The Definition of Insanity

If the definition of insanity is repeatedly performing the same action whilst expecting a different result, then I am completely and entirely sane. I have tried everything. I have approached from every possible angle. I have thrown myself upon it in every conceivable way. Yet still, this interminable winter continues. The rigid, unyielding figures of my parents still elude my ability to reach beyond the ice that has enclosed them for as long as I can remember.

As a child, I would reach for them with my hands, disregarding the way the cold would stab into me as I pressed my fingers against the lines and curves of their familiar features. I remember hoping that if I held myself tightly enough against their unforgiving frames, some of the warmth of my skin might bring some life into theirs. I had clung with childish desperation to the wish that my love for them would be enough to release them and let them love me in return. Sometimes, I even managed to convince myself that it was working, that the wetness I felt on my face after throwing my arms around them, was the ice melting rather than my own pointless tears.

I knew that even if they couldn’t communicate with me, that I still wanted them to know that I was there and that I loved them. So, I would write stories and read them aloud, I would sing them songs that I had written and leave my most carefully crafted drawings where they would be able to see them.

As I grew older, I admit that I wavered in my dedication to them. I was angry that I had been forced to navigate the world alone. They should have been protecting and guiding me. Instead, whenever I reached for them, my fingers met the cold, slick wall of their sculpted, emotionless features. I had learned to hate them in many ways. It was a powerful, sad hatred that clashed violently against an intense, unconditional love. Still, part of me wanted to shatter them, to smash forcibly through the frozen façade instead of waiting for a thaw that increasingly felt like it was never going to come. The rest of me just year for a sign, some momentary glimpse of softness and warmth that would grant me some hope.

I thought that maybe if I could inspire the heat of anger in them, we might make more progress. So, I rebelled. I stayed away for days at a time, I put myself into recklessly dangerous situations and refused to apologise and I spoke to them with as much disdain and disrespect as I could muster.

In retrospect, this only made things worse. The ice that surrounded them just spread and grew and as they seemed to become further from me than ever, I even began to feel it creeping into me, infecting my soul the way it had gripped hold of theirs. My ability to project warmth into my cold world stuttered and splintered. My view of the world and people in it started to fracture. With no-one to guide me, how would I ever be able to stop the winter that had robbed me of them, from taking me too?

The years passed and the winter only grew more desolate and bitter. As did the ice in my own heart and though I never stopped wishing that I could find a way to help my parents free themselves of it, I despaired that I ever would. I tried to fill the void that they left with others, random faces who were warm, but ultimately could never be what I needed and as I realised that the ice would eventually overwhelm me too, I stopped trying. It would be better to be alone than to risk putting anyone else through the pain I had experienced.

For a while, that seemed reasonable and safe. Except that the cold was just as painful as the silence. As I felt it stealing into every part of my life, I realised how truly cruel it was. I know that my parents hadn’t planned for this to happen to me, in wasn’t their intention that this would be my life. I know that they hadn’t meant to abandon me so completely. They had done their best and yet, I equally knew that they could have made other, better choices. They brought me into this world and then froze me out, leaving me to find my way alone.

Finally, I decided that this was not the way that I wanted to go. I did not want to make the same choices, the same mistakes, that they had. I needed to let go over the over-riding need to protect my heart at all costs, by refusing to admit that there was nothing I could do to change the situation of my parents. I had to let go of the futile hope that if I just tried harder, or figured out some elusive secret formula, I would be able to reach through the ice and make them see me.

I lost so many years and even more opportunities for happiness, waiting helplessly for a summer that would never come to me and a thaw that I could not induce.

I went to them a final time. I told them that it was time for me to move on with my own life and accept that I couldn’t bring them with me. I explained that, whilst I couldn’t forgive them, I did understand that their limitations were not their fault. I poured out all of the pain, fear, anger and frustration that the years had laid on me and for one final moment, I held my breath and waited to see if speaking my trust at last, might make any difference to their unreceptive state.

With a roll of eyes and a mutter of, ‘So melodramatic. Pass the salt’ I had my answer. It didn’t hurt as much as I expected. It was more a dull, deadened ache that I had grown accustomed to. The ancient ache of disappointment and unmet expectations. It would fade in time, like the gouges of skates on the surface of a frozen pond melted in the sunlight and left the water beneath undamaged.

I left them then and stepped out from under the heavy cloud of their indifference. I walked into the sun, leaving ice and winter in my past, ready now to start the long, complicated process of thawing the ice from around my own heart.