Woman in Chains

I have recently rediscovered the Tears for Fears song of the same name. Spandau Ballet sing about a Man in Chains and I have always listened to that song thinking about the man I was in love with. Well for the last two years anyway! But hearing the hauntingly beautiful words of Woman in Chains made me realise I have been so busy worrying about freeing someone else that I forgot I need freeing too.

"Deep in your heart there are wounds time can't heal."

God isn't that so true. Because if time could, they would be healed by now. I lay in a strange bed last night with my daughter following a stressful day where I drank too much coffee and ate too little food and I was consumed by anxiety. Every noise was someone trying to break in and murder us in our beds. Every flash of light something equally sinister. My body was in a state of high alert and panic. And for no good reason. My mind knew I was crazy and kept saying things to reassure myself. It did little good. These are wounds so old I don't even know what caused them. They are wounds time can't heal. 

When I was a teenager I was pretty geeky looking. Thick glasses. Braces. Frizzy hair. By the time I got to 16 I had contact lenses, straight teeth, and I permed my hair to make its natural frizz a much nicer spiral curl. But I was very aware of my beauty limitations. I remember telling a friend that I knew I looked good from far away but when people got close they would see my appearance was actually a bit weird. It made snogging in night clubs easy but finding a boyfriend less so! 

And that is still true today. Both inside and out. From afar I look fearless. Amazing. Like I could take on the world and win. But that is my armour. Come close and you'll see my battle scars. Come really close and you'll see my tortured soul. Come really really close and you'll see it still bleeds from those wounds time can't heal. It is easy to get that close through my writing. In person, you would have a challenge on your hands. Like an Indiana Jones film, the way into my soul is booby trapped. No one has made it so far. 

Yet there is an explorer who inches closer day by day. And he is not whom I would have expected to get so far. A friend. A fling. A gentle, quiet man. He seeks patiently but fervently to understand me. He moves purposefully but very very slowly. He sees every trap I have set and finds a way to disarm it. And despite a few near death Indie-style experiences; he is close enough now to see the prize. Like the Holy Grail it is not ornate, made of precious metal, adorned with jewels. The prize is plain, dark, wooden. But I know now it is precious. 

And so must he ...