Category Archives: Parenting

The cat the boy and the leg

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Divorce, Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

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It has not been a good week for Catonthenetherege.

It’s not been a good week for Boynotquiteonthenetheredge either, come to that.

These two unfortunates met at the top of the stairs in semi darkness. The former never having lived with the latter’s kind, at least not for a long time, lacks the instincts of cat-owners everywhere – which include a firm grip on the handrail and a slight pause for the thunder of paws, going past in either direction on an errand made suddenly urgent by the presence of a person.

Their meeting was not an auspicious one.

He hurt his knee.

And landed heavily.

On the cat.

Breaking her leg in three places.

Pandemonium – and some very expensive vet bills – ensued.

The children were hysterical, difficult to console, and not terribly happy with The Boy.

Well, Big Small is more philosophical, but Small Small shows distinct signs of harbouring A Grudge. (This is something she does well, and definitely gets from me). [Top tip for blended family interlopers: don’t break the kids’ pet’s leg. You’re welcome].

The poor Boy has clearly not been unaffected either, suffering not only the Small Small’s disapprobation, but also sleepless nights remembering the crunch. He has since admitted he now sees cats in the street several hundred yards away and gets palpitations lest he unwittingly damages them.

The cat herself made a sound I’ve literally never heard an animal make in my life, and hope never to again.

She has, however, since found solace in savaging every veterinary professional trying to help her, and I’ve had several conversations with people asking me whether Catonthenetheredge is usually a ‘challenging’ animal, and requesting my permission to sedate her in the interests of preserving HUMAN life and limb.

Having chosen, with the blessed assistance of insurance, to keep the limb most in question, Catonthenetheredge is now officially BionicCatonthenetheredge, and will likely set metal detectors off in the airport next time she goes on her holidays. Hence the Frankenstein scar.

Not content with this meagre suffering, I myself then proceeded to make a further attempt on her life (thank God she’s got 9) by being functionally innumerate and somewhat overtired, and massively overdosing her on the opiates she was sent home on – my first clue being how unusually compliant she was. It was not a fun wait for the vet to open and check her over…

Poor, poor, poor kitty. (She is fine. Stuck in a cage for 10 weeks for her leg to recover, and not happy about it, but otherwise fine).

The whole thing, all in all, has been something of an Adventure. The sort I could have really done without – and the Boy is not the only one it’s left with palpitations.

The thing about the Anxious, though, is that it turns out we’re actually pretty good in a crisis, you know.

I calmed children. I caught the damaged cat. I soothed the Boy. I got to the emergency vet. I got the insurance sorted.

Having something on which to focus our worry for a while – particularly where there is positive corrective action to take – is far easier and more rewarding than dealing with the generalised and universal worry we normally live with, and which we are powerless to mitigate.

I’ve found that to be true for the whole of the last four months, as well as for this specific domestic disaster.

The whole pandemic, really, has played into my hands. I’m not just anxious, I’m OCD, so I LIKE washing them. I LIKE knowing what mysterious forces are out to get me and mine and how to combat them with face coverings, distance and disinfectant.

The trouble is, of course, that crisis mode can’t last. Once the ‘crisis’ is over, the anxiety is still high, and it throws long shadows. Oh, they might not be reasonable shadows, and you might well know it, but they LOOM.

Right now in the dark mine whisper about the fragility of life, of bodies, of bones, whisper the what ifs, what if it wasn’t just a leg, what if a stupid accident happened to one of the kids, the crunch of THEIR bones in my mind’s ear, and the lack of control over all of it, how we are all just hostages to capricious fortune…

It’s made worse right now of course by the fact the Smalls aren’t even here to squeeze and defy anxiety with reality.

They’re on their first ever 7 day holiday with their Dad, and I feel like I’M the one who has lost a limb…

It physically hurts. And if I can’t keep them safe when they’re here, I sure as hell can’t keep them safe there. So here I am all wound up and dressed up in protective tiger-mum gear, with nowhere to go.

When I have spoken to them, they are obviously having the most wonderful of wonderful times. Which is of course what I want for them… but which also hurts in its own way. All the times I don’t get to see, or be part of. All the times I am not missed. All the times I am irrelevant.

If there’s a silver lining at all, I suppose it’s that at least there’s someone to look after and soak up the surfeit of directionless love. Even if it does scratch me every time I dare reach in to change its litter tray.

I may not be able to squeeze it, but at least I have the scars to prove it is alive, healthy, and reassuringly unhappy.

Catonthenetheredge, you are a mean, rubbish cat, but I love you.

Not least because that wobbly pink swelling I thought was the gross part of your wounds turns out to be your naked tummy, and proves we ARE kindreds, after all.

xxx

Home schooling highs and LOWS

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Humour, Parenting, School

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Sound the bells! Raise the glasses! Wave the flags! Beep the horns! Praise the GODS of Miseducation!

IT’S NEARLY FREAKING OVER!!!!!!!!

There is one more week of homeschooling to go, and then we can down pens, paper, random apps, videos with annoying presenters, zoom/google hangouts, confusing reams of downloads and links, exhausted printers, and any pretence that we any longer give a flying fook about any of it.

Plus in good news, they never do any bloody work in the last week before summer holidays so you can really just watch films, play out and bring in games next week, anyway! Yay!

Far from being a long terrifying stretch of childcare-juggling and scary amounts of quality-family-time, the next six weeks suddenly look like a beautiful, manageable, and blessedly finite oasis before the ultimate relief of school, school, wonderous SCHOOL in September.

I thought it apt, at this amazing milestone/juncture, to take a look back at some of my home schooling highs and lows. Mostly lows.

1. The beginning bit where I thought it might be fun, and I might actually be quite good at it. BWAAAAHAAAAHAAAAAAA!!!!!! Past-Me is CUTE. And ridiculous. And fell VERY HARD into the black chasm between expectation and reality that I DUG FOR MYSELF. Again.

2. All the hate mail from Big Small, critiquing my teaching abilities. MISSPELLED, and thus proving her point. Highlights include: “Your’ not my mother anymor” and “I hat you.”

3. When I realised I would have to either give up on their, there and they’re or give up on sanity. Also that Big Small will spell with ‘whith’ and thing ‘fing’ into adulthood – and there’s not a fing I can do about it. Never has detheat thelt so threeing.

4. Every time someone told me they couldn’t do something, before actually knowing what it was or, you know, trying it first.

5. Discovering the Small Small can only practice reading while upside down and occasionally kicking me in the face. This is ongoing.

6. Trying to persuade her that leaving 3 minutes between saying each letter makes it kinda harder to blend the sounds together… Consistently losing this argument.

7. Big Small’s insistence that all small numbers should just be taken off all big numbers in column subtraction sums, and that screaming at them will somehow make them behave differently.

8. Being told that ***Jessica*** (their Dad’s girlfriend) does all the teaching there, and that she’s far better at it than me, never shouts, and why can’t we do it like that? WHEN WE DID IT LIKE THAT AND HAD TO STOP BECAUSE YOU TWO WERE LITTLE FORKWITS.

9. The time I tried to instil comprehension and moral fibre by looking at fables and stories with lessons. When asked what she learned from The Boy Who Cried Wolf, the Small Small said: “Don’t call for a Wolf in case one comes.” Boom. Parenting win.

10. Following the school’s suggestions to do phonic breakdowns as a robot, and somehow ending up being required to do a Dalek voice for hours on end and faint whenever I’m kissed, shouting “Does not compute, does not compute” – which is apparently very funny, but equally apparently not very effective in teaching phonics.

11. Somehow ending up in a situation where I pay both kids a pound a day to do less than 20 minutes of learning, surely earning higher than minimum wage for not showing up on time, being surly, and doing a completely half-arsed job. LIFE LESSONS FOLKS.

12. The epic 5 times table tantrum of 2020. I may have to make it it’s own plaque in remembrance because it was a proper humdinger performance.

13. All the times I set up something super fun and innovative and they refused to do it, including giant snakes and ladders on the patio, nerf gun sums, a shop, and assault course spelling. UNDERAPPRECIATION. Spell that, kids.

14. The realisation that despite painfully PAINFULLY slow progress, the Small Small started this period struggling to read short words, and can now actually read short books. And sometimes even wants to do it.

15. The wonderful feeling when a piece of work DOES capture Big Small’s fancy, and I get a genuinely funny and beautifully observed story about school dinners, or cartoon strip with farting dinosaur gags.

So there have been some redeeming moments, I suppose. But boy have they felt few and far between…

We none of us really know what school will look like in September, if they’ll be in and out with shutdowns, how they’ll catch up on the half-year they missed.

But I DO know that while in some ways the extra time with the Smalls has been special, for our wee family it’s HIGH TIME.

Oh, and that teachers are freaking heroes.

xxx

National gaslighting

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Parenting, Politics, Uncategorized

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It’s very difficult to know what to write on here about politics. Because politics is divisive. And everything is so hard right now that I sort of just want an easy life…

But I’m seeing over and over again arguments that now isn’t the time for politics, now isn’t the time for division, shut up and put up, BE KIND, carry on, see the bigger picture.

The trouble is that everything from the smallest pixel to the biggest panorama IS the picture. It IS politics. It’s not separate from real life, it IS real life.

What you think about schools, work, business, anti-social behaviour, parenting, health – it’s ALL POLITICS. It always has been – and now more so than ever.

If I say anything about anything, anything that matters, I’m saying something about politics.

And what I want to say today is how FAMILIAR it all is.

How the language, the binaries, the double standards of politics – even the weariness of having to deal with it – all remind me of nothing so much as an abusive relationship.

I’ll demonstrate.

When I break the rules it’s because I’ve used my superior judgement. When you do it it’s ill-advised, and irresponsible.

You’re too stupid to understand it properly. I’m following THE SCIENCE. And I speak louder. On a podium.

I never said that. You’ve misunderstood. That never happened. I never promised that. What I meant was this – isn’t that obvious?

That’s all in the past. Let’s move on.

It was a success. I did do what I said I would. You just didn’t see it.

I think what’s really important here is X, unrelated to the criticism you’re levelling at me, but somehow proving that actually you’re wrong and I’m right.

Do as I say, not what I do. Listen to who I say I am, don’t look at what I’ve done. I’m a good guy. I’m a family man.

Other people think I’m great. Look at this evidence that shows what I want it to.

Don’t look at the other stuff. It’s lies by my enemies.

You’re not being supportive. Why can’t you just support me at this difficult time? You never do.

I’m just trying my best here. This is my vulnerability: look I’m human. I’m just like you. Feel sorry for me.

You’re sorry? Good. My pain is important. Yours isn’t, let’s move on from that too. It’s about the greater good, you know.

Stop complaining and pull together. We’re a team.

Of course I trust you. But these are the rules. If you break them I’ll have to come down hard on you.

That means it’s your fault I had to do this.

I care – see I’m clapping/making an effort. No, I’m not going to give them/you more money/attention, that’s not the point. You’re never satisfied.

Look at this shiny thing over here that you wanted, aren’t I an amazing boyfriend/husband/government?

This is not the time. You’re overreacting. You’re being led astray by bad people/fake media.

This isn’t about point scoring. Why are you complaining about X when Y is happening?

We can talk about that later. Not now. Let’s focus on what’s really important.

Why can’t you just be kind?

The deja vous extends beyond the rhetoric to the response too. Because when someone just brazens it out, changes the subject, twists the facts, amends the past, deflects, passes blame – the small picture creeps in. You can’t stay angry. You doubt. You lose your thread. It gets muddled, muddied… And the kids need feeding, and the sun is shining, and the washing needs sorting, and life goes on, and they’re acting normally now, and perhaps it’s okay, and I want to be happy, and I want to go back to normal too, and everything is too hard and it’s just easier to pretend it didn’t happen, and maybe it didn’t, or maybe it wasn’t so bad, or maybe it was me, and what’s the point in fighting and frothing when you can never really win anyway?

For me, the very worst thing about all of this, if we must stray into specifics, is Dominic Cummings using the ‘exceptional circumstances’ phrase as his get out of jail free card. Wording specifically designed to help victims of domestic abuse in lockdown.

That appropriation has grated on me like nails down a chalkboard.

Domestic abuse killings have doubled in the last ten weeks. Calls to the national abuse helpline have gone up by 950%. Emotional abuse, including gaslighting and coercive control, are a part of that picture. It is part of how relationships go toxic – and all of the above are examples.

Because it is hard to define and hard to spot, it is hard enough to deal with at the best of times. It is even harder when it is being played out and echoed at a national level by the people in power. It is all about power, after all. It always is.

You can be conscious of injustice and inconsistencies but you’re infantilised, distracted, belittled, confused, shut down and shut up – or worse, riled up and pitted against someone or something else.

So I just wanted to let you know this, whatever you think of Dom, whatever you think of Boris, however you voted in Brexit:

What’s going on in the world IS politics, and it IS your business.

You are not too stupid to understand it.

Your opinion matters.

Your pain matters.

You should believe your own eyes, and ears.

Staying out of it, giving up your voice for an easy life, doesn’t actually make your life easier, in the end.

It is not selfish or divisive or unsupportive to ask questions, and demand good answers.

It is not ‘unkind’ to ask for better.

And all of that all goes DOUBLE for your personal relationships. Triple. More.

So if any of the above reminded you of what’s going on within your own four walls, there is help available to you.

It doesn’t have to be violence to be abuse.

Call the National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.

I hope you’re all safe and well.

xxx

PS. Block-colour latex-hooker Barbie brought to you by the balloon fashion stylings of the Big Small.

When big and small switched

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Parenting, Poetry, Politics, Uncategorized

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I think one of the reasons things feel so disorientating right now is that all the big things and the small things have become muddled up. Our priorities have changed, our perspective. And I want to remember how that felt, on the other side. So I tried to write it down, and it turned into a poem. 


When big and small switched
 
When the world stayed still, holding its breath or trying to catch it,
big and small got all - mixed up, switched, 
until we couldn’t tell which one was which, 
any more.
 
Something so small you couldn't see it - a dot on a dot on a pin -
stopped the big, wide world turning round.
But it turned out the world, after all, 
was so small 
we breathed down each other’s necks -
and we coughed. 
 
But as small as it was, as soft as it started, it was still too big
and too hard for us to see and care 
what happened, over there,
to those others that were so far away they LOOKED small -
so we watched them fall and felt safe and stayed free.
And then the Others were us, 
were we. 
 
And our own worlds got small, shrunk to a few rooms, 
a shop once a week, a walk.
And we could talk - but not face to face 
and it turns out the case 
was it was never cheap at all - as we recalled our big sprawling lives 
now halved, and marvelled at connections and interactions 
and how much touch meant, 
when we were starved of it. 
When it went.
 
And we saw the numbers, small news at first 
burst free of that vague page and get big, fast,
and tragedy was vast and small together overlaid
as tears became a cascading ocean and thousands become one,
the biggest number there is, in the end.
Our mum. Our brother. Our grandad. 
Our friend. 
 
And worries were now big and small scrambled
a picasso view through fly's eyes - so new we were dizzy, 
as all the angles on our life changed, 
ranging from small to big and back -
Will I get sick? Will she? Do the kids need a snack? 
Can I pay the bills this month? What’s for tea?
Is it just me that’s not coping well?
Will it ever be normal 
again?
 
And no one could tell us if or how or when, 
as we scrolled big scary news on small screens
and we leaned on the people whose jobs were now big - or always had been - 
who drove and delivered, and fed us and held our hands, as we died. 
And we came to understand that big heroes didn’t wear capes 
but they wear did masks. And they TRIED. 
And that was the biggest and smallest superpower - 
the first in the world, 
and the last. 
 
So we tried too, and as we drew together 
big differences seemed smaller, 
and small kindnesses meant big things -
because our hearts weren’t clipped, it was only our wings 
that couldn’t stretch. 
And the wretched big things that had seemed so important, weren’t, 
and we learnt that small things mattered, more than we knew -
were the glue that stopped us falling apart. 
Like pubs, and parks, and hugs when we meet
and friends, and plans, and days out, and nights,
live bands and crowds and shops and treats
and pasta, and loo roll, feeling safe - in control 
of our own lives. 
 
When big and small switched, the world stalled
until our eyes adjusted and we made a call
on which was which, now.
On how small things were big, looming tall
and how the big things seemed silly 
and small.
 When big and small switched
 
When the world stayed still, holding its breath or trying to catch it,
big and small got all - mixed up, switched, 
until we couldn’t tell which one was which, 
any more.
 
Something so small you couldn't see it - a dot on a dot on a pin -
stopped the big, wide world turning round.
But it turned out the world, after all, 
was so small 
we breathed down each other’s necks -
and we coughed. 
 
But as small as it was, as soft as it started, it was still too big
and too hard for us to see and care 
what happened, over there,
to those others that were so far away they LOOKED small -
so we watched them fall and felt safe and stayed free.
And then the Others were us, 
were we. 
 
And our own worlds got small, shrunk to a few rooms, 
a shop once a week, a walk.
And we could talk - but not face to face 
and it turns out the case 
was it was never cheap at all - as we recalled our big sprawling lives 
now halved, and marvelled at connections and interactions 
and how much touch meant, 
when we were starved of it. 
When it went.
 
And we saw the numbers, small news at first 
burst free of that vague page and get big, fast,
and tragedy was vast and small together overlaid
as tears became a cascading ocean and thousands become one,
the biggest number there is, in the end.
Our mum. Our brother. Our grandad. 
Our friend. 
 
And worries were now big and small scrambled
a picasso view through fly's eyes - so new we were dizzy, 
as all the angles on our life changed, 
ranging from small to big and back -
Will I get sick? Will she? Do the kids need a snack? 
Can I pay the bills this month? What’s for tea?
Is it just me that’s not coping well?
Will it ever be normal 
again?
 
And no one could tell us if or how or when, 
as we scrolled big scary news on small screens
and we leaned on the people whose jobs were now big - or always had been - 
who drove and delivered, and fed us and held our hands, as we died. 
And we came to understand that big heroes didn’t wear capes 
but they wear did masks. And they TRIED. 
And that was the biggest and smallest superpower - 
the first in the world, 
and the last. 
 
So we tried too, and as we drew together 
big differences seemed smaller, 
and small kindnesses meant big things -
because our hearts weren’t clipped, it was only our wings 
that couldn’t stretch. 
And the wretched big things that had seemed so important, weren’t, 
and we learnt that small things mattered, more than we knew -
were the glue that stopped us falling apart. 
Like pubs, and parks, and hugs when we meet
and friends, and plans, and days out, and nights,
live bands and crowds and shops and treats
and pasta, and loo roll, feeling safe - in control 
of our own lives. 
 
When big and small switched, the world stalled
until our eyes adjusted and we made a call
on which was which, now.
On how small things were big, looming tall
and how the big things seemed silly 
and small.
 

Lockdown meltdowns

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Humour, mental health, Motherhood, Parenting, Uncategorized

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It has been a week of tantrums at casaonthenetheredge.

Some of them have been from me.

Several of them have been from the Big Small, now 8, who greets every suggestion I make for her education or entertainment with disinterest, scorn, or downright fury.

She does not understand why her 5 year old sister has to do less work than her, or indeed why she should be doing any learning at all. When coaxed to make an attempt at it she cannot be left unsupervised, as she apparently suffers from random attacks of amnesia, illiteracy, or violent interest in blank walls.

When her attention is recalled to her task it mostly results in screaming.

She has screamed about division. She has screamed about spellings. She has had a full-scale meltdown over a five times table worksheet. She has even screamed about being asked to draw a character from a book or shoot nerf gun pellets at maths answers.

I think the last one resulted in one of my growing collection of ‘hate mail’ letters from her. She wrote it to Mummy, crossed that out and put my full name, as – and I quote – “you’re not my Mummy any more.” Shade.

I chose to count it as the day’s English task, and resisted correcting the spelling or asking her to redo it in her best handwriting.

I also went to bed and cried.

Fortunately not all of her ire is directed at me. She and the Small Small have also screamed at each other, and competed over everything from who gets to sit on which side of the sofa to who’s imaginary horse is the fastest, who gets to go upstairs first to who twatted the other one the hardest.

Possibly my favourite of the week’s tantrums, however, has come from the Smallest Small.

In the run up to The Tantrum, she was engaged with the Big Small in what I thought was an innovative and enriching activity. (If I learn anything from lockdown it should be that this is a clear warning signal that it a) isn’t, b) someone is going to end up crying, and c) that’s most likely me).

In this particular instance, I had got the smalls to lie down on the floor with their arms out, drawn round them, and got them to colour themselves in. The idea was to cut these out, and send them to the Grandsonthenetheredge in the post as a life sized ‘hug’ (credit to random internetter, not my own idea).

This took some time to set up, and resulted in a full seven minutes of peaceful art – which is above average in the current concentration stakes – until the kids buggered off and I finished off all the colouring. Don’t worry, they came back every now and then to complain I wasn’t doing it to their specific instructions.

Despite this arms-length creative process, the Small Small became violently and incomprehensibly attached to her avatar, and proceded to have a full-on existential crisis at the thought of sending it off to Granny.

“I feel like I don’t exist any more mummy!”

“It’s like I’m not here!”

“I miss myself so much already!”

Having become irrevocably bogged down in the philosophical matters of reality, self determination and the true meaning of life, I did manage to get the damn picture in an envelope, although obviously I then had to colour in a second version, mostly alone, for the sake of ongoing harmony and peace.

Since then the Small Small has abandoned these pretensions to intellectualism and civility, and has basically gone feral.

It won’t wear clothes. Especially shoes and pants. It went to the toilet during dinner the other day, and came back announcing “just to let you know, I am definitely wearing knickers.” Big Small and I both expressed the opinion that people ACTUALLY wearing knickers seldom feel the desire to assert this to a general audience, a suspicion which proved on inspection to be well founded.

One day last week we managed to compromise on a swimming costume, but a lot of the time it’s just been naked.

It’s also reverted back to eating with fingers and is receding daily into illiteracy, clearly following its sister’s lead. (On the plus side I feel pretty sure if I continue to leave her to her own devices she may start spontaneously fashioning rudiementry tools next week, so I’m going to count that as a developmental win).

The thing is, when I come down to it, I feel a lot for both Smalls.

Because I feel moochy and not much like doing anything. MY concentration is shot. I am angry for no reason. There are moments when I want to tear all my clothes off and howl at the moon. (So far I’ve settled for pyjamas and crying into the cat. She cares for this even less than she cares for Cat Buckaroo).

I’m questioning the meaning of my existence, too. So many of the anchors I need to feel real and grounded aren’t there anymore – touch, social connection, routine, planning, looking forward to things. I’m flat without them – adrift. And I miss myself – or the version of me that had all those things.

I feel scribbled in and scrunched up, a paper version of myself stretched thin trying to be a teacher, a referee, a counsellor, an employee, a housewife, an entertainer, a social organiser – and I’m not doing any of it right.

I feel like I’m the one that really needs my tantrum script – the one I have whispered into the tangled hair of a melted down Small A LOT over the last few days. It’s okay. Let it out. It’s okay to feel this way. It’s okay.

So I’ll say it to you, in case you need it too.

It’s okay.

It’s okay to be a crap teacher.

It’s okay to feel stretched thin.

It’s okay to feel unreal.

It’s okay to feel like you’re failing – we all are.

It’s okay to cry.

It’s okay to shout.

It’s okay to throw a tantrum every now and then.

It’s okay to start over, and show your kids how to start over. It’s okay to be overwhelmed.

It’s okay to be afraid.

When it all gets too much, all any of us can do is to go back to basics – as the Small Small has demonstrated. And that means looking for the little things under the roar of the big ones.

With that in mind, I’ve kept the hate mail from Big Small, and I plan to tease her with it in the future. Possibly on her 18th birthday.

The phrase “just to let you know, I’m definitely wearing pants” is now a family joke.

This week also saw Small Small rename hay as ‘horse noodles,’ which is frankly brilliant, and will also become part of our family language.

Meanwhile, Big Small invented the game ‘Killer Bee Wasp’ which has had us all screaming with laughter in the garden after tea.

It’s these moments I’m trying to let in to fill me back up, fill me back out, anchor me down, make me feel real and rounded and normal again. Or as close as is possible right now.

I hope it is enough for me to weather the tantrums of next week, too.

Wish me luck. I’m sending it to you.

xxx

WILL NO ONE THINK OF THE ANIMALS???

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

≈ Leave a comment

They are the hidden victims of coronavirus, after all.

Here is Catonthenetheredge ‘enjoying’ a game of Cat Buckaroo with the Smalls, as evidence.

Clearly I don’t think cats are victims… (Apart from all that stuff about being carriers and having to be kept indoors, or not, as it turns out the case may be).

But if I think too much about the victims, the families, the people going out on a limb to help them all, I’ll start crying again.

And sometimes smiling at the little things, like the palpable suffering of Catonthenetheredge in quarantine with the kids, is a bit of a relief.

If you’d like to keep cheering me up I’d love to see more pics of animals spending unprecedented amounts of time with their people.

Xx

The shades of lonely

12 Thursday Nov 2020

Posted by in mental health, Parenting

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My house came white. Gleaming white. And I keep thinking I need to decorate it… But the prospect of decorating by myself is kind of lonely.
It’s not so much the hassle as the CHOICE. It’s such a responsibility! You see colour is HARD. It means things. It infers. It makes statements, and creates moods.
Colour makes people FEEL things.
So I suppose it’s not really surprising that colours and feelings sometimes get mixed up.
Feeling blue.
Seeing red.
Tickled pink.
The green eyed monster…
I think it’s because we know the words for colours before we know a lot of other descriptive words. Certainly we know our basic colours before we know the words to describe more complicated things – like feelings.
So when we don’t have the words for a feeling, we still have colours as adjectives to fall back on. Before words form, and after they’ve been lost, there’s colour.
Well, it occured to me there isn’t a standard colour that we’ve collectively agreed upon for LONELY.
Loneliness is something I’ve thought about a lot, in recent years.
The first time I felt lonely I was a child.
I was a child with OCD, and I needed to check the light switches and taps, and I couldn’t not do it in case something bad happened, and I couldn’t talk about it because I knew no one else would understand, and I didn’t have the words.
The second time I felt lonely – really really lonely – was when I became a mother.
I felt removed, and isolated, and drugged with doubt and fear, and I couldn’t shake off doom and I knew no one else would understand, and I didn’t have the words for it.
What I did have was colours.
The thing is that I don’t think lonely is one colour. There’s so many different TYPES of lonely… and each one has a different tint, a different flavour.
Possibly it’s so hard to pin lonely down because we don’t actually TALK about it. It doesn’t get a lot of our words.
Loneliness is the nation’s dirty secret. There are more than 9 million people who describe themselves as lonely in the UK. That’s one in every five – which is quite a lot. And for a thing that happens a lot, we don’t say much about it at all.
Being lonely is… well… lonely.
So I thought I’d try and write down some of the shades of lonely I recognise. Because by giving them a colour, maybe I can give them a shape, a voice. And maybe other people who have painted with those shades might recognise them too, and end up feeling a little less lonely in their own lonely.
If any of these ARE familiar, please let me know in comments which one or ones have decorated your life.
If you have your own shade, please add it to my list. #ShadesOfLonely
Oh, and if anyone would like to give me a job making up spurious paint names, please do get in touch (I think I may have missed my calling).
The Shades of Lonely
Jurassic Crystal
A primal, biting lonely that descends on new mothers. Appears when you are staggered by love and horror, panic and euphoria; when you are supposed to know what you’re doing but don’t, when people think you’re coping but you’re not, when you wander between wonder and wondering what the hell you’ve done, if it’s too late to back out, if you’re going mad, if you can say so, if you’ll ever sleep again, if the baby would be better off without you, or if they’d feed better with nipple shields or the very expensive bottles with scientfically nipply teets – best order them off Amazon Prime now.
Wilted Rose Shimmer
The shade of a bad date where you’ve just realised, iridescent over the top of your smile, that there’s no one in the world that will get you, and maybe actually it’s you and not them.
Amethyst Mosaic
The lonely you get in the school yard, trying to fit in with the other Mums and break into conversations, where you are all pointy purple peaks at wrong angles, with pieces that don’t fit.
Penzance Drizzle
The particular shade of Cornish skies that hangs over you at conferences, and forms an invisible barrier between you and the delegates you’re supposed to be **shudder** NETWORKING with.
Penzance Steel
The unforgiving deeper shade you get standing alone at the side of a room trying to hold a buffet plate, drink, fork, and handbag, watching interactions with both jealousy and relief they don’t involve you, while hoping no one comes up to talk to you with your mouth full, and pondering how soon you can reasonably leave.
Acerbic Lemon
The aggressive, industrious lonely you get rage-cleaning because you hate it, but like things clean, and no other bahoostard can be bothered or will do it properly – tasting vaguely of bicarbonate of soda under the back teeth.
Unsunflower Smudge
The existential shade you get browsing Facebook and trying to figure out why your life doesn’t look like this, why everyone else’s families are happier than yours, what you’re doing wrong, if you’re experiencing your own life wrong, if any of it’s actually true, if reality is even a thing anymore, and if you have a trip to the park or a family meal without it being witnessed online are you actually there/consuming calories at all?
Cerulean-brink Tincture
The clear, fearful lonely you get watching the world go to hell on a handcart, when you are powerless to do anything and afraid for the future, and when you realise a Home Economics GCSE, English literature A-level and a marketing certificate do not constitute the apocalypse survival skills you’re likely to need. Only you can’t voice those fears, obviously, because they’re probably stupid and ill-informed – but they’re still there anyway.
Velvet Rust Ice
The deep, plush lonely of 3am, feeding and rocking a fussy baby in the dark by cold light of smartphone, desperate for sleep, tarnished with the knowledge the rest of the world is muted and peaceful, far, far away. Rough and smooth with a metallic finish. Old blood, and a draught around the legs.
Toffee Dove Mist
The lonely of facing a mountain of domestic chores or even a single domestic disaster, where everything is muddied to brown and responsibility curdles it grey.
Writhing Chartreuse
The sweating, shuddering shade you get being violently ill, possibly from both ends at once, with no one to hold your hair up, help you back to bed, take the rubbish out to the wheelie bin, put the washing on, change the sheets, or basically care if you actually get up again the next day.
Fluorescent Mint
Jarringly, incongruously bright, the shade of social awkwardness overlaid with toothpaste that you get in a group of peers, where you feel slightly off-kilter and out-of-sync with everyone, and you’re looking at the world from the back of your head through the long, long tunnel of your eyes.
Aztec Tangerine Punch
The wild lonely of overwhelm you get covered in needy children when it’s just you and you have to be their everything and you’re supposed to make it all better and know all the answers – but everyone shrieking at you is only as loud as the roar inside your head that you’re not good enough and can’t help and you don’t know what to do and there are no options or good choices and you just crave some peace to pull your pieces together and hold them, just hold them, in an approximation of the right place. Acrid echoes of almonds, salt, and hangovers.
Dappled Apricot
The smooth tart lonely you get when you’re not covered in children, when there is too much peace, when they’re playing nicely or off with friends and getting independent and suddenly don’t need you – and you realise being someone’s everything was your everything, and that it’s already fading and it wasn’t enough and you didn’t notice or cherish it enough either.
Oxtail Blush
Late at night, weary and raw, when the kids have gone to bed and there’s so much to do to tidy up and prepare for the next day, but you’re so tired you can’t move and you’re watching unsatisfying crap on telly, because you can’t watch anything good because you’re supposed to be up and doing things, and it’s getting late and it will all start all over again tomorrow too soon but you can’t quite bring yourself to go to bed because the thought of brushing your teeth feels insurmountable, and you are conscious that you could just sit there all night and no one would know or care very much, and one day you just might.
Tuscan Dawn
When you’re watching a rom com, and someone says something beautiful about why they love someone else, and you realise no one in the world has ever felt that way about you.
Midnight Molasses
A gloopy black/brown, retracting sluggishly as you wake with a wrench in the middle of the night, trying to escape it. Cloying, receding nightmares and clinging, dawning realities are all mixed up and bogged down – and too sticky to let you slip back to sleep.
Hush-hush Turquoise
The cold, still lonely you get in a medical waiting room, waiting for results, possibly watching a Dr gear up to give them, where life stops at the bottom of a heartbeat in a calm that isn’t but can’t get out, where you are conscious of yourself as a straight rod of light inside, afraid to touch your own walls.
Sepia Mauve
A yellow-tinted, wavering lilac, that smells of old lady, potpourri, and burning rubber. A shade you get sitting on the sofa watching a programme you don’t want to watch but don’t want to rock the boat over, next to a long term partner you don’t really know and aren’t sure you like anymore. It is a sickly precipice of either change or resignation, and you can’t look at it directly.
Battleship Peach
When the kids go off with your ex and the days without them stretch ahead, thin, insipid pastel with a grey pearly sheen. It covers everything, at least for a while.
Sunset Ivy
Bright bitter orange, with livid green cheese-veins spreading out like poison. The shade of lonely you live when you see pictures or hear stories of your kids’ life without you, of the family that’s not yours anymore, of the woman that plays your role when you’re not there.
Hollow Ochre
The empty, defeated slurry of lonely after an early miscarriage. Where what you have to grieve is mostly an idea, more real to you than anyone, slippery, and slipping away. When you have been robbed by your own body and can’t talk about it or show your sadness, and it’s hard to see anything in colour.
Fuschia Auburn Blaze
A bright, exhausting slash of unreal pink, burning yellow to black at the edges – the exact shade of bruised fireworks behind your eyelids in the sun. It is the lonely you get when you are in the midst of an obsession or routine, when the Dark says you have to get up and do your checks, or or go through your rituals – and you can’t get out of it and you can’t talk about it, because no one is going to understand, and if you tell the secret there’ll be a price, and you’re trying to keep everyone safe, and if you stop or fail or let on, the Dark will win.
Vermillion Gash
A vivid, desperate, pleading wound, bleeding freely and seeping into everything. It is the volcanic shade of injustice and impotence converging, when no one believes you, when no one will help you, when your reality is denied, when you just want to be SEEN, to be acknowledged, to be understood – and you are clamouring for it but no one will hear you and you are screaming noiselessly into an indifferent abyss – and it hurts so wretchedly on the inside you want to claw at the outside so it balances out – so the colour of the lonely is made real, and red, and hypnotising, and both the sea you’re drowning in and your only anchor.
It has faded, Vermillion Gash. But I still feel a flash of it sometimes.
I think once it’s part of your palette it doesn’t leave you. Some of the #ShadesOfLonely are fleeting – others stain.
I hope you don’t ever feel Vermillion Gash lonely, or Hollow Ochre, or Fuschia Auburn Blaze, or lots of these colours, really. I hope you don’t have a worse shade all of your own. But if you do, I hope you show it to people. I hope you make ART with it. I hope you use it to describe part of the world not everyone else can see but that some will find a mirror in, not just a painting. Because by hiding loneliness away – especially the darker shades – we create more of it.
I suppose the first rule of Lonely Club is to talk about Lonely Club… And colours – the very first words of description we learn – can maybe help us describe the indescribable, the confusing, the secret, the shameful, the painful.
Start with the feeling, and then give it a colour. And then describe THAT.
If everyone shares a shade what we’ll end up with is a rainbow – the international symbol of inclusivity and hope. And you really can’t be lonely under a rainbow.
At the very least we can petition Dulux to create some new and patently ridiculous paint colours. Who knows? I may even use one in my living room. Eventually.

ELF WARS

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Divorce, Humour, Motherhood, Parenting

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ELF WARS.

I blame America.

They bred the Elf on the Shelf. And they infected us. And now we face Elf segregation, Elf division, ELF WARS!

First there is the deep and deepening divide between parents who ELF and parents who, for the sake of their ‘elf, don’t ELF.

The first group hate the second group because a large number of them secretly sincerely regret making such a foolish month-long annual commitment of unsustainable creativity, but can’t say so, because the ‘magic of Christmas’.

The second group hate the first group because they have to explain to their children why their home DOESN’T have an Elf, while simultaneously maintaining the ‘magic of Christmas’, which essentially after infinity cyclical conversations with Smalls boils down to BECAUSE MUMMY HAS A BLOODY JOB.

Some within this group will secretly feel guilty: others militant: still more generally aggrieved, which is the British Way. The militant will talk at length to the generally aggrieved about the moral, ethical and consistency issues with telling one’s children a creepy toy-spy is watching them for good behaviour while simultaneously moving about the house at night and performing ‘hilariously’ naughty deeds. A few extreme crunchy outliers may even debate whether or not we should by lying to our offspring at ALL, about Santa, magic, Christmas, etc.

Within group 1 there will be the hardcore Pinterest Parents, who become evangelical about their cause and Competitive (big C) about it, often utilising the classic humblebrag and the medium of Facebook – or worse – the class WhatsApp group. “Oh Little Martin loves the Elf! This morning he made a hammock out of Mummy’s bra and put shaving foam all over the cat!” ENDLESS EMOJIS.

Somewhere a funny-man Dad will have put the Elf into a compromising position with Barbie, Oh the LOLS, What are we like? Monkey covering eyes, When Daddy’s left on Elf Duty, Etc.

Other Elfers will then be spurred to share their own Comedy Genius Elf Antics, thus putting up the backs of the Non-Elfers still further and inciting Non-Elf Extremism,

AND THE WHOLE OF PARENT SOCIETY CRUMBLES AND DESCENDS TO WAR.

Sooooo….

I have an Elf.

I try not to get competitive with it, or indeed particularly creative, or traumatise my children through it, or even judge/admire the non-Elfers.

I have an Elf for a very specific reason.

Two Octobers ago, my husband moved out. I had two very upset little girls (well okay, one pretty oblivious baby and one very upset little girl) and the days were dark with more than Daylight Saving Hours. I was desperate to do something for us, to bond our new smaller family, and to create a bit of light and sparkle for the Smalls. So my lovely sister suggested and then sent us an Elf.

We called it Elfie, like approximately 75% of all Elf on the Shelfs the country over, we put a Barbie skirt on her, and the Smalls were smitten.

Ours is not a naughty Elf, or a Santa-Espionage-Elf. She is a Kindness Elf. And through December she reminds the Smalls to be kind, to give to others, and to basically not be selfish greedy little boohoostards. This often isn’t inventive, because I’m tired. It can be simple as smiling at a stranger one day or giving someone a hug. There are definitely year-to-year repeats (I keep the notes). She also writes the girls a hello poem, with a poetry treasure hunt around the house to find her, simply because rhyming makes me happy and making them happy makes me happy.

Last year the Smalls found the Elf book in the summer, and missed Elfie so much she had to turn up to visit in August. IN AUGUST.

Elfing, you see, takes commitment, and energy, and frankly – desperation. That’s what Elfie was really born of. Desperation.

This year, there has been a new twist in our Elf journey.

The ex has now got an Elf.

It is called Snowy. It wrote them a poem. It introduced itself as being best friends with Elfie.

And I have Feelings.

I am now in my own internalised Elf-War.

One half of me thinks that it’s great he’s showing this level of interest in Christmas (he literally never even helped me decorate a tree). It’s great the kids get that at his end, and they love Snowy! And that should make me happy, right? I mean, I don’t own the Elf on the Shelf concept.

But.

This was… my thing. It was special. It was a bit of magic I created, that I carved out for us when there didn’t look like there would ever be magic again. I wanted to make my own Christmas tradition, and if feels like it’s been nicked. Or at least piggy-backed.

And now I’m dreading them coming back and telling me all the SO FUNNY things Snowy did, because he and she have a team and time and they’re not on their own at 11 o’ clock trying to think of something for it to do, and they’re not two years into Elf-fatigue, and I have to smile and say how lovely and keep up the pretence my Elf is best buds with theirs when really, really what my Elf wants to do is STUFF A CANDY CANE UP SNOWY’S TIGHT RED ARSE.

And that, my friends, is the Spirit of Christmas!

I hate myself. Although I think I’m having a pretty human response…
And I hate him, too. Which is also human.
And Elves. Who aren’t human. Or a sub-species. Look, no one really knows.

Particularly though, I hate having been dragged into the competitive Elfing world of the ELF WARS, which I never really wanted to be a part of.

Luckily, it’s nearly over.

In January all parents can negotiate a peace treaty and find other reasons to judge and compete with each other, and rouse ourselves to arbitrary indignation!

I can’t wait.

xxx

(PS. Now you know EXACTLY what Barbie is thinking about where the candy cane is going to end up in this picture. I like to think she’s taking revenge for all Barbies used and abused by Elves and Comedy Dads).

EDIT: For the last 2 years me and the Smalls have also done matching Xmas pjs. If even a hint of a picture of the four of them in matching pjs crosses my consciousness that candy cane will be REPURPOSED. Also I’ve had mulled wine. 😉

Topsy and Tim and the lost £@#!%

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Humour, Parenting

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Sometimes, when the children aren’t around and the dibber is too far away I find myself watching Cbeebies alone.

Partly this is because I actually find myself caring about the plot of Molly and Me (Oops, I know), partly it’s because I have a girl crush on the mum from Waffle (we’d be friends) and partly because I am frozen in abject fear and horror of Moon and Me (Mr Onions is clearly a puppet serial killer, and HE COULD BE UNDER YOUR BED RIGHT NOW, and I defy you not to have to check this before you go to sleep).

Anyhoo, I think it’s a shame it ends at 7. I think parents, scratch that, MUMS, would get a lot out of the odd adult episode.

Here’s what I’m thinking.

1. BEDTIME STORY
First, Chris Evans reads us another bedtime story, but this time it’s extracts from Lady Chatterley’s Lover, there’s a roaring fire, and he’s forced to take his top off. For health reasons. More close ups of his eyes staring deep into the bleary eyes of sleep-deprived and sexually-underwhelmed viewers, like he knows our pain and is fully prepared to lick it away. You know. Personally.

2. ANDY’S DINOSAUR ADVENTURES
Andy can go on a Dinosaur adventure, but there must be actual peril, because frankly those CGI models are WASTED, and I’m gonna need more Jurassic Park and less stroll-in-the-park trying to get the baby to sleep.

I suggest he also takes his top off, or has it torn off by a Brontiraptorsaurasor. Possibly he has to dive into water to escape, a la Mr Darcy. I can’t decide whether I want him to have a skinny-lanky guy washboard and happy line going on, or a delicious dad-bod paunch. Either is good.

3. SWASHBUCKLE
Cook and Line are going in REAL green slime. We grew up with Noel’s House Party, dammit, and we want actual slippery slidiness not the fake bobbins they do on Swashbuckle – and also to not have to clean it up afterwards. Bliss!

They are fighting over something, not sure of the details: doesn’t really matter. I’m going for tops off again – purely for continuity, you understand. Line can keep the bandanna.

4. JUSTIN’S HOUSE
While we’re on the subject, I also want to see what’s under Robert the Robot’s outfit, and to have him clean MY house. No innuendo here. My actual house – it’s really dirty. Still no innuendo.

Right, that’s the sexy bit out of the way, I’m tired, if I can actually be bothered I can get myself off in minutes anyway because of the ever present danger of Small Person Intrusion, and now what I really want is a SOUL orgasm.

The rest of the Cbeebies team are therefore going to remake several episodes of our least favourite shows with an added dose of realism to make us all feel better about ourselves, our parenting, and our life choices!

5. BING
Flop is going to lose his ever-lasting-sheet for a change, for instance when Bing BREAKS HIS BLOODY PHONE and throws it in the BIN. He’s going to scream, possibly cry, send Bing to his room, and randomly threaten to take away everything he owns ever.

Next episode. When he doesn’t get his turn on the swing, Bing is going to throw a proper on-the-floor-screaming-fit, and Flop is going to stand by trying to catch flailing limbs, alternately shouting and pleading, and receiving pitying looks from passers-by.

6. KATIE MORAG
In the same vein, Katie Morag is going to throw a giant tantrum over having to go to too many of her brother’s four year old birthday parties because she’s BORED, IT’S NOT FAIR, YOU LIKE HIM BETTER THAN ME, and I HATE YOU YOU’RE THE WORST MOTHER EVER. She’s going to slam doors, twat her brother, and burst into hysterical tears. Both Grannies will tut, say it wasn’t like this in their day, and make stupid suggestions of how to deal with the situation involving clips round the ear and behavioural therapy respectively.

Meanwhile the baby will be having serious reflux issues and screaming constantly, while Katie Morag’s mum sits in a corner weeping with cabbage leaves on her boobs.

7. TOPSY AND TIM
Next up: Topsy and Tim. Topsy is going to whine incessantly, and Tim is going to need to be told to get his hands out of his pants every two minutes. They are constantly bickering, so all Joy can hear is ‘Muuuuuuuuum’ ‘He hit me’ ‘Topsy called me a poo-poo face’ ‘He started it’ ‘But she kicked me first’.

We watch (with popcorn/pombears) as her indefatigable good nature is gradually eroded over the next 20 minutes, and she actually shouts ‘For Fox Sake’ when they throw the birthday cupcakes on the floor.

Joy goes on to burn the fishfingers for tea, has to make two emergency caveman costumes for a random Stone Age Day she’s only just found out about, and threatens to punch her joker of a husband in the face when he comes in and asks why the house is such a mess. Cut to nighttime, when Tim wakes up with an itchy bum, and Joy pulls out a WORM on a cotton bud. Montage of Joy calling into work ‘sick’ in order to deal with the 3 billion loads of washing, and disinfecting the house. Topsy screams blue murder as Little Moon Bunny comes out of the wash dyed an uneven greyish-pink by accident. Joy unearths her secret gin stash from behind the rabbit food, circa 3pm, and breaks the fourth wall with a silent ‘cheers’ to the screen.

WE FEEL YOUR PAIN, JOY.

And frankly it’s about bloody time.

Now for the FINALE!!!

I want some romance before I go to bed, and the satisfying completion of a story arc we’ve all been avidly, if perplexedly, following for some years…

8. IN THE NIGHT GARDEN
I have a theory that the entire of In The Night Garden is a drug-addled courtship between lady of the night Upsy Daisy and tortured Smurf/chicken lovechild Iggle Piggle. He wants to get Upsy her Night Garden, all right, and he’s even brought his own blanket. We finally see them lay to rest their inner demons (represented by the rest of the cast) and consummate their love on Upsy Daisy’s bed.

Turns out someone else IS allowed in Upsy Daisy’s bed.

Daisy DO.

Heartwarming.

Sniff. No YOU’RE crying.

Please let me know in comments what else you’d add to my Adult Cbeebies schedule, or any other ideas for the episodes you’d most like to see!

Xxxx

(PS. For those who care, the Haahoos represent Daisy’s bloated euphoria on a high, the Pontipines are the little voices of doubt and catastrophe always on the cusp of her hearing, Makka Pakka is Iggle’s OCD, and the Tombliboos his warped morality – a candy-striped manifestation of see on evil, hear no evil, speak [squeak?] no evil).

(PPS. I have a lot of free time on my brain).

Project Stop

08 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Divorce, mental health, Motherhood, Parenting

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There’s a phrase that has been bouncing around my head for some time now.

What if you’re defined by the worst thing that ever happened to you?

What does that make you?

Who do you become?

How do you seize back control of your own story, as someone who DOES and not someone who is done TO?

Well the worst thing that ever happened to me wasn’t all that bad by Terrible Life Stuff standards.

I just got divorced. People break up. Families split. It’s as common as, well, you know, RAIN IN SHEFFIELD.

But 2 years on, it is still rubbish. It still hurts. And dammit, it IS still defining me…

For the last few weeks, it’s once again been the first thing I think about when I wake, usually at 3am, by the call of miscellaneous dread.
It’s the last thing I think about before I eventually go to sleep.
Some days, I am wandering again through the motions of everyday feeling like a stranger in a life I don’t recognise and never wanted.
Some days, I can’t hold a normal conversation with people about anything that’s not THIS, because it’s all there is, and they won’t understand, and saying what I think or feel or even just the facts about what’s happening is BORING, 2 years on, or inappropriate, or even just plain bitter.

That’s the trouble with 2 years on. People want you to be ‘over it’ by now.

But how do you get over something that’s not actually over? That keeps coming back around, like a vindictive groundhog day?

I was working on it. I was actually getting there. I was BETTER for a while (one very significant letter’s difference to bitter).

But then it started up again. It’s still alive and kicking and BITING. It’s still impotence and fear and anger and ridiculousness and lack of good choices and being backed into corners and there is no respite or even keel or even clarity – even REALITY – because it is lost in the he said/she said and twisted logic and semantics and anti-correlation and blame and accusations and ultimatums and reasonable vs unreasonable dressed up as reasonable in sheep’s clothes, howling at the damn moon.

And the only thing, the ONLY thing I can change about any of this – the only thing I will ever be able to change – is me.

MY reactions.
MY actions.
My choices, such as they are.

And sometimes that’s the hardest thing of all, isn’t it?

Especially when you feel powerless. When you feel done TO. When you feel the world can see but simply doesn’t care. When you feel alone.

So I do what I always do, when I feel my feet scrape the bottom of everything that is.
I Weeble.
I roll back up.
I show up.
I plan.
I invest.
I TRY.

But mostly, I DO.
(Ironically words I have come to sincerely regret…)

I throw myself into Christmas early and all the fab stuff we can do together, and crafts, and trips and tickets and friends and festive, because now I only get 2 December weekends to do it.
I try and use my alone time to do all the doing that needs to be done so I can just do Mummy when they’re back, and do it properly, so they remember me. So it matters.
I clean, because that means I’m coping, right? Look – mopped floors, everything must be fine!
I buy too many presents I can’t really afford to make up for everything that I know they see and don’t say, but comes out at odd times, and I’m sorry they have to live with all this, and I buy cheap sparkly clothes I won’t wear because I don’t go out, but sparkles make me happy – or at the very least sparkly, and maybe that will do – and I try and not look at the families in the shopping centre.
I try and build ME and be a growing, flourishing, rounded PERSON and not (only) a diminishing, scared and exhausted shell, so I plan activities and start courses and hobbies and write bad poetry and draw bad pictures and reach out to people and gatecrash friends’ activities but then don’t always respond or show up because I can’t face it.
I run until everything aches and I can’t breathe and then I drink wine so life looks funny again and have sex until it’s the only thing I can feel and blocks out everything else.

What I don’t do, very often, is stop.

I think I’m afraid that if I stop, everything that I’m fighting or running from will catch up with me.

I think I use momentum, I use DOING, randomly, so that I feel like I’m the one in charge of my life. That I’m the one doing the DOING, not having the doing done to me….

And I think that isn’t always the right call.

Sometimes stopping IS doing something positive for yourself.
Sometimes stopping is an investment.
Sometimes silence is golden.
Sometimes doing nothing is renewing.
And sometimes you need to stop before you fall over….

I suck at it. Stopping.

It feels like the enemy.
It feels like admitting defeat:
it feels terrifying.

Because, who am I when I’m not going?

How do I find a forwards, an out, an exit, if I stop moving?

What happens in the empty space that follows?

What is in my head if it’s not full of plans, and can I actually bear it?

What if all I am IS the worst thing that ever happened to me, and it has eaten away everything else and there is now nothing left underneath?

STOP.
STOP.
STOP.

I suppose that’s my new project, in my overall campaign to REdefine me – Project Stop. (which may in fact undermine the whole stopping ethos by being planned and attacked as a project, but it’s the only way I know how to tackle it, because old habits die hard).

So one of the things I’m going to DO this month is to learn to not DO, and take myself off to a pamper evening, run by a lovely friend of mine.

If any other Sheffield-based Weebles out there fancy Project Stop, I’d love to see you there.

It’s a Feel Good self care and pamper evening, at St Gabriel’s C of E Church, Sat 30 November from 19.00.

Here’s the Eventbrite link: http://bit.ly/FeelGoodEventbrite

xxx