The Blues

Today I had a BAD day.

There is no other way to put it. No, my goldfish did not pass away. In fact, I don’t have a gold fish, and I never would, because it reminds me of an unsavoury being with bony feet.

Nothing bad happened.

My sister climbed on to a roof in a hot country in the Arabian peninsula. The wind whipped at her hair whilst her cousins, who are half Vietnamese, laughed at her with red cheeks and bright eyes. I expect they had some soy wings garnishes with spring onions after that, whilst one of my cousins made some freshly brewed coffee.

My mother in law called me and we had a lovely chat, and my eyes prickled with tears whilst I laughed down the phone with her because she put that effort in to talk to me, and I don’t think anybody has done that for me recently. Not even my own mother. I think my mother thinks I mother her too much, like a reincarnation of her mother. I said, ‘Look, mother, I have to take care of you.’

She doesn’t like that at all. I just can’t help it. I love her too much.

When I went to the bathroom to freshen up my face looked alarming. You see, I have olive skin. So when I am pale, it is a brownish, purply sort of pale. My skin becomes slightly green, and the deep circles beneath my eyes are a strange purply brown hue. My lips had no colour, so they were a little purple too. I just looked terrible. I looked like the photograph I once saw of a woman in the last stages of death. How morbid does that sound?

‘Wow,‘ I called to my husband, ‘I look like I’m dead!‘

‘Yup.’ came his response. Pregnant with sarcasm and dripping with disdain and oozing with disappointment. He wanted me to wear my red dress today. But I wasn’t feeling it. He likes that dress a lot for some reason, but sometimes I just don’t want to wear a clingy dress with slits down the side to just … hang around the house.

And it was Saturday, we’d booked tickets to Bletchley Park, the manor house where Alan Turing created his renowned code machine. We thought it was in Manchester (only 40 mins away) and realised after we’d booked, with disappointed jolts that it was all the way in Milton Keynes, two and a half hour’s drive away.

We set the alarm for 8am to leave early, but ended up waking up at 10:30am – meaning we’d have next to no time to really explore and make the most of our visit when we arrived (you need five hours in a place like that, really), so we called up and discovered that the tickets allow us to go back anytime up to a year after purchase, as many times as we please. So, we had some cereal and … did… nothing.

I was upset. I wanted to go outside for a walk at least. I KNOW, I could have gone by myself but that’s hellish lonely. And I always go by myself. D didn’t want to go. He hates walking. He says I am such an old soul but frankly, HE is the old soul. What kind of person hates walking in the spring sunshine?! He only wants to do something if it is hugely entertaining. He has imagination, but not enough to take joy from walking around the block and noticing other people and their front gardens and the way the setting sun sprouts colour in places to light them up and bring some rosy cheeked joy into the world.

Also I felt that he could have sucked it up and gone for a measly half hour with me. He would have enjoyed it, I always make him enjoy it. I washed the dishes angrily and thought dark thoughts about him while he played VIDEO GAMES upstairs.

First world problems? Of course. Oh dear.

I am drinking some coffee, now, and getting on with some work. Tomorrow D promised he would go for a walk with me and we would have brunch in a cafe and then maybe take a drive someplace pretty. I am on the hunt for a poppy field. I know there is one nearby. I just feel it in my bones, and I also had a dream about it. I must find it, it is driving me crazy. My eyes are yearning for it and so is my soul, a little bit.

D thinks poppy fields are boring. I think he would appreciate them more if they existed inside a video game or if he experienced them using the Oculus Rift. Kids these days *rolls eyes* – only entertained with technology. They will never understand the true joys of an undigitalised world, will they?

What’s the best thing about being married?

What’s the best thing about being married?

The license to have sex. No I am joking, also these days nobody needs a license, that was scrapped some sixty to seventy years ago.

So being married isn’t as great as everybody makes out. Some people say the first year is always the hardest, but oddly I don’t agree. My first year of marriage was pretty happy go lucky. Yeah I used to get irritated because my husband would never tell me anything and discuss all his matters with his mother instead of me which would frustrate me to no end, but we worked on that and it all seems okay now. We didn’t have huge spats, he washed dishes and cleaned the house and I cooked meals, he went to work and I worked from home. We moved house twice. We did a bit of travelling and had one pregnancy scare.

I didn’t have any of those agonising worries that lots of other people say they had. We didn’t argue all the time because we were ‘getting used’ to each other.  We just… lived. In fact we lived in close proximity to each other for a very long time, when we spent a little more than a year living in an attic bedroom with one tiny kitchen that wasn’t big enough for both of us, we were literally in each other’s pockets and that didn’t bother either  of us one bit.

In fact when the agent came to show somebody around, the person seeing the place said, “Gosh you live here with your husband!? That’s a test to a relationship if anything is. I’d go mental if I had to live in this tiny place with anybody, least of all my SO.”

I was shocked to hear that, really. When my husband wants some peace and quiet he plugs his earphones in or goes to the gym and when I want some, I go and cook or read or paint or walk or cycle. It also helps that he is at work most days and I am busy with my online business and online university course. Also I guess we are both amicable (mostly) and have learned how to live around each other.

My husband is also very logical and doesn’t let his emotions factor into arguments, which is why I am a blubbering mess and he is a frowning robot when we argue. I think that dynamic works because I am the sort of person who has to let off steam in an angry and upset way, while he needs to retreat into himself and frown at the computer screen for a few hours. Sometimes it’s frustrating but mostly it works and then we eat dinner and watch a movie and it’s all fine.

My husband doesn’t want any kids. He thinks they are messy and loud and blubbery and that they would hinder his freedom. Which is entirely true. That is why I think he wasn’t too happy when I got pregnant, although he was heavily concerned and worried when I miscarried. I also think he was slightly relieved. Who am I kidding. I was slightly relieved. I don’t think either of us are ready to have kids. We both want to do so much more and be so much more before we are limited by having to take care of another vulnerable human being. Also he is worried he will make an awful dad and I know I will be a mean mum.

I love my husband very much and think that I need to step up my game as his wife. For example I have a good body but I don’t make the most of it like I used to before I got married. I guess I figure that I am secure now and don’t always need to make an effort because I know he loves me. However this sort of thinking is wrong and I know that I should make the most of my body while I am young, both for my own sanity and also because I think D would like it very much indeed.

Another example is my hot temper which I tend to unleash on his poor unsuspecting self. He is very good to me and always tries to make me happy and buy me unexpected gifts and push me to be better at everything I do. He is ambitious and hard working and aspirational. So he doesn’t deserve my wrath. Except when he does deserve it, but not that bad, maybe a little toned down.