I've been talking to three different people in recent months who all consider themselves 'damaged' in some way. The same way, ironically.
Not that I am going to share any personal details here of who is what and which happened aforemost to the un-named in their earliest incarnations, but it does fascinate me a little that a pastoral life is beginning to open up.

I have always considered myself the last person that would tread that path, though looking back I suppose there has been a few occasions when talking to me while I poured tea/absinthe/JD/wine has seemed to be the best option. We'll leave CF aside here when the line was crossed, rubbed out and ruffled in the morning...
I've learned quickly to recognise the value of listening. People are just so interesting, and far more so than anything scriptwriters and authors make up.
Too many people consider themselves to be boring, but really, really you are, like, just so NOT!!

Each of the people that has talked to me of themselves recently has described the various emotions/scars/circumstances of a divorce or a relationship breakdown causing them to have to re-examine their relationship with their children. One very recently, and he is really hurting.

There is a part of me that feels awkward, because to these people at least I have not yet showed my hand and declared a similar experience. After all, its not about me.

But it does all give me cause to reflect. SInce discovering the path to faith among the overgrown brambles and rocky slopes, I no longer consider myself damaged. But maybe, to others, I am. Maybe I appear not to have been affected? Maybe I appear not to care? Maybe I appear unstable, broken, damaged and confused? Maybe there is respect for having that stoic calmness?
I really don't know. I talk so little these days.

And write less itself. The blog landscape is becoming unfamiliar.

When I think that I chose the path of 'keeping out of the way, giving it all up and letting her get on with it' resulting in an eight year abscence from the girls, it seems this was a drastic and selfish course. Time will tell, but it is beginning to suggest not since I dealt with (most of) the issues. People know, because Tx talks of it, circumstantially at least, but then I wonder how much of it she is really aware of. What it was like at the time, I mean.

But but, the experience was there for me to draw from and the nowness of things means I have an outlook that takes on most difficulties as a challenge from which to draw nourishment and strength.

And they both rang me on the weekend.

Touch 33.4 Land's End