Mamma was a lunatic...

It's funny how people perceive things from the outside, how most see my picture perfect family and then they discover I'm in therapy. You can see the cogs tick, they scratch their head and try to connect the dots, they try to make sense. That's where I get lost too, because for the best part, I have struggled during the past 18 months to open my eyes to the possibility that it is not simply some inherent flaw within myself but perhaps instead a sequence of unfortunate events.

I love it when family come to visit, they fill you with stories of your youth. This time around my mum told me of her favourite memory of me and my brother in childhood. The pair of us making carrier bag kites, by tying the bags to bits of string. Apparently we had real kites, but we preferred our budget version. Me, I always remember playing 'hunt the pegs' in the garden. I was always searching for things even back then. We'd seem to always wind up losing pegs though, me and my brother hunting for hours, by which time my mum would have forgotten where she placed them all. Then months later, when dad was home for a weekend, he'd find them attached to his prized fuchsias. If it were only ever these memories she shared, things would be a lot simpler.

This time she also chose to fill me in on the day we moved down south. Apparently I, who at this stage was just turned 2, wandered off. She noticed my disappearance when a friendly neighbour from down the road brought me home. Apparently I was fine, because I wasn't crying. It made me think of a conversation I'd been having with a friend about grief, how grief is important because it makes us more careful of those we love. It is apparently an instinctive drive, which forces most to grab their kids, before then step out into a busy road or perhaps before they wander off down an unknown street.

It is is harsh perhaps to call her a lunatic for such acts, which sadly are not limited to this one off occurrence, but I guess there is something pertinent about that fact she finds these stories humorous and endearing. Whilst I have spent my time, searching for pegs in overgrown shurbs, it seems despite claiming otherwise, she has known where they were placed all along. It is just easier to pretend otherwise...