Just Surviving

I am still not out the other side yet, I've had to make some tough decisions this past couple of weeks thanks to things not really working out for me. Dark days make it harder to see the dawn, I'm not there yet.

Things I have learned:

• I am too soft. I happily support others yet when all I ask is for a little hello, a share, a like, I get nothing. 
• I hate being a "businesswoman" although I am back in the travel industry and now kick myself for ever having left I am not in a happy place. It is exhausting, and when you have no energy to start with exhausting is simply impossible.
• I am probably a very shit businesswoman. I just can't see how others are growing. I know the tricks, I've had the advice and been to the workshops. I've followed all the rules and yet, I post to the world and it is ignored. Normally, I would be happy with that - this blog is pretty much ignored - but not when it means I am failing at what I wanted to do.
• I have lost sight of who I am. I no longer paint, I no longer sew, I no longer write, I no longer go on days out with my sons, I no longer do anything that would constitute as "me time". Instead, I've fallen into this cycle of working endlessly for no return at all.
• The anti-depressants don't always keep the wolf from the door. I hate that analogy, wolves are wonderful creatures. I should maybe say werewolf as being part human would warp the most marvellous of creatures. I can't take a higher dose as it makes me even more tired as if that was possible. Well, it is.
• There are things that I am good at but unless people take note then it is not worth anything at all. I can't raise my sons on zero money.

When I was a teenager I loved watching old films and foreign films. I would wish to be as beautiful, articulate, to be as cool as the female protagonist. Not just to bewitch the handsome leading man but to also to feel happy in my own skin. 

This film, in fact, this one scene of the film, had me wear kilts, black jumpers and black tights for many years. Not to copy Anna Karina, there was no way I could be that beautiful, but because I loved to wear that uniform of mine. It made me happy, I felt comfortable and confident. I haven't felt that way in years. How do I get back to it? I am lost.

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

Hibernation - Phase Two

It is very much like that just now - if there was an opportunity to tuck myself in bed and emerge some time in late February then I'd jump at the chance.

Once again everything is all swirling round and I need a moment to recalibrate - unfortunately those moments are spent sleeping like a lazy cat "juggling cats(are there any other kind) rather than catching up. 

For matters of humorous illustration I Googled "juggling cats" - I was not disappointed.

The Never Ending Saga of the Cold

Another week another bloody illness.  This time youngest twin son has suffered through an excruciating sinus infection, enough to eke some antibiotics out of the doctor.  Not ideal, I'm wary of this whole idea of overusing antibiotics but this is his first time and considering he'd had a cold since mid-October it was necessary to step the treatment up a gear.

We can pretty much write off this autumn, see what happens when I'm unable to scrape enough together for a holiday in the sun.  It's a luxury bordering on the necessity for life quality and obviously a good healthy dose of Vitamin D is missing this year.

I've decided to take a big gulp of confidence juice and try to go properly self-employed.  To an introvert this is the equivalent of that going-to-work-and-realising-your-naked dream and I don't think I have the talent but I have to attempt something to make more money.  All I really want to do is hide in a box but that is not an option.

I need to steal myself, head up, shoulders back and don't let them see you quiver.  Strangely I was prepared for this earlier but for a knock-back from a really rude person that had me slide into a pathetic lack of faith in myself.  Not only that but I was doing him a favour.  Twat.

Need to channel my inner warrior; it would help if I looked like this,
but I don't, I'm more teddy bear shaped than sleek, fierce goddess.

Trying To Pause

Close my eyes, chose a soothing playlist, pretend the world isn't twirling and whirling around me.

It doesn't always work.

Meanwhile I'll listen to this and songs that ease my soul while hoping for a pause, a breath, anything.

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.

The Sands of Time Run Fast

I can't believe that it has been two months since I posted here but then as I'm the only one who clocks in then it's me who gets let down.  It's simple like that.

As I had thought I'd posted some memories of our latest holiday in warm and wonderful Lanzarote, made harder by the fact I did not want to come home at all, there is always that to look forward to doing at some point.  However of late my concern has been lack of time.

I sometimes feel that one of the major symptoms of ME is how much time it steals.  While I slow down the world continues apace and I cannot run to catch up because...well...I cannot run.

I need to develop some way of making a living from freelancing, enough for us to live off of with maybe some left over to enjoy a couple of holidays a year.  My savings are almost gone, yet finding the courage not to have a panic attack at the thought of someone not paying up or things going disastrously wrong is almost overwhelming and naturally there is no help out there to guide me through it, to give me my old tenacity back.

One thing I would love to do, but lack the talent and time to progress very far, is to be an artist.  I'm filled with envy and inspiration when I see others do what I wish I could.  At the moment this is how well I can complete a pastel:

Errors, errors, everywhere!  I need to get better, not for anyone else but for myself.

Wish You Were Here

Never mind that.  Wish I was there, wish I'd never left.

Strange experience, either it is the amount of crap I've been dealing with of late or just the overwhelming situation I find myself in but unusually I did not want to return home after our yearly trek to absorb enough sunshine to last the winter.  I love greenery, I love the crisp winter mornings such as this morning brought yet I had a huge desire not to come back.

By the end of holiday I am normally ready for my own bed.  I cannot explain it further but one month from our departure and I'm still feeling the same.  Life trudges on and I'm left in limbo.  This isn't the holiday blues, this is a wish to escape completely.

Colours that have my watercolour palette itching to open.

Step outside the hotel and boom, there's a volcano (dormant)

Breathe in/Breathe out/Repeat

The hedge still lives...for now.  Nasty neighbour's daughter spent the day hacking into the existing hedge ensuring the height and all the greenery ended up in a pile of cuttings.  Sad and I'm trying not to let it bother me, trying not to really mind the loss of privacy as they now have a grand view of our every movement in the garden.  Trying. Trying.

Most anti-social neighbours build huge tall fences.  Sigh.  I fear I may have to write a note (yes a note because I'm not stupid enough to go to her door and give her the opportunity for another shout) regarding them hacking in to the new hedge when it grows - and they will.

Ex had offered to build a fence, knowing his capacity for letting us down I said no.  It would probably have been better to wait ten years for the joy of a fence they couldn't peek over.

God but it's petty and I hate it but they have very little in their lives to contend with so this is their sustenance.

To think of better days and not care, not be pulled into this nonsense.  I need some good luck to come our way.

The Most Tenacious Thing In This World...

Is the little cold that simply won't go away.