No, I’m not coping. I am not coping at all. I drink too much, I sleep too little, I bury myself in teaching, offering to do extra work, putting myself out to help make life easier for others. I skip lunch break to differentiate work. I can’t sit in the staff room and not shout out, not cry and tear at my hair and bite the flesh on the insides of my wrists. I want to be held up, to be asked what can be done for me, to be handed a tissue and held, just held.
I told someone today “I’m a single mother of three boys, their hearts are broken and It’s my fault”
“You’re doing brilliantly now though,” She said “How many years have you lived apart?”
I’m fed up of coping. I wanted to pull her hair, to scream, to roll on the floor and never ever ever get up ~ less than two weeks, ten days really. I say nothing.
I checked my bank balance today. I didn’t buy rice. I didn’t buy apples. I didn’t buy butter. I went home, chatting to my boys about the height of the river, and the flocking starlings and who gets the money we spend in charity shops. We waved to the fire-engine and I smiled and smiled and smiled.
I am roasting a chicken in the oven, slices of lemon pushed between the breast.flesh and the skin, piercings of rosemary sprigs. He is coming for dinner.
Daddy is coming for dinner, I tell them cheerfully, deceptive spangles glinting fraudently from my words. Do you know what they say, do you know? So many guesses as I tear out my eyes each night, leave them rolling about the floor like tipped solitaire, gathering fluff.
Oh, says one Oh dear, says another When is he going again, asks the last.
so for all my doubts, I know I am not alone. Even with this second.dwelling ache, the near~nausea of each breath, even with the genuine urge to break myself with things, just to see how it feels, even with all this, they, tiny toed, feel it too and I am growing slowly. I am Harry Potter, when he got the bones removed from his arm and had to regrow them. It hurts, but it has to hurt to grow. I am cooking roast chicken, I still make brilliant roast potatoes, I am smiling, falsely, but still not destroyed.
Even just ten days ago, i truly believed I would die from a broken heart. Yeah, my heart is broken, but my determination is only slightly cracked and my spirit is as tough as old boots. I will speak my mind. I will speak out for what I feel is right, and if I have no money I can smile and remember that the frost didn’t touch the carrots still hiding in the soil. Carrot soup is lovely. I have flour and yeast and a little fat. I have warm water. Freshly baked bread and carrot soup. A bowl of summer, and it’s free.
I am scared.
He will be here in an hour and I am shaking.
