Rose
2017
Rose Grahame: has a secret smile :)
I knew I was playing with fire updating my status like that, but I had to let a little something out.
I did have a secret smile. I was excited after a long time of not really being excited about anything. After a long time of not really allowing myself to feel anything. For months after Jack’s birth I felt like I was plodding through mud, or fog or something that made me feel nothing like me. Nothing at all. I wondered if I even know who I was any more.
Cian, I suppose, did his best at first. Or he tried. He did seem to try and change like he said he would. He would let me sleep. Tell me to rest up and heal. He would tell me he loved me. Loved our son.
That kept me going in those early days. Gave me faith that the old him was back – that all he had promised would come to pass.
But it seemed the old him was just a passing visitor. His patience wore thin. His compassion ran out. His deadline approached and it was not the done thing to have a wife lying down under the pressure of new motherhood. He wanted me to get back to the ‘old me’ – and in the end he tried to drag me there kicking and screaming.
He wanted a better mother for his son.
A better wife for him.
A glitzier trophy on his arm. ‘You used to be so beautiful – so vibrant. Where did that go?’
Someone who loved him more – loved him enough to be everything for him whenever he wanted it. However he wanted it.
Someone to keep his home perfect.
Make him tea and bring him biscuits when he was writing.
Keep the baby quiet.
Look beautiful.
Let him climb on top of me and thrust himself into me when he needed to release tension.
I’d become an accessory – and for a long time I believed that was all I was good for.
For a long time I told myself I bruised too easy. It wasn’t that he was too rough, it was that my blood vessels – the living cells and tissue that made me who I was – were too weak. They bled easy, they didn’t withstand anything other than a gentle touch. They weren’t compatible with difficult times.
It wasn’t that he needed to be more gentle – softer – it was that I needed to be harder. Tougher.
So I stood up to him. I stood up to him when he demanded I leave my job. I took what he threw at me (some choice words, a cup, his fist) but I stood my ground. I’d lost enough of myself. I didn’t want to lose any more. I told him if he didn’t let up, he would lose me. I warned him.
That gave me the strength. That and then, finally, unexpectedly, feeling what it was like to be really loved. Realising I wasn’t too soft. I didn’t need to change. I was good enough – as I was. I didn’t have to act. I didn’t have to fit anyone’s mould other than my own. I was loveable.
I can’t say how freeing that was – that realisation. That I was worthy of being loved and that love wasn’t what I had been led to believe it was over the last decade. Love could be all I hoped it would be.
So I have a secret smile, but if he asked me what the status was about, which he would – he always did – I’d lie.
I’d become quite adept at lying.
Anybody looking in would think I was ridiculously happy.
I wasn’t. But I would be.