Great Christian Diaries

2003-10-21 - 1.02pm  previous entry  next entry

Oooh it's been a few days! It's Tuesday and the last time I wrote was Thursday, that's quite a gap for me at the moment. But never mind, here I am.

Let's see, what's happening? We're back on the quest for the pregnancy that isn't happening. So we'll see what happens in a couple of weeks. I will get my period. There, that's saved you all the suspense. This isn't a good subject for me at the moment so I'll stop talking about it here. There's a terribly upbeat entry in my other diary though. Not.

I am forgetting about Cameron, which is freaking me out. Whole gaps of time go by and then he'll pop into my head, and that's when I'll realise I hadn't thought about him for half the day or since yesterday or whatever. I don't like it, but I think it must be natural as time gets further away from the big focal point of his death and his funeral. I have been really used to him being in my head every waking moment, so it's weird to have long patches of the day where I don't even notice that he's not in my head, no matter what else I am doing. I don't need "blockers" now, like games and movies. I forget to remember him even when I'm pottering round the house or thinking about stuff absent-mindedly. I really don't like it. But I try to remind myself that it must be normal.

Sue came round today and prayed with me after we chatted for a while about Cam. She was really reassuring. She said my feelings don't mean I am done grieving for him. She said the grief curve normally takes about 2 years over a person you were very close to or loved deeply. She said things will change but just because they don't stay the same it doesn't mean I am not grieving. She said that grief is a process. I am so relieved by the things she said. Phew. Anyway, she prayed with me and I am so glad. The things she was praying were spot on for me at the moment, and listening to her asking God to bless me and help me in all these different ways and just sitting there quietly with my eyes closed, I really felt like God was there in the room. Such a lovely sense of peace and wellbeing, and confidence in God. I really needed to draw close to God. I have been feeling kind of "flat" lately, in every part of my life as well as spiritually. So this morning was good. I showed Sue Cameron's photo, his latest school photo that was given out at the funeral. I would like to show you the photo too, but we haven't uploaded the software for the scanner or camera to the new PC yet (and it's lost in the huge pile of rubble that is our spare bedroom at the moment too!) so I can't.

It was lovely to show her his photo. She said, "Isn't he lovely. So bright and lively-looking." Which made me swell with pride and pleasure, as it always did when someone complimented Cameron. Also I can't really describe it, but it felt WONDERFUL to hear someone refer to him in the present tense. Saying "wasn't he lovely" is painful, and it feels wonderful to hear "isn't he", even though it's sort of denial on my part. It still feels better if I pretend he isn't dead, but I try not to do that because I know it's not gonna help me at all to go down that path. But I am beginning to forget to remember him, and I feel like I'm betraying him by doing so. I know that's not the case, and Sue was clear about pointing that out to me, but it's hard not to feel that way when I suddenly remember him after a while of him not being in my head. It feels too soon to be casually switching him out of my thoughts without realising it.

Anyway. I keep wondering how his family are doing. I have the luxury of being ABLE to think of other things and "forget", because I did not spend the last 11 years with Cameron living with me and being part of my every waking moment. But they did, and I imagine it must be terribly difficult to just carry on, since everything in their house and in their family relationships must be so different with a child missing. The terribly sad thing is, the family had been planning for years that they would save up and have a loft-conversion built, because then Cameron could have the loft as his own space. It was for when he was heading into his teenage years. He would have a big room and a bathroom up there, and room for medical supplies too. Michael would have Cam's old room, and the new baby would have Michael's old room. Cam was excited about the loft-conversion and he talked to me about it a lot, and showed me where the stairs would be built to reach it. It had been a long time coming.

When we went back to his house after the funeral, it was like a sharp pinch when I saw the scaffolding all round the house, and a big cement-splattered sign against the garden wall advertising so-and-so's loft-conversions. It is so sad that they are at the beginning of the loft-conversion that will not be needed now. I wonder what they will do with it, or if they can cancel, or how much work had already been done? I can't imagine what it must be like to see Cameron's bedroom with all his things in it every day, but no child there to live in it anymore. I have it easy, really I do. I think about his family a lot now, and worry about how they're doing. I hope they are okay. I can't get in touch because I am waiting for them to feel ready to contact me, which they said might be a while. All I can do is pray for them I suppose. I hope they are managing okay with the new baby.

Well. What other things have I done? On Friday I went to my first Pilates class with Judith! It was an hour long. That is waaaay too long for an unfit person like me! I'm amazed Judith managed it, since she has M.E. Although she is doing loads better these days. There were only three of us in the class, which was lovely because it was a tiny little mirrored room and it was good to have a lot of personal attention from the teacher. It's all gentle movements and stretching. And when I say stretching I mean ow. Much more ow than I expected it to be! It was more tiring than I expected too, maybe because of how long it lasted. But you have to hold positions for quite a while sometimes, and my muscles were just knackered and quivery after a while!

It's brilliant for making you aware of certain muscle groups and stuff like that though. I never was so aware of my spine or my pelvic floor muscles, or my lower abdominals, or even how I hold my pelvis or spine normally. Most of it was quite comfy because putting my body in the right posture felt good. It was just once we'd done that we started stretching and stuff and that was ow! There was this one position where we were lying on our tummies and we had to raise our feet an inch off the ground and hold it, and then another inch and hold it and that kind of thing was really hard to maintain. Much harder lying on my side though. I thought my hips would fall off my spine or something, they were so tired!

When we had to raise our legs as high as we could from the hip behind us, the teacher said she had never seen anyone raise their legs as far as I did, and the nearest she'd seen was years ago!!!!! I felt really chuffed for some reason, like she'd complimented me in front of the others - well I suppose it was a compliment. But it isn't anything to do with fitness or work I've done, it's just how I'm built. She said I have very supple hip joints. Tell me about it. That does not mean I can do the splits, or have ever been able to (except on the ice for some crazy reason!), but my skating teacher used to say that as well. My hips open out, you know like when you put both heels together like in ballet. They are very flexible outwards and behind. This meant I could look fab doing a spiral in ice-skating (that one where you skate forwards standing on one leg and put the other out and up behind you), because my leg would just go right up and look all graceful and groovy, but actually I wouldn't necessarily be that good, it's just how I was built that made me look better than I was! :) Anyway, I am hoping that if I ever get pregnant, the way my hips are built will stand me in very good stead for pregnancy and childbirth. My pelvis is a good size, very open and a good shape for birth, so I am glad of that.

Well on the subject of my hips, one of them has been hurting since Pilates on Friday. It aches really deep in the joint so I'm not too happy about that. It's my left one, which is the side where the teacher pushed my leg towards me when we were stretching the hamstring on our backs. It hurt when she did that, but hmmm, I didn't want to make a fuss at the time, and I thought it was just muscles complaining about being stretched. And I thought she would know not to push me too far, being a qualified teacher and all that. But hmmm, my hip is not happy, and it's been a few days, and the rest of my muscles have recovered now, so I'm a bit concerned. In my teens I used to get funny aches and pains in my hips, particularly that one now I come to think about it. I saw the doctor for ages, and had painkillers because sometimes it would be agony for a moment and then it would be fine again, usually when I started to run suddenly or something, like for a bus. I would nearly fall over with the sudden pain, but before I could make any fuss about it, it would be gone again. Weird. So I had x-rays which were normal, and I wondered about my hip having a tendency to slip out of joint a bit, but the doctor pushed it around really vigorously and said it was a good stable joint. And in the end after a few years it stopped happening, so I don't know what that was. But I don't like how it hurts since Pilates and I do not want a few more years of that again. Hmmm. I am not sure if I should carry on with Pilates incase it gets worse, but it really is a good form of exercise for me, and particularly in preparation for pregnancy, so I want to persevere. I think I will tell the teacher about my hip when I go on Friday and see what she says.

On Saturday we had our bedroom carpet fitted. Neil moved the furniture out of the room into the small bedroom the day before, and on Friday night we slept on the mattress on the floor which was quite exciting, like camping or moving house or having a sleepover or something!! Hehe, I am such a kid! :) Anyway this guy turned up with our carpet and loads of underlay and grippy things, and then he discovered that the underlay and grippy things that are under the old carpet are WAY better quality than the new stuff we ordered, so we are getting a refund of £100!!! Yay!! So we really did get a serious bargain on our bedroom carpets, with the one we fitted ourselves being only £11 for the WHOLE carpet!! Anyway the guy fitted the carpet beautifully in about 10 seconds. Or at least it felt that way! It made us feel even more pants about our rather pathetic effort with the foam-backed carpet in the other bedroom. *sigh*

So now we have a lovely new carpet in our room, and I love to stand in the doorway looking at it! :) But moving the furniture back in has been less of an exciting thing to do now that the carpeting has happened, so it's taking a while and the small bedroom is a huuuuge pile of junk and contents of drawers and nappy-making fabrics and allll sorts of things in a big heap. Urgh. So I have to sort that out sometime soon. But yay for new carpet!

My parents came back from France on Sunday and today they are already halfway down France on their way home! They came to bring the rental van back and pick up their car. Yesterday we went shopping in town, and it was really nice to spend the day with my mummy and daddy. They came round here to bring us two dining chairs that they haven't got space for in France, and which we can definitely use. I showed them our new carpet. Mummy brought out a cool-box and gave me two bunches of grapes from the vineyards near their house in France!!! They are the tiny purple wine-making grapes, and they have pips in them, but they taste lovely. It's the first harvest, and apparently the vine workers let Daddy help them cut some of the grapes. He was in his element of course! :) So we have some very special grapes in our house, and it feels weird that they were just picked in the vineyards in rural France for making (delicious) local red wine at the weekend.

Anyway, shopping was tiring. I had a big flap about it and Neil had to be all comforting and reassuring in the evening. I do not know what's got into me, since I haven't flapped like this for a year or so I think. I got all scared that I would get M.E. again. I just felt so tired and weak and I couldn't see a good reason for feeling that way, and the more I thought about it, the more I realised I have been unusually tired and lethargic for a couple of weeks. And I haven't been doing anything to make me tired. So I got really scared for a while. I am trying not to dwell on it, and Sue says to keep remembering that God healed me completely, and I've been through a lot lately. So I'm trying to think of that instead. ME was so horrible and scary, it felt like a big monster pinning me down and I couldn't escape or do anything about it. Reliving that would be unbearable so feeling in any way similar to ME is scary. Neil says I have not been looking after myself too well lately and he's right I think. I haven't been drinking much each day, and I eat two meals instead of three now, and I've been sleeping silly hours sometimes and not getting enough sleep. I am not thinking about it anymore.

But shopping was good, if tiring. Me and Mummy looked in Marks and Spencers at the clothes, and there's something about M&S that makes me think "older person" when I think of their clothes. So I feel old shopping there for clothes! But I found something lovely! And Mummy insisted on buying it for me - she's so lovely - and they were pretty expensive. So I have a really pretty shirt with some little ruffles and a low neckline, which is actually at long last something that makes me feel feminine and parsnipy!!!!! Hoorah! And I also got some soft beigey-coloured cords with beautiful embroidery with beads on the back and front pockets. I am soooo pleased!!! :) Now I need shoes that go with them. They are bootcut so methinks I need some boots. I have black boots but they won't go. Hmmm. Anyway it's been years since I got a nice outfit that wasn't in the bargain bin (!!) and I forgot what a buzz it gives to do that! :) I am wearing the shirt now. I think I might see if I can exchange the cords for a medium length instead of short, because my legs are short, but these might be a little too short. So I'll try a medium length on and see. Neil really likes the outfit which is even better!

I lost Mummy in M&S. We arranged to meet at the shoes, after she went to buy jeans and I went to look at some other clothes. So I went back to the shoes but she wasn't there. So I waited, and waited, and then decided to check in jeans to see if she was still there. Which she wasn't, so I went back to shoes and waited, but she didn't come. I looked all over the shop for her and kept coming back to the shoes but I couldn't find her for about 40 minutes. I got quite panicky after a while, and I was telling myself don't be silly, you're 27!!! But I did feel like I'd lost my mummy all the same! How funny. I was more worried that something had happened to her though, rather than not being able to find her like when I was little. Anyway, eventually on the millionth return to the shoes, I saw her frantically searching the aisles with a very worried look on her face, and when she saw me she gave me a big hug right there in the shop! She said she had been telling herself not to be silly because I was 27 and all grown-up, so we laughed when I told her I'd been thinking the same thing about her! I love my mummy. She said she felt just like she used to when I got lost in shops when I was little. She said I always did have a tendency to disappear in shops! :P

We went to Monsoon and I tried on a dress that I'd never wear because I don't attend that many balls (!!!) but it was over £100 and gorgeous and flattering and heavy-satiny and I couldn't resist the urge to try it on, despite there being no WAY I was going to buy it! I had such fun looking at myself in the mirror in a dress so far out of my league, and it made me remember when my friend Jenni and I used to try dresses on like that after school sometimes! We used to have so much fun. I haven't done that in ages, till yesterday. I looked nice in the dress too which felt nice. Until I caught sight of my hairy legs poking out at the bottom and that burst the bubble so I took it off again! Heh. Well there's no point shaving once you put your shorts away for the winter is there?!

Well I think that's it for now. I don't think there's much else to say. Oh except the weather has been beautiful and sunny and clear for ages, and it's getting all cold even thought it's so beautiful, because this morning when I waved Sue off (she came over at 9am!!) I could see my breath really clearly on the air. Yay!!!! I love winter. I love cold air and the way it stings and prickles on the skin, and I love breathing in air that's all crisp. I love seeing my breath frozen on the air. It feels lovely. I am a real winter person, although I have to say I really did enjoy the heat this summer, which is a new thing for me. Maybe it's because summer actually lasted long enough for me to adapt to it for once?!! Anyway that reminds me, I need to change my poll. I will do it soon. I just need to think of another poll question! :)

Recent entries.....

Cameron's first anniversary - 2004-09-24
Update - 5th Anniversary and other stuff! - 2004-08-16
Church picnic and being happy and things :) - 2004-06-27
Barbeque at Cameron's house... - 2004-05-18
To Tara... - 2004-04-19