Another Week starts

So it's Monday. My children went again this morning after our normal weekend together. I dropped them off at school,walked both to their classrooms to make sure they were happy and settled. The normal mum's doing their thing - the same as me, Traceys friends - not looking, avoiding talking - maybe it's in my head - maybe I don't blame them.
What have they been told by my ex-wife, the thoughts haunt me but why should they. I have no need for these women, they mean nothing to me, they do not have a direct affect on my world or what I do within it. But there it is, banging on the inside of my brain 'they all think you are a loser, that's what she's told them!!', 'they have all laughed together about your sexual prowess, had a real giggle over it - no wonder they smile when they see you - it's pity'. Ok these women are not thinking any of these things, and if they are what can I do about it - you just smile, say hello, pretend everything is great and wander off. More thoughts you don't want or need floating around - ready to pop up when you are at either a high or low point - bringing you back to earth with a heavy slap.

Home again, working. I force myself into the children's room. Look at their empty beds, and the empty room - devoid of life until the weekend roles around again. God I miss them so much, it's like a fist gripping my insides squeezing until it forces the tears from my eyes, it's a normal Monday morning reaction. I cry until I tell myself to pull it together. Knowing that my actions have ripped apart lives that I can't even possibly start to put right. How will it affect my son and daughter in the years to come, how has it affected Tracey, how is it / will it continue to affect me? 4 lives - my responsibility, the weight on my shoulders, the thoughts in my head. Easier if I wasn't here - maybe, I've had those thoughts in the blackest of moments. Everyone will forget me in time, the children are young enough they'll survive. But in the end I am the coward who can't pull myself into doing it, maybe if it was the first time again - with Lesa when she left. The drink took over then, too much drink. Waking in the morning reaching for a bottle or a can. Hoping to drown it out - those voices again calling out to me - 'you're not good enough, never have been, never will be - doesn't matter how hard you try you'll never be a person that anyone will want'.

Where does it stem from - who knows? I guess we have to look back to childhood. An absent father - oh not through divorce, no he was always away working and when he was home he didn't want to be with me - no the golf course, or the pub. I was never good enough for my father - he always wanted to be somewhere else, not with me. I suppose the loneliness started there - withdrawing. I guess the selfishness started there as well, the sulks, the tantrums, the destruction - anything to gain his attention - even when he was angry at me, at least he was directing himself to me.

My mother, well I can never remember her saying she loved me. Oh I'm sure she did, but for some reason my memory has blocked it all out - why has my head done that? Why would I think such a thing, unless of course it's true. At least she was around, well for the most part.

I looked again at those beds which the children had been sleeping in not a few hours earlier. I remember the warmth of the blankets as I made the beds after they got up, the warmth of those bodies, so much to experience, so much to touch, taste, hear, see and smell - I hope to god that what I have done will never taint those senses. I want them to see the world with new awe everyday - not be sceptical and closed about it.