A new walk for the two of us in North Yorkshire, we are so blessed to live here. So many places to breathe.

Although I think these shelters aren’t going to be much cop against our tropical weather….

Three days since school returned from a week off and not one single communication from a teacher. Nothing. Maybe School has given up any pretence of supporting Hawklad now.

Deep Sigh….

I was thinking back to how naïve I was just a few years ago. I kinda still assumed that life, parenting, everything, was perfectly logical, straightforward, fathomable.

Did I really think that.

What a monumental muppet.

Now I know. I know how I feel. Tired, confused, battered, walking through life’s avenues seemingly wading through unremittingly thick, bucket loads of treacle – seriously hard work.

Why was all this such a surprise to me, I just needed to look back at my parents. Bringing up 5 children, both parents having to work to try and make ends meet. Trying to maintain an old battered house which had an outside toilet and one coal fire for heating. The only holiday they enjoyed was the very rare day trip to the beach at either Saltburn or Whitby. I’m not sure they ever truly figured out their youngest child, ME, I was baffling to them. My parents trying to do all this while coping with a failed, dysfunctional marriage.

I bet they felt a lot like I do, like many of us do. Worn down, tired, disillusioned, perpetually bewildered.

Yes I understand that now.

44 thoughts on “Bewildered”

  10. There was a time when it would have been unthinkable that School would be so irresponsible and uncaring. Nowadays I get the feeling that things in general are so chaotic it’s almost a matter of sink or swim. I have no children but I can only imagine your anxiety for Hawklad. He at least has the support of a wonderful dad. I often think of you both and hope things will get easier.

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  11. Oh, gosh, yes, there are those times in life when you feel like being the only one who cares about anything. When you feel like an alien and in some way invisible. It seems your parents were brave people who really tried their best. And the circumstances did not really support the development of their marriage. I am sorry about that.

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  12. I believe in turning points. However, they rarely come just as you have reached your absolute tipping point. Nay, they come long after. And when you look back on the terrain you have covered, you’ve got to just wonder at how you made it from “tipping point” to “well after” when you’re supposed to have been on total “empty”.

    That’s when it hits you that you’ve not been alone in your struggles. That even when the road you were on seemed so silent and empty, there was Someone watching over you, helping you stagger across some unseen finish line.

    You could also ask,
    Why could You not have given me more help?
    Why the endless agony of sufferings?
    Did You have to dump the whole bucketload on me, was there no one else?

    Some day might bring the most unexpected answer,
    I looked the wide world over in My search for teachers true
    And from the throngs that crowd life’s lanes I saw… you.

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  15. I like your analogy of “wading through unremittingly thick, bucket loads of treacle.” I’m sure it must feel that way. I often say I feel as if I’m swimming upstream through a river of sludge. Life can be hard, and sometimes it feels as if it will be hard forever. But it won’t. Everything changes. Hang in there!

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  19. I remember reading a quote somewhere “reality is a hard teacher. She tests first, and teaches later.” True parenting is tough and it has nothing to do with finances. Then when your kids are grown and making mistakes, you ask yourself, “what could I have done differently?” My children assure me all the time that I was, and have always been a great mom. A single mother of 6 before my oldest was a teenager, I did my best. When your kids say you did good, believe it. Just do your best and believe in yourself. I read your post about you and Hawklad and I believe in the two of you.

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