Day: July 5, 2014

I NEED TO TALK – I NEED A FRIEND

I need to talk. I need to talk to someone who will understand. I know some of you will connect with this anyway and I’m sorry for that.

I know this is just pure coincidence but I had the song ‘Brave’ by Sara Bareilles playing on the CD player when a neighbour popped in. I didn’t stop the music as I found myself mesmerized by this song. To me, it speaks of being brave enough to speak out about abuse. If you listen carefully to the words, if you’ve been where I’ve been (and many others)…..”Ever since your history of silence…”;… “Let the words fall out…”;…”Or you can start speaking up…”Maybe there’s a way out of the cage that you live. Maybe one of these days you can let the light in…”. This is only my interpretation. I might be complete wrong. Others may not see it as such, simply knowing as a jazzy pop song.

Just then, my neighbour (who doesn’t know about my history), started talking about the Rolf Harris child abuse case, and suddenly, I was drowning. I don’t know what she said next but I was hurled into a flashback of my abuse and was struggling to get out or stop the music or my neighbour from continuing any further. Then I heard my neighbour saying “Are you alright, Ellie; are you okay?”. I must have pulled to but I can’t remember anything much of the conversation after that. My neighbour was saying goodbye and leaving. I dissolved into a pond of tears, my heart still racing, fighting off the remnants of my memories. I’m alone. I’m alone until my carer comes in the morning. I need to talk…now…so I’m doing the only thing I know how…writing; writing to you out there, my friends; wanted to be safely held, hugged until the pain stops; to be listened to; to be heard. I need a friend….x

DE-JUNKING THE JUMBLE SALE ROOM

CLUTTER

BEFORE

Well, it’s gone to be done….I suppose….although I am rather reluctant but know that it is a necessary evil! Having written some time ago about my ‘Chamber of Horrors’, being the cupboard under the stairs, I now feel the time has come to tackle ‘The Jumble Sale Room’ aka my daughter’s old bedroom which is in dire need of a ‘Life Laundry’ job (for those of you who remember the TV series of the same name); in other words, a complete declutter! Ugh! Really ugh!

I can only peer into it now as there is not space for my wheelchair to go in, the only spare space in that dump is occupied by necessary oxygen! I feel like hiring a skip, opening the window and tossing the entire contents out the window and into the skip, that is without sparing a glance at what I am chucking out! It’s full, to the brim of allsorts. I can’t even identify whether there is still a bed in there! The trouble is, is it trash or treasure? Is any of it fit to be sold on Ebay, I wonder? Can I really be bothered?

It’s a fair bet that there is a bed in there somewhere but it’s covered by black bin bags of old clothes of every size and colour that haven’t seen the light of day for over ten years! There is a coffee percolator (used once), two irons, both broken and sitting on a hidden, upright ironing board. There are two keepsake boxes which definitely aren’t going anywhere, one full of my baptism cards from 2008 plus sentimental, deflated helium balloons, photos and the like. The other (definitely treasure), holds all my children’s school reports going from year dot to year leaving!

Empty cardboard boxes, once housing new equipment, phones, laptop, camera etc which I kept just in case I needed to send something back (which I never did). Gift bags, given once upon a time, that I thought I may re-use but never did, old newspaper cuttings, empty, and bursting-at-the-seams carrier bags, an old beanbag (its colours faded from the sunshine that pours into that room during the summer months), an umbrella, a ‘dumped on’ filing tray labelled IN and OUT….fat chance of ‘OUT’ and of course the famous ‘cuddly toy’ (for those of you who are old enough the remember the TV show ‘The Generation Game’….need I go on? I think not. Enough is enough! ‘Yellow Pages’ search for local skip hire is the first thing on this agenda of this seemingly never-ending tale. THE END!

Tidy-Single-Room-Dublin

AFTER