I'm a Jug of Cream

Weird statement. ;) But it's true.

I wrote a status earlier saying not to make me one of your close friends, unless you're my daughter.

I can't have close friends. The closest I get are friendships where I lean completely on them and they don't need me at all, or where they lean on me and I can't share with them because it would wreak havoc with them.

People have this mind concept that if you share with them, they must instantly start looking after you and bottling themselves up. I do not agree with that system, but I currently buy into it because I can't find another way out.

Plus, and don't get all weepy eyed or sneery over this, I'm used to my friendship being treated casually. People are happy if I'm there and not particularly bothered if I'm not. They move on, life moves on, oh dear she's not there any more, sad-happy memories, bye bye.

If people take a step anywhere near to my heart, I clam up. I'm brilliant at small talk, chit-chat and repartee. I'm good at sharing my heart on one-offs and listening to theirs and perhaps praying with them.

Spending time with them? Socialising? No. I've come to the point where not only do I not go out with people (never have done - parties and nightclubs aren't my thing) but my chats are minimising. And that's cause I don't pursue relationships. I'm friends with many. But 99% of those are casual.
Because there's one thing I've learned. If I don't pursue people, they don't pursue me. And that makes the friendship casual.

One of my friends said to me once that it works both ways. It's true; it does. But with the wide and infrequent group of people I talk with, and with the amount of close friends or guys that have walked into my life, trashed everything they've seen and walked out, how does one know where to move?

I was chatting with the lovely Anna P earlier - a friend from OYAN. She's an amazing girl with deep eyes and a heart to love. And part of our conversation is why I'm blogging this.

There was a story I read once. It was...called The Hawk and the Dove. I think...by Penelope Wilcox.

About a mother who told these stories about these amazing monks - in particular, one called Father Peregrine, to her daughter Melissa. He'd sinned with his betrothed before he became a monk. And she was with child but he didn't know. And he was Melissa's ancestor.
He was quite proud...and distant..and then God broke him.

Sian: I read the book over and over.
Anna: Why do you love it so much?

These enemies of his father found him alone and unprotected one day in the church
And they beat him up so badly. He was crippled with useless broken hands for the rest of his life. He always limped, and had a face full of scars. And he learned to love. To accept help.

Sian: Maybe that's why I like it. :P
Anna: What do you mean?
Sian: I'm suddenly seeing a lot of me in there. XD

Anyway... not long after the incident, one of the monks, Brother Thomas, came in and found him sitting there, staring into space, just repeating a movement of his hand across his chin, over and over.

And he thought suddenly of his mother. His mother was a farmer's wife and she did the milking every morning. He remembered how, when she'd separated the cream, she would carry the jug, so, so carefully, because it was brimming...and just one tiny jolt....and it would spill.

Brother Thomas came into the room, to his unapproachable abbot, pulled the desk aside, and wrapped his arms around his stiff shoulders and held him close.
Father Peregrine lay there like a stone for a few minutes, and Brother Thomas began to feel like an idiot, this big, hearty farmer's boy.

But then Father Peregrine began to cry. And he sobbed. And he sobbed. And he repeated, my hands, my hands, over and over. He cried into Vespers.
And Brother Thomas held him.
Finally he sat up, wiped his eyes and sent Brother Thomas to Vespers.
And asked him not to tell, and thanked him.

But that was the day he began to heal. Not outside. but inside. When he knew someone loved him beyond being afraid of him. Enough to hold him while he cried.

Brother Thomas never told a soul while he lived. But passed it down after his death.

I feel like the jug. :D And that's why I don't know. Because I can't pluck a random thought out of a mass of teeming emotion I'm barely keeping down. I'm sitting here watching Doctor Who and nearly crying at some points, like the look in Rose's eyes when she's begging the Doctor to find her, which is ridiculous. I don't cry. Except on an emotional day.

And all the bad memories and shame and mixed emotions brimming on the surface.


So don't poke. But please don't back off. Just stay where you are like you never read this.

Because I hate people making a fuss of me when I'm depressed. When I'm happy, I realise how few people stay around. :P

Sorry...

~Sian