On Things

I finally have a bit of freedom to read and write things. By things I mean blogs, of course.

My laptop was taken for a fix and for the week and three days it was away from me I anxiously called the fixing centre to enquire about my electronic child and ensure its safety. It’s back safe and sound, thankfully, and I am sitting here in a cafe using it to type these sentences.

In A CAFE?! On a FRIDAY? At 1:23pm?! How is that possible!? Well I booked a couple of days off work you see. I really needed to, I was beginning to go crazy, and growl at people on the street, and froth at the mouth if somebody dared to ask me how my weekend was.

My weekend was the same as every bloody other weekend, Janet, how was yours?

And when I say it, it comes out in a mocking tone, as though I am my brother’s older sister again making fun of what he is saying by adding emphasis to it and jutting my teeth out and crossing my eyeballs.

Anyway so I had two glorious days off and what did I do with them? Did I go hiking? Did I go to the gym, and greedily devour all the books waiting for me on my bedside table? Did I do all the things I daydreamed I would do when I was too busy to do them?

No, of course not. I cleaned my house and watched Harry Potter and had a very long nap.

And those things felt just as good as all the other grand things.

What things do you want to do when you’re too busy to do them?

 

Painting by SheerJoy, Australia. You can buy personalised paintings here!

All By Myself

Today I am going to have a house completely to myself.

All to myself.

Did you hear what I said?

ALL. TO. MYSELF.

With no risk or possibility of anybody coming home from school or college or work, no kids screaming, nobody. Nobody except me.

I will be free to walk around in my underwear. I will be free to have a long, hot shower without the risk of anybody knocking on the door telling me to hurry up or using the taps in the kitchen making my shower icy cold.

You know what I am going to do?

I am going to raid my mother’s freezer and cook myself a nice healthy nutritious meal. I am going to workout in the living room, window wide open, and something nice and loud playing. I am going to weed her garden, and throw away some junk in my sister’s room. I am going to hoover the whole house, make myself a banana and honey hair mask, and plop a bathbomb in a nice hot bath. I am going to watch a film in my mother’s massive bed, and sing really loudly. I am going to be FREE.

After three months of living in two houses full of humans everywhere, with very little private time, today looks like it will be simply magnificent, and I will enjoy every. single. moment.

Did you hear that, everybody? EVERY. SINGLE. MOMENT.

Also, it’s really sunny and warm today. It really feels like spring!

Adios, folks, and happy Good Friday to you.

Image Credit

The Scream

I have this scream that I do in my head sometimes when the going gets too tough.

It started when I was young. I stopped a moment and looked out of the large, metal framed windows in the flat I lived in; the view was dusty, solid buildings, ugly and radiating curly heatwaves. I stopped amid all my exam stress and my bedroom junk and my disorganisation, and I screamed.

It was an internal scream, a scream in my head. It was loud, raging, desperate. But it also had an order to it; it followed a tune.

AAAaa-AAA-aa-aa-aaaaaargh.

It isn’t a bad tune, as tunes go. It is my tune of solace. A vent of sorts. A screaming tune with a lilt to it. Sometimes it makes me laugh. Sometimes it makes the pain of nostalgia cloud the stress and make my mountainous pile of Things To Do a little less steep. Sometimes it just clears my head and allows me to get back on track and get on with what I have to do. Sometimes it highlights the frantic, anxious emotions that accompany the stress, and I have to call my mum and have a cry.

It started when I was about ten years old, living in the hot desert of Arabia, where my father had whisked us off when he decided to follow his career.

It still resonates with me now. On this cold island, surrounded by the raging seas of winter and politics.

The fantastic thing about this Scream folks, is that I can do it anywhere, at any time, and nobody will know.

So, right now,

AAAaa-AAA-aa-aa-aaaaaargh.

There. Deep breath. Carry on. God bless.

Peace and quiet.