Brutal

I had the worst nights sleep for a long time last night.
Caught between nightmare after nightmare, it would have been easier to have stayed awake.

And so this morning, I'm left with the devastation and destruction my own mind has caused.

There's a tower block somewhere in Manchester that I try to avoid like the plague. When I enter the city, I choose my path wisely and make sure it stays out of my view.
Strange to live in a place that invokes such fear. Such memory.

Sarah's dad took a wrong turn with me sat in the back of the car. We parked practically outside where it happened and I had to wind down the window so as not to be sick.
I was filled with such anger.
My hand squeezed the door handle and I shut my eyes. I can't bare to look at it.

And yet, with my eyes closed its more vivid than it ever was. I retrace my steps, the lift, metal clanging, creaking to the dreaded floor, take a left and there's the door. Bright red, number x and it will forever be the door that closed behind me. Locked behind me. The door that wouldn't let me out.

My dreams last night were like rewinding time, seeing it all through fresh eyes, like my brain was telling me not to forget.
So vivid. Sounds. Smells. Reliving history.

The door closes and I see the look in his eyes change, to danger, to smugness, and I realise I'm in trouble, make my excuses to go back to my friends, his friends, and put my hand on the door. He puts his hand on the door and says with a laugh “I don't think so”

So then I know what's about to happen and my brain overloads looking at windows, doors, weapons?
We are so high up even if I tried I wouldn't be able to.

It's strange how dreams can take you back in time, sometimes it's a blessing. Last night was a curse.

I have to exorcise this. I woke feeling sick this morning. With tears on my cheek. My fingernails imprinted on my own palms. The fear rocked through from subconscious to conscious and I'm having a wobble.

That day destroyed any chance of me understanding who I was. Thankfully enough time has passed for the wounds to heal and for me to piece my life back together.
But that day set in motion my destructive choices.

I loved those jeans. My brother had the same pair.
River Island, with a woman's silhouette painted down one leg.
In the days of being a size 12, I went out in those jeans and a blazer with just a bra.
Feeling pretty fucking hot. Hitting up the gay bars with my friends.

Ive never been able to feel that way since.
Certainly never strived to look that way again.
I gave up.

I can't even look at myself today, I feel like I could burst into tears from searing memories.
For days I had grazes on my cheek, burnt against the carpet, made to look at it all take place.
The day after my jeans were so torn they were barely worth clinging onto, blood, knees bleeding, elbows, barely able to stand.
I saw myself in the smashed mirror that had been my front row seat the night before, beaten, bloodied but set free.
I stared at myself in that mirror last night.

I sat in a bath and the colour changing to red and I washed.

And that was the end of it.

My dreams shifted last night from one horror to another.

From the monster to the pretender; a girl I thought I loved, my cocaine partner in crime, a relationship fuelled on fantasy and white powder.
She was angry. Frustrated with me for saying no to her latest flight of fancy. One hit. Two hits. Three. I hit the floor, wiping the blood from my lips.

And it became apparent, these destructions are part of who I am. From day one. To now.

Love?
No.

Dragged to the bathroom to “clean myself up” – she said I was s mess and as I reached for the cloth my face smashed against the toilet bowl, on my knees again, blood pouring. Tears pouring. I lay on the bathroom floor and closed the door.

So this is who I am
This is all my worth.
This is what I am to become.

I can't let you close. Because You're too delicate
You might break.

I wake.
Feeling sick.
Feeling loss.

I didn't realise how much I needed you until just now.

Are you proud?

Today will be a day I remember for the rest of my life.....

My work and my vision will be shared with more people than I ever thought possible as the BBC air a film about my workshops and the work I do.

Sometimes I have to sit back and pinch myself.

On February 8th 2013 as you know, I was convicted of Fraud in the Crown Court in Manchester.

The most damning and demoralising day of my life. Where I stood in a room full of people, in the dock, bag packed, next to my feet, looking the judge in the eyes as she read out what my fate was to be.

I almost ruined my life. Not to mention the damage I caused along the way, with lies and bullshit a plenty, drugs and prostitution and a life of shame that leaves me wondering whether I dreamt it all as it is a million miles away from the life I have today, from the person I am today.

I have grown. I have learned. It's a work in progress and always will be. Rehabilitation is a lifetimes work, undoing the bad habits, undoing the things you did wrong, and trying to piece yourself and your mistakes back together.

I could make it my life's work to right every wrong I did but I fear it would be a task that would take me forever, as there is only so many times you can say your sorry, only so hard you can work to make things better.

So instead?

I put my effort, my heart, my passion and my mind into something much more worthwhile. Helping other people, just like me, who don't know how to make the change and to make it better.

It's simple.

Just but a little selfish. Put all your effort into fixing you. Into understand you. Into working hard to be the best you can be. No-one can fault you for that.

Feel pride. Feel hope. See a future. Build a future. Then you can give back what you took, through every positive step that you take, by promising to make good, to do good. That is the punishment, that is the life lesson, that is the rehabilitation.

My rehabilitation has spanned from drugs to lies, to paying back thousands of pounds, to not having a pot to piss in and living with nothing and still feeling like I have everything.

Why?

Because I'm loved.

I feel love. I deserve love and that's something I've never been able to understand.

Years spent lashing out at a world I didn't think understood me, that wouldn't love me, want me, need me. That all I was good for was a price on my head, in my bed or up my nose. Always wanting to have value but being completely without worth.

There is a fine line.

I am reborn. I am Francesca. I am proud. I am work in progress and very very OK with that.

I have a job that brings people I would never normally meet, never normally interact with, right into my life, into my kitchen, into my work and I love it.

You will never find more honesty than in the faces of people who are desperate to be...better.

You will never find more disappointment in the faces of people who are desperate to be.. someone else.

My star baker, as you will see tonight, is a woman called Michelle. I looked into her eyes and saw me, two years ago.

Wondering what the hell she is doing in a kitchen, baking bread.

Why bother?

What the bloody hell is making a loaf of bread going to do for me?

Well tonight you will see exactly what making that loaf of bread does for people.

We find ourselves a little lost and in a room full of lost people, we put our hands in bowls of flour, together, skin on skin, and we bake, and we laugh, and its disastorous, it messy, its funny, its pure.

We break down boundaries and share our stories of where we come from, why we are there, what we did, how we feel, and we bake.

We knead, we shape, we proof, we drink tea, we smoke cigerettes, we laugh.

We bake together. We clean together, For a day, for an hour or five, we are a team and we are not lost. We are great.

I put my hand on Michelle's shoulder when she was making her white dough and I lent over and said "Michelle, that looks great, really proud of you, you are doing a great job"

The workshop carried on, as they always do, different places, different people. all the same.

Tea break, Michelle comes over to me and says "Did you mean it Francesca?" 

I say "Did I mean what?"

"That you are proud of me?"

I looked this woman in the face and said "It honestly doesn't matter if I say I'm proud of you, even though I am, all that matters is that you are proud of yourself, are you?"

She laughed with a tear in her eye and said "Yeah, I am actually, I really am"

That my friends is mission accomplished and that is why as my star baker of the day I decided to change things up a little and invite Michelle to come and do work experience with me, because sometimes all we need is someone to say what we can't see - that you are doing a great job, you are working hard, you are tenacious and brave and facing your demons and your past, present and future alone is the hardest thing you will ever have to do, but you can, and you will.

And if she needs reminding, I will have my foot firmly up her arse to make sure she believes it!

There will always be people who don't believe, you will always be the boy who cried wolf, because you put your own noose around your neck with the choices you made, the lies that you told. Thats the burden of bad decisions.

For me, there was a day, sat in a room with my probation officer, where she looked me in the eye and said that Greater Manchester Probation Service weren't going to print the article they had written about how much I had enjoyed my bread course and how I wanted to start my own business.

Why?

Because I was liability. I was a liar and that nobody believed I would actually do it.

A woman from a mental health group who almost derailed all of my progress, looked me in the eye and said "Fran, you are the boy who cried wolf, documented in court case files that say you are a compulsive liar. This bakery business is a fantasy of yours, nothing more. Nothing will come of it. You know that and I know that. Now stop it with this silliness. It's boring. Just accept what you are"

I'll never forget it. I walked out of that place right there and then, screaming with rage and a broken heart. Was that my fate? To be branded? To be doubted? To be left to fend for myself in fantasy land? With no help or hope to nurture the good in me?

So I ran with those words burning in my mind, and I built this beautiful vehicle for change, with the mantra of #positivesovernegatives

Because no-one is a lost cause. No-one is without HOPE (read between the lines my friends)

Because everyone has the ability to do good, to be good and to build a better life.

Welcome to my world, I am The Barker Baker, and I will remember that until the day I die, everything I have done to this day and until my last, I will feel proud for, proud of.

I am a strong, intelligent HONEST woman and nothing will stand in the way of my dreams and my hopes to bring about a dramatic upheaval in offender rehabilitation.

To that woman, you are a fool. The people you are supposed to save, you let wallow, let slip away, through the cracks in the system. I could have thrown it all away that day. So thank you, for making me see exactly what I feared most, that narrow minded fools are the most dangerous people in this world. Not the criminals. The foolish.

So, I am blessed.

With a job I love.

With the people I meet.

With the friends I have.

With the girl I adore.

I hope tonight's film shows you all of that <3

Thank you guys, you've made me..... me.

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....

Mothers Day

When writing this, I was listening to songs I listened to as a teenager, sat crossed legged, on my bed, in my parents house, wondering why we weren't connected the way we should have been. Today I'm 27 and I'm learning its OK to be apart, because we shared a journey and now I'm living my own. It doesn't stop it hurting any less.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9WIM2zZ2nI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMt3_p04XaQ

I didn't send your card this year,
And I'm sat here thinking I did the wrong thing,
I should always put that card in the post,
Through that door,
Whatever it takes for it to find you.
Even if I can't do the same.

Should, should, should, should.
Would, would, would, would.
What is about you that brings out the "if only's" in me
I'm just fine the way I am.
I'm fine with the choices I've made,
The right and the wrong
They all brought me here
And that's perfect.
Because here is where I was always meant to be.

I've ripped my hair out, my heart out,
Torn my tongue out, shut up, screamed out, shouted out.
Love me, love me.
Why won't you?
Why don't you?
20 years of wasted emotion and a love lost on an ocean,
Because we won't find eachother,
We won't spend another Sunday like today in the same room,
Because every day I'm dead and buried,
Like someone who died a long time ago,
And I sit, in moments of silence, on Sundays, Mondays,
Christmases and birthdays.
My heart looks for you,
Like a text will get a reply,
That every word you hear me say isn't received as a lie.
Because I'm the daughter of a past life,
That you let go and let die.

It's a strange place to be,
Yesterday I found myself in hysteria for no reason at all,
I got caught up in the loss of you,
I felt my heart break inside my chest,
And I let it all go and crashed to the floor.
My knees hit the carpet of my lovely new home,
All I wanted to do was call you and say "I'm home"
And then it hit me harder than the fall,
Home will never be at your door,

I won't get to hear about the right way to the plump cushions on the bed,
Even if I do the exact same thing here
I won't get to hear any of it.
Because you just don't talk.

You come close to death,
And I hear it through the grapevine
I rush as fast as I can to the place I think you'll be,
I wait in the shadows, outcast, cast out,
Hoping to catch a glimpse of you,
God I want you to be OK,
I sneak gifts of diet coke and sponges to the receptionist,
I sneak peaks at whether you come and go,
Because I can't leap out and squeeze you like I need to.
This is a life. Hiding in a waiting room.
Trying to find out if the love of my life is dead or alive.
Would I even get to know that?

The day I came out of court,
My day of reckoning,
I was at my lowest ever point,
And then I bumped into you,
And the knife was plunged a little deeper.
In a court room, I was judged for an hour out of a day.
Given my life to make it right, and to pay,
But one look from you and it came flooding back,
The punishment, the resentment, the bitterness and the hate,
You looked at me with such disappointment,
It made the judge look like a happy clown.
Only you have the power to knock me further down.

I tricked myself you were there to see me,
To make sure I was OK.
That it wasn't worse case scenario and I didn't get sent away.
But you weren't.
You'd been to lunch
You were hob-knobbing on the street,
Having a chit-chat, obvlivious to your daughter,
Suited and booted and standing across the street,
Crossing traffic to get to you,
To reach out, in false hope,
And you turn and say, after years of silence,
With such disdain and exasperation
"Oh dear, they let you go,"

So mother dearest, Happy Mothers Day
I'm sure you will have a great one
Because you will spend it in your little land of Barker,
Where nothing bad ever happens
And the world is never darker,
Not now I'm out of the picture,
And I only seep into your life through Christmas cards
And Mothers Day texts.
You will forever be, my biggest regret.
I wanted to hold onto you,
For all of time,
To call you mummy, to call you mine,
But we are just not those kind of people,
We are meant to live apart,
Or I wouldn't be on this path,
And there would be space for me in your heart.

I love you.
Happy Mother's Day

International Womens Day 2015

This time last year, a beautiful lady and friend of mine wrote a little piece about me in her epic blog (http://ginfuelledbluestocking.co.uk/international-womens-day-inspiring-women/) and since she wrote those lovely words a lot has changed in my life.
When a woman like that see's the good in you, the potential and the hope, you know you are on the right track, even if you went the ass-backwards way of getting there!
Charlie, it's been a year. I've worked my socks off. Won two awards. Taught over 60 workshops. Talked at events all over the country sharing my story. And if I didn't have people like you, Debs, and a few other stars tucked away in the side lines spurring me on, it would have taken me a long time to realise that everything I want is entirely possible, because I can make it so!


So. A year ago.

I almost lost it all. Again.
For the sake of the money that lead me here, the money I stole and squandered. The thief, the fraudster, the druggie and the whore.
I've had a lot of names, I've been a lot of people, but who I am today is the girl who was fighting throughout it all, shinning, in dark spaces and horrors of places, I was in there. Glimmers of hope trying to rise to the surface, but too overshadowed by the sorrow, the wallow, the pessimism, the anger and the hate.
So a free bird becomes a new bird, and I let it all go.... The anger that bubbles within me, like a volcano that just won't go out, there's a constant danger that it will rise up in me and destroy everything that stands tall. But I won't ever let that happen.. Not anymore.

When you have lived a life like I have and you've covered emotions over, papered up every single crack, you slapped on a fake smile and never shed a tear, because emotions are just weakness, that how I have lived all these years.

This week I opened up the ultimate pandora's box, the box that came before the box, the box that pre-dates Barker fucks ups, fights, and losses.
I opened up the Kehoe files and had a peek inside.
For the first time in my life, I have photos of the woman I thought I might be. I have photos of the monster that lurks somewhere deep inside. And she is beautiful, but you can see shes lost with no way back.
Is that what my photos look like? Smiles on the outside, gone forever on the inside?
I was so scared that everything in me was her. Our mental health disorder. Our drug addictions. Our promiscuous nature, the eternal whore. The broken families. The broken minds. The self pity and the anger. But I'm not.
I'm Francesca BARKER, and whether they love or hate me, they gave me more. The bridges burnt between us showed me how strong I have to be, to live this life, eternal, with no love from a family.
I have lost two mothers in my lifetime and I don't know if either loved me at all. They both let me go. Like I was nothing. Like I don't even exist anymore.
I can't live like that.
With empty spaces and memories. I love them both. And I will fight for them.

International Womens Day, I celebrate two very different women. Both who made me who I am.

There is Mrs Barker, the first woman I ever fell in love with. Blonde hair, eyes just like mine, the day I met her it was like a fairytale playing out before me.
White Mercedes pulls up, wind in her hair, she steps out, flawless. I knew she was the one. So I asked her. Blunt as I have always been; I asked her if she would be my mummy. And she said yes.

We have had moments of bliss in the 22 years we spent together, where shes been my mummy and I've been her Fran, we've made summer puddings, we've plaited hair, we've had moments where we love each other and I've thought she will always be there.
It will be a sunny Sunday, she is sat on the big leather sofa she dragged us around DFS for hours just to buy and shes drinking tea, a pot. Laid out on the table. Like the queen is chilling out on the other sofa across the room. Newspaper in hand, shes pensive. The intelligent woman. Shes thinking. And then she says into the silence "Pick up a bargain? 8 letters"
She will look at me for the answer, because she knows our common love is knowledge and we are both the brains of the family and always have been.
I look at her, thinking.
She asks me to sit, but says to grab a pencil. And there we stay until the bitter end, when its just 4 down to go, and we are human and we are love. And she is perfect. We both are, for a few moments in time.

It's Wigan A and E, I've shattered my ankle, it's horrendous and I've never felt such pain.
She rushes to me, down the M6, for-goes the Thursday night manicure to be at my side.
I'm off my tits on morphiene and take her hand in mine.
"Mummy your nails look beautiful"
She laughs, with tears in her eyes and says "Oh I do love you you know"
I'm obviously overdosing and have misheard this illusion and exclaim to the whole ward "Fuck me, someone break the other leg just so I can hear that again"

And so we are broken, like the ankle. Horrendous and I've never felt such pain.
I love her, and I've hurt her, and she's hurt me, but shes my mum and thats a love affair that will never end. I will never give up the hope she will see me, her daughter, as the girl she loved once, as the girl she was hoping for.

Mrs Barker, the incredibly brave but incredibly stupid woman. Determined to stand by her choice. Determined to prove I'm nothing like her.
I still do the Times crossword, on the sofa, on a Sunday, with a cup of tea and I bet so does she.

Bridie.
Where does one start.
My mother. By blood. By the lovely gifts of genetics. A legacy of utter crazy.
I've spent my whole life wondering who she is, what she is like, why she abandoned us, why she let bad things happen to me.
I've been angry. But I've been sad.
I've never understood how she got so lost.
Until I was that lost.
I faced the blackhole and turned my back on it before it sucked me in and kept me there.
She didn't.
She walked right into it and made it her home.

So why am I writing about her on International Womens Day, a day for inspiring women?
Having met my beautiful older sister this week, I came to understand a few things. Things I have been grappling with my whole life.
You reach a point on the road to destruction where there is no turning back, because even if you wanted to, the guilt of it all would devour you.
I had a small taste of that with my colossal fuck up. The guilt of it all still haunts me. Keeps me awake at night. Makes me doubt myself and my choices. I second guess everything that I do and check and double check to make sure I've got it right, so there can be no margin for error or bad choices.
Imagine the guilt lingering in the mind of a woman who lost herself, lost her children, lost her freedom and caused the loss of another humans life?
Overwhelming and never ending I should imagine.
There is no greater punishment in the world, than that of self-punishment. No prison sentence, no rehab, no mental health intervention that can make you feel so guilty and so remorseful than your own conscience.

Upon hearing about her progress and her fight against her wrongs, I was proud. That even a woman so destroyed has found a glimmer of hope and understanding that no matter how great the wrong, there is always a way back. She can't give back what she took, not like I could. She can't give me and my sister and older brother back our childhoods and the repair the damage she caused.
But she can live a life understanding what she did and taking responsibility for it.

SO

I have two mothers in my life. One is a brilliant woman, with a heart I can't thaw and one is a broken woman, who is trying to be a better person.
I respect both. I admire both. And that's just plain odd.

As for my third mother, well - the mother-in-law, now there is a woman International Womens Day is all about, she is strong and she in kind, she is loving and she is honest, she cares for me in a way that sees my past and see my future and she supports every part of it.
A true gem <3


Today is about great women.

We all are

Long Lost little girls in London

So, yesterday will be remembered for a long time to come.
I met my sister.
How's that for your average Tuesday?

On Friday 27th February, I won an award, award number two in the short space of 6 months. Epic.

On Friday 27th February, I found out my long lost relatives had been searching for me for over 20 years.
And I found them.
We found eachother.
And yesterday my big sister (still weird to say it) travelled from London to Manchester, whilst 6 months pregnant with her incredible other half to meet me, to stay with me and to have a conversation with me that we've both been waiting for our entire lives.

She looks like me. Shes the beautiful version, with big, kind eyes and pretty hair. When your a lost little girl, you fantasize about families. Big sisters, little brothers, mummy's and daddy's and babies and pets. Big houses and cars, and holidays. School, friends, love.

I've been the lost little girl living in fantasy land for over 20 years and yesterday parts of me fell into place.
Like looking in a mirror and for the first time realising, I'm just fine. Me, Francesca Barker - perfectly OK to be just me.

This is a woman who lived a life like me on paper, with a sadness behind the beautiful eyes that only I would recognise, because I have the exact same look. It's the "I'm smiling but I'm broken" look.
You learn to perfect such a thing after years of practice. And yesterday, we both had that look.

I was worried. What to do, what to say. what to wear. I spent hours with Sarah turning our little house in the country into a palace, fluffing cushions, hoovering like a cleaner on crack, brushing the cat so even he was on top form to meet my long lost relative.
Sheer insanity. But when mad meets mad, that turns out, normal.

Donna Kehoe, daughter of Bridie Kehoe, my older sister. A girl lost in time.
We have one big difference, she tried to save our mother from the demons that took her, from the life she let slip away, and she failed, because the sad truth is, some people just don't want to be saved.
I found myself glad to hear about her, out of prison, in a hospital, cared for, caring for herself, something I would never have expected in a million years. I have hated this woman for a long time, resentful she would let such horrors happen to me, that she would let me be passed around by my father and his friends, such anger. Harboured for such a long time.
Horrors trapped in a little girls mind and growing stronger every day. Horrors never spoken about and certainly never fixed.
So yesterday opened up pandora's box. Anger. Like I've never felt it.
Anger at my parents. They adopted a girl who had been passed around like Christmas, so broken and bruised, at the age of 4, there was no coming back. At the age of 4, Francesca Barker was the whore she turned out to be at 20 something.
The worst of it? My parents had been communicating with my birth mother every step of the way. Whilst I was living in middle class surburbia with a broken heart and a broken mind with 101 questions to ask and no answers given, they were sending photos and updates and whats more, they were getting letters and photos back.
My brother had the luxury of sitting down with my mum and dad with a box full of memories, photos, letters, stories and truths. He got to learn, in the safety of my parents arms, that his sister was a plaything passed from pillar to post and that was probably why she had ended up in a crown court room and due to go to prison - just like her real mother.
Such anger.
I have struggled all morning between being the girl I have become, the honest, hard working, positive and optimistic human being I am proud to have become. I am brave and I am kind, I am guilt ridden and I am broken. But I am happy. I am in love. I am loved and most of all, I am lucky.
But I am angry and I am sad, I am resentful and bitter, that a boy who needed no answers, got them handed to him with a bow, with a hug and a kiss, with an open door. A boy who gets to pursue this if he wants to, if he cares to, and denies my very existence on a daily basis.
So he gets his happy ending and the big sister, it just so happens, that big sister isnt me.

Alas, I strive for more than sadness and wallow. My life is built for more than that, so after the tears and the rants, and the vacant expressions. I am grateful.
Today is the 4th March. I have a sister.
I am happy. I am in love. I am loved and I am lucky.
And quite frankly, no past demon, or present broken heart can take away from that.
I am hopeful and I am driven.

Today is a day that is a Barker Baker day - #positivesovernegatives and nothing will ever change that.

My goodness, I have grown.

February 8th 2015 #positivesovernegatives

In my 2 years of growth and understanding, what have I learned? What have I done with my life and second chance?

Let me share with you the most incredible journey of my life... and it's only just begun!

Friday 8th February 2013 saw my life going one of two ways; 1) I would go to HMP Styal and stay there for up to 2 years of my life or 2) I would walk out of that court room a very fortunate young woman. As you all know, I was lucky enough to be allowed to leave the Crown Court, with my bag full of knickers, pens and paper, enough stamps to sink a ship and £50 in cash.

That walk to my sentencing hearing haunts me every day of my life, I remember how the air felt on my face, walking through the streets of Manchester, breathing in like I would some how forget the feeling if the worse happened, it was like seeing the city for the first time and lo' in my darkest hour, a mirage in the distance, a face I had wished for throughout the whole process, the fact I had wanted to scream and shout and tell my truths too, my father. Suited and booted and ready for court. A knight in shining armor arriving after the battle had already been fought. A sorry face. An apology. That somehow in the perfect land of Barker, there had been an acknowledgement of a failure on their side, that maybe the broken Barker should have been fixed before spinning out of control, alone, excommunicated and erased from afar.
It was my day. The day of reckoning, all my bullshit and all my stupidity had lead me here. To this day of cleansing, of repenting, of trying to make things right - to be punished.
And there he was, as bold as brass, caring.
I look back on that moment, where he handed me a Carluccio's coffee and told me to leave my packed bag outside of the court room with him, because I wouldn't be needing it, anger flared, resentment, sorrow. I knew my fate, I had made my choices and I was ready to take the consequences, I walked into the police station, I plead guilty, I said sorry, all my choices.
I took the money. I spent the money. I warped my morality that it was somehow acceptable behaviour living in the land of disillusion and broken truths. Dramatic but true.
The most poignant change in my behaviour has been the absolute acknowledgment that I and I alone are to blame for the wrongs in my life, for the mistakes I have made. I was a fucked up child with a horror story past, a complicated life of memories and hate but my parents taught me right from wrong, and I chose not to adhere to those rules, because I never have. I have lived my life inside my own head, with rules laid out by an angry child who reigns my kingdom of crazy.

D-day came and went and I learned my lesson the hard way and have spent every day since unraveling the wrongs I reaped and built my life upon the foundations of truth and honesty, no matter how ugly a truth.
I've been to hell and back with mental health intervention, crisis teams, hospitalization, anti-depressants, medication a-plenty, drug rehabilitation running alongside, Wigan, Manchester, all over the bloody north west. It's been quite the journey. I've been job hunting, rejected, praised, hated and loved.
And after soul searching and understanding, I accidentally found my purpose.
To be a baker.
A baker that changes the world, my world, Sarah's world, my mother in laws world, the people I meet, the people I teach, with one aim, to bring positive change; no matter how big or small.

I have spent 27 years on this earth, and over 20 years of that has been torture, trapped in a life I didn't know, pretending to be someone I'm not, with people around me I don't like, I don't want, but they were people, so I didn't feel so alone.

And now I'm here, and I'm happy and the road to recovery is nearing it's end, because I understand its purpose, to teach me, to help me learn and to grow, to be a better person, to tell the truth, to love, and the best way to compound that is when I say my wedding vows to the incredible girl who has stood by me and held me tightly in her arms.
We've lived, sickness and health, richer and poorer and we are still standing side by side. She tried to save me many years ago and I wreaked havoc and broke her heart, but she saw the good in me and nurtured it to this beautiful place, so now we move forward together, stronger than we could ever imagined possible. It's love and it is incredible.

So NOW THEN!

Yesterday saw the 2 year anniversary, a strange thing to commemorate but I have told you all why.
Friends and family came together and shared a beautiful meal, laughter and love, around a table in a bloody brilliant place, a place I happen to be a part of now, working with a magical woman who fate seems to have thrust into my path.
When we met, I knew, there was some bizarre connection, and whilst in that moment, I thought this woman could be a friend, not someone I would end up working with, I have a strange feeling when I'm with her that the familiarity and safety she makes me feel makes me sure of a happy ending, whichever direction life takes me.
There have been stark moments over the past two years where I have met people and felt a piece of me jump into place, the kind of lightening bolt moments where you know you were meant to find eachother, it sounds a romantic notion, but I have lived a life of false friendships and failures due to disastrous life choices and somehow fate has brought things full circle and given me beautiful people who I will build my life around and feel proud to have a part of theirs.

I could name and shame you sorry few ;) but you know who you are by now.

The creative : beautiful, with eyes that grab you by the balls, because every word is honest and passionate. It's food, it's friends, it's family, it's futures. All things I hold dear. And theres hurt and loss along the way, and somehow with coffees and pizzas and beautiful gifts that made me have a little cry on the way home, its true friendship found in a strange place and will stand the test of time, after all my friend, you are only 30 ;)

The baker : the reason for my weight gain perhaps? But a woman of great vision and passion, hope and ambition, the cutest tea drinker on the earth, summarised by the beautiful gift she gave me yesterday! We met on a day where my life took off, a market, the day I decided to take the baking to the next level. And as she has a special day coming up pretty soon, it's time to say OI! WE ARE TAKING YOU AWAY TO THE COUNTRYSIDE FOR A DAY OUT! No boys allowed!

The blogger : hiding in the shadows of social media, with a social life I can't even comprehend, a woman whos life and love balance is so spot on, I think she must be part cyborg! One of my first crowd funding donors, first bread buyers, first glimpses of true fashion and style on the streets of Levy, always first port of call for good advice, whether life, love or alcohol!
Brilliant and dependable, thank you for your wise words <3

The wife : For the hugs and the kisses and the allowance of some moderate snoring, you are an incredible woman. You lost your way holding me together and its time you will never get back so I will spend the rest of my life making you happy, making you bread and making you buy bowties for our over-pampered cat.
I love you and you are perfect, and you have a beautifully kind soul, you are your mothers daughter and the two of you in my life make me feel very special. I feel loved and I feel safe. I will always make you (both) feel the same way.

The brilliant and brave : To the people who read this blog, to the strong and honest who have lost their way and are taking it back bit by bit, inspiring as always, knowing I'm not doing this alone. The point of this paragraph is neither are you! <3

<3

So that's my little ramble over and done with! Let's see what February 8th 2016 will bring!