New vs. old

Mo and Alan playing pirates in HMAS Hammock

When we first moved to Carlton I was surprised to find myself explaining to a friend that I felt less isolated than I had in Glenmore Park; I’d never realised how disconnected I’d felt out there. I loved our place, and the people we met and the memories we made out there: I was expecting to crumple in a distraught heap after we moved out, and even took photos to add to the soppy love letter blog post I’d inevitably be writing. We’d lived there for two years! Hazel was born in the lounge room! The neighbours were friendly and kind; the family across the road brought us over a copy of Metallica lullabies to welcome our new baby, and Kath next door was exactly the type of neighbour you’d want living in a house whose balcony comes scarily close to your toilet window (i.e. lovely, and slightly deaf). But after the move, my crumpling had little to do with leaving that house.

The other day Alan told me he missed having people over regularly; we had two groups meeting for Bible studies at our old place, one on Wednesday nights and one on Sundays. I realised (though I enjoyed those groups and looked forward to them each week) that having people over regularly is one of the things I miss least. That and the redback spiders. I do miss the backyard, and having a washing line approximately 13 steps from the laundry. I miss the hammock. Alan had always wanted one, so when he heard that Moses and I had been talking about them and that I was wanting to show Mo what they looked like, Alan shot out the door for Bunnings before I had time to say, “I meant on the internet.” I miss being able to park in our own driveway, and not having to walk up any stairs to get from the car to the front door. I miss not having to worry about Moses disturbing anyone outside of our family by racing down the hallway at 6:30am. I miss the food waste bins! I still feel guilty pangs as I scrape food scraps into our regular bin, and we’ve been here 4 months now. 

All of those things were nice, but I felt no urge to write them letters when we left, which surprised me – surprises me still, actually. This new place feels more like our last apartment did, which felt more like home, and more like me. I don’t know why; maybe I still don’t feel grown up enough for a dishwasher and a garden shed? I find all of this really interesting, partly because I’m still not sure why I find this so interesting. I was hoping that now that I’d reached the conclusion end of this post it would become clear to me, and I’d be able to say something profound. But no.

God knows

You shall not murder. (Exodus 20:13)

You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.‘ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. (Matthew 5:21-22)

In primary school, I was sexually “interfered with” (as a counsellor once put it) by a man who remains a friend of my family’s. These lines from Service Fee by The Waifs often come to me: “Don't ever ask me, don't you dare begin | I'm not going to talk about it, but God knows I'm gonna sing.”

When I have a horrible dream, I force myself on waking to rewrite it so that the story ends in peace rather than terror, control rather than passivity on my part. It calms me down so that I can fall asleep again and dream of sweeter things. When my mind wanders back to that moment (and how I try to keep my mind away from the memory, for it sickens me), and I’m once again that little girl, frozen in confusion, fear and betrayal, with that man’s fingers searching for a way further into my underpants, the noise of his racing heart and raspy breath in my ear, I order my mind to STOP. And then I start rewriting. 

In my ending, I am suddenly filled with an overwhelming rage, and, Hulk-style, I am no longer vulnerable or powerless; I rise up strong, gripping a knife (which I always find lying conveniently next to my left hand), and I turn on that man and I plunge the blade into his heart, over and over and over and over, screaming,

HOW

FUCKING

DARE

YOU.

And I look at him bleeding, dying, and I feel no remorse.

For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15)

He asked for my forgiveness. It was night time, and I’m not sure if I felt dazed because I’d been sleeping or because I’d been lying for so long in the dark that my eyes were simply adjusting to the light or because I wasn’t expecting or prepared to see him in my bedroom; whatever it was, I remember nothing of what was said except that he asked, “Will you forgive me?”

I said yes, I had to; it was the only answer we’d been taught to give to that question. (Your brother hits you, apologises and asks for your forgiveness; you say yes. Your sister steals your chocolate, apologises and asks for your forgiveness. You say yes. A trusted man puts his hand in your pants until you find the courage to say “Don’t” enough times and he finally stops. He apologises and asks for your forgiveness. You say yes). It wasn’t a choice.

Even now I have no idea if I’ve managed to forgive him; what does forgiveness look like? Is it supposed to leave me feeling like the slate has been wiped completely clean, or am I allowed to still despise the thought of him touching me again on the rare occasions I see him and he reaches for a hug? Is the fact that I’m acutely aware of the placement of his hands on my body and the passing of every millisecond a sign that I’m no closer to forgiveness now than I was all those years ago? How do I stop feeling nauseous when I see him, or when I hear or say his name? Am I allowed to break down and sob at the possibility of one day having to let my daughter sit on his knee?

Or what if I think in terms of love rather than forgiveness: what is love in this case, what should love look like? Is allowing myself to be hugged “loving my enemies”? Is it enough simply to act as if all’s well so that his family doesn’t suspect anything, protecting his name with my silence (except when very drunk, it must be admitted) and forced smiles as I’ve done for the better part of my life? Or will it only be counted as love when I start to feel any kind of sorry emotion attached to news of illnesses or injuries that befall him? Does love come first, or forgiveness? I don’t know.

I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.

But God knows I’m gonna write about it.

Study #2

from here

I was told last week that along with each baby you give birth to half of your brain, but when I noted out loud that that left me with none, my friend clarified that it’s not half of your original brain you lose each time, it’s half of what’s left. So I still have a quarter. (She’s not a scientist but it feels like it’s true, so I’m just going with it.) Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure the quarter I have is the one that remembers unnecessary things like the lyrics to songs I haven’t heard since the 90s rather than important things like CLOSE YOUR EYES, ALAN remembering to take the car keys out of the ignition while you go shopping at Westfield OKAY YOU CAN OPEN THEM AGAIN NOW. 

I really don’t know if the quarter that’s left is able to write essays. I’m enrolled in a hermeneutics subject this semester – my final class before my Grad Dip is over and done with!! HOPEFULLY. I’m freaking out about studying again with less brain than last time, but I’m also quite excited about finally (HOPEFULLY) finishing up and being free to move on to my next (more employable) qualification. My poor quarter-brain is very confused with these mixed emotions. This could go very badly.

Jumper

Since throwing out my beloved blazer I’ve been having jacket issues. I do love my replacement leather jacket, but a) it’s slippery and therefore doesn’t work well with the Ergo – I have to keep yanking up the Ergo straps to keep them on my shoulders, which is difficult because b) I can’t bend my arms as freely as I’d like to while wearing my jacket, and I now know that arm-bending is quite handy and not being able to bend your arms freely is quite annoying. You’d be surprised at the number of things one is required to bend one’s arms for each day. I miss my old jacket.

I’ve been saving my too-slippery-not-very-bendy leather jacket for Exciting Outings and wearing my two Engage jackets for everything else, but that means I spend a sad amount of my time in polar fleece and also appear to be sponsored by a conference that I haven’t actually attended for 6 years. What to do? I went to Westfield with Hazel and made myself so hot trying on jumpers and jackets that I stripped down to a t-shirt and balked at the idea of having to put anything wintery on again, and when I realised that my sole purpose in being at the shops was to find something wintery to put on, I gave up and came home.

And then I thought I’d give online shopping a burl because that’s what people do these days, apparently, and I want to be like people. But I don’t know how to shop online without ridiculous amounts of scrolling and hmming time, and the amount of scrolling time I spend is not just because I’m indecisive and get panicky about buying things from the internet, it’s because of stupid results like this:

You can filter out the sizes you don’t want and the colours you don’t want, but there’s no box to tick to say you like your jumpers to keep wind out and, oh yeah, NOT HAVE SUPERFLUOUS HOLES. Guess how much this is? GUESS. I was looking through jumpers that were mostly priced at less than $40 on sale – does that help? IT’S $401.96!!!!!!!!!!! (It’s actually on sale for just over $205.88, but still. $205.88!!!!!!)

I’ve given up. For the 173rd time in my life, I’m considering learning how to knit (I already know I won’t do it, but pretending to consider it makes me feel like there’s hope). Until then, polar fleece is my friend. My warm and daggy friend.