Posts Tagged ‘sharing’

 

My Voice

Tuesday, April 5th, 2011

I have been working on several blog posts lately, working and reworking but never quite completing them. It wasn’t difficult before … before people actually read my blog or before they de-friended me on Facebook or just de-friended me in general.

And then I read http://networkedblogs.com/enz7C by Cath Duncan and pulled out this line:
“Grief needs to be expressed in some way – either privately or with witnesses, in order to heal.”

I grew up in an environment of repression and hidden secrets, a home where sweeping was obligatory and the carpet was lumpy with unexpressed emotion. Food was always the blanket that smothered the fire. And I married a man who held the same sentiment … for the obvious reason that that was my comfort zone. But as I evolved into the free-spirited writer, traveler and mother my perspective changed.

I became isolated and part of my means to break through to the other side involved sending out these messages into the ether – I didn’t know where they were going, I just wrote and posted and in a sense that was the release my issues needed … a public airing with seemingly no consequences and no obvious recourse that usually comes with discussing things face-to-face with someone who could quite easily instantly judge me.

The more isolated I became, the more I worked on finding my voice and in the midst of paradox, my blog was born, anonymous at first … and then not so. I broke free from fear of embarrassment and in a sense I embraced the inevitable judgement, fearless of the repercussions that would come from my admission that the thought of throwing my baby against the wall crossed my mind … and more than just the one time.

You ask what place grief has on a baby blog? I believe that every time you walk through the fire of transformation, be it willingly or at the hand of the universe, there is a fair amount of healthy grieving that needs to be done in order to heal. Not everything can be fixed with a roast chicken and a chocolate bar. When I got married I had to grieve my singledom. When I had my child, I had to grieve the life I had lost to motherhood. Sure, many women continue as they were, employ nannies or harness the help of family and friends to support their existing lives. But I had changed too much. And when I left my husband, I had to grieve … well, I had to grieve and grieve and grieve for all that was lost.

I remember blurting out how crap it was that I had fallen pregnant, only to fall prey to a barrage of criticism for my insensitivity considering one of the women in the group had been suffering with fertility problems. “But I didn’t know!” I claimed. It didn’t help. Another friend had a miscarriage and told no one so issues to do with abortions, for example, became a taboo subject … impossible if you were not part of her closely guarded secret. I have noticed on so many occasions how easily people have judged me for getting divorced … until I realized it’s not so much the doing as it is the telling. The telling exposes people’s vulnerability around issues. The telling makes them take a closer look at their own fragile situation. And in my case, for 14 years my marriage was perceived as a union of the perfect couple and if such a tragedy could befall the prom royalty, then what chance did others have when their relationships were far more ‘of this world’.

I have had to deal with therapy sessions that paint me as a tough piece of work who is terrified of displaying any vulnerability, hence creating a host of relationship issues around neediness. I took that on and practiced really hard to be vulnerable … when all along my blog is the very proof that I wear my vulnerability on my sleeve and the fact that it doesn’t line up with how my partner is needed has little bearing.

But I digress in my explanation. My laptop screen is littered with a variety of Text and Word documents, all posts waiting to be born but, ironically, as my healing begins to feel like it is close to completion, I struggle to deal with my audience. I lost my voice for months and it only returned recently. The posts on my blog were written by a woman who now forms only a part of me and the fate of the unfinished documents scattered over my desktop lie sealed by the hand of their author who no longer exists.

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I’m Back

Tuesday, October 26th, 2010

I have been judged a lot lately for my need to share my personal stories. Although this is human nature and I don’t expect it to be any other way, I have always felt the need to try and justify why I do it and, mostly, I don’t do this particularly well. But, while reading The Dance by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, I came across the perfect line that sums up what it is in my heart that drives me to share what other people find far too personal to put out there:

“I share personal stories because I want to co-create a story of intimacy and cultivate our capacity for compassion in dealing with our human failings. I tell stories because I want to learn how to love well.”

I wrote while I was in India recently how being there brings me that sense of just being, a relaxation about self and an existence totally devoid of branding. As I grow, I define myself by the places my branches are reaching towards rather than by the place my roots are sucking from the earth. And with this comes a sense that, like the branches, my identity is being whipped around by my life’s experiences … and even when there is total calm, there is still a sense of movement within.

In many communities around the world there is a culture of story telling, of passing legends on from one generation to the next. We don’t live in a society like that and so we rely on the people who pass through our lives, imparting wisdom, spreading knowledge, sharing experiences that cultivate the compassion within us. We meet the people we need to and are fed by people who are guided our way. And this of course works in reverse too. We often think the work we do is where we end but every one of us has a part of us that needs to be shared. Every one of us has a story to tell.

I am a storyteller. That is what I do. I don’t write fiction because I am no good at it. My reality, my life, my shared humanity … to me, is enough story to tell. So, as I document whatever transformation happens in my life … and therefore in the lives of those around me who are part of my story by association … know that it is human nature to judge but know too that this is who I am whether you judge me or not. Judging me will not change who I am or what I write. But it may well change you.

I promise to be as honest as possible without hurting anyone. But don’t read my blog if personal issues offend or if you can’t get over my lack of the need for privacy.

Quoting the last stanza of one of my poems, Many mountains. I am:

… I am all the flowers and the trees. They are me
I am unpredictable. I am power. I am many
Penny, you are seen by all.
But you are things no one can see.

I’ll end by saying: Watch this YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKbet4RdSo4

I will expand and embellish – as I am only too good at doing – and explain its relevance to this context. In time. But not now.

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Full disclosure

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

One of the reasons I started this blog when I had a baby was because I was amazed at how mothers gossip about each other. Everyone has an opinion on how other mothers are coping, whether they have PND, what they feed their babies, when they wean them, how their mothering effects their child’s behaviour, whether they follow a routine, if smacking is condoned and a range of other general issues including reasons for bedwetting and tantrums. Mothers, in their search to find balance and normality in a mind-blowing situation can become … well, they can become a bunch of bitches.

I was, however, determined to let people know how I was doing and what I was failing at and I wanted to make it public so that people could either empathise or just feel like they weren’t alone. I know most of this generation was brought up with a side of shame and guilt at every family meal and I wanted these to be the only things I was willing to conceal under the gem squash skin.

People have commented over the years about things I have written, they have empathised and they have disagreed but they have always taken this blog at face value. Now that I am being public about other areas of my life, however, people have been coming out of the woodwork like bora that you don’t know is there until it’s done a whole lot of damage … people are now judging me about having been so public about baby.

The purpose of my blog is to create a bit of unease; some tension to provoke debate … it is not about causing damage but alleviating pain, both for myself and for others who may be going through the same thing. Like I said in an earlier post, we are all part of the same humanity and what is happening to each of us is also happening to millions of others … so where is the shame in sharing?

People I have known for years, and some I have never met, have used my frank discussions to finally open up about going through the same thing and close friends have only gone public once they have already been through it. I can’t express the pain involved so I know that those people have been to hell and back before they have even told anyone what they were going through.

Despite judgement and criticism, I will always stand on my soapbox. Other people’s secrets are sacred to me but my own life belongs to the collective. I may be scrappy and I may offend people with my lack of regard for issues that some consider too private to divulge so publicly … but I believe my life should come out of my own mouth, not the mouths of others. And when people try and silence me, I only shout louder … only this time I can shout to a lawyer.

However my soap opera plays out in the end, I think I owe it to myself to explore the world out there for an opportunity to grow and connect to those millions of people with whom I share a part in this tragedy. If nothing else, I owe it to myself to rip the words right out of the mouths of people who would rather discuss my life with others.

Gossip is always easier than confronting any issue. It’s not surprising then that it is the people who devour magazines such at Heat and Hello! who are the ones that choose to base their opinions on the gossip that they hear rather than my truth that I publish.

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Pandy’s box?

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

I have taken the below passage out of my latest book club read, Mitch Albom’s, tuesdays with Morrie:

“I’ve learned this much about marriage,” he said now. “You get tested. You find out who you are, who the other person is, and how to accommodate or don’t.”
Is there some kind of rule to know if a marriage is going t work?
Morrie smiled. “Things are not that simple, Mitch.”
I know.
“Still,” he said, “there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don’t respect the other person, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you don’t know how to compromise, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. If you can’t talk openly about what goes on between you, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. And if you don’t have a common set of values in life, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble. Your values must be alike.
“And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?”
Yes?
“Your belief in the importance of your marriage.”

There has been a minor Facebook war over my going public about my relationship, which, incidentally, has been neutralised. It had to do with balance and blame. But the above passage gave me a kick up the arse. The above passage showed me what I should have seen years ago. It isn’t so much about a lack of belief in the importance of our marriage so much as a total lack of importance. Importance comes from communication and my husband hasn’t spoken to me about anything in months and about very little in years. And that is the truth.

But people find it hard to hear the truth about things they have already formulated an opinion on and especially on something that makes them shine a light on issues in their own relationships. I continue to shine my torch under the carpet revealing what others believe should remain there. (see also: http://www.bhalababy.com/2010/06/28/my-life-as-an-open-book) I want people to see that there is no shame in sharing a very human failing. I won’t be silenced because people find what I say uncomfortable and the only thing I am sorry for is how vague I was previously.

Morrie used an analogy I think is appropriate to share: we are not all individual waves crashing on the shore but part of the same ocean.

I am a work in progress. But I have the courage to recognise my flaws, and the inner strength to erect the scaffolding and do the work. My husband, however, is a derelict building site … absolutely fine if it wasn’t for the fact that he thinks he is a palace.

I was asked recently by a lovely young man to be his life coach. He was sweet, I was flattered … tempted even … until I realised that I have done all the coaching I care to do for a while and the next man I am with will climb the scaffolding with me, chat to me while I work and add value to the renovations. He won’t be afraid of the change.

For almost two decades I have loved a man so much I thought I would die without him so I can tell you all that you can love someone with all the stars in the sky but unless he loves you back with the moon, he has the ability to snuff out every one of those lights. He loves me ‘in his way’ he says … but then so do wife beaters and adulterers have a ’way’ of loving. Love needs to shine for the sole benefit of the person it shines upon.

Love is a gamble – sometimes you put everything you have on the table and all you end up with is change for the car guard.

I am not a victim, just a student on one of life’s very cruel courses on love.

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My life as an open book

Monday, June 28th, 2010

You get people who brush things under the carpet. And then you get me. I lift the carpet. And then I search. With a flashlight. And I broadcast what I find.

I blogged about my travels. I put it all out there for everyone to read. People could read with horror or wonder and know what I was experiencing almost daily. And when I came back, I didn’t have to try and pack into a single conversation the enormity of the experience of travelling through India with a 4-year-old. Everyone just knew and asked for only a little information to fill the gaps in the story. A cultivated result.

But we tend not to do that with other life-changing experiences. We tuck things away and in the face of an enormous experience such as two great people parting ways, we have to explain how we got to this place without anyone noticing.

People were shocked when they heard my marriage was breaking up. It took them by surprise and I have been explaining for months what should have been out in the open for years. When you get to a point of needing support, it is useful when people know what you need the support for instead of having to bring your nearest and dearest up to speed. I had left a trail of crumbs on Facebook … a trail that didn’t lead me back home but rather straight into the witch’s house. My Facebook page became a forum for all the people who themselves had been tucking things away. Is my midlife crisis merely a sign of these new sandwich years – a generation stuck between a parenting style of shame, guilt and denial and a new enlightened age of gentleness and introspection? I haven’t seen the driver. Regardless, life’s experiences need to be shared. Not only do we learn from our own experiences but we also have an opportunity to teach. We don’t – and can’t – live in a vacuum.

“If you share with others, they will share with you”, I keep telling my son. And that kinda means I have to do the same … only this sharing thing just got a lot more grown up.

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