by Andrea Kitt
As for Tim, I still feel close to him and deeply grateful for all his holding and care, and for everything we shared. I can’t imagine a time when we won’t be friends. He is probably the closest in this life that I’ve come to having a parent I could trust, and that is no small thing. It seems that, despite all his horrible experiences at boarding school, he was genuinely loved by his mother at a very early age, and I think that’s what gives him the ability to hold another human being in the way that he can, that and all the healing he has done on himself and the intrinsic warmth and peacefulness of his personality. Apparently when he was a baby he would just sit or lie for hours without crying, quite happy in his own company. He has that about him: a natural stillness and contentment. And I still adore his agile mind: the way he is able to think about things inside out and upside down and find solutions ‘outside the box.’
Judy is coming into her power. She has been through a long period of struggle, and acknowledges that she completely lost herself, but I can feel her coming back. Like Carmen and myself, Judy and I are very different sorts of people, and sometimes its been hard to understand each other. She reached a crisis point a few months ago, and now she too is having sessions with Jeremy, which have been extremely helpful and are turning her into the deep-thinking, highly sensitive person that I always suspected was underneath. But she’s not in the least like me, and tells me that sessions have involved sorting out difficult feelings towards her mother, more than her father – perhaps because she was more aware of those on an on-going basis. Good on her! I am fully aware that I am far from perfect and can only feel happy that she’s doing whatever it takes to untangle the rubbish that has come her way.
She tells me she’s discovered she’s a fighter... I could have told her that, but I never really understood why, or was able to relate to it in any constructive way! Apparently there are some people for whom love means fighting for what you believe in, or for the person you love; and as that sort of person, when she sees that in another that’s what she recognises as love. Which meant that my gentler way of loving was quite frustrating for her and could leave her feeling unloved and misunderstood. She recognizes that I gave as much as I could, or even more, but I still failed to meet her in some ways, just because of who I was and who she is. Her father apparently is another of these fight-for-it people, so she feels close to him in this way, though has issues with him in other areas.
Most of all I am so thrilled she is beginning to see things more clearly and get a grip on her life, understand who she is and move forward with confidence. I greatly admire the ballsy way she has of speaking her truth and standing no nonsense, and I’m sure it will increase and be refined as time goes on. It’s something I’ve been reaching for all my life, and have found to an extent but in a much quieter way. By the way, she is particularly unimpressed by Carmen’s airs and graces... In some ways she has a natural clarity that it has taken me a whole lifetime to develop. I think she has the potential to take the world by storm!
And she is planning to do just that. In a few weeks her wings will spread wider than ever before and she is off to Dubai, Thailand, and then Australia for a year. She has saved the money, bought the kit... I am so proud of her!
Simon is also spreading his wings, and planning to go to Bristol University next year to continue his music studies. I’m so glad he’s got a passion, and I believe he’s got the brains and sense to make it work for him out in the big world. I love both my children so much, and its satisfying to see them moving forward and carving out a good life for themselves.
As for me and my mum – well, I think I’ve finally realized there are some things we will never see in the same way, and that’s OK. The older she gets the more she wants a feeling of ‘happy ever after’ and to remember the good times and the love, so its time to support her in this and thank her for her kindness.
I see more and more clearly that in becoming the Princess – the light-footed, elusive creature who secretly longed for the Prince – I was in a way playing the same game as her. I also wanted to be special, to be admired; still I hadn’t learned that I was no better and no worse than anyone else. This is the spoilt part of me, the part that makes a fuss and gets all superior when people don’t look or behave in quite the way I want them to, when life doesn’t turn out according to my plans. But there is a much bigger part of me that is practical and wise, who is naturally kind and giving because she trusts in life. Slowly these inner characters start to settle in and take their rightful places.
It’s never sudden or exact: life is often a process of two steps forward and one step back, of ups and downs, of feeling I’ve finally made it then finding myself faced with the same old issue but from a different angle. But certainly realizing once and for all that Carmen was incapable of completely understanding me, simply because we are different people, has helped me relax into a more humble and less anxious part of myself. It has taken a long, long time, but I am finally emerging as a separate person from my mother.
So it is with a great sense of relief that at last I feel able to toss the whole pack of cards in the air – like Alice at the end of Wonderland – to see the two-dimensional princes and princesses, kings and queens for what they are – to turn around and embrace an inner mother, who has always loved me. She is simple and ordinary with no hidden agendas; she knows that everybody matters equally and is naturally generous and kind.
As I look back on all the people I have known I am filled with love, and a feeling that I want to gather them all in to my heart and keep them there, for they are all so precious – every little moment of connection, every time I’ve recognized the amazing love and life in someone and they’ve recognised it in me – from fleeting moments to long, deep times of wonder and exploration. I feel very rich in this, and in an on-going ability to connect with people, with more and more ease. When I was a child there were people who loved me, yet I felt sad and alone; now that I’m older I have learned how to love, and it makes me very happy.
52
Nearly the last chapter
I finished this book over a year ago – at least, I thought I had. After all that drama, I so much wanted a happy ending. And it all fitted together so neatly in my head: after all, I had found my prince, we were crazy about each other, I had moved away from my parent-substitute relationship into a brand new life, my children were OK, I was feeling better in my body... well, a bit better.
The first thing I did when I thought I had finished was, naturally enough, to share my excitement with those around me, including Carmen. I was so happy and pleased with my achievement that I couldn’t imagine her being anything but the same. But she wasn’t. The few chapters I showed her she picked apart, indignant about the way I portrayed our relationship, even arguing over the little details of my memory that I thought she would enjoy. I felt hurt and deflated; she felt hurt and angry. She was determined that the book would never see the light of day, and used every weapon in her considerable arsenal to persuade me to permanently shelve it. My first reaction was, “She’s doing it again: she’s stopping me from expressing myself!” Then I thought, “But if she is hurting she will make sure that I hurt. I’m stuck: I have no choice but to bow out and back off.” So the book was put on hold, and we didn’t mention it again.
Of course I couldn’t forget it entirely. I began to send chapters to friends as emails, and a couple of times to strangers who expressed an interest. To some people I just sent the parts relevant to the time of life when I knew them best, or those which I knew would interest them the most. But others read the whole thing, often in daily instalments. People enjoyed it. Nobody thought I was being vicious or unfair about my mother, rather they recognised my struggle and felt for us both.
Mick and I continued to love each other deeply, though I did slowly begin to recognise that our great gushings of romantic passion could sometimes flip into feelings of needing to be on our own, even wanting to push each other away... Beautiful though it was, there was som
ething a little immature and ungrounded about our relationship. We were still playing a sort-of teenage game. Whilst on the one hand there was an amazing feeling of freshness – missing each other desperately then coming together and getting terribly excited – the more hidden, shadow side of that was the disturbing sense that we hadn’t quite landed yet, that we couldn’t quite relax and trust ourselves or each other absolutely for the long haul.
We had been planning to move in together, but so far property deals had fallen through. My health was still shaky. It was a struggle to achieve a whole night’s sleep on my own, let alone with Mick in my bed. And he was still trying to overcome his anxiety as he launched into a whole new life of self-sufficiency, which included long hours at work plus the emotional and academic challenges of his counselling course.
Judy was still in Australia, and we had been talking on the phone regularly. It seemed easier than face-to-face, and it made me happy that we were beginning to be more real and relaxed with each other. I knew she had been troubled in body and mind for some time, but she was getting help from Jeremy, and I was finding her softer and more approachable.
Then she sent me an email. She told me things she had never told me before, and I know it took her a lot of courage to do so. The bits that really got to me were the bits that sounded just like the things that I accused Carmen of. Basically, she felt I had been so obsessed with myself that I had been unable to love her in the way she needed.
Now it would have been easy to turn around and immediately defend myself with the argument that it was her who had been pushing me away all these years, and then reassure myself that even this was not my fault as obviously her anger came from the way her father treated her, and the awful snowball effect of the fact that the more horrible she was the more we tended to favour Simon, so adding jealousy to her enormous resentment.
But I knew this was not the whole story. Jeremy had repeatedly told me, “If your mother had sorted herself out, then you wouldn’t be feeling this now. She might say all the right things, but there is a part of her that is unable to love you: that can only see herself.” And now that same accusation was coming my way, and it was just so horribly familiar that I knew there must be some truth in it. Suddenly I saw that if I had not sorted out my own head and heart and my relationship with my mother, then regardless of my behaviour, this would affect my daughter. I hated to admit it, but I had a growing feeling that there was still a piece of my inner jigsaw missing.
I didn’t want to ask Jeremy for help again, but I was hurting and desperate, so I phoned him up and he was immediately there for me, confronting and compassionate as ever. Together we realized that whilst Carmen had developed an ‘I’m better than anyone else’ ego, I had done the best I could at the time and developed a strong ‘poor me’ ego, which was equally self-absorbed and had the same potential to blind myself to other peoples’ feelings. For all my warmth and compassion, I had to admit there was a part of me that could be numb and unforgiving – that had been so hurt that her sob story was the only thing that mattered, and who was capable of coldly taking her revenge on those around her, particularly if they reminded her in any way of her unforgivable mother.
So I knew that my first task was to forgive her. I had sort-of forgiven her, but not completely. The biggest life lessons tend to come round again and again until we have fully learnt them... There are so many layers! I went to see her, and for the first time in my life I told her I forgave her unconditionally. I said I was really sorry, in fact ashamed of myself, for holding on to my resentment for so, so many years. And I meant it. I didn’t feel a great outpouring of love – that may take a little more time – but this was a beginning, and it definitely felt good to apologise and find some level ground between us.
It made her very happy. She apologised to me too, for all the hurt that had happened – though she tended to think it was mainly the result of her excessive adoration of me as a child; in other words she thought I had been spoilt, which may well be true but from my point of view is only a small part of the story.
All was well for a week or so, in fact so well that my sleep improved, my confidence grew, I started to feel very happy. Mick encouraged my creativity, as he always did. Again and again he insisted that I was a writer. Every time I wrote something he was generous with his praise and constructive with his advice. I was beginning to take myself more seriously, to realize that in my skill with words I just might have found my ‘thing’ – an easy, satisfying way to share my thoughts and feelings about life with other people.
I had already produced a poetry book, and now he suggested I ask for a slot at a local music festival, so I wrote to them and was accepted, and set about learning some of my poems by heart. Practicing in front of the mirror gave a whole new boost to my confidence. I liked myself; I looked nice; I could speak clearly and with feeling. And it felt so good to bring my writing out of the cupboard and into the light of day.
One of the poems I decided was good enough to share was the one, if you remember, that I read out at Carmen’s 85th birthday party. I had been refining it since then. Martha told me she thought some of it towards the end was judgemental, that I was behaving as I accused Carmen of behaving – being patronising by wishing her peace and enlightenment in a way that assumed I had already got there. To begin with I defended my position, then I saw that she was right; so I trawled my soul for the deepest truth I could find and managed to make it much more mutual, wishing us both a return to peace and to recognising the love we shared.
It felt so sincere and heartfelt, I couldn’t imagine her not appreciating it. I suppose now there was a little more softness between us, I thought it might be possible to create that real bond of understanding that had always been missing. So next time I went to see Carmen I recited it to her again. I wanted her to hear me, to receive my gift. She picked it apart. She did grudgingly admit in the end that it was a good poem. In one sense, I won the argument. But it wasn’t meant to be an argument. And whatever words we had exchanged, the result was that I felt defeated and deflated. All my new-found confidence had vanished as if it had never been there at all.
I rang Jeremy. He told me, ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results.’ (Einstein, I believe). I bowed my head and admitted he was right... But what now? He told me I must break the spell (now he was talking my language!), that I must stand on my own two feet for once and be my own person; that I must, once and for all, separate from my mother. We talked about it for hours, going slowly deeper into the old feelings of restriction and deflation, of fear and resentment.
Then at one point he asked, in that provocative way of his, “Why don’t you believe that I’m on your side?” It wasn’t that I didn’t partly believe it, but he was skilful at strongly addressing the parts of me that were still holding back. I said, “I don’t know: I can see that you understand, and that Mick understands, maybe Tim...” He asked me who from my past I would most like to understand how its been for me with my mother, and we eventually got back to Shelley. I could feel it was right because it tugged at my heart.
Yes, I think Daddy might have understood. After all, he was married to her for 25 years, and he was a bit like me – a little reserved, sometimes depressed, inclined to squash his feelings up inside himself. And it was he who gave me the trust in men that had given me so much joy and solace over the years. Yet in all the drama there was a way in which I had somehow forgotten him – even in this book, found it hard to know what to say about him; instead I skipped a generation and looked back to Hugh. But he was always there: my dear, constant, steady father; sometimes critical, sometimes boring, but unfailing in his general positive regard. Not claiming to be perfect, not playing any complicated power games, not having any great thing to prove, but a good-enough father... What more could a girl need? I felt his spirit with me. I remembered sitting on his lap, holding his hand. Various relations have told me at different times that I walk like him
, talk and laugh and write like him – even breathe like him! Perhaps the reason I haven’t noticed him is that he is so close.
I have learned a lot over the years, become stronger, more sensitive and appreciative, humbler in some ways and much more confident in others... But it felt now as if all this had been taking place under a large rock, the rock of never daring to really and truly stand up for myself. My willpower had grown strong from pushing against an imaginary weight, my determination to be loving had become strong because I was always angrily comparing my feelings of love with what I saw as the fake love of my mother. There had been moments of freedom, dramatic breakthroughs involving intense anger or passion, but somehow these were always followed by a slow slide back under the rock.
I know that shifts in consciousness are an internal thing and actions on the outside are only secondary, but I couldn’t help thinking that Carmen’s reaction to this book and my response to her reaction epitomized the whole situation. It suddenly became clear as day: it was wrong to be living in fear of what she might think; I must get it into print. I anticipated the worst: arguments, threats, character assassination – even being cut out of her will. But if it was the right thing to do, then even if she felt hurt and upset about the way I portrayed her, well perhaps that was a good thing, perhaps by allowing her to control my behaviour I was denying her the chance to grow and learn.
53
Carmen
I thought about it for a couple of days, then couldn’t wait any longer. I went to see Carmen... and she accepted my decision! She had a few questions and reservations, but basically seemed to understand that I needed to get this book into print.
When I am feeling confident I can enjoy Carmen’s company, appreciate her affection and enjoy the fact that she enjoys my company too. There are so many ways in which we are similar: our relentless seeking out the emotional truth however much it hurts, our defiance of convention when it comes to expressing ourselves, our taste in clothes and décor, our opinions about the medical profession, our funny little economical habits such as saving half-used tissues or using our hot-water-bottle water for washing up. . .