Love It

 For the first time this year on Mother's Day I'm the top of the food chain. I'm no longer a daughter, but I am a mother and a grandmother. What a shift in dynamics!  All my life I dreaded Mother's Day. It was Judgement Day in my mind. The day where no matter what I did, had done, or promised to do was not going to be good enough. My faults would be identified and glorified and my redeeming qualities paled into insignificance. The stress levels would rise to obscene levels and I felt physically ill. When I was younger I would attempt to outdo my previous years efforts in generosity. No point. I would over-organise and plan and create. No point.  The years between when my grandmother died and this year were the hardest. Grandma was the most appreciative woman and any efforts were highly rewarded and acknowledged. Her loss was huge not just to me, but I think to everyone who knew her. Even three decades later, people still say she was a star. So this year, I'm the old...

 So I've been thinking about feelings. Or maybe feeling about thinking? It came about when someone said "But you know I love you".  What an interesting statement! It assumes so much. Way too much in fact.  Let's call the speaker Person 1 "Feeler" as they have already stated they feel something.  Let's call Person 2 "Thinker" as they have obviously thought and questioned the validity of the feelings. Let's break down the short sentence from Feelers perspective.   But - Sounds like an argument really, they are disputing what Thinker has said, and they have a different view point. It's a positive one in this case, the feeling being one of love.  But is in a small way counteracting that as it's giving a positive emotion in a negative form. What does a child say when you make their favourite cookie and they're not in the mood "BUT I don't like it today!"  How do you feel when you hear the word But? I've heard it too...

I don't think I've processed this much old thought for a long time. If ever. I've pushed and prodded all that nasty stuff so far to the back of my mind it's like cleaning out wardrobes of my mother's homes over the years. All the questions of "Why would anyone keep hold of that?" Except this time it's my thoughts and memories and questions I never thought I'd ask. Is this growing up? Is this midlife crisis? So for a few days I went away from the routine. Went into a whole new world. Then I came back. Sounds like a cryptic clue to a holiday doesn't it? Woke up today with the usual suspects of dogs and cats and wondered what to do today. I divided it up into 3 categories: Wants, Needs and Shoulds.  I'm not longer in a place in life where there are many "have to" sections. There's laundry to do, but I don't have to do it. There's cleaning to do but I won't die of sepsis if I don't do it. There's garden...

So what's the difference between what & what?  Which & Who? Why & Why Not? Today is a day that has had me wondering for quite a while. Today my dearest friend would have been 60 years old. But he's not here any more. He died. Well to be precise he ended his life.  I'll get to that. I made gingernut biscuits for his 19th birthday. Why? I don't know really.  I was 12 almost 13 and this family I had heard about all my life were coming for afternoon tea.  My grandma's best friend, with her daughter and her grandson.  Big age gap at that point in time. I loved cooking and I was helping. Well avoiding toxic fumes from a narcissistic relative but I didn't know that at the time. This larger than life, kinder than kind person graced us with his presence along with the rest of his family. We sat squished into a tiny living room (60's houses were not huge). All 3 generations. All 8 people. We had afternoon tea and this human and I watched the older ...

I'm needed. Not needy.  There's a huge difference. Let me explain. As a child of geriatric grandparents I was needed to fulfill domestic duties beyond their capabilities. A lost childhood in many ways.  With 70 years gap between me and my grandparents, there was a need to be a good girl, a need to pick things up, a need to clean and a need to garden.  I didn't resent this though, they were phenomenal people who paid me back a million times over in support and kindness. In practical terms too by teaching, guiding, training and making things for me. No regrets, just love. Then as the child of geriatric parents I had to undertake a whole pile of domestic duties. I was given a hand-drill for my 10th birthday by a  neighbour as he didn't feel it right I should be using power tools to undertake maintenance on the family home.  I got a sewing machine too.  Painting, sewing, cooking, cleaning and tidying up after those who either couldn't or wouldn't.  All...

2010 the Year for being Slightly Odd in a Baldrick kind of fashion ~~~ Ever watched Blackadder? I love Baldrick. That cute, dirty, odd, ugly little man whose pearls of wisdom are like manure to the cynical flowers that Blackadder himself strews across the pathway of the script. Ben Elton is a genius creating these characters who have come down through the centuries from being a lowly prince with no backbone, no great strengths or interests, to the arrogant Lord Blackadder, then the manservant to Prince George and finally to the Major in the British Army finding fault with the wonderful oxy-moron that is Army Intelligence. This is my Blackadder year. The one where people who have become friends in the more recent years of my life have suddenly resigned as my friends. Now I am the first to admit I am an outspoken and occasionally annoying mid-life Ranga with attitude when I choose to use it. These are the people who I have bent over backwards, sidewards and upside down to help, and ta...

OK, it may not actually be the first Sunday of September, but in my house, 7th October is Father's Day. It has been since 1996 when my Dad died on this day. It was sudden, and yet not sudden. Dad had been sick since I was 3, but it wasn't a physical illness and it wasn't something that doctors ever got right. He'd had a bugger of a life, there's no other way of putting it really. He grew up with elderly parents, his Mum was 42, and his Dad 50 when he was born, and he was the youngest. His aunt lived with them and she was very disturbed from what she had witnessed during WW1 and earlier. His early life was plain miserable in many ways. At 13, he was a partisan fighter in Czechoslovakia, and his Mum hid two Jewish women in the house to protect them. His father was Jewish by birth, and the whole family was at risk. She was an amazing woman, and extremely strong. She did the right things. In marrying two women with the same birthday, he committed a very unusual...