Remorseful Butterfly
Life doesn't always work out the way you expect it. Oftentimes you are faced with problems and sometimes as much as we want to bury our heads in the sand you end up doing something about it. It may not be your finest hour. The decision you make when looking back in hindsight are perhaps not your best. But they were the decisions you made based on what you thought, felt, saw and experienced at the time.Hindsight is a funny thing. Covered in a golden haze of memory. We often select what it is we want to remember. Sometimes some memories surface and dominate and we forget about other parts. Sometimes we simply choose to forget.
Mum and I have made up to some extent - partly because my brother is now going through a similar road that I went down five years ago.
Mum is looking to sell and this means I have to go home and clear out my bedroom. Being surrounded by objects that I grew up with brings back a wistful, nostaglic feeling.
In spite of everything my family grounded me. My mother defined who I was, be it for better or worse, be it her choice, my choice, or simply the way things were.
I grew up with such expectations. I loved the feeling of the unknown, never knowing where I'd end up. Deciding to be a journalist. Seeing my name in print. Doing all my work experience jobs.
Then going to uni and taking a different career path. Suddenly deciding journalism wasn't the route I was going to take. And then taking a job as a temporary measure and then suddenly everything changed.
One night I purposely decided to try something for the sake of trying it. And it all snowballed from there. Who says big things never happen because of one simple decision?
My decision to go out with him changed everything. And the one chance I had to cut it, to end it, I folded. How things would've been different if I hadn't been so young, and simply stuck to my guns?
Objects hold such tangible memories. Sifting through my bedroom of things. Unused gifted photo frames, containers of jewellery, a box of cds. I still remember the excitement around the purchase, my feelings when I used these seemingly indifferent tangible objects.
And the worst thing is the regret. The feeling of remorse that I put my brother through everything that I went through. He's had the hard end of the stick. If I hadn't done what I'd done, my brother and I would probably be out there living together enjoying the high life. Mum would be happy and content and it would be an entirely different life.
The person I was, the person I grew up as under my mother's tutelage and loving protective cocoon is no more. I no longer recognise that person. Or perhaps if you went back in time and asked a younger me who I was now I wouldn't recognise that person. I am changed. Perhaps there are smidgens of my real self here, but sometimes I feel like I'm living a dream life. I'm living a foreign life that I know nothing about.
I live in a house that's empty of clutter. I eat food that I didn't grow up with and I speak a language that is not my mother tongue. I own pets. I live in the middle of nowhere. If you had asked me ten years ago where I would be, and what I would be doing at age 29 there is no way that I could fathom that this would be where I was at.
What happened to all my exciting ideas of travel? What happened to all my dreams of being famous and being able to Change The World?
What happened to that filial daughter who cared for her family and was close to her younger brother?
That naieve girl is no more.
I went through a baptism of fire, dragged through by a man that perhaps did not truly realise what he was doing. Or maybe he did it anyway. Perhaps he was selfish. Perhaps I was just too young to see what was going on. He thought he was helping me to live my life. When in reality the life that I knew was suddenly torn asunder. Dramatic, I know.
Going through all these 'things' I am reminded of the girl I once was, and I weep to know that she no longer exists.
I sorrow that I could not provide for my sibling and be a better role model. I regret that I was not there for his formative years.
In some ways I feel guilty that I have been so selfish and yet there is nothing that I can do.
Sometimes I dare not say it aloud in case I break the spell. But sometimes I feel like I have live a charmed life.
My mother belives in reincarnation. That we live the lives we live based on the lives we lived before. In her moments of angst and anger she claims she lives the life she lives now and suffers at our hands because she must have owed us a great debt in her past life.
Sometimes I can't help but wonder how bad my life might have been if I can seemingly coast through this life.
Make all these mistakes and yet at the end of the day have a loving husband, a roof over my head, a job, independence. And despite my selfish decisions I still manage to have my mother look out for me (albeit often with a grudging complaint) and a brother who seemingly still recognises me.
I watch him with my half sister and I wonder at the rapport they have. They are so close. It makes me so jealous when I spent my entire life trying to be close to him and not to her to show him that I love him best.
Is it me that is just too conservative? What am I? Who am I? What have I become?
Lately I have been wanting to go back to some of my roots. I want to write. I still want to be famous. I want to produce. And yet I am so scared. Scared of what my writing would show. And do I in fact have anything to say? All great stories have a moral backbone. They all have something to say. I don't believe I do.
They say write about what you know. And on this blog I have. In fact it is all I write about. There are some posts that are so searingly honest and some that I have been proud of. I grew up in high school wanting to be a writer. Believing that I could do it.
I read copious books. You'd think with that kind of track record I could write something.
In the end I think I am a pretender. I am not a creator. I am a follower. A copier. A second rate.
I can't create the painting, but boy can I copy what you've done. I can put together a pastiche of cliches, but I don't think I could start my own trend.
I am creative, don't get me wrong. Just not creative enough. I often feel like I fall just short of the mark.
It's been close to ten years now since I met him. Over five since I've left home. What have I made of myself? What have I become? And how sad is it that I am not proud of the journey I have made?
That I don't feel morally right in my decisions. I know the decisions I made and I know why I made them. But I'm not proud of them. And being unable to embrace that part of myself, makes me feel like I'm only half living. It makes me feel like I am only half of what I was. And I don't know how to change that.
I regret not being there. I regret not being more for my family. I regret not being able to provide.
Yet I know that at the time I struggled so badly to live my life and I chafed under all the expectations of my family.
Sometimes I think the only thing I am qualified to write about is my life. The struggle to find my own identity. And the best way to write it is to simply tell the story as it is.
Yet I am scared. In order to be successful it means other people have to read your work. My mother would need to read it. And she would learn through this that I do not feel sorry for what I did. Only the way it came out.
He would read it and realise that I am not the person he married.
I am so scared of what people think of me. Those who are close to me. I want success but I am so scared to fail. But if I don't write about what I know, what else is there to write about?
And yet so often these days I feel the urge. The urge to purge and simply put words down. To craft something. Is it simly one of my impulses? Like that craving to draw? Or my sudden interest in sewing? A brief flash of inspiration, a half complete project to satisfy the cravings, and then no more?
I want to think and feel like I can contribute. But to be honest I think I am not that great. I am just another normal mediocre person who aspires to be something different but is too scared and too lazy to do anything about it. And in that mediocrity I will live and then die.
posted by Enigmatic Butterfly @ 8:49 pm
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