Love & Respect

I peer down at my shoelaces.
They are tied up in a way that could almost compress my entire personality. I, myself & the laces; we act in a similar fashion.

Bundles of untidy knots that easily unravel & sprawl themselves all over my trusty trainers. They then spindle out onto the concrete pavements & create chaos. They fly up & jibe out in rebellion against the force dragging them along the street. They act out inviting completely unnessecery drama.

I enter the ring & play their game by stubbornly deciding these pathetic strings of cotton will not defeat me.

” I have people to see, places to go. I already tied my shoelaces today. If they have come undone, that’s their fault. Not mine. Don’t call me a failure.. I am walking on..”.

Several strides later, the awkwardness of altered walking drives me to look down & reconsider. “Perhaps maybe I should just be sensible?” The appropriate normal action to take would be to stop, put life on pause & simply tie them. It takes two seconds. I tell myself I will tie them when I get to my location. I continue to walk.

Feeling isolated and silly, I am aware of the onlookers who fleetingly abandon contact with my eyes to glance down at my feet & then up again. Eye to eye. Pupil to pupil.

It irritates me that these people think they are being clever by creating their very own warning flash without even SPEAKING to me. I feel angry & I want them to mind their own business. I am actually angry with myself. I am not angry with them. Ultimately they have my best interests at heart & clearly have kind, caring souls.

Why do I choose to not look after myself how other people choose to look after themselves ? Why do I not care for myself? Why do I not keep myself safe ? Why? Why? Why?

My self neglect seeps out into all areas of my life. It is not only my food.

The problem is all to do with the LOVE & RESPECT I have towards myself. This is the missing part in my jigsaw puzzle. I can’t find a valid reason to respect myself & therefore do not show myself love.

When I am unable to love / respect myself I find it more difficult to love & respect others. Nonetheless they all receive more love & respect from me than that of which I choose to give to myself.

Hopefully this will change.

I need to continue to practise parenting myself.

& I also need to continue to depend on that Almighty Power greater than myself; God.

A Story about Lola

Little Lola was a little restless in her bubble bath. The bubbles were light, warm and sparkly like they always were but this is not how Lola felt inside.

Holding onto the handlebars of the bath so she wouldn’t float under, she stretched her toes as far as they would go, just to check to see if she had grown at all. Lola curiously wondered with a hazy understanding whether one day, she really would be a grown up. Would her feet really be able to touch the taps how her Mummy’s did?

Trying to make sense of the world she lived in, Lola longed to grow up. She yearned for clarity; a feeling of satisfaction and completeness. “I can’t wait for this to be over and for the time when everything is Ok and I am happy”. Poor Lola. Only aged 6. A blonde haired, blue eyed girl. She liked horses & on her book shelf, she had poles of the Sheltie collection.

Where was Mummy when Lola was in her bath? Mummy was downstairs on the phone talking to her friends who were far away. Mummy was sad. She was drinking and smoking.

So there Lola was, soaking in this water that had now reached a temperature of precisely; luke warm. She was alone & with little discipline couldn’t be bothered to get out of the bath. Staring at her fingers in fascination & also an unhealthy sense of accomplishment because they had gone all wrinkly; she drifted off back into her imagination. The new picture presenting itself in Lola’s mind was what she would be like when she was 70 & had REAL wrinkly fingers. She then vowed to herself that she must keep up her pogosticking so then when she’s old, she can really impress her grandchildren. She wanted to strike them in awe so that they would think she was the coolest Granny that ever walked the whole entire planet! Lola wanted more than love, she wanted adoration. She wanted to be seen, she wanted to be recognised.

Bored of the bath now and the water getting too cold for bearability, Lola heaved herself up and out and yanked a towel off the rack. She felt like GranRose, her fat, lazy Grandmother who she very much disliked. Lola, angry no one was there to bring her her towel went & plonked herself on the loo. (This prolonged bodily need also factored massively into determining the decision of ending the bathing experience).

Lola wrapped her wetness away with her towel & began to wee. She stared glumly into space. Lola was sad. She wanted to be skinny & she wasn’t. Innocently she believed she was “born fat”. She tried in hope to make some logical sense of the whole “going to the loo process”. Surely this would make her lose some weight. She wanted to be like her bendy best friend. Of course she happened to have one of those things. This bendy best friend wasn’t only bendy; also trendy & very friendly. She was called Lily. Lily had a loving family, a big cosy home, a garden of adventures, ponies, dogs, rabbits, guinea pigs & to top it all off; even Gold Fish.

Lola snapped herself out of her self pity & got on with what she had to do now. Button herself into her pjamas and get into bed. The bed which had been designated to her in the home that felt more like a miserable departure lounge than a standing house.

Now in bed, with her hands tensely placed down by her sides; she focused on the dark, blind-less window. That was the direction in which Dad was. He was out of that window. Far away.

In an auto mode of self shielding, she retreated under her duvet. This hidden place under the duvet; Lola decided was her private den. Every night she tried to deny the fact that it wasn’t magical. She hugged her purple, stuffed bunny rabbit and proceeded to place her little thumb gently on the top of her tongue. Closing her mouth and curling her index finger around her nose; she sank down into her pillow.

Her drawbridge was as up as it could go & she had done her best to block everything out. Now sleep might just be possible…