Please note: this piece contains content that some readers may find upsetting.
Silence isn’t quiet anymore, and I really need it. Sometimes I put my fingers in my ears and my heart starts blethering to me. Nobody will leave me in peace, because the older I get, the more important I seem to have made myself to people. I thought the places I used to run to and hide were getting fewer but I was wrong. It’s time.
My time is taxed by the ones who need me. I built my life as the instructions dictated, and I think I’m grateful for the success of it all. A good husband, a beautiful daughter, parents nearby, an excellent job, a quirky house, my best friends on the other end of a phone message, a marathon medal and a weightlifting goal. A shiny life that looks really good in pictures.
Last night, I wanted out. Nothing dramatic, just something to make me sleep forever. I grieved for myself and cried for the first time in months.
I couldn’t figure him out and always wondered if he was disappointed in me. I couldn’t read him and it unsettled me. His words didn’t match his face.
She wasn’t a mummy’s girl. She was very clear about that in her neurodiverse way. I knew why she was the way she was, but it still hurt.
I couldn’t help Mum. She’d been with Dad for so long that she would never run, even with the door open. My heart hurt for her.
I didn’t trust my Dad’s care of me. He had learned to ask if I was OK but never waited for the answer. His jokes were sharp and cruel, but just for fun.
I loved to teach but the ‘team’ was toxic and I didn’t know where I was supposed to go. The mental health advocate was the worst. She had sulked and ignored me for years.
I learned to self-soothe with wine because I had no physical place to be at peace. The house was not my sanctuary. The doorbell went all day with uninvited guests, couriers and questioners for him, but he was usually at work so I was the pained face of the happy family.
I was flooded. I didn’t want to live anymore.
When I said the words out loud, I frightened myself. I was not OK.
***
I used to drive out to the loch when I passed my test. It was a level of freedom I had never had and it was exhilarating. My glove box was full of crisps and my cassette tape was full of tunes. I would sit with my little kettle, make tea, and go home when I needed to pee. I didn’t use the uni library. I took my books to the lochside and studied there. I wrote my essays at the loch. I had little fires and sleepovers and fireworks at the loch. The loch was peaceful and it was my doorstep tranquillity.
It had been years since I had parked and looked at the water, and my autopilot had brought me back, like a hand on my shoulder, guiding me. The car park was different, but the water was the same. The benches had, no doubt, been burned and replaced many times.
The doctor, the mental health nurse and my therapist had all tapped gently at my shell. The understanding, the medication, the positivity. A hundred and four days away from drink. A hundred and four days away from the ‘team.’ A hundred and four days of realising my worth.
The rain trickled down the windscreen, the droplets finding their own course, sometimes joining with others to make bigger paths to the end. It was beautiful. My breath misted the windows as I sipped my car-tea and stuck all of her little drawings and ‘I love my mummy’ notes into this year’s scrapbook.
I think I’ll come back again tomorrow.
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