annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Friday I found out this evening that we're not going to see the care home* till next weekend, which is actually a relief as I'm quite exhausted. *care home - the very words give me the shivers, having worked in a system where 'looked after children' is the term for the poor sods bouncing around the fostering/children's home circuit rather than the ones with two nice parents who love each other and their children and aren't crushed to the limit with trying to keep things ticking over. (Not saying anything against single parenthood, having been one myself for many a long year, but if it works - and I've heard rumours that it can - it's gotta be easier with two) But you can see why I'm not bowled over by the juxtaposition of the words 'care' and 'home'. I feel able to relax and pace myself a bit, knowing I can do what I like instead of packing my stuff and hitting the road and being Good Ma and Good Granny and Good MIL. This article popped up again on facebook about who can say what to who* when it comes to hideous circumstances - given that most of us are in some kind of proximity to something of this nature, I recommend it. *probably 'should' be whom but I reject writing it having never heard anyone say it - you ain't the boss of me, grammary, nit-picking people. So, yesterday I was good. Not only did I let it all out in my blog, but before then, I forgot to mention that I'd dragged myself to yoga at the very last minute - started the class with intermittently leaky eyes but came out in a state of relaxed acceptance of the fact that I was sad and just let waves of it come and go for the rest of the day. I came home, shoved all the washing in two big Ikea bags and took it down for a service wash. Then drove to the marina where there's both a car wash and a place to sit and look at the boats where you can drink coffee and smoke fags while it gets done. Came home in sparkly car, put clean bedding on bed, had shower, watched Educating Yorkshire (cannot recommend enough - available on youtube), cried some more for the loss of my teaching career - mixed crying as I'm fucking glad not to be in education under this bunch of micro-managing bastards - and wrote my blog that I needed some help. You see, good self care. Unless you get as far behind as I do, you cannot imagine the treat-like pleasure of a clean you, in clean pyjamas, in a clean bed. This morning I woke up to find exactly the words I needed - MSer Mel telling me she has a good life herself and to believe in the possibility of that for ED, K calling me bold and cocoa sending me a hug. Thank you. I was sufficiently buoyed to take my tearful self to singing, where I sobbed along to 'you were always on my mind' and belted out 'What shall we do with the drunken sailor' and received a round of applause for doing the walk in the rain and making enough money to buy a vehicle for ED. I spent the afternoon with an old, dearly beloved friend, whose step-mother has weeks to live and more, so we're on the same page, who was passing through 'small town down the road where I used to live' - we could only afford one drink each so we bought those and sat outside the pub to share our sandwich from the (cheaper) baker's. When she'd finished eating, my dear co-stoner-gran rolled a spliff, out on the pavement, but nobody looks at two old women so we smoked it and softened at the edges and the months since we last met melted away and we told our tales and listened and laughed till we started getting chilly and drove to the edge of the lake and had another couple of spliffs in the car and very healing it was too. One of the deepest blessings of being older is having friendships that reach back over decades. I need this to happen for ED. I need it to be a good place, where she is safe and involved with things so that I don't spend half my life fretting away at how we can improve her life and all we were even aiming at was bearable, and bearable isn't good enough. There's a chance she could be happy again, in amongst people, all day every day, only alone when she chooses. And there's a chance that if she's OK and YD's OK and Son's OK, then maybe I may have a bit of a resurgence myself. You never know. We'll have to keep an eye on Grandson, but thank fuck we'll have the vehicle and she can go home at weekends and maybe it will turn out to be better for him or at least not worse. I'm going to take all the links down to the fundraising stuff when it's over - or make those entries private in some way that befuddles me right now but will become apparent when necessary. Shit and now it's 2.30 and I've got a novel to read. Laters, darling peeps, hope all is good in your world xxx 12:03 a.m. - 19.10.13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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