Blast from the past....

I have been lost.

I have had things inside my head for years and years, that swim round, surging into my consciousness whether I want them to or not.

It started with trains.

I have an absurd fear of trains, not so much being on a train, just the sound.

When I lived in London, I'd have to face away from the tube platform as the sound, the speed and the noise made me feel sick..

Now when I'm in London, I just burrow my head into Sarah's shoulder, because of course, she knows this strange fear of mine and she knows where it stems from.

My delightful birth mother, a woman who had chance after chance, with child after child, decided on one her failed attempts at relieving herself of her children, that the easiest course of action would be to leave my brother and I at Crewe train station as she fled as far and as fast as she could.

Not many people know that. At least not anyone outside of the special few who have read the child course records regarding my early years. Its like Stephen Kings books piled ontop of one another, horror after horror, but the more I think about it, the more I realise, it brought me here.

I said to Sarah on the way into London last weekend, it's a city of ghosts for me. From running away from home and ending up in a brothel on the north circular to cocaine fuelled nights in Kensington houses. To say I've been there and done that, would be an understatement.

The city draws me back. To find answers. To understand who I am and why I have lived the life I have.

I lived in fear. That I was destined to end up like Bridie. A sad story of a woman with everyone else to blame except me. That my decisions were the result of things out of my control. But thats just not true.

We make our own choices, no matter how distorted a place they come from. Whether they are right or wrong is irrelevant, it is our ability to stand by them and understand them that makes us human. That makes us honest.

Thats something she could never be. Honest. Honest about who she is. Why she is and how she came to be.

My big sisters baby shower.

I was late. I entered a room full of faces, all looking at me as if they knew me, like I had only been gone 5 minutes and it dawned on me that these women, did know me. I just had no idea who they were.

My Aunty Mary gave me a photo, the first ever photo I have ever seen in my 27 years on this earth, a photo I have craved all my life - a baby photo. Me. The day I was born. How much I weighed. What time. It was incredible. I will treasure it forever.

It made me cry. I can't look at it now as I will get tearful.

My beautiful Aunty Maggie, across the table from me, caught my eye when I was staring at the photo. We don't cry in the Barker family, its weak. Especially not in public. Let alone a room full of strangers.

But I had to. It was overwhelming. And as soon as one tear fell on my face, I was surrounded by family. Thats new!

I met aunties and uncles and cousins and siblings.

A loving family. Close. Caring.

So what happened?

Is she the ominous black sheep of Kehoe as I am of Barker?

I spent a weekend looking at people who look like me, feeling grateful, feeling peace. But I couldnt get her out of my head.

Surely when you have a family reunion of this magnitude, its mother and father you run to first. To ask all the questions you have in your heart.

I can't do that.

The mother is locked up quite rightly in a place she deserves to be and the father, should he have any sense is as far away from me finding him as he could ever be.

Monsters.

What was I to be?

The nature or the nurture?

With lack of nurture, it seems destined to be nature that wins out.

My grandmother described Bridie as a compulsive liar - snap?

That she lives in fantasy land where she may even believe what she says to be true?

I've been there, I've lived that. It's been 20 years of my life in la la land where Fran is right and the world is wrong. So we are not so different.

But I changed.

I chose the right path

The honest path

The path that leads to love and a future and happiness.

Why didn't she?

Why did she have Donna? My beautiful big sister, who I spent most of my weekend just in awe of, pregnant, happy, loved, I was overwhelmed just looking at her.

Bright eyes, high cheek bones.

Shes me and I am her. We just spent two decades apart.

Her love. Roger. The most incredible man I've ever met. Such kindness. The gentle giant. He's her salvation as Sarah is mine. I spent a weekend looking at them, together, in love and I thought, you've made it. You've escaped it. The past and the ghosts and the crazy mother, the baby girl you are about to have will be so loved that none of it will ever matter. Not anymore.

Looking at Donna, I see everything I want to be.

Happy. Loved. Family.

The weekend in London opened as many doors as it closed.

Aunties that are blonde, aunties that are brunette.

Some look like Bridie. Some don't.

Some talk about her. Some don't.

Why would you?

I asked about Wayne. Nobody knows.

It seems he cemented her downfall.

But no mother, no real mother could ever allow such things to happen.

There seems a lot of sad faces and a lot of excuses.

I don't do excuses anymore.

She chose her path. With alcohol and drugs aplenty.

She had a family who could have saved her.

She chose not to let them.

She chose Wayne. She chose his vulgar activities and friends.

She chose to throw her life away and compounded that in taking someone elses.

Meeting my older brother, there is so much of Jay in his face. That made me even a little sad.

My stupidly naive little brother, parading through this family revelation like some sort of flight of fancy.

Having spent a lifetime denying its very existence, crucifying me for acknowledging it, wanting it, needing it and then waltzing on through it all once I gave him all the answers.

Nothing new there then! Always given, never earned.

Nieces. Beautiful beautiful nieces. With freckles and cheekbones. Beautiful hazel eyes. Like me. Like looking in a mirror. They sat opposite me eating their meal in fascination. Who was I. Why did I look so much like them. Like Donna. Like Edward. But as children, taking the news of Aunty Fran in their stride.

I have been blessed with a beautiful family, and feel very lucky and honoured to finally found them.

What a weekend.

Upon my return to Manchester, I emailed my dad. I missed him. But still harbouring anger and resentment for hiding all this from me for so long.

I told him I loved him and I missed him. Where I had been. How important it had been for me. That I felt happy, I felt peace.

I'm yet to receive a reply.

So here I am, a week on from meeting my incredible family. I'm on the road to recovery. I really really think this is the start of healing. Of learning. And of becoming a better person.

It's time to let go....