shadows

It’s been full on, 24/7 with the kids.

I’m coming down with something akin to man-flu, only real. Or maybe I’m just finally letting all that stress seep out of my pores.

We’ve adventured, visited, watched, sat, played, eaten. And now it’s enough.

Today, Boo!’s behaviour has been nightmareish. He’s tired and hungry and has had too much excitement to be reasonable.

I can’t even be bothered to get angry with him anymore. After a final, final warning, he was sent to bed without tea, sobbing into his pillow because, finally, he realised that I meant it.

I’m tired. Christmas has been a curates egg of times and experiences. So much good with so much indifferent. So much the same and so much as before.

It feels ungrateful to suggest that it just isn’t enough. That at the end of the day, with friends and family wishing me well, all the best, a wonderful life, that there’s something missing; something that would make the days better, or at least the evenings when even the arguing noise of the kids has gone quiet.

The candles are lit, the TV is showing something bland, but with a happy ending.

Too many happy endings. That’s the problem.

Real life never comes wrapped in expensive paper and tied with a ribbon. Unless you do it yourself. 

And then it doesn’t count.

sunshine on a rainy day

I woke up with a headache. I went to sleep with a headache. It had followed me around for most of the day.

The day was spent with the boys, hunting and shopping for an appropriate outerwear for Spoog (who knew that senior school would bring out such attitude and willingness to get freezing cold and soaking wet to avoid having to wear a coat??). And I needed a new outfit. Note the inference on 'needed'. Had to have. Must acquire. I'm a girl, I have a black tie invitation for New Year and I'm sure as hell going in something amazing and beautiful and new.

So I thought that the boys would be willing accomplices to the hunting and trapping of such a prize.

Ok, to be fair, at the beginning they were, but then it was coffee o'clock (their call, not mine), then Boo! had a hypo, then it was lunch time, then I got bored trying things on, then we couldn’t find 'just' the right thing for Spoog. Then Boo! got pissed because we weren't shopping for him, then I got bored not being able to find 'just' the right thing (that I could afford) and nearly succumbed to the £250 dress/shoes/bag combo until a flash of sense ran through my brain and we picked up our small bags and left.

But the headache came with me. I hate those niggling ones that sit behind your eyes and periodically will have you believe that they've gone away only to pounce when you relax.

We went out for dinner, for Spoog's birthday. Voltar was our waiter. He was great, really respected the kids and treated them as adults. I was proud of their behaviour and our conversation (although I balked at the mechanics behind the internal combustion, boxters and Wankle rotary engines. That's one subject I'm happy to delegate to the XS.

We smiled and laughed and ate fantastic food. The pain squatted behind my eyes and pushed forwards, as if trying to force my eyes to fall out.

We left and at home all changed into PJs and curled up on the sofa to watch Shrek 3. It was funny; really, we laughed a lot. The boys gave up asking to stay up any longer when their bodies were screaming for sleep.

I curled up again on my own and rested. My head pounded.

I smiled at the day's adventures.

With very few hunting opportunities remaining, I may have to rely on a staple from the wardrobe that will look amazing but not have the nuance that something new has. Like the smell and shine of a new car; it makes it special.

And my head hurt.

It hurt when I got up. It hurt when I shouted at the kids for making (another) mess.

I gave up and ran.

I should have done that yesterday.

I smiled as I ran. As I ran through the rain; through the puddles; into the wind; through the drenching of cars driving too fast through puddles.

I smiled up the hills and down the road.

I positively beamed as the sun escaped its grey cloak and shone upon the road.

And as the sky cleared, so did my head.

Maybe I should just wear a smile when I go out?

Solitude

It’s not how life was supposed to turn out.

There isn’t a map or blue print, but this wasn’t in the plan.

Never did I imagine that staying alone all weekend would be as calm and relaxing as this has been.

Nowhere in the grand scheme of things does it suggest that we mere humans are solitary beings and should isolate ourselves from the world, enjoying only our own company.

No one suggested that this was how life was supposed to turn out, quiet and calm and peaceful.

But that’s how things work out sometimes. When the least expected turn of events turns out to be the best turn of all.