Four years ago, I felt as if I could not go home, because I did not want to see Jack ever again. I was out with friends, and instead of going home, I went to a park, sat on a bench and cried. The next morning I woke up in an ambulance. I don’t think I want to think and write about it…any of it. I just want to enjoy my time with Goldfinch. Think of me…right now…in his arms…please be happy for me. 🙂
Will you forgive me for not being to keep up with every writing prompt that has caught my attention recently? I have so many that I have started and are sitting in my drafts folder waiting for me to finish them. Some I am determined to complete at some stage.
I loved the writing prompts in the August Write Away Challenge hosted by Sarah Elizabeth Moore
This is one of the posts I didn’t want to give up on:
When I lived in our family home, which for most of my childhood was with my parents, my brother and my two younger sisters (my older sisters are so much older, they had left home to go to university by the time I had started school) I never ever wished to run away. I felt truly at home. There were occasional challenges, but I was blessed to be reared in a haven of dependable love and trust. Here is a photo of happy me…with my hair in pretty much the same state as this morning!
However, I left home in order to be able to work as a volunteer in a part of the country where there were a stack of projects and not many volunteers (partly because the cost of living in that area is so high). Although the first year was hard, because I missed my family and friends up north so much, it did not really take me too long before I started to feel at home down south. I made many wonderful friends and fell in love with the countryside. I ended up living on the grounds of a beautiful stately home and being allowed to roam their gorgeous estate, and because they trusted me, I paid peanuts for my accommodation, which was another fortuitous factor in my volunteer career in the south of England.
Moving to London to become a full-time international volunteer was like a dream. I had a rare opportunity as a single women to be chosen from many thousands who submitted applications. That year there were two single women and sixty single men who met the criteria. Because of the physical demands and difficulties in the various challenging assignments, the number of single men vastly outweighs the number of single women. The physical, emotional, mental tests they put you under are designed to reveal if you really can take on a self-sacrificing role and if you really can be sent anywhere in the world and adapt to any way of living.
It was like coming home…even though I had been happy before. I was happy on a different level. Everything felt right. The routine, the dignity, the rewarding work, the huge numbers of people I saw and worked with. I found I didn’t miss receiving wages. My main assignment would be in London, but at any point I could be sent elsewhere. I loved the astonishing variety London life offered. I found that I was thriving in this life-style.
However, as you may be aware if you have read some of the posts that relate to what crushed Caramel, it was here in London, that I faced a challenge the likes of which I had not faced before. It was no joke, though I think a lot of people were laughing. If I can blame anyone or anything…I would like to blame “celebrity culture” and the puerile use of social media.
Sometimes it all feels like a blur, but it was two and a half years at least and it wore me down. The point at which I reached my limit was when rumours started (I think I know who started them) that I was having an affair with a married man, the husband of one of my close friends and workmates. I was devastated (because this is not me).
After my friend and workmate, who was as distressed as I was about the rumours involving her husband, screamed at me within a public building in front of crowds of people, I was called into an office with two directors who were concerned about the incident and wanted to understand what was happening. They mentioned Jack. They knew him well and thought that he and I had gone from a romance to estrangement to bitter jealousy. I refused to discredit Jack. I stood my ground and insisted that he was not to blame (although in my heart, I was certain he was). They made it clear though that they wanted us to sort this out because they could not have anyone screaming in rage in the middle of a reception area were scores of visitors had been appalled by what they had seen.
More than ever, I wanted to talk with Jack and ask why, why, why was he doing this? But all I received for months was glares and grimaces. He made it clear that he was nursing a grudge. A grudge that I could not comprehend. Then that summer, I received some very concerning news about a relative who had become involved in a criminal court case and was featured in the news. That situation deepened my anxiety and stretched me to the limit as I did all I could to help practically. The last thing I needed was abject hostility from a man who was still sleeping in a bed just metres away from my own bed.
So after seeing him frequently and feeling intensely shunned and despised by him…it was that evening when I was going out to meet my friends and I pressed the button for the elevator. The door opened and there he was. His eyes full of disdain.
There was no way I was going to be able to stand inside the elevator on my own with him. So I took a couple of steps back and let him carry on alone. That’s the last time I saw him close up. That was the moment I decided I wanted to run away from my beloved home to escape the nightmare.
I enjoyed the evening with my friends, but there was a huge surge of pain and despair that I was hiding from everyone…one of the girls who lived near me wanted to drive me home, but I said I would like to walk as it was still light. And walk I did, but in the opposite direction of home. That was my moment of running away from home. I walked towards the local park. On the opposite side of the park a fairground had popped up that weekend and there was a carnival atmosphere amongst the people I passed on the way to the park.
It was a beautiful summer’s evening. It had been one of the hottest days of the year. There were joggers and dog-walkers and teenagers sitting in the grass talking and laughing when I arrived and when I sat down on a bench.
I was so consumed with despair, I did not notice that daylight had fled completely and there was no longer anyone else in the park, until a stranger sat down on the bench besides me.
Here is a strange coincidence about that location. When I went back to that spot some time later (not on my own) I found my front door keys still there. Which was the most strange feeling. I didn’t find my missing shoe…navy with a slight frill detail above the toe, but I found my front door keys. They had been lying there undisturbed all that time. Even the police must have missed them. I almost felt as if they had been waiting for me. It was a profound encouragement to me!
Over three years later, I still have not made it back home yet. But I am working towards it!
https://fivedotoh.com/2018/09/22/fowc-with-fandango-number/
https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/09/22/carnival/
https://thehauntedwordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/09/22/three-things-challenge-22-sept-2018/
I found a post in my drafts folder that I started last August and didn’t finish. I remember loving the question. In fact I love it so much that it has given me ideas for a series of posts to develop the subject of PURPOSE. Especially my purpose in life! When things suddenly threaten our lifestyle, our happiness (like bereavement, economic uncertainty, Pandemics!) what will help us not to give up?
It used to happen to us when we were children. Dad would be driving us on a family holiday. Half an hour onto the motorway, and all of the traffic would come to a standstill. Now my Dad could not bear to be stuck in traffic! So whenever he had the first opportunity he would turn off the motorway.
There have been moments in my life when the course I was on abruptly changed. At those times, I had to fight discouragement. I have often thought about those occasions when it comes to my life-course. I am not sure that I ever had a definite plan to begin with. But I did have a purpose. I had a destination in mind, a direction to head towards.
All manner of obstacles and challenges can occur at any point along the way. Plans fail! However, if you still have your end destination in view then you will find another way to get there.
I can’t imagine living life without a purpose. Having a purpose has shaped me. It has helped me to make decisions in life – will this help me to get where I am going or will this slow me down? Have I taken a wrong turn somewhere? Do I need to find my bearings and adjust the direction I which I am heading?
Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.
I love the comparison of her nature and it’s effect on others to the multitude of channels the mighty Euphrates river was broken into. I can’t help but think too of the quiet yet immense effect of Cyrus diverting the course of water that surrounded mighty Babylon, before his army waded across and conquered the city, thus causing a world empire to crumble overnight. I also love the statement that the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistorical acts…the noble and unselfish acts of good and mercy and kindness that are mostly unsung and are often forgotten by others. Yet we have so much to thank those quiet and unselfish souls who have a delicate yet profound influence on others.
I read a few character studies on line about Dorothea while I was thinking about this post. More than anything I was surprised that not all have the same esteem for her as I. There were some who seemed to think that to be exalted to “superhero” status, she should have been more of an independent female and that her happiness should not have been tied up with the love of a man who would become her second husband.. Not all approve of her decisions especially later on in the book.
I love her decisions later in the book. Well, of course I would never encourage a husband of mine to run for political office. But I mean her decisions regarding love and being a loyal support to the man she truly loves. I love the sacrifices she makes to spend her life with the man she has come to love and admire after her awful first marriage.
She touched all around her, often in a quiet gentle way. Others were influenced by Dorothea in the same way I was. The qualities she displayed were so precious, they make her value tremendous. She was a tower of inner strength best expressed by remarkable endurance and stamina. She was crushed, yet she persevered. She regained hope and joy, and allowed herself to love and be loved again. She wanted to make a difference to those in need and she seized any opportunity she had to do so.
My most vivid memory….one that has frequently come back to me over the years is the time I dropped a bag of sugar onto the tiled floor. The bag split on impact and sugar spread all over the floor.
Mum thanked me and gave me a huge hug and then suggested we walk down to the local shop to buy some more sugar so we could finish the baking. When we reached there, she bought me my favourite little bag of white chocolate mice.
Well, for a start I did not want to grow up at all. It really distressed me when I hit the age of ten. Everyone teased me, “now you are in double figures”, and I knew at that point there was no turning back! I wanted to be a child forever. I am sure many of you would have had similar sentiments at one stage that being an adult has always seemed an unavoidable outcome. But if we could remain in a Peter Pan state, many of us would take that option.
So…when my teacher recorded each one of us saying into a microphone, “When I grow up I want to be a…”, my idea came straight from my little friend. So when it was my turn, I announced to the class and to my teacher: “When I grow up I want to be a…sculpture.”
Why? Well, when I was six years old I was given a public speaking assignment in front of an audience of around two hundred. The theme I was assigned was bizarre considering I was only six. It was “What is the value of a university education?” My first question for my mum was, “what is university?“
That was good enough for my teachers…they helped me to develop a career plan in order to become a journalist. Did I want to be a journalist? Nah!!!! But it did help to have something to suggest to the teachers, so they would leave me alone.
However, this was just paid part time work, in order to earn my bread and butter. I knew exactly what I wanted to be the moment I walked onto a construction site as a volunteer. From then on, I knew what I wanted to be for the rest of my life – a volunteer, working on projects wherever there was a need, teaching people the skills I had been taught.
I still think that the way the world works right now is upside down and back to front…I think the vague idea I had at the age of five, of what everyone on the planet should be doing when they grow up – caring for the animals, growing vegetation, building their own house and furniture, making their own clothes and curtains, and supporting their neighbours, enjoying happy times together, eating, dancing, singing – was very sensible actually.
I have been a very busy bee this week…crazy busy in fact.
Caramel 