Little cherry dress

She loved me once.
My mother.
She did.
She fell so in love with me, as I did her. The day we met. I'll never forget it. She can let me go, she can loose touch and watch me fade away, but for me, forever, she will be Christine Barker, my mother, who's heart I broke. But the only woman to truly break mine.

I don't think I know what love is, not really. It's always been masquerading as need, as acting out of fear of loneliness, to not be wandering in the dark, all alone.
I worry, I don't have it in me, to understand feelings, to understand other peoples hearts. My lack of empathy throughout my life has inhibited the need and purpose of saying "I'm sorry," - it's always a mechanism. It's what people say when they see tears, when they see hurt, they say sorry.
I've said sorry so many times in my life, I thought it had lost meaning; the fact of the matter is, it never had any in the first place. I never understood why people got upset by the things that I did, the things that I said. I always thought it was their weakness and vulnerability of emotion that allowed me to be so destructive.

Why are you crying? I would sit and think.
It's not the end of the world? Is it?
Do you really know what pain is? Because this is temporary and you get it for a moment of two.
Selfish being, oh silly silly you.
Push push push, and I destroy whoever was first in line.

So I suppose in that we are similar, because I have never seen her cry.
I don't know if she does.
Does she sit at home and see a bedroom I once occupied and cry? The loss of her daughter, her one true love, once upon a time.
Because I sit, surrounded by memories and keep sakes I salvaged.
Daisy duck sits pride of place on my 29 year old me grown up bed.
A small piece of my heart. She has chocolate on her ear, because I was always a greedy kid.
I dare not wash her, because she would loose that memory, that piece of me.

There's the box of stuff my dad dropped off, a mish-mash of the life I had before.
It's me.

There are 60 wine labels rattling around the bottom, I collected them year after year. You guys drink too much!
There are keyrings, from school years, badges, beer mats. I collect like a magpie. I still do.
I attach meaning to strange things. Sarah and I have a collection of receipts, acorns, leaves, obscure nik-naks.

I search through the boxes he gave me, there are photos of us 4, smiling at the camera, theres cake. No surprise there.

Does she love me? Like I love her.
People fall out of love all the time, they switch from love to hate.
Maybe thats what we are now. Enemies of this sorry state.

On Sunday, just gone, I met a woman who knew me, when my story began.
She knew me as the cute, blonde, cockney twanged, little Fran.

I asked her if she thought I was broken, even back then.
She said, no, despite all the horror, I was a kind and loving girl.
With my brother as my soul mate, I was Fran, Jay's little mother hen.

And then she said something that made me laugh out loud.
You are the little girl who was always "fine"
You would fall down, hurt yourself and then get straight back up, hide your pain, and I'd ask you,
Fran Fran come here sweetheart are you ok? And you'd rub yourself down and say "I'm fine," "I'm fine," and be on your way.

Then a beautiful man who cared for me so well back then, Jed, he said something I'm half tempted to get as a tattoo

"You are the little girl who always had tears behind her eyes, but would never ever let them fall,"

This is a man who knew me when I was 3.
Just 3. A little, little girl.
So broken. So lost. Looking for a new mummy and daddy and a bright new world.

And off we rode into the sunset, little brother and me.
To Cheshire, to happiness, to the big house, the mum and dad and the world at our feet.

I lost them.
They lost me.
And my heart breaks wondering why.

Nothing is unforgivable.
Nothing that can't be undone with the right foot forward, an apology and actions that speak louder than words.

I asked my foster carer if she thought my mum loved me.
She said yes, that she was head of heels at the thought of a little girl.
She was scared to be a mother, she was scared it wouldn't work.
Maybe she knew back then, we'd clash, smash and break each other apart.
She'd break mine, and I'd break her heart.

She gave me a photo, of me, in a little cherry dress, with a silly white hat, the epitomy of what a little girl should be, if you had to pick one from a crowd.
That was me. Perfectly blonde, loud, happy go lucky.

That's the dress, the one that made her fall in love.
I asked her if she would be mine, asked her if she wanted to be my mummy.
That is the only tear I have seen, in this long long 29 years.
Just one, a happy one, as she said yes.

Just a little girl, but I'll never forget.
We loved eachother once. A long time ago.

But we clashed, from day one. It's a strange thing.
I was moderately threatening, with my territorial love of the only love in my life, Jay, he was mine, and I was his, until the end of time. If he would fall, he would come running - to me.
The only word he would speak was my name, Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnn, screamed at the top of his lungs and then just a little giggle, wanting nothing but a look.

The first time he ran to her, it broke my heart, I didn't understand why, or how.
She tells the story, about how I was a little devil, and that it was then she knew I would be trouble.
As she comforted my brother, I bit her. Right on the boob.
She never forgot it. She never let me forget either.

It's 2016, and even I can see why.
She never understood me, or why I did what I did, or was who I was. She never tried to.
We never talked, we never hugged, I've never said I love you, and nor has she.
Is that what parents and daughters do? Because it's lost on me.

Why am I mourning the loss of a woman I never had?
And if I got her back, what would that even mean?
So we could go on and exchange cordialities, and menial conversations, about work, weather and nothing more.

I think I'm the girl in the little cherry dress, waiting for a mummy, full of hope and heart, and it just doesn't come.

Did she get more than she bargained for? Was she right to keep me at arms length? Because I can wallow in self pity and blame it all on her and not me, but I know who I am, I know what I did, I know I was wrong, but I know that love is deeper than any of that. That there's no lie to great, no hurtful word too strong, to say forgive me, I love you, I don't want this anymore.

Driving to meet my foster parents, I spoke with Sarah in the car and I asked if she remembered how my mum looked at me at my grandmas funeral, she said its something she would never forget and it occurred to me, I do not remember a moment in the past 10 years where my mum has looked at me any other way.
She looks at me with disappointment, frustration, resentment, that she wasted her life on something so pointless.
She looks right through me, like I'm a stranger, like a homeless person she passes so easily on the street.
And I sat there, in the car, zooming down the motorway, racking my brains, trying desperately a time where my mother had looked at me with love, with pride, with hope, as a mother does.
And I sat, and sat, and the memories did not come to me.
Because they don't exist.

Why would you work so hard to have children?
Why would you search out the right ones for you?
Go through the processes to become parents?
Only to give up half way through?

Yeah, I cost them a shit load of money, with private schools and holidays and I never ever went without, I was so fortunate, I was blessed, but I would give all of it back.
Every fucking handbag, every ponsey dress, every skiing holiday, all of it.
I hate that thats all I have to remember them by, memories of bullshit.
Holidays with people who wont even say my name, with friends who were supposed to love me just the same.
There are people I've grown up with, who won't even look me in the fact. Who ignore my very existence and go with the mainstream view - that it's me, the destroyer, who brought a world of pain, of shame, fire burning down on my perfect family.

Well they are now.
Just those 3.
My mum made that pretty clear when she introduced her son to strangers, stood right next to me.
She doesn't have a daughter, someone once said to me.
"Christine Barker? I didn't even know she had a daughter,"
It cut me like a knife.

I once sat in the hairdressers chair and a neighbour who had known me since I was 8 years old sat in the chair next to me, she asked how I was, because I wasn't listed on the Barker christmas card anymore.
Erased.
No photos.
No christmas card name signed from Christine, Kevin, Francesca and James.
Now its just three names.

I suppose thats how it should be, after all this time.
She got the family she always wanted.
A husband and a baby.
I've lost count of the times shes told me it was buy one get one free.
That the adoption people wouldn't split us up, but hey everyone needs a consolation prize.

I feel the rage rising, the resentment and the pain. And if she ever read this blog, she would laugh out loud, at my wallow and say "my god you haven't changed"

And I suppose shes right in a way.

Sunday showed me one thing - that if I could go back in time and understand what love is, it's all I would have wanted in the world.
The hugs, that talks, the "how was your day"
The "whos the new boyfriend, girlfriend"
The sex talk, the girl talk, I didn't even know what a period was.
I don't want the best friend mum thing, that kind of creeps me out, but I want a woman who knows me, and loves me no matter what.

Because actually, despite the shit storms, I someone to proud of.
I'm someone to say "she's my daughter" with a smile on her face.

I know that when the time comes and Sarah and I have the chance, no child on this earth will be more loved and adored.

She did what she thought was best, there is no doubt about that.
And I'm not shaming her for giving up on me, I'm just highlighting that I never would.