The Aftermath

The week that followed was so hard. In total we spent eight days together in hospital, with me taking daily trips back and forth, back and forth, between hospital and a hotel whilst spending endless hours on the phone keeping England updated. We are home, we are well, he is fine. My daughter survived her trip back to England being smuggled in the footwell of a Honda CRV with people we barely knew but who helped in every way possible.

Now I am left with the aftermath of all the events of the year and I feel so angry. This place of transition is so uncomfortable. Sometimes, I just want my life back. Life before Spanish adventures, single parent holidays, hospital admissions. Sometimes, I just want my life back just the way it was, eating Sunday dinner fantasising about where we would go on holiday next. My life, the way it was before it started to be what it is now. I'm stuck in this place of not wanting my husband to come home but not yet wanting what I now have. I feel cheated out of what I had. I loved what I had even if I now know it was a lie...it wasn't a lie to me, I loved it all.

For now, though, I must sit in this emotional quicksand waiting until I can come up for air and smell my life as it is now, want my life the way it is now and understand my life the way it is now.

The Accident....

On day one ,25th August 2009, of 'The Accident', I opened my eyes and searched around the room for some indication that I was still asleep and therefore having a nightmare. Unfortunately, I was awake and I was waking up in a French hospital in the lovely town of Lisieux, deep within the region of Normandy after about an hours sleep. Next to me was my son, who was drugged up with morphine and looking incredibly ill. He had decided that standing up on a very high slide teasing with the option of jumping, was a good thing to be doing. The startling consequences of this stared back at him when he was laying on the floor crying in torturous pain and were now staring at me.

I lay on a make shift bed shivering with cold desperate for some hot tea, seeking the comfort of it pouring down my throat with an appreciation that can only be felt by the English. The Doctor on duty certainly didn't have any tea nor any comprehension as to why this might be a priority in my ability to cope with the information that was to be given to me. The Eastenders scene all those years ago where Pauline Fowler, upon discovery that her 16 year old daughter was pregnant, suggested calmly that they all have a cup of tea, came flooding back. I'm in a crisis,of course I need a bloody cup of tea! On top of the deprivation of sleep, lack of tea and the vision of my son, was the mental strain of trying to speak fluent 'medical' in French using the only French I had gained at school, the progression of which were lost quickly after the third year after many episodes of bad behaviour in the Languages Department of the girls school! Being able to close the window, order some coffee and say I love you, were just not adequate in these circumstances.

It was while pleading to go to an English hospital that I quickly ascertained that this was not a small injury. He has damaged his liver and ruptured his spleen and he might need surgery to have it removed. They would tell me in the morning. The words echoed around my head and the tears came. We will not be allowed home for one, maybe two, sometimes three weeks. More tears and the constant swimming of jumbled up words that when put together all spelt out 'What the hell am I going to do?'

The Holiday...

This has to be the strangest holiday I have done for a while. Any booking made with a company called Single With Kids is going to be an adventure. We set off very early on Saturday morning driving to Dover, ferrying to Calais and then driving to Normandy. The French drive had been my biggest fear but, dare I say it, the English could learn alot from the French with regard to motorways!

Eleven hours later and with great trepidation, we arrived at what I can only describe as a French upmarket Butlins. It was on the last leg of the journey that it dawned upon me what I had probably signed up for - I was going to be sharing a living space with other families. Me, who likes space, order and tidiness, sharing with potentially a family or two with ADHD children who eat crisps for breakfast and play DS until 3 o'clock in the morning. Ok...so that was the worst possible outcome dominating my imagination.

As it turned out, I am sharing with one family who are really nice, even though the mum clearly needs a holiday alone for a month! In fact, all the families are lovely and incredibly diverse and yet another adventure has been had this Summer. The children play all day while I indulge myself in even more reflection while basking in the sun with my ipod on - I'd say that was a holiday. We've all been eating together in the garden each evening and it certainly beats the isolation felt at holidaying alone with the children, observing cornflake packet families in their little clusters - the women keeping a beady eye on their balding husband for fear that he may stray (well I've news for you ladies....I don't do flabby and bald anyway!) and the men looking irritated any time they are asked to 'put the chair up', 'wipe Johnnys bottom' or 'get some more drinks please love?'.

Well, the sun lounger is calling so for now I am 'Single Mother On The Verge' of what? Of relaxation!!

The timing...

He wants to come home. He wants to come back to his wife. With utter clarity, a heavy heart and teary eyes, I have had to say no. Enough. We make so many decisions in life about every aspect of what we do, how we spend it, who we share our moments with. Decisions are not right or wrong they are just 'a' decision by which we have to stand by and work through and take responsibility for as we make them. He made a decision and now I have made a decision.

At this stage, I know that it would not be right for me to 'go back' regardless of what I have lost. I am mending my heart so it can be shared with another, someone who can love me the way I want to be loved, a search that I seem to have been on for as long as I have been able to love.

I am slowly learning that however hurt I have been, within marriage I learnt the gift of taking care of another and being taken care of. I will remain utterly grateful about that and someone else will surely benefit from that as much as I have. The question is, will I love that way again? Will my heart mend? Will I be that vulnerable again with another? I think so......

The Train

This Summer is a Summer of many journey’s – actual and emotional. Each trip is so different and brings with it such different emotions. Alcala brought with it a journey of self that can only be described of as uplifting, enlightening and hopeful. As I sit on the train returning from Durham, while an enjoyable trip, my reflections of the last couple of days have been filled with sadness, regret and loss. A process of grieving is being undertaken and the manageable days fall into the unbearable days fall into the uplifting days, all without any discussion with me or respect for appropriate timing. Crying in my Auntie’s kitchen was not quite how I would have wanted my visit to be remembered! Recovering from the end of my marriage is going to take far longer than I dare allow it.

The Truth

I am a truth seeker. I have a deep need to be told what is really happening, what has happened, the truth. I don't mind if it hurts, or I don't like it, or it's different to what I believed - but I need it. Living with someone for so long where honesty was a hugely difficult accomplishment, has taken its toll on how I trust people. Living with someone for nearly seven years and their disloyalties, infidelities and general need to tell 'stories' rather than truth, has caused damage that I now have to deal with and work through.

While taking responsibility for working through this damage so as not to inflict insecurites on to other people, do other people have a duty to learn how to be honest? Am I asking to much of people for them to just be honest? I don't want 'protecting' through un-truths. I don't want 'stories'. Is this to demanding? Am I asking for something that essentially most people can't give? Is it fair to want it just because I need it? Can I be cross with friends when I don't get it? Will I ever be able to trust in a relationship again? Am I being naive in thinking that truth is something that is wanted by all?

Where did I go?

I had no idea that I had lost so much of myself in the constraints and confines of my marriage. Discovering another side of myself, the side that could be be married, meant giving up a part of myslef that I have missed so much. The part of me that felt creative and idealistic and free and excitable and open to what is available to us. To find that part of me again and learn that there is even more within me than I had left behind is so exhilirating and helps me to feel closer to my younger self.

My journey to Alcala has afforded me the luxury of reflection in the most beautiful of settings. If only I could travel the globe and dream endlessly, concluding very little but in complete synchronisation with the idea that the journey is of equal importance to arriving at the destination.

One conclusion that I have made though, is that to truly feel the sensation of completeness with life, there needs to be three things preceding each day before we get up - spontaneity, synchronicity and appreciation. Approaching the day with this in mind, seems to me to bring about the most amazing rewards.