Curtains

I have always talked about my life but not in detail. I come from a small community where everyone knows each other and I didn't want to add to what people created for themselves of negative reputation. I also considered family members who don't deserve to have a negative picture about their important person. Somehow I also hoped things would eventually be solved, now that the requirements are considerably lower. 

Unfortunately it hasn't become better.

What happened was only that I understood that even though blessed, if I want to take steps forward (and I do), not only to survive, I need monthly, regular contributions from my ex-husband with the expenses of the children. And not only that I need it. I feel I don't have the right to remit it, to not to ask for it, to give up their rights because it's not mine. It's theirs. Everything is negotiable, the amount, how often he sends it, I can wait, I can solve everything for the time being, but the fact that they have their rights to a regular amount is not negotiable. And it has to be facts, not just words, because words are all positive but without deeds they just fly in the air. 

Unfortunately I felt trapped. I felt that no matter how far I have come, I will always depend on my ex's ways because even if I hope one day I will have all the resources we need, I will never be in the position to not have to demand my children's rights because it's their rights. 

I have also understood that there's nowhere I can turn to. The people who are supposed to protect the rights of women and children have never stood up for it. Instead, they laugh and chat with every perpetrator as if nothing happened or as if it didn't matter. Maybe it doesn't matter to them, leaving children without support is perhaps a perfectly normal behaviour. 

I felt I couldn't even really talk about it. My friends all have their own problems (but they would surely listen to me). My family already has their opinion so I just didn't want to make them extra angry (why is it my problem?) Maybe it is a feeling from the past when I used to paint a beautiful picture of our life and get angry with everyone who understood something of the reality which I didn't want to face. (Although when I asked someone they sent me back to sleep). 

It's time to rewrite this part of the story too. 

I don't know if this will ever change and I don't think anyone could help me with anything. But I will stop being quiet and stop showing a nice picture of a disgraceful reality. I read somewhere that if people wanted to have a positive role in your story, they should have behaved nicely. Otherwise, too bad. Keeping quiet about this is not "protection of the reputation" (more important to some people than reality) or "not to spread rumours". Keeping quiet at this point is nothing else but hypocrisy. A lie. Complicity. Cooperation in supporting a system that promotes appearance and neglects actual issues. 

This is the same system that silences so many people who have expressed their valid concerns and reported abuse. It's the same system that shamed those who believed the word of God that people were created with their inalienable rights. It's the same system that calls women "difficult" when they realise what's going on and have a word against it. 

I'm not going to play that role anymore. I'm not going to support the system of patriarchy. 

I will say unapologetically, unashamedly that I haven't received anything the past months, I had to solve everything alone from the hospital bed and the chemotherapy unit, yet this person is travelling between continents and showing up in events as if he was a respectful guest. I know this won't change anything but I can't keep quiet anymore and smile as if everything was alright. It’s not alright. Very far from it. 

I'm rewriting the narrative. I won't swallow the bomb so as not to hurt others with the explosion because it will explode inside me. Let it blow. This is what it is. I'm done with painting a beautiful picture while everything collapses. 

25 years ago in France our money was stolen. I told my sister "look at that beautiful curtain at the shop window". She told me "who cares about the curtains?? We have no money!" I always thought if we concentrate on the positive, life will be better. Well, it's not better. It took me so long to understand the power of saying the things as they are. No sugar-coats. Thank you my dear for teaching me that. 

Two sentences in the air. Both are important to me to say.