I've been through a lot of emotions in my life.. I can probably remember things as early as age 4 with pictures but my true memories begin when I was 6. And those emotions range from fear to happiness to pain to elation.... I'm almost 46 so I guess that's a lot of emotions. Life hurts but when you're a part of a large family you know someone will try to capture that hurt and even when you take things to heart you have family and it's ok but then people die when you're not expecting it... you're never ready for death, I was 19 when Daddy died and I was planning my wedding and all of me knows I never grieved him properly... 19 with a toddler and a wedding and a Mam who pretended her world hadn't ended when he died and sisters and brothers that all carried on even though their world had fallen apart too but they carried you regardless... so I moved onto the next chapter and married and worked in Ballymahon and had amazing jobs... a family in the flynns, a forever fun time in Claffeys and the many other jobs in the chippers and cleaning houses ...and was lucky to have family on both sides that helped. My mother in law became main babysitter with sisters and sisters in law jumping in and then my kids got older and I stretched further than Ballymahon to work.
I started working in Pvs in Longford town and oh lord was that an experience. 9 years of amazing experiences to be exact. The highs the lows the in betweens were equally important and I discovered the importance of family and a work family when Jenny died.... suicide to be truthful. ... my husbands twin and then the true side of living and working in Longford and Co Longford showed it's true colours. I was drowning .... with a family that couldn't swim. Have you any idea what drowning in a group of drowning people feels like....
Have you ever tried to swim while trying to hang onto a life you can't live without.... a team that you can't lose yet hands are slipping and people are falling and the bottom of the ocean is starting to appear welcoming......
Then suddenly a town reaches in and grabs you and choking, you cling on and everyone you've clung to clings on to.....
And you somehow allow the air to be inhaled inside you and beside you everyone you've held onto seems to be breathing to and maybe just maybe life will be ok....
And then Pvs closes and you spend your time saying goodbye and remembering and crying but it's happened and luckily I can still walk longford town and meet those amazing people I worked with and served and got saved from drowning by....
And then Mam dies and in the midst of hoping I won't drown there are a million lifebuoys waiting to make sure I don't.... the lifebuoys living and breathing in Longford and Co Longford and suddenly I can swim. I can grieve without fear of swallowing an ocean of pain.
Now I'm in Nallys Corner House and everyone who comes there treats me like I'm the little sister... like I'm family
Me, Valerie Masters, nee Mc Cormack from Ballymahon and Longford, me the girl who never fitted inside her own skin, the girl who constantly doubted herself and wrote down the whispers of doubt and then rewrote those whispers because she had an ocean of people lifting her onto a wave that would never drown her.
Me who spent a year taking pictures of longford and Co Longford to try and show the doubters that I come from a wonderful place called Longford. A town with problems but a town like every other town. I'm tired of the crap Longford has to carry. Longford is not the only town with problems yet it appears to be the only town constantly highlighted in a negative way.
Me who was born to write, who craved to write and then just wrote. Me who wrote two books of poetry and then pushed herself to the limits.... Me who did that, Me, who left her first play across the boards of the Bog Lane Theatre Ballymahon with 3 sell out nights, then braved the little theatre athlone, then the stage of Smock Alley Theatre Dublin last Tuesday night, me who went there with a cast and crew and supporters that made me cry and me that could write a book about the amazing people of Dublin who embraced us, the #cardboardcoffin crew who are constantly learning and willing to learn, and watched as Dublin and Longford, who bought tickets and stood side by side for the amazing Jude McLynn who pulled tears from an audience who didn't know what to expect and applauded a crew who were there for the love of what we were trying to do. Dublin who didn't let me drown.....
Dublin has it's problems, crime and hurt and pockets of lifelessness and the homeless have no hope but a Dublin who welcomed us and I hope that someday someone will have more power than me to help the pain the heart of Dublin suffers...
I really want to help that but I can't because I'm just me but I'm hoping hope will be enough to someday stop us all from drowning...
But what I'll never do is pull down another town. We're Ireland, a team. If we don't stick together then hope is forever lost......
Valerie Masters
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