Hm, difficult.
I’d rather they didn’t know that I have a temper. That I get down, and sometimes shout and even (whisper) swear. (Though mainly not in their hearing.) But they know that. They live here, they are here all day every day, they see me at my best, and sadly, they see me at my worst.
They don’t know that there have been times I’ve drunk too much – mainly university days, and I guess that can stay unspoken for now. Though when they are older I’d be sort of happy to discuss it.
I wish they didn’t know about miscarriages. And loss. But they do, because again, they were there. Because the first time I had no reason to keep the pregnancy secret from them, and then after that it was too late to pretend these things don’t happen.
I don’t want them to know how scared I am sometimes of the world. That I have given up watching the news because otherwise I’d sit in a corner and rock. That I am terrified of nuclear disaster, natural catastrophes and the thought that anything could touch us here in our seaside backwater.
I don’t want them to know that really, I don’t want them to grow up. I don’t want them to grow away from me, get older, have lives that don’t need me, leave home. I want them to always be ready to wrap their arms around me, and have mine wrapped around them, to always believe that I can fix it, even when we all know I can’t.
That’s five. I wish I could have thought of something funny. Can I finish on that anyway?
I don’t want them to know that once upon a time I had a perm. I don’t want you to know that either. But now you do. And you have to admit, it’s made you smile. Or it ought to have done – I looked like a hedgehog who’d been left out in the rain. And recently my mother told Tim that she only did it to me to test out how it worked before she tried it herself. I think it’s telling to point out that she never took that next step…
Written (belatedly and in a bit of a hurry) for the Friday Club carnival.
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