How to glow in the dark

Apr 27, 2018 by horsesrcumin 6 Comments

It’s been a big week.

My youngest daughter and I flew to our capital city last weekend, to go to The Killers with my eldest daughter, who resides there. It was so fabulous to have that time with my girls. We ate at a truly beautiful restaurant (my girl has great taste!) Followed by a high energy performance from Brandon and his band, a real throwback to their concert we attended in my eldest daughter’s teen years – her teen crush (and I have always loved them too.) Then, on Sunday, we all flew back up here together. I was graduating on the Tuesday. They both came along to the ceremony, along with my Dad, who says he fought tears all day, the emotional old fool, lol.

I had thought it was going to be a bit of a nothing day really, but I really struggled emotionally. As always, I missed my Mum, but with the more recent loss, I felt terribly grief-stricken that my mother-in-law didn’t make it to the day, dying at the end of February. My thesis took so long to be graded, I missed the December ceremonies. Ugh. She was desperate to see me receive my higher degree, the first in the family to get ‘more than’ a Bachelor’s degree.

Of course, I missed my love, Rog, terribly, but did my utmost to push that to one side. He messaged me kindly during the day, saying that he was very proud of me. I know many who read here may not understand this, but at the end of the day, I know that he made what he feels is the right choice for him, despite me disagreeing vehemently. I thought about the contents of my thesis (which I found out on the day of the ceremony was awarded with First Class Honours) and how INCREDIBLY challenging, but ultimately healing, writing it had been. The way I started to feel, right at the VERY end of things, when I wrote my openly – almost gushingly – exceptionally loving dedication to Rog. And I found some more cards he wrote me during the last part of the process, one that was dated June last year (less than a month before he found Trinket online, but eight months into his online dating trawling, just over a month out from my thesis submission date – a date we [I??? I know we had discussed it very clearly] had focused on as a time to sit down and lovingly discuss our future – hopefully together) that was all about how he desperately hoped we could find true happiness together again, how much he admired and totally loved and adored me…yaddah, yaddah, yaddah… sigh. So, what was really going on with him? He was desperate, and trying to find whatever woman possible – me, or anyone else who would rise to the bait, I guess – to soothe his aches. He never took the time and space to just be himself, reflect on who he is properly. I feel so deeply and agonisingly sad about that, to this day. Because, despite everything, all the bad behaviour, all the confused and painful stuff, he is actually a lovely man with some very wonderful qualities, just really lacking in self awareness, nor prepared to give me the time I needed to do what I needed to do to heal, and yes, of course, he ultimately acted in a very selfish manner. Both in undertaking the affairs, but also in the way he decided to single-handedly, without the promised consultation, end our partnership. For another woman. Not to be alone, to examine what we both really wanted, as we had promised would have to happen. As the love addiction diagnosis pointed so clearly to…

I have a weird relationship with my father. He is gay, not knowing this for a very long time, though. It broke my parents marriage, when my mother discovered this when I was just off to university. He did love her very much, and she him, but as you can imagine, the cheating with men was a deal breaker. (You think???) Dad kind of disappeared from our lives for some years, only still in touch because our mother made us keep him in our lives. I witnessed some of the pain she went through – although, as the eldest, who left home, I didn’t see the full agony. I have never quite been fully able to deal with the lies Dad told to try to keep his secret life apart from us all before he was outed. So, it is a difficult thing. However, I know he basically has a good heart, and cares about us all, and he never stopped loving our mother. And Mum was ultimately forgiving, and forged on with a good, happy, loving life. He has been around a bit lately, and is helping me fence up my new property, which is bloody fabulous of him.

Early in the week, Roger’s sister, who lives in the same city as him, was messaging me. We get along fairly nicely now, if pretty cautiously. I decided a while back that I needed to ensure we do not discuss any of this, but try to maintain a nice relationship, with her brother left right out of who we are as friends at this time. They need the space and understanding of each other now to reconnect, and heal the rupture that occurred after he sold his ‘family’ farm. I like her. A lot. She is fun, and intelligent, and we have some fun banter, and share the parenting and ‘auntyship’ of a lovely group of young people, as cousins. She did ask me, however, if I thought I had any influence on Rog, as she had been speaking to their father, who said he hadn’t heard from Rog since their mother’s funeral! She wanted me to ask him to talk to his Dad. I laughed, and said, sadly, I obviously don’t. FIL was very sad about him not being in touch apparently. I was also very sad. I take FIL a meal once a fortnight, and we have a little chat, just ensuring he is coping with the huge gap my MIL left, and taking care of himself in his late 80s. I know my FIL finds it all a bit weird, doesn’t have the skills to deal with where to put me these days, whereas his wife was always incredibly welcoming and expressed her deep disappointment in, and doubts about, Roger’s choices to me, near the end, so very eloquently. His sister left a few comments that were actually really heartening for me as I press on with my newly single life. About how she feels her brother is walking a path that is not going to take him where he needs to go, he is avoiding some big stuff in his life right now. Which followed on from a casual comment at the school reunion about how she doesn’t see him as overly invested in Trinket, he doesn’t seem to be very into her from her viewpoint (WTF??? What the hell was all the constant messaging for over six months when we lived together about then? Just to break my heart? Really???) This was a bit of a shock to me. But, having said that, I took her comment 100% with a grain of salt. How could she possibly know? I have absolutely no doubt he is madly and desperately in love with this sweet woman he left our thirty year deep love story, and our lovely little family for. Whom he moved regions to be with. Because, if he isn’t…….? It just doesn’t bear thinking about.

I also started with the radiation this week. It is fine, pretty simple so far. I go in first thing in the mornings, and then afterwards, get along to work. I now glow-in-the-dark! Or do I? I always have really – I think I am rediscovering my sparkle, it is changed, and there is an incredible amount of pain and loss surrounding it. But, I think that makes it all the more endearing and beautiful. Richer, stronger, more nuanced. Like the fuller and more layered and intense beauty of a mature woman and all she has learned…