Naive, but also "MY boobs. No touching without consent, regardless what colour you are"

I know I have been leading a so-called privileged white life, although I am being discriminated for other issues than the colour of my skin, and in far less violent ways - being in the margins of society but still receiving monthly disability checks, for instance. So I am not familiar with the blunt, arrogant, massively violent ways in which people of other ethnicities are attacked and humiliated, robbed of their humanity. 

The last week Twitter and Instagram, and likely Facebook too (but I don't have an account there), have exploded in messages and reports on the horrible deaths of people who should still be living their lives right now: A white supremacist belief has taken over common sense, killing Black people, fighting Black people, wrecking Black people, all because, yes, these people are Black. That is their crime, the colour of their skin.

I knew to some extent racism still rules profoundly in every country but I never knew. Now I am reading in on the topic, as I realised here, in Belgium, too there is a viciousness at work that needs to be stopped - politics playing racist cards and far right parties gaining voters every day. A young woman being offered a prestigious function at the liberal party is bashed because she has Iraqi roots - what the fuck? I mean, NO! People, this is 2020 - we are supposed to be the highest evolved species in human history, we are supposed to understand - and practice - the value of respect, acceptance, cooperation and complementing each other. We are supposed to be able to maximize our capacity to empathize and be kind ...

"That, I know, is a very naive take on the world, but it is a view I love to hold on to, a view I keep passing on to my son"

 

Am I naive? Yes. I think so. I am naive in thinking everyone should be mature enough to see each other's worth, beyond the colour of skin. We are all people with hearts that beat in the same rhythm of life, souls yearning for kindness, and a capability of limitless loving. We are capable of helping and sustaining each other, of supporting and cheering on one another. Religion and origins should never be the reason not to. 
That, I know, is a very naive take on the world, but it is a view I love to hold on to, a view I keep passing on to my son and whoever his friends are.

Where is the racist in me?

I am following Layla F. Saad on Instagram and I have to admit, I both admire and fear the fierceness of this lady. Unaware yet of her personal story, but knowing she had more than her share of white shit, I can only imagine her own anger and fear. I am to read her novel as soon as my funds allow. 
But yes, I fear her fierceness, because her words invoke some sort of accountability, as if I am part of the problem. So I tried looking at me - ways in which I allow racism to exist. 

After I went to a public elementary school, where I shared my classroom with poor white, olive, brown and black kids, I moved to a moody, capricious neighbourhood, known for its delinquency and rare serious crimes, where a big part of the city's Turkish community lived. It was not safe for a woman, let alone a girl, walk out there alone after dark - and even daytime was tricky, as I found out. Many times I was addressed by Turkish men in unmistakable sexist ways, varying from "lovely knees" to pricking my chest to check if my boobs were real - this happened while on the tram and with people surrounding me but no one intervened. As I was being abused by my narcissistic mother ever since I was a little girl, I had no idea of what to do, so I just did a turtle escape - I huddled in myself and pretended it did not happen.

One time, a black man came up to me, asking me if I could translate a letter for him since he only spoke English, and Flemish was too hard for him. He seemed in real distress so I did go with him, eager to help him. It was a bit weird, I have to admit, as he led me to this strange door in an even stranger building - it was a part of my neighbourhood I usually skipped. I cannot remember what the letter was about: I only recall the frenzy of my mother when she found out. I was called stupid and idiot and naive and all things ugly for trusting a black man, who had a sincere question for help.

Later I would have many encounters with Moroccan, Algerian, Turkish and Black young men; I learned a lot, but at that time, there was still so much I did not understand. The way they saw themselves as outcasts, for instance. The communities they were homed in, the outskirts of town, like ghettos.

I know now my attraction was a rebellious act against my parents, my mother in particular, who still is embarrassingly racist and would often comment viciously on Muslim women and the physically and/or mentally disabled. My mother is of Indonesian descent herself, her parents were both Dutch-Indonesian and fled Indonesia after my grandfather was released from a Japanese work camp. They went to Holland where they built a family they abused and destroyed, struggling to fit in and coping miserably with the consequences of WWII.

Standing up for yourself is not racism

Just now, at dinner, I had an interesting talk with my ten-year-old son, about how to be a good person, accepting each other's differences in skin, upbringing and gender. I told him how proud I am of him for not relying on colour of skin to decide who would be his friend. And when I explained to him that sexist discrimination still existing here, in a country that so proudly shows its gender friendliness, he was adamant in stating he would never be such a man who thinks less of a woman.

All this is me looking into myself in order to find the racist in me. I think it is fair to say there have been times I was scared of the Turkish and Moroccan young men, grouping together and mustering every girl that passed them. Even me. I always thought myself an ugly girl - something my mother encouraged, by making me wear ugly glasses and forcing baggy clothes in dull tones on me, remember, she is a narcissistic-manipulative person and she raised me to never feel good about myself - but somehow the boys of Turkish and Moroccan descent seemed to think I was worth calling to, though I often felt like cattle being scrutinized. It always left me confused and wondering if I was racist for wanting them to stop calling to me. It seemed that any form of criticism to someone with non-white roots was bombarded as racist.

The "lovely knees" sticks with me to this day, and I remember myself smiling dryly and saying in a rather mocking tone "thank you", leaving the boy rather speechless. I would never call them names or curse them, I just tried my sarcasm, as it helped me dealing with my mother and brother too.

 

Later, at University, there were considerable few students who were not white. I had different encounters there, white boys grouping the way the non-white boys in the area where I lived, ill-tempered and bad-mannered, and scrutinizing girls in equally foul ways. They spread a high sense of fear, and a waft of beer and marijuana that made me sick. 

But would I call myself racist?

No.

Would I now stand up for myself if one grabbed my boobs as this man did when I was 17?

Hell yeah.

Would THAT be racist?

No, why? I am setting a boundary there, it is MY body, MY boobs. No touching without consent, regardless what colour you are.

"because when at one time I expressed my sadness and, yes, frustration about this, my son said, 'I believe she [the Romanian mother] really likes to talk to you but she may feel kind of embarrassed, perhaps she's afraid of making mistakes'"

Since then, I have had many nice encounters with women of another ethnicity than me. I never actually think "Oh, let's have a talk with my neighbour of Brazilian descent" or "I am going to try talk to this Romanian mother now". I do not see them that way - they are women who are also mothers and who I happen to meet in the street or at the school or whatever. I want to talk to them to connect, to share some joy and kindness. Trouble is, these women feel very secluded and lonely, being immigrants - that in itself is creating an invisible boundary which will take courage and kindness to cross. Most of these women do not speak Flemish very well, and English is troubling too, so communication is limited. I am encouraged to keep trying though, because when at one time I expressed my sadness and, yes, frustration about this, my son said, "I believe she [the Romanian mother] really likes to talk to you but she may feel kind of embarrassed, perhaps she's afraid of making mistakes". That hit home profoundly, coming from him - even though the thought had crossed my mind earlier. 

So, recalling Layla F. Saad's fierceness, yes, I think there may be a fear in me, from what I experienced in the past, but no fear of ethnicity. No fear of different colour of skin. I do not consider myself a racist. If I am anything, then I am curious and willing to learn. I will read Saad's Me and White Supremacy and I will read the works of Ibram X. Kendi; if only because here in Belgium we are very ill-informed on these issues in the USA. This is not about me being "lovingly kind to other cultures", this is me wanting to know, to learn and to practice in real life. The best way I can. And this is through getting the knowledge and passing it on to my son, and those who are willing to listen. 

But I will still take a wide berth though when seeing my path blocked by a group of young men, whatever colour their skin is.  

Potiron - a work in progress, of a were-pumpkin that is about to blow the Garden to pieces (new episodes will be added weekly, hopefully)

Dear reader, you are about to immerse yourself in a world of cunning cats, cursed pumpkins, dirty politics, and ancient rivalries. It is a nasty sort of fairytale, for grown-ups. Proceed only if you think you can handle this. 

Chapter 0 -- The zero hour

Basil braced himself, as the glowing eyes came closer. From the corner of his eye he noticed some movement of the rats. Behind him he could hear shuffling sounds coming from the shrubbery. He hoped Mad Louie and Mahoganey had run off, yet he doubted that. Mahoganey wasn’t easily scared, much less by a couple of FurBalls. Great Cat Above, he wished these three were just that: FurBalls. They had the overall appearance of cold blooded assassins. The kind Madame Raisin recruited for this kind of ... situation.
    Bring it on, he thought as he drove his claws firmly in the dirt. He curled his lips in a menacing snarl. I am ready.

Chapter 1 -- In which is told how it all began

Savoy was sitting on the wall of rugged rocks and looked down on the Garden. His orange eyes were fixed on the big, shiny and absolute huge pumpkin. The tip of his tail waved back and forth in a hypnotising rhythm, while he tried to ignore the mouse that had emerged from under the woodpile. It was still early but the sun was warm. Behind Savoy the dew still glistened in tiny beads on the grass. There was an itch between his shoulders, that sent uneasy tingles down his skin, making his white-and-orange fur stir violently. That pumpkin was simply too big for its own good. How in Great Cat’s Name did it get this … this enormous? Savoy squinted his eyes. The other three pumpkins were a lot smaller. Savoy knew the big one was called Potiron. And that he was notoriously feared. Even though everyone knew plants had no voice or conscience of their own, Savoy could feel the pressure of dark energy that surrounded the pumpkin. He was way too different from the other three. Bigger. Shinier. Eerier. He could not quite put his paw on it, but Savoy sensed the danger. He couldn’t help but remember, three Summers ago, Timmy the tomato. Timmy had been living proof that ‘something’ was able to take over the soulless state of a plant and thus terrorise the whole Garden. Savoy did not need to look at the wilted beanstalks to learn the effect of the monstrous pumpkin on the Garden. Apparently, the beans had passed rather quickly. Maybe thankfully so. Earlier, the Man had sowed carrots and when they had grown their first four fuzzy leaves, they died a horrible death. Not to mention the forget-me-nots and the tagetes the Woman secretly had planted in between the zucchinis and the peas. One zucchini had been stomped to mush overnight. Again, Savoy thought of Timmy.

The ongoing struggle of healing

It was naive of me to think I finally had reached that part of my journey when I could lay my head and rest for a while. No, it's nothing dramatic going on, just a minor setback in my mind. It's something I need to get out, as part of the ongoing healing. But I am tired and a migraine now has taken over the normal fibromyalgia pain, and thinking is taking a tremendous effort. 

I'm not sure what caused this mental setback. It could have started when we got back from the pet store to buy supplies for the cats and birthday presents for Little Spottedleaf - she turns 1 on June 19. We both were very tired on the drive home; my boy suffering from a massive hay fever episode, and me from just using up too many spoons in too short a time. Back home I received a phone call that the water butt which I had ordered early March, had finally arrived. By then, the migraine was happily settling and I had difficulty concentrating and thinking, besides the total lack of energy, so no way I was going to crawl behind the wheel again. I asked my ex, since he lives close to the store keeping the water butt. When he arrived at my door, he was joyfully telling me about the virtual drink he would be attending when he got home. Normally he and his colleagues do this every Thursday in real life, but you know, corona. Instead of wishing him a happy time, I answered in a resentful tone, That's the joy of being able to work, right, get-togethers with co-workers; something that people forget about being chronically ill, I don't have that - and I added, silently to myself, I feel so very isolated. And useless, as a person, as a member of society. And then I felt guilty too, because I could not mute the resentment and be more friendly towards my ex, who, after all, had been so kind to get me that water butt.

It also could have started yesterday, on seeing a post of a magnificent artist I follow on Instagram. She only recently started experimenting with watercolour, and I was in awe of those wonderful pieces she created. I felt a pang of sadness, realising I would never be as good as she is. I am too amateuristic, too clumsy and trial&error still - and while I was thinking that, I knew I was being too hard on myself. Later that evening, I did Tara Brach's newly added meditation, Light RAIN in difficult times, and I cried the entire 9.5 minutes - because my difficult time was, yet again, me feeling inadequate and insufficient, falling short on so many aspects of being and accomplishing that I was drowning in quicksand again. 

And I was doing so well, I thought in-between my sadness and the nurturing part of the RAIN technique. I was doing so well, feeling light and capable, and managing boundaries and feeling proud of me. Yet, here I was, huddling in Peach's blanket, sniffling at the hot tears on my trembling hands, trying with an air of desperation to comfort the little girl inside me, mumbling that, YES, she was good enough and that I knew she tried the best she could - but the words felt hollow and I almost saw them fall around me, like fallen leaves in Autumn. 

It also might have started already last week, secretly, on realising that once again I would not be able to handle this month's finances. The ever-present frustration about my financial situation has been a heavy mental and emotional burden ever since I lost my job, so many years ago, but in the beginning it was buffered by my now ex's paycheck and the burden definitely less heavy than it is now. The divorce three years ago put me in much more delicate position, as I left with debts and even though my disability benefits have increased, my tax assessment did too, almost five times as much as I used to pay - or almost 1.5 month's worth of my benefits. Since I was not aware of that, I have been like driftwood on the sea of bills, debts and taxes ever since. If it weren't for the kindness and huge generosity of many people on Instagram, and one lovely woman in particular, I would have been with Social Services ages ago, and they would have managed all my money affairs and taken away my independency and perhaps also my cats and maybe the care of my child. For at that particular time, I even wasn't able to buy bread. I cannot express how deep the shame runs in me, of not being able to take care of my wallet, my bank account - to an outsider it may well seem money is leaking through my fingers, or to put it in my ex father-in-law: That I am a bottomless hole. Yes, I like to buy art supplies, and I did pay for some apps that give me pleasure. I do like to buy bird food if I can, to sustain the wild birds in my garden. And I do buy (expensive, for me) supplements to support my cats' health, as I know they work; and I do the same for myself since medication in itself is not enough - I have spent countless euros on supplements that I hoped would help, most of which did not but now I finally seem to have found the good ones.

But I have lived two years without buying anything for myself - no books, clothes, shoes. I mean, I really AM NOT leaking money through my fingers. Only this year I was able to buy some books for myself, and new bedding, thanks to the generous birthday gifts I received from two of my dearest friends. And thanks to some donations I got from my artwork I finally could buy birthday presents of my own for several other friends. I haven't been able to do so in ... like forever.

I know healing is a journey. I know it takes time, especially because of the severity and intensity of the trauma I endured as a child and long after in adulthood. I know. 

I know the stigma my mother engraved in my bones won't fully disappear. But I hate to hear her voice in my head once more - you are not worthy; you are unfit to deal with reality; you are unlovable; we never expected you to become a mother; you fail as a mother; you are too dumb to even dance before the devil; you have accomplished nothing worthwhile in your entire life; the books you wrote are stupid fairytales, nothing to be proud of; you should stop drawing those idiot sketches, stupid faeries, you live in a fantasy world; you are too sensitive, and weak; yes, I think you are pretty but I have to, because I am your mother. 

I try so hard not to listen. 

But I fear I fail at that too.

One day I will allow myself to believe there ARE people who love me

It was only last year, when I finally mustered up the courage to look for a new therapist, that I was able to really tackle the idea of my mother not only being narcissistic but also not having loved me, at all. That was a tough truth to take in, but in the end it was the step I needed to take to even begin my healing.

I have been posting a lot on Instagram about the start of this journey. Recently, I came across some really personal struggles and truths which stopped me from posting more. I still am not convinced I should continue posting, but I feel I can write about it in my blog. Few people read this still so chances are slim that I offend or hurt people. The last thing I want is trigger other people's traumatic pasts.

For the record, I went no contact with my family, now 2.5 years ago. In that regard it is fairly easy for me to deal with the echoes of the past, since they are physically a long distance away from me. Yet, reading "Will I ever be enough?" by Dr. Karyl McBride, I need to add that the mental separation is far from established. With my new therapist, I was working on that, through EMDR, but then covid-19 happened, and my therapy sessions were cancelled. The one video consult that we did, never had the power a real session has, and my therapist refuses to try on EMDR that way. It means that I am a bit left to my own devices, trying to keep my head above the dark deep of anxiety, where the mother monsters lurk. 

Lately, triggers reviving the trauma have been everywhere, popping up like daisies, buttercups, and clovers in an early Summer meadow. Instead of the careful responses which I had been practising while in therapy, I now find myself trauma responding: with fear, with blaming myself, with guilt, with shame, and a lot of self-destructive thoughts ("I'm not good enough", "I am not living up to expectations", "I am unlovable"). I often feel as if walking on quicksand, desperately trying to keep up life's pace - even in these corona times - and pretend I got everything under control, if only for the sake of my son. Trauma responding also means I am very purposefully shutting down, out of fear I am being a burden, keeping away from social media as much as possible, because I think no one wants me there anyway, and only staying in touch with a chosen few I have learned to trust. This, in short, is not good. 

One very striking passage in Dr. Karyl McBride's healing guide Will I ever be good enough? is:

Most damaging is that a narcissistic mother never approves of her daughter simply for being herself, which the daughter desperately needs in order to grow into a confident woman. A daughter who doesn’t receive validation from her earliest relationship with her mother learns that she has no significance in the world and her efforts have no effect. She tries her hardest to make a genuine connection with Mom, but fails, and thinks that the problem of rarely being able to please her mother lies within herself. This teaches the daughter that she is unworthy of love. The daughter’s notion of mother-daughter love is warped; she feels she must “earn” a close connection by seeing to Mom’s needs and constantly doing what it takes to please her. Clearly, this isn’t the same as feeling loved. Daughters of narcissistic mothers sense that their picture of love is distorted, but they don’t know what the real picture would look like. This early, learned equation of love—pleasing another with no return for herself—has far-reaching, negative effects on a daughter’s future romantic relationships

Because in these words I recognised my entire life, up to when I shut her out, and more, I recognised the same destructive pattern - the validation seeking, the forcing a connection, the desire to be part of someone's life - in all of my earlier friendships. Earlier as in 'before I came to realise the long-lasting impact of my mother's narcissism on every aspect of my life'. Needless to say I only could save a few of those friends, thanks to their understanding and patience, and - dare I say it? - love for me. Therapy now is helping me stripping all emotion off single traumatic events, and I complement that therapy with my own research on narcissistic mothers - such as the book by Dr. McBride, and also Mothers who can't love, by Dr. Susan Forward - and I listen to Tara Brach's podcasts on healing in presence, to investigate what is really alive in my heart. Both the reading and the podcasts are confronting me with unwanted flashbacks from the past, situations I really do not want to relive - and some come back to me in my dreams - but I apparently need to accept, to sit with, to finally release them as part of what has been, in order to move on. 

This afternoon I noted in my diary that the mere idea of someone missing me actually is completely idiotic. And this is what I need to un-learn. I need to finally accept there ARE people missing me, or sad that I am no longer in their lives. There ARE people happy to get a text message from me. And I am able - I AM ABLE - to make other people happy. And there actually are people who love me, for me. Which means that I am lovable, regardless of what she stated for all my life.

But it will be a long journey ere I will allow myself to truly believe that. From what I now know, this journey to healing will take many years, with quite the amount of setbacks and an unexpected amount of intensely joyous moments. Yet, when I reach that point, that milestone in my healing, I believe I will finally see myself for who I am. The one that was supposed to be destroyed but survived against the odds. 

 

When the kid discovers social media

It's the funniest thing, listening to the kid as he is chatting with his - currently best, I guess - mate while playing some online game. Their chatter is so innocent and honestly open, devoid of underlying frustrations - they just put their feels out in the open.

It started with a classmate asking for his e-mail during an online meet with his class Monday last week. It took some doing but eventually his teacher sent him a list with addresses and phonenumbers of his classmates - since he enrolled in this school only in November, he is still fairly new and hadn't made a lot of friends prior to the corona lockdown. In his former school, he was bullied as well as physically atacked by his presumed friends and left to his own devices by his teachers who blamed him for the bullying, so his faith in both classmates and teachers is very low. 

So when this girl asked him for his e-mail, you can imagine his surprise. I could see him starting to glow, his whole demeanor has changed ever since. She asked for various ways to keep in touch with each other, so I helped him install iMessage on his iPad, as well as Facetime and this online game/chat app. It suddenly hit him how lonely he actually was. 

Every day now they reach out to each other, sending silly texts and playing online. I am so pleased to see him grow like this. Just as he needs me for guidance and agreements on social media time, he needs his own mates to mature and gain self-confidence, to practice social skills and team work. 

I am relieved that he dares to say no to things he doesn't want to do, that he is bold enough to suggest ideas of his own, and that they both look for alternatives and ways to compromise when they disagree on something. And he now realises he truly missed connection. Thank goodness for social media. 

Always The Fear

When I look at myself in the mirror, I always have to take a deep breath to look beyond the features that are so like my mother's. The eyes, the mouth, the bitterness that seeps from my skin. A bitterness that is not mine, but that I came to associate with her, as I did the resentfulness. And then the nausea comes. Swiftly followed by the sadness, the anger. And The Fear. Always The Fear. So I build my walls, high and vast, and I hope this time they will protect me from betrayal and abandonment.

Healing from trauma takes a lot of energy. It takes a lot of guts and time too. Patience and kindness with oneself. A huge help is a loving kindness network of people you can turn to if the journey to healing gets too much, people who understand and are willing to sit with you, people who do not judge or try to fix you, people who listen, who comfort just be being who they are.

Recently, I am going through an overwhelming streak of trauma responses: It seems everything turns into a trigger. And every trigger leads into a trauma response. I started out well enough, managing to keep the fear from running wild. In the not so distant past, I used to fall into blackness so intense I felt as if being swallowed whole, generalising what happened to everything and everyone I know. That way I shut myself off, building my walls so high I could barely see the light of day. Now the walls are there, but maybe only heart-high, and I try to refrain from generalising. It is scary. To allow room for light, for a mindset that is not totally doomed. But The Fear remains. The Fear that I will lose everything and everyone in the blink of an eye.

Living with trauma is intense. It is very hard to trust your instincts because you were taught to believe no one is to be trusted, yourself least of all. I was beaten severely to make sure I understood I was worth less than a speck of dust on her clothes. I learned to fear, not only her, but my own self - for the longest time I panicked when I had to make a decision. And I learned to distrust my father and my brother, as too often they sided with her, alienating me from my own family.

I doubted everything. Friendships most of all: I was always looking for confirmation that I was wanted, that I really belonged. I intensely believed I was only lovable if I complied with everything, and that resulted in me getting mixed up in some bad situations with men and also with friendships. But at that time, I somehow still confided in her and she used those confessions, that already were drowning me in shame and guilt, as evidence for her statements, that I indeed was unlovable, unworthy, sick in the mind, and attention-seeking. She actually sent me a letter once, telling me how I should live my life because clearly I made all the wrong decisions and I fretted far too much over stupid little things.

That legacy took the form of a dark fear looming over my every day. Sometimes it is just a greyish hue, others it is nightblack, but there are days that start off so gloomily that I brace myself as soon as I get up. The Fear intensifies when bonds get mixed up, especially with people I trust, and this huge red flag starts bleeding all over the place. As one of my close friends confirmed: "It's your intuition calling, and she is right!" -- and I have to agree: every time the red flag started bleeding in the past, and regardless of me addressing the issue to the friend, the relationship wilted. And because I refused to merely accept that, I started fighting against the process, desperately longing for a true bond to ... succeed. 

I know now, in a way, I have been seeking, unconsciously, for the acceptance, validation and love, not to mention acknowledgement and approval, that my mother never granted to me - and I looked for it in people who turned out to be, somehow, as equally toxic as she is.

In that regard, my path of healing is teaching me valuable lessons: I am more able to recognise toxic dynamics, even though I am still frozen with fear at times, and I still ignore some red flags, because I hope this time I am wrong.

It also points out, rather painfully, how I have been attaching myself, longing to fill the void in me, to people who themselves seemed to have been stuck and looked for their healing through me. That is a cycle I want to break -- I need to do my own healing, regardless what others want from me. And I need to keep trusting, because there are people who have my best interests at heart. They are the ones holding up the umbrella when I feel it's always raining on me. And I am deeply grateful for them, as they have to endure a lot of crap from me.

So. In a nutshell, building m is not a matter of not willing, but of daring. And it is not a matter of arrogance, but of self protection. 

The magic of books

I forget how often I already listened to the audio version of The Song of Achilles, written by Madeline Miller, narrated by Frazer Douglas. Just as I like to re-read certain novels, this audiobook is so far the only one I can listen to, again and again. Rarely have I read, and listened to, a novel as exquisite and touching as this one. Via Audible I got this novel from a friend and I am forever grateful to her for it.


I read Warrior Cats to my son, currently the second book of the second series and that story etches itself into my being in a delicate way. I have to work hard though, to read through the many, many, often awful mistakes in translation, spelling and grammar. As a writer and editor myself I get really worked up about those. The apparitions of Spottedleaf as a guiding spirit get me so emotional, though, that my boy can hear it in my voice - the way I experience our own cats, is intensely relatable. It may also help that I too am spiritually moved, with a love for stars and moon, making moon water and cleansing rituals with sage and salt bowls.

It moves me tremendously to see how my boy loves reading himself. When his mind has enough of Minecraft, he turns to his own books, the very beginning of the Warrior Cats Saga - The Sun Trail - and Holly Webb's Lost in the Snow. He has this thing with reading two or three books at the same time. It gives him structure, it seems.

The wonders of stories translate themselves so often in our everyday lives; the slightest event or word in the newspaper can trigger our imaginations and all too soon we lose ourselves in stories of our own, mostly ridiculous ones, woven with sarcasm and giddiness. And he throws about him words that are beyond his age, many-layered words which he uses in the correct context, the right situation. As he makes his schoolwork, however, he keeps his vocabulary basic, as if embarrassed by the fact that he knows what he knows.

I hope one day he is proud instead of held back by it.

Bad eggs

I had a really weird dream. It was not a nightmare as such, but it left a bitter taste and a sense of uneasiness throughout the entire day. My brother was in the dream and I woke with a lucid echo of his terrifying accusation about how I ruined his life.

It happened when we were out for dinner; my parents, my then boyfriend and I; for the very first time. There was no friction yet, my mother had me fooled she accepted the boyfriend and my father had put on his costume of important executive. While waiting for our orders to be served, my brother called me on my mobile phone, and he started screaming straight away, how I destroyed his entire future and how he would never be able to get a normal romantic relationship because of me. He referred to the best girl he ever had; and how she met me and we became close friends, and she broke up with him shortly after. The same happened with the second best girlfriend he ever had - one afternoon out with me, of shoe shopping, seemed to have ruined her affections for him. Because I introduced her to her own freedom of choice (instead of his bullying and manipulative behaviour).

From early on, my brother's behaviour resembled that of my narcissistic manipulative mother. Growing older, he got meaner and sneakier, and consciously trying to disrupt our family as well as me personally. He would make sure I took the full blow of my mother's rage; even when he was to blame. He lied and spied for her pretending to be on my side, while passing on any information of my thoughts and visions and whereabouts to her - so I could receive any punishment. It took me a terribly long time to realise that to some extent he was treating me worse than my mother did. When my father was admitted to hospital because of his leg going septic after a minor injury, my brother nearly forbade me to pay him a visit. He called me on my parents' landline; making sure I knew they were in on it, while at the same time my mother pretended she never knew anything of my brother's intention to keep me out. I did go, however, and I got soothed by my mother who swore my brother had no right to push me off like that/ Only later I learned she damned well knew and had agreed on it - but there, at the hospital, she smelled an opportunity to alienate him and me even more.
This became very obvious on my son's first birthday, on which he retreated to a corner with my mother; whispering to her the whole time, while my father stood watch; and my brother's unknown girlfriend and her two daughters sat silently on the sofa, only to leave after the etiquettishly one hour attendance.

Things never were normal in my family, but from that day on I realised there could only be one solution. I went no contact with my brother shortly after. I did the same with my parents five years later.

But my brother's accusations linger.
Especially because I recognise his anger in the careful ways my friends keep their other friends away from me. I never understood why, for instance, one girlfriend in the past would meet me one day at some place and meet another girlfriend at that same place two days later. Why not mix up, go together, wouldn't that be fun, since she talks of that other friend so often I already seem to know her my entire life?
"No, because she is so much different from you that it would not work."
Excuse me?
"I will not risk losing either friendship just because she might think you're a bad egg for coming between us."

Well, the same excuse was given to me by several other friends. Apart from birthday parties, I was not to know these other people about whom they gossipped or complained; or who they revered or felt sad for. And then I found out these others never knew a thing, or very little and most of it negative, about me.
Suddenly it wasn't about being different anymore:
It was not only about being a bad egg and friendship-wrecking.
Suddenly I was some sort of best kept secret.

Why?
Because like my brother so firmly believes, I would steal their friends? Because of the possibility these friends might like me? Because I am just me? Or because I indeed am a bad egg, incapable of keeping close friendships because I like to destroy?

I am still very confused about it. I keep pondering the possible answers - they are hurtling through my mind like leaves in a gale. I am fully aware of the fact that I may indeed have done bad things, I am human after all, a human who survived a lot of crap and still is paying a price for that.
After all, we are all bad in someone's story.
But we cannot all be bad in everyone's story. So I refuse to be the bad egg here because someone else is unwilling to face their own insecurities.