Yes, I’m blogging about another blogger. We don’t know each other, though like a gadzillion other bloggers particularly in Australia I’m linked to her (caveat: some of her posts are not for the faint-hearted).
She’s struggled with addiction and depression. Her husband, whose children from a previous marriage she is stepmother to, had cancer. She underwent fertility treatment to have a second son. Her beloved stepdad died. Then her brother recently killed himself, and she ended up back in the mental health clinic. She got out, went to meet her elder tween son off the bus, and in between the happiness at seeing her, he asks if she’s out for good. She says yes. She blogs about wearing an adult diaper in the mental health clinic. She blogs about making banana bread with 3 bananas instead of one. She blogs about how today on her 42nd birthday “all” her boys present her with a packed David Jones box from the most perfect shopping spree of clothes that actually fit her – not just in size, but taste. And a cup of tea.
Happy Birthday, Eden.
This is a picture of Eden, from her blog
She blogs how she’s finally contemplating scattering her brother’s ashes where her husband picked up the blue-tongued (skink? iguana?) lizard.
She blogs about her eldest stepson:
“One day I said look, mate … you were the first. Parents ALWAYS make the most mistakes with their first and I am just so sorry! And I saw him finally register, that I wasn’t an arsehole because he was my stepson. I was just an arsehole.“
I check in periodically, feeling a little guilty that most of the time I don’t say anything, just…………….. lurk. I posted a comment once, one of umpteen comments she gets, of still more readers who silently peek in…. and then I felt so out of place commenting there, in a world so different from my own. I am, of all things, an ex-banker in Hong Kong of the school debentures and little kiddie interview tuition and in-vitro Chinese classes, who specialized in derivatives, of all the dirty things.
I’ve known loss and heartbreak, but I’ve not known tragedy and despair so devastating as to make me “let go” and just jump, thereby discovering in the middle of the pain and ugliness and self-hate the strength and beauty of those around you who, despite their own pain, come pull you out. The strength and beauty of those around you who love you.
That is what I see, when I read Eden. And I see her immense courage in living her life, in talking about it. The immense courage in her honesty. But I digress. What I really wanted to do is give credit where it’s due. (Fine, more credit.)
Reading Eden can change the whole way I write. Eden’s writing is so colored by her life, experiences I don’t have. And it was during this time that I wanted her writing to affect mine. Still following every little scrap of information on MH 370.
Strength and beauty of those around you. Who love you.
