The beginning

This is my very first post. The big one. The start of... something. Should I write a diary? A journal of my feelings? My comings and goings? My hopes and dreams? Or maybe I should explore what little me, the child me, never got to. The things she craved but didn't get to have, like her parents time and attention. Yeah. Maybe that will a good place to start.

I now have an idea of what to write about but not where to start. I guess I'll reflect on the last few weeks and see where it goes. For the past month or so I feel something big has been shifting in my life. Before then I was coasting along, like I have been for the past 7 years since dad died. I've been questioning everything and started to realise that I want more from my life and the people in it. That's about as far as I've got for now.

I've never felt I had a calling or passion; I've not ever really felt like I wanted a career or for my life to pan out in a certain way. 10 years ago I thought I would get married, have kids, hold down a job that would bring in money but wasn't too exciting or inspiring. I never examined my future plans or delved into what I may want from my life. I went along with what my family or what those around me wanted. I'm now wondering why I'm so passive with my own life. When Dad passed away in June 2014, I officially took over the family business and everything that went with it - paying the bills, managing invoicing and finances, talking to customers and trying to get sales. Along with trying to make sense of what Dad had left behind in terms of paperwork, receipts and to top it off, attempting to figure out the unwritten expectations of business clients. I was at the same time as all that attempting to handle my own grief of losing my dad and trying to look after my mum who was now a widow and without a job of her own now relied on the business income to live off. At 24 years old, I had only ever had casual jobs in the care industry whilst living with my boyfriend's family. My boyfriend and I had been loosely planning to move from his home town in the North West to the North East of England, where my family lives. The plans were sped up when Dad got ill so I could help care for him and spend more time with him. We had been saving for a house deposit to buy our own place close by but we still had some way to go before we could afford a decent mortgage, we were going to live with my parents, get jobs and save up some more. As soon as dad died though, it was like all of our plans were pushed away, I can't even say that they were pushed back, because that's not what it felt like. I lost all sense of my life when dad died and I took over the business and looked after my mum. My mum. She struggled after he died obviously. She loved my dad in her own way I have no doubt. But something shifted in our relationship, whether a veil lifted and her true self came out, or whether something in her changed after he passed, I'll never truly know. She was selfish. She was self-absorbed. Again, I don't know if it was the grief magnifying the bad points of her at that time or if my dad really did act as a buffer between her and myself when he was alive. But our relationship changed and I became the parent. I looked after her. I kept her company, I consoled her, I listened to her, I held her hand as she cried. I also paid all the bills, sorted the finances, learned the business at the same time. I didn't cry properly for 6 weeks after dad died. I couldn't. I was my mums rock. Literally, hard and stony. Until i broke one night in July 2014, I went out with friends to the pub. I drank a whole bottle of red wine, beers and shots until I couldn't see. I wanted to be numb. I was so ill when I got home, more ill than I've ever been and it continued through out the next day. I needed an out and the drink was it that night. My first true moment of recognition that my mum wasn't this perfect human being was during a particularly difficult discussion. I can't fully remember what it was about, I suspect about the business or maybe about how her behaviour was becoming grating on Mark and myself. The words 'I've lost my husband' came out of her mouth, as if to justify her behaviour towards me. When I replied, 'I lost my dad', the look of utter shock on her face was so telling. She'd forgotten that I was hurting too. That I was the child and I missed my dad. That I felt emotions too, that I was a human being with my own life, different from hers. She didn't respond with anything. The years went by and my relationship with my mum became harder. She eventually moved to 'help' her mum in Lancashire. I encouraged her to do this, after many times of her spouting statements along the lines of 'I should really go and help mum, she's struggling', 'Babcia needs my help, I should go down soon', 'I really could help mum in Blackburn'. It gets to a point where you reach the upper limit of listening to the same thing over and over, in slightly varied sentences. She wanted to appear helpful. We encouraged her to go and put her words to action. In that time, we were going to renovate the house to turn it into a second holiday let which would give us a comfortable income for us all to rent elsewhere close by. We used our house deposit savings on the renovation, there was a lot of demolition fun and we came up with various floor plans over the years with each posing their own individual issue in some way, small or large. Eventually after what seems like close to 10 full revisions and a huge change of heart on my part, we realised that we didn't want to turn the house into a holiday let, we wanted to live in it with separate living areas so we all have our own space. We did explore than possibility of completely splitting the house into 2 dwellings but it didn't work comfortably. This all happened and mum was still living 170 miles way only coming up occasionally. It was easy to forget when she wasn't here just what it was like living with her, to the point where when she came up for small stints and it was difficult, I always looked forward to her going back to Lancashire. I lived in a dream and tried not think about her living with us full time. It got harder and harder to ignore as the more time went on. The truth usually does that, it comes niggling at you until it can't be pushed down anymore. When Covid-19 happened, it stopped mum from travelling up as much. I didn't miss her. I didn't miss her at all. I felt like cheering when the lockdowns happened and people were discouraged from travelling. 10 months went by without seeing her in person and yet I still felt the pressure to video call with her, so I didn't ever get the same relief that I got pre-Covid when she'd go back to Lancashire and I'd get a break from her. Still, I went along with the plan because what was the alternative? Lose our invested money, our time, our home, our future? It was a terrifying prospect to lose everything because I changed my mind. All the while I was scared of what my family would think of me, if I didn't take care of my mum after living this long in 'her home' and 'making her live in Lancashire' without paying her back by looking after her. Alongside this was the feeling that my job in the business was 'it', it was done, it was the most it was going to be. If I imagined my job in 5 or 10 years, it was the same as now. Maybe with different furnishings and different loans to pay for upgrades to the rooms. That was it. We made it a success, we have 40 names on our cancellation list, we have bookings for the majority of next year and even guests who have booked 2 years in advance. Our reviews often cite my name in some complimentary way. It's great and I'm pleased. But I'm not fulfilled or excited because there's nothing more I can do for it. It's done. For someone who only ever imagined a job to bring in money, I'm surprised that I care this much. A few weeks ago, mum came home to visit after not being able to travel due to Covid, she stayed for 3 weeks. It was okay for a lot of it, I think because of the long time of not seeing one another, it was like a honeymoon period other than a few minor instances of her selfish behaviour shining through. It put me into a false sense of thinking it would all be okay, living together. That bubble soon burst open towards the end of the 3 weeks when she was clearly getting angsty about feeling the need to go back to Blackburn to help John but not wanting to. She became very difficult and demanding of my time. One instance on the second last day, she was clearly restless, fidgeting, uncomfortable in her own mind but wouldn't talk about it. She asked me if I wanted to go for a walk, I said no I didn't. She became quiet, huffy, sighed a lot and looked like a toddler not getting her way. I asked why she was being passive aggressive, she denied it. I suggested she go for a walk if she wanted to go for a walk, she didn't want to. That's the thing, she wants me to go with her, be her entertainment, her social life. If I don't want to, simply because I don't want to, it's not good enough and she sulks. I've always felt the need to justify, to make up a reason, because that's the only way she would ever accept my wants.

I ended up talking to her, asking her questions about what she wanted. Nobody in our family says what they feel or really mean. She didn't want to go for a walk, she wanted to do something with me because she's lonely. I respect that statement more than just withholding the vulnerable truth that she's lonely. But I made the mistake of giving her the benefit of the doubt and I went on a walk with her. I let my guard down. I wanted to talk to her about something meaningful to me, exploring my feelings of what happened to me in my past with sex and my sexuality. I wanted to test the waters and see if I could get the reaction I wanted from her, the comfort, the understanding, the discussion of a mother and daughter. It didn't happen. The first thing she asked when I mentioned asexuality was 'how does Mark feel about that?'. Then silence as we walked on, then she stumbled on the sand and made a joke about her clumsiness. More silence for a few long seconds. Followed by a repeat of everything she's complained about living in Blackburn for the last few weeks. No comments, no comfort, no understanding, no even trying to talk to me about it to try to understand or explore her who her daughter is. Just her complaints of her life now.

Even though I felt low and disappointed at not receiving the mothering I was hoping for, I pushed it away. I talked to Mark about it when I got him alone, ranted a bit. It didn't feel resolved though.

It was on her second visit a few weeks later that my feelings and thoughts had been evolving into something cohesive. I realised that on her last trip to us, for those 3 weeks, I'd spent every day of them with her. I went out with her more times in those 3 weeks than I have with Mark or friends in the last year. And it's not that I wanted to. It's that I felt I had to. I hate going out at the best of times so if it's up to me, I won't. I love being home, doing my own thing, away from the world. But in those 3 weeks, it hit me that I felt intense guilt for even thinking about playing on my games console or doing anything that didn't involve her. I played my game once in 3 weeks. I forced myself to on a day that I was a bit anxious to try to clear my mind. In the background as I did that, my mum was sat on the couch, clearly not happy at not being entertained by me. That's the thing too. I've never had hobbies. Growing up I didn't know what to do with myself. My family don't have hobbies - mum doesn't, Dad didn't. My uncles all have their interests, but the women? Nope, nothing really comes to mind. They work and look after family, that's it. It's only since being with Mark that I realised I'm allowed to have activities that are just for my own enjoyment, not to be useful to anyone else. So I now game, garden, collect houseplants and have a spinning bike that I enjoy. The kicker is that if I'm ever on the phone with my mum and she asks what I've been up to, and I say that I've been gardening or playing a game, she goes silent and audibly sounds disappointed that I haven't done something 'useful'. So I stopped telling her a while ago.

All of this came out in a conversation with her 2 weeks ago. It was time. The catalyst that pushed it over was when our neighbour came over as mum and I were sat in the back yard talking, it was the neighbour who has spread nasty lies about Mark and I to anyone who would listen in the village, and Mum acts chummy with her. Both of them sound so fake and insincere, it really riled me up sitting there listening to them. After the neighbour left, I commented to Mum how the neighbour only acts friendly towards me in front of mum or if another person is watching and that when it's just me and her, she ignores me completely. My mum shrugged and replied, 'Yeah, well'. The anger that rose up fuelled the conversation that followed.

I didn't sound angry, it was as if the anger gave me the courage I needed to be eloquent in what I was trying to say. I told her about the painful memory I have of overhearing her whispering to Dad about my eating habits when I was a kid. They were having a private conversation about how much I ate the previous day, and I remember her voice was so hushed, I wasn't meant to hear but the door was open and I was walking by. They talked about me that day, but never talked to me about it. My weight was an issue, the doctor said so. I gorged on food and hid chocolate bars under my pillow when I was 11, I was being bullied so I ate my feelings away. My parents never brought it up with me why I was eating that way. My mum got angry when she found the wrappers because they were expensive chocolate bars. It was then that I realised I couldn't trust my parents. I hid things from them, like being bullied because I was ashamed. Over the years since I've tried to talk to my mum about bigger things, I tried talking to her about sex when I first started having it, but she got so awkward and changed the subject. We never had the 'sex' talk of protection or STI's. We never had any conversation that was meaningful. It was all surface, for show. I'm sure that was much easier than trying to push past the awkwardness.

My mum is all about looking 'nice'. That's why she still acts friendly towards the neighbour and dismisses my comments, because the alternative, to either stand up for her daughter or simply to not be friendly with the neighbour anymore, well that would raise questions of if my mum isn't a 'nice' person. It would be awkward and make it difficult around the village if mum didn't put on the facade. I reminded my mum that I stood up for her in a similar situation - when I was a teenager a friend of mine swore at mum behind her back and I stopped seeing him, didn't respond to his texts or social media and didn't overly say much if I saw him at the pub. I as a 16 year old did what she has now failed to do and hers is worse because apparently it's still going on. The neighbour is still spreading lies about me, and yet my mum is acting like their friend. Either she agrees with them and what they're saying or she's a coward and refuses to stand by me.