Puppies at the pound

I have pondered, for some time now, whether or not I will make a good mother.

But more than that, I have wondered, what it is to be a good mother.

I look at my life and the two versions I had, and the first, the less said the better and the second, even more so.

So truly, it scares me, to know myself, who I am and what I am capable of, to think, I could be that version of me, that would be destined to disappoint and destroy.

And I suppose, ultimately, that is what lead me to the answer : yes, I will make a good mother.
The question was never, am I good person. Because good or bad, it's all about love.

Alturism and empathy are two attributes I have tangled with my entire life, yo-yoing from one extreme to the other, but somehow missing the mark and misunderstanding what it means to be either and when the chips are down, and I've bolloxed it anyway, it's usually too late to realise, to know, that you don't have to be either.

Trying to do the right thing, at the cost of doing a wrong thing, results in it being a false positive.
A negative attritbute.
For the sake of good, when the price is too high and is bad for someone, somehow, someway, regardless of intention, is too high a price too pay.

It seems I've spent parts of my life gambling with other people being the cost of my good intetions, warped by a sense of morality and just cause.

However, I seem to have summarised the knowledge and power of that in the previous sentences of this piece.

What then, would it mean for me to be a good mother?

To look only to the future and not dwell on the past? Because my baggage is a-plenty and it doesn't set down so easily, if that were true, I would have been liberated of my demons much time ago.

I think, for me to be a good mother, a good parent, is to know, with all my heart, I will never be like the ones I had.
Not a Bridie, who gives up at the first sign of trouble or misguided prioroty.
Not a Christine who can't tolerate your weaknesses as she's too hung up on seeing them as her own.

Thats the truth of it isn't it?
To take a life, and shape a life, with no impression or pressure to be anything other than loved.
Safe.

My dad keeps saying the same thing to me over and over, that for every time I step out of line, or have done in the past, I should be grateful.
That my parents did their best.
Gave me everything.
They still, in 2020 misunderstand what that means.

Don't get me wrong, I was the first to bite the hand that feeds, there's no doubt.
And bite hard and bite back I did.
Relentlessly.
But it's a parent's job to ask why.
To not assign blame or shame but to summarise solutions and shape ways forward.

I spent my entire life shrouded in guilt, shame and solititude, trapped in a world where to speak up and speak out was not allowed. That to step out and say, was ungrateful.
To have a past that haunts was shameful.
To mention whispers of pain and memory was hateful. Deceitful.

I lived in my own world by my own rules and kept myself safe in the delusion and spun the web so far and wide even I didn't know what was what.
Self preservation doesn't have to have sanity, if anything it's designed to be the exact opposite.

I've spent the past ten years of my life looking at what I did, judging the severity of my actions and I always come back to one spot - my choices were poor.
My judgement was wrong.
My actions were unkind.
And for times throughout my history where this has proved to be the case, it's because I didn't know who I was.
I didn't know what I was supposed to be.
And it came at a cost.

It's a recent affair.
To know now what I didn't know then.
I wrapped myself up in The Barker Baker cloak and that became my identity, but it was flawed and untrue and at times, unkind.
Because authenticity can't exist if you don't own it.

We have trials and tribulations ongoing that have rocked our lives to the core, where getting married to the love of my life feels like a lifetime ago, and the shortest honeymoon period on record, with car crash life events and scars that forge holes in our new life.
It's hard.
But it's happiness.

I teach my students, Maslows Hierarchy and for each time I do, I stare at that damn pyramid and know my place, know myself.

I'm close to self-actulisation whether it's a snakes and ladders game that knocks me back to square one, in my heart, I know it to be true.
It's taken my a long time to get here, but something changed in me just a few short years ago, and I can't explain it, but I found my purpose, my self, my heart.
Maybe it was always there, under the ashes of past Fran fires.

I am happy.
Truly.
Despite the ongoing sagas that threaten our existence as we know it.

I love my job.
I love that I'm still The Barker Baker in it's purest form and I get to teach, and share, and care, the way I should have done the first time round.
I love that my life has become authentic.
It's friendship.
Community.
Charity.
Love and kindness. And I am exactly who I was always meant to be.

Will I make a good mother?
Yes.
Because for every time we try and make a baby, we are one step closer to making a life, that will be so loved, so supported, that none of what's come to pass will matter.
Because for every time I look at Sarah, last thing at night or first thing in the morning, it's love.
It's unbreakable.

February came and went and Sarah looked at me, and said "Oh no, it was your brothers birthday, are you ok?"
And I looked at her, and said "Fine,"
I didn't text. I didn't call.
I didn't begrudge facebook family fun fuck wit time.
Because I didn't care.

Love can be distant, and everlasting, and for me, he will be a piece of my heart and jigsaw that shaped me as I shaped him.

The irony and the undermining feature of course, given that I'm the deceitful barker bitch, is that this entire time, my family have had another person living in their house, masquerading as the new born child.

No care to mention to me. The first born.
The one that took time care and attention to harness from the social services system in the first place.
How they let you have me on a promise of therapy and care and intervention is beyond me and continues to frustrate my brain, even today.

The fact I've sat in my classroom, locked the door and had a very ugly cry and the slightly childish notion that you have replaced me - I know, irrational and childlike, but my heart is broken.

From months of silence, to ask me to speak about my experience, of being your daughter.
You must be mad, or stupid.
Because no matter what story you've spun this time, I won't let another Fran, become another Fran.

The world does not need anymore heartache through mishapen mindsets created by you.

Take some responsibility and know that enough is enough.
Surely one is enough at your age?
Take the prodigal son and call it a day because you're not fooling anyone.

I once took my mothers hand whilst in foster care and asked her to be my mummy.
I hope poor fuck doesn't make the same mistake.
Because guess what, a puppy isn't just for Christmas, it's for life.

So stop buying shiny new things and let sleeping dogs lie.

And this child? Hopefully not with baggage like me? No abuse? No violence? No drugs? No suicides? No blood? No hate? No starvation? No neglect? No broken bones? No stolen virginities?

Let's hope not. Imagine.
A child broken by you.

But strong like me.

Terrifying