I’ve gotten out of the habit of writing. I miss it. I must make it a habit again, return to the urgency of getting it out and being alone with myself. There is a relief to putting down the otherwise fleeting thoughts that are so often pushed out of awareness by the pressing necessities of life. Schedules, work, kids, meals, life and god forsaken cleaning. Had I known that so much of life would be just sheer maintenance, and how much I would struggle with that, I might have actually chosen a lucrative profession. But how could I have know this, given my examples. I often wondered why my parents hadn’t chosen success for themselves, for to me, it did seem a choice. They had all of the elements as I understood them, they were college educated, came from decent families, so what was the matter with them, were they just unlucky?

I am often surprised what comes up when I sit down to write. Sometimes, like now, after only a few sentences, a path reveals itself. I have been writing like this since September last, so not that long in comparison to my life in total, or for any habit really, but I can now start to steer slightly, to return to the reason I sat down, rather than be pulled off the exit ramp by a thought or a subject like the one above. No, I will not go down that road tonight, I am too tired. The last few days, since the hazy Sunday morning of the last time I stopped to write, have been too full to dive into something new, not now. Now I am just letting myself be here, free of expectations, free from judgement, to languish in the tepid bath of grief that I’ve stepped into.

While our mother was dying, it was just me and my sister with her, and our friend Betty. She came for a few days to support us all and to help us however she could. She loved mom dearly, she still does. She’s become another sister to us, one free from the emotional burden of Sue’s shortcomings as a mother, and she has allowed us to see her through fresh, untainted eyes. Then Betty had to go, to say goodbye to all of us, but mostly Sue. Then it was just us three. No one else was coming for some reason or another, whether it was respect, fear or uncomfortability, or just plain not knowing what to do or how to be, it was just us three. As soon as mom died, it was just me, and just her. There was no longer us. Somehow we were broken in two by our mother’s passing, as if everything since our great falling out had ceased to be and we were back there again. I don’t know where this will end up, but I know that it will have to be different, for neither of us is happy with the way things are now. I just have to have faith that they will be at all. I am only now learning that it does matter how I feel, not above how others feel, but as well, and independent of others. This is entirely new, and it is because of not drinking that I am finally beginning to have the clarity to have a long, critical look at the addictive systems that have ruled my life for so long – the lacking, the longing, and the pain. It is ok for us to have problems, to not agree, but when we can’t agree and can’t have peace, when we fall so easily back into sick patterns of blame and fighting and hating each other, we can’t be in the same space anymore. We must separate.

This holds true for my marriage as well. I feel like I am poking my head above water to finally breathe again. Or perhaps peering through a keyhole, having locked myself inside a closet, hidden for so many years. Like that feeling when, as a child, you wake up to your family dinner party, you come through all sleepy, to see what is happening, you hear the murmur of adults laughing, speaking of things you do not know. In a smoky haze, you peer through heavy eyes to see a world you do not know, yet. But you see it there, and realise that it is your future, or something like it. As you go back to bed, you fall asleep to dream about what is coming, when you are grown. I am there, yet I am not a child. I am me, finally, again.

Now I am constantly dreaming about a place of my own. Day dreaming, especially. I think that I have found the place. It is on my favourite route into town, the old way I used to take to school before I realised it was five minutes faster to take the highway. It’s the way that is covered with trees, and then by the canal. It’s tucked back off of the main road, by foot it goes by the thousand year old church with the beautiful gardens. It’s cheap, with three bedrooms, and who knows, maybe they’ll get sick of it and let us buy it from them. I thought perhaps the solution would be the other way around, that he would go, and later, but after yet another weekend of suffering through the moods and casual violence of my husband, I know that the time to go is now, and I must leave, for he doesn’t see the urgency nor the damage that he is doing. It all makes sense though, with my health conditions of vertigo and seizures always looming and the fact that he is always travelling for work, leaving me alone to care for the children. I have to be safe, to be able to take cabs and walk places instead of drive, and hire help around the house – all of these things require living in the city, in a pied a terre, in peace.

Now, just like with quitting alcohol, I am starting to understand what I haven’t understood so far. How much of this has been terrible? How wounded were we both, what did we expect to happen? In his story, I am the villain, through and through. I wasn’t enough, I didn’t do enough, and so on. Once he told me that he married me for stability. I was shocked by this, seeing as I’ve always been the most unstable person I’ve known. Well, not anymore. For the first time, this week, I have felt a peace in my soul like never before. Action, informed by logical deduction, love, and faith that doing the right thing is always the right thing to do, will lead me to the solution. And perhaps, God is sending me the solution as a tiny, three bedroom rental just next door to that beautiful plot of land that the city is finally turning into a park. One step at a time, one foot in front of the other, I will figure it out.