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Hope

It’s re-write time and from the muddy pool of shitty drafts, a small jewel appears – at least I think it’s a jewel. I rinse it, I dry it and polished it down to the bone.

What’s left is a mere smidgen of a vignette, but it gives me hope. – A different kind of hope from what I had back then, – I hope. . .

He woke me in the middle of the night. “You have to help me now Vigdis,” I remember his stuttered whisper. His silhouette looked pitiful in the arched opening he’d cut – between my two basement rooms – years earlier. His figure crooked and unstable against the light falling in behind him.

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Connect before you React

I adapted this from Dr Shefali, who says ‘Connect before you Correct’ as a parent. I love that woman and I’m so grateful for how her work in the world and how it gives me a chance at becoming a better mother.

To Connect before I React is still a lesson I’m learning.

 It’s not just about how I parent but how I’m a wife, a friend, a daughter and sister, and most of all how I talk to myself. To be honest I thought I’d got it by now but hey, there’s more for me to learn on this. 

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The True North of Memoir

I didn’t realise revising my memoir would be this hard or take this long, but now I see what I’m here to learn. 

As I reread one of the though chapters I wondered, was it the abuse, or that fear we all feel when something unacceptable and wrong happens to us at an age before we have the words to describe and share our experience with anyone, that is the center of my story? I’m not taking away from the pain I felt at the time, I see that its real, nor do I dispute the fact that what happened to me was wrong on so many levels, it’s the core of what we have come to know as #metoo.

As children, we love our parents even when they fail us. As we grow into adulthood and recognise their shortcomings, even neglect, love can give way to anger, frustration and hurt over how they failed to protect and comfort us. How they scoffed at our pleads and told us to get on with it – when a comforting hug was all we needed – or when they laughed when we shared our tender teenage feelings. They did not see me for who I was and so started my journey of becoming someone I hoped they could accept. On that journey, I sailed further and further away from my true self. It’s choppy water full of pain as I failed, again and again, at getting the acceptance I craved. 

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