annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hanging on behind Lots of plans and muddles and changing of plans today, mostly down to me, though not on purpose. I'd had long, long chats on the phone, starting with being woken up by Friend Who Has Been a Bit Tricky, calling to finally sort this mess out, which we commenced so to do. Of course we had both got the wrong end of the stick because under stress we both have inner voices misinterpreting events and causing major fuck-ups. This is also why we need each other, because it's not usually both at once and the more rational can ease the other back into a steadier place. Then it was ED, to discuss care homes, now that I'm able to talk about it without weeping (post Ultimate Weeping on phone with Friend, actually). When SIL has talked to ED about it, she's not keen, because it's the evening and she's with him and GS and that's what she'd lose, five nights a week. When I spoke to her this morning she was alone, confused, frustrated and frightened, and she wanted to go to the care home right now, this minute. There's not been any legal stuff about her capacity to make decisions, but, well, you can see. Next came SIL, for comparitively ages - man, he's talking to me now, like a damn that has burst, but good, it's better that we all know what we're feeling/thinking. It was after this that I started making plans with YD to go and stay with her from tomorrow, then on to ED's on Friday. I sorted out the cat being fed, texted another old friend who lives near YD, suggesting meeting up on Thursday - it all seemed good, until as I was walking down the street a bit later, I suddenly wondered when I was next having acupuncture. I looked in my diary and, fucking hell, it's full of stuff that I either want or need to go to over the next few days. Which would be fine, shit happens, etc, but I clearly remember that while talking to YD I had my phone on charge and told her to hang on, I was putting it down to find and check my diary. Which I did, and looking at it now I can't imagine which fucking week I was looking at then - I must have just flicked forward until I came to an empty week and told both myself and her that I had nothing booked in. My immediate interpretation of this was to surrender. Brain full, broken down, does not function, stop, fuck it all till I've switched right off. I kind of closed off - OK, I cried a bit first - then just started singing a version of this, which I'd sung in a big crowd at Shambala, a sea shanty for helping you get the job done:
I sang this aloud on the sponsored walk, most of which I did alone, in the pouring rain, on an empty sea-front. My line was "Well, a walk in the rain won't do us any harm" and with all those repetitions and hauling the old chariot along it becomes very hypnotic and a bit zen. Excellent method of blocking out thoughts. End result: visit to YD cancelled - shame, big shame, but - tomorrow I start the art class I signed up for a lifetime ago - can't remember if it's drawing or painting or both, but will hunt down the info tomorrow and find materials; on Weds I am going to London by train, day return, to meet an ex-diarylander, v excited - I was hanging on to this bit, fersure; Thursday I have GP, acupuncture and yoga; Friday singing in the morning and straight on up to ED's. When I write it down like that I think, Jesus, I've seen stand ups doing routines about people like me, middle class women of a certain age with "mental health problems" going to art and yoga and alternative therapies but then I remember that they can fuck off. The series about 999 responders had an episode focussing on mental ill-health call-outs this evening, reminding me that I haven't done that in a long, long time, longer than I've been blogging, and that's because I have learned to manage myself and my symptoms and it's fucking hard work and I'm getting further into debt to do it, but it has to be done and I am very lucky to be in this position, where I can sooth myself when it all starts to unravel. And, Oh my very god, I just had an email to say the new Wally Lamb novel has been delivered to my kindle, and it bloody has, and I'm still only halfway through the Elizabeth George, which is a whopper of a thing. Oh, there's such pleasure in having that all lined up, proper favourite authors. Wally Lamb's first two, 'She's Come Undone' and 'I Know This Much is True' are seriously fab. Ms George is pissing me off with a minor but persistent annoying habit. Part of the action is set in Italy and she chucks in odd bits of Italian, up to two or three lines, without ever translating them. Sometimes she tells you via the response what was said (much as Shakespeare hardly gave any stage directions - they were all in the dialogue), but not always. As a person who can more or less speak Spanish I can make sense of most of it (or think I can, I may be off in quite the wrong direction eg suburbs means middle class comfort, but suburbios means slums, so mistakes can be made), but not everyone can do this, which is not just down to education but also because our brains are all different, so it pisses me off. Worse, early in the first chapter she has two men "exiting a shop". I don't believe in this word 'exiting', though the spell-check hasn't picked it up, so it must exist, but why isn't it double t, like sitting/siting, kitting/kiting? Ach the spell-checker challenges both siting and kiting - I'm going to bed. Now I've slagged her off, I feel a bit guilty - I'm loving this book. 11:04 p.m. - 21.10.13 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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