It's draft-y in here

Babygirl came bounding up the stairs with the post, even more excited than usual cos one particular missive was quite obviously not a bill or junk. I shared her joy for a moment before taking a glance at the happy-making envelope and discovering just how hard it is to continue cleaning teeth that are gritted.

Even if I'd not recognised the all-in-capitals hand printing, I'd still have known instantly that it was from my mother. She and Sis are the only people in the world that still insist on addressing me as Mrs Marshall, 8 years post-divorce. Yes, I did keep my married moniker but mainly because there was more chance of my spontaneously growing a 10 inch cock than reverting back to the surname of the man that must have laughed himself stupid at being allowed to legally adopt the children he had abused.

As much as my surname may well have remained the same as my childrens my title for, ooh, nearly a fucking decade has been Ms. Em ess dot, Ms. It's not that difficult to spell and, unlike Miss, it doesn't give the mistaken impression of a never-married virgin so I think it's the perfect, most honest title for me. I've not been anybody's Mrs for the longest time and, far from feeling shame at having children under this condition; I'm actually proud of it, so there. My bank respects this, the DVLA respects this; even the monolith that is the inland revenue manage to get it right ffs! My mother, however, simply refuses to acknowledge it and continues to let me know in typical passive-aggressive fashion that she couldn't bear the postman looking down on me for having children but not being known as some man's wife. It's a good job Catholicism doesn't know what it missed by her being baptised C of E, the Pope himself would surely go to hell for losing such a martyr.

Anyway, it wasn't the christmas card that I first assumed; it was far worse than that. It was, in fact, one of those generic 'heartfelt feelings' cards that fill half the aisles in every town centre branch of Clintons hoping to catch the eye of those that can't take responsibility for their own words but have a fiver to spare in order to use someone elses. I'm gonna burn the damn thing so I'll reproduce it here before I do, just to give some perspective to this, my draft reply to her. The whole thing is verbatim; her words in italics, the card in bold.

Front cover: Forgive me...

Inside: PLEASE READ THE WORDS
AS THEY SPEAK FOR ME

Forgive me for my faults that seem
to follow my life.
Forgive me for my insecurities that
have caused you hurt and pain.
Forgive me for my dependence on you:
it can be hard to bear.
I love you, and I'm sorry
for any mistakes I have made.
But remember that my heart needs
your smiles and laughter.
My soul needs your friendship and love.
And I need you.

AND I MISS YOU
LOVE
MUM


I've spent a lot of time teaching myself to feel things in the moment rather than bottling them up till I hit the bottle and let them out but, alack and alas and all that, I've regressed and left it a fair few days to process this emotionally. On a practical level this is because I've been stupidly busy and quite simply had no time to indulge in feelings. This past week or so, as well as trying to be available to No 1 Son in case any 'post-blog-reading' issues arise, Babygirl has been doing choir appearances all over the show, christmas gifts have been sourced, three chests of drawers and a desk needed putting together to finish revamping the kids rooms, karate classes have been taught and students prepped for sunday's grading - oh, and A texted very late Weds to say he was in hospital so I wound up doing his class alone (I've sent a worried text asking after him every day since but had absolutely nothing back so my last message simply said that I'd bought him some grapes but let the kids have them due to a dearth of delivery information), Sis and I tried to get a quiet catch-up lunch and she got a call mid-starter from a mate informing us that step-dads court appearance had been reported in the [old area] local paper, complete with his name and a full list of the charges. Shit and fans come to mind now it's in the public domain. His fallout is his problem but I'm very aware that this development could well make life more icky for me, if only on Friends Reunited. I'm just hoping that anyone still in that part of town that remembers me remains too illiterate to read the paper or too dim to remember my old surname and put 2+2 together.

So the point of this post was to compose a draft reply to my mother. Something that gently spelled out that I don't hate her for what he did but I have issues with her actions, reactions and passive non-actions. A nicely couched way to tell her that I'm not quite ready to resume contact in the way she wishes and I hope she understands this. I've been back to this post about fifteen times and still not found any words other than fuck the fuck off out of my fucking life and leave me and my kids the fuck alone.

So, not much progress there. And I can't find a card that says it for me. Ho hum.