Vi is the biggest criminal

When a woman with no self worth or purpose becomes a mum what occurs is a woman whose only worth and purpose is being a mum. Meet me a young mum, who had children whilst being a child and who saw her children as an extension of herself. Wrong yes, fact yes, intentional no. The idea was to raise them with the opposite of what I knew, a hub of safety and a hub of warmth, acceptance and love. “Its not possible to love someone too much but its possible to love them the wrong way” Violet Kray quoted.

The failings were equally being all of the aims. I thought that without fear came something but it appears without fear comes something else, a lack of boundaries and as result a lack of all I aimed to achieve. Who knew being the opposite would breed the same results?!? Not I. A helicopter parent is as damaging as any other. The children cannot self comfort, cannot implement boundaries internally or externally and they cannot take responsibility because somewhere is a parent clearing up their mess, clearing the path and ready to scoop them up when the going gets tough. Ultimately creating daddy’s girls, mummy’s boys and a co dependant relationship. Their futures dimming because actually whose need were we meeting?!

I have three beautiful and amazing children, the first I felt needed to acheive to rid any judgements of a young mum, for who? She has and did and is the most unbiasedly beatifull and clever girl, I needed (yep me) her to never rely on a man, to be self suffiecient for her own safety and wellbeing. The third has to acheive to prove single mums have this and make zero difference on the child’s ability to achieve, again for who?! Whilst yes they can and whilst yes statistically it stands them in good stead, can I honestly say it was without a shed of selfishness? Probably not. But what about the second? What about the middle child? Nothing to prove, who at the time had an average age mum, not single, not mental. What about him? My ways created a mummies boy, a co dependancy and a lack to push. Good intent but bad impact. The most bitter pill I have ever had to swallow in my life is that despite the world saying it isn’t my fault, knowing my name will be on the lips of them in a therapy session one day. Rightfully too. Whilst aiming to create something ultimately what I created was those with no sense of responsibility and with a sense someone (me) will always be behind them clearing up the mess. So who really is the bad guy? I encouraged out the box thinking, encouraged fighting for what you believe, encouraged forgiving the very wrong, encouraged loving without boundary, encouraged doing what you wanted and all without fear. I created something that did not fit into society, some may say good, until you are the one saving them or fixing and clearing up ..it is not good. Conformity like it or not is what has the world ticking, is what society expects and is what society is ready to punish if it is not given, right or wrong, if you go against it you face the wrath and like or not, agree or not, that is then your life. So albeit my middle child’s.

Is he stupid? The opposite. Will he conform?never. Is he seen in a negative light? All the time. It is hard to pull apart his choices and behaviours, ASD and ADH traits, my genes being a double blow, he has experienced traumas and emotional strains and with a different comprehension on top. He is sensitive, kind and caring when it is apparent to be needed, reading the needed is the issue, this kid could rule the world from the sidelines incredible. He needs to feel important, safe, indestructible and his ADHD needs not to be bored, he needs a male that loves without condition who he can finally feel safe to hand the reigns to and finally sleep well because of. What is the pathway for this? Exploitation. A child with no purpose, no clarity, no responsibility, no boundaries, sense of self, worth or self love, who feels he is the man of the house and who has been told to look after his mum, is gonna find a way to gain a fix and for sure that plays out in the unholiest of ways, why wouldn’t it and how couldn’t it? The kid that says mummy, gets into my bed, asks for cuddles off of me, cuddles his brother and sleeps sat up right to protect the family home is also the kid playing adult, gangster, dangerously and self neglectfull. Why wouldn’t he when he believes there is someone ready to clean, clear and solve his choices, all my doing, not his. The pill is a sharp and jarring one when you finally admit somehow and someway you created a mob boy, or one who wants to play that role hard, who takes no responsibility and has no care of impact. So who really is to blame?

It is possible to hate the things you love most. If and when I die my children will love and hate me for being overly forgiving and overly kind, my shit that is now theirs, destroying them more than it ever did or will me. My attempts to correct myself lay clouds of confusion and misunderstanding over theirs and they have done what I did and gone the opposite way, potentially ending up right back at the cycles I aimed to stop, different path same destination. Everything they know they repeat, everything they love they repeat and sadly everything they hate they repeat. A concoction for disaster and one day I will not be here to help undo or correct things and they will stand alone as the ghosts of me and my own past as well as their own.

I now have produced the hard nut kid, the hoody who needs a hug but gets in his mums bed to cry, laugh or cuddle. I have a kid in an adult world with little comprehension as to their young self’s in it, a kid who cannotf invisage anything else and a kid so prepared to die in it, for so many vile, hurtful and complex reasons, with beyond zero sense of impact. A very very loved child who was failed first and for the most part by those who really needed not to. Its an easy shift to blame every institution or person but in the end it will be me over the casket and me who chokes on the bitter pill. A child who has so many gifts and has brilliantly fabulous qualities that is left out to dry despite attempts because ultimately the foundations for him were failed.

So now I spend life aiming to protect, clear up, clean out..not his actions but my own and the results they had. Before anyone punishes or calls him to justice surely it is me that should stand on the stand first? I started his life fighting for him, to deliver something new and fresh, to end up fighting for the same things whilst using a different approach

Everything I did which was in stark contrast actually resulted the same and that same was my worst nightmare. Here I am saving him from that. To be a parent is the most brutal thing and it is like holding a mirror up to yourself from the day each child is born. The reailty is are we raising a new someone or are we second chancing ourselves without skill, are we setting them up consciously or subconsciously? I truly believe so. Who am I to allow them to place my crown? Who am I to use them as evidence of my own self or as an example of my accomplishment? Who am I to take credit for who they are? Surely they are nowt but a credit and example of themselves and whilst being naughty I am extremely proud of their resistance and resilience. I can but hope the light comes and leads them to a better life and I hope they hold no one but themselves to merit. All that I want now and all we all need now is for them to follow me home, memories are alterable, correctable, chances need to be taken on one another with the knowing that the home is where love is and where intent is honest. Haunted is not a future and haunted is a past concept, everything is okay and manageable when the home has an optimum equilibrium.

Love thy neighbour

Twenty years ago almost me and my daughter moved into a house, with little money the house required a lot of work and love to ever become a home, as a teen mum it was a big ask, nineteen years old with a two year old it all felt impossible, the money was no where near even close to covering the basic bills. Next door was a woman who also had a daughter, a year older than mine, the opposite of me, a mature mum who had the very same concerns and struggles. Our two girls quickly found a gap in the fence and mine would stand on her tip toes to talk to her new found friend in the garden, the girl next door understanding every incomprehensible word she said and translating her to us. It did not take long for the woman and I to realise the beautiful friendship these two girls were having and would have and the awkward “hi” we made progressed quickly into a “why don’t you come for a cup of tea and the girls can play?”, and play the girls did, every spare moment, every morning, noon and night they spent inseparable. Me and the woman began to share the meals, I would provide lunch and she would make the dinner for them, which when you are in poverty is such a welcomed shared burden, the girls rarely needed to go further than a park because their my scene dolls, dance routines and garden acro ( two wrists got broken on that damn swing frame) kept them entertained over their younger years,.as did plastering every item in a bedroom, throwing shoes into the woods, making me lunch that a stow away cat came in to eat and arguing about who would break the boundary of the allowed distance rule first, the bump in the road as us four knew it. When they first met they both fitted into a fisher price car and as time went by me and the woman would discuss who had the most butter as it was needed to release the growing girls who had become stuck in it together, the heartfelt fun we had as neighbours utterly saved us a fortune and gave two girls a make shift sister.

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  Perfectly sums up their personalties!

The woman and I too formed a friendship, we shared the cost of a lawn mower, we blew up one together too (the neighbours getting sick of our antics), we would help each other decorate or fix things, at times this went so wrong! I got sacked from fixing anything, we would borrow loo roll and washing up liquid and frequently moved one inhaler between the houses as it was needed. As the girls grew so did mine and her friendship, what was once us staring at a toddler with a cup of tea in our hands asking the other “what do I do?” became a midnight wine discussing our teens asking each other “what do I do?”. My neighbour witnessing men leave and supporting me as a single mum, she knew my children better than their dad ever did or will, with more love,care and despair, we would hear and see parts of each others lives no one else is privy to. The doorstep cigs we met for because actually one of us was struggling, the tears we shared over the children and our anxieties for them, the roaring laughter we shared, the dealing with other neighbours, we would even use that damn fence gap ourselves when whispering or throwing things to one another, both the biggest secret supporters of one another’s lives and children’s.

As the years rolled on the girls each set off to university, in the same town despite different subjects, they continued their friendship, each invited to the others parties, meals and visits, meeting for birthdays and for support when needed. We women too continued ours, more wine, more mid life dramas, different anxieties for these girls. The girls maturing and matured (like good cheese), spoke amongst themselves and began to question bits of their own lives, who they were and the way life had created them, essentially how we mums had created them, the good and the bad. We women knew this and we would share snippets we heard from opposing girls and we too would sit and question the same very things.

Sometimes this was with laughter and sometimes with tears, we knew each other enough to know our roles as mother’s were taken seriously and we both had tried so hard to give them things despite the poverty, to give them love and a sense of a together, to create little feminists who would not repeat our mistakes, to always include both girls so they too had each other, every beach trip, swim visit, even the ice cream van became a duo situation, jeeze we used to spell things out and her daughter one day yelled what we had spelt so came the use of our growing telepathy that became almost perfected.

How did we get so lucky!? They are still this beautiful.

Our homes were raised knowing that right next door was someone to help, to run to in an emergency, to leave a key with, to sit with when locked out, to all round turn to whatever the situation. Our homes grew to protect both houses, care for both and love all members.

Both homes became the victim of subsidence, both falling apart and down much like we felt was life in its changing ways, representative of the cracks we felt emotionally and with the burdens we felt financially, as a result we were moved, not together in the same buildings or even next door to each other initially, our moving day was spent more checking on one another than it was moving boxes, much to the frustration of those helping us move. Twenty years of homes were cleared out, looked upon, emptied, knowing the return would never be the same, knowing huge changes were ahead. When we had lived further apart for the first month or so it felt like I has lost my right arm, I began to realise how much I had taken my neighbours for granted and I realised how much of a friend my neighbour was just through the missing them..her, not having her right there. I visited within days and emailed those who I could to help, if only on a tinee tiny scale, to help my neighbour fight for a temporary home nearer me and in better conditions. It worked, my soul filling up as my neighbour was moved into the same building and I once again could see her without having to put shoes on. The balance had returned to what felt better,to the life as we knew it could continue, we would walk our new canal routes at a minutes notice to support each other as we had done for years before. Or so we had believed it had.

We lost my neighbour suddenly and unexpectedly, she died before seeing our homes fixed and new and before being able to hate our gardens with its destroyed fencing, our once was a wish of one garden granted with distaste. She has left behind her daughter, the kindest of souls, who I had never considered to be my own friend, she was my Laurens best friend, I am sure she would say the same, yet now I feel I have lost one friend but gained the only thing close to her I have, who we all have, her Tia. Her daughter has been the credit to my neighbour she deserved, whilst being a credit to herself, drapped in dignity and maturity whilst feeling the loss of her mother unimaginably in a state of denial. I have never felt such a loss so deep, not my first experience of death but the one I feel every minute of every day, I shared with her the raising of children I had not shared with anyone, including the men I should have been able to, with her is a huge amount of memories only we shared, with her is love only we knew, with her is the loss of someone who I always had, who we all had, our safety net, support, comfort and crisis assistance, our friend has gone and passed even if pending to return spiritually. Who knows.

To love her and to honour her, to keep her memory, it is only right that we all do what she worried about most, to fix her drunken midnight concerns of what would happen to her daughter if she died. To do right by her is only achievable by doing right by her daughter, to her Tia, to offer comfort and love and support at any minute of any day. To be thy neighbour I was to my friend, to be the safety net and crisis hub, to celebrate acheivmemts and offer wine and tissues to the hurdles. It took losing my truly wholesome neighbour to realise how much she meant to me, how much of a best friend I had in her and how much of my world she was apart of. To love thy neighbour is to find the rawest of friendships, ones that grow organically in slippers or heels (she would sew me into outfits on her doorstep with no pre warning for my clubbing days) , the ones that last a lifetime and the ones that truly are unforgettable.

Rest in peace Sandra, until we can drink together again,we can and will both watch over the girls, just from different balconies or our now one garden x every one of us love you xxx

Ronaing with a teen.. The sock in mouth kid.

SAFE!

Seventh sense man.

I have more than often wondered how it is that I attract the weirdo men. I have attracted the, if I’m batshit what are you shitting, men. I have attracted the ones that apparently poo nothing then suddenly BAM! Diarrhoea. Then there are the men that just let out some wind and follow through. However it is that they empty their craziness, I get the crazy. I hear the hypocrisy,let me just say now, I have enough crazy for an army at times. I do not want or need someone else’s crazy. Sadness fine, Crazy no. Two ill bats just create a vampire.

It suddenly struck me that I don’t actually attract this type. They find me. Men I have discovered have a seventh sense,probably because their sixth is weak. Have you ever received a text from a dude and you just sit gawping into your tea asking how they knew you and your manhub had just had an argument? Or you go out feeling totally cak about your looks and attract everyone so you drink more to cope? Or the occasions when they just say the right thing as if they had bugged your telephone conversation with your best gal, listening in to your rants and desires? I am telling you. This is their seventh sense.

Not all men have it. The “normal” ones don’t need it. Their confident in their abilities to get a nice girl, they don’t need to pray on anything. Personally I believe they make up a teaspoon of the male population. I also calculated into the equation the men whose women believe they are good yet everybody else notices the shit pouring out of the bottom of his trousers.

The seventh sense men are in one way or another shitting. Batshit,windshit, BAMshit. But it’s all the same product. These men find the vulnerable in you,with no effort, probably subconsciously on the most part. MOST USED LOOSELY. They know if your weak ( easy is an option to this. Insert if needed), they know if your craving attention, they know that if your five baby daddy’s down your gonna stick with what you get. Their ability to pin down the parts of you that you hate the most and compliment them is uncanny. Ruthless.

When Mr Duck and myself are quaking away, posting, tagging on social media. Nothing. When me and Mr Duck are swimming along loving life and each other. Nothing. When I am so besotted with my duck I could serve him up for dinner. Nowt. No birds near duck. No shit near duck. Life is quackingly great. It quack get better.

But what has happened is this. My duck flew the nest and migrated for winter, suddenly every seventh sense, praying shitting bird is circling. I sat wondering why I was receiving these random texts, appearances from shitters on my phone all over the place. I mean I like these people! For now! But it makes them questionable. I couldn’t figure out how they sensed the vulnerability. Thank god they don’t read my blog.. One wine and a line of coke would have had me out the nest a day or so ago. But the point is they sense it. The sad bit is I’m currently gluing myself down because they have sensed it so well I have to use everything I have to not reply. Reminding myself that not one of them has anything better than my gorgeous man,that I am a morale woman and most of all, I love my duck. Yes I love my duck. I love wine.. Doh. I love sex.. Doh. I love love love attention.. Triple doh. That’s why I have glue,the best glue. Because despite my wobbles, batshit emotions and not wanting to,their senses are spot on.

It’s this that has given me some comfort. Like cracking (so want to out quacking. Too much?) a code. I don’t find them,they find me. I am right not to trust the charmers, the ones that lay bread crumbs, the ones so bloody nice you want to strangle them and put them on mute. I always thought crazy attracts crazy. This is true with friends, but with men..nahah.. Vulnerable attracts man crazy, a man with a seventh sense. You are never getting away unless you crack it at the start or call in women’s aid.

The really good thing is, I have been tempted to dance with the devil as of late, the devil’s have knocked my door and asked for my hand to the dance floor and I have not put on my dancing shoes. I am somewhat proud of my batshit self. Not enough to put the birds of shit back in a box, maybe I will keep them as homing pigeons for when I really hit shit. Although for now I have been nice and told them to fly off gently.

But beware girls. They are everywhere. So the next time you think, wow.. Not wow. The next time you think this one has it all ask yourself what vulnerabilities you have and if he is hitting them all then walk, he is not the duck for you.