Cheek lifting moments

[Mental Fairy]

Ok family, I’ve learnt a lot from this project given to me by the therapist. Alarmingly I noticed a pattern….

Positive memories from your childhood

The feel of the bedsheets when fresh on the bed after a wash.

Nanas cooking. The smell, licking the bowls and watching the oven. Waiting for the first cookie, cake slice, skin on a roast.

Feeling safe with my grandparents

Hearing the sounds of the morning birds when camping with my grandparents.

Hearing the Seagulls at the beach when eating fish and chips

Going on walks looking for dinosaur bones with my grandpa- also known as Grampy
Grumpy grampy and Niggley Nana

One Easter I remember getting and egg.

Going on holiday with my nana and the smell of the flowers in her hair.

The smell of old spice on grandad and his whiskers

Climbing trees. Not allowed to do that just here!

Rainy days on the day of cross county as I only wanted to run alone.

Getting a phone call from my father at Christmas.

Reading the wind and the willows

Plugging some giant headphones into an old stereo and listening to a spooky story on a talk back channel.

Having cheese and crackers with my great grandma.

Watching loony toons on tv with my brother. Only remember that happened once.

The one time my mum touched me with affection- when she was drunk unfortunately.

Building a brick wall with my mum a year before she died.

I can see a pattern and it’s highlighted to me I’ve blanked out a massive part of my life under the roof of my mum and her rotisserie of men.

I remember one man that was a super positive influence but he was removed and a new one came in who happened to be on charges of rape against his own kids from previous marriage.

Really has shocked me doing this project.

[oak]

Not often am I chilled, by a novel in a sentence like I was by one thing you wrote, Mental Fairy:

Building a brick wall with my mum a year before she died.

Once in a great while something is so perfect in its awfulness. As if the awful is made manifest. Truth is stranger than fiction.

That sentence took my breath away.

Besides the obviousness of building a wall, I am struck by the disparity of bricks vis a vis everything else you listed:

Bedsheets, an egg, birds, a cookie warm from the oven, a slice of cake, flowers, aftershave, a willow tree.

The delicate, the beautiful, the subtle, the curated, the designed for a simple pleasure based on the senses.

Yes, I fully agree that you have exactly named a pattern in your early life.

Two other thoughts:

1. I hope, and everything you've shared here demonstrates it, that you and your husband have reversed the generational curse that your mother created.

2. On a little lighter note, there is nothing like a roast.