Love It

 How many people do you need around you to feel safe? Interesting question? I was told by someone once that they hated being alone. They would go to the shopping centre and walk around rather than be alone in their house. They didn't want to ever be alone. I  struggled with that theory. I wondered what was in their head that they constantly wanted to flee and what was their magic number of people they felt safe with? Being an only child I was literally alone but never alone. I had nobody to share my lifestyle with. Everyone jumped in and said that I was lucky, spoiled, had everything. That idea is the fairystory version of being an only child. In my case, one parent who had issues, and one who created them.  I couldn't hide in my room because that would be invaded constantly. The sound of the door scraping on the 70's shag pile carpet is still in my head. The quiet "What are you doing?" with no answer ever being acceptable or appropriate, or to be honest even hear...

We all have photos of old rellies like this one.  My grandmother 2nd from the left, and her 3 sisters that she was very close to all her life.  I can say all her life, as she outlived every one of them, and 4 brothers and one baby, and her parents. Parents are part of the natural order, but you don't think of losing your brothers and sisters until you are very old, that is if you think about it at all.  At age 95, her last brother died and the final year of her life was very sad, she had outlasted them all in a race she didn't want to win.  She was an excellent athlete in her youth but this was a race that she didn't enter, and didn't think about until it was really too late.  Not that it would have changed anything, and with her  nature she would have voluntarily taken on the  mantle of grieving 7 siblings rather than have one of them do the same. This year, 2016, has seen most of the world suffer what she did.  Cumulative grieving.  I...