It’s gonna be another long ass day today. I was hoping for a lion, but Bear was awake way earlier than either of us expected, so we were up, dressed, drinking coffee and eating fried egg sammiches by 10am.! Ugh.! I just know I’ll be flaking by 4pm, but I have so much to do. Bear’s going to get some groceries for me to make the vegan pasties to take tonight, while he goes to his martial arts fitness class. Then I have to make dinner and get sorted ready to spend the night out. We’re being picked up at 9pm… the game doesn’t even start until half past midnight… which means I have to do the socialising thing… double Ugh.! 😦
Yeah, I know I know these guys, and they’re really nice guys who had no problem welcoming a woman into their hallowed collective, and the loud, talkative Cheesehead one won’t be there, so we’ll actually be able to watch the first half without listening to him talking bollocks all the way through, but it’s socialising and I’m crap at that. I’m not good at small talk. I just sit there listening and observing and smiling benignly when they tell rude jokes and then apologise to me for their language, like they don’t know I’m English and can out cuss them any day of the week.
They’re all a little in awe of me. I like sports, and drink beer from the bottle and they’ve heard how some years ago, Bear had to drag me off a drunken German guy whose head I was intent on ripping off with my bare hands… so I’m not like other women they know. 😀 I still haven’t made Hampton’s shirt. I was busy writing last night, whilst trying and failing, not to watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on TV. I really need to get my act together and go find some blue material. It’s not like it’ll take long. *sigh*
UPDATE: Finally ready to go… Hampton’s new shirt and the vegan pasties… all done. 🙂
I really need to make him a proper one, but this will do as a rush job…The parsley covered ones are potato, onion and mushroom with rosemary and thyme. The pepper covered ones are tomato, olive, red onion, garlic and vegan feta cheese.
Oooh, get me, being up all early and shit.. 😀 Okay, it was wheezy moped guy’s fault. I thought Saturday’s were sacred but apparently he delivers on weekends too. Damn.! I’m considering one of those police Stingers… laying it across the entrance to our street, hiding it in the leaves. That’ll teach the noisy sod. Then I might actually get to sleep in a little.
Bear’s on a late one again, so dinner is already done and cooling. I’m being seriously efficient today. Don’t worry, it won’t last. I have to plan what to take to the Superbowl game tomorrow night, we’re watching it at a vegan friend’s house, so I’m trying to find vegan things to make. He said it was okay to bring meat and vegetarian stuff, but I’d find that quite offensive when everyone I know knows I’m vegan and then brings animal flesh and produce into my home.
So I’m being respectful and going vegan for the night. The problem is my local supermarket has a very limited range of vegan produce so I’m going to have to investigate other stores in the area. Oh well, I have to make a meal plan for next week anyway, so I can kill two birds with one stone. After which I will get back to writing.
I got a lot done yesterday, it was hard going but I’m really glad I got it out of the way and can move on to slightly happier things today. Bear read some of what I’d written but had to stop as it upset him and made him angry to read of the shitty things done to me. It upset me too in the writing, but once I was past it and had gotten myself a stiff drink and a comfort snack, it was okay and I felt a bit better.
I also have to make a blue shirt for my little hamster plushie, as I’m taking him to the Superbowl viewing tomorrow night. Bear’s brother Bart can’t make it but I know he’ll be posting pics of himself with his mouse plushie all over Facebook like he did last year. Mouse now has a black and yellow RODA JC shirt, and Hampton will not be outdone.! 😉 😀
Firstly, I have to admit, that this morning my shoulder feels much better. I have better movement in it and the uncomfortable feeling in my left hand has gone, and secondly, that said, this morning I dropped the sugar jar, and had to clean up half the contents from the counter top and vacuum up the rest from the floor. It wasn’t too heavy, my hand just gave way and couldn’t hold it anymore. I should probably be concerned, but I’m not. This has been going on for some time and I’ve been telling the doc that it’s likely the start of rheumatism, but of course, I’m not a doctor so what do I know.?! *rolls eyes*
A lot of the joints in my fingers are swollen and some hurt like hell sometimes and of course, that irritatingly uncomfortable feeling comes and goes. I think I might also be allergic to jalapeno peppers. I cut into a small red one last night, and started coughing really bad and felt my throat start to swell. It was weird, I also had the same feeling, but not as bad when I was eating dinner. My throat felt swollen and numb and the corner of my bottom lip was numb. I get intestinal issues with strong onions sometimes, but that comes and goes depending on the onion and how I cook it.
Bear’s on a late shift today so we got to lie-in (we call them Lions) and listen to the morning chorus (and I listened to him snoring), until I decided caffeine was necessary. He’s gone to a political meeting at the moment, because it’s Carnaval month in February and all meetings are postponed until March, so they brought this one forward to today, and slipped a naughty one in next Wednesday evening, but then that’s it until March. Can’t say I’m not happy about it, bloody meetings take hours out of an evening and Bear comes home exhausted and stressed from all the debating and pickiness over minor points of an issue.
Today is a lazy day. I did all the housework yesterday and 2 loads of laundry, so we’re good. Dinner’s done and cooling, ready to go in a container for Bear to take to work. I made a North African Shakshuka today, that’s accompanied by Greek yoghurt and a toasted Turkish flatbread with Italian olive oil. We’re nothing if not random in this house. 😀
Yesterday, I fucked up. I was writing, most of the day, and completely forgot that Bear had a political meeting at 6pm… so at 4.20pm, instead of getting dinner ready, so he could eat before he spent hours at this meeting, I went in the shower. I know… I’m a dumbass. Finally re-emerging at 5.10pm (I wasn’t in the shower for 50 minutes I hasten to add), Bear rushed upstairs to shower before having to leave and I suddenly remembered his meeting, and that he’d had nothing to eat since breakfast at 11.30am… fuck.!! 😦
He managed to get a sandwich while he was there, but was still starving by the time he got back at 9.30pm. by which time I’d gotten my shit together enough to actually cook and have food waiting for him. Why didn’t he remind me that he had a meeting.? Why didn’t he mention that it was getting late and ask about dinner.? Why didn’t he give me some indication that he’d realised I’d forgotten, because by 4.20pm, he knew I had.? Because…. communication. Totally alien concept.
He’s on an early shift today, so I have plenty of time to write, get my shit together and cook, especially as I was up and dressed by 6.15am.! I’m not entirely sure I know what the hell all this early waking is all about… I seem to sleep to extremes… either up at 6am, or up at 11am… Must be my age. 😀 I also have chores to do today, someone (who shall remain nameless) keeps using the bathroom like it’s a wet room, which it isn’t, and so I have to go in and mop up the swamp and try to dry the room out before it grows mutant killer mould….
Yesterday, I was also informed (by his fiancee) that my son’s phone has finally given up the ghost, so he’s on hiatus from filling Facebook with angst, dark humour and general melancholy. Lucky Facebook. It also means he won’t be calling me to talk bollocks for 3 hours or more until he gets a new one, and I mean that in a loving motherly way, he starts talking and goes through all kinds of random shit, sick jokes, gaming details of games I have no clue about, friends I’ve never heard of before, work, neighbours, his fiancee and her college studies, the weather, his current illness, usually the black plague, and a myriad of weird and wonderful stuff that makes absolutely no sense… and he can talk for fucking HOURS.!!
Three hours is nothing to him when he gets started… I’ve had to endure 5 hour conversations in the past, and end them only because I just can’t keep up and am falling asleep. 😀 So I’ve decided to communicate via snail mail and bombard him with intimate details of his mother’s extremely exciting lifestyle, I know he’ll be made up… 😀 and he won’t be able to respond without writing back, which I know he won’t do. Tonight is Moroccan Cavolo Nero Stew. Nice and spicy and packed with veggies. Yum.!
Yesterday was a long-ass day and I spent most of it writing, awkwardly, but I did manage to get 6 blog posts written and published, so at least it was productive in that sense. You see, I’m writing about my life, from the age of 6 until the present day. I’ve been writing since February 2017, so we’re pretty far close to my thirties by now, which is when all the really dark stuff starts and it’s not that easy to write about, because in writing you have to relive the emotions of the moment, and recall all the details that quite honestly, you’d rather leave in the past where they belong, but that won’t help the writing, so you immerse yourself in it, all the rage, all the hurt, all the frustration and confusion and pain and you work with it and write it all down and get it out of your system.
Or you try to. Sometimes these things can linger a while and you have to work through them again until the remembered emotions that caused them to linger can be dealt with. Sometimes those emotions can’t be dealt with and you live with the re-opened wounds, but this far into the telling, you can’t just stop. You can take a break, give yourself time to heal again, but eventually, you have to pick up and carry on. So why do it.? Because it needs to be out there. It needs to find someone who understands and is suffering too, in the same way, so they’ll know they’re not alone and find the strength to carry on, knowing that one day it will end and they’ll find their peace and happiness. And because they need to know that leaving too soon is not an option. There’s too much at stake. So that’s why.
Yesterday, Bear finally got home at 3 minutes to 9pm. Having told me at 7.30pm that he was at Utrecht station… and asking if there was dinner, as by the time he got home he’d be hungry. There was dinner, as I’d made Mushroom Stroganoff for myself and it’s a good thing I’m psychic (or so Bear seems to think) because he didn’t tell me when he came into the local train station, didn’t let me know he was on his way, or would be 15-20 minutes or so, so that I could warm dinner through for him… oh no, far too easy, let’s not do that, psychic abilities would have to suffice. So at 8.45pm I boiled the water for his noodles and 5 minutes later put them in to cook. They were done 5 minutes after he walked in. Am I good or what.?!
Today Bear’s not at college, as it’s Test Week for everyone else except his class, so he has the day off, well, until the political meeting at 6pm. So we’re vegging. He had a good day yesterday, but it was busy and very long and he’s pretty tired and so am I, after all that emotional recall. Chores can wait until tomorrow, and all Bear wants to get done today is the glass recycling, which seriously needs doing as our patio is starting to resemble a brewery cellar. The neighbours must think we’re alcoholics with all the bags of green and brown bottles… but it has been building for quite some time… getting on for a year I think. Bear’s a bit of a nightmare to get shit like that done, he says he’ll do it, and doesn’t… so I wait and mention it again and he says “Oh right, yes, I’ll get that sorted” and doesn’t… and we go on this way for months until the patio gets run over with glass bottles and jars and then he decides to get rid… *sigh*
It’s a good thing I love him. Actually, it’s a good thing he loves me. Poor guy. Good thing I’m not a nag.
Today is gonna be a long ass day.! It started just before 6am… 6AM people.! 😮 Like… who starts a day that early.? Bear… Bear starts a day that early… most days in fact… because he’s weird… and has to start work at 7.30am. Anyway, 6am I’m listening to Bear shower, trying desperately not to run for the toilet because my bladder is all kinds of demanding, but it’s warm in bed and freezing outside of it and I don’t wanna… but know I’m fighting a losing battle because… bladder.
So I wait until Bear goes downstairs and race to the bathroom for that blissful release experience… no, not that one.! 😉 I’m not looking forward to today because Bear is away in Utrecht the entire day, on a forensics convention or some such brainy thing, doing lectures and workshops and learning stuff too complex for my understanding at such an early hour. And he won’t be back until 9- or 10pm. That’s 14 hours from now.! Yes, I’m counting. On the plus side we had a lightning storm.
I LOVE storms. Thunder, lightning, torrential rain, even hailstones, which we had this morning, brighten my day. I love the smell of ozone in the morning. I love snow too…. but we never seem to get the decent stuff anymore, just the powdery, crunchy stuff you can’t do a damned thing with. I wanna build a snowman.! Alone and without musical accompaniment and singing and daft movie references. Thank you. I need coffee.
Today, I shall mostly be catching up on the writing I should have been doing these past few months, instead of wallowing in self pity and feeling like crap because I constantly remind myself of all the fuck up’s I’ve made and people I’ve hurt in life by writing about them. It’s a vicious circle really but it needs doing. You can’t live the kind of life I have and keep it all bottled up and festering. It’s like having a ticking bomb in your head, set to self destruct with the slightest attempt at deactivation.
So I write and relive every painful, humiliating, dumb-ass thing I’ve ever done, said and thought was funny, and then found wasn’t. There’s a fair bit of it. It’s not pretty, but it must be done or Bear will have to reserve me a padded room and a course of therapy and one of those hug-myself jackets that are so chic, so I’ve heard and pretty yellow pills that make me happy and help me forget. God, wouldn’t that be great… can I get them with my coffee.?
Right now, I have Spotify playing my Chooooonz playlist… ♫♫ got to be done, especially when writing. Music soothes the beast you set free when writing about life and makes it less scary and easier to manage. Have a great day. ♥♥♥
I’m changing doctors. Mine is WAY too perky for 10am on a Monday and way too sadistic. Finally went to see him after a year of my shoulder getting steadily worse and the first thing he says is “Let’s give you an injection.” How did I know this would be his first port of call.? It’s ALWAYS his first port of call. He has a thing for sticking needles in me. He knows I hate the things. That’s why he does it. Bloody sadist.
“Lets see if you can do this.” He says, raising his arms at his sides to above his head. Yeah, let’s not.! I can’t do that, not with either arm and certainly not with the one he’s about to shove a ten foot javelin in. Okay maybe not a javelin, but a REALLY big needle. Okay, maybe not REALLY big, but big enough for me to not like the idea, never mind the event. You’re enjoying this just a little too much aren’t you.?
The sadistic git is grinning from ear to ear and skips off merrily whistling… WHISTLING… 😮 to get the necessary hardware to poke damned holes in me. I knew I should have just suffered until my arm shrivelled up and fell off. Much easier than witnessing the pure joy on this guy’s face. Then Bear chimes in “Pretty soon, I’ll be able to give you injections.!” Oh HELL, NO.!!
Two needle-wielding sadists I do not need. Especially when he has the potential to be just as joyously happy about the prospect of shoving damned great big needles in me as Dr. Too Damned Perky here. One very uncomfortable injection later and he says “Oh, there’s blood.” No shit Sherlock.! You just harpooned me, what were you expecting… honey.? Still with that grin on his face, the comedian gets a tissue and starts wiping up blood from below my shoulder blade… BELOW my shoulder blade.!
That’s a lot of blood. And it was. The tissue was half red. So he decides to get a plaster. Good of him, really. I expected him to just let me bleed. He seemed to like the view. He tells me not to lift for the next 48 hours. Me. Lift. Hahahahahaha.! 😀
I haven’t lifted in… ever.! He says that if the injection doesn’t work to come back. In a few weeks. To see what we can do next. What he means is, he’ll just harpoon me again, and again, and again until he’s not allowed to any more, then he’ll send me to the hospital for their sadistic bastards to harpoon me with bigger needles… just like he did last time.! I’m changing doctors.
It’s Sunday. I need a shower. And coffee. And breakfast. And Ibuprofen, because I can feel the rumblings of a headache starting. I must have snored all night, although I can’t recall Bear nudging me. My shoulder’s hurting… again… and my left hand’s really uncomfortable… on the inside. And it’s 11.18am… holy crap.! Really.?! 😮
Damn.! We’re due at the Mommy’s at 2pm. I hope the kids have had breakfast. This damn cough is still persisting, no matter what I throw at it, and rapidly doing my head in. For the first time, in a lot of months, Bear spent the evening with me… WITHOUT his iPad or phone.!! \o/ I can’t even remember far enough back to recall how long it’s been since that’s happened.
I guess he must have read the blog post I wrote, on another blog, and finally realised this shit is getting to me… big time. So he snuggled up on the sofa with me and a nice beer and watched an episode each of Star Trek: Voyager and American Gods. 🙂 It was nice. Really nice. I hope it becomes a regular thing. Now to shower. And eat.
UPDATE: I finally plucked up enough courage to stand on the scales, and I’m down to my pre-Christmas weight.! Yeay.! Was wondering if I was gonna sit on this damned plateau for the next 2 months and yo-yo for 3 kilos. *Sigh of relief* I’m probably not any more though, having been fed cake and waffles and meatballs with red cabbage mash… man, I love that stuff… and chocolate with red hazelnut crunch on it… well, someone has to eat it, or it’ll just get binned, and Bear and I hate waste…
Now for Catan… we were supposed to play it on Friday, but the kids got here too late and last night we were too tired to figure out strategic plays, so this evenings the evening, before Bear takes the children back home and we veg for the night. Bear’s off tomorrow but I have a Doc appointment at 10am and we have to get the week’s groceries.
Bugger… that means I have to get my butt in gear and make a meal plan for next week.
Bear finally surfaced at noon. A fortnight of early mornings and late nights and being kept awake by my coughing and snoring like a steam engine have not done him any good. This is also why I hate being ill. I have no control over my sleeping self. Not that I’m a control freak in the ex-husband sense of the word, I just like to be in control of myself… and my immediate surroundings because… I don’t like surprises.
Bear’s taking the girl child to her volleyball match this afternoon. So there’s almost 3 hours of driving and 2 hours of sitting around in the cold to add to his tiredness. And then shopping. Luckily because the kids had dinner at home instead of with us yesterday, we have the makings for Spinach pasta available, so we’ll do that tonight. It throws my whole meal plan for the weekend off, but I’m nothing if not flexible and resourceful. I own this shit… because I’ve had to learn to.
Today, I shall mostly be doing sweet F all. As usual. I may Xbox later depending on how much of the boy’s whining I can deal with. He never wants to go on the Xbox, until I do… and then suddenly he’s desperate to go on it. I have Spotify on my headphones right now, as the TV has been taken over by sport and not the good kind. I made a ‘Choooooonz’ playlist, of all the awesome tunes that have played throughout my lifetime… by Beatles, Queen, Stones, Eagles, Johnny Cash, AC/DC, R.E.M. etc, etc… Loving it.!
We watched the first episode of Picard last night… it was nice to see that it goes at the right pace, meaning the right pace for a retired Captain who used to rule the stars, not a middle-aged Captain who does. Patrick Stewart is looking very old these days… yes, I know he’s working on his 80’s, but it’s worrying. I don’t need to wake up to Twitter screaming that Sir Patrick has passed to the great unknown… I don’t think I could deal with that. 😥
2016 still hasn’t been forgiven for taking Carrie Fisher and 2017 is still on probation for it’s involvement in killing off many of my much loved TV and music favourites. 2020 wants to behave itself. Seriously.!
I walked into this relationship with my eyes open. Truly open, for the first time in a bloody long time. I knew things weren’t going to be all butterflies and bunnies and rainbows, especially with my control freak, manipulative ass ex- constantly calling to cajole, lie, make BS promises, threaten and emotionally blackmail me into returning home to his loving embrace. Like I was a completely brainless fuckwit with no sense of self-preservation. Which up to that point I had been.
I knew that the initial craziness of being in love would fade and things would mellow into a happy companionship… okay, no I didn’t know that. I had no idea what would happen after that initial dizzy, being madly in love feeling faded. It had never happened to me before. I’ve been in love before, stupidly, madly, heart-breakingly, soul-crushingly in love with starbursts and unicorns and utter craziness that was probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done and ever let go of.
There was no fading involved, no slow burn passion, no comfortable companionship. It was full on white-hot blazing from start to finish, and so painful. With my ex- it was more of an immature, teenage ‘I’m in love without a clue of what love actually is’ kind of love that bordered on friendship. No passion, no deep joy, no breath-taking madness, but a friendly companionship with occasional bad sex.
Which should have alerted me to the fact that this was not love. Which of course it didn’t because at 16 years old I didn’t have the experience to know, nor anything to compare it to, nor the smarts to realise that I was not ready emotionally for what I had just gotten myself in to. And boy, did I pay for my naivety… So many times in the first year I had reason… good reason to end things, but I never did. He did though, and always begged to come back.
By the time my brain registered that something was very, very wrong it was too late. I was invested and committed and pregnant and telling myself that a baby would improve things, which it didn’t because the baby didn’t make it. Her loss just opened my eyes wide and clear to the devastating mess I’d made of my life, but by then I was too emotionally distraught to do anything about it and slowly suffocating in manipulative, blackmailing, controlling love that blocked every avenue of escape with sweet, loving attentiveness that led to another child, and then another while I allowed myself to be blackmailed and controlled and suffocated.
Meeting Bear was different. He was different and by the time we met I had more life experience than a 37 year old wife and mother should ever have. I also had full blown clinical OCD and serious trust issues. Love suddenly popped out of the blue, completely unexpected and totally ambushed me. It was a more cautious roller-coaster ride though, that made it clear from the very beginning that it could be dangerous to my health, and to step with caution.
Which I did while my stupid heart soared with joy and did aerial acrobatics and begged to be allowed to cartwheel and pretend it was a firework. My feet however were firmly on the ground, and my brain fully engaged in examining how I felt from every angle. I adored Bear, from the very beginning. It was hard not to, he was sweet, kind, loving, genuinely caring and compassionate, funny and geeky, intelligent and charming and totally non-threatening to the massive gaping hole in my soul.
He was perfection, or so I thought. I moved in with him knowing of the depth of my love for him, but still being uncertain of his for me. I took a big risk… and it paid off. There were fireworks, and passion and a deep burning need and joy and hope and all the wonders of truly being in love and knowing it. And then I discovered the extent of his lies. I don’t mean lies in an overly negative way, just that he’d been very creative in editing the truth.
Being the realist that I am, it’s still lying whether you outright fib, or embellish the truth a little to make things sound better than they really are. When I first met Bear he told me the truth of his situation, his recently-past relationships and all the things that there was little point in lying about. He’d fibbed about being the person he really was, the person he’d described to me when we met, the man he’d made himself out to be was the person he wished he was, the person he wanted to be, not the person he was.
It made a difference. It made a big difference. He was the sweet, kind, compassionate, loving person he’d always been. He wasn’t the free spirit, hater of routines, impulsive, adventurous, carefree, freedom loving person he’d made me believe he was. He’d lied to me. The one person who’d been lied to her whole life, who trusted nobody, who hated liars more than anything else on earth and he’d lied to me. It changed things.
The passion dimmed a little, the joy faded a shade and the crazy, madly in love burning felt a small trickle of cold water. We talked, he explained and I understood. My eyes were already open, I knew things weren’t going to be easy or straightforward and they weren’t, and they never have been but I have always loved him, deeply and with a passion never known before. After nine years there is no-one I would rather be with, nowhere I would rather be than right here beside him.
Despite the Internet addiction, because that is what it is, and I understand that there was a reason for it, and that it’s a habit that he just can’t break and doesn’t want to (yet). I also understand that he doesn’t realise what it’s done to his previous relationships and what it’s doing to ours, but one day he will and I’ll be here to hold him and help him and understand because I know he’d do the same for me.
So yes, I might rant and rage and threaten to bash him over the head with his laptop, iPad and any other form of Internet access but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him, or need him or want him. I just get thoroughly sick of being second best to bloody everything and feeling like the housekeeper and child minder in his life and not much else. Maybe you’ll understand that.
Dear Diary... 
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