Na de Call van gisteren vandaag het vervolg: The Pit. Ik ben blij en verwonderd over de mooie reacties, dank je wel💛⁣⁣
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Het gaat een heel mooie einde krijgen, dus dat geeft vast hoop😁🥰⁣⁣
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I am now 34 and I have two small kids. I do everything by myself, I take care of everything. The weight of this family is on my shoulders. My income is the main one. I take care of the household. I take care of the kids. I go out of bed at night when they cry or need anything. It’s all my responsibility. I don’t ask for help, I am in this rut of not trusting anyone, wanting no help or support from anyone. I can do it all. I need no one. But I’m worn out. I hear myself talk to the kids in a way I don’t want to. I hear myself treat them in a way I don’t want to. I hear myself talk to friends on the phone in a way I don’t want to. Yet every time I think of it I get so mad. And there’s no one I talk to. I don’t tell anyone. I don’t share myself with anyone. ⁣⁣⁣
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And the people around me think: all’s well. Marieke is strong. Marieke wears the pants I the house. Marieke has it together. They also think: Marieke is tough. She has her heart out on her sleeve. She has a mind of her own and she speaks it. I know some of them even think: I wish I was like Marieke, all confidence and brass.⁣⁣⁣
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Then, this day comes when my youngest doesn’t want to wear a diaper anymore. And all I can think is: oh no, more work. I feel I can’t even allow him to have his own process in becoming potty trained because of all the extra washing and cleaning involved and I’m barely making it as it is now.⁣⁣⁣
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But this dude has a strong will and out of the diaper he goes. It’s a summers day and I put up a tent in the backyard and he’s playing in it with some balls and blocks and at some point I realize it’s very very quiet.⁣⁣⁣
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So I look in and see him sitting in a puddle in the tent and I just go off at him. He looks at me with big eyes, trying to smile to ease me. That smile, it breaks my heart. Immediately I sense danger. I can’t go soft inside. Can’t allow myself to feel. If I give in to feelings I might open a well of pain and anger that will never end. And then who’s going to take care of it all? So instead I toughen up. My eyes harden and my voice snarls. And then I hear the neighbor on the other side of the fence whisper to her guests who are sitting outside with her: ‘Yes, poor kids, she’s like that. She’s hard.’ She says it like she’s glad she isn’t me.⁣⁣⁣
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And my heart just… falls. And falls and falls and falls. I’m so defeated. Me. Me, who is capable of intense and utter love. Me who is light. I am being everything I never ever wanted to be. I am completely lost in darkness and dread and I’m hurting my kids with it. I see in that instant how in my quest to be normal I got completely separated from myself, unable to feel any kind of ease from the constant drive to meet all the demands of this life I am living. I have in that moment such loathing for myself I can’t breathe. How can I even live? How could I have become this person I hate? How could I have let it come to this… horrible horrible reality I appear to live in? I can’t even cry because I can’t show what I truly feel.⁣⁣⁣
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Everything seems to stop. I see the sky, blue and white and clear. I see the birds, sitting on the branches of the tree in our backyard, too lazy to fly. I stand still. Can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t feel. I am completely silently drowning in this one moment of stretched foreverness. This endless realization of how to not live a life. ⁣⁣⁣
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Then something opens up. It’s like air is rushing into a void. I can almost hear a whoosh while I feel the magnitude of what is happening. I feel my eyes open, and open more, and more. I actually stagger back a bit. And right there and then I make a choice. I choose to return back to myself, no matter what. If not for me then for my kids. I decide to live my true life and not this fake sub-reality where I hide from all that’s real, where I hide all that’s real inside of me. I decide that it’s going to be all or nothing, for me. I decide to unveil it all. I decide right there and then, that I am going to be free. No matter what may come of it.⁣ No matter what.⁣⁣