I’ve Finally Grown Up

And I’m not who I wanted to be

Hello.

Is anybody out there?

I’m out. I’m free. I’m still in recovery and I don’t know how I’m going to get out of bed and go about my work tomorrow. But I do know this. Writing helps. Helps sort the wheat from the chaff and the lies from the truth. I can make some semblance of a point in writing whereas in person I have a tendency to stop mid-sentence to run after butterflies.

And I have a bit to say.

Before I re-discovered Medium I was writing a book. Excuse me while I recover from hysterical laughter, I mean who am I kidding? I have the attention span of a gnat. It was my attempt at a therapeutic download of a 46 year childhood. Yes you read that correctly.

I feel like I finally grew up last Monday.

I can’t believe I came up with this sugar coated waffle but this is part of what I wrote a couple of months ago about my first marriage.

My “before” life was built on the trauma of high school bullying, which continued into my adult life. I met my first husband young. We were not a good match and as a result one of us was always going to have to give up their aspirations and dreams for the sake of the other. One was destined to such insecurity, that it would result in a relentless need to control the other. Fear and insecurity can bring out such behavior in a person who is genuine and kind, and who, in the absence of such crippling fear, would never hurt a soul.

I’m calling bullshit.

Last Monday I put an end to almost three decades of narcissistic abuse. But that’s another post.

This is the icebreaker. And if I’m the only one reading that’s OK. It’s high time I got to know myself anyway.

So hello, I’m Matilda. I live in one of the most beautiful parts of the world, coastal New South Wales Australia, (yes, I’m biased and not well traveled so hardly qualified to make that statement). I’m 3 years into my second marriage. My husband is hopelessly flawed, as am I, and we muddle through the complexities of life together. He is my friend. A totally new experience for me. I have one child, an adult son with a severe intellectual disability among other challenges. I’m unable to see him right now, but hope that will change soon.

I pay the bills from my work as a Lawyer. It’s what I do, not who I am.

Please don’t be impressed.

Who am I? I’m not really sure. I know things about myself. I know that I have a thirst for knowledge, a spirit of adventure and that I have lived my adult life, prior the last 4 years, as a shadow of who I could have been.

I love ABBA, my favorite book is Little Women, I can knit a mean fair isle and for over 10 years going to work felt like day release from jail.

I have found snippets of joy in a desperately unhappy adult life. I love the smell of perfectly combined curry spices, the rush when exiting the door of a perfectly good plane (and the jolt when the chute opens) and fighting for the underdog as a clog in the wheel of justice.

My son has kept me going. I am acutely aware of the time that slipped by while I grieved his disability and the loss of the mothering experience of my imagination. As I grieved, he grew, and accomplished amazing things, much of which exceeded what I was advised to expect.

Joy and happiness are very different things. Praise the Lord for that.

I’m here because pieces of writing under 2000 words suit my concentration span. I also know that when I go back to my therapist next week, she will tell me to write, so I may as well get that gold star nailed.

For over 20 years I thought I was the only one living in the chaos of emotional abuse. The confusion of knowing something was very very wrong, but being unable to identify it because of the absence of the clenched fist and bruises.

I’m here because my story might help someone. I’m here because I have a lot of catching up to do. I’m here because I discovered Medium a few years ago, and realized I like to read stuff that ordinary people have to say.

My life is frightfully ordinary yet extraordinarily unique.

So I guess I qualify.