I've run out of steam. You've probably noticed it's been a while since I last blogged and a while before that too. You HAVE noticed, haven't you?
My days are filled with running back and forth to continue easing my mother into her new home...... dealing with her mail (often sorting out complicated solicitor's letters connected with the move), helping her with shopping, showering, making beds, laundry, visits to the bank, the doctor, a hospital appointment or whatever. I've been over there most days of the week. I hoping some day soon, things will settle into a pattern and I'll maybe only go over twice or three times a week. I'm hoping for some spare time for me to do the things I said I'd do once I had the freedom (without anxious dog metaphorically handcuffing me to the house) such as visits to Kay; sightseeing in London (although a Londoner and having lived here most of my life, there are still areas of London I know nothing about and have never visited); sorting through the last decade's photographs; researching the family tree; and visits to friends in far-flung places.
Kay rang me yesterday and was very down. Since Christmas, she has been on a placement on a paediatric ward seeing cute fluffy kids with sadly all manner of things wrong with them. However yesterday, with not much for her to do as a medical student, she had been sent to observe or assist in A&E. And what did she see? Two separate alcoholic cases. One had been in a fight and had got a lacerated face like two pounds of rump steak. The other had evidently been found unconscious on the street. It was supposed he had hit his head with one hell of a whack as he came down, as he had internal bleeding in the brain, was in a coma and not likely to survive. The effect on Kay from these two cases was to bring the past flooding back and she was tearful. That in turn made me upset to think she is still suffering from the affects of Greg's drinking. I had hoped it would get less and less until it disappeared altogether, but I guess that is more wishful thinking than reality. The truth is, I suspect, that it will never go away completely for either of us.
I felt the need to seek out an Al-Anon meeting today to get a bit of peace of mind and order my thoughts. A bit of precious me-time too. I think it did the trick.
23 January 2014
02 January 2014
When Only a Cuddle will do
When our kids are little, hopefully the worst you, as a parent, have to worry about is a grazed knee or your little darling being sad because their bestest friend ever has fallen out with them. A plaster or a comforting cuddle soon puts the world to right again.
As your beloved offspring get older and more daring, the worries as a parent grow in proportion. Or at least they do in my case. I know I can worry for England. I admit I am a glass half-empty type of person, can always see that little chink in the sky where it might fall in and can see the worst in every situation. The psychoanalysts would have a field-day with me. Maybe it goes back to being raised in a family where on the one side my grandmother lost two children in one week to pneumonia/whooping cough, or on the other side my Dad's family were severely decimated by Adolf Hitler. It can sometimes make you a bit wary to stick your head out of the front door in case a rampaging tyrannosaurus rex happens to come through your front gate!
So imagine how I feel just having seen Kay disappear into the distance in her car about to do a five-hour journey round the M25 and M1 onwards to the North, going far out of her way westwards via Ealing to pick up a friend who wanted a lift that way too? To be fair she did do the trip for the first time in the other direction a few days before Christmas. Then, I spent the day worrying until there was a ring at the doorbell and she stood there in her Santa hat, but this time I watched her drive away, knowing she had at least five hours' drive before she reached her destination. Not helped by the fact that I have just received a call from her to ask for directions onto the M25 as her satnav has taken her the wrong way and she is outside a farm somewhere in Kent!
As your beloved offspring get older and more daring, the worries as a parent grow in proportion. Or at least they do in my case. I know I can worry for England. I admit I am a glass half-empty type of person, can always see that little chink in the sky where it might fall in and can see the worst in every situation. The psychoanalysts would have a field-day with me. Maybe it goes back to being raised in a family where on the one side my grandmother lost two children in one week to pneumonia/whooping cough, or on the other side my Dad's family were severely decimated by Adolf Hitler. It can sometimes make you a bit wary to stick your head out of the front door in case a rampaging tyrannosaurus rex happens to come through your front gate!
So imagine how I feel just having seen Kay disappear into the distance in her car about to do a five-hour journey round the M25 and M1 onwards to the North, going far out of her way westwards via Ealing to pick up a friend who wanted a lift that way too? To be fair she did do the trip for the first time in the other direction a few days before Christmas. Then, I spent the day worrying until there was a ring at the doorbell and she stood there in her Santa hat, but this time I watched her drive away, knowing she had at least five hours' drive before she reached her destination. Not helped by the fact that I have just received a call from her to ask for directions onto the M25 as her satnav has taken her the wrong way and she is outside a farm somewhere in Kent!
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| picure from www.ineedmotivation.com |
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