forever’ and ‘marriage’.  (Ok, the latter is more a sentiment than a need for a contractual… ) 

But here is the catch - he’s still married, still living there with her and slowly dissolving it.  Oh so slowly. To be with him means going through a messy divorce and being some sort of step-mum to his 3 boys who will not like me.  He still has irrational days where denial is his long term solution, especially compared to putting the boys through the short term distress of a divorce.  He doesn’t know why I adore him, why I’m with him, and each day expects me to change his mind. He thinks I’m out of his league; not even in the same ball game.

Yet I’d be somewhat crushed if we split. Instead I live with this internal war where my logic self says “Lou, he’s broken and married and Omg, it’s so messy! It’s almost been a year, how long will you wait?”  and the heart self which has me going gooey over his deep brown eyes and long lashes.

I love him, no question, and to walk away or consider the difficulties or obstacles just leaves me rather in a teary mess. It always comes down to the equation of “yeah I’m not 100% happy with the current situation but I’d be more miserable if I stopped seeing him all together”.

So as my idyllic 14 hours nears its close,  it turns out I’m a bit of a romantic, definitely a wearer of heart on my sleeve. But we knew that. This time is different though and I hate not being in control. I hate that I am somewhat powerless. Yeah, if it’s meant to be etc etc, but I have restricted power to make it be.

And I want it to be.  After today, I really, really want it to be.  He has my heart and today was bliss. The only thing that will make today better is the fact that in a few hours, I will wake and the first thing I will see is his beautiful ginger whisker as they rest upon my head.  And I know that I will think ”this is where I am meant to be – this is home”.

Not with malice nor bitterness.  The opposite in fact.  I find myself gazing off into the distance yearning for his touch, his embrace. His kiss.

My mind flickers back to the short lived moments together, in particular, that last night.  I replay him flopping on the couch, hot and sweaty, and casually stating “I love Grand Designs”.  I replay how my heart fluttered when I realised he wasn’t being sarcastic and notched it in my mind as another thing we had in common.  Another parallel; symmetry.

My mind flickers to us lying in bed that night, my eyes full with adoration.  I felt it on my face and knew I wasn’t hiding it well.  I lay staring into those brown eyes, memorizing the length of each lash.  He caught my adoring and looked away.

I replay all the things that won my heart… The embraces, the thoughtfulness, the sweet messages.  I replay it all and over think it all.

I dissect how it could be that I fell so hard and fast for him in such a short a time that has left me a month since seeing him yearning for his embrace.  I dissect how it is that we are reduced to me logging in to see if he’s moved on.

And that’s the hardest part.  I think he has moved on – his sentiments for me not as sincere as first thought.  Else why would he not seek to see me;  to reconcile.  In my mind, if he did actually feel for me as he said he did, then would he not have just arrived at my door and said “I’m sorry for the miscommunication – I’m head over heels for you.”

Would I have not done the same?  I would have.  I’ve toyed with the idea of just arriving at his house – an awkward move when you’ve not been there before and aren’t even sure of where it is he lives or with whom.

I used to be so sure, able to see with such clarity someone I was meant to love and be loved by.  I don’t know why it is I got this one so wrong.  But I can see with perfect 20:20 vision our future – see us heading to the beach for a day together; walking our dogs; BBQs with family; snuggled on the couch watching dvds.  I see all the mundane with him and more.  He fit.

Yet despite the fit, he pushed me back and withheld like those before.  I panicked and could only  hear my inner monologue:  ”I don’t want to do this again – be in love with someone who is forever testing and conditioning my love.”  So I set him free like I thought he wanted – cause it clearly wasn’t me he desired.

So I guess it just leaves me to accept that he and I were not meant to be;  that despite that I love him and yearn for him, it’s not what he wants.  No reconciliation to be had, no last goodbye.

… I don’t give my heart away with ease; don’t let people past my boundary wall.  And right now, close to my heart is where he remains.  Slowly I’ll push him back past the boundary wall, but until then thoughts of my head on his chest as we fall asleep occupies my mind.

Yep.  He occupies my mind.

I wish he knew what he wanted and the courage to commit.  I’m not asking a lot – just either push me to arm’s length and leave me their to remain, or pull me  close and enclose  me with your embrace.

Instead he lets me come in close – close enough that our breathing threatens to become one – only to push me back to the edges.  There he holds me, pushed to the edge of his reach so only his extended fingers can tickle my arm.  I should walk away.  I hate being tickled.

I know that he will pull me back.  His  arm grows tired of being outstretched so instead of tickling the fringe, he’ll caress and cajole until I yield.  Closer I’ll step until once again I am chest to chest with him, breath entwined.

And in those moments of being pulled close I will see him for who he is;  see right through to his being.  He can’t hide his emotion from me when I’m nestled there, chest to chest.  It’s why he’ll push me back out to an arm’s length.

But I like being nestled in close and only tolerate being pushed to arms length out of faith that the pulling is soon to arrive.  I know it’s not healthy.  I know he should just decide. 

I should just decide.

Behind me sit a group of four – two men, two women.  Young, early 20′s, well dressed and articulate.  Their conversation is animated, fueled by each of them desperate to air their complaint.  I can’t help but over hear.

The Greek boy starts it.  He regaled to them how he went to dinner at his mother’s the night before; how, as a Greek boy, there is great expectations regarding his behaviour.  He whines about how his mother cooks dinner for the family and then whines about slaving away for them all.  He gets heated and complains that his mother just shouldn’t cook and how dare she make them all feel so guilty.

The tone is set for the rest of the table.  Next in line is the Chinese girl.  She talks of how her mother doesn’t accept her life and insists she should have a more traditional Chinese life, marry a Chinese man, study a more traditional course.  Her mother stifles her.  Her mother expects her come over every week on Sunday for a family meal.

The others cluck in agreeance.  Their mothers are overbearing, demanding.  The second boy talks about how his mother phoned him to ask him to come over to fix something and how this is most unfair when there are other siblings who live closer.  Why couldn’t his mother have just waited until he was coming over for something more significant like dinner at her place?  She shouldn’t have asked him to come all the way out there for the sole purpose of fixing something. 

The others cluck in agreeance.  Apparently all their mothers do that – call them and ask them to do some trivial thing that could wait for another time, date, and place.  How dare they?!

I manage to keep my cool.  I try to stop listening but their whining tones pierce my conversation and thoughts.  With no other tables to move to, I’m stuck. 

Latino girl is having her turn now.  Her mother doesn’t even know what subjects she is doing this semester.  Her mother comes over and cleans her house and complains about doing so.  She nags about when she is going to settle down with a nice man. 

The others cluck in agreeance.  They understand each other’s pain of having a…  a what?  A mother?

I manage to hold my tongue, instead choosing to leave the cafe as quick as feasible.   I avoid bursting at my seams to shout at them.  My hand twitches with the thought of slapping sense into each of them.

I just want to shout “Is that it?  Is your adult angst hinging on your mother’s love?  Are you honestly amplifying her acts of motherly kindness into mole hills of Mumageddon!?  Glorifying how much you don’t need her any longer and exemplifying how much of an ungrateful arse you can be?!”

Or maybe I just want to rotate my chair and partake in their round table.  I can be poor little caucasian girl.  I would swivel chair around and begin talking in the same spoilt kid tone.  Caucasian girl would say,
“My mum is such a bitch.  She usually only calls when she wants something from me.   All my life I’ve grown up with her telling to play on the road, or how she wishes she had terminated me when she had the chance.  I’m glad that she doesn’t hold a weekly family dinner – she’d only ruin it by telling me that all children are the devil’s sporn. ”

Perhaps I’d play sage, swivel my chair around and very wisely let them know that
“The problem with parenthood is that it is not the sole role you play yet it is the only one your children judge you for.”

In reality I do none of these.  Rather, I finish my coffee that not even the full teaspoon of sugar helps it to leave a sweet taste in my mouth, and I make my exit.   I eye them off as a leave, glare at them with a look that says “omg shut the fuck up you spoilt middle class brats and go back to your river front apartment at West End!”

They were oblivious to my glare.

I don’t think I am doing a very good job as a parent. 

I don’t think I play enough with Polly Pockets.  I’m not outdoors playing soccer.  I no longer have an activity corner for them to build crafts. 

I don’t engage in enough conversations about their day and experiences.  I don’t validate enough of what they say, feel and behave.

I haven’t dealt enough hugs, delivered enough kisses, rustled enough hair.

I’m short-changing both the quality and quantity of my time with them.  I’m marring my interactions with emotions not relating to them.

I’m buying their love.  I’m shouting their instructions.  I’m ignoring their messages.

I question.  I doubt.  I strive.  I don’t think this is enough.

I just don’t think I’m a very good parent.

The little girl sat watching TV in the lounge.  She could hear the brothers arguing downstairs – shouting obscenities at each other.  But the little girl didn’t move.  She was used to the language and the tone.

The shouting under the house got louder.  She heard the family’s mother intervene – shouting her son’s names and yelling at them to calm down.  Nobody was calming down.

The little girl continued to watch TV, focussing ever harder on the dialogue.  She heard footsteps race up the nearby stairs – loud and ungraceful.  The two sisters who the little girl adored rushed through the door and barely hiding their panic tell the little girl they are going to play a game in one of their bedrooms.   She’s ushered down the hall and into the small room decorated by posters and clothing.  The sister’s lock the door. 

A game of dressing up is suggested.  The sister’s pull out jewelry and make up and do their best to engage the little girl, but nothing they do adequately masks the sounds coming from beneath their feet.  The thin flooring of the cheap 1970s build echoes each and every thud of bodies rebounding from walls below.  The inmistakable sound of glassware smashing;  belongings being shuffled;  the cracking of laminate furniture under the weight.

And through the flooring the little girl hears her first sounds of bones breaking and the piercing shrieks of panic that come with that sort of violence.

She’s no longer playing with the jewelry.  She’s listening to the fight below and begins to cry as she hears them move upstairs.  The sisters try to comfort her, tell her that it’s ok, that it’s just the boys being silly. 

The swearing continues but louder.  They are now on the other side of the thin wall.  A fist punching the wall sends a cracking echo into the room right above the girls head.  One of the brother’s leaves – his footsteps loud against the silence of the bedroom where the little girl sits.  The second brother follows, yelling obscenities and threatening to kill him.

Silence.

The footsteps of the second brother – fast and furious – back up the stairs and down the hall to the bedroom where the little girl is hiding.   He bangs on the door swearing for the sisters’ to unlock it.  They tell him that I am in there and they aren’t unlock it.  He continues to bash against the door and eventually busts the sliding bolt from its holder.  The sisters rush to push him back out but its too late.

For a moment the room stands silent in her mind and the girl is transfixed.  His nose is oozing blood;  his eye black and almost swollen closed;  lips full, puffy, and smeared with blood.  Blood drips from his knuckles and has stained the light blue shirt that is now half town on his back.  He briefly makes eye contact with the little girl before fumbling under the bed she is sitting on.

The little girl is metaphorically slapped itno the reality by the begging sobs of the sisters.  She sees one lunge at the brother, pleading for him to stay and forget it.  The brother pushes her to the wall with a force that makes her nose bleed and continues to rant ‘I’m going to fucking kill him!’.  He leaves with the rifle he took from under the bed.

Screeching tyres leave the drive way as the rifle clad brother speeds off to find his sibling.  The little girl is now sobbing.  She wants to go home.