Old Friends

The other day I had a visitor whom I had not seen since I was a young teenager.

It was a FaceBook friend who had found me through other people that we knew in common  “You and XYZ have 58 mutual friends” though when I accepted her request a year or so ago, I wasn’t even exactly sure who she was. The name and early photographs seemed familiar so it seemed somewhat churlish not to respond. I was aware that I had blocked a great deal of my specific memory from that period – a miserable and turbulent two years spent with my mother in the early days following my parents’ acrimonious and drawn-out divorce.   The adults were not handling things very well and domestic life was unpredictable and frightening. I compensated for this by cutting a dashing social swathe. While not universally liked, I was certainly well known – I was very good at  rage, swagger and rebellion  (It’s a very good disguise for loneliness, if you didn’t already know).
By the time I was 14 the home situation had become untenable so I left and went to live with my Dad which was better in some ways, and not in others.  I hardly saw anyone from that time and place again, and never really expected to. The previous few years had been a series of upheavals and long-distance moves with zero adult interest in continuity. In fact they all seemed very keen to divest themselves of the past, of any memory of what had been my little family and given my utter failure to hold on to any shred of that safe space, it seemed my best bet was a sort of self-inflicted witness protection plan.
Forge new identity. Forget the past. Move on.

I have become a specialist at that – it takes a certain knack.

I recently read a book called The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study

Arguably this was a monumentally stupid book to choose for Yuletide reading.

Husband recently confessed he “dreads Christmas” with me.

DEUTSCHLAND – NIL POINTS

I do go slightly overboard, it’s true. I get tremendously worked up about having things be perfect for the children but you don’t have to be Freud to work out that really, I want it to be perfect for me. I’m trying to compensate for all those less-than-perfect years when I was torn between two warring parents or shunted off to somebody or other’s house who wasn’t my real family as a sort of appendage and always felt like an outsider, somehow responsible for my 3rd wheeliness. Despite my best efforts, my plans never work quite the way I want them to and then I break down in hysterical tears, often when someone else dares to have their own emotions or opinion (this is not allowed in my perfect Christmas. Only my feelings. And perfectly happy children who love their presents).
Despite my questionable judgement I read the book  anyway and though it was agonisingly sad at times, it was also wonderful because I realised that I’m not just a fucking nutcase with severe emotional problems that won’t go away.
I’m one of MILLIONS of fucking nutcases with severe emotional problems that won’t go away!

Not alone! Not alone! Plus there appear to be some perfectly obvious reasons for my continuing odd reactions that I’d just never quite looked at or realised.

It was a relief to realise that just because this event was over decades ago doesn’t mean that the repercussions are not still happening, which is both comforting and terrifying.

It was also interesting to note that it wasn’t all bad news.  Apparently, along with a deep, abiding sense of loneliness, anxiety and fear that the sky will fall on our heads, children of divorce are hardworking, adaptable and frequently ingenious in their approach to the curves life throws them.  Unfortunately they don’t often recognise this in themselves and instead run around squawking and panicking.

I have failed to write very much recently, other than the odd post which bored you all with my vows to start my new business, move to the city, find schools, blah blah blah, and you might have gathered that from this I was now either:

a) Extremely BUSY AND IMPORTANT   or

b) feeling incredibly BLAH

hint, select  (b)

By the time 2011 rolled around I’d had Christmas,  (b) and my cheery little book to consider I can’t say I really felt very excited about my new career, the move, my life, anything anymore.

Then my friend came to visit.

It’s funny talking to someone you haven’t seen in over a quarter of a century. My worries about not remembering much from the past were unfounded as I immediately remembered all sorts of things as soon as I saw her, and we didn’t really try to catch up  as much as just easily talk about who we are now, and trust that the other was an old friend with whom we didn’t have to have defences. She was lovely. Quiet, open and gentle – a still, intelligent, presence. She asked me what I was doing, to which I mumbled “Nothing much right now” but then began to tell her, with some hesitation, about my plans for this year which had lost their lustre over the last buffeting weeks. She just listened to me and then said, genuinely:

“It’s so wonderful that you can just reinvent yourself over and over again. That is a great skill to have. I wish I could do that”

Oh!

I had not thought of it that way.

I just thought that everything falls apart eventually no matter what and then I have to panic/scramble to cobble together some kind of BS that will also fall apart in due course. Isn’t this the way it’s always been? And according to my book, as a child of divorced parents I was now permanently programmed to think I will be alone and things will fail and that I, singlehandedly, have to take care of everything with no help at all because nobody’s going to be there anyway.

It was seriously not until yesterday that I saw that there was a good side to this. I am very self-motivated. I’m comfortable with risk. I frequently step over boundaries because (in the absence of formal guidance) I didn’t notice they were there. I am unimpressed by authority and hierarchies. My long tenure as an outsider has freed me from the need to fit in, which inhibits so many people.
So she’s right. I can, and have, and do reinvent myself all the time.
Forge new identity. Move on.

But I’m thinking now that it’s rather better to remember the past.
Like my friend who came to sit a while and so sweetly made a present of it.