annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here we go again Today would have been my brother's birthday. I think he would have been 64. Happy birthday, mate. I miss you more than I anticipated. Both of my families, my birth one and the one with my kids, they both feel misshapen, knocked out of shape by death. Just me and my sister and my step-brother. My half-sister really, but I don't see her that way and he lives in France so I don't see him much at all. Me and one son and just one daughter, both full siblings, no more halfs, but with a big space where that little person should be. It keeps rubbing me up the wrong way. Maybe it always will. My brother died in 2018, daughter Sam in 2019 - I can't tell if that's recent or not in terms of loss and grief and mourning. Sometimes it feels forever since I heard their voices or held them in my arms, sometimes it feels like yesterday. Getting back to living during daylight hours isn't going so well. I'm going to bed earlier and still waking up at about midday and taking a couple of hours to be ready to start, by which time it's almost dark. So now I'm staying up late again, cos fuck it. I get that song from Malcolm in the Middle: You're Not the Boss of Me, rattling around in my head. But it's nearly half past one and that is quite late. Today I walked 3.3 miles so I'm ahead of the game with the thousand miles a year challenge and that's how I want to stay. It's weird how the new year makes a person want to do things. I'm so tempted by Josie George's weather scarf - she's on twitter as @porrigebrain and makes a scarf by adding two rows of knitting every day with the temperature marked in colours. She's quite a proficient knitter, doing zigzag patterns and what have you, so the final scarf is a thing of beauty. I immediately wanted to do one of those - it's only about ten minutes a day, but that's as well as walking 2.7 miles, taking a photo-a-day, writing a blog every day, meditating for ten minutes a day, speaking to someone I care about every day... No wonder I'm tired, just thinking about it. But today I am grateful for spending time with my dear friend SB, probably the longest friendship in my life now, going back to the early 1970s. Her son came too, and his little dog who played nicely with my little dog, running along on the hard wet sand of the beach at low tide. We're both tired, me and her, and it's good to spend time with someone you've known for fifty years when you're both tired. A big comfort to walk along, chatting a bit, being silent together a bit, whatever. 12:07 a.m. - 02.01.22 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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