Deck The Halls

Only four days to go....winter solstice....tidings of comfort and joy....

I'm one of those for whom this time of year is full of mixed feelings. Although I do have beautiful children I don't have a warm or connected family.

Divorce for us means that we get the kids for half the day each depending on their dad's shifts.

As a child, a broken family for me meant that I learned from a young age not to have many, if any, expectations of the time of year. As I grew up I learned to revel in my care worker jobs, never being able to commit to Christmas plans means I was able to disconnect from any arguments about where to spend the all important day.

Being a parent brings with it other pressures. Mums are meant to be obsessively cleaning, buying, wrapping, baking etc. I can barely scrape myself off the sofa. I'm wiped out with something viral as well as signed off with stress let alone managing my daily pain.

I have boxes of things I've bought for crimbo but cannot face lifting them, going through them or organising them to wrap. I have cards to post, I have written them but I cannot get my brain to accept the next stage, popping in photos of the kids, addressing envelopes, stamping and then going to the post office. I dread getting there only to be told that I have missed the last posting day!

I am slightly reassured by a thread on Mumsnet today, where women competitively brag about their slatternly, or not so slatternly, ways.

I was a slattern for years, part of me was proud but part deeply wished I wasn't. I never learned anything from my mum, not even how to keep house at a very basic level, so having run away at sixteen I had no role model and spent my teens, twenties and thirties living in squalor.

I started to improve once I'd decided that my life was going nowhere fast.

I then married my now ex husband who had very high standards of tidiness.

I became ill while we were together, my ill health further compounded by my two pregnancies. He took sole charge of the cleaning and tidying. 

I railed against his standards but when we split I was left trying to keep house to his standards rather than my own previous standards.

What had happened? I, the dyed in the wool slattern, had suddenly become house proud!

Sadly I didn't have the fitness to maintain his standards.

I am trying and it does wipe me out but I wonder if I am paying it too much heed.

I know the house won't be perfect for Christ's birth celebrations but honestly, does The Holy Babe actually give a monkey's? Do my two holy babes actually give a monkey's? Their dad would be clearing up around us while we opened presents and I was begging him to just sit down and chill with us. 

This year I have wanted so much to prove how we can manage as a small family with me, a non driver, non sailor, at the helm. I let our train become derailed by money worries, work shiz and an unsuitable man.

This year, instead of crying over pain, men, work, money and substandard house care, I want my gift to our family to be my awesome presence, not just my awesome presents.

Merry Christmas, have a good one! What will your gift be, to yourself and to your family?

Wait a Minute Mr Postman

This week I did the unthinkable. The thing that people always advise you not to do. The thing that once done cannot be undone.

I composed an email outlining all the things wrong with a family member's behaviour and attitude towards me.

And pressed send.

Now this has been an ongoing thing, ongoing for the best part of two decades. 

I'm at a low ebb and couldn't take anymore of the relentless assault, digs, muttered insults, and most recently spiteful tagging on social media.

Some years ago I learned that this person was violent and abusive. I tried to intervene and my intervention was at best well meant and at worst clumsy. It was also unwelcome, and resisted by the person subject to the abuse as is sometimes the case in these situations.

Suffice it to say, this person is still in our lives. I have grinned and borne much but felt that I should, as penance for my unwelcome interference.

I am struggling at the moment for a multitude of reasons. It was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Not true actually, it was one of a bale of hay I have is currently breaking my back.

My complaint has of course received a lukewarm response. Other people agree but think I should just keep ignoring it, or pretending to ignore. It will make future family gatherings awkward and uncomfortable. Knowing my family, I will be phased out, which is sad for me but even sadder for my beautiful children who don't have any say in the situation. 

Part of the reason I stood up for myself at last is because as my kids get older I don't want them to hear or see me constantly belittled by this person. I don't want someone around them who so clearly hates me. 

I just don't know what my problem is.

These things keep coming up. Stuff that other people hate but won't confront, I keep on confronting it.

And I keep on pressing send.

None of it adds to my popularity, and in my slightly paranoid state I think it tends to make people avoid me. It's not as though I have friends and family beating the door down to be with me. 

Being constantly tired or feeling poorly tends to grate on people after a while. 

There are only so many invitations that you can turn down before they stop coming at all, so I need all the friends I can get. 

But I'm not willing to compromise on quality for the sake of quantity even though sometimes I could almost kill for quantity.

It transpires that when managing pain and fatigue your (my) nervous system is working so hard to try and deal with these things that you ( I ) are pretty much permanently in 'fight or flight' mode. Where your (my) body is primed to either attack or escape the incoming threat.

Lately a lot of pretty shitty things have been happening in my life. My pre-pain me might have dealt with them with slightly more grace than I do now.

Now I just feel like I am a puddle of melty slush on the floor. I cannot challenge anything effectively. I can barely articulate a sentence due to the sedating side effects of my medication.

I am in danger of turning into a middle aged menopausal grumpy fucker.

I never used to be this way.

I used to laugh about most things, albeit sometimes maniacally but hey, I was still laughing.

My mantra used to be 'laugh in the face of adversity!' Now my mantra (to and about myself) is 'you're shit and you know you are'.

How does one come back from that?

I was a fit person, running, swimming, yoga, dates, slim, apparently looked good, but now I'm a lot overweight, again due to the stupid drugs I have to take to get through the day in a haphazard and pained fashion.

I have aged, which I have moaned about on here before. I am not against aging per se, I am just against doing it while my back is turned. I was young and fit then I became old and ill.

So come on, join me, I need some solidarity here, have you ever pressed send when it would have been better to keep it in your drafts box?

What's the worst that happened? Did any good come from it?