Author: hiraethphoenix

Words

~ hiraethphoenix

A wedding speech. You toasted the bride and groom. Everyone was left speechless, you spoke with such clarity, intertwining the personalties of the two, humorous anecdotes and a touch of wisdom at the end. While everyone listened intently, with every word something in me gasped for air. One of the guests even came up to me and said that she did not realise that you are a very deep person.
I parallel it with your wedding speech. A long list of thank you’s and a quick I love you at the end. Full stop. Nothing more.
So that night I realised, you always had the words,
You just didn’t have them
For me.

Copyright Hiraeth 2016

I belonged

~ hiraethphoenix

I think
You are the closest I have come
To someone who really loved me
For who I am.
Except when it suited you,
You preyed on it,
Used it to manipulate, hurt, abuse.
I am not sure I will ever heal
Completely.
There are times when my soul
Remembers that love,
Hums the melody it used to know,
It yearns for a semblance of it.
It does not remember the
Rollercoaster ride
That is you,
The drama and anger,
Threats on cue.
Instead it recalls a place,
Away from all of it,
The race,
Where for a very short time
I felt like I
Belonged.

Copyright Hiraeth

You are more

~ hiraethphoenix

You are always more
Than your worst mistake,
The moment you lost track
Of your highest self, your ideals,
Dreams and met your wounded self
Mirrored in someone else.
You are always more
Than the thoughts of failure,
Inadequacy playing in your mind
And sometimes reiterated by those
Around you.
You are always more
Than your insecurities, the bubble bum
You don’t have and probably
Never will
You are more,
You are here:
And there is so much more.

copyright Hiraeth 2016

The Cross

~ hiraethphoenix

When I visited Austria a few years ago I bought a cross at one of the most beautiful gothic churches I visited (there were many – I was searching). It resonated with my soul, the garish art captured the storms raging inside my heart. I identified with lost souls from generations ago. I spent a few hours there contemplating and praying about my life. It was quite a mess at that stage, I was lost in a story I wanted to rewrite. There was too much drama and pain. I left that church with a sense of complete peace that God had a plan for my life, that if I just kept walking it would unfold as it was meant to be. That cross became more than a souvenir to me. I wore it the day I stood in the court for the end of my marriage, the day I had to testify for a restraining order against a bad decision and the day I said goodbye to the closest I had to a sister in this life. I wore it whenever life tilted towards the overwhelming and on any of the numerous anniversaries of loss. Earlier this year I wore it on the tenth anniversary of my wedding day and when I wanted to take it off at night, I realised I was wearing only the chain. The cross was gone. For a few days I was very sad, I even contemplated asking a friend in Austria to post another one. But I realised that there was a lesson in there, particularly for someone who is so sentimental and collects memories in things. (I have love letters from when I was eight, my school books from Grade 1.) The memories are not there, nor the love, nor the strength to continue. It was as if God was saying, lay it down, let it go.

It is done.
And for the first time
It was.

copyright Hiraeth 2016

I still see you

~ hiraethphoenix

I still see you
Even though life is moving
At the speed of sound
And we merely cross paths
A few times each day,
I want you to know,
I still see you
Even though our love has
Changed, matured, weathered
And the giddiness is gone
Replaced by responsibility
And day to day life
I want you to know
I still see you
I still recognize what I love,
And day by day
As our journey unfolds,
I
Still
See
You.

Copyright Hiraeth 2016

The race

~ hiraethphoenix

There is an epidemic in our school system
And it is murdering what I believe
Is every child’s godly right:
A childhood, filled with play, creativity, security, naivety and innocence.
It starts early:
Your fine motor skills, gross motor skills, visual perceptive skills, vestibular skills (your inner GPS they explained at the informative parents’ evening) and emotional skills are all analyzed, scored against what is perceived as normal, fitting to the cookie cutter scheme you signed up for.
And if you don’t measure up?
Therapy for you and what’s more, the school can offer it all on its premises, an added luxury. The teacher in charge only has 20 small bodies in her class, but any deviation from the normed behaviour, needs to be addressed all in the name of school readiness. To be ready for school. The next level of the competition, the feared first year where it is expected that your child be resilient at seven and first prize if independent too.
It is ludicrous.
Every second child I know is receiving therapy of some kind and the parents are frazzled, panicked with the fear that there is something wrong with their child.
And granted, you may reason that life is competitive and the sooner they get in the race, the better.
But at four? Five? Six? Seven?
They have the rest of their lives to settle into the race, life takes care of that.
It is ludicrous.

I became aware of the race when I was 10 and it was intrinsic. I wanted to excel. I wanted to be first, do my best. Up until then, I was just having fun.

My mother’s heart pleads for us to fight for our children’s right to be children, to enjoy the few years where life should not be a race, but an adventure.

In closing my rant, while driving my six year old daughter to school and lamenting about how we each have a gift (I could never be a trail runner like Beth’s mom, I write instead and I can still not do cartwheels or handstands – who cares!?) and as long as we do our best, it should not matter who is first. She replied, matter-of-factly while twirling her hair,
if you were a kid, it would matter.
And now it does.

Copyright Hiraeth 2016

That couple

~ hiraethphoenix

Remember we said
We would never be that couple
Who go off the rails,
Lose each other in the day to day
Rat race we call life.
We would never not put the children
First,
We would protect them from drama, from our poor choices, from the trauma of divorce.
Remember we said if one got lost, the other would remain strong and like a compass, point the way home.
Do you remember?
I have become the mother who puts myself, my needs first and in revenge for your poor choices (completely unrelated to mine), I am intent on wounding you, destroying you, at all costs.
But late at night, when the world is quiet and the moon asleep, I remember we said
We would never be
That
Couple.

Copyright Hiraeth 2016

Ok

~ hiraethphoenix

What I love most
About you
Is that you make me
Believe it will all be ok,
(With a pack of cigarettes
In your pocket)
As long as we live
Moment to moment
In the present, we will make it,
We will be ok.
I run ahead, make plans,
Concoct scenarios in my head,
What if you, what if I,
What if they…
See our future unfold, sometimes
Crack, end.
You turn me back
And say
Here,
Right now,
This is what matters
And most times
I believe you.

Copyright Hiraeth 2016

Billabong Blue

~ hiraethphoenix

For me longing
Is a blue Billabong jersey
And Colbie Callait’s Realize on the radio.
I was 27 and believed I had found my
Soul, sole mate.
In that moment
Before I paid for a top I carefully selected,
A hoodie, a present for him
(Not to bold, not too much print)
I realised
That I could not change him, fix him, mould him into what would make me whole.
I realised
He was using drugs
I realised
He would break me.
I left him and wore that hoodie the
Entire weekend.
It was covered in snot and tears.
And I survived,
With “only a surfer knows the feeling”
And a giant wave
Engraved across my heart.
I survived
Even though walking away was
Fucking hard,
Lonely.
I survived it in a Blue Billabong top.
Longing doesn’t change as you get older,
I still associate it with the same things.
But it does get easier.
You realise you will survive,
That there is always beauty and renewal, a kindness to the universe,
A treasure trove of memories engraved
Upon your soul.
And on the bad days
You reach for that Billabong hoodie
And cover it in snot,
Tears,
You pull it over your unkept hair
And hide from the cruelty
That takes away what you love,
Whom you love.
And then you take the top off,
Toss it in the wash
And you survive.

Copyright Hiraeth 2016