Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
“God, don’t you ever get sick of navel gazing?” my sister spits in that slightly – ok, not slightly – very – righteous disapproving tone she reserves for me, the youngest.
That voice, and that of my mother, have taken out equal shares in the space either side of my ears, hanging out on my ample swimmer’s shoulders, picking fluff and dandruff off my clothes and passing silent commentary on my life and choices. One of those ears doesn’t even work but it doesn’t need to; the disapproval ratings register through the unkempt clothes and have enmeshed themselves into my bones.
The naval gazing commentary is prompted by the apparently disproportionate amount of grandparent time we have unfairly consumed whilst tripping off to our many ‘self-development’ retreats and excursions. Our journey into the world of self-examination has its roots partly in my star gazing nature (another gripe: “you’re such a dreamer!”), and partly in the fact that I had fallen in love with a man other than my husband. Whilst I was swept away in the romance of someone who really “saw” me, “got” me and “loved” me, an unusually helpful voice from somewhere in my psyche was telling me that this could in fact all be bullshit, that my children needed to come first, and that I had actually married a really good bloke and he must still be in there somewhere. I told myself my children were my number one motivation but if I’m honest, retrieval of my battered ego was fairly high on my list of priorities. Of course, I couldn’t even begin to share the real motivation for all this ‘self-help’ with my sister. The crushing realisation that I was not as lovely, kind, loving and faithful as I had carefully crafted and believed myself to be, and the risk of loss of that beautiful mask was too much to bear. This careful crafting of my perfection had begun early in life, as I had gone about wincingly trying to protect my mother from her sometimes harsh, judgemental, demanding and unthinking mouth, and the repercussions for her friendships, marriage and my reputation. Like it was any of my business. But we’re not great in our family at figuring out what is our business and what is not.
“When are you going to get a real job?” “When are you going to pull your weight and start helping with the mortgage?” “You really should start thinking about your retirement plans.” More helpful commentary from my sister, this time out loud. My ego suffered the blows quietly like a battered wife. My husband made me fall in love with him again with his response: “We have chosen to invest in our relationship, our well-being and our self-awareness as these are more important gifts to our children than inheriting the brick and mortar products of our ‘well-invested’ money and over-work.”