My Mother My Mirror

by Andrea Kitt

  When she announced that in August she would be holding her 85th party I was immediately alert: this could be the opportunity I had been waiting for! She even asked me to say a little something, on behalf of the family, because I didn’t get the chance the time before. I cautiously reminded her that although I had said nothing the last time I had written a poem afterwards and shown it to her, and she hadn’t liked it; but by now she was becoming selectively forgetful, and said she had no memory of this; so I didn’t remind her any further.

  With Tim’s help, I composed a beautiful poem that was compassionate yet uncompromising in the view that neither of us were completely free from our pain; in fact the main theme was that I wished her an experience of complete peace and letting go of her fears – which of course implied that she had not yet done so. (A year or so later and with Martha’s help I rewrote some of the poem, with a greater awareness that I too had to let go of my fear and pain... but it took a while for me to fully understand this).

  It felt good to read it out at the party. I knew I was being a bit naughty, but sod it: I’d wanted to do something like this for ever, and I was doing it in the most grown-up and civilized way I knew how. At the time it was generally appreciated, but when Carmen had time to read the copy I gave her she was not so pleased, and I was subjected to a couple of hours of her special brand of defensive revenge. But I certainly didn’t regret it.

  50

  Tim, Mum & God

  Jeremy often reminded me that although my relationships were in one sense personal, in another way people were just plastic pawns on the chess board of my life, put there to facilitate my own growth and learning. One person creates a pattern of energy of a certain shape which automatically attracts a similar or contrasting shape in another person, and in that way we can help each other to heal.

  From early on he would ask me about Tim and Mick and say, “Who are you in love with?” And I would waffle on about all the things I appreciated about Tim, and then he would ask me again, “Who are you in love with?” But it took me a long time to admit to loving Mick more than Tim; I was so afraid of losing all the security and stability I had built up over the previous eight and a half years.

  He told me I was still hanging on vehemently to a thread of hope that I would find that mother love, even so late in life; but I had to accept that in this lifetime I did not receive it. Carmen had wanted to love me when I was a child, but she was like a turned-off tap with water inside that was not able to flow in my direction, or anyone’s direction for that matter. And the show of love without the substance had caused me a lifetime of confusion and resentment. Nor was it just that she couldn’t love: in her starving isolation she had looked at me with my young, bright energy and wanted what I had, and I sensed that and had to do everything I could to protect myself. On a deep, unconscious level she wanted to steal my life energy. Not that it would have done her any good of course, because we can only enjoy our own.

  When he asked me what I was afraid of where Mick was concerned, I described that huge, expansive feeling and we recognized it as my soul wanting to grow but being blocked by the old fear: if I express who I really am, if I am free and joyful, then mummy will pounce on me and devour me. I must hide away to be safe. So my situation with Tim had become a reflection of my childhood: a place in which I had to compromise my spirit in order to be secure. He pointed out that I had been involved in parent/child relationships all my life, one way or another. When I was with Sam I played the role of parent rather than child, but it amounted to the same thing: I was still unable to enjoy an equal meeting of two adults.

  At the end of one session Jeremy mentioned that he would love to get Tim involved, because he could see so clearly how we were holding each other back; so the next time Tim joined in, and I began to get a better picture of the dynamic between us.

  Jeremy drew copious diagrams on his whiteboard showing the flow of energy from one to the other. He said Tim was giving two contradictory messages: he was offering me my freedom, but only because he felt that to be ‘nice’ was the only way to keep me, and if he was nice enough then he wouldn’t be abandoned... So I kind of saw the open door, but a part of me knew that it wasn’t really open at all. Other than the need to be nice, and most dominant of all in Tim’s personality, was the need to nurture, and the more we polarized into him being the giver and me being the receiver of his nurturing, the safer he felt, because whilst playing this role he could completely avoid facing his own pain and lack of parenting.

  In the meantime I slipped right into my role by clinging to him, imagining I was weak and needy and couldn’t manage without a parent figure... But then as soon as I felt a little stronger I swung the other way, feeling a deep lack of respect for a man who was so ‘nice’ that he didn’t even have the balls to claim me for his own, feeling angry because I wanted a man, not a father. I would push him away and try to be independent, but then find it all too much and come crawling back again. Which all pointed to the fact that I still had some more healing to do on the mother front.

  As my weekly sessions continued, I was becoming more and more unwell. I kept asking Jeremy to deal directly with my sleep or my palpitating heart, but he insisted on going to the core of the matter, and he was right: my illness was just a symptom of a deep unease. I crept through my days, sometimes taking walks down to the river and very slowly up again, appreciating the odd bench that had been erected where I could sit for a while and catch my breath. Often I would text Mick and describe the nature around me and wish he was with me; from time to time he was.

  I remember one time lying under an ancient oak tree just above the river, gazing up at the pattern of light between the leaves and feeling the ground beneath me, suddenly understanding why I loved old things: what a deep capacity they had to hold me. I was so acutely aware of the lack of holding in my early life, the trauma of my marriage that had severely shaken even what foundations I had managed to build, and now this confusion that was shaking my roots again. Holding seemed like the most important thing of all: my life depended on it. I wasn’t at all sure that Mick could hold me as I needed to be held. I thought about Tim, felt deep gratitude for the remarkable capacity he had to hold and to heal. And for a little while, that was enough.

  But the moment I felt better, I was restless again. I wasn’t happy. I looked at Tim: the shape of him, his fussy habits – and fond though I was of him, I knew there was a fundamental mismatch. My heart began to alarm me. I lay awake at night with awful pains in my chest, and I started to feel most peculiar every afternoon at about four o’clock – all breathless and agitated, so I had to pace from room to room, breathing slowly, trying to contain whatever was happening. After a few afternoons like this, Tim got out his stethoscope and listened, and told me my heartbeat was jumping about all over the place. I panicked, and phoned for an ambulance.

  The ambulance people were brilliant: I’ve always admired their larger-than-life strength, warmth and competency, the real sense that now they’ve arrived everything will be fine. After a few tests indoors, they took me out to the vehicle for some more, and I ended up pouring out the whole story to this tough but very understanding young woman. My heart rate was definitely high, but as I talked it began to go down; in the end she labelled it ‘anxiety’, but nevertheless said I should go to the doctor for some more extensive investigation.

  I had reached the end of the end of the end of the line: it felt as if my whole life was ruined. Jeremy came to see me and I sat on the couch weeping, telling him my mother had destroyed my life, and even worse, probably Judy’s life, and nothing could be done about it. He encouraged me to feel the full awfulness of this, and I had so little resistance left that I sank quickly into the depths of my despair and sobbed my heart out for over an hour.

  I felt I was birthing my grief: there were enormous, heaving, pushing sobs, as if I was trawling the sediment beneath the ocean bed of my very deepest pain; then after a few minutes a brief lull, and then the anguish began to
tear through me again, forcing the poison from long-sealed cracks and hidden chambers in my soul.

  Until at last I began to feel softer towards my mother, and more compassionate. I reached back and remembered: there had been sweet, close times, very early on. Nobody could take those away, any more than they could take away the knowledge of my suffering. Lullabies, stories, moments of magic... and way, way back, just the hint of the feel of her warm body enfolding mine. Though I knew I would never feel the natural affection borne of an easy, loving childhood, I understood her pain from the inside, and that made me feel close in a different sort of way.

  Slowly my sessions revealed how similar I was to Carmen: how the reason I had felt so outraged by her pride and demands to be seen and heard was that I was the same: I was after the same prize, I wanted to be the special one, the loud one, the admired one – and I couldn’t stand it when she got the attention instead. My spoilt princess was not really that different from her haughty queen, both were ego masks of pride and self-importance, hiding damaged little children underneath.

  I saw that I too hurt people due to my over-involvement with my self: how there had always been a fight between my more vulnerable side, which I saw as cowardly and weak, and the stronger, more courageous part of me, which despised the other part; and how I had projected this conflict out into the world. I could be cold and unfeeling to anyone I deemed weak, and dismissive and fearful of anyone I sensed as too strong. I loved the way Jeremy dismantled my image of myself as a compassionate angel... “Huh!” he said, “You? Compassionate??!”

  Then we looked at my perception of ugliness: the judgements I made, the way I looked down upon Tim for his bad posture, upon people with not enough hair, with unsymmetrical faces – anyone whom I didn’t deem fit to be a member of the royal family... Boy, was I like my mum! If I wanted to progress from spoilt princess to becoming a real Queen, in the sense of being a peaceful, enlightened being with a genuine love and respect for my fellow human beings, then I had a lot to learn!

  I remember one of my later therapy sessions in which I saw clearly this admiration that my mother and I had been fighting over all our lives, and the pain it brought, and the shoddy substitute for real love and connection that it was; and as I inwardly handed it over to her I felt an overwhelming sense of apology: please, take it if you still want it, but I’m afraid it will never make you happy.

  I saw too how hard she had tried to love me, how she had given her life and soul, as far as she knew how, to nurture me as best she could, and how distressing it had been for her to find me always so closed away inside myself, so unresponsive to her inexhaustible attempts to coax me out and give me everything I wanted and make me happy.

  I read a book from the library about a mother who had laid plans in place even after her death to help fulfil her daughter’s dreams and prove her love for her, and I wept. I phoned Carmen and thanked her for loving me for all these years, in spite of myself.

  I had a regular appointment to see her on one evening a week, and at this time all I wanted to talk about was Mick, so she sat patiently through hours of my anguish and enthusiasm. For me it made a happy contrast to years ago when she used to do all the talking, but I also had to acknowledge that despite her fundamental personality remaining the same, she had become vastly more empathic over the years. I felt that she was really listening, with very little judgement: understanding what it was like to be me, wanting the best for me and supporting me as best she could in whatever decisions I made.

  Sessions with Jeremy became more and more to do with my relationship with God. He took me to a rare place of humility where I saw with shocking clarity how every single attempt that my little ego self had made to sort things out, to understand, to guide me – had been a complete disaster. That I was where I was in life in spite of myself: that there was a greater power guiding me, holding me, loving me, and I would be far better off acknowledging that, thanking that, being humble before that and letting go of my self-centred little drama.

  51

  Moving on

  In my therapy sessions I would often be asked to visualize my ideal future, and to begin with I imagined an idyllic house in the country with Mick. Then as time went on I understood better that this whole drama was my own journey of self-discovery and that my priority had to be my own healing, which could take time; so my vision changed to one of me in my own little flat, with Mick a regular visitor.

  I had made a couple of attempts to leave: one particularly determined afternoon in which I went back to see my old landlord, Edward, and asked him if he knew of any places to rent, and another time when I bought the papers and rang up about flats and rooms. Each time I felt so shaky and panicked I knew I couldn’t go through with it. Then something shifted, and I knew I had no choice.

  Even Tim was getting fed-up with me and suggesting I found somewhere else to live for just a few months... kidding himself, of course. I think we both knew that once I was gone I was gone, for better or worse.

  Carmen, bless her, leapt into action! Despite her shakiness and heart failure, she was determined to help me find a safe refuge, and after putting us on the books of all the estate agents in the area, she bought the local paper and noticed an attic flat to rent. When we got to the house we almost turned around and walked away: it was tall, grey and uninspiring, and worst of all at the busy intersection of two roads, with a main carriageway just a few yards beyond that. But having made the appointment, we went to view the flat, and up there above the rooftops we were suddenly in a different world. There was still the sound of distant traffic, but it was like the cutest little cottage in the sky: all beams and wooden surfaces, with a view from the skylight down the Dart valley, whilst from the tiny windows I looked down on the castle and rooftops then across green hills as far as Ipplepen church, five miles away. It even had a log burner! We looked at each other, and we knew: this was the place. For all our differences, we share the same taste, and both recognised that this could make a lovely little home.

  Downstairs again, we discussed it with the landlord. Carmen spent a long time telling him about how famous she was, and I sat quietly, waiting to get a few words in... but for once in my life, it really didn’t bother me! Then she reached into her bag, took out an enormous wad of notes and laid them on the table. How could he refuse? We arranged for me to move into the flat in a couple of weeks time, at the end of September 2013.

  Strange that I almost killed myself trying to push away love. I see now that it wasn’t Mick making me ill, it was the lack of Mick: the awful pain of being with him and then not being with him, of leaving him again and again. It was those leavings that were the worst thing for him too, particularly, as happened often, when I told him that we definitely couldn’t see each other any more, so he had to repeatedly deal with the grief of absolute loss – already a trauma for him, as he lost both his parents early in life. He spent a fair amount of time on the lookout for another girlfriend, but found he just couldn’t go there, because his heart was with me.

  So here we are now in similar situations, both having left behind a partner who was parent-like in their support, but with whom we could no longer grow and flourish, both trying to find our own inner confidence and stability. Mick is just six months older than me, and it’s not so easy when you’re nearly sixty! Change of any sort is so much more disturbing, and we’ve both just been through the massive upheaval of leaving everything that is familiar and having to support ourselves on every level – except that we have each other, which of course makes a huge difference.

  We have developed all sorts of habits and strategies to do with eating and sleeping and coping with life that may not be easy to dovetail into another person’s lifestyle, but we love each other enormously, and are determined to work towards living together and sharing our lives with each other.

  As I get older and learn to love myself more, it seems I am attracted to people who are more like me, and in some ways Mick and I are very similar. I get so excited
when I find he likes the same things that I like and feels the same way about things that I do. I guess we’re all in love with ourselves, when it comes down to it!

  We’re both romantic and poetic and love to talk about love, we’re both sensitive and feel things deeply. We both enjoy stories: sometimes I read to him, or he reads to me; and there’s a strong sense that life is a story which we’re now writing together. We have a similar enthusiasm for old houses and wild places and similar tastes in colour, texture and form. We’re both keen on words and self-expression, and can both from time to time just laugh about the whole game. Most of all, perhaps, behind it all we were both lost and frightened children who had to fight a lonely battle to survive.

  On the other hand, Mick is totally different to me, because he is a strong, tall, sexy man! I adore his passion for life, his courage and determination, his honesty and his deep humility borne of suffering. He is chaotic in ways where I feel I can help him be more orderly, anxious in ways where I feel I can help him be more calm; I can be self-obsessed in ways in which he can help me to have a broader perspective, and his lifetime of ‘getting on with it’ can help me to do the same. We also share a deep sense of peace, which I believe will be a refuge and a source of nourishment for us both in years to come.

  Most of all, perhaps, there’s a feeling of equality, of mutuality, of completely meeting each other: I’m in love with him and he’s in love with me. We have an equal desire to share everything we can with each other. The power can shift a little backwards and forwards according to who’s having a good day and who’s feeling a bit down, but in the end it balances out. There is enough contrast between us to keep it exciting and enough similarity to make it comfortable.