Funny isn’t it what initiates a blog post Well for me anyway. I’m sure some bloggers have an agenda, or an itinerary, or maybe some sort of structure for their content and timing. Mine just kind of pops into my head at the strangest and sometimes most unexpected moments. Occasionally I have a series of blogs that are relevent to the current goings on (like the series that followed me standing in the by-election). Rarely, but on occasion, I have blogged to demand… ie I’ve been asked to write a piece, like this one for Stigma Fighters). Generally though, I’m minding my own business and out of nowhere a title or a strap line pops into my life. I might be ironing or gardening when it happens. Or sat on the loo! Often I’m in that quiet space just before nodding off and I’m prodded and poked with a line of thought until I get up and write it down. There are times when I’m driving , say to the supermarket, and I have to pull over as paragraphs start writing themselves in my head and I become panicky that the wording is so good but I’ll never be able to get it back, so I pull over and scribble on the back of an envelop or till receipt or whatever I can find.
Right now I came here to jot down something completely different and that first paragraph fell out.
What I’d nipped here to start writing down was something that jumped out during a chat I was having on line with my sister in law.
I’m really cranky this week. I think I’ve mostly got away with it and nobody (almost nobody) has noticed; but over the last week or two, I’m only a shadow of the ‘myself’ I present to the world.
Summer has been so very, very fabulous yet so very, very busy too. Everything happens on top of everything else through my summer. The B&B is at its busiest; the opportunities to garden are at their highest; the gardening jobs and cafe shifts increase;… and Lady Lily Pink has her work cut out to. (Lily, my alter ego stood for by-election throughout July and then had public events off the back of that into August) . By Bank Holiday Monday I really need to crash but invariably the B & B is still busy as is everything else and we generally have friend/family guests in the mix too as our student flat is empty so people can come and stay even if the B & B is full up.
The result is I get ill. I still can’t stop because it’s all still happening; I don’t want to stop because I like doing it all; and I can’t afford to stop because in a few weeks time all the lines of work will slow down to a trickle by default and yet it’s the winter when the costs are at their highest (keeping warm for example). Now it all sounds like I’m complaining. I’m not. Honestly. I love my life and the manic style of it. What I hate is my body’s inability to keep up with it at times. I really just need about two more weeks of stamina than I actually have and all would be well. If I could just get to after the first weekend in September where there is a natural break to recoup and recover before the next period of crazy. However it doesn’t work like that and, per last year, and probably as a prediction for next year , the end of August and the beginning of September are a struggle.
These days my body reacts by throwing an all over wobbly, my skin itches all over; I develop hives. I’m eating antihistamines like they’re going out of fashion. My voice has been partially missing for much of last and this week. It’s now developed into an irritating cough, constant headache which simmers in the background then demands paracetamol , then simmers again; I think the cough is now stuck on my (ample) chest which will probably require an unwanted trip to the doctors to shift. I ache. I’m tired. I’m not sleeping well. It doesn’t help that I’m now over fifty, probably peri-menopausal, definitely older than I used to be.
Socialising is a chore. When i get to this point I know life has temporarily got me beat.
I just need 48 hours without social interaction, be it work-wise or fun-wise and I’ll be back on track. But the world around me doesn’t work like that. So I grab an hour here and there and that doesn’t solve it. It just gets me through the next bit.
And I love all the bits: the gardening; the waitressing; the cooking; the hosting; the helping; the Friday night drinks; the weekend with family…. But at this time of year. I have to try …. really, really hard…. I have to accept that the working must continue and to get through it’s the socialising that has to stop. I just need to be able to switch off my brain. I need to stop doing. I need to stop thinking. I need to stop talking.
Some years ago I had, what would be described as a breakdown. It’s all there in my mental health blogs if you want to catch up 😉 . Since then I’ve had to be much gentler with myself.
But when life is buzzing it really does feel like I could take on the world…..
…. sadly though it’s short bursts of world domination these days.
(But watch out I’ll be back at it middle of next week 😀 )
