Categories: uncategorized
Date: 31 July 2007 13:28:32
I closed a chapter of my life.
Normally if you talk about a period of your life ending then it's a bad thing. I suppose we're addicted to nostalgia so what's past is always good. In this case it wasn't, not at all. I wrote quite a few blog entries about it at the time but never posted them because they were all too bitter. Now it's over the bitter taste is fading away.
Basically every morning for the last couple of years I would wake up and, first thing, get a kick in the teeth. Sometimes literally, always metaphorically. The routine was this: our kids would wake from their slumbers, come through to our bedroom and climb into our bed and we'd have a short interlude of all being together in bed (editor: am I going to get arrested for writing this?) before getting up and facing the rest of the world. Sounds idyllic, but for me it was hellish. Because every day the two kids would squabble about who could be furthest away from me. Both wanted to cuddle up to mummy and be as far away from daddy as possible. To make it even worse, it had been fine when we only had one child - he was happy to cuddle either parent. But when Airdrie came along she soon only wanted mummy, and by that strange but inevitable process of human psychology, Cambuslang started demanding the same. Because she rejected me so he obviously felt he ought to too. So every day for me started with my kids rejecting me. I'm tempted to say that it's no wonder I was depressed, except that scientifically that's demonstrably false.
So anyway, that was the state of affairs until those eight weeks ago. Then a change of circumstances effectively shuffled the pack. And now it really feels as if both kids value both parents equally. Now those `idyllic' times in the morning are just that. The pendulum hasn't swung the other way, it's just stopped in the middle. Of course, having swung once, it may well swing again, but if I can hold on to the fact that dreadful things do eventually come to an end, then I may be able to cope better when it happens again.