No Man's Land

The Prof had decided he was moving out. He decided this on my birthday, but was staying until the end of the month. Yug. It is like trying to live, with a dead person in your house.

So we battled through February. It was an awful no man’s land. You can’t move forwards, and you can’t go backwards.

On the 20th of February I wrote a very beautiful and empowering piece in my journal. All this time I had been listening to the Prof’s nonsense, and had mostly kept quiet. But inside, I was not quiet. I was sorting stuff through in my mind, and I was making objection to years of ill treatment. I addressed this to the Prof in my journal (No - he never got to read it - he was gone before I could give it to him. But it was for myself anyway) :

20 February 2007
Today I want to do something different. I want to start refuting the lies I’ve been told about myself. I want to be well and whole again. I want to be valued as a person. Part of that process is recognizing the lies, and replacing it with truth.

Professor, you told me in December – you never came home because you had nothing to come home to. You lie sir!

I looked at the house this evening as darkness fell, I stood in my imagination, at the gate a looked in. This is what I saw:

A house all lit up, light pouring from every window. Those windows are open – it’s a hot night. The smells of food waft through the air. There is children’s laughter all around, children’s tears as we struggle through homework and learning, the sweet murmur of our evening prayer around a dinner table: a treasure chest in each face around the table.

Later, I hear the bath sounds and laughter as Marielle and Arno decided to have a bubble bath together. Boy was that place a mess when they were done. But BOY – were their hearts full of warmth and happiness as they hugged each other good night.
The ironing board stood out, evidence of the clean clothes, ironed with love and hung in each person’s cupboard. No one was discriminated against – each one’s washing was folded and packed away.

But, you weren’t here to see it all. You came in too late to see the treasures of the day. Your meal needed to be heated up, in a kitchen strewn with dishes not yet packed up. You see the wet bathroom floor, but not the happy faces, you see a tired wife – not the good work which flowed from my hands. You don’t know my stories of today – you are closed into this strange new world you have chosen for yourself. If you will ever emerge, is a question I can’t answer. I just know that tonight, as with many other nights – you missed the point, you missed the preciousness of your darling family, you choose not to see, you choose to say – there is nothing to come home to.

I will have the last word in this – You are deceived, and in being deceived, you seek also, to make me so. But, within me lives the wisdom of the Almighty, the Creator of the Universe. He has filled my heart with song, and my mind with truth. He has said – You are my precious daughter – well done.

Today I caught the tears of my angel daughter, as she struggles to express her fears. She doesn’t yet know how to say in words, that she fears you will go – but her heart already knows the truth. Today, I caught the first tears of that breaking heart.

Tomorrow I will continue with this exercise. I will write about the 16 years I have been stuffing it up, about being a good mother, but not a good wife, about your words which say – I don’t love you any more, I love another. In each, I will have the last word, though you may never see it. No matter. For me then – so that I understand.