It’s very easy to be angry at people for what they didn’t do for you but can you look past that and see what they did do?

I feel very basic right now. Stripped to the most primitive of emotions. Some days even raw. On these days I seek to protect myself. Not hide, just preserve the very building blocks of what I am. Taking a career break and renouncing all of my study for a year has given me a lot of space to ‘be’ in.
I had an emotional childhood which led me into a very distressing adolescence. While I am at home this year, enjoying time with my youngest before he heads to school next September, I have decided to try to put together these years into a novel. Not a memoir, as I didn’t want to bring myself too close to what was. A novel i felt would help preserve some of the distance I have created.
As a means of filling in some of the gaps I hauled out a box
today full of poems, diary entries, stories and pictures which I created during these years. There is a lot of material and I sat down late this afternoon with the intention of going through it all. I lasted 45 minutes and only scratched the surface of the contents. I realised then that it was too difficult and took me away from where I am now and to a place , which from my reading today , seemed I had forgotten an awful lot about.
What I did find though ,that I could read was a ream of poems some of which I read and re- read this evening.
They have sat there unseen by anyone since I packed them up when my eldest was a small child. So around 15 years.

The girl who I was then wasn’t really heard, so I thought I would give her a voice here and post what she felt 25 years ago.

This poem is called , The last laugh is on me.

The last laugh……………..

Expectations,
Running high- in my eyes,
But in yours I see doubt.
You believe, you say
But do you see
there is a seed; planted
Way back
Waiting to germinate-
Ready to explode
Nurtured by achievements,
Each one better than the last,
Each one smothers doubts breath.

I know it will remain unsown,
For now
Silent, hopeless,
Till that day
When you, no doubt
(But you will)
Your own integrity.
For what you have done
Is judge
And that my friend
Was a mistake. .................is on me.

My response to this now?

Well, I think that is in the title of this blog post.