Dream Interpreters - Interpret This!

First a whinge. Bought a shiny, red apple coloured new car. Lovely. Went to pick it up, alas there is a problem with it. This doesn't bode well and I knew I shouldn't have gone to that dealership but as self-employed (credit cliff edge) I didn't have much choice. This is why people drink.

Anyway, onto the dream which, ten hours after waking up, I can still remember really well. It's too bizarre not to post for posterity.

I arrived at this ordinary terraced house (the kind you find in every Scottish town). I was to look after this huge 10-month-old baby. And I mean, this lad was the size of a three-year-old.

Turns out the family were throwing a birthday party for him (at 10-months-old) and I had to take him there. Off I went, had to take a tram, while carrying this baby who had a distinctly wet nappy and, oh, I had nothing to change him with. He was a perfectly nice baby, by the way, all smiley and cheery. 

The tram had the seating arrangement you'd usually find in a subway carriage and to get to the door you had to pass through one set of doors and stand on this open area which then would let you onto the platform.

The building this party was in was underground too (so maybe it wasn't a tram but I remember people using the word "tram" and talking about taking the tram, being on the tram etc. rather than underground or subway). We ended up in this purple corridor which led down to the rooms. It sounds sinister but didn't feel like that at all. I got to the door where the family and friends were and handed the baby over.

At this point, it turned out the family were Polish and I was wondering how they had heard about me (obviously, my job in this dream was giant baby transporter). I thought about Polish friends I have and if they were in the room, no idea why I didn't go in but I went to another room which was like a school gymnasium and there was some sort of performance going on.

A group of children (looked like about P6-7 so 10ish in age) were sitting in rows as though to get their class photograph taken. People standing in front of them had different coloured sheets which they then held up and you had to reach through them.

At that point, I woke up.

You can imagine my disappointment.

Analyse that!

This is the kind of car I should have been already driving but it'll now be next week...hopefully...
This is why it's taken my six years to change my car, it's a painful experience when you're self-employed!

I can feel a crash bubbling away in my forehead, I really cannot deal with another hard year. I do feel like I want to check out. A simple life with no stress would be bliss right now.

It's Not Getting Any Better

I know there are good people out there, people not filled with spite and deceit.

Lately it feels like it's impossible to find them amongst the deluge of pure nastiness that emanates from what seems like the majority. I have lost my faith in humanity, I am swamped by disillusionment. There are reasons for this black mood, the reasons that are pretty much the same as always, circling around the plughole without ever clearing.  It's not a nice world out there, even less so when you have no one on your side because some days it would be a relief to have someone there to fight your corner.

I struggle to put a light on the situation, to joke, as I used to, that I'm just having a gripe and moan and it'll be all okay really, really soon.  My internal optimist, I fear. has finally died.

When Scots Words Suit

There is only one way I can describe how this weekend has left me feeling -

Scunnered.

Watching the hypocrisy unfold on Twitter as once again the side, who think they are always right, mock and sneer in all their pomposity. Threatening with lawyers to bluster their way out of revealing they are little more than high school bullies and all excused as just 'hilarious' banter when they would be up in arms if  their opponents did the same.  Given a journalist with any mettle and a 'great' and 'wonderful' author would find their carefully manipulated reputation in tatters.

It's disheartening that the whole debate has been lowered to this level, where one scoffs at another, believes they are superior enough and unfortunately gets away with it.  

As if that wasn't bad enough, trying to get some people interested has been the most frustrating thing I've encountered since becoming more 'politically aware'.  Knowing there are people out there yet always being left to do everything, the expectation is sometimes overwhelming. I want to moan that I'm doing this with ME, I can't carry everyone, I'd love for more people to put their hands up and share a little.  The apathy is killing me.

It might sound a little vague, I'm worn out thinking about it all. I have lots I need to do tomorrow and empty batteries with which to try and do it.  

I'm just....completely scunnered....

via Atypically Relevant

And Another Thing

I named this blog in an attempt to remind myself that no matter how bad things sometimes get that it won't last forever and I should really concentrate on the bright things. (Of course reading this, maybe I've not been listening to my own advice).

However, considering that it has been raining nearly non stop since November it does feel like the weather is trolling me.

Productivity needs a kick up the backside, I need to get something done, dull grey skies be damned!

The photo that inspired 'It's Not Always Raining' - when little dudes were stuck inside we'd find something fun to do instead.  We didn't let the rain ruin our day - time to relearn that lesson. (Last note: I'd love to go back and give those lovely boys a huge cuddle! Teens have a tendency to greet a mum cuddle with rolled eyes and 'oh, mum'. I have entered embarrassing mum territory.)

It's A Pretty Messed Up Situation

I don't want to fill this place with the frustrations of politics so while I exasperate in real life, over the EVEL vote that has seen Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland MPs become second class in our supposedly united parliament, online I hide in Pinterest.

Thank the gods for pretty things to distract but I bloody love Pinterest.  As a visual person it just makes my dreary life that little bit brighter. It sounds as though I am overstating it but on dark days, an hour spent dithering around looking at things I would love to wear, places I'd love to go, art I love, projects I want to do, can extinguish a dark or sad mood. It's like flicking through the pages of a magazine but much, much, much better.

I'll be on there quite a lot considering that, since the General Election in May, it has been a relentless wave of sewage coming from Westminster and the stink is getting unbearable.

Time for some avoidance techniques as there is nothing that can be done and I haven't the strength or the income to emigrate.

Flick, flick, flick...and breathe...

High School Never Stops

I find it curious that behaviours my sons' complain about in their classmates (and probably in themselves too) are still swilling around in people my age and older.

Was discussing a friend who hadn't been in touch for a while, one who had stopped speaking to me soon after my mother's death and had been posting unionist images on Facebook during the referendum while I was trying to put the ideals of independence across yet blanking my worried texts, I took on advice to close the book with an email.  Lord, it's like the letter writing of old only this time there is proof of what was written and when and to whom.

So I sent the email, apologising for any offence I had caused unknowingly.  Then today a reply, and not a nice one.  This from a woman I had been colleagues and then friends with for the past five years, a woman in her early 50s, we had both supported each other through illnesses so the abrupt halt had worried me.  Although I had hoped she was okay I was also hurt that she dropped me so soon after mother died.  Without actually answering what I had done so wrong to reap such a response the email was nasty to the point I am now glad not to have to contact her again.

Bizarre behaviour but perhaps I look too deeply in to why people do what they do - curiosity outweighing the fact I can be a sticky-beak in things not of my concern.  It's enough to drive a psychotherapist to distraction.

That is the end of that.  Now all we need is some hair pulling and playground cat calls with friends taking sides and it would be back to high school.  Some things never change.

I am 42 for only a day more and to be honest, not only do I not have the answers to life, I have more questions.

Of My Own Undoing

There is a film, which I'm not bothering to name, where the lead female character spends a few terrifying screen moments balancing on her tippy toes knowing if she slips the noose around her neck will end her life.  I've spent the last year in a fug of illness and confusion and now I'm on my tippy toes, the noose is tightening and I don't know how long I can keep up.

It's a bloody good metaphor and horrendously true.

Sunshine and Stress

Obviously sunshine and no stress for him.

The sun may be gracing us with it's presence these past few days (cue lots of people panic wearing shorts and sleeveless t-shirts, this may be the only chance this year.)  It may warm enough to encourage relaxation in the garden and nothing else but once again I have clouds on the horizon.

From the same two sources that have plagued me these recent months and which exacerbate the illness they are both quibbling about.  First off we have work.  Now I'm not a shirker, I've paid my dues, I sort of enjoyed my job right up until the end when it became unable to ignore the bickering and back-stabbing.  I had thought my exhaustion had to do with the atmosphere, tried and failed for four weeks to get holidays just for a little break and then I crashed.

Turned out to be something a lot worse than simple burn out but since then I've felt guilty at being ill, been made to feel a malingerer, a nuisance to be got rid of.  Understanding would be welcomed and I am aware that they run a business not a charity but I cost them nothing, I'm not an important part of the machinery just one of many.  As a company they have a reputation for making employees mentally ill and that is no joke.  I repeat what I am going through ad infinitum and next time I have to repeat it again.  Yes I have been off a while but I'm not exactly having a picnic.  The doctor says I'm not well enough to return, I can feel it myself when even hanging out washing tires me out.  It's frustrating, upsetting and not being listened to makes it worse.

Second we have the social worker who has, to our misfortune, been allocated to my mother.  She has some kind of agenda that, despite my mother having specific needs, she does not waver from.  The latest is that she has a permanent place for my mother in a home nearby.  Hurrah thinks I, no wait, it's sheltered accommodation.  Totally unsuitable, if my mother could cope in sheltered accommodation there would be no issue to sending her home with us.  Her needs are such that the temporary home she is in just now, with an en suite room to herself and a day room she can go to socialise in suits her well, has made her happy and content.

Does the social worker see this?  No, instead she insists that with a "package of care" mother should come home.  This sheltered accommodation is her latest gig in trying to make me give up and relent.  Never mind that it would mean my mother sitting home alone often, not able to go to her room when she wants (because it is upstairs so she needs help), not able to make even a cup of tea because she can't use a kettle any more.  According to her I "influenced" my mother into this decision.

Despite expecting me to be a full-time carer if my mother came home I have, at no point, been included in any of the decisions made since she was still in hospital.  The social worker took a bullying attitude right up until I got a carer's advocate involved and then, for good measure, after she accused me of influencing my mother I got her an advocate too.

She's still at it though.

And so while the sun shines and I defiantly sit outside and think of all the things I'd love to do to the garden if able to I have these two factors hovering over me.  Easter break starts Friday.  I have a meeting with my manager on Thursday during which I expect to come under pressure to return or be sacked (never mind whether I can cope or not), I have a meeting next Tuesday with the social worker and two advocates to once again discuss options for my mum despite the fact she is doing so well in her current environment.  I have to make a list of "concerns".  Oh I can make a list all right my dear.

I will not let this ruin Easter the way it ruined Christmas for me.  My priorities are just right and I know what is important to me will win out in the end.  I'd just like some time to relax and recuperate so I can rid myself of this illness and come out fighting.  I find it hard to concentrate and deal with things right now but that won't always be the case.

I Just Don't Know How To Do It

With a great sense of determination I desperately want to change things and not just as the New Year approaches, the time when good intentions lead to wishful thinking.


Today Evil X was back on the scene having suddenly remembered about his eldest two children as per the post before last he decided he wanted to see them before their birthday.  I agree, as I do where they are concerned, as despite the fact that four and a half years of simmering has led to pure despising of everything he is there is some part of me that still feels my boys need to see him.  If only to re-establish what he is like, it is important that they have their own thoughts on feelings about their absent parent.


I have a suspicion that Madam is pregnant again, only a year after sprouting out the last one - and he confirms she was, but suffered a miscarriage.  I don't believe this as so many lies have passed his lips it is hard to tell what the truth is as I am sure not only would I not recognise it coming from him but it would be a foreign concept for him to try and not spin a fib of some sort.


Here is the problem.  It has been four and a half years and I still stew in my own anger.  I should be, as once I was, at the stage where I don't care.  Fair enough they really do deserve some kind of comeuppance but why do I feel like that?  In the past, pre-Evil X, I was of the opinion that if someone wanted to do me harm or someone wanted to be excessively cruel to me then begone with them.  


Okay perhaps I was a little overzealous in some cases as I was exceptionally bad at keeping in touch, being of the idea that if I were important to them then "they'd" keep in touch.  Nah, doesn't really work like that so oopsie!


But I managed to cut away a whole side of my family, my mother's side, the poisonous ones with their silly gossip and nasty attitude.  I was able to do that with little or no conflict (this is making it sound like I blame others but I have little time for people who lie and that is the very core of it all.)  Plus as I was never a big drinker (and don't partake at all now really - last time was a mojito on holiday in October which was yuck and before that a beer at the Christmas party last year which was also yuck) I did not fit in with the little clique they had going.  Once the Aunt we were close to had died, followed a couple of years later by Gran then there was no reason to keep in touch.  Especially when they accused my mother of theft...astonishingly horrific so goodbye and good riddance to that nest of vipers.


Crikey but I'm waffling on something chronic these days aren't I?


Anyway, I don't get why I am still angry at him.  I have my boys and yes I would have liked another baby but not by him.  What I wanted in my other half he didn't fulfil, not in any shape or form.  I couldn't live with someone so neurotic and nit-picky and someone who had lied about...well...every last thing.  I wasn't what he needed either, especially as I enjoyed family life and he didn't want to work.


So I'm rid of that, so why do I get like this?  Apart from the obvious problems tied out last time  I like it being me and the boys.  Yes, to have someone to share my life with, to share our little thing with would be utterly lovely but we can exist without.  And as I have nothing to give someone other than me (and I'm not pretty, rich, MILF material I have no selling points at all really) I have accepted that this is it.


How do I get back to the girl who banished people from her life once they'd crossed her?  It was much healthier, much happier.  I need it.  I need to get back there and until I do, until I no longer think of him and her without grimacing, then I won't heal inside.


Surely there will be a book with an answer or do I whisper a wish on Hogmanay and hope for the best?

Make it difficult why don't you

In a freakishly misguided attempt to divert my life from the current chaotic path I decided to invest in a little self-help despite my initial dubious and possible sarcastic view of the whole concept.


So, first out, think positive thoughts.  Um, ok I've spent most of my life as the eternal optimist only to get kicked in the teeth every time, that is why I am so pessimistic now.  There are only so many kicks you can get before you take the hint.


You reap what you sow.  I do believe in that.  Like the little fairies chant in the previous post.  (Actually, maybe I should do that as a little life affirmation every day - oh god they did stop the Oprah show didn't they and here I am spouting drivel!)  Anyway, positive is supposed to attract positive.  Ok, again I've tried that my whole life with little success.


Next, gratitude.  Not only that but list one hundred things, every day. 


One hundred.


Can I repeat some of them?  Maybe break them down into subsections?


One hundred.


How easy would that be for other people?  Is it just me who finds that a little ambitious a number?  I just got stuck on the third page - well done.


This is going to be very hard but as I said, gullible is me and I am making the idea of life beginning at 40 a true wish.  I only have three months tops of this life before then.  Here is hoping that this crap works.


Ooops, positive, yeah, positive.  Got to attract that positive.  Can't use the exhaustion as an excuse for this I don't think.

One Giant Step Back For Mankind

On Friday the final flight of the Space Shuttle program took place.  For some reason this feels like a huge step backwards, as though we are now giving up on reaching out and exploring the possibilities.


Perhaps this is America's way of conceding all future scientific adventures to the BRIC countries.  We should, and this sounds hard hearted but so what, also allow them to take over our moral responsibilities for the forever hand-out African countries.  The world does not seem a sane and happy place now.  I have already said to the Hobbits that their future will probably be elsewhere, Australia maybe as unfortunately Europe is not the place it once was and that is truly disappointing.


Ooh, change of direction there but not really.  It is all of the same.  There doesn't appear to be any opportunity now for progression that is not linked in with huge profit margins or financial crisis.  Is this the tipping point when people realise that despite the cost the space shuttle stood for more than a few astronauts pootling about in space.  That not everything should be boiled down to hard cash.

June

There is something about the weather where grey skies equate to grey lives being led.  Each moment of sunshine results in my rushing out to spend as long as possible in the light.


One day I will have good news and a life of contentment.


It is that thought that keeps me going.

Luck O' The Irish To Ye

And if you know how to obtain some then won't you tell me please?

For I fear I have very little luck despite my recent attempts to surround myself with positive thinking.  It would seem that I am destined to be forever down at heel and, well, a reoccurring theme here - forever alone.

I think I have ticked the person who dishes out the Andrex puppies off.  Although there is a shortage of puppy walkers at the moment for some reason I am being cold-shouldered.  To be honest I felt she never really liked me anyway, in fact I think most of them tolerated me a little else.  I've always thought that, no matter what situation I am like.

My ex-sister-in-law has given the bidey-in the position of "sister" even though she is well aware of the way this "sister" got her man.  I cannot understand anyone who can be friends with a snake in the grass, someone who thinks only of their own gain and not of those they could hurt.

My boys still don't know if they have a new brother or sister yet as he didn't reply to my text asking and I'm too humiliated to go any further.

There doesn't seem to be much justice in the world.  For those who do wrong.  I try to do as much good as I can but feel I am forever on the outside and cannot figure out what steps will get me included in the warmth.

Perturbed

Sometimes Facebook can throw a whole pint of ice cold water over any semblance of confidence one has in friends and the constant human wish to be liked.

And, without going into any further detail so this post may remain as infuriatingly obtuse as I am, all I will say is that although my creative streak has lain dormant for a few weeks now I would have hoped that my ability to make pretty things would have at least intrigued a few to sign up!

Bah.

In Truth

I am Søren Lørenson and nobody sees me at all.

The Crime Of Neglect

Ah bloggie, how I have neglected you. Of all the promises and best of intentions I fail to maintain the momentum.

However I have new vigour. No, that is a horrid word that brings connotations of old men for some reason.

I have neglected everything. In fact for the past few weeks, along with the hustle and bustle of the "festive" season everything has had an air of fug over it. I no longer create, I vegetate. Yes, that is an apt description. I really should put more effort into things but instead I feel so tired I have barely the energy to keep up - and even in that I'm not successful.

I worry sometimes that the illness will come back, just as we are getting on our way. But the tiredness can be explain by lack of sleep and the truth that I simply have too much to do and no one to share the burden with.

Too late I realised that some people do not change and that living with someone who seemed to have changed to the point of being likeable throws light on to that character. And shadows can't hide in the light. That is what I am most disappointed with and it weighs heavily. Especially when you cannot openly talk about it. This is not a healthy way to live.

So, choices - bitch about it or do something about it.

August is the "Month of Hope"

No it's not.

There Goes The Neighbourhood

Nothing changes the mind over a situation as quickly as discovering this has happened at some point between coming home from work and our attempt to leave for the school run this morning:

So as the Narnia winter keeps this crappy little town in its grip the intelligence of certain individuals shines through and we are £75 worse off plus a planned trip to the craft fair is on hold until tomorrow smashed windscreens notwithstanding.  Throwing snowballs at cars when the snow is more like ice - that about sums it up.

This new place I had looked at, it isn't perfect, it is far from perfect.  It is also far from here and that can only be a good thing.  *sigh*  Sometimes things roll on and it is hard to see a clear picture.

Poo Bum Sticks

So, looks like once again luck is not on my side, or anywhere near my side, or even within spitting distance.

As far as I can tell we will be staying put. The one thing that would have made my life and that of the Hobbits so much nicer is once again out of reach and it is so frustrating, so horribly frustrating that I could just burst.

Not ideal. In fact very far from ideal. But what should I expect? It seems to be my lot in life that the easiest path is the one denied. While others seem to glide through life enjoying this and that I get the shitty end of the stick.

It is hard to see the good side in things at the moment, it is very hard to see anything at the moment.

Pearls Before...

I am worried about whether or not I should be worried over the fact that the two people who are the first in the UK to catch the new trend in illnesses (that would be the swine flu for those visiting from Alpha Centauri) are from a small town far too close for comfort. A town where one of the Hobbit's friends stays as well.

But then I think that this is quite handy in terms of distracting everyone over the real pandemic (again, Alpha Centaurians, this would be the economic doodah, are you following?)

Conspiracy theories will no doubt flourish and spread as quick as the flu. There are so many people who die from the flu every year anyway, it is either going to get you or it isn't. I recall the avian flu that was going to wipe us out - are the 24 hour news channels so eager for something to fill the time with? I do have a slight issue over youngest Hobbit catching every cold which is going though. Who knows? Not us that is for sure. According to the *news* this flu can be beaten off with nothing more than soap and water and a skoosh of cleaner.