At church we are embarking on four days of prayer and fasting. Sitho asked all bloggers on Sunday to write about it and so here I am, writing about something I know pretty much nothing about. Well, the fasting bit anyway. It's a part of Christian life that was never taught to me in great depth, never encouraged and never partaken by any previous church I've attended.
So, here I sit. A total novice with limited knowledge and absolutely no authority on the subject at all.
But, in myself I don't feel inadequate. I don't feel pressure to suddenly leap into 40 days with sack-cloth on my head resisting the tempation of every jammie dodger that passes my eyes, or the nasal allure of the chippy on the way home. I'm entering this with an open mind, no expectation and a huge amount of humility and uncertainty. To the more experienced Christians it may well be a doddle to get on with it (or maybe not) and enjoy the time with God, but to me it's pastures new and I'm viewing it as another step on my journey with God. Another step towards achieving a closeness that was suppressed for many, many years.
By nature I am not an immediate 'doer'. I like to know why I'm doing something. Who said I had to do it and how do I do it right? I don't fall in with the crowd and I don't follow the leader. Well, not to start with anyway. There are times when I do, like leafletting for the church healing meeting this week. We all delivered hundreds of leaflets. It was good to do. Although I admit, it wasn't so great being allocated the road I'm certain had the most number of 'Beware Of The Dog' signs this side of Watford. I also admit to a certain amount of trepidation treading the path to the front door of one house that looked like it could well have housed the HQ for the chainsaw massacre fan club! I'm sure they were lovely people really! But I felt led to do my bit. I had a responsibility and a duty to minister this way and serve God. It was simple and needed no explanation. This probably isn't my best example of my point, but I'm presuming you're getting my drift here.
With this frame of mind came all sorts of enquiries when I first learnt of the prayer and fasting this week. Not the praying side. All Christians can pray, note I say 'can', not 'do'. There are plenty out there failing in this and while I'm in no position at all to criticise it's not something that comes easy to some people, even the most 'experienced' Christians may well admit to days where it's near impossible to come near to God because of time, wrong attitude, guilt etc. Heck, even some non-Christians pray and they don't believe in Him. It's amazing how life's extremities can lead to a momentary chat with God even when you're an unbeliever. Prayer's hard. It requires time, silence, discipline and humbleness. Sometimes I feel like I'm a flippant prayer because I talk to him all the time, but not always in great depth, just a bit of chit chat here and there. The children often ask who I'm talking to in the car on the way down the M4. To the guys driving by years ago I would have looked a loon talking to myself - now they just think I'm on hands-free. But in essence I am, on the direct line to God. Yay!!
But I'm digressing...
But fasting? The word itself caused a momentary panic. No food! Aaarrggh!! How long should I fast? What does fasting involve? No solids? No liquids? What if I fast too long? What if I don't fast long enough? How long is right for me? Do I avoid ALL food preparation? Heck, who's going to feed the children?!! Do I pray when I would ordinarily handle food? Can I fast at work but not pray during the day as I'm working and still pray later in the day and be OK skipping breakfast and lunch too? Or should I only fast when I'm praying or pray when I fast?
Questions, questions, questions. Typical me. Present me with a situation, ask me to do something and I come up with 101 questions. It's part of my processing nature. Part of me that's not happy to embark on anything until I have made investigations, sorted my doubts, sourced my answers and evaluated the results. Only then, will I be content to take part.
Maybe this seems evasive, arrogant even. I assure you, it's not meant to be. But, in reverence to God, I am not doing this if I am ignorant to the facts. I am not going to dishonour Him by starting it with the wrong attitude and mental approach. I want to be right with Him. So, yesterday, instead of fasting I continued to eat and drink and spent the day asking Him at intervals what I should do? I don't even know if that was right. Maybe I should have fasted anyway and made that my prayer. But like I say, total novice. Just as a parent doesn't yell at a toddler for stumbling when making their first steps, I know God won't view me with displeasure at my faltering steps when making a first approach to fasting. As a parent guides and encourages, I know He'll guide and encourage me and He'll teach me where my 'right' is.
So, today I know how I want to do this. I'm not sharing here. It's between me and God. Just as prayer and fasting is between each Christian and God. It's personal. That's what makes it so amazing. I've learnt there is no right or wrong way to do it and as I've said before, He'll teach me my 'right' and I'm certain He'll also point out my 'wrong' too! What I also know is that the time I spend with Him will be sincere. It will be my uniterrupted time with God and I'm really looking forward to it.
Which leads to my next question. How on earth do I find the time to be alone with God? With four young children demanding attention from the moment they wake (well, from the moment I wake - we all know that early mornings do not exist in my time clock), school run to take on, dash off to drop off Sam, day at the office with 30 minute lunch break (open plan office, so no time alone), home, chores etc, dinner. Where is my time? This is the one fundamental thing that people fail to appreciate for a working mother. There is no 'me' time. I know that stay at home Mums have the same problem. Constant desired attention from their children, chores to do, errands to run..... where can we go to be alone? If I do get time alone, I'm burst in upon and asked if I'm OK. Why are you on your own Mummy? Can I sit on your lap Mummy? It's long been known that the best way to get your child's attention is to sit down and look relaxed!! It's something I struggle with. I long for just a day sometimes where I can book a day off work and be alone, but it's not something I can plan just now. So, at the moment I'm finding it hard to find the time to pray alone. To get time to earnestly put my mind at ease, rid it of errant thoughts here and there and to purely focus.
But on a more light-hearted note, if I manage to get through the day without nibbling or snacking it will be nothing short of a minor miracle! But again, testimony, I know, that He's carrying me through this as I must be one of the planet's most prolific between-meal nibblers. For me not to snack is rare - to skip a meal - unheard of, unless I'm ill. But I'm enjoying this. Not to prove myself to anyone, not to show that I'm resilient, not to prove a point, but to spend time with the God I love, putting His needs before my own during a time when I'd ordinarily be satisfying my own needs through the solace of food.
Showing posts with label Who Am I?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Who Am I?. Show all posts
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Sunday, 5 April 2009
Fitting In
This is a long one. I'm on a journey.
There are a lot of things about me that friends don't know, colleagues don't know and even family don't know. Over the years I've revealed things about myself that I'm not proud of. I've behaved in ways that contradict what I believe and I've said hurtful things to people - at times deliberately as they've hurt me and at times without realising it. I've acted inappropriately, I've sworn and been deceitful. We all do it, but I've had my moments where I've really excelled myself and I'm not proud.
The past few months have been a minefield and it's taken me six months to evaluate my place on this planet. A year ago I was ready to leave it. I'd worked out the sum my husband would receive both in tax free benefit, yearly allowance and quota per child upon my death and I was pretty much at the point where I'd carry it through because I knew the financial strain we were in would be lifted. The thought of the impact on my children is the only thing that stopped me. I'd had enough of life. I was desperately unhappy and nobody noticed.
A year ago I also visited the doctor because I thought I was a freak. I thought I wasn't functioning properly as a person, as a wife and as a mother. I thought I was going mad. I'd been signed off work for three weeks by my doctor after having a breakdown in the office and still I had no idea what was wrong with me. I was told I was normal. Well, normal sucked and normal hurt and normal was not what I wanted to be.
The longer I remained in this mental state the more people thought I was strong. They all marvelled at how I coped through our huge financial strain. They marvelled at how I kept a smile on my face and they marvelled at how I was such a great Mum to my children, while holding down a full time job and fitting in the other 101 things I tried to do. What they didn't see was the crumbling, frantic, impatient, worthless and completely destroyed woman who shut the front door each day.
And all through it I denied my Christian faith. For years I've turned my back on the one person who could have helped me through it all. For years I hid my beliefs away from my friends, my family and kept away from churches. Sure, I joined a few, but I never felt I really fitted in. Either I didn't feel right or the children didn't enjoy it and the minute too many questions were asked, I backed right away.
Trying to learn to cope alone makes you build walls around yourself. Big inpenetrable walls that nobody can break through. The more they hacked at the bricks, the more I piled the cement on in a desperate bid to keep them away. I now look back and see that some people were hacking because they wanted the gossip. They wanted the news to tell their friends. But some people were genuine with their hacking. They wanted to help. But depression brings on paranoia and with that, suspicion. Suspicion that people are trying to hack into your weaknesses, so the natural reaction is to repel them. Exposing your vulnerability magnifies your weaknesses and when you're not ready to back down and accept help for fear of being labelled incapable, it can have an extremely devastating effect on you and those around you. Especially the people who love and care for you.
Things went wrong at home. Terribly wrong and I did something I should never have done. I'm not going to go into detail here. I've said my sorries, I've repented, I've regretted and I've asked forgiveness and all I can do is hope that it's enough. All I can do is put a line under the hurt I caused and push away the hurt that was caused to me as I need to move on and build a stronger life for me and my family.
But I'm struggling. I'm struggling to be the wife, mother, friend and daughter I want to be. I'm struggling to have people understand that I'm Karen the Christian woman who as a young, tender 11 year old made a bold decision to trust in somebody the world has more fun ridiculing than trusting. I entered the Christian faith and made a vow to live by the example that Jesus set in the Bible. I followed this up by being baptised at the age of 14, in front of my mother, and the people I went to church with. My Dad refused to come and to this day remains a firm atheist.
But a few weeks ago a very good friend of mine sat me down and for an entire evening I cried and cried whilst pouring out my heart to her. She listened and gave me good advice but one comment struck me; the fact that I'd been trying to do it all myself and I needn't have had to put the strain on because there was somebody waiting desperately for me to ask Him for help. Now, I haven't prayed properly for years, but something clicked in me. The next day we went to a church that her pastor has recommended for me and that morning I walked in that door a weight lifted from my shoulders, my eyes were opened and I felt a huge surge of love, welcome and compassion. The vibrancy, friendliness and devotion were overwhelming. The welcome my daughters and I were given is nothing I had experienced before.
During the previous evening I had spoken to my friend that I felt like an overgrown garden. My head and heart felt completely overrun by choking, suffocating, deep rooted weeds. I explained how I felt that the surface weeds were easy to deal with, but as they grow so prolificly, I was expending all my energy pulling them up and never having the time to really dig out the stubborn ones, the ones with underground tubers creeping along unnoticed, doing more and more damage, depleting the earth of the nutrition and slowly killing the beautiful flowers that were planted there so tenderly years before.
At church that morning, a very soft spoken elder lady got up, and spoke that she felt somebody in the church had been dealing with weeds and was trying to clear a garden. You could have punched me in the face, it hit me that hard. At that point I broke down completely and poured out months and months of hurt, frustration, bitterness, sorrow, hurt and pain. I had always doubted when people said that God could speak to them so directly, but I knew that message was from Him for me. I spoke to Brenda afterwards as I felt she should know that the words she was led to speak were not in vain, that He had led her to speak for me. I don't know if anybody else in the church that morning were doing their own bits of weeding, but I know I was and I know that message was for me. That was my turning point. I turned to my friend who by this point was hugging me rather tight and said, 'this is it, I've found the jigsaw where my pieces fit'. It all made sense.
As a background, I spent from ages 4 until 19 at a Brethren church. Women wore hats on their heads as the Bible commanded that a woman should keep her head covered. Women did not speak out loud at all, neither to worship, pray or preach as the Bible taught a women should remain silent in church. I was not allowed to take the bread and wine at communion until I had been fully baptised by immersion, just as John the Baptist had baptised Jesus. I attended a Sunday morning Bible class, went to Breaking of Bread after it ended and returned again in the evening for a ministry service and then went to the house of one of the elders in the evening for the youth group. The church was strict in its application of Biblical teaching, but within that strictness was a love unabounding.
However, through all this, strangers were accepted with caution. The cup was passed by them in meetings if it wasn't known for certain they were baptised believers. Women who turned up in trousers or hats were looked upon with disdain and as I grew older I began to question this. Clapping did not happen in services and goodness me, you kept your bum well and firmly on your seat. I think it was Adrian Plass in his hilarious books that once made the joke about Brethren churches having the option of 'hands down for coffee'.
Although I make these observations on that church, which is still a small but very close and devoted church today, I look back with fondness. I thank them profusely for my vast Biblical knowledge. I thank them at the age of 8 I was encouraged to learn the books of the Bible in order. My prize being my very first own King James version (had to be King James!!). To this day I can still reel them off in order without hesitation. I thank them for the opportunities to go to Scripture Union camps and to become a young leader on youth holidays. I thank them for giving me verses to learn each week so I could learn more and more about the God within those pages. I thank them for giving me an education that surpasses all academic subjects and gave me the understanding to have the answers to those who doubted and misquoted the Bible to suit their own purpose.
But what I gained in that respect I lost out on learning how to really open myself to the freer side of being a Christian. The ability to walk into a church and throw my hands up when I really feel God is talking to me. To clap my hands and shimmy a bit when the music moves me and to allow my children to run freely and express themselves when the drums are going and the electric guitars are twanging. To feel confident to stand in front of people and speak when I feel moved. I wanted to go to the front today to speak of my love for my favourite verse, but I couldn't do it. I felt I was doing something 'wrong', because my years of teaching had taught me to stay still, to be silent. I'm only just comfortable at the moment clapping my hands when the beat shifts it a notch and I watch with complete joy when I see women freely opening themselves up and coming to the front and sharing and I long for the day I feel led to do it myself without hesitation or caution.
But I've felt it these last five weeks. I've felt a freedom I've never known. I've realised that it doesn't matter what people think about my faith. It doesn't matter that I've never told them before, because I can tell them now and it doesn't matter if they think I'm a loon dancing at church and declaring a faith in a person they think doesn't exist, because I know He does. In my heart I KNOW IT.
So, I'm trying to turn my life back around. I'm trying to do the right thing and I'm trying to become the person that God wants me to be. I have one life on this earth and I intend to do my best now to get it right.
My favourite verse in the Bible is Revelation 21v4. It is the hope I have. It's what it's all about. I don't know where your beliefs lie or whether you have a faith in something else or where your strength in your future is held, but I know where mine is.
There are a lot of things about me that friends don't know, colleagues don't know and even family don't know. Over the years I've revealed things about myself that I'm not proud of. I've behaved in ways that contradict what I believe and I've said hurtful things to people - at times deliberately as they've hurt me and at times without realising it. I've acted inappropriately, I've sworn and been deceitful. We all do it, but I've had my moments where I've really excelled myself and I'm not proud.
The past few months have been a minefield and it's taken me six months to evaluate my place on this planet. A year ago I was ready to leave it. I'd worked out the sum my husband would receive both in tax free benefit, yearly allowance and quota per child upon my death and I was pretty much at the point where I'd carry it through because I knew the financial strain we were in would be lifted. The thought of the impact on my children is the only thing that stopped me. I'd had enough of life. I was desperately unhappy and nobody noticed.
A year ago I also visited the doctor because I thought I was a freak. I thought I wasn't functioning properly as a person, as a wife and as a mother. I thought I was going mad. I'd been signed off work for three weeks by my doctor after having a breakdown in the office and still I had no idea what was wrong with me. I was told I was normal. Well, normal sucked and normal hurt and normal was not what I wanted to be.
The longer I remained in this mental state the more people thought I was strong. They all marvelled at how I coped through our huge financial strain. They marvelled at how I kept a smile on my face and they marvelled at how I was such a great Mum to my children, while holding down a full time job and fitting in the other 101 things I tried to do. What they didn't see was the crumbling, frantic, impatient, worthless and completely destroyed woman who shut the front door each day.
And all through it I denied my Christian faith. For years I've turned my back on the one person who could have helped me through it all. For years I hid my beliefs away from my friends, my family and kept away from churches. Sure, I joined a few, but I never felt I really fitted in. Either I didn't feel right or the children didn't enjoy it and the minute too many questions were asked, I backed right away.
Trying to learn to cope alone makes you build walls around yourself. Big inpenetrable walls that nobody can break through. The more they hacked at the bricks, the more I piled the cement on in a desperate bid to keep them away. I now look back and see that some people were hacking because they wanted the gossip. They wanted the news to tell their friends. But some people were genuine with their hacking. They wanted to help. But depression brings on paranoia and with that, suspicion. Suspicion that people are trying to hack into your weaknesses, so the natural reaction is to repel them. Exposing your vulnerability magnifies your weaknesses and when you're not ready to back down and accept help for fear of being labelled incapable, it can have an extremely devastating effect on you and those around you. Especially the people who love and care for you.
Things went wrong at home. Terribly wrong and I did something I should never have done. I'm not going to go into detail here. I've said my sorries, I've repented, I've regretted and I've asked forgiveness and all I can do is hope that it's enough. All I can do is put a line under the hurt I caused and push away the hurt that was caused to me as I need to move on and build a stronger life for me and my family.
But I'm struggling. I'm struggling to be the wife, mother, friend and daughter I want to be. I'm struggling to have people understand that I'm Karen the Christian woman who as a young, tender 11 year old made a bold decision to trust in somebody the world has more fun ridiculing than trusting. I entered the Christian faith and made a vow to live by the example that Jesus set in the Bible. I followed this up by being baptised at the age of 14, in front of my mother, and the people I went to church with. My Dad refused to come and to this day remains a firm atheist.
But a few weeks ago a very good friend of mine sat me down and for an entire evening I cried and cried whilst pouring out my heart to her. She listened and gave me good advice but one comment struck me; the fact that I'd been trying to do it all myself and I needn't have had to put the strain on because there was somebody waiting desperately for me to ask Him for help. Now, I haven't prayed properly for years, but something clicked in me. The next day we went to a church that her pastor has recommended for me and that morning I walked in that door a weight lifted from my shoulders, my eyes were opened and I felt a huge surge of love, welcome and compassion. The vibrancy, friendliness and devotion were overwhelming. The welcome my daughters and I were given is nothing I had experienced before.
During the previous evening I had spoken to my friend that I felt like an overgrown garden. My head and heart felt completely overrun by choking, suffocating, deep rooted weeds. I explained how I felt that the surface weeds were easy to deal with, but as they grow so prolificly, I was expending all my energy pulling them up and never having the time to really dig out the stubborn ones, the ones with underground tubers creeping along unnoticed, doing more and more damage, depleting the earth of the nutrition and slowly killing the beautiful flowers that were planted there so tenderly years before.
At church that morning, a very soft spoken elder lady got up, and spoke that she felt somebody in the church had been dealing with weeds and was trying to clear a garden. You could have punched me in the face, it hit me that hard. At that point I broke down completely and poured out months and months of hurt, frustration, bitterness, sorrow, hurt and pain. I had always doubted when people said that God could speak to them so directly, but I knew that message was from Him for me. I spoke to Brenda afterwards as I felt she should know that the words she was led to speak were not in vain, that He had led her to speak for me. I don't know if anybody else in the church that morning were doing their own bits of weeding, but I know I was and I know that message was for me. That was my turning point. I turned to my friend who by this point was hugging me rather tight and said, 'this is it, I've found the jigsaw where my pieces fit'. It all made sense.
As a background, I spent from ages 4 until 19 at a Brethren church. Women wore hats on their heads as the Bible commanded that a woman should keep her head covered. Women did not speak out loud at all, neither to worship, pray or preach as the Bible taught a women should remain silent in church. I was not allowed to take the bread and wine at communion until I had been fully baptised by immersion, just as John the Baptist had baptised Jesus. I attended a Sunday morning Bible class, went to Breaking of Bread after it ended and returned again in the evening for a ministry service and then went to the house of one of the elders in the evening for the youth group. The church was strict in its application of Biblical teaching, but within that strictness was a love unabounding.
However, through all this, strangers were accepted with caution. The cup was passed by them in meetings if it wasn't known for certain they were baptised believers. Women who turned up in trousers or hats were looked upon with disdain and as I grew older I began to question this. Clapping did not happen in services and goodness me, you kept your bum well and firmly on your seat. I think it was Adrian Plass in his hilarious books that once made the joke about Brethren churches having the option of 'hands down for coffee'.
Although I make these observations on that church, which is still a small but very close and devoted church today, I look back with fondness. I thank them profusely for my vast Biblical knowledge. I thank them at the age of 8 I was encouraged to learn the books of the Bible in order. My prize being my very first own King James version (had to be King James!!). To this day I can still reel them off in order without hesitation. I thank them for the opportunities to go to Scripture Union camps and to become a young leader on youth holidays. I thank them for giving me verses to learn each week so I could learn more and more about the God within those pages. I thank them for giving me an education that surpasses all academic subjects and gave me the understanding to have the answers to those who doubted and misquoted the Bible to suit their own purpose.
But what I gained in that respect I lost out on learning how to really open myself to the freer side of being a Christian. The ability to walk into a church and throw my hands up when I really feel God is talking to me. To clap my hands and shimmy a bit when the music moves me and to allow my children to run freely and express themselves when the drums are going and the electric guitars are twanging. To feel confident to stand in front of people and speak when I feel moved. I wanted to go to the front today to speak of my love for my favourite verse, but I couldn't do it. I felt I was doing something 'wrong', because my years of teaching had taught me to stay still, to be silent. I'm only just comfortable at the moment clapping my hands when the beat shifts it a notch and I watch with complete joy when I see women freely opening themselves up and coming to the front and sharing and I long for the day I feel led to do it myself without hesitation or caution.
But I've felt it these last five weeks. I've felt a freedom I've never known. I've realised that it doesn't matter what people think about my faith. It doesn't matter that I've never told them before, because I can tell them now and it doesn't matter if they think I'm a loon dancing at church and declaring a faith in a person they think doesn't exist, because I know He does. In my heart I KNOW IT.
So, I'm trying to turn my life back around. I'm trying to do the right thing and I'm trying to become the person that God wants me to be. I have one life on this earth and I intend to do my best now to get it right.
My favourite verse in the Bible is Revelation 21v4. It is the hope I have. It's what it's all about. I don't know where your beliefs lie or whether you have a faith in something else or where your strength in your future is held, but I know where mine is.
Wednesday, 18 March 2009
The Fickleness of Friendship
My life took a major turn last year and it's only now that I'm beginning to clear my head and see beyond the limits of my front door and my own insecurities. For a while now I have hidden beneath a blanket of doom and misery and despite putting a brave face on with the people I know, I have come to realise exactly who my friends are, who supports me, who has let me down and who will be featured in my life from now on.
A long time ago, many years in fact, I was given some very simple, but life changing advice. I was part of a church youth group and out of all the girls, I was probably the most rebellious. I never got into real trouble, but I was cheeky, too wise for my years and not afraid to stand my ground and question authority. I was never disrespectful, but I liked to have explanations for what was required of me and answers to my questions. I had a spark and a feistiness that somehow endeared me to the leadership team and the older members of the group. Probably because they thought I needed the most guidance!! I had spirit and individuality and this set me apart from my peers.
At times, when my feistiness was heightening I would be invited out 'for a pizza' with a particular person who had a knack of getting beyond my outer layer and understanding me for the person I was, not the person I wanted people to see. It is still a long standing joke with one of my best friends that whenever I got invited out 'for a pizza', I was in for a mentoring session, a few words of advice and a calming influential talk.
During one of these particular pizza sessions I was going through a bad patch with my peer group. A group of girls I was friendly with, and one in particular, was being nasty to me. No real reason, but teenage bitchiness going a bit too far. This friend noticed that I was miserable and took me aside, popped me under his wing and gave me what he thought was good advice. I was 14 at the time and I have NEVER forgotten it. At the time I took it on board like any other mid-teenager listening to an elder - listen intently, nod in the right places and get out of there as quick as possible. But to this day I remember that evening as though it were last night and I thank him so often in my mind for sharing it with me as it has really made me sort the wheat from the chaff in my life. It was simple advice and plain common sense really.
I had held on to 'friendships' for a long time. I don't like letting people down and I don't like to be let down, so I would continue to make efforts in relationships where I was the person doing all the running. I would go for months on end accommodating others and getting nothing in return and looking back now I see it for what it was - being used.
I was advised to look at each friendship I had individually. Not to associate a particular person with a gang or crowd, but to look at them on a one to one basis. What was it I liked about that person? What didn't I like? What had I done for them? What had they done for me? When did they want me around? When did I want them around? And so on. When I had analysed those answers I was then advised to ask myself whether having them around was good for me and enriching the person I was, or whether the association was damaging me and preventing me from moving on to the next stage in my life - whatever that stage was destined to be. I was advised that if I wanted to get on in life then I couldn't allow people to hold me back just because I felt that sentimentality and loyalty to their feelings was worth more than my own development and happiness. True friends would encourage me, support me and move up with me. Friends who were damaging would hold me back and prevent me from moving on, either out of jealousy or immaturity. I was advised to see friendships for what they were and for what they truly stood for.
It may seem harsh advice and some people would argue that friendships survive the test of time and that this person was manipulating my way of thinking, but that couldn't be further from the truth. This advice came from a man who was brought up by devout Christian parents, who had a loving and secure home. They were and still are wonderfully warm, welcoming and loving people and they have passed these traits down to their son - a friend I have not seen for a while now due to him living and working in Hong Kong. I miss my 'out for a pizza' sessions with him. When he's back in England we still go 'out for a pizza' and he still looks out for me and gives me advice - some of it welcome, some of it not so much so.
But he's helped me to realise that sometimes it's not a bad thing to put an end to something that has clearly faded. To sever a tie with somebody who maybe once was good for me, but is now proving to be more damaging to who I truly am. I'm now not afraid to end some 'friendships' that have been lies for years. I'm not afraid to turn my back on people who have talked about me behind my back, lied about me and assumed a piousness they are not in a position to possess. Some of them know how I feel about them and don't seem to care. That's their privilege. Others don't know that I'm severing ties and to be honest I'm not bothering to tell them. They too can let it fade, or if they're curious they're more than welcome to ask me why I've cooled off and I'll happily tell them. Not in any way malicious, but more an explanation of how I feel they have no place in my life now.
And the people who have been true friends know who they are. They have shown loyalty, open mindedness, fairness, support and love through my darkest days these last four months and I love them and treasure them more than they know. If that means reducing my true friends down to just four or five people, then I'm happy to do it.
During one of these particular pizza sessions I was going through a bad patch with my peer group. A group of girls I was friendly with, and one in particular, was being nasty to me. No real reason, but teenage bitchiness going a bit too far. This friend noticed that I was miserable and took me aside, popped me under his wing and gave me what he thought was good advice. I was 14 at the time and I have NEVER forgotten it. At the time I took it on board like any other mid-teenager listening to an elder - listen intently, nod in the right places and get out of there as quick as possible. But to this day I remember that evening as though it were last night and I thank him so often in my mind for sharing it with me as it has really made me sort the wheat from the chaff in my life. It was simple advice and plain common sense really.
I had held on to 'friendships' for a long time. I don't like letting people down and I don't like to be let down, so I would continue to make efforts in relationships where I was the person doing all the running. I would go for months on end accommodating others and getting nothing in return and looking back now I see it for what it was - being used.
I was advised to look at each friendship I had individually. Not to associate a particular person with a gang or crowd, but to look at them on a one to one basis. What was it I liked about that person? What didn't I like? What had I done for them? What had they done for me? When did they want me around? When did I want them around? And so on. When I had analysed those answers I was then advised to ask myself whether having them around was good for me and enriching the person I was, or whether the association was damaging me and preventing me from moving on to the next stage in my life - whatever that stage was destined to be. I was advised that if I wanted to get on in life then I couldn't allow people to hold me back just because I felt that sentimentality and loyalty to their feelings was worth more than my own development and happiness. True friends would encourage me, support me and move up with me. Friends who were damaging would hold me back and prevent me from moving on, either out of jealousy or immaturity. I was advised to see friendships for what they were and for what they truly stood for.
It may seem harsh advice and some people would argue that friendships survive the test of time and that this person was manipulating my way of thinking, but that couldn't be further from the truth. This advice came from a man who was brought up by devout Christian parents, who had a loving and secure home. They were and still are wonderfully warm, welcoming and loving people and they have passed these traits down to their son - a friend I have not seen for a while now due to him living and working in Hong Kong. I miss my 'out for a pizza' sessions with him. When he's back in England we still go 'out for a pizza' and he still looks out for me and gives me advice - some of it welcome, some of it not so much so.
But he's helped me to realise that sometimes it's not a bad thing to put an end to something that has clearly faded. To sever a tie with somebody who maybe once was good for me, but is now proving to be more damaging to who I truly am. I'm now not afraid to end some 'friendships' that have been lies for years. I'm not afraid to turn my back on people who have talked about me behind my back, lied about me and assumed a piousness they are not in a position to possess. Some of them know how I feel about them and don't seem to care. That's their privilege. Others don't know that I'm severing ties and to be honest I'm not bothering to tell them. They too can let it fade, or if they're curious they're more than welcome to ask me why I've cooled off and I'll happily tell them. Not in any way malicious, but more an explanation of how I feel they have no place in my life now.
And the people who have been true friends know who they are. They have shown loyalty, open mindedness, fairness, support and love through my darkest days these last four months and I love them and treasure them more than they know. If that means reducing my true friends down to just four or five people, then I'm happy to do it.
Sunday, 31 August 2008
Gifts From A Friend
Erica has tagged me and bestowed upon me my second blog award - for which I am mightily grateful!
Usually awards come with tagging rules but I don't like to tag on my blog, so Erica, please forgive me for not passing it on but thanks for the award and thanks for giving me the opportunity to answer the questions.
Get a move on coming across the Pond will ya!!! There are just too many miles....and I love you too (and your blog ;0) !!
1. Where is your cell phone? Study
2. Where is your significant other? Lounge
3. Your hair color? Brown
4. Your mother? Home
5. Your father? Home
6. Your favorite thing? Cuddles
7. Your dream last night? Unmemorable
8. Your dream/goal? Unattainable
9. The room you're in? Haven
10. Your hobby? Creativity
11. Your fear? Spiders
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Happy
13. Where were you last night? Home
14. What you're not? Vindictive
15. One of your wish-list items? Watch
16. Where you grew up? Suburbs
17. The last thing you did? IM
18. What are you wearing? Clothes
19. Your TV? Old
20. Your pet? Furry
21. Your computer? On
22. Your mood? Reflective
23. Missing someone? Yes
24. Your car? Negotiable.
25. Something you're not wearing? Shoes
26. Favorite store? John Lewis
27. Your summer? Questionable.
28. Love someone? Yes
29. Your favorite color? Purple
30. When is the last time you laughed? Tonight
31. Last time you cried? Yesterday
Usually awards come with tagging rules but I don't like to tag on my blog, so Erica, please forgive me for not passing it on but thanks for the award and thanks for giving me the opportunity to answer the questions.
Get a move on coming across the Pond will ya!!! There are just too many miles....and I love you too (and your blog ;0) !!
1. Where is your cell phone? Study
2. Where is your significant other? Lounge
3. Your hair color? Brown
4. Your mother? Home
5. Your father? Home
6. Your favorite thing? Cuddles
7. Your dream last night? Unmemorable
8. Your dream/goal? Unattainable
9. The room you're in? Haven
10. Your hobby? Creativity
11. Your fear? Spiders
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Happy
13. Where were you last night? Home
14. What you're not? Vindictive
15. One of your wish-list items? Watch
16. Where you grew up? Suburbs
17. The last thing you did? IM
18. What are you wearing? Clothes
19. Your TV? Old
20. Your pet? Furry
21. Your computer? On
22. Your mood? Reflective
23. Missing someone? Yes
24. Your car? Negotiable.
25. Something you're not wearing? Shoes
26. Favorite store? John Lewis
27. Your summer? Questionable.
28. Love someone? Yes
29. Your favorite color? Purple
30. When is the last time you laughed? Tonight
31. Last time you cried? Yesterday
Friday, 15 August 2008
This Won't Make Sense To Anybody But Me
And this post is for me. I will share it, but I won't explain it.
I'm in one of my periods of deep thought and it gets complex and it's a part of me nobody reaches. Not because they can't, but because they haven't found out how. And I have my theory on that as well.
Deep.
A footprint in concrete is captured forever. It's solid and unmouldable. It never moves, it never sways and it never changes and is an instant capture of one moment. It is constant, but can never be softened. It is harsh. But the dependency of it always being there affords it its placement.
A footprint in the sand is temporary and is gently washed away. The same foot can create another footprint, and although at first appearance it appears to be identical, it's slightly altered, but the comfort of creating it is as exciting as the first footprint. And the presence of the sand footprint, although infinitely and continually exposed to the inevitability of its own destruction, within its vulnerability, offers more perceived stability than the concrete one.
I'm in one of my periods of deep thought and it gets complex and it's a part of me nobody reaches. Not because they can't, but because they haven't found out how. And I have my theory on that as well.
Deep.
A footprint in concrete is captured forever. It's solid and unmouldable. It never moves, it never sways and it never changes and is an instant capture of one moment. It is constant, but can never be softened. It is harsh. But the dependency of it always being there affords it its placement.
A footprint in the sand is temporary and is gently washed away. The same foot can create another footprint, and although at first appearance it appears to be identical, it's slightly altered, but the comfort of creating it is as exciting as the first footprint. And the presence of the sand footprint, although infinitely and continually exposed to the inevitability of its own destruction, within its vulnerability, offers more perceived stability than the concrete one.
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Monday, 11 August 2008
A Strange Taste In My Mouth
In the office today a colleague asked if I wanted to have a jar of champagne marmite - she bought it for her husband and he didn't like it. This resulted in me and another colleague using our plastic coffee stirrers to dip in and taste the new marmite concoction to give our verdicts. After mucking around pretending to be Jilly Gould, basking in the aromatic sensation of yeast extract and essence of Moet Chandon wafting through our nostrils from the glass smoked vessel we came to the conclusion it actually tasted quite good.
Then the conversation ensued as to whether I was going to try it on toast with jam - which is how I ALWAYS eat my Marmite. (Unless it's sandwiched in ryvita with slices of cucumber). When I tell people this, they balk at it and say it's gross - but then they admit they haven't actually tried it. I get the same reaction when I suggest that peanut butter on a digestive biscuit topped with a sliced banana is actually quite tasty too and drinking black coffee after eating an extra strong mint is a pleasant taste-bud sensation. And did you know, that if you bite the top off a banana and stick your finger in the top, it naturally splits three ways?
So, dare I mention here the times I've dipped breadsticks into chocolate spread, lavished lime marmalade over a ryvita, dipped cold sausages in apple sauce and eaten numerous bowls of cornflakes topped with cold Ambrosia rice pudding straight from the tin?
I love my little culinary idiosyncracies ... well they may not be conventional, I may not have a science lab kitchen like Heston Blumenthal, but I know what I like. Try some of them, you might be pleasantly surprised.
Then the conversation ensued as to whether I was going to try it on toast with jam - which is how I ALWAYS eat my Marmite. (Unless it's sandwiched in ryvita with slices of cucumber). When I tell people this, they balk at it and say it's gross - but then they admit they haven't actually tried it. I get the same reaction when I suggest that peanut butter on a digestive biscuit topped with a sliced banana is actually quite tasty too and drinking black coffee after eating an extra strong mint is a pleasant taste-bud sensation. And did you know, that if you bite the top off a banana and stick your finger in the top, it naturally splits three ways?
So, dare I mention here the times I've dipped breadsticks into chocolate spread, lavished lime marmalade over a ryvita, dipped cold sausages in apple sauce and eaten numerous bowls of cornflakes topped with cold Ambrosia rice pudding straight from the tin?
I love my little culinary idiosyncracies ... well they may not be conventional, I may not have a science lab kitchen like Heston Blumenthal, but I know what I like. Try some of them, you might be pleasantly surprised.
Sunday, 10 August 2008
The Regression of Free Play
Thinking back yesterday to my post about spending time with the children doing crafts, I was reminded of the post I submitted on an old blog some time back.
It bothers me that I have never let me children wander off to play freely when we've been outside. I've never allowed my son to get on his bike and just cycle off to a friend's house and I've never given permission for the children to play freely outside the front of my house.
I can't really add anymore to what I wrote then. I wish time had evolved differently for our children, and I hope as they get older, they'll understand and forgive me for suppressing their freedom.
Here's what I wrote. Maybe your views are different. How much of a free reign do you give your children and are you comfortable with it?
Thinking back to my childhood my mother had no idea where I was most of the time. I lived on a housing estate that was home to about 40 children between the ages of 6 and 16. We'd all form into our little clusters and spend the day playing games like Kick-The-Can, British Bulldog, Red Rover, The Wild Game and Pom-Pom. Games that took hours as it involved having to run around the entire estate finding each other, or being outside on the front green en-masse playing until the sun set. I was never over-weight and I was NEVER bored.
On really hot days there used to be a superb outside swimming pool in the town centre. It cost 50p to get in. Can you imagine ANYTHING costing just 50p now for the whole day? I'd be up at the crack of dawn, make my sandwiches, fill up my Mum's leftover lemonade bottle with orange squash, grab my swimming cossie and towel and get on the bus. By about 9.00am there would be at least a dozen friends of mine who'd travelled in from a five mile radius and we would spend all day there. The place was incredibly popular and you had to be early to get a good spot. It was the kind of place you parked your towel and bags and nobody moved them - there was a sense of sacredness to the place you picked and nobody violated it, no matter how much they were squashed around the edges or squished into the hedge on the perimeter.
The days at the pool were the only days my Mum really knew where I was. But then the scary thing is, my Mum had absolutely no idea of my ability to swim, which at the age of 12 was very, very weak self-taught breaststroke. With this 'expertise' at my disposal I thought nothing of jumping off the top diving board into the deep end. I still remember now kicking furiously to break the surface of the water, having run out of breath, struggling desperately as my chest started to hurt from running out of oxygen supply. My friends and I would lark around dunking each other under water and throwing each other in from the sides just as we'd got dried. Sometimes we'd thrown in each other's towels too. It was good whole hearted, FUN. Kids that behave like that now are accused of being irresponsible.
So, if my Mum was OK with me going off all day and playing outside with my friends and OK with me going to an outdoor swimming pool, why can't I let my children play outside the front of the house on their bikes? Because I'm frightened they'll fall off and hurt themselves or brake too late and dent the neighbour's car. When I was a kid you fell off, wiped the blood with a handful of grass from the verge next to you and you never did actually crash into that car.
Why is it that years ago you could find huge lumps of chalk in your garden soil to draw hopscotch squares on the pavement and use pebbles as counters? I've not got a single lump of chalk in my garden and the children can't use the pavement because everyone's mounted their cars on it.
Why can't I let my children play Hide and Seek and Pom Pom? Because if I can't find them I panic, thinking some crazed nutter has taken them for a perverse half hour before throttling their little necks.
Why can't my children go to the swimming pool on their own? Because of Health and Safety Regulations citing that children under 10 must be accompanied by an adult and fear stories published in the press about toddlers drowning in 2 inches of water in the garden paddling pool when Mum went inside to go to the toilet.
I miss the freedom of my childhood. Not for me, but for my children. I would love them to have the open spirit I had, the lack of fear, the open space and fresh air and for their only worry to be getting home on time for tea.
Only to gobble it down double quick in order to head out for more fun before it was time to come in for bed before it got dark."
It bothers me that I have never let me children wander off to play freely when we've been outside. I've never allowed my son to get on his bike and just cycle off to a friend's house and I've never given permission for the children to play freely outside the front of my house.
I can't really add anymore to what I wrote then. I wish time had evolved differently for our children, and I hope as they get older, they'll understand and forgive me for suppressing their freedom.
Here's what I wrote. Maybe your views are different. How much of a free reign do you give your children and are you comfortable with it?
***
"Maybe I'm just getting old, but the summer holidays aren't what they were like when I was a child. A recent news article hit the headlines indicating that parents these days were too frightened to let their children out to play and that this restrictiveness was harming their childhood. I'm inclined to agree but it's not easy to find the balance between letting your child have freedom to play outside your sphere of viewing and being downright neglectful by not knowing where they are and who they're with.Thinking back to my childhood my mother had no idea where I was most of the time. I lived on a housing estate that was home to about 40 children between the ages of 6 and 16. We'd all form into our little clusters and spend the day playing games like Kick-The-Can, British Bulldog, Red Rover, The Wild Game and Pom-Pom. Games that took hours as it involved having to run around the entire estate finding each other, or being outside on the front green en-masse playing until the sun set. I was never over-weight and I was NEVER bored.
On really hot days there used to be a superb outside swimming pool in the town centre. It cost 50p to get in. Can you imagine ANYTHING costing just 50p now for the whole day? I'd be up at the crack of dawn, make my sandwiches, fill up my Mum's leftover lemonade bottle with orange squash, grab my swimming cossie and towel and get on the bus. By about 9.00am there would be at least a dozen friends of mine who'd travelled in from a five mile radius and we would spend all day there. The place was incredibly popular and you had to be early to get a good spot. It was the kind of place you parked your towel and bags and nobody moved them - there was a sense of sacredness to the place you picked and nobody violated it, no matter how much they were squashed around the edges or squished into the hedge on the perimeter.
The days at the pool were the only days my Mum really knew where I was. But then the scary thing is, my Mum had absolutely no idea of my ability to swim, which at the age of 12 was very, very weak self-taught breaststroke. With this 'expertise' at my disposal I thought nothing of jumping off the top diving board into the deep end. I still remember now kicking furiously to break the surface of the water, having run out of breath, struggling desperately as my chest started to hurt from running out of oxygen supply. My friends and I would lark around dunking each other under water and throwing each other in from the sides just as we'd got dried. Sometimes we'd thrown in each other's towels too. It was good whole hearted, FUN. Kids that behave like that now are accused of being irresponsible.
So, if my Mum was OK with me going off all day and playing outside with my friends and OK with me going to an outdoor swimming pool, why can't I let my children play outside the front of the house on their bikes? Because I'm frightened they'll fall off and hurt themselves or brake too late and dent the neighbour's car. When I was a kid you fell off, wiped the blood with a handful of grass from the verge next to you and you never did actually crash into that car.
Why is it that years ago you could find huge lumps of chalk in your garden soil to draw hopscotch squares on the pavement and use pebbles as counters? I've not got a single lump of chalk in my garden and the children can't use the pavement because everyone's mounted their cars on it.
Why can't I let my children play Hide and Seek and Pom Pom? Because if I can't find them I panic, thinking some crazed nutter has taken them for a perverse half hour before throttling their little necks.
Why can't my children go to the swimming pool on their own? Because of Health and Safety Regulations citing that children under 10 must be accompanied by an adult and fear stories published in the press about toddlers drowning in 2 inches of water in the garden paddling pool when Mum went inside to go to the toilet.
I miss the freedom of my childhood. Not for me, but for my children. I would love them to have the open spirit I had, the lack of fear, the open space and fresh air and for their only worry to be getting home on time for tea.
Only to gobble it down double quick in order to head out for more fun before it was time to come in for bed before it got dark."
Saturday, 9 August 2008
Yes, I Know I'm Anal ...
... because I fold my carrier bags. I can't help myself, I've done it for years. I assure you it's so they fit in the drawer neater rather than being scrunched up in an untidy heap.
... because I face up my cans in the larder and keep all the rice and pasta on one shelf and the cans on another and line up the cereal boxes in size order and face them out so you can read what the boxes are.
... because I can't bear to stack the Wii games with the names upside down.
... because I have to fold the towels the same way and stack them up neatly in the airing cupboard and also fold the mattress sheet inside the duvet cover and put in the pillowcases too. What's wrong with that? It's a whole bedset inside the duvet cover so you don't have to go hunting around for the other bedding. I think it's pretty ingenious myself.
... because I had four children and all because I thought the car looked odd with three children in the back.
Nah, only kidding on the last one - I always wanted four children.
Am I the only one here bordering on OCD? Do any of you have any quirks you'd like to share?
... because I face up my cans in the larder and keep all the rice and pasta on one shelf and the cans on another and line up the cereal boxes in size order and face them out so you can read what the boxes are.
... because I can't bear to stack the Wii games with the names upside down.
... because I have to fold the towels the same way and stack them up neatly in the airing cupboard and also fold the mattress sheet inside the duvet cover and put in the pillowcases too. What's wrong with that? It's a whole bedset inside the duvet cover so you don't have to go hunting around for the other bedding. I think it's pretty ingenious myself.
... because I had four children and all because I thought the car looked odd with three children in the back.
Nah, only kidding on the last one - I always wanted four children.
Am I the only one here bordering on OCD? Do any of you have any quirks you'd like to share?
Friday, 18 July 2008
Friendship is...
... having a friend who works and whose husband earns more than you and your husband put together who says she's skint but puts away a lot of money every month to save for a new car and holiday to Disneyworld, is going to the NEXT sale tomorrow morning to buy clothes for her holiday to Disneyworld and then says she can't afford to buy her children a McDonalds and you feel sorry for her because her eldest child has been cruelly bullied that week and she's just been to her Grandma's funeral and some gormless dude threw something on her car from a bridge and the school are letting her down and life's generally a piece of poo for her at the moment and a McDonalds will really cheer the children up and she needs a shoulder to cry on and you end up paying £25.00 for the McDonalds for all your children and hers even though you're already overdrawn and still have a week of food and diesel to pay for and you don't care because she's your friend.
Friendship is.... when that friend last year watched your cry in your kitchen because when her children came round to play after school and ended up staying for dinner you couldn't afford to buy a tub of ice-cream for pudding because you'd hit your overdraft limit and that friend turned up the next night with a week's worth of shopping for you and stood on your doorstep with it and she did it because she's your friend.
Friendship is.... when that friend last year watched your cry in your kitchen because when her children came round to play after school and ended up staying for dinner you couldn't afford to buy a tub of ice-cream for pudding because you'd hit your overdraft limit and that friend turned up the next night with a week's worth of shopping for you and stood on your doorstep with it and she did it because she's your friend.
Sooo, Rachel....
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Modesty in Moderation
People who know me well know that I am a great fan of Stephen Fry. It's his intellect that attracts me, not his physique, if you're wondering!
I adore people with brains. I love intelligence and I admire quick thinkers. I also warm to people who recognise they have this quality without feeling the need to elevate themselves to a pompous self-built pedestal, sneering down at the less gifted masses around them. I don't warm, however, to people who are smart but constantly feel the need to remind the world around them that they're 'gifted', 'above normal levels of intelligence', 'my kid's smart, because I was as a child', and 'I've got a degree, therefore I'm more intelligent than you'. You know the sort.
However, my line of thinking was self-challenged this week. Yes, I have views and I analyse my thoughts and draw my own conclusions as to whether they're valid, fair and reasoned and I came to the conclusion that it is actually OK to publicise intelligence and high achievement.
After all, Gordon Ramsay's a great cook. Three Michelin stars, successful restaurants, numerous books and TV shows. He's a good cook, the world knows it, the Michelin raters know it and HE knows it. He's not shy about saying so. Take world athletes. They train for years to win one medal in the Olympics. Tennis players aspire for the Wimbledon title. When they're told they're No.1 in the world, they don't shy away from it and clothe themselves in modesty, they openly declare their superior ability and make sure the world sees their talent for what it is. Footballers are dealt with in multi-million pound transfer deals because they're good at what they do.
So... this begs the question. Why keep quiet if you're intelligent? Why isn't a bright person able to stand out from the crowd and declare they're bright? Why are people with obvious mental agility shunned and accused of being 'bigheads' and 'smart-arses'? For my own part, as I was growing up, most people I knew that displayed this skill also unfortunately held vaues that superior intellect also meant superior values, elevated morale and the general consensus that the world owed them a living. One person in particular, who I won't waste time describing, even went so far one day as to test me on various elements of Les Miserables as he knew I'd gone to the theatre to see it. He'd seen it over fifteen times and wanted to see if he could catch me out - he didn't, and to this day the disdain I hold for him and others like him because of their need to feel cerebrally superior is second to none.
So, I like people who are clever and modest about it. I admire people who know they're clever and use the skill to both their advantage and others about them, without the need to knock others around.
Lots of my friends think I'm scatty, a lot of the time I am. Many of them laugh at my blond moments... and most of them don't realise the last time my IQ was tested - I hit 136. Statistically I'm in the top 2% of the population for intelligence. I should have a degree and I think, given the chance, I would easily have obtained one. I should be running a firm of my own, but I'm doing an admin job as I've chosen to put my children before my career. But I don't look down at people around me who might have a lower IQ because it's WHO people are that counts. I don't randomly assess what their IQs might be. For all I know they could all hold higher levels than me. But that's not the point.
The point is, I love all my friends and family for who they are and I hope that whatever they're good at, they feel comfortable about declaring it out loud and gaining the recognition they deserve. But me? I prefer people to think I'm good at textiles and cooking and that I do stupid things from time to time as I'm more comfortable with those labels.
Now, if you don't mind I have a Logic Puzzle to finish and I'm sure I left that Sudoku book lying around somewhere......
I adore people with brains. I love intelligence and I admire quick thinkers. I also warm to people who recognise they have this quality without feeling the need to elevate themselves to a pompous self-built pedestal, sneering down at the less gifted masses around them. I don't warm, however, to people who are smart but constantly feel the need to remind the world around them that they're 'gifted', 'above normal levels of intelligence', 'my kid's smart, because I was as a child', and 'I've got a degree, therefore I'm more intelligent than you'. You know the sort.
However, my line of thinking was self-challenged this week. Yes, I have views and I analyse my thoughts and draw my own conclusions as to whether they're valid, fair and reasoned and I came to the conclusion that it is actually OK to publicise intelligence and high achievement.
After all, Gordon Ramsay's a great cook. Three Michelin stars, successful restaurants, numerous books and TV shows. He's a good cook, the world knows it, the Michelin raters know it and HE knows it. He's not shy about saying so. Take world athletes. They train for years to win one medal in the Olympics. Tennis players aspire for the Wimbledon title. When they're told they're No.1 in the world, they don't shy away from it and clothe themselves in modesty, they openly declare their superior ability and make sure the world sees their talent for what it is. Footballers are dealt with in multi-million pound transfer deals because they're good at what they do.
So... this begs the question. Why keep quiet if you're intelligent? Why isn't a bright person able to stand out from the crowd and declare they're bright? Why are people with obvious mental agility shunned and accused of being 'bigheads' and 'smart-arses'? For my own part, as I was growing up, most people I knew that displayed this skill also unfortunately held vaues that superior intellect also meant superior values, elevated morale and the general consensus that the world owed them a living. One person in particular, who I won't waste time describing, even went so far one day as to test me on various elements of Les Miserables as he knew I'd gone to the theatre to see it. He'd seen it over fifteen times and wanted to see if he could catch me out - he didn't, and to this day the disdain I hold for him and others like him because of their need to feel cerebrally superior is second to none.
So, I like people who are clever and modest about it. I admire people who know they're clever and use the skill to both their advantage and others about them, without the need to knock others around.
Lots of my friends think I'm scatty, a lot of the time I am. Many of them laugh at my blond moments... and most of them don't realise the last time my IQ was tested - I hit 136. Statistically I'm in the top 2% of the population for intelligence. I should have a degree and I think, given the chance, I would easily have obtained one. I should be running a firm of my own, but I'm doing an admin job as I've chosen to put my children before my career. But I don't look down at people around me who might have a lower IQ because it's WHO people are that counts. I don't randomly assess what their IQs might be. For all I know they could all hold higher levels than me. But that's not the point.
The point is, I love all my friends and family for who they are and I hope that whatever they're good at, they feel comfortable about declaring it out loud and gaining the recognition they deserve. But me? I prefer people to think I'm good at textiles and cooking and that I do stupid things from time to time as I'm more comfortable with those labels.
Now, if you don't mind I have a Logic Puzzle to finish and I'm sure I left that Sudoku book lying around somewhere......
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
Discrimination: Good or Bad?
Two headlines have been bouncing around my brain today. The tragic murder of Ben Kinsella and the little boy in Sweden accused of 'discriminating' against two classmates for not inviting them to his birthday party.
It really does seem the planet has fallen off its axis.
Let's take Ben's murder. Here's a happy 16 year old boy, just finished his GCSEs, having a night out with his friends. Not a troublemaker, no criminal record, just an ordinary teenager winding down after months of exam revision and school stress. So why does a night out for this boy end up with him being stabbed multiple times in the torso? Was he in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did he dare to answer somebody back for insulting him? Did he just 'look the wrong way' at some demented brainless youth hanging around a street corner looking for someone to slash as part of a night's entertainment? It's no surprise to anybody in England that four youths have already been arrested and it's no surprise what their background is. They're all the same. You just have to look at the police picture profiles to realise they're all from the same unfortunate backgrounds. The police say it wasn't the result of discrimination on the part of the assailants. Rubbish. It never is, is it? Discrimination comes in all forms and these boys knifed Ben because they discriminated against him randomly. It doesn't have to be planned. I don't think they even cared who he was - he was just the nearest one they reached, so he took the brunt. But the British press will print their pictures, the MPs will gasp with shock and horror and as ever, blame the other political party, the tabloids will run their gazillionth campaign to end the knife culture in Britain and what will happen? They'll get 2 years max, ready to re-offend, only with more skills learnt inside prison. Is it going to get to the point where I'll have to keep my children in until they're 35 just to keep them safe?
Then, the birthday party. The only upside here is that finally, it's not just Britain that is showing the world it has a mental block when it comes to political correctness gone mad. The fact a 7 year old boy is admonished for not inviting 2 children in his class to his party beggers belief. Maybe these 2 children are the sort that will grow up to be like the ones that stabbed Ben. Maybe they never invited him to their party, so he's just repaying the favour. Who knows? Discrimination? You bet it is.
But who said discrimination is ALWAYS bad?
As a parent, I actually think SOMETIMES it's a good thing. And you want to know why? Because it's a skill my children need to learn in order to make informed, intelligent decisions about who they associate with, where they go and what they do.
Take the class bully. Every school has one. Every parent hates to think it's their child. But they're there - every school, every town, every country. One child just out to get everyone. I have told my children to keep away from other children like that. I have taught them to suss them out and avoid them and have no hesitation in giving as good as they get if they're picked on. I don't advoate my children starting fights, I advocate self-defence. Some people might not like this and cry pitiful woes of teaching them to 'walk away' and 'tell an adult'. Well, let me tell you, it doesn't work. And I speak from first hand knowledge both as a child victim and as the mother to a child who 'walked away' and 'told an adult'. Six weeks later when nothing was done, in exasperation he punched the kid square on the nose and dealt with it. The child has left him alone since then. Even the school bully has a little verbal pop at him now and again, but he's warned off with the knowledge that Joshua could floor him with a well aimed professionally trained rugby tackle - not one to test him on when you're standing on a concrete playground.
I'm getting angry.
I teach my children to discriminate against foul mouthed people who bitch, backstab and are two faced. I don't mix with people like that and I don't expect my children to. I teach them to stand up to people who mock them. Madeleine has a problem pronouncing the 'sh' sound as she clamps the sides of her tongue between her teeth when she says it. One girl is making her life a misery - I found out this morning. She's been told to keep away from this girl.
I teach my children to discriminate against liars. Lying is not tolerated in my house. It's the biggest no-no going. They can shout, have temper tantrums, be late in with homework, stomp and moan, but if they EVER dare lie to me, all privileges get removed, playdates get cancelled, the works. Joshua has a friend who is compulsive liar. To the point where he told me his uncle got blown up in a Land Rover. He also tells lies about the other children in his class. I banned him coming over for tea and told Joshua that when his friend could be honest about things and not lie so much, he could come back. Apparently he's calmed down and I'm allowing him over next week. More lies and he's staying away.
So, am I right to teach my children discrimination? Maybe discrimination is not the correct terminology. I could use euphemisms like 'choose your friends wisely', 'don't get involved in fights', 'don't let somebody encourage you to do something you're uncomfortable with'. It goes on. So.. if you're milder mannered than me and you use those euphemisms with your child, just remember, you're teaching them discrimination, just like I am. Only, we're doing it out of love for our children. Out of concern; as we want them to grow to be well balanced adults. Teaching them to hate, steal, lie and cheat - that's different.
We have children and we are responsible for who they are until the day we die - let's not screw it up.
It really does seem the planet has fallen off its axis.
Let's take Ben's murder. Here's a happy 16 year old boy, just finished his GCSEs, having a night out with his friends. Not a troublemaker, no criminal record, just an ordinary teenager winding down after months of exam revision and school stress. So why does a night out for this boy end up with him being stabbed multiple times in the torso? Was he in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did he dare to answer somebody back for insulting him? Did he just 'look the wrong way' at some demented brainless youth hanging around a street corner looking for someone to slash as part of a night's entertainment? It's no surprise to anybody in England that four youths have already been arrested and it's no surprise what their background is. They're all the same. You just have to look at the police picture profiles to realise they're all from the same unfortunate backgrounds. The police say it wasn't the result of discrimination on the part of the assailants. Rubbish. It never is, is it? Discrimination comes in all forms and these boys knifed Ben because they discriminated against him randomly. It doesn't have to be planned. I don't think they even cared who he was - he was just the nearest one they reached, so he took the brunt. But the British press will print their pictures, the MPs will gasp with shock and horror and as ever, blame the other political party, the tabloids will run their gazillionth campaign to end the knife culture in Britain and what will happen? They'll get 2 years max, ready to re-offend, only with more skills learnt inside prison. Is it going to get to the point where I'll have to keep my children in until they're 35 just to keep them safe?
Then, the birthday party. The only upside here is that finally, it's not just Britain that is showing the world it has a mental block when it comes to political correctness gone mad. The fact a 7 year old boy is admonished for not inviting 2 children in his class to his party beggers belief. Maybe these 2 children are the sort that will grow up to be like the ones that stabbed Ben. Maybe they never invited him to their party, so he's just repaying the favour. Who knows? Discrimination? You bet it is.
But who said discrimination is ALWAYS bad?
As a parent, I actually think SOMETIMES it's a good thing. And you want to know why? Because it's a skill my children need to learn in order to make informed, intelligent decisions about who they associate with, where they go and what they do.
Take the class bully. Every school has one. Every parent hates to think it's their child. But they're there - every school, every town, every country. One child just out to get everyone. I have told my children to keep away from other children like that. I have taught them to suss them out and avoid them and have no hesitation in giving as good as they get if they're picked on. I don't advoate my children starting fights, I advocate self-defence. Some people might not like this and cry pitiful woes of teaching them to 'walk away' and 'tell an adult'. Well, let me tell you, it doesn't work. And I speak from first hand knowledge both as a child victim and as the mother to a child who 'walked away' and 'told an adult'. Six weeks later when nothing was done, in exasperation he punched the kid square on the nose and dealt with it. The child has left him alone since then. Even the school bully has a little verbal pop at him now and again, but he's warned off with the knowledge that Joshua could floor him with a well aimed professionally trained rugby tackle - not one to test him on when you're standing on a concrete playground.
I'm getting angry.
I teach my children to discriminate against foul mouthed people who bitch, backstab and are two faced. I don't mix with people like that and I don't expect my children to. I teach them to stand up to people who mock them. Madeleine has a problem pronouncing the 'sh' sound as she clamps the sides of her tongue between her teeth when she says it. One girl is making her life a misery - I found out this morning. She's been told to keep away from this girl.
I teach my children to discriminate against liars. Lying is not tolerated in my house. It's the biggest no-no going. They can shout, have temper tantrums, be late in with homework, stomp and moan, but if they EVER dare lie to me, all privileges get removed, playdates get cancelled, the works. Joshua has a friend who is compulsive liar. To the point where he told me his uncle got blown up in a Land Rover. He also tells lies about the other children in his class. I banned him coming over for tea and told Joshua that when his friend could be honest about things and not lie so much, he could come back. Apparently he's calmed down and I'm allowing him over next week. More lies and he's staying away.
So, am I right to teach my children discrimination? Maybe discrimination is not the correct terminology. I could use euphemisms like 'choose your friends wisely', 'don't get involved in fights', 'don't let somebody encourage you to do something you're uncomfortable with'. It goes on. So.. if you're milder mannered than me and you use those euphemisms with your child, just remember, you're teaching them discrimination, just like I am. Only, we're doing it out of love for our children. Out of concern; as we want them to grow to be well balanced adults. Teaching them to hate, steal, lie and cheat - that's different.
We have children and we are responsible for who they are until the day we die - let's not screw it up.
Thursday, 19 June 2008
Bi-lateral reduction
I promised earlier to share the dilemma of the boobs and tum problem I have at the moment. This could get kind of long so get comfy, put the kettle on and come on a journey with me.
I was an early developer. I developed 'up top' at the age of 10 and was in a C cup by the time I was 12. At the age of 11 my periods started. It came as no surprise to me as my Mum and my Grandma had both also been early developers so Mum made sure I was ready and knew all about what was going to happen to my body long before it did. Looking back, I suppose these days one would say that talking to your nine year old daughter about babies, periods and boobs is too early, that it robs them of their innocence, but I needed to know. Maddie's coming up for 8 soon, so I know I'll be sitting alongside her in the next two years having the exact same conversation and I'm not sure if I'm ready for that.
But my Mum was and when I was ready to wear a bra she took me to the shop she'd always bought hers at. But she never had me measured. I tried on a few bras and opted for the ones I felt comfortable in. I had no idea that the bra should sit firm against my breastbone between my boobs and that the front of the bra shouldn't lift. I had no idea that the back elastic should sit straight across my back and not ride up. I had no idea that my cup should not spilleth over. And so, throughout my teen years I wore a 34D.
I grew but my boobs grew quicker. At school I was called 'Jugs' by the boys. At the time it was something I lived with. It's a major factor in my decision to opt for a single sex school for my daughters. I don't want them going through the ridicule I faced. The boys found it funny and I laughed along too, because it was easier to do that than to sit in tears each time they ripped my heart open, publicly making a mockery of my figure. It's hard enough being a teenager but to have yourself be the centre of attention because of your physique is unbearable. In games lessons I would be jeered at every time I ran and for a very athletic girl, this was a nightmare. I gave up athletics as I couldn't bear hearing the cries of 'look at them wobble', or 'careful Karen, you'll end up with two black eyes'. At one point I was the fastest sprinter in the school. I was also in the A-teams for both hockey and netball and it was only because another girl in my year had the same problem and also hit the squads that I didn't give up as I knew she was being ridiculed as much as me.
With clothing I could never tuck a shirt into my skirt. My bras fit so badly that my boobs would literally sit at my waistband and they were so bulbous they'd extend out beyond my frame. It really was like having two melons stuffed down my shirt. I couldn't sleep on my front and if I slept on my side one would flop over and crush the other. Lying on my back they fell to the sides under my armpits. Looking back and describing it might sound humourous, but to me it was hell. Each time I bought an outfit the assistant would loudly declare I'd bought the wrong top/bottom combination. I had to, I had no choice but to buy a top three sizes bigger than my bottom. When my Mum bought bras they would ask her if she was sure she had the right size. She always replied in the affirmative and even to this day will get defensive if I ever suggest she got it wrong. She'll even go so far as to say she had the same problem, that she was big, but as much as I love her, for this she failed. She failed to deal with an essential part of my development and even now I don't think she fully understood just how it affected me. It wasn't until I was earning my own money that I took it upon myself to buy my own bras and get measured professionally. So, until the age of 18 I wore the wrong size.
When I did get measured I was staggered to find out I was a 32FF. I will never forget the utter humiliation I felt at having to lift my top up for the assitant to measure me. I will never forget her physically lifting my bosoms up to measure my rib-cage underneath. Yet she didn't bat an eyelid. She calmly told me my size and asked whether I'd like her to select a few bras for me to try. She told me what was wrong with my current bra and asked if I'd been measured before. She knew her stuff. She knew damn well I'd never been measured and she knew this was the first time I'd had it revealed what size I was. She also knew I was shocked as I cried when I tried the first bra on. I couldn't believe how big it was. I hated the wide straps and I was disgusted that at the age of 18 when all my friends were wearing skimpy tops and off the peg underwear, I had to wear a fortress that needed three rows of hooks to hold it in place. I also hated the fact it cost 3 times what my mother originally paid for the bras that didn't fit.
I learn to dress well to cover it, but I never quite got away with it. I was known as being 'the one with the big tits'. When I was marrying Andy I could not find a single wedding dress off the peg that would accommodate a size 12 bottom and a size 18 top. Most wedding dress assistants I came across were bitches at the best of times, but they really surpassed themselves when they smirkily suggested I buy an 18 dress and have the bottom taken in - at a hefty cost of course. Luckily my friend's Mum was a dressmaker and she made my dress to fit.
But the biggest humiliation ever was my wedding day. I'm not sure if I'll ever let this one go and although I'm a forgiver by nature and although I've forgiven, and believe me, it was hard to do, I will NEVER forget this one. Our best man opened his speech with the words, 'when my baby son first saw Karen his first thoughts were, Christ, I'll never get through all that'. This was in reference to his son being fed by me. This was in front of 80 people. Some of whom I hardly knew. This was in front of my family and my bosses. I sat at the top table with EVERYONE looking at me and it ruined my day. Nobody laughed and as ever, true to form and covering my pain and sensitivity, I pathetically giggled to show that I hadn't had a sense of humour failure. The one time I felt I looked gorgeous, the one time I wore a dress that fit me properly, the one time my underwear made the best of my figure. The one time that nobody would dare to ridicule me and our best man did it in one sentence in front of all the people I loved the most. It still upsets me to this day that he did it. He has no idea what that did to me and I'll never tell him, but I've never forgotten and I never will.
Then I got pregnant and I actually went off the scale as far as bra sizes went. I spent my entire pregnancy wearing a bra that was too tight and it was only because my bump was so prominent and I carried throughout the winter that I was able to hide my chest and feel normal for a while. Then after giving birth the next humiliation hit me. Breast-feeding. I'd always had inverted nipples and feeling freaky enough with huge boobs, this didn't help. Try as I might to get them to come out so my baby could latch on, I just couldn't do it. No milk came in and even when the nurses took me to the pump room to see if I could express milk, nothing came out. No water, no colustrum, nothing. I can still picture the midwife's face when she turned to me and said, 'you really can't do it can you? We either have to give him a bottle or put him on a drip because he needs to be fed NOW.' The sense of failure and utter uselessness I felt then must have been the deepest pit of despair I'd sat in. Here I was with the biggest boobs in the hospital and they were absolutely no use other than to provide entertainment for others.
But there was heartening side. Prior to getting pregnant I remember telling Andy of my misery and I still well up now describing this, but I remember being in tears about it when he casually mentioned visiting the doctor to see whether I could have an operation. It was something I'd never thought about as plastic surgery was something for bimbos. Bimbos with nothing else to do with their money. Plus, I couldn't afford it anyway. But, with nothing to lose I scheduled an appointment with the doctor and she instantly agreed I was a good candidate. To cut a long story short, two months later I received a letter from my surgery saying they would agree to the operation, refer me to the consultant and also pay the bill from their funds.
I must have been in a deliriously ecstatic state for at least a week. To finally know that I could be normal after all these years was difficult to comprehend. My operation was scheduled for the January, but at that point I was 6 months pregnant with Joshua. Having spoken to the consultant he urged me to have surgery as soon as possible after childbirth and gave me three months to 'settle'. At this point the weight of my boobs was physically pulling my breast away from the breastbone and the tops of my breasts were covered in stretchmarks. My shoulders ached where the weight of them constantly pulled the straps down and the sores underneath caused by the lack of air getting to them was unbearable to tolerate as I had to wear a wired bra that pressed against me.
I had the operation in August 1999. It was the BEST thing I have ever done. I have NEVER regretted it. My only regret is that I didn't have the conviction, foresight and courage to do it earlier. Yes, I have scars, but my surgeon was neat, VERY neat. I had a nipple inversion correction and now they function normally. I'm that confident with them now that I have no qualms about showing people the scars and given the opportunity to go somewhere hot I would go topless - even in front of friends. I was told it would be highly unlikely I'd breastfeed again, but after my fourth pregnancy I had a milk flow. It wasn't enough to sustain a baby but it was there.
Now, I can buy underwear off the peg. I can afford it. I can buy dresses and suits that fit properly. I can run and swim and jump and skip without feeling self conscious. Now I know that men, although they check out my boobs, actually see my face first. And that feels good, really good.
I was an early developer. I developed 'up top' at the age of 10 and was in a C cup by the time I was 12. At the age of 11 my periods started. It came as no surprise to me as my Mum and my Grandma had both also been early developers so Mum made sure I was ready and knew all about what was going to happen to my body long before it did. Looking back, I suppose these days one would say that talking to your nine year old daughter about babies, periods and boobs is too early, that it robs them of their innocence, but I needed to know. Maddie's coming up for 8 soon, so I know I'll be sitting alongside her in the next two years having the exact same conversation and I'm not sure if I'm ready for that.
But my Mum was and when I was ready to wear a bra she took me to the shop she'd always bought hers at. But she never had me measured. I tried on a few bras and opted for the ones I felt comfortable in. I had no idea that the bra should sit firm against my breastbone between my boobs and that the front of the bra shouldn't lift. I had no idea that the back elastic should sit straight across my back and not ride up. I had no idea that my cup should not spilleth over. And so, throughout my teen years I wore a 34D.
I grew but my boobs grew quicker. At school I was called 'Jugs' by the boys. At the time it was something I lived with. It's a major factor in my decision to opt for a single sex school for my daughters. I don't want them going through the ridicule I faced. The boys found it funny and I laughed along too, because it was easier to do that than to sit in tears each time they ripped my heart open, publicly making a mockery of my figure. It's hard enough being a teenager but to have yourself be the centre of attention because of your physique is unbearable. In games lessons I would be jeered at every time I ran and for a very athletic girl, this was a nightmare. I gave up athletics as I couldn't bear hearing the cries of 'look at them wobble', or 'careful Karen, you'll end up with two black eyes'. At one point I was the fastest sprinter in the school. I was also in the A-teams for both hockey and netball and it was only because another girl in my year had the same problem and also hit the squads that I didn't give up as I knew she was being ridiculed as much as me.
With clothing I could never tuck a shirt into my skirt. My bras fit so badly that my boobs would literally sit at my waistband and they were so bulbous they'd extend out beyond my frame. It really was like having two melons stuffed down my shirt. I couldn't sleep on my front and if I slept on my side one would flop over and crush the other. Lying on my back they fell to the sides under my armpits. Looking back and describing it might sound humourous, but to me it was hell. Each time I bought an outfit the assistant would loudly declare I'd bought the wrong top/bottom combination. I had to, I had no choice but to buy a top three sizes bigger than my bottom. When my Mum bought bras they would ask her if she was sure she had the right size. She always replied in the affirmative and even to this day will get defensive if I ever suggest she got it wrong. She'll even go so far as to say she had the same problem, that she was big, but as much as I love her, for this she failed. She failed to deal with an essential part of my development and even now I don't think she fully understood just how it affected me. It wasn't until I was earning my own money that I took it upon myself to buy my own bras and get measured professionally. So, until the age of 18 I wore the wrong size.
When I did get measured I was staggered to find out I was a 32FF. I will never forget the utter humiliation I felt at having to lift my top up for the assitant to measure me. I will never forget her physically lifting my bosoms up to measure my rib-cage underneath. Yet she didn't bat an eyelid. She calmly told me my size and asked whether I'd like her to select a few bras for me to try. She told me what was wrong with my current bra and asked if I'd been measured before. She knew her stuff. She knew damn well I'd never been measured and she knew this was the first time I'd had it revealed what size I was. She also knew I was shocked as I cried when I tried the first bra on. I couldn't believe how big it was. I hated the wide straps and I was disgusted that at the age of 18 when all my friends were wearing skimpy tops and off the peg underwear, I had to wear a fortress that needed three rows of hooks to hold it in place. I also hated the fact it cost 3 times what my mother originally paid for the bras that didn't fit.
I learn to dress well to cover it, but I never quite got away with it. I was known as being 'the one with the big tits'. When I was marrying Andy I could not find a single wedding dress off the peg that would accommodate a size 12 bottom and a size 18 top. Most wedding dress assistants I came across were bitches at the best of times, but they really surpassed themselves when they smirkily suggested I buy an 18 dress and have the bottom taken in - at a hefty cost of course. Luckily my friend's Mum was a dressmaker and she made my dress to fit.
But the biggest humiliation ever was my wedding day. I'm not sure if I'll ever let this one go and although I'm a forgiver by nature and although I've forgiven, and believe me, it was hard to do, I will NEVER forget this one. Our best man opened his speech with the words, 'when my baby son first saw Karen his first thoughts were, Christ, I'll never get through all that'. This was in reference to his son being fed by me. This was in front of 80 people. Some of whom I hardly knew. This was in front of my family and my bosses. I sat at the top table with EVERYONE looking at me and it ruined my day. Nobody laughed and as ever, true to form and covering my pain and sensitivity, I pathetically giggled to show that I hadn't had a sense of humour failure. The one time I felt I looked gorgeous, the one time I wore a dress that fit me properly, the one time my underwear made the best of my figure. The one time that nobody would dare to ridicule me and our best man did it in one sentence in front of all the people I loved the most. It still upsets me to this day that he did it. He has no idea what that did to me and I'll never tell him, but I've never forgotten and I never will.
Then I got pregnant and I actually went off the scale as far as bra sizes went. I spent my entire pregnancy wearing a bra that was too tight and it was only because my bump was so prominent and I carried throughout the winter that I was able to hide my chest and feel normal for a while. Then after giving birth the next humiliation hit me. Breast-feeding. I'd always had inverted nipples and feeling freaky enough with huge boobs, this didn't help. Try as I might to get them to come out so my baby could latch on, I just couldn't do it. No milk came in and even when the nurses took me to the pump room to see if I could express milk, nothing came out. No water, no colustrum, nothing. I can still picture the midwife's face when she turned to me and said, 'you really can't do it can you? We either have to give him a bottle or put him on a drip because he needs to be fed NOW.' The sense of failure and utter uselessness I felt then must have been the deepest pit of despair I'd sat in. Here I was with the biggest boobs in the hospital and they were absolutely no use other than to provide entertainment for others.
But there was heartening side. Prior to getting pregnant I remember telling Andy of my misery and I still well up now describing this, but I remember being in tears about it when he casually mentioned visiting the doctor to see whether I could have an operation. It was something I'd never thought about as plastic surgery was something for bimbos. Bimbos with nothing else to do with their money. Plus, I couldn't afford it anyway. But, with nothing to lose I scheduled an appointment with the doctor and she instantly agreed I was a good candidate. To cut a long story short, two months later I received a letter from my surgery saying they would agree to the operation, refer me to the consultant and also pay the bill from their funds.
I must have been in a deliriously ecstatic state for at least a week. To finally know that I could be normal after all these years was difficult to comprehend. My operation was scheduled for the January, but at that point I was 6 months pregnant with Joshua. Having spoken to the consultant he urged me to have surgery as soon as possible after childbirth and gave me three months to 'settle'. At this point the weight of my boobs was physically pulling my breast away from the breastbone and the tops of my breasts were covered in stretchmarks. My shoulders ached where the weight of them constantly pulled the straps down and the sores underneath caused by the lack of air getting to them was unbearable to tolerate as I had to wear a wired bra that pressed against me.
I had the operation in August 1999. It was the BEST thing I have ever done. I have NEVER regretted it. My only regret is that I didn't have the conviction, foresight and courage to do it earlier. Yes, I have scars, but my surgeon was neat, VERY neat. I had a nipple inversion correction and now they function normally. I'm that confident with them now that I have no qualms about showing people the scars and given the opportunity to go somewhere hot I would go topless - even in front of friends. I was told it would be highly unlikely I'd breastfeed again, but after my fourth pregnancy I had a milk flow. It wasn't enough to sustain a baby but it was there.
Now, I can buy underwear off the peg. I can afford it. I can buy dresses and suits that fit properly. I can run and swim and jump and skip without feeling self conscious. Now I know that men, although they check out my boobs, actually see my face first. And that feels good, really good.
Saturday, 31 May 2008
I'm Not Real
I asked the Magic 8 ball if I was real.
It told me, 'Outlook Not So Good'.
So, there you have it. If you thought I was your mother, wife, sister, daughter or friend, you might have been mistaken.
I think I'm either your mother, wife, sister, daughter or friend but then I could just be a figment of my own imagination. But then who does my imagination REALLY belong to if I might not be real?
But then, maybe I'm just a mirage in your desert.
Mmmmm, one to ponder.
It told me, 'Outlook Not So Good'.
So, there you have it. If you thought I was your mother, wife, sister, daughter or friend, you might have been mistaken.
I think I'm either your mother, wife, sister, daughter or friend but then I could just be a figment of my own imagination. But then who does my imagination REALLY belong to if I might not be real?
But then, maybe I'm just a mirage in your desert.
Mmmmm, one to ponder.
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