Good

My story is good. I'm perfectly entitled to tell my story. If I'm arguing with myself well then that's ok. I need to write it. That is the truth.
My life is filled with good fortune. I have healthy kids who take me for granted but don't overstep. They know what I expect from them - to reach their full potential - if they keep striving they know I am here for them. I don't take my eyes off them. Childrearing being like tending a garden. You have to keep at it. Turn your head and the weeds are growing and the sappling trees without a stake for support bend, maybe even break. The potential for beautiful flowers gets choked away by nutrient sucking creepers.
I have a home and kids to nurture. I am blessed. I tell them I'm going to live to be one hundred and three. That is what I want to do because I would like to be around for them forever. The last thing I want to see is them being hurt by my passing.
I pray and pray all the time to be allowed to do that.
My periods have stopped. They do that when I'm underweight. When I get happy, like if I have a boyfriend and I have someone to dream about, I put weight back on and the periods come back. This time its different because I only have my ex-boyfriend to think about, and those thoughts are linked to the pain of his duplicity. Yet I understand. Only, what if it carries on once he gets back. What if he keeps seeing her while expecting to see me at the same time, when I'm free. That's going to cause me alot of anguish. Perhaps the whole thing will come to its natural conclusion, and I'll be able to move on, eventually.
I'm not eating much. I'm yearning and hiding my tears when we watch any movie that tugs on any of my emotions. Its school holidays so we've been watching movies on tv late into the night. My insides ache with a longing that I can't see what to do about.
My periods have stopped. But at my age, maybe they won't come back this time. Not that I have any other symptoms. Not alot of sex-drive, that could be a sign, or it could be that I've buried the drive for love. I really think it has waned though.
My story :- From age sixteen to age twenty-six I slept with many men. At first it just happened. Then I started saying no. I was a teaser sometimes, easy the next. With some men, I couldn't sleep with them. Something inside warned me that I had no understanding of their expectations of me. Others just knew how to take and then abandon me. Relationships never lasted more than about three months. I never cared for the person. They could never please me no matter what they did. On one occasion when I was taken out to dinner I hardly touched the food. On another I made myself puke in the bathroom after eating. My main aim was to save money and that miserly attitude overrode any considerations of the individual I was relating with at the time. I spent alot of time hitch-hiking, staying in youth hostels, getting hotel work or hospital work in remote places. A person threatened me with a knife but I didn't give in to him then the next night I all but gave in to a guy because I happened to be stuck in a hotel room with him. He let me stay with him after giving me a lift. I couldn't give in totally on account of having my period. He didn't ask for anything else. I never did anything else anyway, unless I was forced. Sometimes boyfriends insisted on other things. Sometimes they were smelly and I'd dry-retch. I drove all my boyfriends away with nastiness. The normal guys who were prepared to like me, I drove away. Not that I knew it at the time. At the time I'd feel the heartbreak and put it down to him being just another bastard. I travelled overseas and survived on my own, scrimping and hitchhiking. My goal was to go to every county. I knew how to save, how to be poor.
I came home to Newcastle for respite. Mum and Dad had split up. Dad stayed in the Dandenong Ranges house. They sold the Williamstown house and Mum bought a house in Newcastle. Stephen moved with her. Later Sebastion, my older brother moved from Melbourne too, to be closer to Mum. He was married with kids.
I moved home, and fought with Stephen for the best available bedroom in the house. I won. He had to sleep on the closed in verandah. The dog always barked. I don't think we kept its water bowl filled. It harassed the postman who reported the dog. I blamed Stephen for not keeping its bowl filled. Stephen didn't wash or change his clothes. Sometimes he soiled his pants and didn't care. His piano thumping grew less. Once he scared some chilren when they discovered him curled up under a bush during a local festival we went to.
He was diagnosed schizophrenic. As outpatient at Watt Street he was supposed to take medication. He was quiet and docile but Mum told me that when I was away once he threw a sugar basin at her that smashed against a wall.
I took him on a drive once, before one of his appointments. We drove along fire tracks in the mountains. The track wouldn't come to an end and eventually I had to turn around and drive back. I dropped him for his appointment half an hour late. He didn't complain or react.
My children are getting up so I can't keep writing. Time to cut up some fresh apple and banana and put out the bowls for cereal. I'll nibble on some leftover chips from last night and have a cup of tea. Maybe I should make some toast. Farewell for now.