ELL GEE

It doesn’t.

While it has been difficult for our whole family, the only thing I’d change about all that has happened is all the pain my mother has had to endure. Not just during her depressed times, but being ostracized by her friends and by much of our family, by my horrific teenage years in which I developed feelings of resentment and took it out on her, by my younger sister following suit, by being sacked and enduring poverty, the guilt that her illness and its adverse affects has put her under and which she still endures.

But for myself, and very selfishly I would never change her being bi-polar, not least because it’s a part of who she is and I love her for all of her, but also because it has shaped who I am; made me more compassionate, prepared me for life’s struggles later in life, forced me to put things in perspective, it has made me more self aware, has painted my life with many colours that others never get to experience, has helped me understand how truly blessed I am in so, so many ways and, in many respects, my mum’s intermittent madness has made me more sane. 

Verb. To pity and ridicule another over their ridiculous life choices or approach to any given situation, while envying their ability to do so.

C.I.P: “Oh man, I totally pityenvy my neighbour, he’s been complaining about that fucking hedge for weeks!” Pity their small mindedness, envy that their life is so wonderful that overgrown hedges is all that annoys them. 
C.I.P.2: “I’ve been mega pityenvying that my sister, she tried to dye her hair bright green but it went the colour of a swamp.” Pity that her hair went such a terrible colour. Envy that she has the balls to want to dye it green. 

Romance worries me. It’s a style of love that has been man made - surely we can see now, much that is synthetic is unsustainable.

A mother’s love, in contrast, is the purest of affections that transcends death, time, sexuality and bad behaviour.