Would I Were Beside Her.

You know what's a funny old thing? Anxiety. More specifically, social anxiety. When I was younger, I had the uncanny ability to take an innocuous question, sentence, or glance in my direction and turn it into a veritable dissertation on Why The Source of Said Thing Hates Me. I read between lines that probably didn't even exist. I would question even the most solid and long lasting of friendships and connections. I had faith in nothing.

Of course, now I know that was due to a number of factors including insecure attachment, repressed emotions and general childhood rubbishness, but at the time I was absolutely certain of one thing: my position as an Untouchable. Unworthy, Undesirable. All the Uns, basically. The Uns are not a good set of adjectives to wrap yourself in. Much as they seem like a comforting blanket of misery, because misery is comfortable when you're used to it, and quite predictable. They are decidedly not a sustainable way of keeping warm.

The reason I am blogging about this now and not some adorable anecdote, is I think that there are days when it still happens for me (and it is important to accept those days). A conversation is cut short, a topic is glossed over, a nicety seems a touch less..nice than it ought to have. But this will last approximately as much time as it takes me to draw in a breath and remind myself of who I am, of what I am certain and of what makes me ME. I know all these things now, and I didn't when I was young, and I didn't exactly feel like anyone was reminding me when I needed to be reminded that I wasn't worthless.

I will endeavour every day to remind DS, in case he is likely to forget (which he probably won't, if you've ever met him, you know this) that he is beautiful, special, clever, wanted, love, and most of all, he is him. There isn't anyone else like him, and as long as he keeps his heart pure and his intentions good, if someone does truly ostracise him or hate him, it's a statement about themselves, not him. I want to be his strength and his shelter, and everything else that I know now as an adult that I was in so dire a need of as a child.

As a mother to a son who will be a person in this world amongst so many other people, I have bitten the bullet and taken a stand to say, I believe in love, I believe in good, and my various anxieties don't enter into it.

Still, it's funny how conditioning works, and in spite of 5 years of retraining myself, I haven't quite rid it all from my bones. But I am working on it.

I am happy to be working on it.

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I'm kinda b-b-busy.

So, what has been going on in my universe lately? The usual. Cleaning, cooking, wiping, fretting, sweating and procrastinating.

I don't have any particular topic to whinge about, so I feel a bit useless at the blog. Though, I do like writing and I should really force myself to get back into the habit. I used to obsessively track every thought or feeling I had in one of many diaries, thinking that failure to do so would sabotage my own personal growth or identity. Maybe it was the other way round, though.

Anywhoooo.

Maybe I will just wait until something hilarious happens.

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