run(a)way.

Monday night, after one more argument with my mother over the dinner table where I should really know better than to voice an opinion contrary to that of my parents’, even if that opinion is backed up by fact and knowledge from my university studies rather than jaded cynicism and hearsay, I decided it was all too much and left home for 2 days.  My father was ambivalent during the whole row, my mother decided I had a “problem” with her and refused to listen to her (despite the fact I expressed my opinions in a calm manner, balancing positives with negatives; these opinions were talked over or dismissed at each turn); that I had suddenly “flipped out” despite the fact that she, not I, was the one raising their voice; that how could my feelings be hurt by her, if she’d had her feelings hurt by me? As if only one person can feel wounded by another at any one time.  I said that over the course of the year, I had learned that the only time I ever argued or was in a toxic atmosphere was at home with my parents, that I have the ability to make friends time and again and therefore there can’t be anything wrong with me, that I would no longer let my parents make me feel ugly.  I left to give myself some space, and I am more than grateful to Toby and Mike for providing me refuge, and to all of my friends for understanding and for saying that I was right, and not crazy.

People say that “friends are the family you can choose”. Others say that “blood is thicker than water”.  It is true that I will never not love my family: my mother and I were inseparable during my early years and we got each other through the dictatorship, misery and abuse (verbal, mental, very rarely physical) my father wreaked on our lives.  I won’t forget that.  Neither do I hate my father, although he doesn’t love me: he’s never known how to be a father, but at the age of 16 I finally realised that hating him still meant that he had some power over me.  I saw him weakened after one too many accidents on his bicycle – watching my father crippled, being wheeled in a wheelchair, having to help him go to the toilet in hospital made me realise that his power was all an illusion, and that if I didn’t submit to his subjugation, there was little he could do to truly hurt me.  Since those epiphanies, I’ve been able to forgive him for my childhood, and at times I know that his lack of attachment to me makes him almost an objective source, and occasionally a better source of advice or confidant than my fiercely feisty but heavily biased mother (if I have issues and neuroses, I most certainly learned them from her).  He’s not a bad person and I don’t think he ever meant to be, he’s just imperfect.  My mother is imperfect too, and just as I rebelled against my father, I’m now fighting a battle to establish myself as an intelligent human being against and apart from my mother, who unwittingly (unlike my father’s deliberate past sabotage) threatens my intellect and independence fairly often.  Her timing is off however: I’m 24 and after university not once but twice, and a gradually-formed but steadfast collection of true friends, I’m stronger than ever.  So I won’t take shit from either of them. I don’t need to.

I came home this afternoon with some trepidation: as much as I am strong now, I’m not invincible, and if I had been kicked out I don’t know how I would afford to live elsewhere until my job at Cirencester kicked in (my first salary payment won’t come through until mid-September, and my bursary won’t keep me going until then, especially if I’m juggling rent with driving lessons and tests, which are indispensable at this point).  Financially, I just can’t afford to be out of this house; emotionally, if they said goodbye, I’d walk out and never come back because my pride would not let me do otherwise.  I’d be shooting myself in the foot, but I’d do it with resilience in my eye.  However, I’d rather not have to shoot myself in the foot 😉 My mother is giving me the silent treatment: even though I don’t think I was in the wrong, before leaving on Monday night I apologised for “getting heated”. My mother did not, does not apologise unless hell has frozen over or unless she’s actually not done anything wrong.  My father is pretending like nothing ever happened, and is playing piggy in the middle of our fury; because there are 3 of us in our family, one of us is usually stuck in the middle / left outside alone (delete as appropriate) while the other two bait and infuriate.  Usually, I’m the third wheel to my parents’ storms.  So I can understand my father feeling relieved that he’s off the hook for a little while.  My stubbornness, identical to my mother’s (I won’t lie: we have a lot of similarities and I have had to reprogramme myself to eliminate some of her neuroses and pessimism ingrained in my psyche at a young age – they’re not all gone yet), means that our arctic silence will persist at least a week or two.  I don’t want this, I don’t want to be locked in war, and yet as a child I always surrendered to the silent treatment.  Not only am I not in the wrong, but I have apologised for my foibles in the argument.  I have nothing else to say: my mother evidently feels she is impeccable.  So what else is there to say or do, other than go on and wait for everything to subside?

Once everything is financially stabilised, I will be gone from here.  It’ll take only a few months I believe: my life is slotting into place and in my mid-20s, it’s been long overdue for me to be out of home.  Returning from my undergraduate degree, it was really difficult getting used to living under my parents again; over the past year when I’ve been going to UWE, their relationship seems to have destabilised to the point that I prefer to be alone or out than endure the atmosphere.  Perhaps it’s partly just natural for me, as an adult, to want my own independence too.  It is within reach now, I just have to bide my time a little longer and keep looking to the sky. Hopefully, when I achieve my goals, with some perspective and space my parents will be happy for me.  And if not, then that’s okay too, because I will be happy for myself and I have enough people who care about me that I feel healthy.  I can do this 🙂

confidant.

So today I spent time with Mike and my essay in the library at university, and it was nice.  The library was eerily quiet, I made up some stuff about my vocational development to date, and we had conversations.  Things are more or less back to normal now, with the easy camaraderie, jokes and giving me a lift home (which ended up in him finally meeting – waving to her from the car, anyway – my mother).  I’m seeing him tomorrow night to watch The Last Broadcast with his wife and sister-in-law, and I feel so blessed to have a friend who makes effort to include me and feels that he can do these things.

We spoke about the love triangle, or about aspects of it.  He said that he is past his obsession now, because nothing can ever happen, we’ve had some space (although it’s only been 5 days) and because she seems to be ruled by her husband.  Mike and I agree that we would never want to be in a relationship where we feel we have to answer to the other person, that we are sometimes subservient and that the other person is the boss.  It’s all a bit strange, because our friend doesn’t seem particularly subservient and is quite a sparky person, and yet she seems to actively toe the line when it comes to her husband’s paranoia (albeit maybe correct) about her new male friends at university.  She has been forbidden from coming to my house party at the beginning of January, because “she’s not a student” (although technically, she is), and yesterday when I was in Cabot Circus with Davina and Deena, I found out she was popping down so I would have liked to say hello, but as she was with her husband it wasn’t going to happen.  I’m glad that Mike says he is doing better – I’m not sure I believe him completely as it seems a bit premature to me, but it’s nice to hear him sound positive about it.

I wish I could say the same about me.  It’s been 5 years since I really fell in love hard for someone like this, and I feel like I’ve come so far since then, I’m a completely different person… and yet, I’m obviously not. Okay, I’m handling things again, and I’m not doing any worse than I was before either – our friendship is more or less back to normal, I’m more happy than I am sad (well, I get more wistful and wanting than really sad) because I made such a good friend, but sometimes I wish that I had a confidant like he does (which is me).  A lot of my friends I know don’t quite understand how I could want someone who is married, nor how the three of us ended up in this tangle of feelings – they just see it as entirely inappropriate, and while they aren’t necessarily wrong, it’s too simplistic a view. Mike, V and I – we’re all people with hearts and feelings and responsibilities to our own families, and just because they may be married doesn’t change the fact that they are still humans full of emotions.  Out of my friends who do understand this, I don’t get the opportunity to see them very often (maybe once every couple of weeks for an hour or so).  It’s difficult.

Mike can tell me about his infatuation (or as of today, conquering of) and explain his feelings to me. He knows that he can trust me, that I won’t judge him and that I will be his friend no matter what.  I know that I can tell Mike about my feelings for him, and that he won’t run away and he will try to understand. But it’s different – apart from the fact that it still twinges that Mike would never want me in that way, I feel like I am humbling or almost humiliating myself to explain the way that I feel and the feelings that I have to him.  It’s brave of us to cope with this, and sometimes I think we overestimate our own strength, but ultimately he’s not confessing his feelings to the person he’s feeling them for (although the three of us are all clear about who likes who – again, it’s messy).  I’m his best friend and his shoulder, and I feel privileged.  I think we’ll always be close, but it’s slightly different for me.  I wish there was someone (and by that I mean a physical someone here, I appreciate all of you guys taking the time to read this and your comments and encouragement on twitter etc.!) to whom I could pour this all out and not feel judged or told that I should move on or get over it, because they are married and have children.  I already know this, and I think I am more or less strong enough not to act on my feelings – that’s the saving grace of being able to talk to Mike about my feelings for him and he is able to listen and support me as a best friend.  But sometimes, just to have someone a little less in the thick of it than the direct object of my crush would be nice!  A confidant.