PART 1 - When my Pain became Purpose

MAY 2010
What a lovely safe environment to express!

Not that I think I have the ability to write, but rather to give order to the conversation in my head. Many times it is about the difficult questions, with no REAL answers, about life or about my internal and, what feels like continuous search, to making peace with things that I can’t change, or circumstances that I have no solutions to.

One of them, and most recent of them all, I give the title:

“When your pain, need and desire moves you towards a choice for purpose”

Part 1
The Pain of realising: It's too late!

My suitcase of dreams and expectations where packed.
I arrived on the station, just to eventually find,...after looo....ong waiting, I missed the train.
....or was it the bus I was meant to catch?

SO!!, I turned 42 this year!
Many of my friends, I think they dread asking…, but I bet they have wondered why I stopped celebrating my birthday the day I turned 39. People, it goes beyond mid-life-crisis!!! I believe from my friends that have turned 50, that your 50th birthday can be either a crisis or a cure, because you are facing the autumn years of your life. Well my life, at the dawn of my 40ties felt like the dead-centre of winter, after a snow-storm in Kazakstan.

Now my forties started out with taking stock, when there was no stock. It was like loosing a limb. Not life-threatening at all! I could still function. Sometimes a little dis-functional, but I was able to create coping mechanisms that worked for me, even if it meant a anger-bout at times... It was a like having a thorn in my foot, as long as I didn’t have to stand on it, I could hold it together and act normal, but Boy-Oh-Boy, the minute I stood on that part of my foot with the thorn in it,…. all hell broke loose!

Friends, family and collegues saw a pseudo-limb, the one I held up and used, to show that I was coping, like stage make-up that covers a scar. But at home, when the prosthesis of my lack, emptiness, loss and complete devastation came off, it was like a hundred-thousand demons was let out and I would shout, scream, cry and sometimes even swear at them!

Friends and folk in close proximity prayed, others encouraged and gave a hug, but quite a few just shrugged their shoulders in either, complete shock, of: “Why could she just not get a life?” or helplessness, of: “We just don’t know how to make this better”
Anyway, let’s get to the juicy details. I don’t know about other countries, but here in good old sunny SA, it is very generally considered that if you have not met the right man by at least 25, gotten married, by at least 32, and fallen whole solidly pregnant and given birth successfully at least twice by 39, the frown-line on your neigbours forehead is not because she has not found a local dermatologist to give her a shot of Botox. In fact, truth be known, the neighbour has been Botoxing since 24, a year after she met Mr. Right. She’s now 42 (same age as me….) with two beautiful youngsters that go to the private school just up the road from the street where I live. Her frown line surpasses all Botoxes people, because she is secretly WON-dering…that same thing that I am WON-dering….but dare not ask why I am still husband-less, child-less and joy-less, because I am TOO angry anyway to even answer her. Besides, I DON’T HAVE the answer…that is why I am writing about it and sometimes shouting about it inside of me!!! If I was to try and answer her, I had forgotten about 5 years ago, how to be humorous about the subject. The sarcasm just seems to flow illegitimately and uncontrollably from my tongue now days. I was dangerously flirting with surfing a wave of self-destructive Sinicism.

The private school just up the road from me, has a Schoolyard Market that I frequent. My contribution to the Schoolyard Market is buying a Parmesan Twist once a month, from my friends twin daughter who is in her budding Teens now. Do you get the picture at all?….. People MY age, have contributed to society. A whole new legacy has been born and busy being raised out of MY generation of people, and all that I have been worthy of contributing....,is the purchase of a Parmesan Twist, for God-sake!!!

For those of you who are wondering what on earth a Parmesan Twist is. It is THE most delicious foot-long bread. The dough has been twisted, so the bread is long and curly, loaded with parmesan and baked to a wonderful soft inside with a slightly crispy outside. I don’t allow myself the luxury of bread. It loves my waistline too much, and I don’t like my waistline at the best of days! So once a month, I feel like I am sneaking down to the Schoolyard Market for this un-Godly sin I’m about to commit. I don’t bother with the soup or salad that it would so eloquently compliment. I try to get rid of it, by myself, on my own as soon as possible. It’s DELISH, DEVINE and all the most delectable adjectives you can think of.

Oh, and on the subject of God, because I believe there is a God and I also believe IN Him, I am mainly angry with Him for my barren state. Just for in case you thought I was angry with my Botoxed-frowning-neighbor. Without causing a debate on God, because we all have our personal views and experiences with or about a ‘higher-being’, it felt as if even all the host of angels where in agreement with the Almighty, to disqualify me from having a family. If He controlled the workings of the universe and supposedly had me in the palm of His hand as the Psalmist refers to, how-come I’m not ‘getting-it’? What ABOUT the ’bigger-picture’ of life am I not seeing?…….

”Maybe you are supposed to have ’spiritual’ children”, I am told.
Puh….leeeeze Honey!!!! Who are you trying to kid?...,when you’ve had your children, your hysterectomy and still making love to your husband??? Huh??? Some older, braver ones, who had already lost a husband or two, and therefore had even accumulated a few step-children, thought it was wisdom from-above to suggest that they ALSO now console to their 'spiritual-family'. You see, not even age can make you walk a mile in a pair of 'uncertain-about-the-future' shoes….Why do I want to get spiritual about something so basic and instinctively human?

I even tried the: “Let’s pretend to be a happy ’spiritual’-family”.
Pfff…..come on, we all know, if the obvious core elements of a natural family are not in place, you will always be the outsider, who stands alone as your only companion, your darling pet, is dying in your arms and your empty heart feels faint while mommy‘s are betting their best bet amongst themselves on the latest remedy’ s for the baby’s runny nose and daddy’s are making their next move on the stock-exchange to secure a "Just-fine-family-holiday" for Christmas. Unless there’s a steeple of happy people falling under the category of ‘disqualified‘….I’m done with pew-sitting masquerades. There’s enough doting grandma’s and grandpa’s, mammas & pappas with babies and toddlers and acne-faced teenagers filling the empty spaces of a stain-glassed society, who want to do the right thing, and get it right, first-time-round. Bravo, for Favour and Grace! Pheewww…that’s a lot said, and never did I ever realise why that song; Stainglass Masquerade, always caught my attention. Now I know, why.

I realize that a lot has to do with choices as well. But what if you have not even been given the grace of an opportunity? Well then…maybe there were opportunities, but considering that I am an old-fashioned gal, I valued my morals and values far more than biology or adultery. I won’t expand on those subjects for now…!

There must be some of you mommy’s out there, reading this and without any regrets to the joys and frustration of motherhood, be thinking blissful thoughts of no lunch box duties, no homework to check, massages, pedicures and spa days when everyone else is coping with school comities, sport activities and planning the next balanced meal. I must admit, it is great to have that kind of freedom. I’ve even walked the road of learning gratitude, for my cat that purrs me to sleep at night and my dog that wag-fully accepts her supper far too late to be mentioned without a blush of disgrace, because mommy has been out with friends to a show and forgot to fill her bowel with dog-pellets before she left.

Well, I have found that it has been GRATITUDE and HUMOUR that became my life-jacket down the rapids of these lonely & disappointing days and nights.