My daughter and I were out and about in London again yesterday, doing a couple of things she wanted to do, more or less touristy things, and just meandering around seeing the sights. And talking. Which led to me doing what I try not to do when she's around, and falling into a very low moment, thinking about the 'What do I next?' question that's been in my mind for the past week or so. The problem is that whatever I do, someone is going to get hurt, badly. If I follow my heart, and go to Gran Canaria, my daughter is going to be hurt. If I follow my head, and stay, carrying on doing my well-paid but thoroughly unloved job, living alone in my hermit's cell, and with the possible additional issue of having most of whatever money I do earn taken away by the financial vultures, I'm undoubtedly going to be hurt, maybe to the point of finding it all intolerable, which would, of course, rebound on my daughter.
The specific thought that almost reduced me to tears yesterday afternoon was one of those unanswerable questions that sometimes spring to mind. How, despite trying for 20 years and more to do the right thing by those I love, of suppressing my real self and working myself to the point of ill-health, how, after all that, can it all have gone so wrong? And now, when there's almost nothing left, can I bring myself once more to sacrifice what I want for the benefit of someone else, albeit the person I love more than anyone in the world? I wish I knew the answer, because I most assuredly don't.
Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B
And I wish there were an easy answer. I never kin to offer advice per se, but I think I know what I would have to do and that is to make sure my daughter (or son as the case might have been) was accessible and loved and in proximity so that love might be made real, no matter what else might happen. In another few years, as she moves on to her own adulthood, then perhaps it's time to look for another path.
ReplyDeletePeace <3
Jay
Hello Jay
DeleteOf course, I know what the 'right' thing, the conventionally right thing, to do is, that is to stay and fulfil my parental responsibilities to the extent my circumstances will allow. But is that the right thing, in the overall scheme of things, if trying to do that tips me over the edge of the abyss? Like I said, I don't know the answer, would that I did.
Love & best wishes
Sammy B