My problem... or theirs?

Transcribing an interview with Dad last night… When I first told him I’d like to have another child he said he was ‘underwhelmed’. It’s that word that I’ve held onto rather than the advice he gave later… ‘you can’t spend your whole life worrying about what other people might think’. I realised that’s exactly what I do… and a lot of this ‘I don’t fit/they don’t accept me’ angst is stuff that I hold onto and perpetuate…

Sure, they make judgements according to what they know… but if I close them out (my sister and mum in particular) for fear of what they might think… I’m not really allowing them the opportunity to revise their attitudes towards me or sexuality or conception… And if my worst fear is that they won’t see things the same way I do then, so what? Is that really any worse than carrying around all this baggage and nursing all my resentments?

I need to say ‘Look, this is who I am… I’d like to have another child and this is how I’m going to do it. Like it or lump it… I’m going to be honest with Rosie so that I can help her deal head on with any issues that arise at school or with friends. You can choose to come with us on the journey or you can invent some complicated fictions for yourselves and your kids… either way both Rosie and I will continue to be open and truthful to ourselves…

Mum, Dad, Jean… I owe you an apology… all this time I’ve been operating on the assumption that you wouldn’t be up for it… Are you?

An old, very special friend OD’d on the weekend… and it’s got me thinking…

How much are we responsible for our baggage?

Lots of A’s friend’s and family had given up on him because we’d been there, helping him out so many times… and he’d still just get sucked into the same whirlpool, over and over again… not just addiction, but feeling worthless, resentful, like he’d never fit… like people didn’t see him for who he really was…

I don’t know that he ever really understood how much we loved him… for who he really was… and that’s why it was so impossible to stand around helplessly whilst he self-destructed…