It is one month into the new year. I’m 62 years old, and my third marriage- a union of twelve and a half years has crumbled, I think irreparably.
The blog I began some time ago has fallen by the wayside, and I am here now, trying to figure out a way to begin it again.
I cannot resume the blog as it was, but for more stories from farther back in time. I may indeed have more of those, but they will come to me as they will. Some of the people who played important roles in the life of our family back then are yet living and doing their best to navigate the world as they can. I won’t be sharing stories about them- even as they may be revealing and in some cases, highly entertaining even… I think it would be callous for me to do so, and I have shut that door. It was this that got me stuck in the first place and made me stop writing. I had hit the dead end of stories fair to tell.
So where to now? This is perhaps a scarier moment for me. When I began my blog, I was terrified by the judgements I knew some would make of me and the circumstances of my birth. Coming from a wealthy background is historically never a popular one. And now, with the rise of Trump, my fate is pretty well sealed, ha! (if it wasn’t already…) The people whose opinions I have always valued most have almost never come from my kind of background themselves, and I know and understand full well why harsher judgements can and will be made.
I have lived them before. I know I will be judged for that silver spoon, and it pains me to think of it, even as I can tell no other origin story. The story is mine. I did not choose it. And it is all I have.
And now, how do I go forward? One thing I have learned about myself is that I need this connection. I need it in a way which may border on the neurotic- if not the pathological, but there it is. It is there in my friendships, in my life’s actions and motives and most of all, in my artwork. What I long for is a sense of connection that perhaps I never really had- but for the one person in the world who really loved me, knew me well.. knew me like no other could- Katherine Gregory. (You can find her in chapters of this blog in the memoir section.)
Three years ago going on four, my dear crazy bi-polar, borderline, and agoraphobic sister Debbie took her own life, and things have never been quite the same. I am dealing with the repercussions still. While many will tell me to move on, I stand alone looking back. It has affected my life and my psyche in ways that I cannot begin to describe or even understand fully myself. It has left me hungry for hope and belief and comfort which I have certainly always sought, but has increased tenfold with her passing.
Dear friend, I hope you will forgive me for this. I don’t mean to wallow. But I am burned, and the place in my heart has yet to grow new skin. I’m trying to understand it all, and if I can do it somehow, I hope to honor her life and her memory. And I need to heal myself too.
A series of unfortunate events have followed since her death, which is likely par for the course as these things go. They have left me where I am now, with an uncertain future…. or maybe I should say instead, painfully aware of the uncertain future we all share, but to which we are often generally oblivious by choice, circumstance or necessity?
I’ll end for now… but I will begin here next time; not in the past, but where I am now. I don’t know who will care to read this- but I need to write.
Helen
