I'm feeling ....
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More to follow....
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2003-10-12 - 10.48pm previous entry next entry Thank you Helen for your guestbook entry and for all the hugs! They went to a good cause :) It's time for bed but I don't feel like going to bed so I'm here instead without a right lot to say. Hmmm. Today I didn't go to church. I woke up in time but I just felt like I couldn't face it so I stayed at home. I lay in bed and thought things through for a long time, and when Neil woke up I talked to him about it. Here's what I think, and I hope I'm not doing the wrong thing: I am going to phone Anna tomorrow and arrange to stop my involvement with the youth group at church until further notice. I just want some time. I am meant to be leading it next Sunday but I desperately do not want to, so I hope she will be okay with me just pulling out like this. I hate that I'm doing it, both to the youth leaders team and to the kids, but it is becoming a pressure and a dread that I don't need right now, so I think I should stop. I do feel that God really called me to work with these kids so I am not sure if it's right that I should be stopping, at least not for good. But I just don't want to be involved or responsible or accountable right now, in anything. So I will do that tomorrow, but I am kind of nervous, in case for some reason it does not go down too well. Neil says of course it will go down fine, but I just get nervous about these things. The other thing is that I need to phone Gordon tomorrow and arrange to quit my involvement with Alpha. That is another thing that feels like a pressure that I can't bear to face - sounds melodramtic but it's how I feel. And I don't want to have to face anything anymore. I don't want to have to face the way I feel, let alone general pressures outside of just what I'm dealing with inside my head. When I thought about what I felt I wanted and what I needed, and what I didn't need right now, I decided that I do not want to have a regular commitment to anything. I want to go to church when I feel like going to church, and when I am there it's because I want to worship God, not to socialise. That's really my main motivation in going to church anyway, but mostly I do enjoy the fellowship too. Right now fellowship with lots of people is not something I want. I do not want to feel guilt-trippy over not going to church sometimes, not socialising much, or not being involved in Alpha or youth group. I do not need that pressure. I DO want to go to Pilates with Judith once a week. I do want to take Sue up on her offer of meeting up to pray and chat regularly, but I do not feel up to leading any Freedom in Christ sessions for the time being. If I stop going to Alpha there will be no housegroup midweek to keep me in contact with other Christians in the week, so as much as I want to hide away and not go to that sort of thing anyway, I think I need to start attending my old housegroup while Alpha is running. They meet on the same night of the week anyway. Although, hmmm, now I think about it, I'm not sure how that will work since we've only got one car and Neil needs it to get to Alpha, which he's still involved with and enjoying it a lot. Oh dear. Hmmm. Maybe not then. But I was thinking my old housegroup would be so wonderful. I often feel like I wish I was still there, because I still feel kind of new and awkward at our "new" group, and the people there are so different. It's much more "young" and the chat is lively and one or two people (one in particular!) are loud and jokey a lot. I was used to being with four other women, all older than me, all really mature Christians who are sensitive to God's Spirit, and everything was much quieter and more meditative, and we prayed a LOT. It used to be a refreshing evening, spiritually. I just find myself feeling like I am struggling to fit in at the new group, though I love everyone there. I do not open up like I used to so easily at the old group, and right now I really need that refreshment and people I feel so close to that my walls can come down if they need to, and people who will pray with me when I feel easy sharing what's wrong. And people who I can pray for with the same ease of sharing. I miss that. And the quiet worship and prayer times. Of course having said all that I still don't want to go out and be with people, but I think my old housegroup would be the right place for me to make myself go at the moment. Anyway I will think about that. And definitely quit Alpha in the meantime. I don't want to hide away too much, but I really don't want to do these things anymore. They are making me dread each week coming round where I have to make myself do them. I am really struggling lately. I am really struggling today, more than the last couple of days. I have not played any computer games today. I can not stop thinking about Cameron. Sometimes I am okay and then I'll realise I am humming something (which I often do absent-mindedly anyway) and when I stop to think what it is, it's one of Cam's favourite hymns from the funeral, and that starts off a huge train of thought about him. Or another thing that's distracting me a lot is my mind keeps wandering to the cemetery. Like I want to be there instead of whatever else I'm doing. Or I get antsy thinking when will I next get the chance to go. I feel all edgy if my days feel too full or busy for me to have any chance of going to the cemetery for the next day or so. I like to feel like I could if I wanted to, at any moment. Obviously I can't always feel that way, but it's making me fidgety and uncomfy when I feel I can't go to see him if I want to. This weekend I had times when I could have gone, but I felt like his family might well visit him then, and I don't want to invade their space or their grief process, so I've stayed away. I only went a few days ago anyway, I think. I can't remember when, but it wasn't long ago. I constantly feel like I want to be at the cemetery, it distracts me, but I know that when I go it will be just emptiness like before, so I try to ignore the urge to go. So needless to say it is easier to play computer games and stuff at the moment. I would like to be dealing with things better, but I don't know how to make anything better. Granny gave me a new memory of Cameron the other day on the phone. It's one of hers, but I can add it to my own mental file and I'm so grateful she shared it with me. It made my day actually. It was from our wedding day. Cam was our page boy. Did I tell you that? Well he was a fantastic page boy. He was seven. I wish I could show you him on our wedding video here, but I can't. There's loads of him on that video, he's everywhere! I can't watch it yet. But I see it playing in my mind which is nearly the same. I have watched it lots of times, and I know his every expression throughout the day. Anyway we had this reception (which we won in the local paper by the way!) at a hotel, a three-course meal and then there was a half hour break and then an evening reception with a dance floor, more guests, and a buffet meal. We would have had family in a tent in the garden on the budget we had if we hadn't won a reception!! But anyway, so it was wonderful. Cam was at every part of the day, which is how I wanted it, and he managed great. He even ate LOADS of food at the meal, which was amazing at the time since he hardly at a thing (having not done so from birth to the age of four and he still couldn't get used to it after his transplant). He was fed by nose tube so it didn't matter that he hardly ate. But anyway, he ate TONS, and there's this great moment during the speeches when there's a little background noise on the video, and it's Cam and his mum. He was still slowly picking his way through the meal and his mum was trying to suggest that he stop for now, or give his plate to her or something. Afterwards she told me that he was so determined to eat, he just kept going, and when she suggested that he stop, he held onto the edges of his plate and "NO!" kind of all growly at the back of his throat!! Hehe, that made me laugh so much when she told me that!! And sure enough, you can just hear him saying it on the video, which I was delighted about! Anyway, she took him to hospital the next day because his output was raised (all his outputs had to be measured in mls) and that usually means the start of an infection, so she was worried. But it turned out to be nothing, or rather just the large amount of food he had eaten for the first time ever! :) I loved that. Anyway but that wasn't the memory I was going to talk about. After the meal, the hotel staff cleared the tables away and set up the evening reception, and the DJ turned up and set up a dance floor, etc. Most of the guests disappeared for a while, and some of them weren't coming to the evening reception anyway. Neil and I went up to our room to flake out on the bed for 10 minutes, we were soooo pooped! I was meant to reappear in my wedding dress for the evening reception and do the first dance with Neil and all that, and stay a short while before heading back upstairs to change into better clothes to dance in! But I couldn't lie down properly in my wedding dress so I took it off, and urgh then I messed my hair up and couldn't get back into the dress (it was a boned bodice with a million little lace-up criss-cross bits up the back! My mum had to be called to help me when Neil couldn't figure it all out! But arrgh, this STILL isn't the memory I was meant to be talking about! Getting off the track (which is easy to do when reminiscing about my wedding day!). Anyway, while we were upstairs having all this cufuffle (sp?!), Granny said she was downstairs chatting with some guests while the place was changed around for the evening reception. She said she walked past the main room and she saw staff setting up the buffet tables, the DJ setting up the music area and testing some tracks, and Cameron on the dance floor, the only guest in there, boogying away to the music!!! What a sweetie. He always did love to dance. She said he was having a great time from the looks of it. I'm so glad she told me, because it's yet another memory of him that makes me smile and fill up with love for him. Those kind of memories hurt at the moment, but I still want to stockpile them so that they can warm my heart at a later date. I love to think of them now too, but they hurt as well as make me smile. Non-Cameron news now. Today I helped my parents clear out the loft at the house where I lived from age 5 till I got married. It was so nice to spend time with them, like no time had passed at all since I saw them months ago. So weird how that happens. I wasn't a lot of use for the first hour or so, because I really haven't felt too well today or yesterday. Yesterday evening I felt like being sick a lot, but I never was. My IBS is so bad at the moment, I do not know what to do with it. Nothing makes it any better and everything makes it worse. But oh well. Today I felt just icky and woke up with a headache too, and I have just felt tired and kind of shaky today. I wonder if I am getting a bit anaemic though because I checked my nails and my eyes and my gums and they are all paler than normal. So I need more red meat and green veg and red wine and stuff with loads of iron in it. I hope that's all it is. But I did better after an hour or so, so that wouldn't make sense for anaemia I guess. I feel odd again this evening though. This afternoon I did LOADS. Daddy went up in the loft and handed things down to me, and I passed them to Mummy and she put them in piles or out in the van if they were going to the rubbish tip. But we were going too slow like that because Daddy would look at everything and decide what should be done with it before he handed it down! So after we took a break I went up in the loft and the pace went much quicker. The amount of dirt and dust up there was incredible. I coughed and sneezed all afternoon. We all did. If I blew my nose it was black. You really wanted to know that didn't you?! Anyway, I'm sure that was really bad for our bodies, but it had to be done. And we cleared the WHOLE loft, in one day!!!! They had tomorrow set aside for it too, so they are really pleased we did it all today. We found a TON of old photos of Mummy and Daddy when they were dating, and from school, and some of Mummy with old boyfriends (yuck!). And lots of photos that I've never seen of me and Bennie when we were little. Some of Mummy when she was pregnant with me, and some of me and her when she had the-bump-that-was-Bennie. There's photos of me the day I was born, and photos of Bennie when he was tiny and newly home from the hospital. I did not look sure of anything in those photos. And I wasn't either. I can remember it, though I was only two. Not fun memories! Anyway it was lovely looking through all those things again. I came home in the evening totally wiped and with a few things from the loft. Neil was really nice about that, he is so lovely! We don't have much storage space left ourselves, but I couldn't leave these bits. I got a pink towelling bathrobe which is soft and clean and will do very nicely for some cute girly nappies! And my red curtains with ducks on them from when I was five till puberty! They are bright and cheerful and in great condition, and not dated at all, and they are definitely worth keeping as an option for our future kids' bedrooms. Also I brought back some of Mummy's earrings which are really nice. She can't wear earrings anymore because they give her a reaction, no matter what they're made of. And I brought a poem I wrote when I was nine that is really deep and surprisingly good, not childlike at all. My mum read it out to me and I was all complimentary and then she said I wrote it when I was nine, which made me feel all awkward because she tricked me to think it was some adult's thing so I would appreciate something about myself! My mum is good like that. And it was a good poem, so I kept it. I also brought home the most enormous bag of Lego!!!! Yay for Lego!! I love Lego, and there is NO WAY I'm chucking all of it away from our childhoods - the stuff is soooo expensive! I will definitely need it for our children. And besides, I am kind of keen to play with it myself before then! :) There's some Duplo in there too, but hardly any. Mostly just Lego. Why do they call it Legos in America? I am curious because I keep coming across Americans in their diaries, talking about their children playing with their "Legos". Huh?! It's leg-oh. LEGOhhhh! The plural of Lego is Lego. Like deer. Anyway, so I found our Lego. Yay! And this evening my parents dropped round with their van to bring us back our ladder, and also the family tent (!!) which they were going to get rid of (horrors!) so I nabbed it for Neil and I, since it's in perfectly good working order despite having housed us on family camping holidays most years for about 2 decades! It's a six-berth (that means four people!) family tent and those are expensive, and we plan to go camping when we have kids, so it will be good for us to have. So that's here now. And also I found my children's rocking chair with the fluffy seat in the loft. I could fit my bum in between the arms until I was about ten, and then it went in the loft :( But I loved it so much, so it's here now waiting for a new little girl or boy to arrive and rock in it happily like I used to. And that's it. I came home, took a bath, ate a bit, worried about my lack of appetite, chatted with Neil, thought about Cameron, and wrote my diary. And that is my day. I am going to bed now, because somehow it's after midnight and when I started writing this it was 10.48pm! I don't know how I manage to write such long entries lately, but it just seems to flow till I get tired or run out of things to say. Which is now, so goodnight. I will write again soon. And get to my emails soon too. Oh but tomorrow I might not get online actually because hopefully we're having the electrics rewired. Neil moved all the upstairs furniture while I was out in preparation for tomorrow's work. I hope the guy turns up. He never called me back with a quote (weeks ago like he was supposed to) and yesterday I left a message asking him to call to confirm tomorrow, and he hasn't phoned. Grrr. But if he does turn up the rest will be worth it because he is doing it for much less than a huge company would charge, and I know he is certified and will do it safely too. Plus he's fixing the leak on our toilet, which has been there for a month or two, so I can't wait for it all to be fixed!!! Anyway, so maybe tomorrow I'll update? I don't know. Maybe. |
Recent entries..... Cameron's first anniversary - 2004-09-24 |
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