WHY I COME TO JEANS BOTHY
I have a terrible feeling that I come here because I am lonely. I am not lonely but at the same time I am lonely; desperately lonely.
I have the most amazing family; a family I could never have dared dream I could be a part of. We laugh and cuddle and tease each other. We confide in each other and have a myriad mini adventures – it is my dream of a life and somehow not only a dream but a reality.
I have friends but they are mainly far away and I have my own family who I speak with all the time. I have friends of my partner who astonish me by accepting me and including me.
But here is my place, where I do not have to perform or cope or be anything but me. That freedom to be me and that freedom to be me with an illness is present everywhere else too but somehow I reserve here, in some ways, for some aspects of me that I do not express elsewhere.
I feel more real here. Here I can be silent, or I can walk ahead of everyone else on outings or even ignore my fellow members but I can on occasion laugh and joke and be silly.
Writing this makes me realise there is no difference to here and my life in the wider community but somehow and that somehow I cannot express; here is a place where I am safe and know I am among my own even when I don’t know them or know how to talk them, even when I fear they do not like me.
It is my haven, my sanctuary. My hint of freedom to be me.
(Photos: Jeans Bothy 2022)
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