News - Week Starting 9th Nov

Another odd week. I don't seem able to block out other people much at the moment, so at any given day I can be barraged with emotions. Some days I cope, other days not so well. I made the mistake of saying to Mom the other day that I was thinking about getting my own place sometime soon, which was stupid, because I'd somehow forgotten that she has to have the operation on her back. I suppose it's easy to forget stuff like this; the NHS moves so slowly that she hasn't even had her first consultation with the surgeon yet, let alone set a date for the op. But she was not happy about my thinking about leaving, to say the least, even though I fully intended to come back and look after her when she needed me. So I guess I'm stuck here for awhile.

I shouldn't complain. I have a roof over my head and I can just about pay my bills. I have a nice enough room, although at the moment everything is piled up to the ceiling, because of the decorating. I just don't play well with others, I guess. I love Mom, and Lori and Chris and Ryan, but there are times when I crave solitude, when I just want a little place that's modern, with a fitted kitchen and hot water on demand, that doesn't gather dirt the way Mom's house does, that's quiet and all my own. Those times are getting more frequent.

There is this constant guilt that pervades every inch of my life, and it gets stronger with each successive year. Some of it is rational guilt, and some is totally irrational. I feel guilty for being a burden to Mom. Guilty for not being able to help more around the house. Guilty for being ill in general. Guilty for doing my own paid work first and then not having the energy left to do the stuff Mom needs me to do. There always seems to be so much work - I don't know anyone who has the kind of junk to do around the house that I have - and sometimes I find that I'm totally infuriated about it all. I'm mad at the world, at the house, at Mom - because sometimes I feel like she makes more work than is necessary - and then I feel guilty about THAT.

I don't know where it all comes from, to be honest. I clean a thing and then half a day later it's dirty again. I try to put things in order, to find a place for them, and then when I come back everything's been put elsewhere. There are far too many possessions to fit in the house, even with just Mom and me there, and things that are normally stored in Lauren and Ryan's closets are now piling up in my room, because I can't get to their closets. And the open-plan things that Mom designed for the house years ago, that everyone notices and approves of when they visit? The open shelves of videos and DVDs, the kitchen full of glasses and crockery that sits nicely on shelves instead of hidden away in cupboards, the collections of pretty glass jars and containers that we keep pasta and rice and sugar and coffee in, that everyone admires, that make them say, "Oh, it's so pretty! So airy and bright!"? They get FILTHY. Keeping even one room in my house clean is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge: you finish, then you turn around and start from the beginning again. Because Lori and Chris now have one of the fridges, and two of the four food cupboards, Mom's moved some of the utensils out of the lower cupboards to make room for foods, and she stores them ON TOP of the high cupboards, and then they get covered with grease from the cooker and the boiler. (Whoever decided to put a gas boiler in a kitchen, without building a cover around it, should be shot.) And it takes me an hour or more to get one vase or one bowl clean enough to use.

What I need to do is empty out the cupboards, take everything that we never use, and give it to the Salvation Army. At least one of those cupboards is full of all sorts of crap that hasn't been used in years.

I HATE CLEANING. I REALLY, REALLY HATE IT. But even more than cleaning, I hate things being dirty.

Mom keeps things looking mostly clean, but it's the places that you don't always look that gather it all. Lampshades, and the gaps between the cupboards and the big appliances, and between the louvre doors. She actually cleaned the whole of the living room a few weeks ago, top to bottom, because she was so freaked out about my allergies, and I sat there begging her to stop cleaning, practically crying with frustration because there was nothing I could do to help, and nothing I could do to stop her, and I just had to sit and watch her get more and more sore, half-wondering if her spinal cord was going to snap and paralyse her all of a sudden. She doesn't give up on things. And she keeps telling people this, and I just sit there, more and more guilt piling up on me, because I'm a quitter and my mother isn't. I DO give up. If something hurts a lot, I stop. If I can't keep my place clean, I scrimp on food and hire a cleaner to help me. If I can't manage my class load, I drop a class and retake it next year. I'm more likely to let something slide than endure extreme - or even moderate - discomfort.

Rationally I know that probably I'm the sensible one. I'm in a lot of pain even when I don't overdo things. Nobody is going to be helped if I push myself to do something that I'm not capable of, and throw my back out, and end up in bed unable to do ANYTHING for a month or more. Yet I feel like I'm constantly surrounded with people or the memory of people who don't give up on anything, whatever it takes - Mom, Tony, Oli, Ellie, Richard, probably the SBD, Lauren, all of my Dad's family - and the knowledge that they're all so much stronger, so much more capable, so much braver, so much less selfish than me, is crippling at times.

And yes, I get the irony in that.

I used to have so much pride in myself. It was never an overabundance of pride - at least I didn't think so at the time - but I was able, and I knew it, and I was proud of myself for it. I was proud of myself for surviving a rape without getting bitter and hating men. I was proud of myself for not getting depressed, even when my life basically sucked. I was proud of myself for being a good person, for being kind and caring about other people, for always doing what I thought was the right thing, even when it wasn't the easy thing. But right now it feels like all that pride has been drained out of me by the rush of guilt that frequently sweeps in and drowns me.

Irrationally, I get mad, and then feel guilty about getting mad. Because of all that I've been given out of life, I feel like I don't have the right to get angry about things. I think I picked this up from Richard, who was horrified on the few occasions that Mom and I had a fight, and I disrespected her. In Ghana, you don't disrespect your parents, EVER, no matter what they say to you. Here - at least in my family - when you have a fight, you give as good as you get, and when it's over you both apologize and that's the end of it. But these days, I feel bad when Mom and I argue. It doesn't matter what the argument was about, doesn't matter who was in the wrong - I'm the one who feels like the bad guy. And more and more, I'm holding my tongue around my mother, even when I feel like it would be the morally right thing to say something, because I feel like she's given me so much that I don't have any right to be upset with her when she acts like a bitch.

The same goes for much in my life, really. The universe has given me so much - a life that's lasted 25 years, a home, a family who love me, good friends, the ability to love people, a mostly-decent brain, a body that basically works, enough to eat, plus a whole host of little luxuries - that I don't have the right to sometimes be sad about the constant pain, or the brain damage, or the money worries, or Obie, or anything else. Sometimes this is a good thing, because a lot of the time it keeps my spirits up to think of all the good things that I have. But at other times it's a burden, because if I feel even a touch of anger or sadness, I feel like I'm being ungrateful.

*shrugs* I don't know if a lot of people feel this way, or if I'm the only one.

On another (but related) subject, it can be difficult - especially at the moment - to tell what's my feeling, and what's someone else's. I saw Alistair the other day at the fireworks display, and while he looks good - mature and confident and all grown-up - I can still feel a wave of sadness emanating from him. He's one of the strongest projectors I've ever met, and I'm uncommonly senstive at the moment anyway, so that wasn't an easy evening. I couldn't even say hello, and I don't know if he noticed me, since I kept my face turned away, and he hasn't seen me in years anyway. But we saw him a couple of times during the evening - the girl he was with was a friend of Chris' - and every time they got near, I could feel him fifty feet away.

In class there was another sad one, too. I don't know what was the matter, because he usually seems pretty content. I meant to talk to him afterwards, ask if he was OK, but he slipped away before I could grab him. He was a strong projector, too, and for the whole two hours I kept thinking he was going to start crying right then and there. Distracting, to say the least, and more than a little worrying. Not that it's really my business to be worrying about people I don't really know, but...eh. I like people. I like this guy. I don't want him to be sad, and if he IS sad, I want to know if I can help.

Most of the time I've learned to block out the majority of the emanations around me; I have to, or I'd have gone crazy long before now. (*More* crazy, LOL.) But in the last couple of months - although it's gotten markably worse in the last few weeks - my shields seem to have slipped, or broken, and I'm not quite sure how to put them back up again. Perhaps I can ask the ancestors. The only good thing I can say is that, touch wood, I don't seem to be having so many nightmares, although I did have a Papa-Jackie-Obie nightmare last night, which followed much the same pattern as I told you about in the last note.

The rest of life is...well, it's life. Nothing much to say about it, really. I had some good moments in the last week. As I mentioned, I went to the fireworks display at the park last Saturday, with Lori and Chris and Ryan, although Ryan went off to join his friends after a while. The fireworks were incredible, and lasted at least forty minutes. It's been a long time since I saw fireworks, and I forgot how beautiful they are, and how much I love them. Afterwards, we wandered through the fair for a little while, and eventually managed to get on the Waltzers. I love that ride - it's probably my favourite, although I also like anything that goes high in the air, like a Ferris Wheel, or one of those Paratrooper things - and that was great. I used to be so in love with movement, but I've been mostly sedentary in the last year or two, and it was good to have a reminder of that glorious feeling. The whole evening was wonderful, actually. And not just because it was the first night out I'd had THIS YEAR that didn't involve seeing my Dad in hospital.

What else am I enjoying about life? Well, I haven't been getting to the gym as much as I should be. Mondays I hate, because the place is full of guilt-exercisers, who always come on Mondays because they overindulged at the weekend, and then you don't see them again until next Monday. On a Monday you're lucky if you only have to wait ten or fifteen minutes for the weights you want. Tuesdays I have class, and Wednesdays I work. Thursdays and Fridays are fine, and then it's the weekend, and everything's packed, unless I wait until the evening, and they close earlier at the weekends anyway. There just aren't enough days in the week for me. Friday evenings are my favourites, because there are hardly any people there - I guess other people have better things to do with their Friday nights than go to the gym - but for the last two weeks, I've just had too much to do at home, and in town, and the buses aren't running properly, and a lot of the time I just don't have the energy. I have the energy for the gym, but not for a forty or fifty-minute wait in the cold and wet for a bus that doesn't come.

I need to be driving. I don't know what to do with the MX-5, because the insurance people are still being idiots, and until I can replace the alternator it's not safe to drive in the dark (which is most of the time, at this time of year). Even if I get it fixed, and get my license, I don't know if they'll insure me to drive it without paying through the nose for it. I'm seriously thinking of taking out another loan so I can trade in Mom's old Fiesta and get something little that the two of us can drive - well, that I can drive now, and she can drive when she gets her back fixed. A Seat, or a Honda, something like that. Nothing flashy, just something that'll get me from point A to point B. Either that, or I'm going to have to move to a city where there's decent public transport. The rain is making me once again think longingly of those Northern cities with the Skywalks or the underground tunnels.

Fringe is back on TV. I'm enjoying that. :)

Thanksgiving is coming up soon, and after so many years of wanting to cook for it and not being allowed, because Tony and Debbie wanted to do the entertaining, this year we're probably having it at our house, and I'm not convinced that I have the energy to cook and get the house looking nice. Bleh. Plus, with Mom sleeping downstairs now, there isn't a huge amount of room. Perhaps it'd be a better idea to see if we can go to their house again.

I miss having Thanksgiving with Curt. Not just for the obvious, either, but for the sense of warmth and companionship that I had when he was here. Perhaps I'll invite him this year.

I've been doing some Christmas shopping - not easy when you're permanently broke - and I've managed to accrue quite a few things. I think I'm maybe a quarter done, which I suppose is not too bad. This week, though, I need to sort all my accounts out, find out how much I owe the bank and when it's coming out, and then sort out a budget to pay off my overdraft. And THEN I can start buying all the things that I need, both for Christmas presents and for the house.

Until next Tuesday, I have about £6 in the bank, and about £3.20 in my purse, so things are very tight. Mom owes me £20, but she won't be home until tonight, and I need to do some grocery shopping on the way home. Not quite sure how THAT'S gonna work. *sigh* I need to stop buying food. I keep forgetting to eat it, and then it goes off. I need the SBD to pull me out of my food problems. I keep telling people I'm not anorexic, I'm just so tired I forget to eat, but I suppose either way it results in poor digestion and low blood sugar, regardless of the reasons. Maybe I'll just buy some jam, or garlic sausage. We have bread and peanut butter, and I can make sandwiches. Not the most healthy things in the world, but they'll keep me alive.

*shrug*

This is why I can't have kids yet, you know. I'm still a kid myself, despite my advanced age. Sometimes I'm surprised that they keep me on at work, I'm such a bad influence, but I guess I manage to project an image of success and maturity while I'm on duty. I yearn for a life where I eat well, and make my own juices, and go to work, and go to the gym every day, and cook my own meals, and visit with friends, and answer my emails on time, and sew my clothes when they tear, and still have time to read informative, educational books - not just Mills & Boon - and generally live the domestic goddess life, but...eh. Some days it's all I can do to get the minimum food and exercise.

I do, however, always remember to brush my teeth and take off my makeup, so that's something to be proud of, ja? :D

Hell, at least I can usually find the humor in it all. I guess that's a lot more than most people have.