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Thursday 24 November 2011

Conflict.


[The Little Golden Book - 23/11/11]

I'm not really one for staying in bed or not wanting to get up. I'm an early bird.
I like to get up, open my curtains, observe the weather and greet the brand new day with open arms.
But that's kind of hard when the sound that you woke up to was your parents arguing.
It's hard to greet the day with a smile when it's already filled with conflict.
I don't want to go downstairs and risk becoming part of it.
I'm self destructive, but not that much. Not today, anyway.

I guess I have to remind myself that it's better than it used to be.
It's all too familiar though. I don't remember a whole lot of my childhood, but the sound
and memory of my parents arguing is the clearest memory of all.

Every night my mother would take me up to bed, read me a story and sit on the end of the bed
until I fell to sleep.
But if she was having one of the many arguments with my father, she would send me upstairs and
I would wait. When she eventually got round to me, it wouldn't be the same.
Too young to understand why, but old enough to know something was wrong.

They tried their hardest to shield me from the conflict. As a kid I went around knowing and telling
everyone my parents never argued. I was proud. But it was all a lie.
They could only hide it for so long. I got older, I listened, I noticed.
I got used to the sound of conflict.
I grew up and referred to my house as a 'war zone' because that was the way it felt.

Is it any wonder I hate arguments? That conflict gives me a heavy heart...
Now I'm the one pretending. And hiding.
Sure, it's better now. They have stupid, petty arguments rather than hateful, destructive ones.
But it's still conflict.
And an all too familiar scene...
Just like back then. Always sitting in my bedroom, waiting for the battle to end.
But searching for my own shield this time.

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