annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Out the other side; nice things
We made it! Everyone goes back to work tomorrow, no one is expected to be happy or in a party mood! Determined 'plodding on through' is desirable now!
I didn't realise till just now, when I spotted that we've passed through Christmas and the New Year, that I couldn't write then, for almost two weeks, because I washolding it together by the skin of my teeth and by massive distraction. The blank page would have forced my attention to how hard it all felt, but it didn't, thank fuck.
Nice things:
On Christmas day I cooked, the trad British meat-eaters Christmas dinner, except we had a capon, not a turkey, as I didn't want to have to eat it for the rest of the year and a capon has Shakespearean overtones, don'tcha think? I was an extra in Henry VI pt ii when I was at school, and I'm sure the word capon was in there somewhere. All that cooking takes longer than you think, especially if you insist on it being delicious, so I was busy for hours, pottering but vigilant. For Bloke, Son, YD, friend M and her adult son R. A good combination. The meal was as it should be - possibly the best roast potatoes I've ever managed; the bread sauce was fucked and I didn't care. Mountains of veg, gallons of meaty gravy. I forgot to put the pudding on and it took hours so we had present giving in between. In my last post I can see that I still hadn't bought any presents, but I did later that day - the 23rd, so all was as it should be. But, I have to write about what my girl YD did for me, because I will fucking forget it, I know how my brain is these days, so here's how it was.
A few years ago, Christmas 2012, Grandson presented me with a stack of presents, a pyramid of individual, differently wrapped boxes, about a metre high, tied up with a big ribbon. SIL had bought it, as ED had gone into the care home, and GS was too young, and I was overwhelmed. I imagined how long it would have taken to choose all those presents, to wrap them - I'd never had anyone take so much trouble over a present for me - I cried and gushed thanks and hugs and all that and then I started opening the boxes and they were all shit, dead flimsy poundland type stuff. The chocolates all looked dusty and tasted worse, everything else was just shit, like you get in a cracker, not worth taking home. It was awful, everyone was awkward and Grandson didn't get what was happening at all, but we did all manage to laugh about it later - the amazing optimism of me thinking SIL would do anything more than order the biggest cheapest crap present for me - how mental am I?
So this year, YD tells me to shut my eyes and she brings forth this:
and there I am, crying again, because she has remembered, and she wanted to give me that experience so she's been gathering pretty boxes and gorgeous things all year and I had no inkling but I felt the love, loud and clear from my amazing, difficult and wonderful daughter. There were lovely dresses in my size, an art book, ach, loads of things, each more pleasing than the last. I cried and cried and cried, then we had Christmas pudding and brandy butter and I went for a walk in the rain in the dark and cried some more.
We'd brought ED up for a few hours and she smiled and smiled, though we took her back before dinner as it didn't seem kind to all sit round the table enjoying a meal she can't eat, having conversations she can't join. She liked hearing the cat yowling.
But mainly I've been keeping my head down and completing my daily tasks. 1. Meditate - man, it really does keep you in the present, which when you're surrounded by bastard terminal disease, can only be brilliant. We'll deal with the sad when we get to it, right now they're all here. 2. Photo-a-day - sometimes tricky with the prompts but gives me a good focus while I'm out and about. 3. Walking my six thousand steps (I didn't miss a day in Oct, Nov or Dec!), which has now changed into the #walk1000miles challenge - actually about the same amount of walking, but counting the distance instead of the steps (2.4 miles a day), to cover 1000 miles over the course of 2017. 4. A new one, the #2minutebeachclean a global endeavour, started by a bloke in Cornwall, about shit that's killing sealife, plastic, in all its forms, as well as just litter on the beach. I can never only do two minutes, obviously, but it's good. I've found some awesome stuff, but bed now, tell you later.
I am grateful for: living by the sea; clean sheets on the bed; Tuesday art starts again tomorrow; friends; family
Love xxx
1:13 a.m. - 03.01.17
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