It's cold and grey today. The perfect backdrop for my rather flat mood. It's my son's birthday today and I recognize I don't really feel the same about things like birthdays as I did when we were still a family. Even if I was only pretending to be a happy family then, at least we had all the correct number of cast members. I should be making things extra special for him, but I recognize my heart is just not in it today. I'm merely going through the motions of birthday dinners, songs, candles and traditions, but I feel hollow.
I said goodbye to my seven year old daughter today, she was having a camp out at school, there were tears and lost teddies, and my heart ached. Her little world rocked by the events of the last couple of years. " Why did daddy have to divorce you?" Her conversation began on the way to the camp, kit, rattling over the corrugated road. "Because he doesn't love me anymore." " I'll make him love you mommy." For many years I thought I could produce that alchemy, but ..... like that stubborn horse at the waterside, he wouldn't drink.
"I'm scared mommy", " It is a little scarey, isn't it?"
I was collecting last minute touches for M's birthday dinner at the store, my senses were heightened to all the couples shopping, young, old , middle aged, I felt a tangible pain as I saw them. Where is this all coming from? I cried a little on the way home, will I ever be truly happy again? Grey skies, tears, I look forward to having colour back in my life, a huge arch of a rainbow in all of it's 7 colours.
Right now I'm a little girl in a tent out in the rain on her first scary sleepover, I'm allowed to feel a little frightened and a lot lonely.
