Still surviving

I went for a run yesterday. I am really getting into this fitness malarky. I always said, there was no point getting fit whilst I was still smoking. 8 smoke free weeks now and still going.

As I was running (thank God I was actually RUNNING and not puffed out in a corner)


I SAW THEM.

BOTH OF THEM.


My ex-friend/boss and her mother.

The two that gave me personal hell like no other.

Walking without a care in the world. La, la, la.


DO THEY EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY DID?


This injustice STILL churns me up. I survived a shitty husband walk out on his family. So, why do these two people still affect me in such a way?



Many things happened during my brief 8 months working for my friend and her mother. I was my friend's mentor while she was training to become a nursery worker. I took her under my wing many years ago and watched her blossom into a great nursery assistant. I was proud.

It was her dream to own a nursery one day. Daddy bought one for her. How kind.

With Mowgli at school and a new baby, a single mum needs to make ends meet. So I went back to full-time work when she was 2 months old.

Hind-sight is a beautiful thing and I really should have stayed at my job as a No7 lady. Make-up, perfumes and girly chats. Good days. My parents were looking after the kids everyday and I needed to prove to myself that I was capable of standing on my own two feet. Stubborn, yes. Liberating, absolutely.

So I thought, why not work at my friends nursery? Earn money, still have my little girl with me, pick up Mowgli from school, everyone is a winner.

My sanity lost.

I was made to feel inferior, useless and ashamed. Demoralised and belittled. If someone tells you this over and over, you start to believe it.

Many incidents spring to mind. Like the time my lunch fell out of the fridge onto the floor by my manager opening the fridge. I was made to appologise for it AND had to clean it up. I ate no lunch that day. Or the times I had to ask for permission to go to the bathroom and my requests denied. Many people with power and titles have huge egos and do not remember the friends they stand on to get to the top.

I still have scars on my arms where my nails dug in out of sheer frustration and humiliation.

I dared to speak up one day. Stood my ground. Things were quiet for a week. Then they dismissed me. In the middle of the day so I had to work the rest of that day asking myself, how many of the other staff had known that week? Did they know they were 'getting rid' of me? To be pushed before I jumped took that last of me. I went to the doctors and they signed me off for a month due to stress. I had been given a months notice so I would never have to go back again. I remember walking around my local Tesco's cowering behind my mother in case I bumped into them. A grown woman of 30 with 2 children reduced to this. People can be so very cruel.


I knew I may bump into them someday. I hoped they would see me looking fabulous, laughing surrounded with people I love, harder, better, stronger, faster. I guess it was rather apt they saw me out running. Harder, better, faster and stronger.

I thought about this all evening. Why was this still bothering me?


I was rejected by my ex and that was the very worst. Just when I picked myself up and dusted myself down, life had fired another missile in my direction. Why was I shot down so soon? Did God think I was strong enough to take another shot? Is he preparing me for a big bomb later in life? Or is he shaping me as a person? Does this design my character? Will I allow them both to affect me the rest of my life?




NEVER!


HARDER, BETTER, FASTER, STRONGER.

D.I.V.O.R.C.E.

I was married before.

I was 'in love' and also very pregnant. 8 months to be exact. HUGE dress and HUGE bouquet. Great. I sooooo enjoyed shredding THOSE pictures!

Fact is, at 22, my doctor at the time explained that a medical condition I had (which later proved to be a wrong) meant I would find it hard to conceive naturally. If at all. Devastating news for a girl who didn't want kids right then but one day.

It took 3 months to conceive. Doctors. What do they know. Tsk.

So, deeply religeous parents said I MUST MARRY. One uncle said that my child would be a bastard if I didn't marry. Forgiveness? I still try everyday.

So we got married. It was cheap and quick. No honeymoon. Just a new baby. 5 years later he decided to leave. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

So. Would I marry again? If you had asked me just after my split, I would have said something along the lines of 'I would rather be dragged naked over a field of broken glass than get married again.'

I was a good housewife. I learned some valuable lessons and for that I am grateful. I learned to be tolerant but not a doormat. To laugh often. To air differences. I have grown up a lot in the paths I have travelled down.

Mr Tall has also changed my mind. He is firstly, my friend. We laugh and joke and he tickles me into incontinence. I think of him and I smile.

He taught me how to open my heart and I am not afraid to love again.