Waiting.

I’m a waiter. Waiting for a husband. Waiting for texts. Waiting for a good time to have mental health.

One of the many things that my parents did wrong was my complete and utter immersion in my father’s career. Ministry is an avocation not a vocation.

One hill I will die on is that ministers should not be in the ministry whilst they have children. If you are called by God, you will still be called by God in 16 years when you have raised your children. Ministry is not conducive to family life. Putting your children in a local fishbowl is no different to those who exploit their children as content creators. That child’s childhood is hostage to your needs. Not theirs. And you convince yourself what you are doing is right because you are called by God. Look at all the people who said so.

The church is not for beginners. And it’s politics are not for children. Even when I was a child in Sierra Leone fellowship I was adultified. But it was absolute training wheels compared to being in the Methodist church.

This meant that I grew up with a life that was conditional. I couldn’t even be myself in my own home because my house was a public building.

This led to a decade of being homeless. Not unhoused. Homeless. Without a home. Because a home is a safe space. I very much lived in temporary accommodation for a decade. Nice accommodation. Fancy accommodation. But I never forgot it wasn’t mine and that there was an end date no matter if I wanted to stay or not. I had no sense of permanency. It was one of the many things that made my life back then unstable.

Now as an adult I am incapable of feeling safe. Incapable of living my own life. My life is conditional on no one else needing me. Just like it was back then.

I realised this when I was having conversations with various people this weekend and I will drop what I am doing in order to message people. To be accessible. And I would wait for responses. Meanwhile I am not the centre of that persons world. I am incapable of meeting people on the same level of interest as they show me. Because I wasn’t taught that.

My life back then was. Desperate. Desperately sad. Desperately anxious. Desperate for the next piece of news from back home. We lived on tenterhooks waiting for the next shoe to drop. If it wasn’t dads career it was my brothers or cousins or aunts. Someone had screwed up and we were ground control trying to fix the situation. We’d never be happy until everyone was and that is not a fair condition to put on another person.

Joe liked me because I didn’t know or understand who he was. As a result I took him as I saw him. Detached. Who are you who asks me questions? Who are you who can’t put a card in a reader? Who are you who can’t stop smiling at me?

I wasn’t waiting for him. Until that last text. And I did wait. I sat on my sofa at 8:03pm and watched him type. I said goodbye like I was in a plot for a romance movie. My heart in my mouth about the wisdom of my decision. To this day I pray to God I made the right choice. Because he was the only man I didn’t get bored of. The only one where who he is was my dream, without realising it. Normally in this life you don’t be everything you want. That’s how I convinced myself to marry my ex. Then I really did get everything. My eyes were open for a very brief period.

I don’t even remember what that was. To be so happy, often times I confuse male attention with liking them. This was the first time I liked a man, was attracted to him, loved his spirit. Each and every other time I was just flattered to have male attention. Because I had the self esteem God gave to a boot scraper because I had been taken so far away from my comfort zone. My parents decision to move to Hampshire was not about me. I had to fit into that plan. Make the best of a bad situation. My mum can look back fondly on those times but I was there. Cognisant.

It was a terrible decision. Made by parents not self aware enough to know it was a terrible decision. They already lived for external validation. So why not turn the crazy up to 11 and go and live in a white area in an institution known for bitchiness?

So at 34 I am trying to gain self esteem. I didn’t learn to like myself growing up and was only valued for my utility to others.

Then others would treat me incredibly badly if I didn’t conform to every single wish. It wasn’t a relationship. It was servitude.

So now I am navigating a world where I do things for myself. I am navigating a world where I am aware I don’t like myself, I am navigating a world where I am trying not to wait for anyone. I’m trying to live for myself.

But myself is a concept built on halcyon days.

I worry constantly about what if all I have been through has crippled me permanently? It’s not like I am not trying to be better? It’s been years? What could still be wrong?

Would I be happy with a man? Do I still want the things I clung to? Do you still want children when all you want to do is enjoy a man? Have his presence be enough for you? Will your cup or capacity ever be enough for children?

When my version of happy is a man making himself a cup of coffee whilst giving me book recommendations…

These questions fill me with terror. Because I didn’t ever have a belief I was loveable in the first place so why would I be loveable broken when I wasn’t loveable whole?

How will I resolve this crisis of soul?

We’ll wait and see.

Grace and Courage