Harder some days, and weeks than others, but I'm struggling a bit right now. I feel like I'm a single parent without the benefits. When I was a single parent I enjoyed a really great social life, dated when I wanted, had lots of friends both single and married. Now, with my husband working away pretty much all the time it seems, and having moved around so much that I have become a social recluse I am finding life hard a lot of the time. My Pollyanna side really battles with the "poor me" side. I tell myself there are a lot of people worse off than me, who are truly alone all the time. I have two of my kids here, family on the other end of the telephone and a pretty comfortable life. I used to be really outgoing, and wherever I lived, would join things and volunteer and got to meet people that way. I have found my social skills have really become rusty and scarily I actually prefer to be holed up here at home. This is not good. There is a University of the 3rd Age starting up here in town, and it sounds great, perfect for me, no contracts, no timetable, just pay your membership and show up if you feel like it and are interested in whatever they are offering at any given time. So that is on my agenda. I am considering doing some kind of volunteer work but not sure what and even if I can commit to anything.
I can't even talk to Phill about how I am feeling as he seems to take anything I say about the situation, no matter how gently I try to approach it, as a personal attack. I feel like he chooses to work away, that he prefers it to being home. I don't know that for sure. Who wouldn't? He just goes to work, and comes home to a clean cushy motel and gets to drink after hours with his workmates. No other responsibilities while I'm here to run the house, and take care of the kids and the animals (most of which HE wanted....the animals not the kids), and deal with all the problems of everyday family life.
Okaaaaay I've had my whinge and now I feel a bit better.
Kate rang again last night and it is clear now that she has no intention of coming home anytime soon, and probably not ever. I don't understand her, and I don't see how on earth we can maintain a relationship when she doesn't seem to want to be part of this family anymore. She has no real reason to stay in Perth, there really isn't anything there for her. She is in a dead end job as a checkout chick (not that there's anything wrong with that, but she could do that in NSW) and doesn't seem to have any significant relationships, except the toxic one she has with the cow who got her to go over there. I'm just going to put that away for a while, there isn't anything I can do or say and it just hurts if I think about it too much.
Chapter Forty asked in comments what my book is about. My older three children were mostly raised by their father and their wicked stepmother, they are now aged 30, 29 and 26 and I was kept from seeing them for a lot of their childhood. They were never told family stories like most of us grow up with, and indeed know very little about either side of their parentage. My mother in law has written quite a bit about her growing up, and her family and raising her kids and I decided I would write a book about my family and my life, and their lives, their births, their early years. So they will always have the truth from MY pespective rather than the crap they've probably picked up through overhearing things. I am not always on the best of terms with my older three, and this is something, that if they are interested, that they will always have and it might all make sense to them one day. I am really enjoying the process now I'm back into it, and I feel like it's a bit of catharsis for me at this point in my life. It's interesting actually putting down on paper where I come from, like a rambling, detailed version of the normally stark, formal family tree. Nobody knows what is around the corner and I urge anyone with kids to have as much put down in print as possible. I so wish I had asked more questions of my father, and my grandparents when I had the opportunity.
I don't know if it's because I have lost a child (for new readers, my infant daughter died in 1994 of SIDS) or I am just a freaking drama queen. Yesterday the kids wanted to go for a walk and I gave them some money to get a drink or whatever and off they went. They know, God do they know, that all I ask is that they look out for one another and be home well before dark. I gave them my mobile phone. It got later and later and eventually I rang only to have it go to message bank. Then Phill rang and said my phone had rung his but hung up. It was getting on to 5pm (it's Winter here) and I panicked a bit thinking of course, as I do, that something had happened and they were trying to get help. I got in the car and drove around the big park and up into town but no sign of them. Came back home and Phill said he'd managed to get them on the phone and told them to come straight home. He didn't think to ask them where they were of course. Another trip in the car to search but it was getting really dark now and I cannot see to drive in the dark. More phone calls, another searching trip. I was in tears and ready to call the police by this stage when I spotted them walking down the street. Needless to say I was livid, more with fear and relief by this stage. I told them they were grounded forever and if they couldn't just obey the get home by dark rule they weren't allowed to go out on their own. One of the reasons we got them out of Sydney is so they could have the kind of freedom we had as kids. Am I overreacting? There is a very strange character in town who the kids call Paddy the Perv and he has been spotted doing some strange things, and also I read in the local paper of a home invasion in town the other night, unheard of in country towns.
I am sure my hair is grey under all that hair dye.
So after all that I didn't feel like cooking. I made the avocado prawn cocktails for me and Emily and cooked Josh a couple of eggs and the salmon is still sitting in the marinade in the fridge. I might cook it for lunch and still put the Thai pork balls in the slow cooker for dinner.
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