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Friday 5 September 2014

Its not goodbye

I cannot believe that this time next week, Diva will be all set up in her uni accommodation. It's only 2 and a half hours from here, not too far. Yes, too far.

I left her father when she was 2 and a half. And I moved in virtually straight away with Jon and went on to have three more children with him.
I always thought he treated her as his own, until now, looking back. He did, materially, financially and practically, and he did love her, we did the best we could for her. But it wasn't quite the same as if we were her mum and dad. He was having terrible contact problems with his own daughter, being taken to court all the time, and that had an effect on us all. Things were strained a lot of the time, and we clashed and bickered a lot. What I didn't realise was that she was listening to us rowing, to him calling me names, putting me down, and hating him inside a little more each day that we fought. You think little children don't hear or see what goes on, but they do. And they store it all inside, because they don't really know what else to do.

I was always used to sharing her with her dad and his family. Not 50% of the time, but most weekends she spent with him. A lot of memories of weekend events exclude Diva, because she wasn't with us. She was, though for all important events, like birthdays, trips, holidays and Christmas.
Thank god I have spent every Christmas Eve with her, because her dad's partner is German and they celebrate slightly differently. But, she has never been with us for Christmas night, and Christmas dinner is always slightly rushed because he insists on collecting her no later than 2pm.

I have been used to her living with Oz, her boyfriend and his family, it has happened gradually over the last 12-18 months or so, and was never an official moving in. No date was set, or announcement made, or a planned moving of her stuff, it just gradually happened so that one day, I thought 'oh, she's not stayed for the night in a while.' I am glad she had him. And them. They are lovely, we are all quite close.
If she hadn't, she was heading down the 'vodka on the beach' road, which quite a few of her friends went down, and worse.

So I thought that her going to Uni was basically an extension of that. The next step. That it was little more than when she sort of moved out. How wrong I was. The last few days it has hit me. Slowly, but hard, like a slow motion car crash in a movie. This is nothing like that. This hurts. It feels like a pain around my heart, almost a gentle pain, but it's constant, which peaks and stabs when I think about it too hard, or it's mentioned. It rears up to my throat, threatening to vomit out everywhere, but then it pulls back to its retreat in my chest, sitting there, quietly squeezing my heart.

I will miss her so very much. My girl. Yes. As in the song, which her daddy had playing full blast for us when we arrived home from hospital. My beautiful girl, my first born, my much wanted baby following a miscarriage I had six months earlier.

Jon first started properly against Diva following the birth of KP, they rowed, he shouted at her that she was lazy, and why wasn't she helping more with KP, why was she at Oz's a lot (Diva was 16 at the time), Diva replied that KP wasn't her baby or her responsibility. Jon called her gobby, cheeky, rude, disrespectful. Jon and I didn't live together at this point, I had moved out three years before, but we were still 'together'. Things did seam to heal between Jon and her, or so i thought, until the recent awful rows this summer, that ended my relationship with Jon. This summer has been literally a roller coaster ride. Her father threw out his long term partner the week before Diva's A Level exams, then proceeded to have a loud, prolonged breakdown, choosing Diva as his life support. The worry for her that he was actually in such a dark place one night, he was apparently contemplating ending it all (not at all, he is a weak attention seeking excuse of a man, but, he is her father, and of course, she took his lame threat seriously, as any daughter would) was a very real, deep worry for her. He offloaded big time to her. His then 17 year old daughter. With potentially life changing exams looming. It nearly broke her, god bless her. She couldn't revise, or barely leave his side. I was deeply worried about how it could affect her exams, and was very, very angry with her father. Two weeks later, she was battling a tirade of abuse, name calling, horrific verbal attack from Jon. It almost ruined our holiday, and our summer. She took off, in Menorca, threatening never to return. I told Jon to leave, to go back to the UK, otherwise I would call the police. He did, eventually, after a parting wish that he hoped I got cancer. She did return - thank goodness - then told me, in an emotional, painful, harrowing way, what she remembers, has heard, has seen over the last 15 years of her life. How, she has had such dark depressive thoughts, and been in such an awful, lonely place that she has actually, seriously, contemplated ending it all. And that Oz had wanted to call me several times, he was so worried about her. What a shock to me. What had Jon done to her? To me? To us all. I had to, I CHOSE to support, protect and stand by my beautiful Diva. We continued our holiday, me and the children, and build some amazing memories that will last a lifetime. With Jon gone, I have been able, finally to praise her endlessly. To celebrate her 18th birthday over several days, making her feel so special, and loved. To write on her card exactly what my heart says. Not having to censor my gushing love and pride for her. To woop with delight and burst with pride over her fantastic A Level results, again, and again. To spend as much time as possible loving her and being with her.

I then realised how censored I had been. How restrained. I couldn't fully show my feelings to her, or express them in writing, in cards, because he'd always point out the other children - which of course, I know, I love them all equally. But he was never quite as full on with Divas achievements as he was with his own children's. Whereas I burst and cried with pride and love at every single one of them.
And now,this week, I can just be with her. With the others in school, except KP, we are spending time together, cherishing this last week, guilt free, happily, free of any black clouds.
I hope I have healed her enough to make a new start. I hope I have filled her with enough love to mend her broken heart, for it must have broken at some point, when the man you live with and have in your life for 15 years as your step father turns so viciously, nastily, and with no reason against you.
I know I have done all I can this summer to show her how much I love her, how proud I am of her, how special she is to us all.
I hope that my cramming this into a few weeks will be enough.
Only time will tell ......


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6 comments:

  1. You are doing a cracking job, so be reassured about that!
    Be proud as I'm sure your daughter is proud of you! #binkylinky

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  2. Bless you. This must have been such a hard post for you to write and have done it so beautifully. Today is the first day of the rest of your lives and, despite the fact that she has had 15 years of this, you have helped her and praised her and made peace with her. It must be hard that she is off to Uni and I can't imagine how you must be feeling. What is important here is that you mustn't blame yourself. I am so lucky that I have a man who loves my daughter (who isn't his own) as much as he loves me. Thank you for linking to PoCoLo xx

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  3. You have touched me with your post. My eldest is not my husbands child and I think he treats them the same but their relationship is strained at the moment. It is so hard raising children and sometimes we don't see things until after the event.
    I'm glad you have this week together and can be open about how much you love each other. She sounds like an amazing, strong young woman xx #binkylinky

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  4. You are an amazing mummy. She's lucky to have you. You've all been through such a lot together, but as your eldest, she will have been impacted more. But it will have made you stronger. Uni is going to be wonderful for her. A whole new world opening up to her. But she knows how much she means to you and how much you love her, and she'll be home to tell you all about her adventures xxx
    #BinkyLinky

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  5. Growing up with an alcoholic father my only wish as a child is for my parents to separate. They didnt and I was hurting so much. But I cant tell no one and only my sister knows that I am in pain as she is in the same pain. We grew up not getting too close to other people and we learned to just depend on each other. Mothers thought that they can shield children like me when in a family with a father like him. She didnt. She tried too. I am so happy about your daughter growing up such a nice girl. She deserves happiness and you gave and is giving that. Please tell her I said goodluck in this new journey =) #pocolo

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  6. Bloody hell you are doing well. Although this isn't how it should have finished with Jon, an argument with your daughter should never have happened, it also kinda means you left him for her. You said yourself, you had to choose, and you chose her. That would have done more than anything for her, so well done you, keep going and keep loving xx

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