Life So Far

It has been an obscenely long time since I shared anything, personal or writing-wise, on this blog. Life continues to throw some challenges at me and there have been times when things are coming in from so many angles, I can’t catch them all.

I am lucky in a lot of ways – I am very proud of being able to work with my beloved wolves, to have brilliant friends and a funny feisty girl I adore.

Recently, I read about Sinéad O Connor and her meltdown with a certain amount of sympathy. It is a little too easy to judge someone when we are in a happy, sane, comfortable place. What drives someone to share and rant on social media can be a desperation, a sadness and an imbalance of sorts.

As writers, should we not communicate to others in depth, particularly on points that are meaningful to us? Writers like Matt Haig have opened themselves up to the world and talked in great depth and sensitivity about depression. It helps him, it helps others but of course it makes him vulnerable. I admire him for that.

Sadly, when we share – there will often be others who do not understand or choose to say cruel things to us, or just live to troll. I have always been a sharer, a communicator.

Ultimately, I would still like to think that I am a writer. I certainly love editing, writing and proofreading – but my own creative writing has recently taken a back seat due to unpleasant personal circumstances. I respect my daughter but she took a very hard decision to have nothing to do with her father when he walked out on us. She had some very serious problems and I made sure that she had a stable home, even when I had to fight to keep it. Every parent – every good parent – will understand that the tigress comes out when our offspring are threatened. However, when my mother was sent a vile message from my ex partner’s new wife, it gave me a very clear view of how they see me, how nasty they are together – which is rather sad. It is easier to blame me presumably than to look at the truth, of a man who leaves his sick partner and a vulnerable child. I have never used my daughter in any way, or denied her support. I did not choose to be a single parent and it has been bloody bloody hard, particularly with bad health and regular chemo. My discussions and arguments with my ex other half have been justifiably furious, considering how ill our daughter has been. That is OUR relationship, based on twenty years together in which we were incredibly close. I was his first love, his first proper girlfriend and we shared many beautiful moments together – including days in London when we took out the whole series of I, Claudius and watched it in bed. Lots of utterly wonderful times and a lot of laughter. I will not have that stolen from me. Ever.

Yet writers have a huge advantage – everything can be used and I am now writing a non-fiction book, that will hopefully help others. There will definitely be over-sharing in that.

In the spirit of over-sharing, I would like to share the badly-written and unbelievably nasty message sent my diabetic mother, who is nearly eighty years old. Facebook in one of its odd moments had attempted to add my ex’s wife as a friend – this is how she responded:

I am not completely sure what or who drove you to contact me and more to request my friendship?
By all respect, which I do not have for you or your daughter, somebody who needlessly attacks my family either directly or indirectly has no room in my life and also I have no need to have such people around me. I do not care if you were cajoled to do it or if it came directly from you, somebody of your age should know what is appropriate and what is just tasteless.
I was always hoping that you could be the voice of reason (my husband and my mum-in-law had nothing but nice things to say about you) and convince your daughter to move on, live her life instead of wasting it on some manufactured self-pitying lies, childish procrastination and endless bullyboy tactics not even stopping at involving her own daughter. Instead of being happy and making sure that her daughter has as many people in her life that love her and support her, she selfishly strips her of that right only for self-gratification purpose. If that is what you encourage and support then I feel only pity for you.

So, I have over-shared but this will be fuel and I will do well. It has been an awful four and a half years.