Sometimes I feel hugely self indulgent writing this and thinking that anyone else might want to read it. Yet I know that I write for me, that my words are just a sifting of my thoughts and emotions, something to help me balance and try to stay on an even keel. The freedom of being single and there are many advantages that I love, brings with it a lack of easy everyday companionship and my words serve to keep me company.
Sometimes I wonder why I do things the way I do but know that it is my thirst for knowledge, my desire to see the world from others eyes, to experience how it really is, to have my choices limited, to be forced back onto my internal resources, have my perceptions challenged, try in just a little way to live differently for a short while. I think it for these reasons that I explore and expose myself in the ways that I do.
Yesterday I felt a huge outpouring of love and gratitude for Marit, a feeling that I have misjudged her, spoken badly of her when some of my difficulty was my ability to stand up for myself at the outset. My quiet voice says, be kind to yourself tina, how could you when you were living at someone else's whim and not yet understanding the boundaries.
It was clear from her very poor communication prior to my coming that things might not be straight forward but perhaps the simplest thing would have been for her to say, my mother died in March and at times I'm struggling to cope. I think now that she saw me as a way of moving forwards with her life, accepted her first bookings and away we went. For her it meant paying the bills but for me it meant confusion.
Because I can trust myself to climb out of any hole I find myself in, I can take risks, allow myself to get bogged down without too much fear. At times I think I am invincible, a bit manic perhaps. I often think of myself as being like a kangaroo, no matter how low I go, I will always bounce back again and also like a boomerang, no matter how far I stray I always find my way back home.
I now have the best of both worlds. I am venturing further afield yet will return. I can leave some of my belongings, travel lightly, knowing I have a bed to come back to. I feel for her grief and know her head is too chaotic to give thought to the needs of another. That does not make her a bad person and I apologise that I have put her in a bad light. It's not just with me that she doesn't know where she is or what she is saying. Just two days after her exhusband took us on his boat, he came to see his grandchildren. Happy families? I quipped quizzically and she looked at me in amazement, had no idea that I might know he was her ex! She doesn't know whether she is coming or going.
Her generosity is huge. I have her supermarket card and fuel card. The food I accept, it is part of the deal and must buy to feed her guests but fuel in the car I pay for myself.
I know there are many times where I am equally negligent of the needs of others, easily frustrated, and snappy when tired. It is good for me to be reminded of how it feels. I know also that sometimes I steamroller my way through life and I apologise for those I have hurt. Steamroller perhaps feels a bit too harsh, more hovercraft I think, move over, brush away, disregard, bruising as I do so but not steamrollering I hope.
