How has your week been…. really
I very rarely cry. I learnt from a young age to suppress many emotions. I want to cry. When I see a sad film or hear sad news, I feel all the natural emotions that a person should. But I suppress them.
Now, this is not something I am proud of or even promote. I don’t see emotions as a weakness in any way. It is just how I have become conditioned through my childhood and teenage years.
This week however, I have cried. A lot. I have shed more tears this week than I have in a while. All of them private and not in front of anyone. I still feel very vulnerable if I show this level of emotion in front of people. Which is sad. I said to a good friend yesterday, I don’t know what’s wrong with me this week. I keep crying. And she said, “Are you joking, after the week you have had”. Then this morning I received a text from a friend asking how my week has been and I replied, “Not too bad”. Which is a lie. But I didn’t…couldn’t .. reflect on this week because It makes my head hurt so I just said “Not too bad”, like many of us do when we just say “Fine” when people as how we are when we are actually dying inside.
This blog is supposed to be mapping a journey of both Out of the Shadows as a business and my growth as a person.So I am going to stop this hiding away and start to be honest. So go on…. Ask me how me week has been….
Well, First, this time last week we had the whole Moonwalk thing that sent me into meltdown as it reminded me of home. Or not home as it were. Last Sunday was the first time in ten years that it fully hit me that not only was my mum never coming back…I have no where to go back to. I can never go “home”. Because she was my “Home”. All these years I thought that if I took a trip down memory lane, if I went back to Clapham and looked at my old house I would be filled with all these nostalgic emotions and flash backs to happy memories. The truth is, my mumma will never be standing at the back door as I come round the corner, fag in one hand, other hand on her hip, in flip flops (Because the menopause was not kind to her on the hot flush front lol). “Where you been?” she would ask as I sheepishly made my way towards her after being out all night …again. No. She will never be there. And avoiding the flat where my son was born and my mumsie died won’t make that not be true.
This week was the 10-year anniversary of my Mum’s death and the first time I have ever really spoken about what happened the day she was diagnose with Cancer apart from talking about it with my boys. Typing it up and putting the experience on my blog had me sobbing at 5 in the morning. Big old tears. Healthy tears. Tears that needed to come out years ago. Because you know what, it hurt. So badly. And I miss her so much.
This week I had to take my 9 years old daughter to the dentist. I have a severe dental phobia. One that has a massive impact on my life. And I had to take her to be sedated and have a tooth out. I have been worrying about it for weeks. I was so scared that she would not cope. That I would not cope. She is waiting to be assessed for ASD and she struggles with things such as this. I reached out to her farther for help and got a reply that was as flaky as a Greggs pastry. I didn’t show her any of this. When we got there, she had a bad reaction to the sedation stuff. She was out of it. They had to wait for it to wear off because she was so poorly and then had to do the extraction whilst she was awake with some numbing cream. She did it! I could have kissed the dentist who don’t it. And after I had a very tearful little girl for about 6 hours because she was still badly affected by the sedation and because of the numbing cream she thought the dentist had taken her tongue out. Funny now…not so much at the time.
Both my sons are doing exams for Uni. Both cope in different ways. Both are struggling with the anxiety. One lives with me and one lives very far away at Uni. The one that lives very far away needs me. But I can’t physically be there. They both need my support, and both need me to be strong for them. They are both grown and are men. They are both my babies and I want to be there. Its hard to balance this whilst knowing that both could crumble at any second with anxiety. They they both keep hidden.
This week I placed a child in care. I can’t go into to but it has to be one of the most heart wrenching and dangerous situations that I have ever been in. I had to stay at the police station because of it until 6. I had promised my daughter I would pick her up from school that day. My son had too. When I arrived back from what may have been one of the most traumatic days in a very long time, I opened the door to a very angry 4 ft blonde girl. My daughter had no concept of my day. She did not know that several hours before her mummy had a child crying in her arms saying please help me. No, my daughter knew that not only was I late home, I had also forgotten her Mango! So, without even taking my coat off, we got on our bikes and rode to the shop to get the Mango. I felt shell shocked as we walked around the shop, my little girl telling me in very lengthy detail as to why I should buy her a Num Nums magazine. I had just been through a war zone and the world was just carrying on. I had to put my mummy head on and pretend the past 6 hours didn’t matter.
Someone let me down this week. Someone who I thought had my back…didn’t. If you read this and think “Is that me”, then Yes of course it’s you! What was you thinking?
I went for an opportunity this week and didn’t get it. On a normal week it would mean nothing but this week it just felt like another kicking.
I also got offered 2 other an amazing opportunity’s this week. Two different people wanting me to be part of gangs training that will be in front of people that have the chance to actually change things, these two opportunities could well be game changers for me and the young people I work with. This could be the start of what I have been trying to achieve for so long.
I had to call out a fellow practitioner this week. I made a choice to make them accountable and to advocate for someone who could not. I had to make people know what I am about.
I had to listen to a level of racism that was shocking in 2018. I had to address that and then educate that person. I had to tell that person that I would not tolerate that kind of thinking around me and that they needed to look in the mirror and ask themselves what kind of farther they were being to their child spouting such thoughts.
I had to share a just giving page for a 24 year old male that I worked with as a young person who has died. It was sudden and unexpected and made me very sad. I had to then decided if I need to take my support for that page away because I then found out that he had been part of a murder of another young person I was close too. He became a victim and a perpetrator in the space of 28 minutes in my heart. He created pain by his actions. I can see the pain of others by his passing. I found it very hurtful and confusing.
The royal wedding. I wont go into detail, but for me, it was like a new chapter for race and love. No, I don’t think one mixed race “Princess” is going to change the culture of the country. But having Malcom X mentioned in the service…to have a gospel choir and for Megan not to cover up her freckles, showing females that you can just be you….Its all a step in the right direction. I cried when they sung “stand by me”. Why? Because it’s a song that dances on my soul that’s why!
I could go on, but I won’t.
After reading that I think my tears are justified. Are worthy.
So, how has your week been?
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