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Tuesday 27 September 2011

Today, I felt okay.

It's late September but today the sun was out & soaking the City of York with its warm comfort.

After a few days of fragility I was in two minds as to whether to leave the house. A familiar voice was telling me that perhaps I shouldn't bother. Walking to the station let alone the 35 minute train journey would be such effort, & it was probably cold outside. Ear ache comes with the cold & you haven't a suitable hat.

But, it was too late. I'd told Daughter that if she was good we would go for cake with our friend. Currently she wasn't being at all good but any bribery to snap her out of it was worth the effort.

So we wandered to the train station & hopped aboard. It wasn't so much effort after all. It also turned out that a hat wouldn't have been necessary. Nor would the boots or coat that I was wearing, but never mind. We proceeded to amble through the city in the sunshine, not buying anything or going anywhere in particular, just taking in the day.

Then there was a modest lunch: hot ham & cheese bagel & cake to share; cloudy apple juice for her; iced tea & a delicious coffee for me. We were joined by someone lovely & the conversation was honest & theraputic.

It's entirely true when they tell you 'it's the simple things...'

We wandered back across the city & caught the train home.

On the walk from the station to our house we collected acorns & conkers - our current favourite activity - & by the time we were home I was feeling content. A game of catch with some scrumpled-up tissue preceeded Daughter's bed time.

That's all - nothing profound, but today I felt okay.

Today was a good day.


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Monday 26 September 2011

Gloss, Spin, Pretence & all the other messed up stuff.




This week it feels as though a lot has been happening. 

My daughter was in hospital for a few days. Thankfully it turned out to only be a viral infection. I stayed with her, of course & actually, it proved a distraction -- maybe not a welcome one given the circumstance of her being quite ill, but a welcome one in that it meant I didn't get the chance to think about much else for a little while.

I haven’t written in quite some time & the guilt & something else that I can’t quite describe seems to be welling up inside of me.

I lay in bed tonight with my eyes wide open – I wasn’t sleepy & thoughts were whirring around as they do before the inevitable happens & I come to place them on paper. Tears started rolling from my wide-open eyes onto the pillow as all that I was contemplating rolled in & out of the forefront of my mind. Various notions, all in a similar & fairly selfish vein.

When I began writing Our Pea Green Pod’s blog I tried to keep it glossy. Keep it about the hearty, wholesome family stuff – detailing the great things that had happened & maybe a little of the rubbish, but always trying to take positives from them & put a sheen on things. My aim was to take the best from all of the good stuff that happened, but I think now that by doing so this wasn’t truthful. It’s not consistent with life to just take from the happy bits. You take from all aspects of life the best that you can. Sometimes, you have to go with the crap. Sometimes there is no good to be taken, but you must take it & move on. Most of the time, it's easier said than done. Life is not fair & not every scenario, good or bad, is tied neatly with a lovely moral bow. Sometimes you do hellish things & feel shamelessly satisfied & other times you may give all of your self & good intentions to come out stripped of every last wit.

Presently, I’m wading through a hell of a lot of crap. Half of the crap I’m wading through I’m not even sure where it came from, what made it or why the hell I have ended up in the middle of it.

As I have said before: Sometimes I just feel sad.

I don’t know when it started. I always remember some inkling of feeling this way, but as I’ve grown older it seems to have become ever more present in my day-to-day life. Sometimes I’m happy: sometimes stuff isn’t in the forefront of my mind & life just ticks by, but recently, a lot of the time I have felt sad.

My Grandfather has always said that I come from a family of worriers. It’s very true – I lay awake at night worrying about everything I possibly could. I envy those people who can just lay their heads on their pillow & be gone. Fast asleep.

I know that my father is the same, & I notice as he has got older his life has crumbled more & more. He is lazy & sad; he has nothing much to be here for; he has no real purpose in life. I see those same traits in myself & I am terrified that one day I will become him. 

My father is also an alcoholic. A few years ago my Grandfather traced our family tree. It seems that alcoholism is a reoccurring theme in our line.

My Grandfather always has a glass of whiskey in the cupboard, whatever the time of day. 

My father always has a bottle of cheapest vodka under his bed.

Though I enjoy drinking – I am a party girl at heart – I have to say that the one thing that doesn’t worry me is what I drink. I have had the years of conversations with my father that by the next time we speak he doesn’t remember; the endless repetition. I have seen & learned enough from this that I feel fiercely resistant to ever becoming such a creature. Even when I’ve felt at my lowest point there has never been any urge to drink myself into oblivion.

If I can feel so determined not to go down the alcohol route then why can I not apply this same determination to the sadness? It has all ready taken a hold of me & I'm not sure how to make it loosen it's grip.

The feeling of total blackness, darkness, is quite a different thing. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic but the only way that I can describe it is a feeling of utter helplessness. You are so inside your own mind that you can’t see any way out. Stuck.

Of course, when I’m feeling better & when my sense of humour has returned I tend to think of it as being more up my own arse than inside my own mind. But when you’re there it isn’t funny.

The crucial thing is this: if I see these traits in my own father then what if my children feel like this? What if I have given this to them? How will I support them, as well as my lame self? & how will I deal with the guilt of seeing them suffer because of something I have unwittingly done to them? The thought crushes me & scares me beyond belief.

I suppose that the obvious answer is to help myself, in an effort to help them. I don’t know why this is so difficult for me to do. Admitting I feel like this is, for me, akin to admitting failure. I’m fucked up, therefore do I even deserve the chance to be there for my kids? I have managed to muddle along & survive & do what I think is right by my daughter for over three years now & I’ve done it mainly by myself. I have never really told anyone how I feel – I’ve come this far hiding it & I think I’m proud of the job I’ve done. I’m not proud of hiding it, but I am proud that I’ve more or less kept it together.

My friends think I’m strong. People always tell me how independent & amazing I am. I feel proud when they say this & in some ways I think that I am strong, but I also feel guilty because I know that really, I’m not as together as anyone thinks. I’m just well-practiced at pretending.

So, if I press publish then it’s out there. & if it’s out there then I have to go & sort this out for real.

I think that all I want is for someone to be strong for me, at least for a little while.

I want to write that I think it's time to change -- but I think that's too much gloss. There isn't any moral to take from this yet.

Wednesday 21 September 2011

[appropriate title here]

Sometimes I just feel sad.

There are reasons, endless reasons, though I don't always know what they are. It's vague. Sometimes it will be one specific thing that is top of the pile & I think that if I can solve the problem it will go away, but it doesn't. The combined weight of everything else, all the niggling back-of-mind crap is what makes it so unbearable, is what drags me down.

It comes in waves. It's almost predictable, yet every time when everything becomes too much I drown. I'm never prepared. Where the hell is my life-raft? Surely someone must have sent help by now, I've been out here for too long.

Friday 9 September 2011

So much to say, such little ability to make sense.

Well hello y'all!

It's Friday the 9th of September & finally we have an internet connection!

I've been re-reading the last few posts & all though it is not even two months gone it seems like an entirely different lifetime. So much has changed. So much is still changing & I'm struggling to keep up!

Presently, I am feeling an enormous sense of excitement & have decided to spend an evening to try & straighten out the blog, the Etsy shop & the facebook pages in accordance with my change in focus.

Last night was devoted to making goodies from felt, including owl, cat & monster egg cosies as well as felt softies & I am currently hugely enthused with creating a range of handmade gifts especially for children & babies. In between (or rather in order to avoid) unpacking & painting rooms & doing trivial things such as washing up & keeping the house in the fashion that a good wife should I have been making things such as bunting & Christmas decorations (for our own Christmas tree rather than for sale) & so have had the sewing machine out, dusted off & in action!

There is so much to say, blog-readers, & I shall try to say it in a way that makes sense but I am fit to burst at the moment.

I am so happy to be back & entirely submerged in the flow of this creativity & I don't think I can quite get all the ideas & thoughts from my brain into blog form.

I should also say that apart from an ill two weeks last week & the one before, all is well with my health & more importantly TBC's health. I am round & I waddle but I am told that my bump is "compact" & "petite".

Pregnancy is still hard work - with daughter it was a complete breeze in comparison - but I am looking forward to filling my spare time with more making & sewing & biscuit eating. I haven't done much writing in the past few months, instead I have been pouring all energy into other forms of art but I hope to get back into it now. & to start using correct grammar & make some vague sense.

In brief - this weekend I am beginning to launch a new branch of Our Pea Green Pod, which is especially for children & babies & is called Little Pea Green.

Find Little Pea Green on facebook here
& on Etsy here.

It is still very much under construction. I have got many more products made but I haven't put them up due to being at work & having misplaced the USB cable for my camera & being slightly too lazy to begin a hunt this evening. 

You can still find Our Pea Green Pod - which will still be stocking all my random bits & bats - on facebook here
& on Etsy here.

I cannot promise organisation or sense on any of these pages but please, as always, bear with me & I hope that by the end of the week it will all make a little more sense & there will be things to capture your interest.

I will try & get my technical head on this evening & update all the links on this blog.

Or I might just sit & chat to friends whilst drinking tea & eating biscuits. I really like biscuits at the moment.



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