MORNING SERIAL
I HAD to get through exams and make choices about what I would do next, but my springboard into adulthood had collapsed along with my parents’ marriage.
I knew I needed to get away and find somewhere I belonged.
There was a long low point in our relationship that began around the time I left home and moved to England at 16.
I lost my mother then. Initially the schism had happened partly by my own doing: once I had got free of the nest I realised that I needed to create my own world which would feel wholesome and be inhabited by people I liked and trusted.
I needed to heal some wounds and sort myself out.
My parents became peripheral characters.
I didn’t consciously shut them out, but I did make a safe haven for myself.
I was not sure what they knew about me or my life.
I expected very little from them and they didn’t disappoint me
We were getting on with our own lives. My gran died. Mum had met a new man she really loved and who loved her.
When we did spend time together on my occasional visits, it led to disappointment.
Mum expected that I should be not only off her hands, but also cheerful and self-sufficient.
I put on a good show of managing my own life but in fact I was in turmoil and I still needed her in some way.
By chance my partner and I moved back to my home patch in my early twenties. I was pregnant and Mum and I became closer.
She bonded with her first grandchild, helped out, and was still around two years later, when my son was born.
Then things got sticky again. She was busy with other things and I felt overwhelmed and isolated.
I had expectations that she would be more supportive than she was able or willing to be.
Perhaps I failed to tell her how much I needed her for fear I might feel rejected.
It felt as though she disappeared again.
Sometimes my mum admitted openly that she had not been a very good mother.
> Scrabble in the Afternoon by Biddy Wells is published by Parthian at £8.99.
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