Login   Sign Up 



 

Untitled

by literati 

Posted: 27 February 2004
Word Count: 756
Summary: These are disparate extracts, tiny fragments of a 30,000 word picture.


Font Size
 


Printable Version
Print Double spaced


Today the grief is overwhelming, but there isn't any anger. however, there may be a tiny bit of acceptance. The slippery slope, I'm nearly at the bottom. I didn't want to be, I definitely did not want to be. I wonder if ex sig. other has similar feelings. I think so. I wonder what is preventing them from contacting me. Must be somebody else. I don't think I need to torture myself any more about this. The whole seven year relationship was tortuous, although I miss her like crazy. I'm glad she's in the distance. Surely after all these weeks of no contact it will get easier. I don't know. I went for ten months last time, it was different then. This time it seems final. Just a feeling. The no contact feeling. Keep telling myself it is for the best. I know it. To resume will just make me so unhappy again. I don't want that. Yes I feel lonely, but at least I'm not in emotional turmoil. I don't ever want to be like that again. It was so painful. So much rejection, just like mummy's. Bizarre parallels but I really feel it. I am well out of it. Just keep saying that to myself. Strange though, could cry like a baby. Quite easily, especially when I see a happy couple. Did I say that happiness is transient like sex. I think true happiness is from within, and only after that can you feel it with others. How many of us are happy with ourselves? Stand up and be counted. Just as I thought nobody. My relationship with my mother took a different route. Firstly, when she asked me to spell a word she could not, when I was five years old, and secondly, when she bought me an iron and ironing board for a very young birthday. The iron had wire going from its base, connected to a rubber suction pad. Even I could see, when the bloody iron did not heat up, that I had been conned. I remember being frantic with impotent rage. Thirdly, my mum said that if I put a dolly mixture in my dolls mouth-doll was lying down in the pram-that when I came back from doing other things, my doll would have eaten it. Which of course I believed totally. It was only much later that I realised, that mum had eaten it. I was so trusting, but then you are at four years old aren't you? I never saw her in the same light again, although I loved her dearly, in fact pedestalised her all my life. Unfortunately she died when I was thirteen years old, prematurely and suddenly. I've never been the same since, and will probably spend the rest of my life, looking for a substitute. Which is extremely difficult I suppose. I really do not know what I am looking for. I know she was beautiful and delicate and feminine, and possessed a good figure. That's the physicality. As for the emotionality what do I know? I've since found out she was no nonsense. and liked a fun time. I'm running out of people to fill in the picture. She had balls I think, but she did reject us, me and my sister. I'm sure she had excellent reasons, but it still hurts. Surely you keep hold of your kids whatever don't you, when they are tiny especially. How could she let us go? I'm sure she had a good reason. I can't believe anything else can I? I cannot believe the ultimate rejection, that would be mind blowing. I'm sure that somebody who was asked to spell a word at five years by a parent must be well thought of. Perhaps I was one of those clever dicks, whose parent thought they were capable and strong and mentally robust. What a joke. Still that's life. I can't remember any other occasions of us together, apart from a far away look in her eyes, quite frequently, when I was a teenager. I cannot remember any other reactions from her about anything. Maybe I'll have to think harder.

Grief is still catching me like a bronchitic breath. Just as fleeting, just as life threatening. It encircles the body in the same way, and whilst the breath oxygenates, the grief permeates. And when the breath decarbonises, the grief deactivates. I will need breath for an infinite period of time. I hope this grief is finite. However, it seems to be getting worse instead of better.






Favourite this work Favourite This Author


Comments by other Members



Nell at 16:47 on 27 February 2004  Report this post
Angela, how I'd love to read this from the beginning all the way through. This section is far more subdued than the last two; you say less angry - I wondered if you meant less angry than the previous parts, or whether you've been posting sections taken from different places in the memoir. I found it less defiant than the foregoing sections, less resilient, more vulnerable. And isn't it odd how one remembers small things that seemed so huge at the time? You say your mother rejected you and your sister, yet you don't explain, and I want to know more, unwilling to believe you. I don't think the things you've mentioned here are enough to form any conclusions, although of course these are only tiny glimpses. There's less stream-of-consciousness here, and I believe I prefer this style, although the mood shifts between this and the two other pieces you've posted make it feel like a diary as much as a memoir, which I suppose it is, going by your first sentence. There's a sense too that you're actually speaking to the reader with this, (maybe over a coffee), it's like a confidence, and that makes it very special. There are so many thoughts and questions in here - happiness - yes, what you say is so true. Angela, this is very moving. It's difficult to give solid constructive advice without seeing the whole picture, but you have something special here, an intimacy that makes for a very real connection to the reader. Looking forward to more.

Best, Nell.

Richard Brown at 18:06 on 27 February 2004  Report this post
Angela,
As is not infrequently the case, I agree with Nell. The piece gripped me absolutely and, yes, I want to know more. There's HUGE emotion, sadness and anger and much about love, or rather the lack of it. And of course, you are right that consistent happiness is not often or ever attained; the world is so imperfect. Even without all the psychological stuff of disrupted childhoods there's disease and disasters...(Oddly, I was just thinking today - I wonder if there'e ever been anybody in the entire history of humanity who has never been ill)
But...I think the difficulty I have in commenting in any kind of coherent fashion is that the content of what you have written raises so many issues. I want to join in that dialogue, but this is a writers' site; I have to resist the urge to respond with words about abandonment and lifelong hurt and the effect these things have on relationships.
Like Nell, I think I would need to see this piece in context before being sure about comments on the writing style. For one thing I worry (perhaps I shouldn't!) about the time scale. Are you writing about recent events or is this from a diary written a long time ago? This need to know became kind of urgent when I read your superbly intense last paragraph. If this is current pain then comments about the technicalities of writing don't seem all that relevant!
You say that what you are giving us are fragments of a bigger picture. I guess I'll just have to be patient and wait until the jigsaw is complete. But please do give us more. Potent stuff!
Richard.


Fearless at 15:49 on 13 May 2004  Report this post
Ange

One thinks this is just skating on the surface of something much deeper.......more please.

Fearless


To post comments you need to become a member. If you are already a member, please log in .