Sorry it's long (said no one ever)

Working in retail opens your eyes to a whole world many do not see.
A world of such diversely, fascinatingly, mundanely grey, vibrantly glorious, disgusting and bright human behaviour.

You may think we just stack the shelves and clean up the unmitigated and immense damage you cause after you visit our place of work.

But we do so much more, we see so much more.

We watch, we listen, we cry and we laugh both with you, and admittedly, on occasion, at you.

But do forgive us as we are too, diversely, fascinatingly, mundanely grey, vibrantly glorious, disgusting and bright humans.

You can, as our customers, wholeheartedly make our day, you can be kind and courteous, funny, and quite often, we love having you with us, especially when you are considerate, considering this is our place of work.

And in that place of work, where we spend more daylight hours of our lives with you than we do with our families and loved ones, in that place of work we come across those who frustrate and annoy, who are aggressive and demeaning, we are made to feel unworthy and on occasion, occasionally you make us cry.

But you also lift us, with your own brand of madness :)

We have 'Buddy' who often comes in wearing a puffy coat and a blue baseball cap, precariously perched on top of his head.
'Hat family' visits were mum and daughter each wear a trilby and dad wears a cap.
"Carol" who is always decorating and most often needs...
" A thing, you know, with the part that folds over, it's grey" or an "Orange do-dah, you use it in the garden, it was on the telly"...

Be assured, we see you all, we remember you all. The good, the bad and those we endlessly try to help but always ask for things we don't sell and end up saying "fine i'll just go to Dunelm"...

We don't just stack the shelves and clean up the unmitigated and immense damage you cause after you visit our place of work. We also share with you your joys and your woes.

We spoke to a woman who was in floods of tears as she had been made to feel stupid and had been spoken to unkindly in another shop. She was looked after, consoled and taken care of.

We spoke to a woman who was on her first day outside after her husband of some 40 years had passed away. We listened and gave her many kind words, she left feeling much less alone.

We spoke at length to a woman in her 30's who had been told that morning she was finally in remission. We shared her joy. And relief.

We help the elderly Scottish gentleman with his son who has autism. His wife passed away 4 years ago and his son is his world. His son likes to touch our soft cushions and always asks his dad if it's 'time for tea yet.'

We don't just stack the shelves and clean up the unmitigated and immense damage you cause after you visit our place of work. We do understand, more than you know.

Today I met a quite exhausted woman, covered in dry paint, wearing a weary expression. She was holding a tin of paint with paint covered hands.
And with a tired voice she told me she had been...
"Painting all ****** day" and she was... "so bleedin' tired I can't think straight". She had run out of paint and asked how much the paint was.
And then I felt a whole new level of understanding and compassion.

She looked me square in the eye and asked "Is it wrong to wish everyone would just *******?"

I said "Of course not, it's perfectly normal considering the day you've had, can you leave the painting until tomorrow, after you've had a bath and a good nights sleep?"
She looked at me and smiled wearily "I guess it can wait"
Handing her the paint i said "it's 7.99, then do that, get some sleep. And tell everyone who says otherwise to ..."
"*******" she smiled.

The door swung open, revealing trees hung full of over compensating colour and the ground buzzed with windfall apples. The grass was long, unkempt and scraggy. There was an old and empty swimming pool, decayed with it's once blue tiles, bleached white with the sun. An ornamental bird bath razed to the ground, an over grown pergola groaned and a leaning outhouse lay lazily about the garden. This place once held a family in his care. The rusted swing stood, like a sentry, waiting. The air was chilled and the weeds violently twisted in throngs of green and yellow. But it was the mound of roughly dug earth, six feet by three, that made Miller's heart falter.
“Looks like we got ourselves a crime scene...” Abbie looked on, hands in her pockets.
“****, I hope not...” Miller opened his phone.

I remember a time when he would come home.

And i remember that, you must stand at the door and welcome him home like you are happy, don't forget to be happy.
Tea was always ready and the house would be clean and tidy because it should be, you wanted it to be, and woe betide you if it wasn't.
And then, when tea was finished, he wanted his beer and the tv on
and now you mustn't talk because you shouldn't.
So the kitchen was tidied and everything was just so..
you mustn't forget to make it just so.
But you know the time is coming where the beer is all gone and the match would be lost and the anger would flare.
That's when you want to become invisible but you can't
because he needs to punch something and well..
you're as good as any door.
So after the room was cleaned up and the broken glasses and lip was put away, it was time for bed..
And you can't pretend to be asleep because that doesn't count
as a no.

Thankfully there was a little glow in the dark star on the ceiling you could look up at and wish upon it that you weren't in this room, in this bed right now. I think the people who lived there before left it behind. I knew that if i moved i would take it with me.

And the need to run was immense. But there was no where to go and nobody knew and, after all, it was the way of things, don't complain.. it could be worse.. remember that.. it could be worse.. he said.

I often dreamed of a tiny little bed all of my own with fairy lights and my own place to put my books, but that would have to wait as now is not the time to think of such a silly notion. Stupid ***** that you are.

And so each and every night, i painted the roses red.. so i didn't loose my head.

And running wasn't really an option because, contrary to popular opinion, that is harder than you think.. after all... this was normal and... this is just what happens and... this is just one of those things and... **** it up buttercup, now clean the house again you stupid ****.

And in the gaslighting, which burned very bright, you would have enough of a glow to paint the roses red.
Perfectly red, everyday they would have to be red.

And life carried on for years like this and my friend, the little glow in the dark star and i were the only ones who knew what 'behind closed doors' really meant.

Inevitably children were born into this world of mine, and you can't say no to no contraception, because the need to see his fertility bloom was the most important thing in the world.
Most important.

But i was indeed blessed with more than an armful of joy.

And so we all painted the roses red and in time, we all wondered, which one of us would loose our head.

We moved house and the years passed as they normally do with various reasons to run and threats that made us stay.
But you never run..  because now he might **** you all,
and not just you.
If it was just you, you wouldn't have minded so much...

So we moved house and the little glow in the dark star came along too. It was placed near the light fitting over the bed and i put my finger to my lips and said 'shhh' as i stuck it to the ceiling.
But we knew.

And so, for a few more years you carry the weight of the world, the little secret, and a heart full of love, and begin painting the roses red with your children.
And now you definitely can't leave and you can't run because they might loose their heads and now, now you might have to watch.. while you get to keep yours.

And then a tide turned, well, four tides turned, and damage was being done that my love could not repair.
And that is when i had to be brave and i had to do what i should have done many years before.
I was conditioned to suffer along side and this was normal.
Not that any of that is an excuse.
And although i knew it wasn't right, i knew it was normal.. for me.

A contradiction if ever there was.

But my love for my children will always be far greater, greater than my love for any one else could ever be. Even if it was their flesh and blood.
And him saying we couldn't leave now did not count as a no.
But we didn't leave.
We made him pack his things and go. We had found safety in numbers, we all stood and were counted, we exposed only what secrets needed to be told.
The rest we keep for ourselves.
He never said sorry and he left. And never came back.

So we kept some of the red paint and we added orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. And we painted all of our roses any **** colour we wanted to. Including ourselves.

And I took down the little glow in the dark star, it had seen far too much and probably needed therapy :o)  

And we will live happily forever after.