Before the Cock Crows ...
It was early in the morning, and I was sitting in the back of a taxi. The taxi driver was telling me stories of his children. One was an undercover police officer; another was studying to be a doctor; the third was excelling at school and probably going to be a lawyer. All three were intent on making the world a better place. "So," he asked, "do your children go to state school?" There are times when questions about my children's schooling set me on edge. I become immediately defensive. "Oh yes!" I replied with an unnatural emphasis. I was thinking about the younger one as I spoke. "The one at secondary school, too?" "Oh yes." This sounded more like a whimper. I offered no further information. Could the taxi driver see the chink in my armour? This is not the first time that I have concealed the nature of our son's schooling. There are times when it is more convenient that ballet remains a hidden secret. Often, I find it difficult admitting that my son attends a private school, and even more difficult - on occasion - revealing that it is a ballet school. Sometimes harsh reality does not correlate with the desired image. The perceived privilege of ballet does not fit in with who I like to believe I am: egalitarian, left-wing, iconoclastic. I fear that people will judge me to be entitled, elitist and pretentious. There is every danger that this second list is perhaps closer to who I am. But, if I admit that I have a son who dances ballet, and that I am paying for his education, it will be indisputable proof that I have become the very person I loathe. It distils into something potent - shame and embarrassment. Sometimes I tell people that he is at ballet school, but I add a caveat. "Yea, but I didn't want him to go" or "He was taken against our wishes," or the even more fatalistic, "It wasn't my decision." The cognitive dissonance between what I want to be and how I fear I'll be perceived is so loud that all I can manage is a meek apology for my identity, and that of my son and family. I imagine a stubborn lack of comprehension, and so I subvert and undermine before I have even given myself a chance. I suspect that this is a pattern. I do this often - even when ballet is not the dirty secret. There are other things I conceal: my love of doing nothing; how much I care about cake; my passion for teenage American television; my fascination with the X-factor. I pay three quid a month so that I don't get adverts when I watch ITV on catch-up. I don't tell many people this. It doesn't fit in with the image I cultivate. Perhaps it's time to drop the hypothetical image. I have a child at a private school. The reality is that life at a ballet school is tough. Our son displays resilience, courage and determination daily. He is living apart from the family who love him and developing a wisdom and independence beyond his years. It might be an environment that suggests exclusivity, but it is certainly not one of entitlement and privilege. He works hard and sacrifices a great deal. He has decided that there is something bigger than himself which he is willing to dedicate his life to. These are complex concepts to explain at six-thirty in the morning in a taxi to Heathrow. And sometimes it is just easier to keep things hidden, rather than attempt an explanation.
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Two Short Blogs About Work
How Do They Manage? I've returned to work. I'm making up the slight deficit caused by not really working for a year - I now accept everything that I'm offered. So, although self-employed, I appear to once again to be working full time. We get emails from the ballet school. 'Children's belongings can be picked up before half-term at 4pm if parents wish'. I snuffle with mild indignation. Four o'clock in the afternoon? Who can get there at that time ... on a week day! Not all of us can just take time of work. Then I remember that, until recently, with very little rearranging of my non-existent schedule, I could have easily got there at 4pm. But now, balancing work with our child's ballet commitments seems a delicate operation. I have to get used to being 'normal' again; no more leaving early to beat the rush hour. I'm there, with everyone else, sitting in traffic jams cursing the problems of urbanisation. I don't have the imagination to understand that by using my car, I am the one causing the problems. Nor do the other drivers on the road. So, I'm always in danger of doing the wrong thing - either turning down much needed work, or leaving my child waiting. Not having this worry was lovely while it lasted. But now it is over. I don't know how other parents manage. 2. Dilemma's Horns We have two children, and this term, for the first time, their half-term holidays took place in different weeks. Their mother skipping her work for a week would involve work a loss of clientele. I'm in a different position; if I keep my diary free for a week, there is always work that I can pick up later - no damage is done. This has led to an awkward choice. The financial implications suggest that I am going to be the one who covers the half term. This makes sense. However, I cannot afford to stay off work for both weeks that would unfurl, if I were to look after both children. I'm going to have to make a choice - stay with the one who is away at boarding school, or look after the one I see every day? In fact there was no choice. It felt like I was making a choice, but really there was none. I was going to have to pick the six year old; she has the greater needs. This means leaving our twelve-year-old son, who lives away from home, to fend for himself. The week of our son's half term, I felt wretched. We don't get to spend much time with him during term time, and having him at home while I was at work felt torturous. We managed to arrange things so that he was never alone for longer than about 3 hours. His mum would pop back from work, or we'd arrange a bit of child-care for part of the day. It felt like a rite of passage. He is no longer a child needing constant care or surveillance; he is beginning to metamorphose to a young adult. And for the first time ever, we made him responsible for walking the dog ... alone. He is standing at a threshold - we can help him open the door and let him to look forward and backward. He needs to decide for himself when he wants to cross it. A week without his parents breathing down his neck presented itself as an opportunity to dip a toe into a more independent way of living. I had anticipated this moment in our lives being a source of pain, but it isn't. Rather than mourn for dependent child that I am losing; I am deeply in love with the young man who is emerging. On the final day of the week, Fate presented us a with a gift. A client cancelled. We spent the day together, and the time seemed even more precious because we hadn't ever imagined that we would have it in the first place. The week with the six-year old was joyful. As our son is egressing the chrysalis of childhood, so is our daughter transforming. Although wilful (not necessarily a bad thing), she is witty, insightful and honest. We had a week of dog-walking, swimming, cake and cafes. Conversation brings out the best in her, and we had a time of luxurious limitless talking. I had been dreading these separate half-terms and the dilemma resulting. On this occasion, for once, it all felt right. Radio Silence
Everyone has been telling me that it is a good sign. I am not so sure. Our evening ritual of Skyping has fallen by the wayside. Year Eight, it would seem, is very different from Year Seven. The classes go on for longer, so he doesn't always get time to finish his evening meal, and contact us before prep starts at. By the time that he has finished his homework talking to us becomes a chore - he is just too tired. I would hate to imagine that either of my children ever view talking to me as a task to be ticked off a list. It has become apparent that our son, at age twelve, has become so busy that he no longer has time to talk to us. This has taken some getting used to. For the first week, I was quite angry. We still set the iPad up and waited for the Skype-call to come through ... Nothing. I waited again after eight o'clock ... Still nothing. The dog would start chewing the carpet and scratching the floor. This was usually the time of the day when she gets my undivided attention out on a walk. She didn't understand why I was sitting looking at a blank screen. When she started chewing my foot at about nine o'clock, I decided it was time to yield to the preposterous idea that another twenty-four hours would pass with no news from him, and it was time to honour the unspoken deal I have with the dog; the other unspoken deal - the one with our son - has clearly been reneged on. We were facing an eerie silence. I found the change of routine (or lack of it) to be as stressful as the lack of contact with our child. Before the conversation happened as regularly as clockwork. The iPad would be set up, and he would usually call five minutes before the arranged time at 6.45. This is what last year trained me to expect. My days were planned around the evening Skype conversation. No evening event could occur before 7pm; I had to be at home so this time in my daily diary was definitively blocked out. Then suddenly it's gone, and there is nothing to replace it; nothing to fill the void. We could book a baby-sitter for our daughter and start going to the theatre of cinema again ... If only we weren't so confused. At the weekend following this first week of existential waiting, I felt like being cruel. I wanted him to know that it hurt a little; and that a loyalty scorned turns into a very different creature - something bitter that bites when least expected. But I wasn't cruel. I loved him even more that weekend and cherished every second of conversation and every new revelation about the week that had passed. It was all news. He has been too preoccupied coping with a new schedule and an unprecedented level of exhaustion. I'm a grown-up. I can cope with feelings of disappointment and helplessness. I'll identify them for what they are. I don't have to unleash some sort of subtle sardonic attack. He would find it confusing; he's a twelve year old who needs his dad. Our unspoken deal is involves unconditional love, not punctual Skyping. I've agreed to love him forever, regardless, and that is the least that he should expect. We had a bit of a chat at the weekend. Hopefully it occurred entirely without rebuke - I worked hard that it would. We agreed that if he has time and energy, he could write a one sentence email at night, just to let us know that he is still alive, and he could write just one word if a sentence seems too taxing. Like Mulder and Scully, I just need to know that, like the truth, he is out there. But this isn't a binding psychological contract. It's just an idea. This seems to work. I am quite happy to check my emails just before nine in the evening, and see a subject line written by him. I still set the iPad up at 6.45 anyway ... Just in case. It seems that even though you can teach an old dog new tricks; just like chewed feet when it's time for the evening walk, we all still need a routine. A Sibling's Perspective
I cannot imagine what it must be like to be our daughter. She has been born into a strange world. All her life she has been aware that she has a brother who is talented in a particular area, and this talent takes up a considerable amount of time and energy - time and energy which should be hers to spend. From as long as she can remember, whole days have been sacrificed to ballet. For two years she had to get up every Saturday and drive him into class - their mother used to work on Saturdays, so we had no alternative. She would then had to pick him up and wait around for several hours until we dropped him into his second class. Even with the bribe of Pizza for lunch, these days were painful, and we realised after a month or so that for her this schedule was untenable. Her entire day revolved around his schedule. We managed to find an alternative so that the only commitment required of her was getting up early and dropping him off on a Saturday morning; and for her that soon became irksome enough. Her Grandparents or her Aunt would come and visit and their visits sometimes also had a ballet-agenda. They often wouldn't be coming just to see her; but to watch her brother dance, and seeing her was just a lucky by-product. I imagine that now he is away at boarding school, her life is even stranger. She has a brother, but only gets to see him at weekends. During the week he is oddly present and absent simultaneously - his presence can still be felt in how much of our time he consumes. We worry about him; we talk about him; sometimes we rant and we rage. And at a certain time, we stop doing whatever we are doing because we are expecting him to Skype. Those precious fifteen minutes with him mean everything to us; to her they are a something irritating interrupting the evening's flow. Her brother returns at lunchtime on Saturday. He is her favourite playmate - such is their bond that they become inseparable immediately. A side of her lights up with him in a way that we perhaps don't see during the week. She buzzes with stories: the type of chicken she hates was served up at dinner; her class won a prize for good behaviour; a teacher made a throw-away remark which now deserves repetition. We learn more about her during these conversations than at any other time. She seems yielding, expressive and soft. This is when I am at my happiest. Even when stuck driving in impenetrable traffic, or doing the washing up, if I am listening to the children share their perspective of life with one another, I am joyful. In the context of their sibling relationship, she has a place and her identity again makes sense. For her, he has always been present: laughing with her; building worlds on Minecraft together; discussing life's mysteries. She doesn't really know of a world without him ... until now. How can any of this make sense to a six-year-old? I often confess I struggle to reconcile myself with the loss. As you know, I've found it tough, and I'm forty-five. The ground for her must be constantly shifting: a part-time only child whose favourite companion often seems to have better things to do. Her behaviour sometimes indicates that she can't find stable ground. She has a habit of clinging on to people or places - this is the only way she can steady herself. She has only ever referenced her feelings of loss, once. She was talking about him leaving so early in the morning on Mondays: 'And then he's gone ... while I'm still asleep. I don't even get to see him'. That was all. She is not a child who speaks easily about her feelings. We have tried to ease the hardship, but I fear that owing to the fact that - like a sparkly black hole - ballet consumes all around it, we have not done enough. I don't think she always feels as looked-after as I would like. We point out how she is unique: she is witty and sharp; she has exceptional powers of observation, and makes searing insights; she appears to be a natural swimmer; she functions at a very high level of energy and charming people has manifested itself as her superpower. She has a tremendous capacity for enthusiasm and she is passionate about several things: sweets, her favourite television shows, kindness to animals, roast potatoes. We try to guarantee that her experience of a life next to the radiance of her ballet brother is not one of an all encompassing dancing shadow. She is too bright and funny. A couple of weeks ago, she asked if she could try ballet. I took her to a trial class with every intention of making it a weekly commitment if she wished. She emerged from the class indifferent. She'd had a good time, but felt no need to go again. A new ambition has arisen - she has decided she is going to be a gymnast, and represent Britain in the Olympics. She is starting classes soon. I'll let you know. A Change in Direction
The blog is being redesigned. There are two reasons for this. The first is that the readers deserve better. When I started doing it, I imagined only a handful of readers, and so I took a picture of some old ballet shoes on our kitchen table and stuck it through a photo-shop app. Coincidentally, there was a bit of red paint on the table. I liked this fortunate bit of synchronicity. The paint was near the big toe of one of the shoes. You might mistakenly have assumed that it was blood - appropriate for the struggle that we were all experiencing. As the readership has grown, I feel that I should now put some more thought into how I present the stories. I'd like to appear a little more professional; and a little less home-made. So, I've made a new 'banner', I'm adding some new features and I'm redesigned the site. This is my renewed commitment to the blog. The second reason for a change of direction concerns our son's transformation while this academic year gets underway. It is a completely different experience for all of us. His activities at the school appear to be giving him such a sense of satisfaction. The ballet has become even more challenging - even more is required of them. He has some new teachers - some are new to the school, and others are just new to him. These teachers have given him a renewed enthusiasm for school. He also seems to have settled down with the other children. He seems to have found his place. In terms of the academic tasks and the ballet challenges, he is thoroughly enjoying himself. At the moment his school life has the idyllic texture of an Edwardian children's story. I am genuinely happy for him, but I've always hated the Edwardians - patriarchal and repressed. Where, then, does this leave me? I have become lost in my own story. The narrative of my own blog has abandoned me. This is the story of a son ripped away from the heart of his family, and the father's attempt to reconcile what it happening. It is a story of loss, incomprehension and unnecessary pain. Or at least it was. Now it is the story of a child who has found a path in life that he enjoys. He understands that this path involves living away from home during the week. He is dropped off every Monday full of excitement and anticipation. Who would begrudge this for their child? Surely it is what every parent wishes. I have to seriously rethink my part in the story. So the blog needs to be redesigned. Sink or Swim
This summer I realised that I am not as immune as I has previously thought to the effects of ageing; I had not made the link between the greying hair, the permanent frown lines, the need to calorie count and now being in my mid-forties. I have been engaging in self-deception ... again. The summer holidays were so blissful, because we nearly forgot all about ballet - except for one slight nuisance. Our son needed to maintain his cardio-vascular fitness. The normal running around of a twelve year old is not sufficient apparently for someone in full time vocational ballet training. So, we went swimming. Especially towards the end of the holiday, we went nearly every day. We assumed the unnecessary habit of swimming together in the same lane - a watery convoy. He's a strong and elegant swimmer; efficient, sleek and graceful. And, I would swim behind. Aside from swimming lengths, we would also play racing games and diving games, hiding plastic clam shells for one another under the water and then racing to find them. I'm not ashamed to admit that it gives me a tremendous sense of pride to be able to announce that I am the stronger swimmer. Even at 45, I am faster, more agile and I can hold my breath for far longer which gives me an unfair advantage in the diving competitions. This makes me want to punch the air, clench my back teeth and shout, 'Yessss!' There is a reason behind this child-like celebration of a Pyrrhic victory. Before the father and son underwater Olympics commence, we would swim lengths in the way described. He would swim first and I would follow. He set the pace and I fell into line. He decided how many lengths we would swim, and I would. This swimming of lengths is what gave rise to the sense of time passing and my own mortality. I may be the faster and more experienced swimmer, but he is the the more resilient. After about twenty minutes or so of ploughing along the lane, I would begin to tire. As the end of each length approached, I would think, 'This is it. This has to be the last one.' And then, with the mechanical precision of a well tempered machine, he would begin the next. Each time, I would react as much as it is possible to breathe a sigh of regret when swimming front crawl. Every time I caught sight of him kicking off to continue our marathon of lengths, I'd silently plead, 'Please let this be the last one.' And so it would continue: the son effortless and steadily gliding along, length after length; the father hoping that each length would be the last. Eventually he would stop. He'd turn to me with an exhausted expression and say, 'Sorry, Daddy, but I think I've had enough now.' 'That's fine, Son.' I would say. 'You're only young, of course that's enough.' I would be nonchalant, casual, deliberately patronising, and hope that he didn't notice every pore in my body exhaling with relief. We'd have a few minutes' rest, and then I'd beat him in all the games. I'm impressed by the way he swims; tenacious, systematic and resolute. And once again, our son challenges me as he sets an example. My rhythm of swimming is different. I swim in bursts that are powerful and direct, but hard to sustain for longer than ten or at most fifteen minutes. Perhaps this applies to the way I live my life. I am very efficient at fulfilling the short-term needs of myself and those around me, but I neglect the long-term. My patterns of behaviour involve short sharp bursts of energy that get stuff done but leave me exhausted. Swimming in the pillion position has given me new knowledge of what it feels like to just keep going. This is perhaps the mind-set which makes him want to excel at something so difficult, and why my talent seems to lie in finding immediate solutions, and initiating flurries of activity. The thought of long-term projects make me gasp and splutter - almost as if drowning in panic. I need to learn how to keep going, inexhaustibly. For me, the concern has never been about whether I sink or swim, or about the distance that I can complete, but for how long I can keep afloat while simply treading water. 10 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Sending My Child to Boarding School
Birthday Presents
A couple of months ago, I celebrated my birthday. Despite it being a Sunday, it was the end of term at the Ballet School. So on the morning of my birthday, I got up early and drove to the school. I spent some time admiring other people's Cath Kidson laundry bags, while carrying his stuff to the car. There was also some new packing technology to admire - some of the children were ending their academic year by vacuum packing their stuff. Bed linen, duvets and pillows were sucked into a transparent plastic package which is a fraction on the original size; a NASA space meal of dehydrated laundry. Next year we will also be vacuum packing at the end of the summer term. Our son was in rehearsal. The dormitories were open for the parents to do this only between 8.30am and 9.30am. Our child is ridiculously organised for an eleven year old. He has clearly had to over-compensate for the chaos surrounding his father. I was in and out of the dorm in ten minutes. I felt sorry for the parents who had a four hour drive, and then had to spend their time fishing for lost items under the bed. I was not one of the parents scrabbling around for loose change or run-away playing cards. I spent no time matching socks. We then watched the final performance of the year - a sumptuous and ostentatious orchestral affair. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. This was the best way of spending my birthday I could possibly imagine. I am writing this entirely without irony. Getting up early doesn't bother me. Spending time in the dormitory of pre-adolescent boys is not be pleasant, but he was so organised - as expected - that I was hardly there. Even driving back in the heat was not irksome; not even if I am stuck in traffic in my beat-up old car, with no air-con and a window that doesn't open on the driver's side. Despite all this, it was a glorious way of spending my birthday. It felt like I was being given a present - a huge child-sized box wrapped up in paper with ribbons and bows on the top; something to tear open and then discover my son is sitting inside grinning. He belongs to a tradition of people packages: the Velvet Underground track, The Gift, or Henry 'Box' Brown posting himself to freedom in nineteenth century Virginia. Honestly, this is the most welcome present I could possibly want. He was then home for nearly two months. It was luxurious. I had been waiting for this day for the last ten months. We had survived. Indeed, it felt like the clichéd 'gift that keeps on giving'. The summer holidays delivered all that was expected. Ballet and boarding schools were gleefully absent. Our life was no longer defined by others' opinions of the quality of our son's physical contortions. There was chatting and laughter and days free of the pressure of timetables. We travelled, we ate, we walked and swam. The dog became accustomed to both children being around and howled whenever they left her - even for ten minutes. The Norfolk and Suffolk coastlines were extensively explored, and some treasured places were discovered. We were even lucky with the erratic British weather. We basked in the sunshine. And all this began on my birthday. Please excuse the over-engineered pun, but the birthday present was each other's presence. Perhaps, we can only assess the quality of love in how available we are willing to make ourselves to each other. Love is a difficult thing to be aware of during mental or physical absence. The fact that our family is not complete during term time has taught me to value those times when we are all together. Distractions are put away, and I strive - as much as possible - to remain present when we are all together in. It was as if the scars left from the very difficult first year were healing. He's now gone. School started this morning and I dropped him off. We chatted happily in the car, and there was an ease to leaving him there. The familiar despair is strangely absent. He's back at school, but oddly, it's as if I still have the birthday present with me. Common Responses.
If you have been reading this from the beginning, I'd just like to say thank you. The blog is now on over 20,000 words. This means that, by now, you would be third of the way through an Iris Murdoch novel, or have finished a short Doris Lessing novella. Both of which would probably have been time better spent. So, once again, thanks. If you are relatively new to BalletDadBlog, please don't worry; no-one expects you to go back and read what you have missed. Life is too short. It's summer. There's other things to do, and iPads only work well in the shade. The number of readers that this blog gets is uplifting and surprising. To be honest, I only expected two regular readers. And I thought one of those would be my Mum. So, the fact that so many people take the time to read this, is wonderful, and it brings with it a responsibility: if people are still reading, I feel compelled to keep writing. The readership of this blog is larger than both my published books put together. So, if being a ballet dad is a niche interest, then my other writing clearly targets the most marginal. I tell the children that my books are slow-burn long-tail classics, and after I am dead they will be wealthier than they can ever imagine. After all, coming from such a modest background, how much wealth can an eleven-year-old and six-year-old really imagine? One of the reasons I wanted to write this blog was because I thought it would be funny; a source of endless humour - the incongruity of a middle aged man being introduced to the ballet world through his son. However, it's the sad blogs that get the response; the ones that strike hard on the topic of abandonment. Accompanying this unexpected response have been some trolls - whom I have refused to feed. This is something a lawyer advised me about many years ago when I was getting an abusive Twitter account shut down. This lawyer had integrity and told me that he could shut the account down for me for £10,000, or he could teach me how to do it myself for £250. Either something was wrong with his business model, or he was a lawyer who valued his free-time more than his income. I took the £250 option and the account was shut down within a fortnight. The most damaging comment I have received about this blog was someone - whom I don't know - taking the time to get in touch to tell me that I am self-obsessed. Was there ever any doubt? I ignored them, not because they were being abusive, but because they were stating the obvious. Every week, a different PR company gets in touch, out of the blue, to ask if I will write about a product in return for getting the product for free. I always politely decline. It's not really in the spirit of what I am doing here. But I might change my mind. So, if the next blog is about a male-grooming experience in Hove, you will understand. I've also just been offered sixty pounds to gamble away at a roulette table in a casino with no pressure to blog about it afterwards. Is it a scam? Or a recruitment drive? I'll let you know, because I've agreed to go next Wednesday. The most common positive response - apart from the PR companies offering me stuff for free - is being told that someone has just forwarded the link to their mother. This has happened many times. It seems that balletdadblog has become a conduit between adults and their mums. I am flattered and honoured. The fact that people want to share this particularly exhibitionist form of self-therapizing is one thing, but the fact that some people wish to share it with their mums is heart-warming. I receive comments like, 'I wanted my mum to know that this is what it was like when I went to school' or 'That's what we both went through when I was at university'. Apparently, the topic of separation between parent and child resonates. Perhaps discussing it is a taboo. The transition into adulthood is a difficult one. We read novels and watch films about the rites of passage of youth, and we tell hardly any stories of the adults left behind. This one is for all the mums. Next time ... Birthday Presents. Many a True Word Said by Accident
A couple of weekends ago, I accidentally told the truth. As the summer holidays are approaching, I turned to my son, and said, 'Only another couple of weeks, and this nightmare will be over'. I said it without really thinking. For a split second a strange expression flashed in his eyes. I had overstepped a mark. If it were a joke, then it was a poor one. If it wasn't a joke, I had just revealed more than any eleven-year-old would want to hear. As clumsy as the expression may have been, I was speaking from the heart. The summer holidays will offer a welcome relief. I will once again be given the opportunity to parent my own child every day of the week. I will not be fretting about the possibility of a 'Lord of the Flies' scenario among abandoned trainee ballet dancers. Nor will I need to worry about him glancing over a fellow pupil's shoulder and catching glimpses of Saw III on their iPad. For two months, he will be back in an environment which supports and understands him completely; where his private self can breathe easily and he can express himself without worry that he will have to justify his views publicly later on. We will have direct access to him, rather than saving up anything we want to tell him, or need to ask him, for the daily fifteen minute Skype call. I won't have to get up at half past five every Monday morning to get ready to drive him back. Even without any interaction, it will be comforting to just see him in the room. On the one hand, this last academic year has been wonderful. We have seen our son grow and flourish. He has embraced everything that the school has offered; not just ballet. He has immersed himself in folk dance, choreography and ballet history. He has become a better musician. He's become more politically aware. His organisational skills have developed to an incredible degree for someone so young, and he has become more resilient and independent. On the other hand it has been a nightmare. I worry about him and the atmosphere of constant competition. I worry about the lack of academic engagement - and this is no criticism of the academic staff who all display a selfless dedication; but they can only achieve so much in a mere four hours a day. I worry about his body holding out under the immense constant strain. I worry about injury. It is the end of the year and he looks knackered. But for me, the most awful part of this nightmare is the separation. I really hate the fact that our family experiences this severance. To describe the dull aching sense of loss is a difficult task. Writing about it helps even though I also feel like screaming at myself, "Enough already. Get over it." But the dull ache just seems to sit more deeply within, festering more silently. A fulfilled and happy child was exactly what I wanted, but this separation was not. It makes me even more contemptuous of the British upper classes - those who choose to send their children away, sometimes even from the age of seven - an ingrained inbred heartlessness. Little wonder the country is in such a state. It's being run by people who experienced only the minimum of parental nurture. From the café where I write this I see dads out walking with their children. Some are pushing them in pushchairs; others are holding hands as they stroll. An invisible bond is evident in all of them. My envy quickly subsides, but I have an urge to run after them. "Hold on tightly," I'd say. "Hold on, and should the nightmare encroach, shake yourself, stay awake and don't let it in." I want to tell them the truth. |
Anonymous
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